Venture Cost - Feedback Needed
Hello everyone!
My first product, Venture Cost, is finally taking shape and I'm working on the last details before an official launch. I understand most people here might not be travelers who can give input on the ideas and purpose, but I'm looking for any type of feedback whether it's design, usability or performance.
A little backstory about the app: I've been on the road since November 2017 with a goal of enjoying life and keeping my costs down to make this journey as long as possible. It started out as a Google Sheets document where I tracked all my expenses and accommodation costs, but I wanted to see it in a chart instead, obviously!
That's when the app idea came to mind. This idea on its own is nothing new, you can find costs all around internet from many sources. There are a few problems however:
- People track differently. It's hard to compare one trip to another.
- Most websites are cheating by scraping unknown costs from 3rd party sources which makes their average costs VERY unreliable. If you're a traveler, you've probably noticed this.
- People live differently. Someone might consider a trip for $1,250 a budget trip, where someone else might see this as a Luxury Trip.
Venture Cost solves all these problems! Strict categories makes sure that users input their expenses the same way. Trips and expenses are completely transparent, everything is backup by REAL costs from travelers who are tracking through Venture Costs solely!
With that being said, let's just jump into it! I'm very picky, I want to hear even the smallest possible details that bother you!
https://venturecost.com/
Thanks in advance ππ
Okay, here's complaint #1:
LAUNCH THAT THING!!!! π
Kidding aside, I'm not much of a traveler so it doesn't quite serve too much purpose to me, but i've been watching your progress since Makerlog launched, and I love where Venture Cost is going. It looks pretty nice and works great - you've put your all into it.
Keep shipping!
@sergio Great suggestion π Can't believe I didn't think of that π€ From your perspective, do you feel like the idea behind it is clear, or did it take you a while before you realized what Venture Cost is used for at all?
@kg756 Yep, the user can select the category of the item on their own. There's auto-completion to help out with items for when you're unsure which category would be the best pick. Here's a list of them all, do you think something is missing?
- Activities & Entertainment
- Alcohol
- Documents & Fees
- Electronics
- Errands
- Groceries
- Household Items
- Medicine & Health
- Phone & Internet Data
- Restaurant
- Salon & Spa
- Shopping
- Snacks
- Tobacco
- Transportation & Gas
Thanks!
I know this is late, but I was just perusing the discussions, and clicked on this oneβ¦
To be completely honest, when I had first taken a look at Venture Cost (probably around the same time that I started using Makerlog), I wasn't clear on what it was. I probably thought, "is this another NomadList or something?"
But after just looking at the site/landing, it's very clear, and I really really like the idea.
It's easy enough to get general data on travel expenses, but not so easy to get real, actual, on the ground, reporting-from-the-field type data. And it seems like Venture Cost potentially solves that.
(Side note: It's a little like when you go to a restaurant that has a "$$" or "$$$" on Yelp, but you don't know how much it's actually, short of looking up the menu and guesstimating. And traveling costs are obviously more complex.)
I don't travel much, but I've traveled enough to know the way that costs can add up. There are a lot of what I'll call ghost expenses. Things add up quickly. So if I were planning a trip, or even already in some far away place, it would be nice to look at what other people spent on a more granular, day to day basis, so I could get a better feel for the true cost of being in (x) place.
When you launch, you might find some volunteer users who are traveling to do a "What A Day In [insert place] Costs" to put up on a Venture Cost YouTube channel. Even if they just send you a raw video and you edit it - bit of music, maybe some text overlay with prices (while the video shows them getting food) - good for marketing! π
Thanks for the feedback, Alex! And yes, you're 100% right about Venture Cost previously not being very clear as to what the main purpose was. It's still very hard to make users instantly realize what the app is.
Maybe highlights in video/blog format would do wonders, that way I can promote single trips with a more detailed description to how the travelers lived and enjoyed it π€ A video format as you explained it would obviously be crazy! π
Thanks again!
No problem! Travel is a great niche to be in, and people love to watch travel videos. If you had highlight videos and could use them to get people to your site - especially if one day you make it easy for people to not only track travel on your site, but book it (or see where other people flew into/stayed/ate/etc.), too - that could be really powerful.
π
Please sign in to leave a comment.