Member Spotlight – John and Dee Lee Tackle Travel Culture Shock

John and Dee Lee co-founded CultureMee – an app to help travellers overcome culture shock. 

John and his co-founder and wife Dee are members of the Dublin Travel Massive and currently living in South East Asia – here’s our short interview with John.

How did you get into travel?

I blame my wife, Dee!

Dee’s the founder of CultureMee and she actually came up with the idea when we were in Africa in 2015. Since then, we’ve been on a rollercoaster with our startup.

I’ve always had a love of travel from my first trip abroad as a kid. Even nowadays, despite having taken thousands of flights over the last few years, I still get excited when boarding my next flight!

Watch the video of Dee and John’s story…

What tourism problem are you solving?

Nodding your head up and down in Bulgaria means no, yet where can you find this information in any kind of travel app? Up until now it simply never existed.

That’s exactly what we solve with CultureMee by explaining culture through a high-level cultural overview, the key do’s and don’ts, and some key tips to avoid driving the locals crazy.

How are you creating a positive future for travel?

The idea of people discovering not places but other people. Objects or destinations don’t have the opportunity to transform you, but people do.

We love this quote from AirBnB Founder, Brian Chesky, when asked what excites him most about the future. We couldn’t agree more and believe that CultureMee is putting the humanity back into travel by bringing culture to life.

How can the Travel Massive community help you?

We are launching a video platform which will be the first in the world to crowdsource culture.

You can upload culture via our CultureMee app as a local or a non-local to give your own perspective on culture.

Even though Dee and I have a lot of experience around culture, we think the Travel Massive community is better positioned to help bring culture to life through our video platform.

Where do you seek advice? Who’s your hero?

My wife (and co-founder!) Dee – I always trust her advice. We’ve got a great relationship where we’re very open with each other and always help coach each other.

I also hugely respect Carlos Ghosn, the former head of Renault-Nissan. His understanding and harnessing of culture was one of the main reasons he managed to save Nissan from bankruptcy.

Follow John and Dee on Travel Massive to connect with them and learn more.