41–50 of 139 posts
Note to all founders: Tell the reader what your product is - first. And you can't manage to do that, then your logo link should go to your product, not back to the blog. I gave this TWO attempts to find out =what the product is - that's the biggest opportunity most startups will get - and this company failed twice to tell me conveniently what it is and I am not trying a third time.
Very fond memories of couchsurfing met very nice people both as a traveler and a host. But this was long ago. Not sure this will ever work again though
Hosted loads for a while, a brilliant time. We were living somewhere unusual at the time, everyone that came through was interesting, intelligent and fun. Zero bad experiences. Made some friends for life. My flatmate at the time ended up marrying a couchsurfer we'd hosted, after reconnecting many years later. We all got sulky and huffy when they started charging and stopped engaging, but the sad thing is we just got…
In 2009, I was living somewhere I couldn’t host, but my primary social group for that year was other local couchsurfers — we used to meet up twice a week. One of them got married to one of my friends. Others I kept in touch with for many years.
I haven’t been part of it in a long time, but I haven’t many fond memories of the couchsurfing community. Like you, I didn’t have any bad experiences.
Wait, is this a rebrand of couchsurfing.org?
It looks completely different and is a non-profit: > Couchers, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization ... [incorporated] in the United States in late 2021, and the project was moved under the purview of this new non-profit in early 2022. -- https://couchers.org/foundation
Couchsurfing started as a 501c3:
https://blog.couchsurfing.com/a-letter-from-co-founder-casey...
I'm one of the Couchers founders and wrote this blog post (and incidentally spend way too much time on HN), awesome to see this show up here! This launch is the culmination of a huge push from our volunteer team to clean up a bunch of core features and make the platform easier to use. We are also launching a new branding strategy and new landing page. Quick plug: we are looking for senior React Native devs to join us…
What are you hoping to achieve by launching another hospitality sharing site that the other established non-profit sites couldn't?
I hosted couchsurfers and it was fun, but i stopped when i started getting detailed reviews about random shit about my home after people left. Letting people live in your house in the central business district of a top tier city and then having them comment on your towel designs. It’s not a hotel. I’m so over it.
The Summer after graduating high school is sometimes used to travel, taking extended backpacking trips or other. Couching could be a big hit for this demographic that takes a cultural immersion. I see 900+ Couchers registered among a few of the New York City boroughs. My impression is that this means someone can live in NYC for an entire Summer, couch-surfing the big city and establishing a real connection with at le…
Top locations have way more people interested in couchsurfing than there are people hosting, so probably not feasible.
Wait, is this a rebrand of couchsurfing.org?
I happen to have an account with them, and also BeWelcome (what seems to be the closest to popular alternative to the original couchsurfing.org) and TrustRoots, too. Also, the original one, of course.