Seeking tech cofounder/collaborator-Adventure travel startup

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=631948

by colellm • 17 years ago

5 8 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Seeking Technical Collaborator/Cofounder to help build an Exciting Adventure Travel Website from the ground up.

The Adventure Travel industry is a 100 billion/year business and is the fastest growing segment of the travel industry (not to mention nearly recession proof!). As one of the last frontiers in online travel, it is extremely fragmented. Therefore, finding information for your next outdoor vacation is extremely time consuming! Come help my partner and I build a solution!

What we Have:

Industry Knowledge, Connections, & Passion, Strong Design Skills & Working Ability in XHTML/CSS, Extensive Business Planning, Detailed Wireframes & Functional Specifications

What we Need:

Someone to interpret the needs of the business and make decisions about the proper technologies to implement on the backend. There are no specific preferences in place with regard to coding languages. Seeking True Cofounder to work with us from the ground Up!

Founder's equity will be granted in lieu of pay. (bootstrapped startup!)

Major PLUS - an interest in the outdoors, biking, hiking, adventure travel!!!

Strongly prefer someone in NYC tri state area (NY, NJ, CT)!!!

davidw2• 17 years ago

What you should explain is why this techie isn't going to be the one sitting around doing all the work while you tell him what to do. In other words, you really need to sell yourselves as people who can make something happen. Do you have a track record?

colellm4• 17 years ago

shocking that I should get such a response.

on one end, there is a TON of legwork with regard to my idea that involves reaching out to each adventure operator and incorporating content into the site. I did mention it was extremely fragmented and a lot of the value would come from bringing information together/generating unique content.

also, i did learn to hack in xhtml/css and although i know they are not true programming languages it is a start in that i can at least hack together part of a front end

colellm4• 17 years ago

p.s. if interested melissa_colella@hotmail.com

davidw2• 17 years ago

> shocking that I should get such a response.

Not really - looks like you've been here a while, so you knew that. I'm not saying your deal is no good, just that you're going to have to work hard to sell people on yourselves. Working for free has big opportunity costs for everyone involved, and as you must have seen here, everyone has bumped into the "I have a wonderful idea I just need you to do it for me for free" types, so I'm just giving you a suggestion to show you're not like that.

> Major PLUS - an interest in the outdoors, biking, hiking, adventure travel!!!

> Strongly prefer someone in NYC tri state area (NY, NJ, CT)

Why would anyone who loves the outdoors live in that area?;-)

pguerin• 17 years ago

> "What you should explain is why this techie isn't going to be the one sitting around doing all the work while you tell him what to do."

Building a startup isn't only about coding... you need to create the brand and make the target public aware of your product (marketing). Thus, connections helps and the will to execute the idea is essential. Most business people that comes up to me with a new venture talks like this, I see nothing wrong there. You also need to do all the paperwork to make your startup legal, etc. For all I know, you guys seem pretty serious about your project and that's a good thing :)

> "In other words, you really need to sell yourselves as people who can make something happen. Do you have a track record?"

Yes, it would be interesting to know why the startup is different that the rest so we know it's not one of those bad startups that goes nowhere. You don't need lots of details, just a simple explanation about the vision & scope of your project and why we shouldn't use the online travel sites that already exist on the internet. What is different about your project and what is the competition? (no competition is not an answer! ;)

Seeking tech cofounder/collaborator-Adventure travel startup

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