Travel planning software: The most common bad startup idea (2012) • Hacker News Board

Re: Travel planning software: The most common bad startup idea (2012)

#41

Post by basch » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

ozim wrote: post #35

basch wrote: post #19

Personally, I think part of it is that it hasnt been done well yet. Everyone focuses on one problem instead of looking at the entire experience holistically. A feature that rarely gets put at the top of the list is true collaboration. Traveling with just a spouse or with a group, multiple participants have different wants, needs, preferences, interests. Maybe one person is in charge of travel logistics, one in charge…

Don't want to be offensive but your insight is not really insightful. Why? Because it goes in totally wrong direction. Most people don't want to work on stuff or plan the trip - they want to pick up the phone, tell what they want and have it organized. Organizing or even putting your wishes into some forms is work and that is not what people want ... they want to have VACATIONS and not fill in some application forms.…

>they want to pick up the phone, tell what they want and have it organized.

Only because nothing better has come along. I know plenty of people who basically refuse to make phone calls. Cant order online, they will go to a different restaurant.

>Organizing or even putting your wishes into some forms

Exactly why it needs to be swipes.

Open the App

Invite Friends

Swipe Destinations

Click on destinations to swipe activities. Restaurants. Pretty pictures.

If its more complex than Tinder or TikTok or Pinterest youre right it wont be FUN to use. The whole point is that the act of planning itself should be pleasurable.

People love endless feeds of pretty pictures.

The fact that peoples responses are forms and spreadsheets tells me I havent explained myself well.

It doesnt need to be travel only. I use Yelp and Uber at home, and away from home.

Re: Travel planning software: The most common bad startup idea (2012)

#42

Post by zerr » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

ozim wrote: post #35

basch wrote: post #19

Personally, I think part of it is that it hasnt been done well yet. Everyone focuses on one problem instead of looking at the entire experience holistically. A feature that rarely gets put at the top of the list is true collaboration. Traveling with just a spouse or with a group, multiple participants have different wants, needs, preferences, interests. Maybe one person is in charge of travel logistics, one in charge…

Don't want to be offensive but your insight is not really insightful. Why? Because it goes in totally wrong direction. Most people don't want to work on stuff or plan the trip - they want to pick up the phone, tell what they want and have it organized. Organizing or even putting your wishes into some forms is work and that is not what people want ... they want to have VACATIONS and not fill in some application forms.…

What about products for travel agencies? B2B that is...

Re: Travel planning software: The most common bad startup idea (2012)

#43

Post by slim » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

basch wrote: post #19

Personally, I think part of it is that it hasnt been done well yet. Everyone focuses on one problem instead of looking at the entire experience holistically. A feature that rarely gets put at the top of the list is true collaboration. Traveling with just a spouse or with a group, multiple participants have different wants, needs, preferences, interests. Maybe one person is in charge of travel logistics, one in charge…

In 2007 I built a text highlighter service for the web. It was really as usable as it could be : you click a button and start highlighting text in the page. At the time social bookmarking was still relevant and my web highlighter was a better social bookmarking. But by examining usage patterns, I quickly realized it's a dead end : keeping things organized is work. Apart from nerds nobody would take the time and have the discipline to keep things organized outside the context of work. Once I realized that I knew del.icio.us which I was using every day is doomed. And I think that travel planning software is doomed for the same reason not because use frequency is low. Leisure is the wrong context for planning software.

Re: Travel planning software: The most common bad startup idea (2012)

#44

Post by akor » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 5:10 PM UTC

jrm4 wrote: post #31

Again, I gotta nominate "Tinder, but for pickup basketball" as the most common bad startup (or at least app) idea. I get excited college students hitting me up with this nearly every semester, like clockwork.

I'm not sure I'd say it's most common but I'd nominate event ticketing as a common bad startup idea.

Re: Travel planning software: The most common bad startup idea (2012)

#45

Post by lastofthemojito » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 5:13 PM UTC

killion wrote: post #38

basch wrote: post #19

Personally, I think part of it is that it hasnt been done well yet. Everyone focuses on one problem instead of looking at the entire experience holistically. A feature that rarely gets put at the top of the list is true collaboration. Traveling with just a spouse or with a group, multiple participants have different wants, needs, preferences, interests. Maybe one person is in charge of travel logistics, one in charge…

I built exactly what you describe at Flights With Friends. But the thing I learned is that group trips are not a democracy. Trips without a dictator who makes the decisions don't actually happen. Building tools for the dictator is hard because getting the other group members who are not the dictator to actually use any tool is too much work. You are always dependent on the least reliable member of the group. This is…

As the self-declared benevolent dictator for several trips I've planned, I agree with a lot of what you said.

I've led a couple of great group trips to places I'm passionate about by emailing a group of friends and essentially saying "I'm going to go to X, here's what I think is amazing about X, and here are the proposed dates", and essentially getting folks to opt-in or not. Once the trip is locked in, there's certainly some discussion and folks say "I heard there's Y in X, let's do that!" and there's probably time to for that activity. But yeah, you need one master of the itinerary.

I do disagree somewhat about the cost splitting thing though - I've had several good experiences using SplitWise, although the groups have been relatively small - from 3 to 6 people or so. Maybe if you have more people, or weird family dynamics, or technophobes, it doesn't work out.

Re: Travel planning software: The most common bad startup idea (2012)

#46

Post by ozim » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 5:15 PM UTC

basch wrote: post #41

ozim wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't want to be offensive but your insight is not really insightful. Why? Because it goes in totally wrong direction. Most people don't want to work on stuff or plan the trip - they want to pick up the phone, tell what they want and have it organized. Organizing or even putting your wishes into some forms is work and that is not what people want ... they want to have VACATIONS and not fill in some application forms.…

>they want to pick up the phone, tell what they want and have it organized. Only because nothing better has come along. I know plenty of people who basically refuse to make phone calls. Cant order online, they will go to a different restaurant. >Organizing or even putting your wishes into some forms Exactly why it needs to be swipes. Open the App Invite Friends Swipe Destinations Click on destinations to swipe activi…

I don't know what is about swipes but those are underused I agree. Does Tinder have some kind of patent on swiping decisions?

What you describe here is in my opinion more interesting. Because that would be more like choosing which "all inclusive" most of people want. If typing is cut to minimum and as you mention there are mostly pretty pictures that one has to swipe left or right it might work.

Re: Travel planning software: The most common bad startup idea (2012)

#47

Post by basch » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 5:20 PM UTC

ozim wrote: post #46

basch wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they want to pick up the phone, tell what they want and have it organized. Only because nothing better has come along. I know plenty of people who basically refuse to make phone calls. Cant order online, they will go to a different restaurant. >Organizing or even putting your wishes into some forms Exactly why it needs to be swipes. Open the App Invite Friends Swipe Destinations Click on destinations to swipe activi…

I don't know what is about swipes but those are underused I agree. Does Tinder have some kind of patent on swiping decisions? What you describe here is in my opinion more interesting. Because that would be more like choosing which "all inclusive" most of people want. If typing is cut to minimum and as you mention there are mostly pretty pictures that one has to swipe left or right it might work.

Not only are swipes underused to build consensus, I dont even believe Tinder is the best example. Baby name apps are. A couple download an app, join a meeting room and swipe. Common names appear on a list.

Now imagine that a restaurant picker could determine whether you never want mexican or dont want mexican today.

Swipes are too often thought of as a binary left/right, when really they are more of a radial menu. Swipe left-up could mean not this time. Swipe left-down means never. Swipe straight up to signify something as to come back to. Swiping is easily 4 to 6 to 8 different outputs of vote. The screen should represent a different color for each one until you let go, so you know which option you are releasing on. Things like Maya have had radial menus forever. If you built true swiping radial menus, you can even have a second later of options once the first has been hovered over for a while.

Re: Travel planning software: The most common bad startup idea (2012)

#48

Post by munificent » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 5:23 PM UTC

killion wrote: post #27

I had founded Flights With Friends for group travel planning shortly before this post. I read it when it came out but knew the point about travel being rare wasn't the cause of these product failures. The trouble with trip planning software is that making one that is 10X better than just planning it manually is very, very difficult. People love thinking about their trip and online tools don't make that more fun for t…

Said more succinctly: It's hard to make a successful product that reduces the time people spend doing something they love to do.

Some ways I could imagine addressing this and the problem the article talks about:

* Aim to make travel planning not easier (i.e. less time-consuming) but more fun. Treat the app more like a game or media app where users spend more time planning their trip by using the app in enjoyable ways. Put a ton of discovery and browsing ideas for things to do in it. Pinterest for vacations and activities. Basically Instagram, but with a "book this" button next to that pretty sunset photo.

* Focus only on the parts of travel that aren't fun. Haggling over fares, logistics, reaching consensus with travel partners, etc.

* Support use cases beyond just travel planning. If it's also a commute planner, or "what do this weekend in town" planner, it may get used frequently enough to stay in a user's mind.

Re: Travel planning software: The most common bad startup idea (2012)

#49

Post by killion » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 5:25 PM UTC

lastofthemojito wrote: post #45

killion wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I built exactly what you describe at Flights With Friends. But the thing I learned is that group trips are not a democracy. Trips without a dictator who makes the decisions don't actually happen. Building tools for the dictator is hard because getting the other group members who are not the dictator to actually use any tool is too much work. You are always dependent on the least reliable member of the group. This is…

As the self-declared benevolent dictator for several trips I've planned, I agree with a lot of what you said. I've led a couple of great group trips to places I'm passionate about by emailing a group of friends and essentially saying "I'm going to go to X, here's what I think is amazing about X, and here are the proposed dates", and essentially getting folks to opt-in or not. Once the trip is locked in, there's certa…

You are absolutely correct – Splitwise is great. I was thinking about the failed startups that did the splitting before the trip and then pay the vendors directly. Splitwise makes the process of getting reimbursed much better.

Also benevolent is the right prefix for dictator in this case. This person's reputation is on the line and they are working hard to make sure their friends/family have a great vacation.

Re: Travel planning software: The most common bad startup idea (2012)

#50

Post by 1123581321 » Fri, Sep 10, 2021, 5:26 PM UTC

jrm4 wrote: post #31

Again, I gotta nominate "Tinder, but for pickup basketball" as the most common bad startup (or at least app) idea. I get excited college students hitting me up with this nearly every semester, like clockwork.

A relative is a librarian. She was recently asked for help using a dating site to find the patron a date to bowling league night. Some team of founders might be up for it...