Hello! What’s your background, and what inspired you to create Arvel?
Hey, Elnar is here. To be frank, I have quite a versatile background, I started my career as a petroleum engineer, then transitioned into the finance world and worked as an investment banker in my last corporate job. Driven by a passion for building things and seeing them in use, I self-taught programming. 2 years ago, I left my full-time job to co-found Arvel with friends. Arvel (Archived Travel) is inspired by our innate curiosity to experience life from different angles.
How do you define a successful experience on Arvel, your experience sharing platform?
To give you a bit of context what we mean by an experience on Arvel. We believe that everyone experiences life uniquely, with their favorite places to eat, hike, swim, travel, play games etc. Our goal is to create an interactive experience sharing platform to help people capture that joyful moment via images and summaries to help others discover them – If others can experience the same happiness I think that would be a success.
What were the biggest challenges you faced developing Arvel, and how did you overcome them?
Let me put you in our shoes to give you a better sense of it. Year 2022, friends and I chipped in and co-founded Arvel. We hired few folks (part-time, contract, freelance etc.) to build MVP and get it out to the market. Year 2023, the VC world is infatuated with the AI hype, leaving us with zero chance to raise even a penny.
We had no traction, very limited resources, and a short run-way – imagine racing F1 cars on a bike without a front wheel, that was us. To survive few more iterations, we had to shorten the timeline for a product/feature launch from ideation to market test by 2-3 times. Seems like it worked, we’ve experienced a stroke of serendipity with the current release – 2,000 waitlist signups in a week.
Can you highlight the main features of Arvel and how they enhance user experience?
Arvel has two main aspects: the opportunity to try new experiences and the ability to build an experience passport. Easily finding experiences that resonate with your interests and preferences, and understanding why they’re worth trying, is a game-changer.
Additionally, capturing joyful moments and building up statistics such as the number of cuisines tried, countries visited, kilometers traveled, hikes completed etc. – we believe this makes for a good and cool life, one that you can share with others.
How does Arvel ensure shared content is engaging and high quality?
Creating a smooth path to guide users in sharing experiences has possibly been the most challenging part of building Arvel. It’s crucial for several reasons: it ensures a fun and engaging flow, aligns shared experiences with our mission, and maintains the high-quality content we aim to provide our users. Meanwhile, through this process, we’ll collect data and categorize each experience, making it easy for users to find experiences that resonate with them.
How does Arvel encourage users to share experiences and engage with others?
Every experience shared by a user contributes to their profile statistics, showcasing how unique and fun their life is. Also, when someone adds an experience to a bucket list or tries an experience shared by another user, they receive a “+1” (we call it “good karma”, though the name is still WIP).
What community guidelines or moderation policies do you have to maintain a positive environment?
Honestly, it’s a delicate question, and things will certainly evolve over time. In the beginning, our goal is to encourage users to share joyful moments that inspire others to try new things. However, we’ll continuously listen to our users to ensure the community we’re building is friendly, safe and positive for everyone.
What strategies are you using to grow Arvel’s user base?
Our goal at Arvel is to create something that is not only useful but also makes people happier and helps them experience life from different angles. Hence, we’re relying primarily on word of mouth to achieve this. Additionally, we’ll spread the word through social media, online publications, and various partnerships we have in the pipeline.
What is Arvel’s business model, and how do you plan to generate revenue?
Frankly, we’re not focused on monetization right now. Our primary goal is to create something genuinely useful that brings joy to people’s lives. If we can achieve that, opportunities will present themselves.
Where can people find more information or resources about Arvel?
We’re quite active on Instagram and LinkedIn, and we’re catching up to speed on X. Join Arvel Waitlist, and be the first to know when we launch.
Did you enjoy this interview with Arvel.App founder – Experience Sharing Platform? I regularly interview creators who have recently launched their products. Check out additional discussions like this on BetaHunt. For updates, follow me on X.
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