HN Gopher Feed (2017-07-13) - page 1 of 10 ___________________________________________________________________
Sourced Adventures - Adventure Travel Startup ($125,000/mo)
61 points by urahara
https://www.indiehackers.com/businesses/sourced-adventures___________________________________________________________________
imnotlost - 3 hours ago
Two pop-overs and a chat window in less than 5 seconds. I guess
they really work?
stevenj - 3 hours 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-ur...
wallawe - 1 hours 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.
dyarosla - 3 hours 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).
mbrameld - 53 minutes ago
What about the part where he says their margins are around 25%?
inopinatus - 36 minutes 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.
TylerH - 1 hours ago
Oh... I thought it's what they paid you to go adventure traveling
per month... :-(
jpatokal - 1 hours ago
They say $1.5M sales last year, so sounds like gross sales.
avitzurel - 4 hours 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?
n9com - 2 hours 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.
avitzurel - 3 hours 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
[deleted]
brndnmtthws - 3 hours 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
devopsproject - 3 hours ago
Makes $125,000 a month. maybe they know something we don't?
danvoell - 3 hours 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 - 3 hours ago
My thoughts exactly.
[deleted]
kerkeslager - 3 hours 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. :)
dsacco - 3 hours 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.
castis - 3 hours ago
I bet OP understands that personal feelings are subjective.That
website makes someone a whole bunch of money. That doesn't mean
that website isn't awful.
dsacco - 3 hours ago
The website's profitability doesn't assure that it isn't
awful, no (pure capitalism is not a moral framework). But the
consensus of a lot of people who choose to use it sort of
does mean it isn't awful, if you're trying to ascribe some
sort of objectivity to that adjective (and I don't agree you
can).This is like bikeshedding the definitions of privacy,
DRM, net neutrality, etc. Most people just don't give a shit,
no matter how loud the minority is that demonizes things like
throwing a newsletter subscription popup on a website.
castis - 2 hours ago
The philosophical pillar you're standing on doesn't stop me
from saying that this website is subjectively awful.
softawre - 1 hours ago
A website serves a purpose, to create income. If
removing some of the modals would reduce their income,
then having them is subjectively better than not.I think
you need a new word to describe your (valid, in a way)
opinion.
tyingq - 2 hours ago
>That website makes someone a whole bunch of money$125k/month
in gross booked travel may not be a whole bunch of money.
Typically, only portions of the travel have commissions, and
not huge percentages either.It could grow of course.
avitzurel - 3 hours ago
Talking from my personal experience in the travel industry (6
years senior engineer @ a travel startup).This is really common
practice and I hated every bit of it.Everyone is looking at the
big guys like Expedia and Booking.com and those are really pushy.
You can see them popping up every thing in a popup.You're looking
at a room and you see "1500 people are looking @ this room now",
everything, just to get you to book.This case is a bit extreme,
even in those standards, but not the first time I see something
like it.
brndnmtthws - 3 hours ago
Can't we strive for better rather than just rinsing and
repeating the same bad UX and shove-it-down-your-throat
tactics?
dsacco - 2 hours ago
Most users do not care and do not agree with you that it is
bad, as evidenced by the continuing dominance of these
practices.What you have here is a crusade based upon your
personal feelings, not the objective utility of the website.
And the result is that we now have a discussion going
centered around common marketing strategies instead of the
website itself and its service.As a counterpoint, I don't
particularly find this website egregious. If you feel
strongly about things like this, don't use those websites, or
build your own alternative (though a lack of popups will not
be a competitive advantage).Note that I'm not saying this to
insult you. I'm saying this because your comment comes across
to me as myopic and lacking in self-awareness. You're not the
target demographic if these things put you off, but that
doesn't mean it's productive for you to call them "bad." HN
users frequently wonder how people build profitable
advertising, product or consulting-driven profitable
businesses, and the answer is (in part) that those people
were okay with doing things that others find disagreeble.
That's an inevitability when you have outspoken groups like
e.g. those who believe all software should be free and open
source.
ryandrake - 2 hours ago
Slimy, dirty tricks, tasteless popups and dark patterns
work. Nobody denies that. Some of the most successful,
profitable small-time web sites out there are successful by
doing it in ways that would make me ashamed and disgusted
with myself. I once did a little research into the lead-gen
and affiliate linking businesses, and felt like I needed to
take a shower when I was done. But they're successful at
generating money, so who am I to criticize? Hell, SPAM
still works, evidently!
dsacco - 2 hours ago
I'll reiterate: a lack of awfulness is not implied by
high profitability. It's implied by a high number of
users who don't mind.
tsunamifury - 2 hours ago
If it works it doesn't mean they like it. They can go with
it and hate it.
dsacco - 2 hours ago
I totally agree! If that's the case, there is a wonderful
market opportunity here. People shouldn't be made to
grudgingly put up with options they don't like - that's
entirely why we have competition.Maybe we'd find that the
market is inefficient, which is why this website thrives
despite its user interface (if we take as axiomatic that
the user interface is really unenjoyable for most users).
However, I'd happily bet that this is actually not the
case, and that most users not only put up with it, they
don't notice it.I'll note (as a purely dialectic matter)
that I do not agree with the idea that people can
simultaneously dislike something and not be willing to
spend money to enjoy it more, given that there are more
enjoyable alternatives of the same utility and the users
can afford it.
softawre - 1 hours ago
Better by what metric?If you owned the business what would
you optimize for? Warm and Fuzzies? Or possibly profit?
whitepoplar - 2 hours 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 - 1 hours ago
We: 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?