Kicktable

It's over.

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 13:14:00 +0100

“A beautiful idea doesn’t always make a big business… Our journey is coming to an end.”

Hi everyone,

Today, after more than:

120 events in Brussels and London (including coffee tasting sessions, art gallery tours and an underground concert in a hotel lobby)
600+ participants
2000+ users
15,000€+ generated for passionate hosts

We officially announce that we have decided to stop working on Kicktable full-time. It has been an amazing journey.

In March 2011, we decided to launch a business to make urban life more exciting. After testing the idea with as little capital as possible, in December 2011, we successfully launched the first version of the website in Brussels. The feedback from early adopters was overwhelming and we moved to London quicker than we had anticipated. If we could prove the concept in a city like London then the sky would really become the limit.

We left our flats, wife, girlfriend, friends… and jumped into the Eurostar. In London, people loved the idea of exploring a city in a more authentic way and many talented people supported our launch in February 2012.

After talking to investors and incubators, we eventually decided to join the Springboard accelerator. We loved their team and felt that they would offer the best environment for us to grow our business in.

From April to July, based in the amazing Google Campus, we worked harder than we ever had before. We met hundreds of amazing people, flew to New York and San Francisco to visit competitors and to get more insights into our market, we tested different ideas and iterated on our business model while remaining faithful to our vision.

This vision was to enable people to explore cities differently. We wanted to build a new market of experiences run by passionate individuals. We thought (and still think) that urban life has more to offer than daily deals website. If we could offer something more authentic, interesting and qualitative than Groupon, we would certainly be able to build a big business. This vision was coupled with a beautiful idea: help people to make money by sharing their skills or passion. This idea not only convinced ourselves but also attracted the interest of the press, top-tier investors, incubators, mentors, etc.

After all our hard work, we came to the conclusion that we don’t think this business can be scaled to the size that it needs. While we still hope that people will explore cities in a more authentic way, we don’t believe it will happen via a profitable peer-to-peer marketplace (at least not now).

Kicktable was built and marketed as a community marketplace for authentic experiences; it was also dubbed as “an Airbnb or Etsy for activities”. Similarly to those highly successful p-2-p marketplaces, for the economics of the business to work, it needs to be scalable. In our case, it means having hundreds of events hosted by our community in dozens of cities. The market for activities is local and fragmented; it would certainly benefit from a global community marketplace. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that Kicktable can scale in the same way Airbnb or Etsy have scaled.

As someone wisely told us in the beginning: “Be passionate about your idea, but never fall in love with it, otherwise you won’t be able to kill it when needed” . We have been passionate about building our marketplace for unique urban activities. This year has been one of the most intense and incredible of our lives but now we feel it’s time to move on.

We want to thank all the people who have supported us: users, hosts, mentors, advisors, friends, Facebook fans, Twitter followers, etc. A special thanks to our girlfriends for coping with our “unbalanced” lifestyle, to the Belgian flat who allowed us to transform their living room into our dorm room for 3 months, to John, Jess and all the Springboard team for their incredible help.

We love what we have done and are extremely excited to tackle new challenges.

See you soon,

"Things to worry about: Worry about courage Worry about Cleanliness Worry about efficiency Worry..."

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 10:16:01 +0100

“

Things to worry about:

Worry about courage
Worry about Cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanship
Worry about…

Things not to worry about:

Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about triumph
Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault

”

- In a 1933 letter to his 11-year-old daughter Scottie, F. Scott Fitzgerald produced this poignant and wise list of things to worry, not worry, and think about – the best father’s advice since John Steinbeck’s letter to his son on falling in love and this beautiful letter to 16-year-old Jackson Pollock by his dad.

From F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Life in Letters.

(via explore-blog)

thisbigcity: urbnist: Love is life is public...

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 13:58:54 +0100

thisbigcity:

urbnist:

Love is life is public transit

大眾運輸、生活、愛。

How to deal with mentors overload on an accelerator program:...

Wed, 06 Jun 2012 12:05:00 +0100

How to deal with mentors overload on an accelerator program: Keep it Simple, Stupid! / @thenextweb

architizer: An old firetruck converted into a mobile rustic...

Tue, 05 Jun 2012 14:02:40 +0100

architizer:

An old firetruck converted into a mobile rustic cabin.

#83 Track everything you do. EVERYTHING. /Cc @springboardnews...

Thu, 24 May 2012 21:38:44 +0100

#83 Track everything you do. EVERYTHING. /Cc @springboardnews (Taken with instagram)

NYC temporary working space. (Taken with instagram)

Wed, 23 May 2012 16:30:23 +0100

NYC temporary working space. (Taken with instagram)

United States of America, here we come! /Cc @springboardnews...

Sun, 20 May 2012 12:09:36 +0100

United States of America, here we come! /Cc @springboardnews (Taken with instagram)

#84 Leverage existing communities to accelerate growth. /Cc...

Fri, 18 May 2012 00:12:53 +0100

#84 Leverage existing communities to accelerate growth. /Cc @springboardnews (Taken with instagram)

WOW! This is the most AMAZING country in the world! Cooking...

Thu, 17 May 2012 08:30:47 +0100

WOW! This is the most AMAZING country in the world! Cooking class with the president, Sushi course with the prime minister, etc… #collcons revolution under its way in #Iceland!

#85 Build what you want to be. /Cc @springboardnews (Taken with...

Wed, 16 May 2012 23:50:33 +0100

#85 Build what you want to be. /Cc @springboardnews (Taken with instagram)

#86 The best is yet to come. Keep exploring. /Cc...

Wed, 16 May 2012 00:16:29 +0100

#86 The best is yet to come. Keep exploring. /Cc @springboardnews (Taken with instagram)

#87 Another week. Another chance to change your world. /Cc...

Mon, 14 May 2012 07:36:16 +0100

#87 Another week. Another chance to change your world. /Cc @springboardnews (Taken with instagram)

#88 Never scale rubbish. /Cc @springboardnews (Taken with...

Fri, 11 May 2012 18:52:43 +0100

#88 Never scale rubbish. /Cc @springboardnews (Taken with instagram)

#89 Sell your big vision to investors. Not just numbers. /Cc...

Fri, 11 May 2012 01:29:46 +0100

#89 Sell your big vision to investors. Not just numbers. /Cc @springboardnews (Taken with instagram)

#90 Sometime you have to take a break and stop thinking. /Cc...

Wed, 09 May 2012 22:08:25 +0100

#90 Sometime you have to take a break and stop thinking. /Cc @springboardnews (Taken with instagram)

Name: Jacqueline X Passion: Photography

Tue, 08 May 2012 13:13:00 +0100

We believe that a city is primarily about its people and their talents.

This week, meet Jacqueline, an amazing photographer.

1. In one sentence: who are you?

A free-spirited level-headed person who values perspective and cherishes experience.

2. What is your passion?

Photography and exploring new perspectives.

3. Current project you are passionate/excited about?

A personal photography project on women and words. Also, taking classes at circus school – this is part of my personal endeavor to go out and do things I only ever dreamed of.

4. How do you get inspired? How do you discover cool things online and offline?

Online: By reading and looking at pictures from sites on my RSS feed. My favourites are by down-to-earth people who stand up for what they believe in, such as Jonathan Canlas who champions the Film Is Not Dead movement or Zi Xi who finds beauty in the vernacular and uses her collection of MessyMsxi illustrations to share that beauty with others.

Offline: By reading magazines like Monocle and other books on my Kindle. By people-watching in bars, cafés, markets and restaurants and having conversations with encouraging friends like Cassey Gan.

5. Think of the best experience you would like to do with friends or like-minded people?

Teleporting to the fascinating places that pop up in our conversations.

6. Who is the most inspiring passionate person you can think of?

My grandmother. She’s passionate about living. She’s 80 this year and she just went on a road trip with 10 friends.

7. Best moment/experiences you had in life?

To me, the best experiences in life are those that touch your heart. Like when you know you are being loved. So I am constantly having ‘best experiences’.

If I had to single out the best moment in terms of an encounter that was novel to my senses, it would be a tie between the first time I flew on a trapeze and the first time I dived into a pool and listened to the underwater music that had been piped through it.

8. Most inspiring blog?

Switching between these three and appreciating how a photograph can trigger to imagination the life story of a person at any age: http://advancedstyle.blogspot.com + http://www.thesartorialist.com + http://childrenwithswag.tumblr.com

Additional info:

Twitter account: @jacquelinechang

Personal website/blog: http://jacquelinelikestotakephotos.com/

Professional website/blog: http://www.5degreeshift.com/

Want to make it a success? We have some good and bad news.

Fri, 04 May 2012 19:07:00 +0100

A weekly blog post about an insider glance of a 3-months journey into a startup accelerator. Post #3.

——————————————————————————————————-

Bad news, it’s not:

Fundings,
Advisors,
nor an A+ Team.

It would have been too easy. Sorry chaps.

Good news, everyone can have it:

Active users.

Yes it’s that simple. Users who come back and use your product. No more, no less.

Being featured on TechCrunch won’t help for that but listening will.

Listening for real is not easy because it means cutting the crap out and understanding what people are saying.

That’s what we are doing at the we are the moment. We shut up and listen to as many people as possible.

We have classified our “audience” in 4 blocks:

MENTORS: Get the most of them, even if they are not all experts in your target market, every mentor is an opportunity:whether it is a valuable advice or an intro to someone else.
EXPERTS: Get in touch with people who are active in your industry. For us, it means: Time Out, Airbnb, events organisers, passionate people, etc… From SF, to NYC passing by Paris, we are contacting many different experts.
USERS: Understand what they are telling. They know why they come on your website, what they are looking for, what they want to pay for. In other words: they are the only ones who really know. It’s priceless. So we have decided to send a survey to all our user base. KissInsight and SurveyMonkey are our best friends on this one.
US: if we are not passionate about what we are building we won’t be the best. It will be the ultimate check point of this process.

We are about to finish this 1 month process of collecting all this data and believe it or not, everyone can do this.

Don’t need fundings, mentors nor an A+ team.

So, let’s put our listening skills on fire and build what users are telling you.

Looking forward to sharing our analysis process with you next week.

Let’s keep the ball listening,

Stay tuned, it’s only the beginning,

Passionate love,

Kicktable team.

#92 Keep it simple. /Cc @springboardnews (Taken with instagram)

Fri, 04 May 2012 19:04:55 +0100

#92 Keep it simple. /Cc @springboardnews (Taken with instagram)

Want to join a startup accelerator? Discover the truth and...

Fri, 04 May 2012 15:58:00 +0100

Want to join a startup accelerator? Discover the truth and behind the scene: Episode 2: No Sex. /Cc @springboardnews @thenextweb #kicktable