Share Your Startup - May 2021 - Upvote This For Maximum Visibility!

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Tell us about your startup in a comment within this submission. Follow this template:

• Startup Name / URL
• Location of Your Headquarters
• Elevator Pitch/Explainer Video

• More details:

  • What life cycle stage is your startup at? 1
  • Your role?

• What goals are you trying to reach this month?

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Startup Life Cycle Stages (Max Marmer life cycle model for startups as used by Startup Genome and Kauffman Foundation)

• 1. Discovery
  • Researching the market, the competitors, and the potential users
  • Designing the first iteration of the user experience
  • Working towards problem/solution fit (Market Validation)
  • Building MVP
• 1. Validation
     
  • Achieved problem/solution fit (Market Validation)
  • MVP launched
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• 1. Efficiency
     
  • Achieved product/market fit
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• 1. Scaling
     
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[u/boaz_be]

• Startup Name / URL: ATOHE https://atohe.com
• Location of Your Headquarters: Remote
• Elevator Pitch/Explainer Video: Find your next travel destination. Answer a few questions and we will match you with a travel destination. It's free, quick & easy.
• More details:
  • What life cycle stage is your startup at? Discovery
  • Your role? Co-founder
• What goals are you trying to reach this month? Alpha quite launch to get feedback and validate the idea
  • How could r/startups help? Be brutal, let me know what works well and what doesn't, and whether or not this product is of any use to you
  • Do NOT solicit funds publicly--this may be illegal for you to do so
• Discount for r/startup subscribers? It is free

[u/SirBubbleBooty → u/boaz_be]

I like this!

[u/Pieternel → u/boaz_be]

The pro's: like the idea, love the styling of the website, questions seem relevant and somewhat stimulating, whole process was easy to complete.

The con's:

The recommendations feel a dime in a dozen. I got London, Paris, Prague - what have I really learned form that?

The recommendations feel shallow and not personalised enough. Given my input, where in Paris should I stay, what district's should I visit, where to eat etc.

Having to leave an email address for more personalized results seems like a broken promise from the landing page. This is what I expected to get, now I need to give out more information before you fork it over?

Overal, the planned trip didnt come alive in my mind - some parts triggered a response, like pictures with trekking/restaurants/shopping made me consider what I wanted, but the sliders did absolutely nothing for me. I never felt myself wondering what Paris this time of year would be like, etc. It didnt really tickly my travel bone.

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Hope this helps, I felt elaborating on the negative might provide more relevant feedback. I think it's a cool concept anyway.

[u/boaz_be → u/Pieternel]

Thank you for the taking the time to give us such elaborate feedback, I highly appreciate that!

Well to validate the idea we need to get some buy in from the user, hence the request for email. If we'd ask for email and name before the peek into the destinations would that make you more likely to fill in the details?

Given that we will add more data and improve upon your feedback, would that be something you'd use when wanting to go on a vacation?

[u/Pieternel → u/boaz_be]

Not sure about the email thing. Perhaps it's more honest to say: were developing this, leave your email if you want to find out what more funky travel ideas we can give you in the future.

And regarding your second point, I don't think you're asking me the right question. What I mean is, you should rather ask: how are you doing your travel booking now?

Or rather, how do you choose your next destination, now that covid might come to an end it's going to be top of mind for a lot of people. Where to go next?

So for example, I often end up doing a Google search for things like 'best places to travel to in Africa' or 'where to go to in Eastern Europe'? This usually takes me straight to travel blogs with recommendations. They provide me inspiration and new ideas. And to me it feels like that's exactly the space where your website sits.

I know geography, I can Google myself or browse the travel subreddit. What I want is to be suprised and inspired and taken to a fantasy of traveling certain unknown places. So to me your offering should be helping me get that spark, those butterflies in my stomach.

Relating this to your website: the trekking/shopping/bars page can be incredibly strong in conveying emotions due to the foto's attached to it. Right, I can see myself hike somewhere or run around in a busteling city. That's what adds value and where I can see myself get excited for a website that helps me bring my desires to the surface and connect them with a destination.

Right now only one section of your website kind of hits that spot. The rest is analytical (the sliders) or impersonal (the recommendations). Go check out travel blogs and see how they make recommendations. Because that's who you're competing with for my attention, not Booking.com or Trivago or TripAdvisor.

[u/boaz_be → u/Pieternel]

Wow, thanks again for your time and the valuable feedback.

We're well aware that the true competition are travel blogs, and we aim to pass that emotion, obviously we need to get better at it.

Would you say that the questions and the overall structure gives you confidence that we will match you a proper destination? Is there something missing you think we should ask and adapt our suggestion upon?

Thanks again!

[u/Pieternel → u/boaz_be]

Let me check again properly tomorrow, I'm off my phone for the night. Feel free to remind me in case I forget.

[u/Pieternel → u/boaz_be]

So as promised I looked it over again.

Thinking about the claim of 'personalised' travel advice, it's missing a lot of question components related to me as a user.

What I mean is, you're not asking me who I am. Starting with: where do I live and how far do I feel like traveling. I get that you know my location based on IP (I'm currently in Africa), but then the question is: am I willing to fly 12 hours (incl. layovers) to go to Paris?

So that's something that felt missing which didnt make me feel very confident I would get a personal recommendation.

Side stepping this, I assume you're up to date on your competition? For instance see www.zipparound.com, they give you a full itinerary based on a number of questions. Their design reminds me of your website in some ways. Why I bring this up is, this is not who you seem to want to compete with (e.g. these guys dont provide inspiration but rather practical travel tips) but you ask almost the exact same questions.

To expand, you are now asking questions that I would expect TripAdvisor or booking.com to ask me. Do you like cities? What activities do you want to do while there? What time frame are you going?

Like I said before, pictures along with the questions make it more emotional and tap into that desire for travel. So it could simply be a layout thing where the sliders just feel impersonal and boring, not things you want to have a association with when you're thinking about travel.

Quick edit: go check out what travel inspiration blogs look like or check out Pinterest. Its basically beautiful pictures and quotes by the Dalai Lama.

[u/boaz_be → u/Pieternel]

Cool, thanks again for the feedback. I would love to consult you again in the future after we revamp our application, shoot me a private message with your email if that is OK on your side.

Thanks again for the valuable feedback and your time.

[u/Pieternel → u/boaz_be]

Sure no problem.

[u/thundr_strike → u/boaz_be]

This is nice, are you hoping to monetize this idea, if so how?

[u/boaz_be → u/thundr_strike]

We will think of that later, we are currently focused on validating the idea and improving the selection as well as our data sets.

What you didn't like about the product so we can improve?

[u/busybody1001 → u/boaz_be]

This is cool. It looks like the slider tool on this page is not working quite right: https://atohe.com/questionnaire/points-of-interests FYI

[u/boaz_be → u/busybody1001]

Thanks for the feedback! Highly appreciated!

What do you think of the idea? Is that a problem that exist?