
Pivoting: Why We're Bringing Unsexy Back - yosho
http://blog.ravn.com/post/12211269799/skyara-ravn-pivot
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tejaswiy
Okay, weird, possibly unrelated story I guess. I've been thinking about this
problem a lot. Especially in the context of travelling and exploring new
places. I was originally thinking along the lines of businesses offering
experiences but after a little research online, I ran into Skyara. Like you
said, it seemed to be the fun / hip thing to do and the original idea sounded
boring after that. It somehow fell off my mind after a while and haven't
thought about it till today.

Amazon for activities is such a good analogy. Great going and good luck!

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yosho
Yep, there is no Amazon for activities right now, we want to change that :)

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freejack
I love the fact you didn't give up on your original idea, you wallowed in it!
We run a pretty unsexy business too, and despite having tried "sexy" quite a
few times, we eventually embraced the notion that there are a ton of hard
problems to solve for the core market and we should just wallow in them
instead of trying to be one of the cool kids. The difference in the business
is night and day, and now we're setting the standard in the industry.

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yosho
Hi, I"m the author of the blog post.

I definitely think there are too many people these days chasing the sexy
trends. What they fail to realize is that by the time something is sexy, it's
often too late to catch up. Take Groupon and all the clones out there.

Solving a real problem is definitely the way to go. cheers!

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freejack
Agree. My gut says that some founders may look at sexy as a way to shortcut
the hard work of marketing and being remarkable, probably not an explicit
choice, but I can definitely see how one might lean towards trendy as a way to
light up the rockets on market acceptance.

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JonLim
How can you get sick of Costco food, it's so good!

In reality, good for you for realizing that it was a difficult sell in the
first place. Innovative and sexy, yes, but I figured you would run into those
problems before you mentioned it.

I love outdoor activities and nature getaways, and you were right: their
websites are HORRIBLE.

However, creating a really easy way for them to have a website AND book
through that website? Money.

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wmwong
What I got from this is to solve real problems. Do your customer development
and validation, or you'll find out you have a product without customers.

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rokhayakebe
_Ravn is still a work in progress, but it is something we’re committed to
working on for the years to come_

This is the right attitude. You can do one millions little things, but one
project must be your life's work. Something you commit to.

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jwu711
Definitely, I think it's the main thing I heard from speaking with investors;
you have to be really authentic and the problem you're solving has to be
personal.

It was what really helped Airbnb and Etsy make it through the struggles of
building a true sustainable marketplace that impacts peoples lives. If not,
it's just like another corporate job.

Feel free to check out RAVN, would love to hear your feedback. You can use my
invite code JWU.

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rokhayakebe
Awesome. Glad I got in.

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scott_s
I was curious to try Ravn, but it requires me to register and login before
even trying it out. Why?

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zem
according to their site, they're still in rate-limited beta (which is fine).
however, when i entered my email address to get an invite, it told me i could
move up the invite queue by entering the email addresses of three friends,
which definitely had a bit of a scummy feel to it.

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scott_s
I didn't see any mention of beta on their front page - they probably should
explicitly say it there.

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zem
oops, yes, i think my brain saw "invite code" and automatically interpolated
"beta".

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bomatson
WARN - if you sign up w/ FB and say "you've been there" on an experience, it
will automatically comment on your wall without permission saying "I just did
this, check it out"

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bomatson
overall tho I like, ravn - congrats on the pivot folks

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humj
Hey bomatson.There actually is a checkbox right under the done button to not
post on FB. I think a lot of times, people just click out without looking at
the modal. The whole doning and wanting experience is definitely something
we're looking at. Of course we want people to share on FB but at the same
time, we don't want to give anyone an unpleasant surprise.

I'll let you know what we come up with for that one. Thanks for the feedback.

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bomatson
Hey guys, thanks for the help and I much appreciate you making the adjustment.
Be careful about posting forced copy on social graphs, I'd learn from Chill
here [http://www.observer.com/2011/08/facebook-is-slightly-less-
ch...](http://www.observer.com/2011/08/facebook-is-slightly-less-chill-after-
zuckerberg-calls-app-lame/)

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jjguy
Sexy captures the imagination, but good execution is decidedly unsexy. The
hyperbole of the valley and it's entourage is a siren's song; don't let it
suck you in.

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AznHisoka
Cloud9Living.com shows this concept definitely has potential. Instead of going
with the daily deals model, I would suggest going with the DailyCandy model
(before they ventured into daily deals). Suggest experiences to pursue near
the city you live with a weekly or daily newsletter

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danso
RAVN still seems to have an identity problem. I know it aims to be more than
this, but the first thing I thought of when I signed on was, "Ooh, all the
Groupon/LivingSocial/Google deals aggregated in a box layout"

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humj
I think you've highlighted one of the difficulties in this space. Nowadays, a
lot of people expect any new ecommerce site to be some sort of deals site. It
has become the default and you actually have to do work to show that you're
not a deals site.

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fleitz
Couldn't agree more, so many companies are a solution in search of a problem.

It's not sexy at all but look at how much money there is to be made running a
box factory, or containerized shipping.

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awj
I once worked for a company that made a staggering amount of money off
producing milk (or other paper) cartons. They were vertically integrated from
initial design all the way to dropping it off on your factory floor.

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fleitz
I love stories like this, they probably have a huge moat due to the capital
costs of the machines. The vertical integration means the designers likely
know exactly what can and can't be made, so it sounds like a great value add.
And no one would ever think of going into a biz like that.

A friend of mine worked for a company that bought mud from the ocean floor, it
cost something like $5000 for a 5 tonnes of it (mostly for the dredge
operators), which they would removed the seaweed and other large particles,
and package into 50 mL bottles for around $10 wholesale via an MLM cosmetics
company. They had an exclusive contract and guaranteed sales. It was pretty
much risk free money.

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msteinert
No outdoor activities in Colorado? I'm surprised.

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humj
We're working hard to get there!

