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.<p>Amazon for activities is such a good analogy. Great going and good luck!
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.
How can you get sick of Costco food, it's so good!<p>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.<p>I love outdoor activities and nature getaways, and you were right: their websites are HORRIBLE.<p>However, creating a really easy way for them to have a website AND book through that website? Money.
<i>Ravn is still a work in progress, but it is something we’re committed to working on for the years to come</i><p>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.
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"
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.
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
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"
Couldn't agree more, so many companies are a solution in search of a problem.<p>It's not sexy at all but look at how much money there is to be made running a box factory, or containerized shipping.