drewmeyers24

Joined 12 years ago

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Member since

Jul 30

Travel, Microfinance, Real Estate Tech, Social Entrepreneurship. Doer. Writer. ex @Zillow. @kiva & @chilipeppers fan. Founder @geekestate, Co-Founder @getHorizonapp.

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Recent submissions

Comment · 9 years ago

Just checked your home page. Really no idea what the service is after 3 seconds of looking. Sadly, that's all most people are going to give you when they land on your website.

Comment · 9 years ago

"Community startups are hard."

Ain't that the truth. I've got scars to prove it.

Comment · 9 years ago

What are you working on?

Comment · 9 years ago

Building "a community" is one thing. You don't need a product to build one community. You really just need passion, credibility, and perseverance -- and some combination of a blog, email list, and facebook/slack group as the tool.

Building a bunch of communities (aka facilitating community) is a different beast entirely, and seldom takes off very quickly at all. The best example of facilitating community is Meetup.com.

I've been working on a facilitation of community model called Horizon (http://www.horizonapp.co) which is best thought of as airbnb/couchsurfing with friends, friends of friends, and communities. So, privately, rather than publicly with strangers.

You can either facilitate existing community, or build a community. Trying to do both is a recipe for disaster imho.

Comment · 10 years ago

Leads are indeed the only sure way to build a successful (revenue generating) real estate agent/broker offering. It is possible to sell websites -- but the reality is most agents have no idea what to do with a website to generate traffic. And if a website isn't marketed, it's useless (aka giant waste of money).

Comment · 11 years ago

The big issue was they essentially changed from non profit to for profit 5+ years into the community. It would have been completely different scenario if the whole community was built with the understanding that there was a commercial aspect to it.

Comment · 11 years ago

I love Siem Reap. I spent a few weeks there in 2012 at the very beginning of my entrepreneurial journey which is now 3 years and 2 travel apps later.

Comment · 11 years ago

That's basically what we're doing with Horizonapp.co. There is a Global Nomads group on Horizon, accessible with the following group unlock code: gn2015#insiders

Comment · 11 years ago

Most hosts do it for the social benefit -- people to hang out with, traveling without having to leave their own home (via stories/info from those staying with them), and building new relationships across the globe.

More on host incentives: http://www.horizonapp.co/blog/incentives-hosting-hospitality...

Comment · 11 years ago

I'm one of the co-founders of http:/ww.horizonapp.co - which is hospitality exchange (aka couchsurfing) for groups. Think Peace Corps, Teach for America, Stanford alum, Kiva Fellows...but it could be any existing group/community -- such as members of HackerCouch, or Hacker News even.

Unlock code for the "Hacker News" group on Horizon: hn2015#$

I'm happy to create a private unlock code for Hacker Couch if there is any interest.

*Note most of our effort thus far has been on iOS version -- the web version is still basic (we're currently working on adding a few pieces of functionality). Recently started development on a native android version.

Comment · 11 years ago

Pretty much every startup is trying to solve trust. If you don't have trust, you ultimately don't have a business. It's a touch nut to crack/scale.

Comment · 11 years ago

Buyers agency doesn't exist in many other countries

Comment · 11 years ago

See this post I wrote a few years ago: http://geekestateblog.com/real-estate-tech-question-getting-...

Still accurate today.

Comment · 11 years ago

"realtor.com shuts down similar sites like RedFin"

Realtor.com cannot shut down redfin

Comment · 11 years ago

Agreed.