Create Daily Travel Journals with Stiya

Today we meet Ilana Golan part of our Silicon Valley and San Francisco chapters. Ilana is the founder and CEO of Stiya and helps travellers remember the details of their experiences by creating an automatic daily journal, making memories searchable and shareable.

What inspired you to create this startup?

Life has so much to offer. From the long and adventurous travels, to the weekend hikes and daily memories with family and friends. The only disappointment I continuously had, is how easily we forgot the details if we didn’t stop to write them down. How many times do we return from an adventurous day and can’t remember the details? Name of the lunch place, where was the hike and so much more. After 20 years in tech I remained puzzled. How can it be that I can search any data in the world except for my own memories? I just had to fix that.

What is your startup about?

Stiya is a free mobile app, which captures your daily experiences completely automatically (where you dine, walk, take a photo and more) into beautiful journals that are searchable and shareable. If desired, you can add notes, mark places you liked, and your automatic journal is ready. You can keep it private or share it as a web link with text groups or social networks you enjoy.  Stiya’s name stands for Stories In Your Attic. We want to bring these stories to become ‘memories in your pocket’.

Do you have any tips for new entrepreneurs who want to create a successful startup?

Work on something you love and know about.

• Find the pain – Talk to as many people as you can.
• Check competition – What are people doing today? How are you solving the problem?
• Create a mock – Go back to your potential users – Is this solving their problem?
• Know your pitch –How can you explain your startup in a few sentences? Story telling in key.

What is the most important experience that you had during your travels?

I was in Chile on a multi-day trek in Torre-Del-Paine. After climbing to the top, I saw a 7-year-old boy who fell from the rocks. He couldn’t move. It was a complex evacuation as we had no communication and had to run all the way down to get help while others stayed with the boy at the top. We then realized there is no way to get him down except to carry him ourselves on a stretcher. It was one of the toughest, scariest experiences but also amazed me how we didn’t need to say a word to each other – we just knew we are saving this boy even if it meant walking all night. It was inspiring and I’ll never forget it. 

Travel Start-Up is a monthly series that profiles unique online travel start-ups in the Travel Massive community around the world. Connect with Ilana Golan and Stiya on Travel Massive, Twitter, or Facebook.