The concept behind the website is very simple: you create a quest on Rambler, which is a specific activity at a particular location in any city and assign points as to the difficulty involved in achieving that quest along with a nice photograph(preferably with a person in it having achieved that quest) and a story.
The difficulty level that is set by the submitter is then used by a moderator at Rambler to determine the assigned points to a person achieving that quest, between 1 to 100. So anyone who achieves that quest is rewarded that many points. This enables "real" travelers to find out what cool activities they can participate in at different locations in the world, something that is off the touristy usual. And plus you earn points for completing the quest and get bragging rights on Rambler. If you are among the top scorers, you are featured on Ramblers "Leaderboard" too!
John's other passion is UI(User Interface) and UX(User Experience) design, which he realized early on in his career is crucial to the success of a concept. Keeping that in mind he created AKTA, one of Chicago's leading product design studio, specializing in UX / UI design for web, mobile and touchscreen platforms. AKTA has done really well and have been instrumental in launching some killer start-ups and brands. Because of the success they have had, this occupies most of John's time.
In spite of his busy schedule John was good enough to take some time out of his busy schedule and talk to us about Rambler and AKTA. Please read on to find out more:
John, please introduce yourself to our readers.
I'm John, an entrepreneur from Chicago. I spent my time running AKTA, a leader in experience design for web and mobile devices. Past that, I am the CEO of Digital Hope, a brilliant 501c3 nonprofit that strives to change the way the world donates, and doing side projects like Rambler.
What was the inspiration behind starting Rambler? How did the idea strike you?
I travel a lot and the more new places I visited, the more I became frustrated about a way to find unique, adventurous things to do that extend away from a normal guidebook. This crystalized for me while I was in Buenos Aires, Argentina. We weren’t overly impressed with steak houses and tango, which was just about all the other tourists said there was to do. I randomly spoke to a friend on Facebook who used to live there and she directed us to an underground drum show called La Bomba del Tiempo, which was one of the coolest things I had ever seen. While this made our B.A. trip, it was also frustrating that I was only able to find out about this show randomly. There was nowhere to look for stuff like this. Six months later, in Iceland, I was experiencing something similar when I met a girl who was on an Icelandic scavenger hunt. She had to find puffin being served on a menu, a local named Gunnar, and a street sign with more than 40 letters. I thought this was absolutely brilliant. Between both of these, Rambler was born to give real travelers a way to build a fun, experiential game out of traveling that is curated by travelers just like them.
How do you plan to promote Rambler? How has Rambler been received by your user base?
Rambler is designed to be highly viral. Travellers are passionate, engaged and connected, so the goal is to leverage their ability to share experiences with each other. It has been amazing to watch so far - tens of thousands of travelers have used it as a resource, which is flattering.
Do you remember the first quest on Rambler? Though this could be a difficult question for you to answer, personally what is your favourite quest?
I put up the first quest: http://ramblerhq.com/quests/iceland-find-a-hobbit-house-in-the-countryside. This was the quest that spawned the whole idea. I have a bunch of favorites.. Finding the Croft Bar, Tendem Surfing and Petting a Tiger to name a few.
How did you get into user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design? How come you are so passionate about it?
I fell in to it by accident. I am a programmer / technologist by trade. During a start-up I founded in Los Angeles, I was responsible for running the web team, which meant our designers too. It became clear that if you better understood your users and built products based on their needs, you probability for success went through the roof. This made me very excited to learn more about it. I think I am so passionate about it because it is one big puzzle that most people cannot solve.
What other activities do you enjoy when you are not coding and working on your UI/UX projects?
Well, travelling. Aside from that, I play beach volleyball and ping-pong obsessively.. eat super delicious (vegetarian) food.. volunteering with Digital Hope..
What other personalities do you look up to for inspiration?
Richard Branson. I think he is the perfect model for entrepreneurship.
What are your future plans for Rambler and AKTA design studio? Care to share any interesting projects you are working on?
Rambler is going to keep on keeping on. I will tack on features when I have free time (usually sitting on airplanes), but past that it won't get a ton of push. AKTA is growing faster than I ever planned so much of my focus will be managing that, which is extremely exciting. We are working on some amazing projects but most I can't talk about :)
What tips and advice would you like to give to budding entrepreneurs?
Stop thinking about it and go do it. You'll fail, then you need to try again. The process has a pretty natural ability to weed out those who aren't built to be entrepreneurs because we all can't cope with that level of rejection and failure. But if you, you will be rewarded.
You can read more about John's work at:
Rambler
AKTA
AKTA on Facebook
AKTA on Twitter
Digital Hope
Thank you John for taking the time for this interview, we wish you and Rambler the very best for the future.
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