[mittermayr]

i find it easier to challenge those with negative opinions and prefer when they take time to follow up. this is by far the most helpful stuff here. i take it from your comment history you're a critical person, which i'd definitely value if you added a tiny bit of what you actually thought about the idea. still curious.

[thaumaturgy]

Respectfully, I think this is a good example of why some of the best people on HN are getting more reluctant to participate in Ask threads.

Don't do this: Ask -> "Challenge those with negative opinions"

Do this: Ask -> Consider opinions -> ask more smart questions.

simonw and yoseph are exactly right. They are asking you, "How do you know that this is something people want?" Just because it would be valuable to you doesn't mean it's going to be valuable to enough other people to make enough money for you to live on.

You could find out if you have a market or not by throwing together something really small and simple and using that for a while, or you can find out by building a fancy website and doing everything else you're talking about to make your first presentation pretty, and then a year from now find yourself in the same position you're in now except with less money.

How many people need this?

How much are they willing to pay?

How are you going to make money?

How are you going to reach your market? (Can you partner up somehow with AirBnB or other popular travelers' sites?)

[mittermayr]

just one point: was never planning to build a 'fancy' website first. i just wanted something a bit more polished than a google docs.

everything else, yeah, i see your point and sort of feel bad. i get what you're saying and it makes sense. i do have an attitude that was trained to challenge negative statements because there's just so much 'this sucks!' on the internet and i always want to understand the motivation behind it.

on the statement of testing viability, 100% agree. asking around here whether you guys know if this will succeed or not is the wrong approach. i should have showed up with the google docs here and asked people to use it please and tell me what i missed. agree.

[thaumaturgy]

I get why you're reluctant to start with Google Docs. I would be too. Can I propose an in-between solution?

How about a really simple form that just adds people to a mailing list? "I am in [town]. I would like to receive an email when a visitor is in my area. [subscribe]" ... coupled with, "I am visiting [town]. I'd like to meet people. [send]"

If it stays small, you can manage this manually with little effort, and you'll know that it's probably not a service that lots of people are looking for. If it gets big, you won't be able to manage it manually anymore, but now you'll know whether or not people are interested.

[mittermayr]

that!!! i've seen this before a couple of times on HN and i always signed up. damn. why didn't i think of this right away. f* launchrock :) this is it. i'm serious.