Spotted by Locals 2.0 — Truly local tips in 70+ cities

@bartvanpoll love the way you guys have always had a strong focus on your community of spotters. Could you share a bit more on how you've built that out and what are some of the critical drivers of the spotter community? e.g. would love to learn what tools / platforms you use, how you collect feedback, etc Thanks and looking forward to see a lot more iterations from you guys! :D

Great to see @spottedbylocals on Product Hunt - congrats on the update @bartvanpoll & @sannevanpol! I've been a long time user, and a big fan of Spotted by Locals, especially since meeting the Founders in Amsterdam. You would be hard pressed to find a more dedicated-to-their-mission founding team than Sanne & Bart. They truly live their their product - more than anyone I know. The fact that they've been going for a decade (an eternity in startups!), have stayed authentic and true to their core values, and have bootstrapped all the way, is even more impressive! Keep it up guys! 🙌

Have been a user for years, good to see that the team is still going at it improving the experience!

Pros:

Great insider guides

Cons:

Would like to see some more higher-tier locations too

Thanks so much @gillianim! ✨ PH very special offer on 20 June: test any (1) city guide for free! Log in (main menu) with user "producthunt" and password "localsdoitbetter". 📖 OUR STORY I'm pretty sure I'm the luckiest guy in the world. In 2008 @sannevanpoll (my wife & co-founder) and I invested our life savings to travel around Europe to find people who wanted to join the Spotted by Locals adventure. Since then we have traveled 6 months a year to meet the nicest people in the world - our local writer ("Spotters") - in person in their city. We're still bootstrapping, often struggling financially, but we can keep expanding to new cities. That's all that matters now. Our vision is long-term - very long-term... (for more about our personal story: https://medium.com/p/95fce2483b78) 🌍 OUR VISION We believe many of the problems the world currently faces are rooted in cultural misunderstandings. We are not Mother Theresa, but we are driven by helping to make the world a better place by expanding the worldview of as many travelers as possible by allowing them to see ever more cities from a local’s perspective. We help cities cope with "overtourism", by spreading tourists (and locals!) around areas and spots fewer tourists visit. We help awesome, but less known European capitals (like Skopje, Podgorica, Prishtina & Yerevan) attract more visitors and much-needed tourist dollars. We recommend locally owned & operated spots and help them survive, which is increasingly hard in this rapidly "starbucksifying" world. 👉 CONTENT, CONTENT, CONTENT Travel guidebooks were behind the times (even in 2008!) and they drove us crazy. On city breaks, the outdated paperbacks brought us to touristy highlights, last year’s nightlife venues and defunct spots that no longer existed. Not much has changed, surprisingly, even after (or maybe because of) the huge rise of user-generated travel content websites & apps. Many travelers still find it difficult to find out where locals really hang out, and to find out which sources are reliable for guaranteed up-to-date tips. We handpick our writers (430 today) and meet all of them to make sure that we know they live in the city they write about, speak the local language, write only about their favorite spots and keep their tips up-to-date and up-to-season. Our editor checks all articles before they go online, and our Spotters check their articles regularly. 🚀 SPOTTED BY LOCALS APP VERSION 2.0 Yes, as I think I must have mentioned somewhere we're all about content. But as you're on Product Hunt, you must be curious about the technical side of things... 9 months ago we started one of our biggest projects ever: a complete overhaul of our apps. The app has been newly designed & re-built from the ground up. We think it looks better. It’s easier to navigate. It works a lot faster. And so far we haven't succeeded in making the 2.0 version crash - we dare you to try :) Features include 👉 100% offline - tips as well as maps 👉 Add your own spots (like your hotel) to the map 👉 See which recommendations were newly added recently 👉 Search all articles for keywords (for example “brunch”) 💰 REVENUE Our city guides cost US$3.99 to download. And we have a couple of ads on the website. That's how we generate enough revenue to keep expanding to new cities. 🔒 PRIVACY We do not store or have access to any personally identifiable information of users. Our dream is to remove all ads on our website and remove all tracking. 💚 THANK YOU For the last 10 years we've put our life into this product. We are so grateful to our 430 Spotters for believing in our project, sharing their favorite spots in their city and for being part of our awesome community. 😒️🙄️😀 QUESTIONS / FEEDBACK Please let us know what you think! We focus on great content. There are so many talented people on Product Hunt who know much more about design, user interface and technical performance than we do - we'd love to learn and improve! 🛎️ Disclaimer: Spotted by Locals has curated a "list" in the awesome Hitlist app. Hitlist was founded by @gillianim, who has been so kind to hunt us! 📌 I loved your story about Nomad List (and the amazing product!) @levelsio and hope it's ok I copied your setup!

@bartvanpoll This is awesome. Bought few city guides a year back to have a look and as a founder of travel start-up, I know how helpful and how awesome this is. Only thing is I have not been able to use it till now as it was limited to EU. I see you have expanded a lot. Kudos.

Had a great experience in Amsterdam thank to Spottedbylocals, good think that the app can be used offline. Still I wonder how to do make sure writers stay commited to update the locations they share? And that the tips they share are actually places people would like to go to?

I really appreciate how Spotted by Locals doesn't use ads for revenue. Clean-cut, honest business that isn't focused on trying to sell you something else and take advantage of users as products or consumers is uncomfortably hard-to-find nowadays. It's as if other business models have ceased to exist. In this environment, it's almost a revolutionary action to go against the current and resist misusing ads just to keep your product approachable. That said, some people I have talked to who would be otherwise interested in using Spotted by Locals are scared away by the $3.99 price tag (they did say though that if that $3.99 included access to all cities they just might take the plunge -- Black Friday logic, I suppose). Also, a surprisingly high number of people can't be bothered or are even scared to use a credit card to buy an app on their phone. Do you find it hard to navigate the "free at a price" economy that has emerged with the arrival of smartphones? Does your main target audience, presumably though of course not exclusively Gen-Y and Millennial urban travellers, and the kind of demographic who would actually pay money for an app (which I think in the end is the real barrier for entry, not the price itself) overlap significantly?

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I found SpottedbyLocals in their early stages several years ago. I met with their founders and became a witness of their expansion and improvements. Wherever I travel, I make sure I download that city if it is available.

I almost stopped visiting places, which are not listed on SpottedbyLocals.

The latest version of the app has great improvements in design and stability. Their content is the king anyways.

Pros:

Completely changed the way I travel. Offline maps is a good plus.

Cons:

Although it is very rare, I have ended up at closed spots. After my feedback, they were removed quickly.

@bartvanpoll how do you makse sure that spotters have a good taste and have no deals with the locations that they suggest?

It has changed the way I travel and enjoy new urban destinations.

Pros:

Genuine tips by real locals, great offline functionality

Cons:

Limited to larger cities

I love this app! Because of it I've discovered some off the beaten path, awesome locations while on holiday!

Love it love it love it! I can never travel without and miss it when I go to cities for which there's no Spotted by Locals. it's easy to find the main sights or famous restaurants and bars, but to really know a city you need to go where locals go. And if you have no local friends how do you do? You download your SbL guide and off you go, to find those rare spots to feel a citizen of that city. What I love as well is that the authors explain you why they love the place, what's special about it, it makes you see the place in a different way. How could we travel without it??

Pros:

offline maps, local tips, exactly what any traveler needs

Cons:

not too many restaurants (mainly snacks) in many cities

So it's midnight in Athens 🇬🇷 where we currently are. We have to stop refreshing this feed after 14 hours and get some sleep... Thanks for all your feedback - tomorrow morning we'll back to answer you questions 😴

Spotted By Locals it’s an amazing app. By using this you could find really hidden jems and amazing places while travelling! Why spending money on something touristy and without real value? Better to focus on the real stuff! That is the way of travel nowadays!

Think I already recommended it to about 30 friends when asking on social media where should I go.. says enough.

Pros:

Great overview in so many cities of the best tips. Love the authenticy!

Cons:

Sometimes miss a city, but they are expanding quickly.

The killer-feature is that everything is renewed all the time. So if a spot closes (it happens a lot in my part of the world), tip becomes hidden. I hate coming to highly-recommended-but-already-out-of-business spots.

Pros:

Spots I'd never discover myself in many cities. I even download cities I know well to find out things I haven't noticed

Cons:

These are people-curated tips so every tip is based on the personal opinion of a spotter (and it may be different from mine)

love the app, can't wait to try the new version but really 👎 for this video

I found the app to be very useful, especially the possibilty to use it offline. Big advantage is the user generated content which is reviewed by spotted by locals on a regular basis and makes the spots pretty accurate. Those locals really know their cities. A must have tool for planning your travel and city spotting. Love it ❤️💯

I use Spotted by Locals app when researching which cities to visit next, and when I'm in the actual city. The offline map is very easy to use and saves me from using data. :)

Pros:

Many city guides to choose from!

Cons:

No cons