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

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

#131

Post by jorpal »

jimbokun wrote: post #100
munificent wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Then you would probably want to fold it into something like Lonely Planet or a Rick Steves property. Or of course a feature in AirBnB.

One of my favorite things to do is explore a foreign city with a recent Lonely Plant book to guide me. I think there’s something fantastic about that experience that can’t be replicated by an app or website.

When I’m traveling one cool tech thing I’d like is an AI assistant that could actually place calls in any language to book hotels, tickets, or just check operating hours for places I find in the guidebook.

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

#132

Post by throwdbaaway »

Similarly, if the best use case of your software is to help with trip planning, it is not going to end well either:

> At LinuxCon last year, Carl Symon showed me a screen shot of an Activity created by Aaron Seigo to plan his holiday, which included a To Do list, a calendar, links to online travel guides, a weather report for his destination, and other features connected to the trip.

https://www.datamation.com/open-source/the-mystery-of-kde-ac...

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

#133

Post by nicbou »

_g5q8 wrote: post #101
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…

The other thing is that travel planning is flexible and uncertain. Computers are inherently specific. Creating a program that doesn't interfere with this "maybe we'll do this, and if we do this then the trip will be X days, but if we do that then it will be Y days" isn't easy.

Yes, doubly so if you have your own vehicle. You might end up visiting other countries on a whim.

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

#134

Post by john_minsk »

Omg. What a crazy article.

20% daily retention? Daily usage?

If I have an app on my phone that I open once a quarter and it delivers me a ton of value => I will happily pay for it monthly.

The travel planning does not provide such value at least to me. I’m already spending a ton of money on hotels, planes and transport as well as I do my research before the trip. Somewhere along this journey and from this money I spend on hotels and stuff there should be this service to help you plan your trip.

Update: i remember maps.me had this in their model - they wanted to sell you guides on the platform that you can then go through with GPS. Nice idea, but it had to be subscription so that user could explore these options as he prefers, not after buying the guide…

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

#135

Post by yosito »

phsource wrote: post #80

Oh boy -- I'm the cofounder of Wanderlog ( https://wanderlog.com ), a YC W19 startup exactly focused on planning travel. And I've really read all these articles This originally was big on Hacker News in 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8419658 This is really just the latest in a long list of articles about why travel planning startups aren't worth pursuing: - https://www.phocuswire.com/Why-you-should-never-…

Kudos to you for pursuing something that a lot of people are saying won't work. That takes some character! Especially in a difficult time for travel.

Your app looks great. As a full time traveler / nomad for 10 years, I don't have much of a need for itinerary planning apps on their own. But I would love to have social itineraries, where I can follow my friends' itineraries and share mine with them especially for serendipitously meeting up at random points around the world when our itineraries intersect. Yes, I've got an abnormally large number of globe trotting friends, but there are entire nomadic communities out there who are eager for this feature.

Are social features something you've considered developing further?

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

#136

Post by nicbou »

temporalparts wrote: post #99

This might get buried, but I'll put this idea out there. Background: I'm someone who has traveled fairly regularly (> 30 countries), with some trips comprised of solo backpacking across Europe or South-East Asia. I also think I'm really good at planning, which is largely about constraint optimizing and solving some version of TSP (traveling salesman). The idea: You're in a city. You tell the app all the places you wa…

I also travel a lot, but by motorcycle.

Personally, I put everything interesting on a map, and make a custom route that goes through it. In cities, I make itineraries on the fly, based on my mood. I don't need to see everything - not in 2-3 days.

What I'd really need is a map that combines route planning (Google My Maps), marker collection (Google Maps), exploration (Google Trips or Wikivoyage), area weather (Ventusky), and average weather for the time of the year. Other niceties would include border control requirements and COVID restrictions.

I think that this illustrates how wildly different everyone's travel planning is.

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

#137

Post by nicbou »

llampx wrote: post #13

The author doesn't seem to go into why travel-planning software is not successful, except for that it isn't discoverable since people only use it once in a while. I think the same can be said for a lot of services, like handymen (Angie's List) One other reason is I think that travel planning is hard. Getting multiple people to agree on a destination, hotel, fares etc is all hard work. So most people only plan things…

Ideally, such software should be tooling, not an all-encompassing platform.

I use Google My Maps a lot for trip planning. When I'm done, I can share the map with other people, or export it to my phone. This is good.

A tool like that that would also facilitate discovery and collaboration - a sort of Google Docs for maps - would be a lot more useful.

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

#138

Post by yosito »

Misdicorl wrote: post #124

The travel app I want is "on the way". It shows you cool things to do when in transit from point a to point b that's only an X minute detour. Or decent food/coffee. Or... It's frustratingly hard to search google maps/etc with a query like this.

Hmm, I think this is easy to do on Google maps. Put in your origin and destination, then add a destination, and search for what you want, the map will show you results along your route with the number of minutes detour.

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

#139

Post by koonsolo »

john_minsk wrote: post #134

Omg. What a crazy article. 20% daily retention? Daily usage? If I have an app on my phone that I open once a quarter and it delivers me a ton of value => I will happily pay for it monthly. The travel planning does not provide such value at least to me. I’m already spending a ton of money on hotels, planes and transport as well as I do my research before the trip. Somewhere along this journey and from this money I spe…

I cannot imagine airbnb having a 20% daily retention, yet they seem to be doing fine.

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

#140

Post by silverpepsi »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #76
munificent wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I dunno. I am surprised that there isn't something like "walk score" for a "visit score" - especially one where the score is based on what you want to do on your visit. I get that when you're traveling to a new city, you usually have an idea for what neighborhood you want to stay in. A lot of cities - there's only 1-3 neighborhoods that are walkable and good for tourists. Still, I'm surprised there's not an easy way…

As someone who travels full time, Google's introduction of yellow blobs on the maps in the past year or two has been an absolute game changer for me. I used to look up the name of a known walking street and then try to make sure I'd mastered all that was worth seeing by doing the perimeter including ended up spending hours on alleys that lead to nothingness (car coridors or residential areas of 0 interest at the edge of the area worth exploring)

Now, I just make sure I've walked the yellow blobs and I can be sure I've seen it all. It's a joy.

Way less FOMO at the end of my trips as well.

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