[HN Gopher] Show HN: Villagers - A group travel app
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Show HN: Villagers - A group travel app
I've built Villagers, a group travel app, in an attempt to overcome
my own social isolation while working remotely, especially as
someone who's friends are now largely parents and much less
available for group travel. I find small group travel magical from
an interpersonal and experience standpoint but organizing trips is
absolutely brutal. With Villagers, I wanted to see if software
could overcome some of those planning challenges with financial
incentives, social features, and automation -- especially around
messaging. I love climbing, so I've built a trip to co-work and
climb in Red Rocks (Nevada) in November.
https://villagersapp.com/t/gkkfv I'm looking for 4-8 high EQ tech
folks who'd like to co-work and climb. Everyone's identity will be
verified and I'll make sure it's a broad culture fit (i.e. polite,
respectful, reasonably extroverted, etc.). We'll keep the costs
down to less than $500 per person for 3 nights. For more social
proof before you join me on a trip, you can click through my
profile on the trip page above to see my LinkedIn work history as
an early engineer at Plaid and most recently the founder of a 70+
person company (Tremendous).
Author : bjpless
Score : 52 points
Date : 2022-10-26 15:00 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (villagersapp.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (villagersapp.com)
| bake wrote:
| Neat! The mix of (a) planning trips for groups of friends and (b)
| opening up trips to folks you don't know is nice.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| Yes i think this is interesting because there are people who
| like to plan trips and people who just want to go on them. My
| parents just fwd me an itinerary for 2 weeks in Scotland. One
| of their friends loves to plan it. The enthusiasm comes across
| in the email she fwd me. So it's interesting that this platform
| could be almost like a creator platform for those who like to
| plan trips. Would be super cool to be able to reserve blocks of
| flights, rooms, tickets etc in advance to be able to confirm
| the price up front. If guests could simply tap to join and have
| everything booked and paid for would be cool. Especially would
| be good now for 3 or 4 day weekend trips for remote workers
| bjpless wrote:
| On a related note, I'm willing to personally act as a travel
| agent for a remote co-working trip among coworkers as a non-
| scaleable way to grow the platform initially and get user
| feedback. If you're interested in exploring in a fun 4-10 person
| trip with colleagues, email me at ben@villagersapp.com.
| mosselman wrote:
| I think you should change your demo trip, I clicked on it and got
| annoyed about how pedantic (for lack of a better word I can think
| of) the 'rules' were: Trip Rules No pets
| No parties Quiet after 11pm Alcohol allowed No
| drugs No marijuana allowed
|
| I mean it is realistic for a yoga trip, but in a demo you'd want
| to showcase the most fun way to use this, not the most
| patronising way.
| molsongolden wrote:
| Interesting. I'm a totally different persona over here as those
| rules are appealing. If a trip is focused on co-working and
| climbing then I'd prefer to keep it mellow, get some sleep, get
| up early, etc.
| jcpst wrote:
| I think the parent post is making the point that "less is
| more" here. The app could be used by all sorts of groups.
| bjpless wrote:
| Appreciate the feedback! I'm personally less rules based as
| well aside from no parties, that's probably strictly
| required by most lodging. Aside from that I agree.
|
| Keep in mind these are all configurable by the trip planner
| in the UI
| sdeep27 wrote:
| just wanted to say - this is well designed, clean interface, and
| fast (on my desktop). Well done, especially if you solo developed
| this.
| bjpless wrote:
| Yes it is solo developed and I sincerely appreciate that!
| jph wrote:
| Interesting idea. When I tap "Plan A Trip", the box color
| highlights, but nothing happens, and I don't see a way to get
| beyond that page.
| bjpless wrote:
| Interesting, I'll check that out. It's presumably a javascript
| error that I can't reproduce but here is the direct link to
| plan a trip:
|
| https://villagersapp.com/app/trips/new/edit
| [deleted]
| ttoinou wrote:
| Cool, there is def some things to do with nomad trips. Thinking
| of working online + doing an activity altogether like
| Kitesurfing, skiing, scuba diving, freediving, paragliding etc.
| bjpless wrote:
| I love surfing and skiing so should be planning those too. See
| my email that I've included a bunch in this thread and I'll add
| you to a "village"
| bjpless wrote:
| Any other locations / dates that I could propose that would
| interest folks?
| hasbot wrote:
| November climbing in the New River Gorge.
|
| November mountain biking in Asheville/Brevard NC.
|
| November road biking in Brevard/Hendersonville NC.
| weakfish wrote:
| Yay for NC representation!
| [deleted]
| molsongolden wrote:
| Can't make the Nov dates but definitely interested in future
| climbing/co-working. Made an account and sent a friend request
| + pinged on LinkedIn.
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| I'm always fascinated by group travel apps although I certainly
| haven't seen a successful uber-app for managing all aspects of a
| trip.
|
| I like the focus here on getting commitment from participants.
| That can be so challenging when putting together a trip.
|
| It doesn't look like Villagers handles everything (and that's
| ok!) - e.g. when I went to create a new trip I noticed it looks
| like everything is based on having a single location - you can't
| set up lodging in location A for the beginning of a trip, have a
| few days on the trail hiking, and the lodging for the end of trip
| in location B (unless I missed it).
|
| EDIT: Oh, and it looks like the lodging HAS to be an AirBNB (the
| field validates that the AirBNB URL contains AirBNB.com). That's
| certainly limiting.
| bjpless wrote:
| Yes, I'm really focused on the commitment mechanism --
| Kickstarter for group travel effectively.
|
| I had thought that was already eliminated so thanks for
| pointing that out! I just pushed a fix to remove the AirBnb
| requirement.
|
| As for more complex itineraries, certainly want to tackle that
| in the future...
| lastofthemojito wrote:
| > Yes, I'm really focused on the commitment mechanism
|
| I think that's smart. Honestly, the UI is nice and all, but I
| don't think that's the killer feature. The great thing here
| is that folks don't want to be an asshole to
| friends/family/coworkers. They don't want to nag about
| getting commitments or on-time payments. They don't want to
| be a jerk about not giving money back if someone bails the
| night before a trip, or whatever. But Villagers can be the
| asshole (in a good way!) and enforce the agreed-upon terms so
| the trip planner doesn't have to.
| bjpless wrote:
| That's exactly my thinking as well :)
| jcpst wrote:
| This is always an interesting app idea to me, but after trying
| group trips few ways with people, the most successful have been
| loosely coupled:
|
| Pick a geographical location. Pick some dates that overlap. Plan
| your own trip. Keep things decoupled.
|
| Then, just find times that you want to meet up. Just like regular
| life.
|
| For things that require coordination, like a camping/canoe trip,
| email works well.
| 5560675260 wrote:
| Link to demo page hijacked my "back" button, not a fan.
| codalan wrote:
| Not a fan of the modal popup that seems to force you to either
| click "Continue" or "Not Interested". You can't ESC it away and
| it completely blocks out all the relevant info about the trip.
|
| How do I know if I'm interested or not if I can't even read
| your own description on the page and make a decision?
| bjpless wrote:
| I completely understand this objection. Ultimately, this was
| a tough trade off that I made for reasons that I can
| elaborate on at a different point.
|
| In most cases, the goal is to have an organizer create a
| quick video describing the trip to communicate enough info
| for you to then declare your preferences. Here is an example:
|
| https://villagersapp.com/t/gkkfv
|
| Either way, I just pushed a change to make the modal
| escapable.
| codalan wrote:
| Thanks for explaining the design choice.
|
| 9 times out of 10, I don't watch videos, but that's just my
| usage pattern with most things.
| hairofadog wrote:
| I worked with a guy once who implemented a popup asking for
| feedback on the website. By a _huge_ margin the number one
| piece of feedback was "I don't like this popup", but he
| considered that to be an extraneous data point, threw it out
| of the results, and just kept on popping.
| OJFord wrote:
| The only times I respond to those pop-ups, 'rate this app',
| or after-sales email surveys is (when I'm in a shitty mood,
| probably, and) to say I do not want to be asked to do this,
| my experience is worse because of it.
| samhuk wrote:
| Kudos on the site design; fast, responsive, clean. Are you able
| to you tell us about your stack?
|
| Am I right in thinking that it's essentially Facebook Events but
| traveling?
| bjpless wrote:
| Thank you, that's really generous of you. It's a dead simple
| stack -- which is helpful as a solo founder -- of rails as an
| API and react. I make liberal use of other saasy services.
|
| It's more complex than Facebook events in that there are
| fintech (payment) mechanisms built in. I'd describe it as
| Kickstarter meets FB events but with a focus on travel UX
| requirements
| samhuk wrote:
| I wonder if Facebook never integrated payments because of the
| inevitability of scammers setting up fake events to extract
| down-payments, Fyre Festival style.
|
| Out of curiosity, how does Villagers prevent Fyre Festival-
| like events?
| abadger9 wrote:
| This is a problem as old as time. Over a decade ago I saw
| startups from Stanford trying to tackle this. This is not an
| expert perspective, but I believe the market is too small to
| really make it worth while. As alluded to, people in their
| 30s/40s lean into their family, children's activities etc.
| tkk23 wrote:
| It doesn't have to be worth while. Travel planning is a special
| case that can be used to hone the tool. Later-on it can be used
| to plan things that make money, like startups.
| bjpless wrote:
| I'll just reiterate what I said below which is that, while I
| think you point of view has a lot of merit, there are
| compelling "Why Now" counterpoints that I think you're
| undervaluing. Only time will tell though!
| thih9 wrote:
| Why does the start date have to be at least 10 days in advance?
| bjpless wrote:
| It's really just a fraud concern in the short term if money is
| involved but definitely planning to change that
| mallocs13 wrote:
| I live in Vegas (technically Henderson) and I'd love to join for
| the climbing.
| bjpless wrote:
| Ben@villagersapp.com, reach out!
| profstasiak wrote:
| What is your opinion on [0] ?
|
| I disagree with him about " My best guess is that a truly great
| consumer service needs to be something that is can be used every
| day. " I use Wanderlog (YC19) almost every trip I do, a lot of my
| friends after I recommended this tool started using it. Yet it is
| kinda right - Wanderlog doesn't seem to be making big progress,
| although pandemic is probably responsible for that
|
| [0] https://blog.garrytan.com/travel-planning-software-the-
| most-...
| molsongolden wrote:
| I had a similar initial reaction but thought about it more and
| could see Villagers as something different from a classic
| "travel planning app" due to the combo of 1) recent
| remote/hybrid work explosion and 2) public or semi-public trip
| discovery (maybe my trip isn't publicly searchable but I can
| ask friends to circulate the link to their friends)
| bjpless wrote:
| This is a great and valid question along with a helpful
| citation. Here are some counterpoints:
|
| 1) I would argue that that perspective misses a number of
| travel consumer apps like AirBnB.
|
| 2) I've bootstrapped this business and, while I do think that
| it could eventually morph into a regularly engaging social
| network or a tool for professional trip leaders (who would
| invalidate the limited usage point as power users), a healthy
| lifestyle business outcome would be reasonably ok (if not
| desirable) by me personally. I don't believe that I could have
| bootstrapped this company in 2012 (the date of that article)
| given the startup ecosystem and, frankly, this is a passion
| project after having previously worked at and founded SaaS
| fintech companies.
|
| 3) I do expect group travel to grow a ton over the next few
| years if people continue to work remotely. The evidence of mass
| social alienation is clear and folks have previously unheard of
| flexibility to travel.
| bberenberg wrote:
| To add, this specific area of group travel is getting VC
| money now. See https://trovatrip.com/
| kryptonite wrote:
| I'd love to be able to see other peoples' past trip itineraries
| to get ideas about what things I might want to add to my own
| itinerary and how to structure it.
| yboris wrote:
| My favorite tool for coordinating locations with people is _What
| 3 Words_
|
| https://what3words.com/
|
| The map of the world is split into 3x3 meter squares with a
| unique three-word ID for each, e.g: twig.fleet.likely
| laputan_machine wrote:
| > Alcohol allowed
|
| > No drugs
|
| ???
|
| > with verified identities (license or passport).
|
| Also, hope you've thought through storing personal info like
| passports and driving licences mate. Not just for GDPR, but if
| you don't have liability insurance and a good legal team you are
| asking for trouble. Hope you don't get any data breaches!
| bjpless wrote:
| I use vendors rather than storing myself. Tokenization only :)
| oliv__ wrote:
| I don't really like climbing but this app looks fun. Would be
| especially interested in trips with other founders
| bjpless wrote:
| Yes for sure. Email me at ben@villagersapp.com and I'll add you
| to an internal list of founders
| renewiltord wrote:
| Good luck! Sounds like fun!
| [deleted]
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