The Rise and Fall of a Global Start-Up | Hacker News Reader

The Rise and Fall of a Global Start-Up

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39 pointsmarkkarimov26 comments

It’s like seeing a person you love getting cancer, putting her on a life-supporting machine and eventually pulling the plug.

Probably not.

Super, super offensive intro. Mark, have you been through watching a spouse or parent die of cancer? Note that those seeing this will have known this person for more than two years.

Respectfully withdrawn, of course, if you have.

Even if he has, it's a ridiculous intro.

I have been sitting next to my mother when she took her last breath after fighting cancer for a year.

Yes, I agree, comparison may not be appropriate and I really am comparing apples and oranges here, but dedicating 2 years of your life and sacrificing everything else (relationships, social life, sleep, etc.) does come at a cost - you feel really attached to what you do. That's why a lot of people say "my start-up is my baby".

I didn't mean to offend anyone, I'm just emphasizing the fact that it was a really really emotional time.

Love & Light.

They had huge signup growth at launch (everyone wants to travel for free!) but it dwindled and revenue growth hit a wall (nobody wants to fund someone else's travel - shocking). I'm confused about how this was supposed to work - it feels a bit like kickstarter except you don't get anything for funding a campaign (If I want to read blog posts and see pictures about other people's travels, there's no shortage of that all over the interwebs).

I liked the concept of honeymoon registry, that is one travel friends and family do not have problem sponsoring.

I saw that too, and it's the only part of this business idea that made an ounce of sense.

i agree with this part... unless its a gift to you, if i am going to be financing travel, it will be me doing the traveling.

That's the concept here - http://www.honeyfund.com/

Seems more like a GoFundMe for travel, actually not that bad of an idea(GoFundMe even has a section for travel). I think the idea is more for friends and family to donate to a travel experience, not strangers.

Thanks for the comment. It wasn't a surprise for us that people won't fund other people vacations. We were betting more on volunteering/charitable trips, crazy adventures, honeymoons.

Also, even though we were called "crowdfunding for travelers", we were betting a lot on the sponsorship model - there are a lot of great companies willing to sponsor interesting trips. If you google around, you will find a lot of independent travelers backed by some awesome brands like Samsung, Skype, etc.

We wanted to explore the sponsorship angle more (and managed to work with over 56 brands on this), but were focusing on way too many things and didn't have enough resources to play with the idea. I still believe there a huge potential in that space of done right. We clearly didn't do everything right. Well, we're learning.

I think their problem was more fundamental than poor execution, it was just a bad idea for a business. How many people out there really want to help pay for someone else's trip, regardless of how amazing that trip may be?

I can believe they got a lot of signups, who doesn't want someone else to pay for their trip? Plus you can look around and see what amazing trips other people are planning so you can help plan your own amazing trip.

But I can't imagine that there are enough people willing to actually fund someone's vacation to make running the site worthwhile. So without these amazing trips getting funded, eventually interest would dry up.

Hey Johnny. I believe it's a combination of both. I would like to refer you to my other comment to explain where we saw the potential - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9951927

Thanks!

Dude, it really isn't like seeing someone you love dying from cancer.

Either that or you have a pretty fucked up model for love.

The business idea behind this startup is really superficial and empty. Can we please come up with business ideas that fulfill an actual useful role in society? I am sorry to phrase it this way, but I really dislike reading stories about "golddiggers" who see their bubble burst (or not).

Hey Amelius! I believe we all can, give it a try. :)

Love & Light.

Mark, sad to hear about Trevolta. All the best for the future.

Maybe there was a pivot in there somewhere? Though as we know here in SA you often do not have enough time.

i.e We (2 co-founders) raised $<10,000 for chowhub as you know,ran for over 9 months. Just paying the rent and feeding your family becomes a massive stress, especially if you do not have a safety net of rich parents/family.

Do not focus on external reasons for failure, introspect and figure out why and what YOU did wrong or could have done better. This is how you learn, look for contradictions in your thinking this is where insights come from.

Hey Ismail, great to hear from you! We should go have coffee some time soon.

Thanks for the comment. I think there is definitely a pivot somewhere there - given we had more time, we would find a working model through trial and error. But with messy structure like that and not being in control of the company - it doesn't make you wanna pursue it anymore. I still believe in the initial idea and just wish we did everything right from the beginning - it would buy us more time.

I know what we did wrong and I learned a lot, I just wish we had more time to right the wrongs. :)

Many comments here focus on this being a bad idea because 'who wants to fund somebody elses travel', but as the blog post states, they had revenue and brands were interested in partnering. They didn't find a workable model, but that doesn't mean one doesn't exist.

Thanks for the comment. I've met a lot of skeptics during this 2 years, but the model did work (not at a big scale though), and there is still a big room to tweak it and find a better combination. We had a lot of ideas in our heads on what we need to try to find the winner, but didn't have enough time and resources. We also focused on a lot of wrong things. Big lessons learned.

Love & Light!

I am sorry it didn't work out for you. Thanks for the great advices and good luck in your future life!

This wasn't your fault, wasn't it?

Nope. I should use a different phrase. I was sorry, because I symphatise with this guy who tried to create something and it did not end as he expected.

Thanks for your support, greatly appreciated! Up and beyond.

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