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Back in February, we wrote about a few types of travelers who could benefit from using Everlater (Bands, Families, Athletes, Professional Travelers). Today, the list goes on…

Students Traveling Abroad

Eager to explore the surrounding cities and countries of their new continent, students traveling abroad would benefit greatly from being able to easily organize and share their travel stories, photos, and videos. It’s all too easy to ignore the forest for the trees when sharing travel experiences, and friends and family members often need explicit context to fully appreciate the outlandish locales and situations.

Business Travelers

Frequent business travelers don’t have time to set up a blog and update it consistently. However, of all the types of people that might use Everlater, they have the easiest access to an internet connection and the tools (iPhone, Blackberries, etc.) to make quick updates. Business travelers are also often the ones most in need of connections to other travelers and quick recommendations about local events and must-sees.

Road Shows

We know a group here in Boulder planning to travel across the country in a biodiesel bus playing in frisbee tournaments, holding instructional clinics, and educating about the benefits of alternative fuels. How can they share the experience and generate advance fanfare for their arrival? Everlater.

What about a company touring around with their latest product? Not only can they plot out the trip in advance, but an online community can easily grow around the shared experience.

You

Our self-respect notwithstanding, treat us as you like:

• Map your travels
• Update your friends and families
• Share stories and photos
• Blog about the adventure, or just write quick updates

In the end, we aim to do only one thing: Help you share your travel experiences with friends and family.

We recently met with Dave Morin - Senior Platform Manager for Facebook. This was a fantastic opportunity for us at Everlater. We view Facebook as a complement (rather than a competitor) to what we are building, and have spent many a late night discussing their role in our future - then coding away to make it happen.

Always wary of becoming YASN (Yet Another Social Network), we want to leverage as much of your existing social network as possible without fragmenting your content and friends more than they already have been.

Dave ensured us that Facebook’s platform is moving in the direction of openness. This is great news for everyone, as it will hopefully reduce the number of YASN’s. Ideally (in our view) this tact will cement Facebook as the central point of content for the people you care about without becoming a “walled garden” that seals you off from other services that can add value to your social graph.

We’d like to thank Dave for his insights and suggestions as both a traveler and big player in the social networking space. Also, check out <a href=”http://davemorin.tumblr.com/post/113001941/a-day-at-techstars”>the Everlater mention in one of his recent blog posts</a>.

Techstars.tv just released the first of 13 episodes of a weekly webcast called “The Founders”. We’re honored to be one of the three teams from the Techstars 2009 Boulder class that will be highlighted each week as the summer progresses. To be honest, it took a little while to get comfortable with being followed around by a video camera (especially the time Megan followed us down the street and into a sandwich shop).

The Founders | TechStars Boulder | Week 1 “The Selected Few” from Andrew on Vimeo.

At least if this whole startup thing doesn’t work out - maybe there is a future for us in reality television? Real World: Startups anyone?

Every software company should have a good strategy for managing their code base.  At Everlater, we’re using git (a popular choice for open-source developers), and loving it.  The same things that make it a great tool for open-source development makes it a wonderful tool for a new startup as well.  We share lots of the same problems with open-source projects, including a decentralized workforce, no central office or server, etc. Git + Github has proved to be a great choice for our version control.

Initially we had a simple flow with no branching; simply basic remote repositories for each team member plus a master repo.  Since we’ve launched our live alpha version, we’ve introduced branching and a more complex workflow — our internal document for describing the workflow is below — we’re publishing this in hopes that it helps other new startups organize the way they develop code on a live web release.  Enjoy!

First, please let me apologize for the recent blog silence here at Everlater.  We’ve had our heads down working and making our dream a reality…

…and that reality has finally arrived!  On 3/3/09 we pushed Everlater up and live in a private alpha launch.  We have about 25 users testing out the basic functionality, providing feedback and suggestions, and finding bugs.  We are keeping the release private to ensure we can act on each users advice.  We are also still building features we want on a more open and widespread release.  We have a nice long list of users interested in participating in our alpha testing process, if you signed up and have not yet received a login you will shortly.  We are phasing users onto the site in waves so we can connect with each user and receive one-on-one feedback.  We expect this process to take a few months before we open up a public launch.

We’ve had good feedback so far and are really excited to have the site up and running!  Thanks to all our current and future testers!  More to come.

As we continue to develop Everlater, sometimes we have to remind ourselves that it isn’t just for solitary or small groups of adventure travelers. One of the advantages of Everlater is that several different people can co-author a trip, while still keeping certain information private (if they so choose).

So besides people like us, who else would be perfect candidates for Everlater?

Bands

Imagine following your favorite musical act as they tour the country. Journal updates, stories from the road, and of course, lots of crazy photos will dot the map. Members of the band can have their own separate pages to communicate privately with friends and family, while pushing up some of the content to the band site, publicly available to all. Rumor has it that Nate and Natty went to school with the Boulder breakout act 3OH!3. Maybe that’s a good place to start?

Families

People, both young and old, are increasingly documenting their lives online so they can easily share the experience (and perhaps avoid retelling the same stories over, and over). Or go all out, like the Cardozo family, and (semi) aimlessly travel the world for an entire year! Families in particular are good candidates to have separate and shared blogs (the children and parents might have very different types of content, and different friends!).

Athletes

NBA players? Yes. Baseball stars? Yes. Rock cimbers? Hell yes! We recently met with Pete Mortimer of Sender Films (the premier rock climbing film production company) who was eager to get his climbers using Everlater to document their worldwide climbing trips. Want to know about Pete’s current trip? Check out the Sender Films blog.

Professional Travelers

Sounds like an obscure category, right? Well, no niche is to small when we fantasize about who Everlater would help the most.

We can’t help but think Matt (of Where the Hell is Matt? fame ) could have used our help before having a custom solution designed for him. Though that ship may have sailed, lucky for us, we were recently introduced to Ian Usher. You may recognize Ian as the guy who sold his entire life on eBay (for $399,300). His current project, which needs little explanation, is 100 Goals in 100 Weeks. We’re excited about Ian’s interest in Everlater, and would be psyched to provide him a way to share his progress with the world.

Stay tuned. If you know how to use a keyboard, and have ever left your hometown…we’ve been thinking of you.

We love developing web applications today, as opposed to say…2001.  This isn’t because the financial state of the tech environment is better now than it was in 2001, or that Natty and I had just graduated from high school in 2001.  It’s primarily because the tools and frameworks available to web developers are just better now.

Gone are the days when you needed an expensive development environment or three programmers with a black belt in Unix and server architecture to run your site.  Instead open source frameworks and hosting services in the cloud make it extremely easy to design and deploy all with an incredibly lean team of designers and programmers.

Web application development is now in its golden era.

Natty and I consider ourselves to be incredibly fortunate that we began working on Everlater right when this golden era came into fruition.  While we are still designing our final architecture, here’s a rundown of the different tools that Natty, Ryan, Charlie and I have used to develop our site:

• Github.  $7/month.  Hands down the best code repository mixed with the best way to socially tackle coding.  Freakin’ Awesome. (And a prime example of what a bootstrapping company of four can do with this exact infrastructure).
• Ruby on Rails. Free.  Super simple web framework — I knew zero about rails and in four months I can develop rich internet applications — I think that says it all…
• RabbitMQ.  Free.  Messaging queue written in Erlang — used by my former employer for their global messaging queue, so I feel good about using it for our backend infrastructure.
• Apache/Mongrel. Free.  This may change shortly to Passenger, but using Capistrano to deploy to our staging server is about the most satisfyingly easy task in the world.
• Joyent hosting.  Free.  Free developer slices for facebook developers — doesn’t get much better than that!
• SQL.  Free.  We use MySQL/SQLite/Postgres in development and PostgreSQL on our staging server currently, but that may change to….
• CouchDB.  Free.  This is going to be awesome — super excited about deploying it across our site in the coming weeks!

So…there we have it — $7/month and our time.  Plus, this software is ridiculously easy to use (and learn for Natty and I).  Moral of the story is that there’s no need to raise a half-a-million dollar seed round to build the next Facebook/Google/whatever, you can now do it in half the time for virtually nothing….

…and I’m SUPER excited to see all of the cool applications that will come out of this golden era!

Happy New Year!  I spent the holidays with my family on a trip to Finland and Russia.  It was my first trip since I returned from South and Central America in July and I quickly caught the travel bug once again.  The experience was a great taste of the cold, dark winters above the 60th parallel famous in so many classic Russian novels.  In addition to the obvious joys of traveling, I spent a great deal of time talking with travelers and locals and wanted to share some quick observations:

• People are still traveling.  Despite the economic woes, people continue to travel and even in Russia, a country arguably hit the hardest by recent events, was full of tourists.
• People love to talk about travel.  Whether actively traveling, reflecting on past travels, or hosting travelers, everyone has travel experiences they want to talk about and share.  From the Russians who can’t get Visas but still tour their own country, to the expert global traveler, everyone has a story.
• The expansion of social networks truly is global.  Even in a place famous for its state-controlled media like Russia, social networking is thriving.  Russians have their own social network and are quickly adopting Facebook.
• Everyday people are the best journalists.  I know I’m preaching to the choir for all Twitter users, but it was amazing to see how much more authentic and accurate information was when provided by the masses as opposed to traditional single-sided media (TV, radio, etc.).  I watched a review of 2008 on state-controlled Russian TV which painted a distinctly different picture than the stories I heard from talking to real people on the streets and in cafes.  The internet is the great equalizer and does, can and will provide the means for people to express their uncensored opinions and stories.
• Internet access is everywhere.  I expected spotty and slow access at best and thus didn’t bring a computer in favor of my iPhone and am pleased to report I found high-quality wifi almost everywhere.
• Couchsurfing again delivered a fantastic experience.  To meet locals and travelers I contacted people through Couchsurfing (which I posted on earlier in this blog) and again I met incredibly interesting, insightful, welcoming people and was treated to unique cultural experiences.

These observations, while not revolutionary, mean a lot to us at Everlater.  After all the work and toil it is a reconfirmation of the power and potential of our idea and our perception of how it can impact the traveler.  Since returning and reflecting on my experience, I am even more excited about our project in both its opportunity to enhance and improve traveler experiences as well as our potential for business success.  Photos from the trip are on my Flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/nattyz/

Right now, in Patagonia, I am close to the end of the world. Why would I want to spend time on a computer? (Case in point, I prewrote this by hand). Within the first few days of my four week trip to Chile & Argentina, to be honest, I was having doubts about Everlater. Sitting down in front of a computer every few days, I spend only enough time to respond to any urgent emails, let my parents know that I am still alive, and attempt to Skype my wife (sounds dirty, right?). As rushed as this trip feels already, why waste a moment more in front of a computer (seems like Nate was right regarding our real competitor) ?

In many ways that’s the whole point!

If mapping your progress and sharing the information is as easy as sending an email - then you win. You’ve saved time by telling everyone in one fell swoop, documented your trip in a way that is more organized than text buried amongst the lines of an email, and you’ll never have to repeat yourself. Just tell your story once and everyone can read it - a multimedia display that tells the story with that same initial enthusiasm every single time.

I’ve tried this “tell the story once” part with my honeymoon in Peru and Bolivia by blogging about it after the fact. I have good notes, but it is hard to have the discipline to fully re-document all five weeks now that the trip is over!

So please, excuse the sales pitch that is this blog post. The product we are building here is something that I believe in - and something I wish I would already be using to help share my experiences with my friends and family. Lois Griffin once said “it’s not what you do that defines the quality of your life, it’s who you do it with” - and if they can’t be there with you - then we need to build the next best thing.

The last month and a half has been busy here at Everlater.  We have moved into “monk mode” and are holed up building out the backend of the site.  We know an idea is worth nothing, the value comes from the execution.

Ryan and Charlie have made great progress building much of our site functionality and continue to push development.  In the spirit of Thanksgiving, Nate and I are very thankful for their diligence and commitment to our idea.  That being said we still have a long road to travel but each day we move closer and closer to our alpha launch.

Nate and I have also been programming almost 24/7.  Not being programmers by background we have had a steep learning curve but are finally making a significant impact.  We have also been pushing business development and continued innovation of our business model.  We have met many subject matter experts to help build our knowledge base, understand our industry, spread the Everlater word and build local contacts.  We’ve been very busy in the community, thanks to all the people listed below for giving us their valuable time, insight and advice.  Thank you.

• The Silicon Flatiron initiative here in Boulder hosted a session on “Building a Start Up in Uncertain Times.”  The four person panel preached conserving cash and taking a hard look at monetization and the viability of your business model, but also agreed this is the best time to be an early-stage company.  Not new news to us, but still a great event.  Silicon Flatirons also hosted a deep dive on IP.
• Niel Robertson, of multiple successful tech exits and restaurant starts, spent a morning with us providing feedback on our business plan and giving us more insight into how to best monetize our site using advertising.
• Bruce Sanders, head of the senior project at the CU Department of Computer Science met with us to provide feedback on the technical aspects of our site, to help further build the relationship between the school and the entrepreneurial community, work to connect us with talent leaving CU, and to discuss travel, a passion of his.
• Peter-Christian Olivo of Sage Canyon Advisors sat down with us over coffee at one of our favorites, Spruce Confections, and provided feedback on our concept, business presentation deck and our elevator deck.
• Nate met with Macalester alum Dianne of Adventure Central to talk about her experience in the travel space and to learn about potential future partnerships.
• The monthly BoulderRuby group included a presentation about Rails and Facebook led by guru David Clements and a trip to the Lazy Dog for beers afterwards.  Fun times were had by all.
• We attended the CU New Venture Challenge pitch day to learn about other entrepreneurial ventures in the area.  It is a great program promoting entrepreneurs and students at CU.  We appreciate the work Brad Bernthal has put into this program.
• We also met with Brandon Geiger of Swarmforce and Jeremy Boles of Roov to discuss the Facebook development and learned a lot about successes and failures for Facebook developers and James Klein to chat about his start-up experience and the pro/cons of outsourcing.

The next month will be spent much like the last: full focus on development, continued improvement of our business model and more local networking.  Nate and I are splitting time between Boulder and Silverthorne and plan to continue our work, ski, and sleep lifestyle (most likely weighted in 16, 5, and 3 hour increments respectively).  Natty is off to Finland and Russia at the end of December with his family where he will celebrate the holidays and conduct market research.  Charlie plans to continue being a major workhorse and will be local for the holidays with Nate.  Ryan took off to Argentina this week to hike through Patagonia.  He is working on some on-site development, promotion, and low-bandwidth site testwork.  He will be posting to the blog and sharing his insight on the state of the traveler.

Tomorrow we are excited to meet with Seth Levine of the Foundry Group to review our business plan and get his insight into our path.  We look forward to continued involvement with the Boulder tech scene, plan to see you all around town and hope you all continue to follow our progress.  We are helping Andrew Hyde host Ignite Boulder 2 next week, it is a great event, hope to see you there.