Roast me daddy: An app to easily log and send travel recommendations (Goer Recbook)

[hoop]

Hello Roasters,

Have you ever been asked by a friend "Hey I am traveling to [X location], you've been there right? Can you send me your recommendations?"

You replied yeah sure and then at some point took the time to dig through your google map flags and photos to find "that one hole in the wall restaurant". You then finally proceeded to type a long text message, email or even a google doc detailing your experience. This was a somewhat painful process and took longer than you thought.

We'll, having lived in Hawaii and Paris, I got asked this question all too often and decided to create a simple app to make my life easier - it is called Goer Recbook and is on the iOS app store here in MVP form.

You can easily:

1. Log a place (categorize it, add a description as to why its special, and some photos)
2. See your places organized by country/city;
3. So when your friend asks you "Hey do you have any travel recs?" all you have to do is open up a city, choose which recs, and send them with 1 click.
   1. The recipient receives a webpage, they don't need to "download the app".

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It's a simple app, and I want to see if anyone finds it useful before i continue iterating on it.

In terms of competitors, most of what I see are travel recommendation social medias or essentially another instagram but specifically for travel recs where you have to create an account, follow people, like posts, etc. Worse yet, after logging your data in here, if someone asks you "Hey do you have any travel recs" you are forced to tell them "yeah I do, just download [insert app here - Out of Office, Rex, Mapstr, DiscoverList, etc], create an account and follow me".

I try to differentiate by being a simple productivity tool, whereby you just log and send your recs without the following, liking, profile creating of social media.

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Anyways, if you are an expat, digital nomad, or someone who is known as the "traveler" amongst their friends and you get asked this question, please give it a spin and give me honest feedback.

Much appreciated!

 

[karenwnc]

@hoop The only roasting I have to offer is that I don't understand why this needs to an iOS native app only. The app description doesn't really have anything in it that would indicate to me that this would need to be a mobile native app only.

 

[hoop]

@karenwnc Fair point.

If you are asking why a mobile app vs. desktop - I figured when people got asked this question they were usually out on the go and the utility of dropping it from their phone was useful.

If you are asking why native iOS - its not native swift for iOS, its node,js/react so I can push it to Google Play Store as well, just going step by step to make sure the app actually is useful before I keep putting time into it

 

[karenwnc]

@hoop Every single time I have made or received a question like "Hey I am traveling to [X location], you've been there right? Can you send me your recommendations?" that has not been out on the go, but either in the travel planning phase still at home, or at the location but inside a coffee shop or hotel room with a laptop.

When I'm literally walking on the street at some new location and I want a recommendation of something, say, a restaurant or a cafe, near where I am right now, I open Google Maps and see what is nearby and check their ratings.

There are some solid use cases for mobile app only. I don't think this is one of them. Unless you try to challenge Google Maps in this use case. In which case: Good luck!

 

[hoop]

@karenwnc Thanks for the info!

When is the last time you received that question? What did you do?

 

[karenwnc]

@hoop Maybe a few months ago. A friend asked for a specific kind of restaurant via chat, I told them my recommendation (also via chat).

 

[hoop]

@karenwnc Just one place?

Has someone ever asked you for a whole city? Like "I am going to Paris, I know you have been there, do you have any travel recs for Paris?"

 

[karenwnc]

@hoop Sometimes, yes. But again, this has never happened when they are on the go, literally walking there and wanting to know immediately someplace to go.

 

[spiritualhuman]

@hoop I've lived abroad for 15 years and was a travel writer and photographer for a long time. I think I am your target audience.

You seem to expect people to add recommendations to the app so that someday in the future that may never come they can easily send those recommendations to somebody else?

I see zero incentive for people to use this.

Maybe if this somehow exported my Google Maps saves from an area automatically into a usable format it would be kind of helpful. But even when you have to somehow market the app to me between the time that my friend asks me for recommendations and the time my friend asks for recommendations and the time that I sent them so that I actually have a reason to use it.

 

[hoop]

@spiritualhuman Thank for the comment, very interesting and you bring up a good point.

When is the last time you got asked for some travel recs? What did you do?

 

[spiritualhuman]

@hoop Was last asked for recommendations last month.

I replied to the message with some recommendations and shared a few Google Map pins.

 

[hoop]

@spiritualhuman [sup]I replied to the message with some recommendations[/sup]

You typed something up? How long was it?

[sup]shared a few Google Map pins.[/sup]

How many?

Thanks for your comments btw, it shows me the problem i am trying to solve is so small it might not be worth solving

 

[spiritualhuman]

@hoop The length of the message depends on how many recommendations the person wants. Is it for a restaurant for lunch? Is it for things to do in the whole country? It's always different.

 

[hoop]

@spiritualhuman And if its a big list of things for the whole country or city, how would you send it?

 

[spiritualhuman]

@hoop In most cases I probably wouldn't spend that much time on it. You can only put so much effort into helping somebody else plan their trip for free. In the case that I had already written a guide to that area I would link to that.

There are only a few people who I would spend significant time working on it for, like my mother. In that case I would spend time writing recommendations and compiling map links or articles.

 

[hoop]

@spiritualhuman Thanks for ur valuable insight @spiritualhuman! Much appreciated!

The next time you get asked for recs, if you could download the app and give it a try and let me know what u think, it would be much appreciated. If not, no worries!

 

[spiritualhuman]

@hoop I'm an android guy.

Good luck.

 

[bavo92]

@hoop Interesting idea. Idk if it needs its own app there’s a lot of this online. My roast would be wtf is goer. Ditch that.