Happy Sunday!
Welcome back to Founders Feature, a weekly newsletter all about the journeys of young startup founders.
For this week's edition, I interviewed Hyojeong Kim, Founder of NomadHer, an App for solo female travellers based in France.
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Here’s what NomadHer is all about:
🏠 The Basics
The Problem:
Internationally, 94% of women wish to go solo travelling or have been, while 80% of women are afraid to go solo travelling out of security, expense and loneliness reasons.
The Solution:
NomadHer has three main functions. First, you can see the inspiring travel stories of other women and ask for advice and tips and recommendations! Second, you can find other female travellers based on their city and their country, so you can find other female solo-travellers near you.Thirdly, you can organise or take part in events hosted by Nomadher or members of the community.
The Team:
NomadHer consists of a team of 4 different nationalities: India, France, Morocco and South Korea and we are Digital Nomads ✌️. The biggest and most important value for us is to understand the diversity and the differences between us and respect each other.
🚀 The Journey
How did you come up with your startup/solution?
I started NomadHer because I love solo-travelling and wanted to empower other women to do the same. I travelled around 45 countries solo and loved it. It allowed me to experience freedom and see so much more of the world, and it also showed me what I am capable of. But at the same time, I felt that there are a lot of difficulties. One example is when I was travelling through Italy, a male host at a family house masturbated next to me while I was sleeping. Unfortunately, around 80% of women have gone through something similar and are afraid to speak out. But this cannot be the reason for us to stop solo-travelling. I started NomadHer during my Master's degree because I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur after graduating. So, at the start, I met and spoke to around 1000 female travellers one on one in Paris to validate the problem and see what kind of solution I could find.
Why is this the right time for this problem to be solved?
Honestly, this problem should have been solved long ago, because more women should feel comfortable travelling on their own. So, the sooner the better.
What is a recent success you are proud of?
As a travel app, our greatest success is surviving the corona pandemic. When everything started with Covid, we were very uncertain about whether we could make it through or not, but now as people are starting to travel again, there are more and more people joining our community every day, and we are breaking our record of new users every day. This is something really great, and I'm so proud of it.
What is a recent challenge you've faced?
A personal struggle I frequently face is questioning if I am a good leader, and how I can be a better leader. Diversity is the core value of our team, so all of us come from different backgrounds, speak different languages, and have different religions and different ideas. This is fantastic, but it also challenges me to improve my communication every day and learn how to deal with different kinds of people. I try to work on a culture of open communication so we can just honestly address any misunderstandings that arise.
What do you wish you knew before you started and is there anything you would have done differently in hindsight?
There are two things. First, I had to learn to be patient when growing our community. A community grows over time, and I should have known that this is a slow and steady process. Now that I'm more aware of it, my patience is regularly rewarded. Second, I would try to fail sooner and more often. I learned along the way that it is far better to do this than try so hard for one thing to be a success. Fail regularly, and the more you try the more likely it is going to be a success.
🧠 The Lessons
What is the best advice you have been given recently?
Be sincere and remain true to yourself and others.
This is something we try to incorporate in our onboarding process for users. We don't have automatic welcome messages, because we want to welcome every new member to the app personally. Yes, this takes time, but it allows us to gather feedback from new users while making them feel like they are being heard. And I think people really notice this and appreciate the time being invested in them, and making their journey as smooth as possible. This is so important because people are at the core of our community.
What advice would you give to other young founders?
When you're founding a startup, start with the problem, not the solution. Focus on finding out what the problem is, defining it, seeing whether it is really a problem that people feel should be solved. Working and focusing on your users' pain points more in a detailed way is the most important thing you can do at the start.
What is the biggest lesson you have learned so far?
I have learned so many things. One of the biggest lessons that I have learned is to learn about myself. One thing that solo-travelling and entrepreneurship have in common is that you get to know yourself so much better along the way. I love discovering different sides to myself, so getting to know what kind of person I am is definitely my biggest lesson.
✨ The Inspiration
Who inspires you?
Peggy Gou! She is a South Korean Berlin-based DJ, and I think she is the first Asian female to have played in Berlin's biggest club. She travels around the world and always promotes female empowerment, and she also tries to talk about South Korea in her music. It's a great balance between talking about culture and her values.
What book do you think everyone should read?
Let My People Go Surfing - Yvon Chouinar
The book is about the founder’s story of Patagonia and it shows how the team members all go surfing together when there are waves coming. It also shows why Patagonia has focused on making the product better rather than spending reckless money on the marketing. I really wish to create the NomadHer team as Patagonia.