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Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

indiehackers.com

121–130 of 244 posts

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#121
I'm not a fan of the fact that on their website the testimonials are the same (with the currency changed) no matter what location I choose.

The destinations in the locations are of course also the same, so it just kinda seems like they are trying to trick me. Kind of reinforcing the feeling I generally get from this kind of business. If they have that many happy users, they could at least get real testimonials from each place.

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just put Roundtrip in both to be as clear as possible?

I'd actually rather put "Past Roundtrip Deal" above the deal info just because of how big the word "Roundtrip" is. We have to keep design in mind... and if we just put RT that would likely lead to confusion as well.

"NYC to Paris and back: $260" is only one fewer letter but I feel it reads more clearly and you don't need to include the "and back" in other lines of the message to get the point across you're comparing RT to RT.

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#123
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tiny suggestion: I was looking at flights and it was not immediately clear to me that Santa Cruz referred to Bolivia and not California. It almost made me disregard it and not click. May want to put the country name on the homepage as well.

Santa Cruz, Bolivia (pop. 1,640,615) is much larger than Santa Cruz, CA (pop. 64,465).

While true (also, all the other flights on the list right now are USNot US), in GP's defense the context may not have been clear.

If a fellow Angeleno asks me what I did over the weekend, I could say "I went to Venice" and my meaning (Venice, the neighborhood in LA) would be clear. Not necessarily so to someone from Chicago, or even from elsewhere in California.

Having said that, a flag icon next to the city name to represent the city's country would be cute but also informational.

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#124

OK, so how many of us are wondering what other kinds of products this would work for? I've seen similar newsletters for books, for Amazon Subscribe & Save, and for low cost Amazon items.

what is the one for low cost Amazon items? I've been thinking about starting a daily store of weird items but this seems like a good idea also.

Like sub $20 gift ideas/wacky items

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#125

Disclosure: I built a competing tool for finding cheap flights, https://concorde.io . I think the secret of Scott's success is his incredible writing ability. Finding the cheap flights is the easy part. Communicating with users in a way that consistently wins over their hearts and minds takes a high level of consideration and creativity. This writing ability combined with his co-founder's understanding and applicatio…

I'm an SCF premium, will you give me a premium 3 Month coupon in order to compare the services and maybe switch my subscription to your app?

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#126

I'm not a fan of the fact that on their website the testimonials are the same (with the currency changed) no matter what location I choose. The destinations in the locations are of course also the same, so it just kinda seems like they are trying to trick me. Kind of reinforcing the feeling I generally get from this kind of business. If they have that many happy users, they could at least get real testimonials from e…

What is happening here? http://imgur.com/a/1c8Nj

You posted this identical comment both here, on an account that has only a few posts over the last 5 years or so, and on what looks like a throwaway.

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, I'm just going to post the same response I used in the IndieHackers comment section for someone with a similar concern. Here's what I said: "Our subscribers are too important to us to ever sell their information to someone else. We never have and never will sell users information like that. Our only source of income is subscriptions and occasional advertisements in the free emails. Ruining our reputation to make…

What an incredible response, have you not read it yourself? "Our subscribers are too important to us to ever sell their information to someone else. We never have and never will sell users information like that. Our only source of income is subscriptions and occasional advertisements in the free emails. Ruining our reputation to make a few extra bucks would be an extremely stupid decision on our end." Is at complete…

The difference is that they're not selling people that sign up with them directly on SCF.

They're using a promotional strategy to solicit signups in exchange for a giveaway (people have been doing this for years). They partner with several sites to promote this so everyone grows. Users are explicitly signing up for the giveaway & those TOS state the email will be distributed to the partners.

They are not selling their current users information to partners.

In other words, you might not like the promotion strategy, but that's a one-off, easy-to-change thing. They are not selling email addresses that they got directly via scottscheapflights.com - which is what the GP was insinuating (a bit dishonestly too).

There's a big difference as what's actually happening can be a strategy that you dislike (and they might as well, depending on the outcome), but what the GP is insinuating is that SCF is actually SELLING the data, is completely incorrectly.

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#128
post #85
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another data point: I haven't seen any email indicating that Scott's selling the addresses.

Have you signed up for any of the contests? I think it specifically targets people who entered contests.

Signing up for a contest that SCF promoted is completely different than signing up for the SCF service itself.

Big difference. I suspect you know it too.

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#129

Something I've noticed that's lacking from most aggregators like Kayak and SkyScanner (my current fave), is the ability to increase the price of the ultra-budget carriers by adding their carry-on baggage fees and whatnot. I don't care about checked bag fees, but some of the carry-on fees are ridiculous ($60 per overhead item?). These budget carriers are cheating the system by looking like the cheapest option, when in…

Add-on fees have gotten out of control, both in the hotel and airline space. There is a race to the bottom for having the lowest price to show on booking sites. This is a form of SEO for airlines and hotels. I am not familiar with any airlines that charge for carry-ons, but for example I know that many hotels in downtown Las Vegas have mandatory "resort fees" that on many nights actually exceed the nightly rate shown…

Spirit airlines. Also many airlines are rolling out "basic economy fares" that don't include food/drink/carry-on and compete with low-cost carriers, but run on normal flights. What used to be "normal economy" now requires an "upgrade" or "add-on" - ugh.

Re: Scott's Cheap Flights: Growing a small side project into a booming business

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Santa Cruz, Bolivia (pop. 1,640,615) is much larger than Santa Cruz, CA (pop. 64,465).

While true (also, all the other flights on the list right now are US Not US), in GP's defense the context may not have been clear. If a fellow Angeleno asks me what I did over the weekend, I could say "I went to Venice" and my meaning (Venice, the neighborhood in LA) would be clear. Not necessarily so to someone from Chicago, or even from elsewhere in California. Having said that, a flag icon next to the city name to…

I like the idea of making use of the city's country flag. In terms of a design element, that would compliment the airline tail icons which I think are important to see from my perspective as a traveler. Thank you!
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