Field notes
Blog
Thoughts on curation, the creator economy, and building hotspot.
Read our long-form essays on Medium
Why one-time purchase, not subscription
Everything is a subscription now. Your travel recommendations shouldn't be. Here's why Hotspot maps are pay once, keep forever.
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The Google Doc in bio: anatomy of a broken system
The link-in-bio Google Doc is the creator economy's most honest failure: proof that the demand is real, and that the tooling never showed up.
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AI killed the city guide (and that's fine)
Generic travel content is now infinite and worthless. What's left is the one thing a model can't generate: someone who was actually there.
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The hidden cost of free travel advice
Free travel content isn't free. You pay in hours of research, sponsored recommendations, and dinners you regret. The bill just arrives later.
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The "DM me for the address" economy
Scroll any travel TikTok and you'll find the same comment a hundred times: "address please??" An entire economy of valuable knowledge is being traded in DMs, for free.
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Zero users, full transparency: what we're building this summer
We have a product, a payment system, and approximately zero users. Here's exactly where Hotspot stands, and what we're building next.
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Overtourism is a curation problem
Everyone is going to the same ten places because everyone is reading the same free guides. The problem isn't too many travelers — it's too little curation.
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How to Price Your Travel Map
Too cheap and you leave money on the table. Too expensive and nobody buys. Here's the framework we recommend.
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The Creator Economy Needs Better Maps
Courses, ebooks, presets — creators can sell everything except the thing people ask them about most: where to go.
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Why We Built Hotspot
Every creator with taste is giving it away for free. We thought that was insane. So we built something about it.
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