9 ms·

Sourced Adventures – Adventure Travel Startup generating $125K/month

142 points by urahara 9y ago

avitzurel 9y ago
From personal experience in consumer-facing travel. Google made quite a bit of changes to the algorithm and hurt almost every travel product in favor of it's own products. I wonder if you were effected by this at all and what did you do to deal with it?
- kdavidson 9y ago
  This hasn't hurt us in any significant way, at least yet. Google also gives a lot of credit to how a business is reviewed in travel and because we have hundreds of 5-star reviews between TripAdvisor, Yelp and Google+ and many more internal reviews on our site we've only seen our rankings rise recently. We focus on having the best reviewed product in each of our categories and it seems Google has rewarded us for that. It's something we're definitely on the look out for though, absolutely
avitzurel 9y ago
> So while I was working on the site, which at the time had no traffic, I went out to every single OTA (online travel agency) and third-party reseller site and said, "Look how many tickets we're selling through just one channel! You should get in on this!" And I just set up as many channels as I could find to fund the next stage. It's very common for tour operators to have either no tech or bad tech, so it wasn't that weird to these channels. I really like this! Lots of people I talk to think: I will put this on the internet and people will find me. Hustling to get to your crowd is a great way to make sure you get consistent traffic. Kudos on this
brndnmtthws 9y ago
Wow, I just visited their website and it's awful. I saw a total of 4 or 5 different popup widgets[1]. What a nightmare. [1]: https://i.imgur.com/EMdObEd.jpg https://i.imgur.com/EMdObEd.jpg
- devopsproject 9y ago
  Makes $125,000 a month. maybe they know something we don't?
  - danvoell 9y ago
    Seriously though Kyle if you are reading this, figure out how to time or space out your pop-ups. It's a little intense.
  - brndnmtthws 9y ago
    My thoughts exactly.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - kerkeslager 9y ago
    Maybe what's good for business isn't always good for the user, and the only reason anyone thinks capitalism works this way is that it makes some people rich. :)
  - dboreham 9y ago
    125k rev at, say, 15% margin is less than 20k/mo income. Decent for a one person company I suppose but hardly untold riches.
- dsacco 9y ago
  Awful is subjective. I get your point here (I personally wouldn't enjoy using that website either), but websites like this one are optimized to convert the greatest portion of the target demographic. It's very simple statistics. You can't please (or convert) all users, but you can convert enough of them to be a (highly!) profitable business. HN users are usually a very poor demographic to optimize for. It's a small demographic, for starters, and it's a very sensitive one (as evidenced by your comment). On the other hand my girlfriend, parents and probably all friends not working in tech wouldn't even notice it (where notice means "perceptibly annoying enough to have an explicit thought about it"). A lot of people honestly just don't care if the website is bloated or has numerous prompts to subscribe or chat. The users of this site evidently put up with it because it provides them with enough utility that they're not going to nitpick. The creators of the site have likely researched the market and business model enough to know that this is close to the ideal for maximizing profit without sacrificing utility. The website has hit market equilibrium.
imnotlost 9y ago
Two pop-overs and a chat window in less than 5 seconds. I guess they really work?
dyarosla 9y ago
I was curious what the 125,000/mo referred to: it's their gross sales on trip bookings, not their actual final cut. The author doesn't delve into margins (that said, not trying to downplay the accomplishment in any way).
- TylerH 9y ago
  Oh... I thought it's what they paid you to go adventure traveling per month... :-(
- jpatokal 9y ago
  They say $1.5M sales last year, so sounds like gross sales.
- mbrameld 9y ago
  What about the part where he says their margins are around 25%?
  - inopinatus 9y ago
    He says that's their target, not actual. I don't know his sector, but in mine, for a maximally automated service, that would be very high, and leaves exposure to undercutting from similar new entrants.
stevenj 9y ago
Question for the Sourced Adventures founder: do you know what happened with LivingSocial's acquisition of Urban Escapes in October 2010? https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/livingsocial-buys-urban-escapes https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/livingsocial-buys-ur...
- wallawe 9y ago
  I was there from 2012-2015. If I remember correctly, they were rolled into the Adventures platform which was later shut down as mentioned in the article.
- kdavidson 9y ago
  Yes! It was indeed rolled into LivingSocial as an effort to differentiate from Groupon at the time in the height of the daily deals craze. We were essentially an in-house tour operator / adventure travel company for LS. I came on board shortly after the Urban Escapes acquisition as part of the team that was scaling the UE model for LS in NYC. Urban Escapes was rebranded as "LivingSocial Adventures"
n9com 9y ago
Why does it say 'Annual Recurring Revenue' on their chart? How is it 'Recurring', it's not like it's subscription based? It's straight up revenue.
- kdavidson 9y ago
  Yeah I'm not sure why it says 'recurring' that's our year over year direct sales only. In other words, sales directly through sourcedadventures.com (not counting revenue through OTA's or third party channels)
whitepoplar 9y ago
Only tangentially related, but is there an OTA that doesn't go for the hard sell? E.g. popups galore, notications, spammy email? If so, I will spend every dollar of my future travel expenditure with that company.
- muchbetterguy 9y ago
  We: https://www.muchbetteradventures.com https://www.muchbetteradventures.com try our best to keep the popups to a minimum (just a hellobar up top..) but then perhaps we're doing things wrong?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
SmellTheGlove 9y ago
Nice to see someone succeeding in the travel space.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
jasonbarone 9y ago
I worked in the same co-working space as SA back in New York about 2 years ago and I can say without a doubt that the team behind SA hustled their asses off day in and day out. SA was the only crew in that space that seemed to work as much or more than I did, even going so far as to opening a cafe (https://www.adventurecafe.nyc https://www.adventurecafe.nyc) in the tiny little pop-up space in Lower East Side that businesses were failing in left and right. Kyle's post here is great, but it doesn't quite touch on the fact that this team was crushing it all week long to make it happen. Incredibly nice people as well.
- kdavidson 9y ago
  Hey Jason! Great to hear from you man. You were always hustling your butt off as well! Haha. I always remember seeing you there around the clock, as we do! I really appreciate the kind words and thanks for the Adventure Cafe shout out. It means a lot!
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
pawelwentpawel 9y ago
I really like Sourced Adventures logo design.

142 points by urahara 9y ago

From personal experience in consumer-facing travel. Google made quite a bit of changes to the algorithm and hurt almost every travel product in favor of it's own products. I wonder if you were effected by this at all and what did you do to deal with it?

kdavidson 9y ago
This hasn't hurt us in any significant way, at least yet. Google also gives a lot of credit to how a business is reviewed in travel and because we have hundreds of 5-star reviews between TripAdvisor, Yelp and Google+ and many more internal reviews on our site we've only seen our rankings rise recently. We focus on having the best reviewed product in each of our categories and it seems Google has rewarded us for that. It's something we're definitely on the look out for though, absolutely

avitzurel 9y ago

> So while I was working on the site, which at the time had no traffic, I went out to every single OTA (online travel agency) and third-party reseller site and said, "Look how many tickets we're selling through just one channel! You should get in on this!" And I just set up as many channels as I could find to fund the next stage. It's very common for tour operators to have either no tech or bad tech, so it wasn't that weird to these channels. I really like this! Lots of people I talk to think: I will put this on the internet and people will find me. Hustling to get to your crowd is a great way to make sure you get consistent traffic. Kudos on this

brndnmtthws 9y ago

Wow, I just visited their website and it's awful. I saw a total of 4 or 5 different popup widgets[1]. What a nightmare. [1]: https://i.imgur.com/EMdObEd.jpg https://i.imgur.com/EMdObEd.jpg

devopsproject 9y ago
Makes $125,000 a month. maybe they know something we don't?
- danvoell 9y ago
  Seriously though Kyle if you are reading this, figure out how to time or space out your pop-ups. It's a little intense.
- brndnmtthws 9y ago
  My thoughts exactly.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- kerkeslager 9y ago
  Maybe what's good for business isn't always good for the user, and the only reason anyone thinks capitalism works this way is that it makes some people rich. :)
- dboreham 9y ago
  125k rev at, say, 15% margin is less than 20k/mo income. Decent for a one person company I suppose but hardly untold riches.
dsacco 9y ago
Awful is subjective. I get your point here (I personally wouldn't enjoy using that website either), but websites like this one are optimized to convert the greatest portion of the target demographic. It's very simple statistics. You can't please (or convert) all users, but you can convert enough of them to be a (highly!) profitable business. HN users are usually a very poor demographic to optimize for. It's a small demographic, for starters, and it's a very sensitive one (as evidenced by your comment). On the other hand my girlfriend, parents and probably all friends not working in tech wouldn't even notice it (where notice means "perceptibly annoying enough to have an explicit thought about it"). A lot of people honestly just don't care if the website is bloated or has numerous prompts to subscribe or chat. The users of this site evidently put up with it because it provides them with enough utility that they're not going to nitpick. The creators of the site have likely researched the market and business model enough to know that this is close to the ideal for maximizing profit without sacrificing utility. The website has hit market equilibrium.

imnotlost 9y ago

Two pop-overs and a chat window in less than 5 seconds. I guess they really work?

dyarosla 9y ago

I was curious what the 125,000/mo referred to: it's their gross sales on trip bookings, not their actual final cut. The author doesn't delve into margins (that said, not trying to downplay the accomplishment in any way).

TylerH 9y ago
Oh... I thought it's what they paid you to go adventure traveling per month... :-(
jpatokal 9y ago
They say $1.5M sales last year, so sounds like gross sales.
mbrameld 9y ago
What about the part where he says their margins are around 25%?
- inopinatus 9y ago
  He says that's their target, not actual. I don't know his sector, but in mine, for a maximally automated service, that would be very high, and leaves exposure to undercutting from similar new entrants.

stevenj 9y ago

Question for the Sourced Adventures founder: do you know what happened with LivingSocial's acquisition of Urban Escapes in October 2010? https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/livingsocial-buys-urban-escapes https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/livingsocial-buys-ur...

wallawe 9y ago
I was there from 2012-2015. If I remember correctly, they were rolled into the Adventures platform which was later shut down as mentioned in the article.
kdavidson 9y ago
Yes! It was indeed rolled into LivingSocial as an effort to differentiate from Groupon at the time in the height of the daily deals craze. We were essentially an in-house tour operator / adventure travel company for LS. I came on board shortly after the Urban Escapes acquisition as part of the team that was scaling the UE model for LS in NYC. Urban Escapes was rebranded as "LivingSocial Adventures"

n9com 9y ago

Why does it say 'Annual Recurring Revenue' on their chart? How is it 'Recurring', it's not like it's subscription based? It's straight up revenue.

kdavidson 9y ago
Yeah I'm not sure why it says 'recurring' that's our year over year direct sales only. In other words, sales directly through sourcedadventures.com (not counting revenue through OTA's or third party channels)

whitepoplar 9y ago

Only tangentially related, but is there an OTA that doesn't go for the hard sell? E.g. popups galore, notications, spammy email? If so, I will spend every dollar of my future travel expenditure with that company.

muchbetterguy 9y ago
We: https://www.muchbetteradventures.com https://www.muchbetteradventures.com try our best to keep the popups to a minimum (just a hellobar up top..) but then perhaps we're doing things wrong?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

SmellTheGlove 9y ago

Nice to see someone succeeding in the travel space.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jasonbarone 9y ago

I worked in the same co-working space as SA back in New York about 2 years ago and I can say without a doubt that the team behind SA hustled their asses off day in and day out. SA was the only crew in that space that seemed to work as much or more than I did, even going so far as to opening a cafe (https://www.adventurecafe.nyc https://www.adventurecafe.nyc) in the tiny little pop-up space in Lower East Side that businesses were failing in left and right. Kyle's post here is great, but it doesn't quite touch on the fact that this team was crushing it all week long to make it happen. Incredibly nice people as well.

kdavidson 9y ago
Hey Jason! Great to hear from you man. You were always hustling your butt off as well! Haha. I always remember seeing you there around the clock, as we do! I really appreciate the kind words and thanks for the Adventure Cafe shout out. It means a lot!

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

pawelwentpawel 9y ago

I really like Sourced Adventures logo design.