Technology is amazing. One day you’re blind and the next day you can have better than perfect vision (after shelling out thousands of dollars for someone to cut holes and burn your eyeballs with lasers, of course).

I never thought I would undergo eye surgery while wide-awake; the concept always freaked me out. Last week, however, I found myself in a hospital gown and cap with a Korean nurse wiping my face with brown disinfectant, asking me what type of music I wanted to hear in the operation room. It was actually happening- I was getting LASIK!

It all started with a free consultation at the Dream Eye Clinic in Myeong Dong (Seoul) that consisted of 1.5 hours of eye testing to make sure I was a good candidate for the surgery. Five days later I returned with Jason in tow. I knew what would happen to my eyes during the surgery, and to be honest I was pretty damn nervous. I get really queasy when it comes to medical poking and prodding of my body. The last time I donated blood I literally just laid on the table and cried while the red stuff was pumped out of my veins. Imagine my nerves when they used a can opener to open my eyeball (I actually have no idea what the tool looked like). Good thing they gave me a stuffed animal to hold on to during the surgery.

The entire surgery took approximately 10 minutes, and yes, I was wide awake the whole time. They do anesthetize your eyes so you feel absolutely no pain, and they put some sort of liquid in your eyes that doesn’t make them dry out. I could, though, distinctly feel the pressure they put on my eyeballs during each step. And, of course, I could see everything! Shout out to Jason who stood next to me and watched the entire process through a close-up video screen without making gasping sounds. I could not promise the same discretion if I were in his place, that’s for sure.

After 10 minutes of holding back the shakes, I was finished! My doctor was pretty awesome; he spoke to me very calmly during the procedure and reassured me after each eye was finished that it was successful and that I did a great job. The trip back home with Jason was a tad miserable, though. I could barely open my eyes, the dull pain was coming in strong, and everything was blurry. When we got home I slept for about 3 or 4 hours and felt completely fine when I woke up. The next day I went back in to the office for a post-surgery check up and had 20/13 vision ALREADY! What?! How?! Magic!

Granted, I do have to put eye drops in every 2 hours and I can’t wear eye make-up for 2 weeks. The upside: I get some super sweet eye shields to wear when I sleep. They’re kind of awesome. Jason has to shoo the crowds of men off that gather around me when I wear them, so who wants dibs when I’m done with them?

Random Thought of the Day: I heard (2 days after the surgery) that some women experience vision changes after having a baby, thus making pre-pregnancy LASIK basically worthless. Can anyone confirm or deny this vicious rumor? If it’s true, then I may have made an expensive mistake. Oooopsies! (NOT PREGNANT, just thinking about the future…)

Possibly Related posts:

1. Plastic-Surgery-Happy in Korea
2. Interview with Joe Dudas — From Ankle Surgery to Ultra Marathon in 1 Year
3. TWiSt Seoul 2 – Live Tomorrow!

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Sharon’s 1-year teaching contract is up February 15^th. We always knew she wasn’t going to sign on for another year. We had considered staying another year with her at a different teaching job. I also applied for incubator programs with Unanchor in San Francisco, Chile and New York — all of which have not worked out. Ultimately it’s time for us to return home.

Our plan when we return is to look for jobs. Having found a passion for startups and entrepreneurship, I’d like to continue working with startups or join one.

Sharon is considering going back to school and getting her teaching credential as well as applying for the “Teach for America” program.

What does this mean for Unanchor?

Unanchor has not taken off like we had hoped. However, there are a lot of positive signs, so we’re not going to give up. Like many entrepreneurs, Unanchor will become my “nights and weekend” project. We’re going to continue improving it and hopefully one day it can become my full-time job again.

Finding a Job

I was thinking about it the other day and I realized I hadn’t looked for a job since I graduated college in 2005. A lot of things have changed since then. Any advice?

Twist Seoul 2

As an aside, I co-organized and hosted the “This Week in Startups” Seoul meetup episode last Saturday. It was another successful event. We had over 125 people in attendance and 5 amazing companies pitched live on the show. Check out who won and what Jason Calacanis had to say about the Korean startup companies –

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1. Thoughts on Being a Blogger & The Plan for Life After Cubes
2. The Attraction to a Life After Cubes
3. 40-Hour Layover: The Beginning of Life After Cubes

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Today, I have one more interview with long-time travel blogger, Johnny Ward. He’s been traveling since 2006 and shares all of his knowledge and experiences on his blog, OneStep4ward.com.

1. Can you give a brief description of both your teaching job in Thailand and in Korea?

I graduated from University and went straight to Thailand for a year of teaching English overseas. It was a great gig actually, I went with no job and organised it when I was there. I chose to work in a language school as opposed to a government school. Both have similar amount of contact hours (around 20) but with the language school I only had to be there during contact hours, if I wasn’t teaching I was free!

In Korea I worked on English camps during summer and winter, basically one month English intensive camps. They’re great too because although you teach English every morning, afternoons are filled with other activities like movies, sport etc so it’s a fun environment. Both countries were private companies, in Thailand my kids ranged from 14-25 and in Korea about 12-16.

2. How does the pay compare between the two countries?

If you’re just an ESL teacher (i.e you dont have an education degree) in Thailand you earn around $1k USD per month, in Korea you get $2k + free flight and free accommodation but life is obviously much more expensive in Korea too.

3. How much savings is possible in each country?

In Korea, you can easily save $10k in a year,even up to $15k – in Thailand, you’d be lucky to save $2k.

4. How would you compare the student’s English ability and their desire to learn English?

Both sets of kids are so much more respectful than Western kids. And to be honest, the English level isn’t great with either. At the end of the day, kids are kids so their desire can vary so much.

5. In Korea parents put a lot of pressure on their kids to learn English and do well in school. Does this also exist in Thailand?

It does, but not anywhere near to a comparable level with Korean parents. It’s crazy in Korea. In the wealthier schools in Thailand it gets pretty hectic too, but generally speaking, it’s more relaxed in Thailand.

6. What other key differences were there that I didn’t ask about?

Lifestyle! Lifestyle in Thailand is amazing, there are no two ways about it. It’s cheap to travel, food is amazing, people are open, life is great. Korea is fun but it’s not as good as Thailand BUT you get paid effectively triple!

7. If someone was choosing between Thailand and Korea, which would you recommend? And why?

If you’re chasing cash – Korea all the way. If you want a year abroad, living the dream – then Thailand, just don’t expect to get rich in Thailand!

===============================

Thanks again to Johnny for taking the time to share his experiences with us. You can check out his awesome blog at OneStep4ward.com and follow him on Twitter @onestep4ward.

If you have any questions about teaching English in South Korea or Thailand, please leave a comment below and I’ll make sure to route the question to him.

Possibly Related posts:

1. Teaching English in South Korea vs Thailand
2. To Teach English in Korea?
3. My First Few Weeks in Seoul as an English Teacher

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Back in August I partnered with Seoul Space to bring the first “This Week in Startups” Seoul meetup episode. It was a lot of fun, so we’re doing it again. This time, hopefully even bigger and better than the first.

You can watch our episode live online today (December 16th) on the “This Week in Startups” website.   It starts at 7pm Pacific, 10pm Eastern and 12pm Seoul (17th). And if you miss it live, you can watch it anytime on the “This Week in Startups” website.

The second time around has been a lot easier to setup. I knew what to expect and I was able to reuse many of the pieces from the first time. Because of the success of the first event, getting out the word was also easier. Let’s hope everything comes together again. Right now over 125 people have registered to attend — and we’re hoping for 150!

If you’d like a preview of the companies pitching, you can check out the Twist Seoul blog post.

I’ll be hosting the live event in Seoul today as well as hosting during the live broadcast. I’ll be the one wearing the Unanchor shirt .

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1. “This Week in Startups” Seoul Meetup Episode – Live Today!
2. What I Learned From Organizing & Hosting Twist Seoul
3. Sharing Some of My Recent Work

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The following is an interview with Elizabeth Noelle. She has taught English in both South Korea and Thailand. She blogs about her experiences and travels on One Day I’ll Fly Away.

After teaching English in Korea for a year, she traveled through Southeast Asia and is currently living and teaching in Thailand.

1. What did you study during your undergrad? And do you have any additional teaching credentials?

I studied undergrad at Arizona State and I majored in psychology. That is still my main interest but I worked with mostly children during school and want to work as a child therapist when I grow up, haha. I got a TEFL certification online through the TEFL Institute but that is the only teaching thing I have, besides some volunteer work in several classrooms for my degree. This was more than enough in Korea but when I went for some interveiws here in Bangkok, the really good International schools told me it wasn’t enough and I needed an education degree and to be certified to teach in my home country. I didn’t want to work at those stuffy places anyway…

2. Can you give a brief description of both your teaching job in Thailand and in Korea?

Korea: Public Elementary School teacher, in the middle of Seoul, only English teacher in the school so the kids rotated and came to me, I saw them maybe 2 times a week. All ages from 1st to 6th graders. Total I had about 550-600 students. (Jason’s note: This is very similar to the job that Sharon currently has.)

Thailand: I work at an International Kindergaden kids ages 4-5. I am the main teacher and I have one class that stays in our classroom all day for the whole year. I teach English, math, writing, reading and life skills. About 10-15 students in my class.

3. How does the pay compare between the two countries?

In Korea I got paid 2 million won per month (about $1800 usd) and my school paid for my apartment which they found. At the end of my contract I received bonuses and flight reimbursements totalling about 8 million won. The standard of living I think was comparable to the states (costs of daily living things). It was a good paying job and for the first time in my life I didn’t have to worry about money. I did whatever I wanted, when I wanted and played hard. Didn’t save a dime. In hindsight, I am wishing I was a little more frugal but boy did I have a good time (lots of travelling, nights out, shopping, eye surgery etc)

In Thailand I have a pretty good paying job of 50,000 baht per month (~ $1600 usd). Most jobs are about 30,000 baht (~$970 usd) and in Bangkok you will make the most money (but also spend the most). This is more than enough to live off of in Thailand as everything is pretty cheap as long as you eat Thai food and don’t go too crazy. The pay is much better in Korea for sure, but it all comes down to standard of living and what you’re willing to give up. It is 32 degrees here today (90 degrees Fahrenheit). Wouldn’t want to be in Korea right now in that cold for all the money in the world! (Jason’s note: It’s 6 degrees Celsius/43 degrees Fahrenheit today.)

4. How much savings is possible in each country?

I am not a good saver but if you are and don’t plan on doing a lot and really budget your money, in Korea you could save 1 million won a month (~$900 USD). I didn’t, but I know people who did and it is possible.

In Thailand I will be saving about 20,000 baht a month (~$650), living off of 30,000 (~$970)  which is living well. But I will be living just outside the city so I don’t have the temptation to spend like I did in Seoul. We will see how that goes… So far in Thailand, most things are cheap, but it adds up faster than you think.

5. How would you compare the student’s English ability and their desire to learn English?

It is hard for me to compare because I work in totally different environments and different age groups. At my international school now, my kinders speak fluent English. At my public school in Korea, I had some students who couldn’t even say hello. Thailand has had English influence and foreigners for a long time and it is new in Korea even though their education system as a whole is much more developed. My kids in Korea loved to learn and speak to me and learn about me, I totally loved my students there!

6. In Korea parents put a lot of pressure on their kids to learn English and do well in school. Does this also exist in Thailand?

Not in the way it does in Korea. The amount of school young kids and especially the older ones attend does not compare to Thailand. There are private language schools that exist here, as in Korea but they are not as strenuous, timely or costly as in Korea. The public school system (from what I can tell, I do not work in one here but I have interveiwed at some) are not as good as public education in Korea. Korea is a much more developed country than Thailand and even in Bangkok the schools are good but I think Korean schools are much more competitive and higher quality. Parents everywhere push their kids to do well in school but Korea is like nowhere I have ever been, they are obsessive about it and in my opinion push too much. I don’t think that English education is as prevelent and compulsory as it is in Korea, especially at such a young age (at my international school it is obviously).

7. What other key differences are there that I didn’t ask about?

Like I have said, Thailand as a whole is much less developed in the education and technology sense than Korea. In my classroom in Korea, I relied heavily on technology, using power point, youtube and other internet resources. I had an office where my school supplied me with a computer. In Thailand I have to use my own laptop and the internet can be so slow that I don’t use it at all in my classroom. All in all, the cultures are so totally different that the school environment is very different. The biggest difference for me, in Korea, I was the only foreigner in my school. In the whole area I lived really. In Thailand there are 6 other farang teachers at my school and people rarely stare and are interested in me.

8. If someone was choosing between Thailand and Korea, which would you recommend? And why?

Both are great places to live and amazing cultures to experience. If you are new and inexperienced in teaching, I highly recommend Korea as you learn a lot and they really guide you through everything from teaching to integration into daily life. In Thailand I had to come here before finding a job (which was pretty easy given the cheap flights to Thailand) and do everything on my own, my own teaching methods, find my own house etc. It would have been very hard to do all that if I had never been a TEFL teacher before. Also, competition for jobs is much higher in Thailand if you want to get paid well so experience and proper education and certification is a must! You will get paid much more if you have any degree and no experience in Korea than you would with the same in Thailand. But it is all relative, I live two hours from some of the most beautiful beaches in the world and the food is amazing. Korea is awesome too and you learn to love and appreciate it so much living there but Thailand is very close to heaven.

=========================================

Thanks again to Elizabeth for taking the time to do this interview. You can follow her adventures on her blog, One Day I’ll Fly Away and on Twitter @flyawayoneday. And if you have any additional questions for her, please leave a comment below and I’ll make sure to forward them to her.

Possibly Related posts:

1. Teaching English in South Korea vs Thailand Part 2
2. To Teach English in Korea?
3. Reactions From South Korea About The Recent Tension With North Korea

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• Are you looking for a local’s view of a new city?
• Want to get off the beaten path and avoid the tourist traps?
• Do you hate researching what to do and how to get around for your next vacation?

Then our Unanchor travel guide itineraries are for you. We find local experts around the world and tell them to put their best tour information together… Then we sell it for only a few bucks.

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In today’s post, I’ll discuss what we’ve been working, tell you about our new interactive itinerary format and at the end I’d like to offer you a 15% off coupon to try an Unanchor itinerary for yourself.

What’s been going on?

I launched Unanchor over a year ago now. We sell self-guided tour itineraries that give travelers the information to be their own tour guide.

The main issue we’ve been tackling the past few months are the itineraries themselves. We started with zero and struggled to find good writers at a reasonable price. Eventually we introduced a revenue advance program. This did the trick. Applications to write for the site began to pour in. A few months later, we now have over 85 itineraries on the site and cover 70 unique cities. With this much coverage, we’re ready to do our public launch!

We’ve been very public on our desire to find writers for the site, but we have not tried marketing ourselves to travelers. We’re now ready to bring travelers to the site.

The Plan

Our next step is try and go after free PR — newspapers, travel magazines, travel blogs, etc. The goal is to drive travelers and additional writers to the site, begin building our brand and start pumping up the business.

We’re also going to offer bloggers and journalists a free itinerary. If you’re either or know of someone who may be interested in this, please check out our free review itinerary page.

New Interactive Format!

In addition to our public launch, we’re also excited to announce our new interactive itinerary format. It’s a cleaner and easier way to navigate our itineraries.

Along with this new format, the first day of multi-day itineraries is now free! Check out some examples:

• Buenos Aires
• New York City
• Paris
• San Francisco
• Sydney, Australia
• Toronto

Try out an Unanchor itinerary and save 15%

In honor of our public launch, I’d like to offer you a 15% off coupon for your next itinerary. Just follow this link — http://www.unanchor.com/lac. It expires at the end of the year.

And don’t forget, tell your friends!

Possibly Related posts:

1. UnAnchor.Com Launch – Your Assistance Is Requested
2. Announcing UnAnchor 2.0
3. Unanchor.com Announcement & Update

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When telling my friend Chris about the post I was going to write, he told me: “Before I moved to Korea, one of my friends gave me one piece of advice, do not go skiing in Korea. And I was moving in the middle of the summer.”

While talking to others, I also heard that Koreans “ski like they drive” – also not a good sign. But it turns out many of the people I spoke with had plenty of good things to say about skiing in Korea. Here’s what they had to say –

1. What’s your favorite place to ski/snowboard in South Korea?

• Pyeongchang. Home to the 2018 Winter Olympics. – Chris
• High 1 Resort – Hanna
• I would say Phoenix Park because of the distance, size of the resort, cost, and the friends that are in our snowboard club there. They also have some good restaurants and night life for nights we want to get out of the cabin. – Ryan
• I have been to a few, I find YongPyong to be the place that I have enjoyed the most. They have a gondola and a few runs on the side of the mountain that tend not to be as crowded. Most of the resorts are relatively similar. – Kyle
• The general rule of ski resorts in Korea is the further away from Seoul the better the snow/resort is. I haven’t been to them all but, in my opinion, Phoenix Park is the best. It’s a little over two hours away and it’s very foreigner friendly. – Drew
  

2. How would you compare the snow between here and other places you’ve ridden?

• There was a freakishly huge dump just before we arrived in Pyeongchang. It was a great day. The snow was pretty similar in quantity/quality to an average skiing day in Australia. There were surprisingly few people on the slopes. I heard that there is usually a heap of people but the massive snow storm had scared a lot of people off. – Chris
• The snow is comparable to Tahoe – Hanna
• The snow here is almost entirely man made. Once it hits the middle of winter, you will get some fresh snow, but there is no powder like in the states. The snow is more compact and harder on impact. It’s not too bad though, depending on the time you go. – Ryan
• The snow here is mostly manmade. They blow snow here at all resorts as soon as it is cold enough. If there is a storm that comes in, the snow is half-decent, but normally, there is not much powder and it is typically packed/raked manmade snow . – Kyle
• To be completely honest the snow quality in Korea is pretty bad. It’s usually fake snow and depending on the weather it can get icy. I have skied in most of the mountains in Colorado and there is no real comparison. – Drew
  

3. Are there differences in etiquette between here and other places?

• I didn’t really see a lot of interaction between people. Queuing for chair lifts was no different. – Chris
• Etiquette towards other skiers, no different. It’s just much more packed at the nice resorts because they have really long slopes at all levels. The resorts that are close to Seoul don’t have very long beginner/intermediate slopes. – Hanna
• As far as etiquette goes, most Koreans hold hands and don’t seem to care about how their snowboarding and skiing affects everyone else. They will cut right in front of you and stop, or block you. A lot of them don’t quite know their skill range and go down the higher skill level courses, and can’t handle it and will either nail, cut you off and make you fall, or just run into you. They will apologize but don’t seem the grasp the etiquette concept. – Ryan
• There are huge differences in etiquette when snowboarding/skiing in Korea. First off, the slopes in Korea are more crowded than what most are used to in Europe/North America. With that said, you will feel as if you are skiing/snowboarding down a slope with landmines as bodies are strewn about all over the runs. People typically do not move to the side when they want to adjust their equipment or take a breather. Also, there is a higher number of beginners on the slopes who are learning and clogging up the runs. Most of the intermediate/advanced slopes feed into the beginner slopes, so you will find yourself dodging colorfully dressed bodies. You will also see an array of animal outfits. This is not uncommon in Korea. Groups of people dressed in cow outfits, dragons, bananas or some other off-color design arrangement will be gliding down the slopes, causing you to think twice if you are on a snowy mountain or in the agricultural plains of Middle America. One last note, snowboarders in Korea always carry their snowboards onto lifts. Instead of keeping it on one foot they dangerously hug the board to their body. – Kyle
• No, the basic common courtesy that is shown is universal. – Drew
  

4. Anything else unique about skiing in Korea?

• In typical Korean style, we all slept in the same room on a concrete floor. It was also very cheap. A 1 day lift pass was 30,000 Won. Board/boots/clothes were about 30,000 won. It was very convenient. We parked about 50 metres from the slopes. The shop where we rented our gear from dropped our gear off and picked it up when we were done. You can ski all night if you want to, though it did drop to -20C degrees when I was there. There were loud speakers blasting music over the slopes – Chris
• The workers here are more attentive to accidents. They come to your care really quickly. – Hanna
• Something unique about Korea; people really seem to love it, or make it appear that they love it. They all wear the brand new season’s clothes, buy this season’s equipment, and spend almost every weekend at the resort. That is one reason I got big into it during my first year- because it was a lot of fun and really challenged me to keep getting better. They also have some sweet obstacle courses with jumps, boxes, and rails that you can have a blast at all day if you want. The fact that you can put your head phones in, cruise down the mountain all day, shoot off jumps with friends, and then all meet up back at our cabin for Korean food, drinks, and good times makes it a blast. – Ryan
• One thing that always sticks out to me is the clothing. Koreans wear the loudest and brightest clothing I have ever seen. – Drew
  

Conclusion

Like almost everything else in Korea, it sounds like Korea has its own spin on skiing & snowboarding. I’m excited to see it for my own eyes sometime in the next couple of months.

Thanks to Chris, Hanna, Ryan, Kyle & Drew for helping me out.

Possibly Related posts:

1. Reactions From South Korea About The Recent Tension With North Korea
2. Teaching English in South Korea vs Thailand Part 2
3. Dog Soup and Korea

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Similarities:

1. Each grade is separated into 24-30 student classes. My school, from what I’ve heard, is pretty small in size, so I have four 3^rd grade classes, five 4^th grade classes, six 5^th grade classes and five 6^th grade classes (with a total of 20 classes). As the “extracurricular” Native English Teacher class, I only see each class once a week, which is an amazing gift from the universe for some devil spawn classes.
2. Each class has one main homeroom teacher that teaches the main subjects such as Math, Science, Korean, Art, etc. The students spend most of their day in their main classroom, just like in the U.S.
3. Each class has a class president, and each grade has its own president. During elections, they make signs and seem to have their own campaign entourage. The difference is that the campaigning here consists of students SCREAMING their name down the hallways and playground. If I recall correctly, all we used to do was make signs.
4. Students have their own desks in their classrooms. This is a ridiculous comparison, but I didn’t want the differences to completely demolish the similarities. Although it still does…
   

Differences:

1. The school day is separated into six 40-minute periods with 10 minute breaks in between. When I was in elementary school, each class did their own thing in between lunch and recesses. Here, the entire school operates on the exact same period schedule, just like how middle and high schools work back in the States. Because of this, the students don’t really have any set “recess” times; during their 10 minute breaks in between classes they’re usually found running around the hallways and screaming. A ten minute break isn’t exactly conducive to a good recess sesh.
2. The students leave their homeroom classrooms every day for specific subject classes: Music, English, PE, Science and possibly a “Morals/Ethics” class. When I was in elementary school the only times we left our homeroom class was to go to Music and Computer class, and even then I believe Music class was optional for orchestra or band kids. Here, they leave their classrooms much more frequently.
3. There is no cafeteria at my school. Instead, there is a serious mob of lunch-lady women who wheel in huge carts of lunch food and trays to each class. The students then wheel the carts into their classrooms and students are assigned “lunch duty” and serve their classmates lunch in their classroom. (The subject teachers in my office all eat lunch together in our office as well. We eat the same lunch as the students, but the difference is that our Korean public school lunch is AWESOME and I look forward to it every day, whereas nobody back at home ever says “this American public school lunch is SOO good, I can’t wait to eat it!”)
4. Because South Korea is such a small country, and because Seoul has so many freaking people (almost half of the country’s population), no public schools have a real playground or field. What we have is a sad tiny dirt soccer field and some playground equipment on the side. Back at home we had huge green grass fields with different sections having separate playgrounds, basketball courts, hop scotch, four square, etc. I guess that’s the price you pay for being a city kid.
5. To many of the teacher’s dismay, every week the homeroom teacher has to teach one period of “gym class”. I, personally, would be stoked to have a period outside of the stuffy classroom.
6. I grew up in a suburb, so the elementary schools that I experienced were always one-story campuses that sprawled out across a giant piece of land. In Korea, because there isn’t any open space anymore, most of the schools here, that I’ve seen, consist of one 5-story building.

To conclude my extremely interesting topic, all I have to say is that my public school has a very different feel than my own experiences with my old elementary schools. Because Seoul is packed to the brim with peeps and because this whole country is approximately the size of the state of Indiana, the schools here feel more cramped… and loud.

Random Thought of the Day: The Korean teachers I work with that have been to schools in Canada and America are convinced that Korean students are much louder than Western students. Korean kids are constantly yelling around the hallways and in the classrooms, whereas students in Western schools are much more contained. Being a Korean American, my siblings and cousins used to always joke about how Koreans are loud, which now seems to be more than just a joke since I see it every day at work. If any of you have worked at a Korean school or even an international school in general- do you think this is true?

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1. The Difficult Life of a Korean Student
2. I’m a Real Life Teacher!
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It has been a roller coaster of emotions the last few weeks. Now more than ever the realities of trying to start my own business have been hitting me, and to be perfectly honest, it’s been difficult. In this post I’ll share the roller coaster that I’ve been on the past month.

Quick Background

I started Unanchor.com over a year ago. We’re a marketplace of self-guided tour itineraries that are written by local experts. We give travelers the information to be their own tour guide.

The Highs of Being an Entrepreneur

I’ll start this off with 2 pieces of exciting news.

1 — Unanchor just had its best month yet! We’ve been hovering around 2 sales per weeks for the last few months. In October we jumped to over 5 sales per week – almost 1 per day. It was very exciting.

2 — My co-founder Mohammad has been heads down the past 3 months on a brand new back-end system. We’re finally getting ready to move away from our Microsoft Word/PDF system and soon, itinerary writers will create their itineraries on our website. This is exciting because once this in place we’ll be able to do a lot of interesting things. For example – give the first day away for free, create a mobile app, take segments from one itinerary and mash them with other itineraries. Currently, none of this is possible, so this is the beginning of a really big step forward for us technology-wise.

The Lows of Being an Entrepreneur

The primary reason I was in the states was for 3 weddings. While there, I took advantage and met with as many people as possible. I was able to meet and talk with entrepreneurs, angel investors, and VC’s; many of whom were involved with the travel industry and could share their first-hand experiences.

In fact, I was able to talk with travel entrepreneurs who had previously tried many of the things that Mohammad and I have discussed for growing and scaling our business. Overall, the conversations were generally negative. Many of the conversations subtly and not so subtlety hinted to the fact that our ideas would be extremely difficult to implement and that we might be better off trying something else.

Here were my main takeaways from the meetings:

• Competition is fierce in the travel-planning industry.
• There’s a lot of free content out there.
• We need to sell a LOT of $5 itineraries to be a profitable company.

Finally, on Monday we found out that we did not get in to Y-Combinator. For those unfamiliar – Y-Combinator is an extremely competitive program that invests money into web startups and helps them accelerate their growth by providing guidance, mentorship and introductions. To be honest though, I’m not too disappointed about not getting in. I knew the chances were extremely slim as the program is harder to get into than Harvard. I had to hope for the best and getting bad news is never enjoyable, but it’s not something we’ll get stuck on.

What’s Next?

So, to say the least it was an interesting October. In the end, we’re certainly not giving up yet. I know there’s a lot of value in the self-guided tour itineraries that we’re enabling people to create and sell.

In the same respect though, we can’t go after this problem forever.

In light of the things I learned, Mohammad and I are going to discuss our business and product priorities again. We’re going to try to figure out what things we can test sooner rather than later. All, I’m sure, to be discussed in future posts.

Possibly Related posts:

1. Announcing Our Public Launch of Unanchor

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While I’m in California I’m trying to network as much as possible – see old friends, meet new friends and frankly just talk with as many smart people as I can about what they’re working and what I’m working on.

My first week here just wrapped up. I spent it in San Francisco, enjoying some absolutely amazing weather. It was a successful week; I was able to catch-up with friends, meet a few travel entrepreneurs whom I had never met in person and meet with some potential investors as well. In this post I wanted to discuss settings up the meetings and the actual meetings themselves, and share some of my learnings from going through this process.

Setting Up the Meetings

Most of the meetings I tried to set up were pretty warm, meaning that I had either been introduced to the person or they had been a past interview guest for my Unanchor blog. I learned a few things from this process and wanted to share them:

• I sent my initial meeting requests one to two weeks ahead of time – allowing me time to send a follow-up email if I didn’t hear back.
• The follow-up email is more important than the first email. I didn’t look at the exact numbers, but roughly 60% of the people whom I reached out to answered my first email. But my second email was almost 100%. In fact, of the 14 people I tried to setup meetings with, there’s been only one whom I haven’t heard from (he was a pretty big stretch to be honest).
• Keep the emails brief.
• I’ve read to recommend a specific day and time. I chose to recommend a block of time instead and let them choose the hour. For example: “Coffee on Tuesday morning?”.
• Finding out people’s email addresses is easier than ever. Download Rapportive and then start guessing. When you’ve guessed correctly, Rapportive will show their profile. Read more about this.

An Example Email

Subject: Coffee Meeting the 11^th?

Hi [Name]

How’s it going? [1 personalized sentence or question.]

I’m going to be in San Francisco next week and was wondering if you have a few minutes to grab a cup of coffee and catch-up? Are you available next Tuesday afternoon, the 11th?

Thanks,
Jason

Advice Overload!

I’ve been watching the TechStars Bloomberg reality TV show. On the show they discuss “mentor whiplash”. It’s what you receive when meeting with mentors, asking for advice and then receiving conflicting and different recommendations. These past 5 days felt pretty close to that. Luckily, most of the advice didn’t necessarily conflict, but there were many different ideas and directions recommended to take the business.

Conclusion

To be honest, I loved this past week. While it was a lot to take in, I learned a heck of a lot! It’s a week like this that made me realize why the Silicon Valley is the Silicon Valley. I was able to easily meet with numerous entrepreneurs and investors all doing different and interesting things. It makes me look forward, even more so, to moving back to San Francisco.

Time to turn off the brain and catch up on some TV!

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