Show HN: Our new Startup - Interactive travel guides

[Mamady]

Over the last year, me and my co-founder have been working on a startup that provides a marketplace for what we call "self-guided tour itineraries". The best way to understand it is to have a look, here is an example:

http://www.unanchor.com/itinerary/view/149

We just did our public launch today - it would be great to get your feedback on it. Be blunt, we can handle it :)

[kls]

I think you have a good start, have you ever thought about getting the itinerary out of a PDF and into a more interactive medium. A mobile app could do some pretty cool stuff, say you purchase an itinerary and it is pushed to your phone, you could do on location things like offer special discounts from vendors as well as location aware items like restaurant review integration from yelp or urban spoon, etc.

Taking it to a mobile platform as opposed to or in addition to a PDF opens a world of revenue opportunities as well as makes for a better overall user experience.

You should take a look at my profile, I have done a lot of travel related stuff and exited a few start-ups in the space. If you guys ever want to chat, I can offer you guys some good advice on how to position your app

. As well, please take this with a grain of salt, but you guys need to get a graphic artist, pictures sell travel and they need to be great, a travel brochure should wow people and get them excited about the destination. Design is so critical in travel.

Also 70% of travel related decisions by couples are made by the woman. Remember that statistic when your designer works on the site, you should try to remain neutral in design, but if you cannot, lean toward more feminine qualities, soft curves, lighter colors. Images of attractive women do not drive away women, but they will up your male conversion rate. A masculine young male can reduce your conversion (in heterosexual markets), try to employ images of couples with an older attractive male and a younger attractive female. Ensure that they are tasteful but employ them as people like to see attractive people having fun. I could go on for a month, if you want to chat hit my up on Skype, it is in my profile.

[Mamady]

Thanks for the great feedback. We have just recently launched the second version of our platform, which allows for interactive itineraries, but if you want to "take it away" with you, it still needs to be downloaded as a PDF.

We are in the process of building our mobile apps - unfortunately we lack inhouse skills for this, so it has taken us longer than it should have.

Regarding design - although we know we have to improve our design, we didn't have the insight you just provided, very useful information - thank you.

[rishi]

Hi Jason - I've been following your company for a while now and really love the service you provide! Congrats on the public launch your product is getting better and better.

My biggest feedback is that I found the left hand navigation to be really confusing. Instead I would use big beautiful travel images to draw the reader in so they will actually read your sample itinerary.

If you ask any big time blogger what the #1 tactic to draw a reader in it is always a combination of a written compelling tagline and an awesome image.

[LifeAfterCubes]

Thanks Rishi -- I really appreciate the feedback. That's interesting and not something we had thought about.

[md1515]

Hey Jason, I'd like to help you out. This seems like a really cool idea. I lived in Europe and traveled extensively while living there. Can you send me an email? It is in my profile..

[LifeAfterCubes]

Thanks, will do.

[AznHisoka]

I entered hawaii and got nuthing.

[LifeAfterCubes]

Unfortunately we don't have anything in Hawaii yet. Thanks for checking it out though.