I had the privilege of seeing HoodHot Travel when it was only a conception, an ultra-beta version, if you will. Wil Cheung, Berkeley Innovation alumni and Past Director, came back to visit one day to present his idea for an ultra Beijing pocket guide ready in time for the Beijing Olympics. So, how did it all start? I decided to interview Wil online (who’s currently in Tokyo filming for HoodHot, as we speak).
The idea for HoodHot Travel began when I was taking a graduate trip in Tokyo, and living with my best friend here for a month. We realized that it is impossible for non-Japanese (even Japanese people have trouble!) speakers to navigate Japan for a multitude of reasons (language, addresses are numbered by date the building was erected, not position!) and started brainstorming possible solutions the problem. We decided that Beijing would be the best city to start with, because the Olympics were to be staged there a few months from when we started, and secondly because I speak Mandarin and it would be more accessible for me.
Though we started the idea as a video guide, each city presents unique challenges to visitors, and we wanted to make sure that each app would give travelers exactly the information they need at exactly the right place and time. Though we were filming, our biggest problem, even as a Mandarin speaker, was telling the cabs where to take us (address, Chinese name). Having experienced this pain firsthand, we set out making the best solution to this problem and came out with our taxi guide series.
Fast forward a few months, and we have three apps in China, one in New York, and we’re currently shooting for our most ambitious app ever in Tokyo. We were lucky that all the pieces fell into place at the right time, from a talented director and film crew, to an excellent developer, and John’s ability to take a month off from his studies to consult to the biggest pains a foreigner experiences living in and visiting Japan. We just sold our thousandth app, and we’re looking forward to scaling in a huge way, city and functionality wise.
How the hell does this guy tackle” the largest cities in the world and hand-pick hundreds of hotspots?!
For picking venues, we are lucky enough to know and have met some very influential people. While the China guides are more comprehensive and a bit like directories, we were lucky to have met some of Beijing’s top DJs, restauranteurs, and local students to take their suggestions and ensure that the guides were capturing the local flavor of a place in our HoodHot Favorites.
What shall we look forward to in the upcoming Tokyo guide? I mean, I’m not exactly looking for more California rolls.
My friend’s experience living and working as a foreigner in Tokyo for a year and a half helped form the current app—it is very instructional, and we take you to see an inside look at the mindset of a Tokyoite, from fashion advice and styles, to tips on eating and surviving—we’re even talking about the Japanese idea of love (appropriately, we are on a shoot for a host club, where ladies pay to spend some time involved in meaningful conversation with young stylish guys). We are lucky that locals along the way have guided us to the most local experiences and we will continue to provide visitors with the ability to live as a local and follow in their footsteps.
What cities are next?
New York and San Francisco are high on the list, as well as a number of other Asian cities (Hong Kong, Taipei, Seoul) but all in their own way. We’re waiting to see how Tokyo pans out to tell us what direction to take with the apps.
How popular are the Hoodhot apps? If all the cool people use it…I don’t want to feel like the only loser-tourist lost in a foreign country.
The applications in China have been fairly popular, though iPhones are not yet legal, and thus the market is small. We have sold a decent amount, and those who have bought the app find it invaluable—many say that we’re selling too cheap (after buying of course, we’re learning marketing, pricing, everything along the way)! One guy emailed saying that he had lived in Beijing for a year before daring to navigate on his own and seeing Beijing empowered by the taxi guide! Stories like these make it worth continuing to work harder than we ever have before—we just want to help people find the hottest venues in neighborhoods around the world.
Last thoughts on mobile applications?
I think location services are overrated as they exist today. Continuing to leverage mobile devices as personal devices (private platforms that know when and where you need things, your personal history) and increasing one’s comfort level with divulging info and storing onto a device will increasingly be important in making mobile devices more popular and more useful. The ability to monetize with the app store is a huge step forward and incentivizes developers to have hope and work hard. I think were at the infancy of this industry.
Yeah, I agree. My life is on the phone line—and it’s an exciting, new experience.