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Oh boy -- I'm the cofounder of Wanderlog (https://wanderlog.com https://wanderlog.com), a YC W19 startup exactly focused on planning travel. And I've really rea

Oh boy -- I'm the cofounder of Wanderlog (https://wanderlog.com https://wanderlog.com), a YC W19 startup exactly focused on planning travel. And I've really read all these articles This originally was big on Hacker News in 2014: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8419658 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8419658 This is really just the latest in a long list of articles about why travel planning startups aren't worth pursuing: - https://www.phocuswire.com/Why-you-should-never-consider-a-travel-planning-startup https://www.phocuswire.com/Why-you-should-never-consider-a-t... - https://paansm.medium.com/the-top-5-reasons-your-travel-startup-will-fail-e60c53e70ea8 https://paansm.medium.com/the-top-5-reasons-your-travel-star... But we're still at it and have grown a ton over the past year! - On frequency: I think we're underestimating folks' ability to remember here! If the product actually is good, people will remember it. - On being a real pain point: It's true that people have many "good enough" solutions to travel planning, but travel planning tools have failed because the past products really just haven’t been better by enough than using Google Sheets -- they assume that people don't like planning, or that they plan a certain way, and try to save time and automate it. In fact, people _love_ planning and sharing their trips! The tool just needs to work around the traveler, rather than dictate Still, it's instructive that none of the links in the 2014 post's comments work. Will we prove them wrong? We can check back in 3 years when this article comes back to the front page again xD

ska 5y ago
You don't have to be just better than google sheets; you have to be a lot better than google sheets while also not introducing significantly more friction. Ideally none. I think the space is hard because it involves tying together a number of different functionalities many of which are rarely done well, some which have never been done well. Good luck! (meant sincerely).
d--b 5y ago
Neato, this looks great. Small(ish) request, can you add weather info in there? Always super important to know to reshuffle activities properly.
- phsource 5y ago
  This is on our roadmap! A bunch of folks have asked for it, and there are good APIs
yosito 5y ago
Kudos to you for pursuing something that a lot of people are saying won't work. That takes some character! Especially in a difficult time for travel. Your app looks great. As a full time traveler / nomad for 10 years, I don't have much of a need for itinerary planning apps on their own. But I would love to have social itineraries, where I can follow my friends' itineraries and share mine with them especially for serendipitously meeting up at random points around the world when our itineraries intersect. Yes, I've got an abnormally large number of globe trotting friends, but there are entire nomadic communities out there who are eager for this feature. Are social features something you've considered developing further?
tacitusarc 5y ago
Hi! I downloaded your app, and convinced a friend who travels quite a bit to download it, on the basis of this post. It’s pretty great! We have one piece of feedback: the trip page is very spread out, so there is no good way to see a quick overview of my entire trip, i.e. in city A from days x-y, then city B, etc. Unfortunately, a single day takes up the whole screen. If there was some way to have a more collapsed trip view in the app, that would be awesome. Keep up the good work, I’m rooting for you.

ska 5y ago

You don't have to be just better than google sheets; you have to be a lot better than google sheets while also not introducing significantly more friction. Ideally none. I think the space is hard because it involves tying together a number of different functionalities many of which are rarely done well, some which have never been done well. Good luck! (meant sincerely).

d--b 5y ago

Neato, this looks great. Small(ish) request, can you add weather info in there? Always super important to know to reshuffle activities properly.

phsource 5y ago
This is on our roadmap! A bunch of folks have asked for it, and there are good APIs

yosito 5y ago

Kudos to you for pursuing something that a lot of people are saying won't work. That takes some character! Especially in a difficult time for travel. Your app looks great. As a full time traveler / nomad for 10 years, I don't have much of a need for itinerary planning apps on their own. But I would love to have social itineraries, where I can follow my friends' itineraries and share mine with them especially for serendipitously meeting up at random points around the world when our itineraries intersect. Yes, I've got an abnormally large number of globe trotting friends, but there are entire nomadic communities out there who are eager for this feature. Are social features something you've considered developing further?

tacitusarc 5y ago

Hi! I downloaded your app, and convinced a friend who travels quite a bit to download it, on the basis of this post. It’s pretty great! We have one piece of feedback: the trip page is very spread out, so there is no good way to see a quick overview of my entire trip, i.e. in city A from days x-y, then city B, etc. Unfortunately, a single day takes up the whole screen. If there was some way to have a more collapsed trip view in the app, that would be awesome. Keep up the good work, I’m rooting for you.