

The Rise and Fall of a Global Start-Up - markkarimov
https://medium.com/@markkarimov/the-rise-fall-239754982fa8

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

Probably not.

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riboflavin
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.

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riboflavin
Respectfully withdrawn, of course, if you have.

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

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acchow
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).

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

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

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eonw
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.

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Johnny555
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.

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markkarimov
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](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9951927)

Thanks!

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

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

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amelius
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).

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

Love & Light.

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ismail
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.

~~~
markkarimov
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. :)

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pedalpete
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.

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markkarimov
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!

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

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

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hukep
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.

