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Reddit CoFounder Dips Back Into YC With Travel Startup Hipmunk (YC S10)

• icey 16y ago
  Company site: http://www.hipmunk.com/ http://www.hipmunk.com/ Crunchbase profile: http://www.crunchbase.com/company/hipmunk http://www.crunchbase.com/company/hipmunk Launch announcement: http://blog.hipmunk.com/hipmunk-launches http://blog.hipmunk.com/hipmunk-launches
• davidw 16y ago
  Wow, very nicely done! This kind of thing is very important for international travel, as they often give you some crazy travel proposals. I tried VCE to PDX in October, and it seemed to do pretty well, although I'd appreciate it if it gave me more information on how to get a cheaper flight, if changing the dates would help at all.
• samdk 16y ago
  This is wonderful. I will absolutely be using this the next time I want to search for a flight. The logo makes me smile (although it's a bit indistinct on a white background), and the fact that the default sort method is "agony" makes me very happy. It seems to be including Amtrak results in there too, which makes for a nice comparison.
  • mrduncan 16y ago
    The logo was designed by (Reddit cofounder) Alexis Ohanian. http://twitter.com/kn0thing/status/21425755974 http://twitter.com/kn0thing/status/21425755974
    • clistctrl 16y ago
      oh hey thats pretty good. I wonder if I could get him to make a dingo for the startup i'm working on :) haha
      • kn0thing 16y ago
        Thanks. After the reddit alien, then the breadpig, and now the hipmunk, I'm really weary of pushing out a mascot of fail, so I'm pretty selective about work I do :-/
• CitizenKane 16y ago
  I've been having to do a lot of airline searches recently and this should definitely alleviate the pain. Being able to see the flight plans visually, especially the layovers, is extremely nice. As is the automatic hiding of flight itineraries that suck. Being able to adjust the day would be a nice feature, would be cool to be able to drag a time slot around to see if there is anything better a day later or a day earlier. Perhaps being able to compare days side by side would be nice. Overall though, it's pretty awesome. Only thing I've seen that comes close is Kayak.
• chime 16y ago
  Wow. That is seriously good. I've been planning a trip with my friends and the table-view is absolutely superior to everything I've ever seen. Keep it up Steve!
• jackowayed 16y ago
  I really like the visualization and the sorting by "agony", but there's a few features Kayak has that are must-haves in my mind: * Flexible dates. Sometimes I have a day or 2 of leeway, and it's often a lot cheaper to fly one day different. * Flexible airports. I live roughly equidistant from 2 airports, and Stanford also has 2 reasonable airports to use.
  • scommab 16y ago
    It's not amazingly obvious, but you can do flexible airports by putting in an area code or city that is between airports in to/from fields. i.e. if you do from:"palo alto" to:"salt lake", it will show flights leaving both SFO and SJC that go to SLC. Something else interesting I noticed is that it seems to also return results for Amtrak.
• yellowbkpk 16y ago
  > When you see the results (see screenshot for example), you’ll never want to see flight results in any other format. It’s one of those that’s so obvious why didn’t I think of that moments. I disagree. I think there are several different groups of people that search for flights and each of them wants to see their results in a different way. I think the other flight search engines (especially Kayak) meet most of their needs quite well. It's great to see another view into this data, but I don't think it's the only way I will want to view it. When I search for a flight, the only factor I care about is price. I don't care when it leaves, how long it takes to get there, what airline it is: I want it to be the cheapest it can possibly be. When prices are close, I'll sometimes care about airline (I really on't like to fly AirTran for example). I think Hipmunk's view into the data is perfect for someone that cares about the time spent in flight, layovers and which part of the day they're flying. These people are usually business-people who have money, so it's probably a perfect market to shoot for :).
  • jackowayed 16y ago
    You know you can sort by price, right? Right at the top there's a "sort by". And you might see that you only have to pay $5 more to avoid leaving at 6am and not have a ridiculous layover.
    • seiji 16y ago
      My first time through I didn't notice the prices were listed on the page.
  • jamiequint 16y ago
    A massively large percentage of the travel market is composed business travelers who are generally pretty price insensitive and a lot about things like flight times and layovers. Its probable that you're just not in the target market for a product like this.
  • zavulon 16y ago
    >When I search for a flight, the only factor I care about is price. I don't care when it leaves, how long it takes to get there, what airline it is <...> You may not, but there are others that definitely do
• shimon 16y ago
  Not to knock Hipmunk, but this visualization has been available for years as the "graphical view" of ITA Software's matrix demo app: http://matrix1.itasoftware.com/ http://matrix1.itasoftware.com/ Do a search and then View Flights - Graphical. It's excellent and has been my preferred way to find flights for ages. It's nice to see that someone who might actually care about marketing is offering the same useful tool!
  • deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  • goldfish 16y ago
    True—but Matrix doesn't let you book tickets. :)
  • jasonjei 16y ago
    ITA is probably the most underrated travel app on the Net. It's my favorite, cleanest, and also the most powerful tool for searching for good value flights (you can also find flights that will net you maximum miles that sites like Orbitz don't make easy, even with ITA powering the backend). I think Hipmunk is facing an uphill battle. I don't want to be a naysayer because I want them to do well (and thereby have more choices), but ITA spent years and years to get the kind of buyout they're getting now.
    • spez 16y ago
      ITA is awesome, but their value isn't their interface so much as they supply the fare/availability data to practically everyone (Kayak, Orbitz, fly.com, and us, through via Orbitz).
      • mshafrir 16y ago
        Curious, who is "us"?
        • shimon 16y ago
          spez = long-time nick of Steve from reddit (hi Steve!) and now hipmunk
• Keyframe 16y ago
  First time I actually got relevant results for a search (a bit obscure search). I don't have any need for tickets now, but when I do I'll certainly use this. Calendar for input of depart and return was a bit confusing at first.
• seiji 16y ago
  What does it take to get the airline price and schedule data? I imagine a lot of people want to make sites like this, but they don't have the resources to obtain contracts for data feeds. Much like many people would like to open up streaming sites for Big Label music, but not everybody can afford to enter into contracts with music labels then have hundreds of HDs full of wav files delivered to them. We need someone to make a pay-per-taste brokered data market.
  • chairface 16y ago
    It's really quite ridiculous. I made the backend to a travel site using data from Galileo reservation system (one of the big ones). At the time, they had a relatively new SOAP-ish API. The data you got back was huge and arranged in ways that are not in any way obvious. Many calls just return what appear to be screen scrapes of 70's era terminal screens, wrapped in XML. It was less than fantastic. At the time I left the travel agency in question, Galileo was in the process of rolling out a new version of the API, but the few times I tried to get it to work, it seemed completely broken (this was for cruises, not flights, but it was the same general idea).
  • MichaelSalib 16y ago
    I gave a decent (well, at least a lengthy) answer to this question here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1473748 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1473748 Basically, getting the raw data is quite difficult, but once you have it, you need to expend a really enormous quantity of engineering work into using that data to get useful answers. For example, ITA invented a language to describe taxes. That's because the tax code changes all the time and is incredibly complex. There are fares which different entities in the airline industry price differently due to tax code ambiguities. The search problem is really very hard once you have the data. Now, ITA software does offer their flight search engine as a service: you sign a contract with them and issue queries and they send you responses. I don't know how interested they are in cutting deals with really tiny startups, but they might be amenable. You will of course have to pay in some fashion: maybe a fixed fee per query or pay per compute time or pay per successful booking.
    • 16y ago
• ryanricard 16y ago
  I absolutely love the interface, especially: -Sorting by "Agony" is a brilliant decision. It seems to take into account time spent traveling and cost, which leaves me with a few easy choices to make (spend 20 bucks more, save an hour) instead of a million tiny choices to make. -I love that the prices seem to take into account taxes and fees without any trouble. I see $550 on Hipmonk, click "buy," and then see $550 on Orbitz. -It looks nice and performs excellently. I wonder if seeing data in this format will cause airlines to differently optimize their fare schedule. Obviously I don't have the knowledge of the data to answer this, but my gut feeling is that more people selecting flights based on travel time might lead airlines to find ways to reduce travel time. Wouldn't that be sweet.
• noahkagan 16y ago
  It's a bit confusing to figure out where this is better. I don't really grasp the agony part. For flying the real challenges for me are not layovers but planning the stuff out once you get there. Also, finding more local airplane companies internationally..
• fleaflicker 16y ago
  Why go through yc? Or raise a small angel round?
  • dabent 16y ago
    My guess is that it worked the first time, so why not try it again? That and they may feel some loyalty to PG. Well, then there's the "instant post in TechCrunch" one gets when combining YC with a successful prior exit. They are bound to get lots of press and a running start going the YC route, especially when combined with past experience.
    • pg 16y ago
      I'd like to believe that it's because YC is actually beneficial. After all, a new startup by a founder of Reddit was going to get lots of attention regardless.
      • dabent 16y ago
        Oh, I believe there's certainly something to be gained by going with YC, beyond what any prior success would offer. Sorry if my comment may have not gotten that across. There probably is some loyalty there, but that's largely due to your prior success in getting Reddit launched. If you hadn't been helpful, someone would likely pursue other options.
      • kscaldef 16y ago
        What do you think the benefits of YC are to a company started by previously successful founders? (Honest question... seems like you have mostly touted the connections you can broker, which I wouldn't think they need help with now.)
        • pg 16y ago
          Basically the same as for a first-time founder, which we explain here: http://ycombinator.com/about.html http://ycombinator.com/about.html We've never claimed connections are the most important part. That's probably the most common misconception about YC, and one we try actively to dispel, among other places on the page linked to above.
• wheels 16y ago
  What I've always wanted is travel booking, not flight booking. I want to know how long, how much and what my options are for getting from $x to $y at $z time. This still drives me nuts. If I'm at home in Berlin and have a meeting in in central London, I don't want to have to figure out that if I fly from one of the two airports in Berlin to one of the four airports around London that I'll have to use these kinds of busses and trains or taxis or rent a car and have to sort all of that out myself. I want to know how to get there door to door, and I'll pay a decent premium to have it all put in front of me where I can buy my tickets all in one go. I hate travel booking because it seems to be without fail a minimum 2 hour exercise sorting out the options and picking one. Back in the day I had a go-to travel agent for such. Unfortunately finding a good travel agent often requires checking out 10-15 of them and I've been too lazy for that as well since recent moves. Blog post on this a while back: http://scotchi.net/2009/09/what-i-hate-about-booking-travel-online/ http://scotchi.net/2009/09/what-i-hate-about-booking-travel-...
  • christonog 16y ago
    What kind of premium would you (or the average traveler) be willing to pay for a travel agent replacement webapp? I've been thinking about this as well while working on my own travel based project. Perhaps this is an opportunity for me to pivot in the future, if need be.
    • loumf 16y ago
      When I used travel agents, it's more like this -- I have $X and I want to be at a beach next weekend (Island? Florida? Big lake? Fri-Sun, Thu-Sun, Sat-Tues -- what's the cheapest) If I know exact dates, places, etc -- travel booking isn't hard enough to pay much for. The problem is, you go book it somewhere else when you have the info, so you have to go after affiliate fees and be as good at the booking as you are at the advice.
    • wheels 16y ago
      10% is my gut feeling. I'd imagine that the plan of attack would be figuring out the top 10 or so most important cities and working out the details for them (airport transportation, transit, car rental, taxi rates) and going from there. As to loumf's concern, once I trusted the site (say, after getting one booking commission free), I'd have no problem with the details not being revealed to me as to flight numbers / lines, details of public transit, etc. until I'd purchased. But I'm not sure you'd need that if the commissions are reasonable; I'm willing to pay to have my planning simplified.
• dabent 16y ago
  My notes: - "Hipmunk?" I don't get it. Why not tripmunk? - I like the visualization and the "agony" sort. Pretty cool - Is the plan to book the trip directly on the site eventually. Once I got to the end, I thought "Why don't I just go to Orbitz next time if that's where I end up anyway?"
  • ptm 16y ago
    "Hipmunk?" I don't get it. Why not tripmunk Derived from chipmunk, I presume. Tripmunk would've been better though.
  • rwhitman 16y ago
    Try finding an available domain name with the word "trip" at the beginning...
    • by 16y ago
      tripluckydip, tripyer, tripfingertip, tripunzip, trippirt. Hipmunk is good.
• InfinityX0 16y ago
  So how are they driving traffic? They seem to have no SEO focus at all. When you're relying solely on brand equity, you're doing yourself a strong disservice. Of course, that SEO part is going to be pretty expensive for them to compete in the travel space.
  • loumf 16y ago
    I personally never start travel from search engines -- I go to a Expedia, Orbitz, sometimes the airline directly (Southwest). Traffic from brand can be better than traffic from SEO in some cases. You have to spend money, but it's under your control.
    • _delirium 16y ago
      Travel-related queries of any sort are probably the one query I most shy away from ever entering into a search engine. The results are just so filled with garbage that it's rarely useful--- I'll go straight to a booking engine, to Wikipedia, to Wikitravel, to Lonely Planet, or to some other known site to get info, rather than deal with thousands of content-mill pages and resellers of vacation packages.
• lzw 16y ago
  Really would like to hear how they got access to the data. Does Orbitz do deals like this? I've got a technology that I think would be applicable. Be happy to hand off any booking to the data provider... but just need to be able to get to the raw data. This wouldn't compete with hipmunk, it is a different idea in the travel space. Just trying to find someone to supply data seems impossible.
• weixiyen 16y ago
  I think this is the first homepage for a travel site I've seen that doesn't hide the calendar picker. Whoever is designing this site knows what they are doing.
• ari_ 16y ago
  Having looked at the interface, it's basically taking orbitz results and slapping a slightly nicer GUI on it. If they were backended into ITA instead of hopping via Orbitz that would be better. What I would like to see is something that ITA has already, which is see cheapest fares by month. I'd also love to see all the weird fares that FlyerTalk people have. Also, US Centric sites: the pricing information for inter europe or asia flights is dismal! Dismal!
• ashitvora 16y ago
  It seems, it searches only for domestic flights.
• ashitvora 16y ago
  Is 15K not very less amount. I mean, I've never seen any company receiving such a small amount in funding. Is this normal?
• margaretmit 16y ago
  The name at first struck me as odd, but it's growing on me the more I think about it. As long as the chipmunk in the logo is really cute then it will be memorable.
• omarchowdhury 16y ago
  There needs to be more guided direction on the landing page. Your users shouldn't have to guess what to do.
• kasunh 16y ago
  Does he need to launch his second startup through yc? yc's most valued service to a startup is right connections. Having been successful once he should already have plenty of them