Tripbirds blog

Creative session

Wed, 23 May 2012 15:54:24 +0200

With friends from Facebook. Hope to see you tonight at the Developer Garage!

Facebook Developer Garage

Wed, 09 May 2012 15:52:10 +0200

We are excited to announce that we will be co-hosting the next Facebook developer garage here in Stockholm. The event will take place on Wednesday May 23 at Färgfabriken. This is an opportunity to learn more about the platform products and understand how to get the best out of your new or existing social apps and sites.

Facebook will talk about the open graph and their mobile platform and you will hear from Jonatan Heyman (CTO Tripbirds) on our experiences building on the Facebook platform.

What are you waiting for? - Sign up here!

Ted on Swedish Startup Sessions, talking about entrepreneurship...

Mon, 07 May 2012 10:38:30 +0200

Ted on Swedish Startup Sessions, talking about entrepreneurship and Tripbirds.

Startup Day 2012

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 06:47:32 +0200

Today is Stockholm Startup Day, perhaps Sweden’s best networking event for startups . We are sending Ted (@tedvalentin) and Martina (@martinaelm) So if you want to talk Tripbirds or social travel just ping them :)

We love feedback

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:00:32 +0200

Last month we moved from closed to open beta. We are so very grateful for all the positive and constructive feedback we have gotten from all of you. You are amazing! Please keep sending us your suggestions and ideas - it’s what keeps us moving in the right direction. Can’t wait to show you what we’re working on right now :)

Ps Next time, before you push that feedback widget or fire away that email, consider putting your address in it. We might send you something in the mail - as a token of gratitude :) Ds

Stockholm Startup Hack

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 13:46:20 +0200

We are excited to announce that we are arranging a hackathon together with our friends Joakim Ekberg and Jonny Strömberg called Stockholm Startup Hack on May 12.

Stockholm Startup Hack is a day for developers, designers and innovators living in Stockholm to meet and build things together. We want to put Stockholm on the map as one of the best startup cities in Europe, as well as grow and strengthen our community. We hope that this hackathon will be a small step in that direction.

Participants will get 12 hours to create something. You can build whatever you want as long as it can stand on its own. We really want to encourage you to make something out of that idea you’ve been saving for later, rather than building something related to your job. Of course, the most important part is that it’s fun and inspiring.

The hackathon will take place at Omnicloud HQ aka Startup Heaven, a co-working/co-living mansion located in Old town, Stockholm. The winning team will receive a secret prize, something small but worthy.

We promise to keep you happy all day long with food, drinks, and lots of love. After the hackathon there will be a party further down the street at Tripbirds HQ to celebrate the winners.

Sounds like fun? Spots are limited so apply now!

Health Hack Day

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:13:30 +0200

Our friends at Hoa’s Tool Shop and Psykologifabriken are arranging a hackathon on May 18th - 20th called Health Hack Day.

“Health Hack Day is a weekend event for teams of hackers, designers, health care professionals and researchers who want to take part in building the future of tools for personal health.

Participants will get 24 hours to build a prototype for a mobile app, a web app or perhaps even a hardware hack that in some way helps the user take care of his or her own health. Do you have a brilliant idea on how to help users handle stress, get more exercise, remember to take their medicine or just meaning to their health data? This is the perfect opportunity to try it out!

In addition to the 24 hour hackathon participants will get to enjoy talks and mentoring from pioneers and thought leaders from science, health care and technology. And of course - a great party!”

Sounds like fun?

Get more info and apply here!

Startup heaven

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 09:32:58 +0200

Yesterday, we went over to have a cup of coffee with one of our startup neighbors, Omnicloud. And we did an amazing discovery - we found a small piece of startup heaven. Or at least something like it.

Omnicloud HQ is situated in Old town, Stockholm where they share a 5 floor building with several startups and entrepreneurs. Not only do they share office space but they live together. (For you non Swedes, this is not too common in Stockholm) The inspiration for this comes from the San Francisco mansion TheGlint. “The aim is that everybody in the house both should live and work here. We want people who aspires to change the world with the work they are doing, and that possesses the will and ambition to reach that goal” says Per Jonsson, CEO Omnicloud.

The house hosts different events - everything from dinners to lectures and there is a lot of inspirational people passing through the doors. They have a couch that is free to lend for entrepreneurs and startup people who are visiting Stockholm. With the couch comes a working spot. They even have spare beds for rent if you plan on staying a bit longer.

The man behind this is Rob Meadows, founder of Originate Labs who last year started planning on opening up an office in Europe. He got some hands on tips from Lisa Renander, who he had met earlier in Silicon Valley. She pitched Stockholm to him and shared her dream of creating a co-working/co-living space for entrepreneurs. He really liked the idea and they started setting up the house and getting in contact with startups and entrepreneurs. At the moment Omnicloud, Hemsida24, Young Entrepreneurs of Sweden, GoEnterprise and Originate resides in the house as well as 6 people living there.

They have a few spots open - so, if this sounds interesting you should definitely get in contact with them. Here’s the short tour:

The stairs

A bedroom

Working

The view

The easiest way to get started

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 15:08:13 +0200

One thing that we’ve learned from our early beta testers is that Tripbirds starts making real sense when you have around 10-15 friends on the site. So, the easiest way to get a head start is by inviting a few of your trusted fellow travelers to join, sharing favorite places and recent trips.

Since we’re not a traditional review site but all about friend-to-friend recommendations, we’d never fill your feed with information or recommendations that aren’t relevant to you. We believe in quality, not quantity and in the end, you already know on who’s advice to rely on. So, make sure to get exactly what your looking for on your next trip with a little help from your friends :)

Flying out of private beta

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 13:05:15 +0100

It’s a big day for us, after working hard this fall and winter we’re now opening up Tripbirds to everyone.

We started last year with an idea of building a social travel site based on recommendations from people you know and trust.

Now we are happy to be sharing this with you - a service for anyone looking to discover places and plan trips, based on recommendations from friends. Our mission with Tripbirds is to add a travel layer on top of the social networks that you already are using, allowing you to see and access all ‘travel related’ data in one place. By collecting checkins and photos from Facebook, Foursqaure and Instagram, we make it easy for you to find out which of your friends have been to your next destination and the places they visited while they were there - so that you can find and ask for recommendations.

We have been in closed beta this last month and we’d really like to thank all our beta testers for the continues feedback you’ve been sending us. Your comments and concerns are so important to us so please keep them coming.

Tripbirds is backed by: Index Ventures, Passion Capital, Creandum, Eric Wahlforss (Co-founder Soundcloud), Alexander Ljung (Co-founder Soundcloud), Peter Read (London based angel investor), Andreas Ehn (Co-founder Wrapp) and Dave Morin (Co-founder Path)

Happy exploring,

Your friends at Tripbirds

Letting in beta testers

Wed, 14 Mar 2012 12:08:09 +0100

We are really excited to announce that we this week are starting to let in all the people that has signed up for Tripbirds. If you have not gotten an invite in your mail yet - don’t worry, it’s on it’s way :)

We’d love to hear what you think! Please drop a line to bonjour at tripbirds dot com with anything that comes to mind.

We are super grateful that you are helping us beta test Tripbirds.

Friday

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 11:39:03 +0100

Audio

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:58:00 +0100

Facebook mobile hack in Stockholm

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:36:00 +0100

We hope that no one has missed that the Facebook Platform team is heading towards Stockholm, hosting their first mobile hack here ever.

On March 8, doors open for an all-in hack of building mobile games and apps. Both native and mobile web (HTML5) app development will be covered, as will technical deep-dives and a Q&A. At the end of the day, awards will be given to the best mobile social apps.

Sounds like fun? - Get more info and register here.

Hope to see you there!

The Startup Store

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:05:16 +0100

Great initiative from Tictail! Get the stickers from the coolest Swedish startups!

Oh, and we really like the about page :)

Nice cover

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 14:50:02 +0100

Ted Valentin talks a little Tripbirds in SvD today.

Haven’t checked out our teaser page yet? Try it out here!

Say hello to George!

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:20:33 +0100

One of our awesome developers.

A friend of Tripbirds is a friend of mine! (With inspiration from Mina vänner by Anna Oskarsson)

Helsinki is on the map

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 10:48:33 +0100

Today we (Tripbirds & Jonny Strömberg) are releasing Helsinki on Startuplocation. Hooray!

We have gotten help from local startup heros and other enthusiastic’s - Thank you!

We know though that we are missing some startups on the map, but with your help we hope it to be done in no time :)

Not on the map? - Go to Startuplocation and fill out a short form.

Have any questions or want to edit some information about your startup? Send us a mail to: bonjour at tripbirds dot com and we will get it right asap.

Social travel skies

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 14:54:05 +0100

A lot of startups are working on combining travel and social media. We dove into the social travel ocean and found no less than 32 startups.

Most of them are doing some really exciting stuff. We really like the concept of “social flying” and would therefor like to push Planely and Uppward.

Planely is a Copenhagen based startup, founded by Nick Martin, Paul Kirkaas and Gorm Casper. The service is simple; you enter your flight and then Planely will show you what other users will be at the same departure airport/same flight and/or the same arriving airport as you. If you like, you can connect beforehand.

You can also add your Facebook or LinkedIn account to find your contacts.

Uppward is a startup co-founded by Nathan T. Wright, James Eliason, Nate Becker and Ben Sinclair. It’s an iPhone app that allows you to discover who else is flying with you. You can aslo earn miles and rewards, regardless of wich airline you choose.

What services like these do, is ensuring that you don’t miss out on likeminded people or business contacts when anyways e.g. waiting in the same airport lounge. No lotto this time. Pretty cool.

Of course, all of this depends on enough people signing up for these services and most importantly if the person you find interesting actually is up for having that cup of coffee with you…

Say hello to Jonatan!

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 13:51:02 +0100

CTO and founder of Tripbirds