We believe people want a new social community that advocates kindness, acceptance and support. S Traveler is a social platform that encourages growth, success, and deep human connection through culturally relevant self-development courses and metaphorical travel (courses are optional, users can choose to use S Traveler for social interactions only); giving users the ability to not only keep in touch with family and friends, but to meet new people from all around the world on a positive, safe, secure and open-minded platform.
We are taking away politics and negativity by adding culture and self - development teachings offered by S Traveler instructors from different countries around the globe. The intention is to create culture exposure in a self-empowerment context so we can learn, support, and finally grow together to unify the world. That said, users will be immersed in the cultural communities of their choosing, consisting of supportive members with similar goals and growth-oriented mindsets.
Furthermore, S Traveler caters to those who aspire to teach self-development to our users and build a following of their own. Life coaches, inspirational speakers, spiritual teachers and mental health practitioners will use S traveler as a source to advertise their services. The platform will eventually allow them to offer their own courses and videos to users who want to experience other content outside of S Traveler courses.
Here are a few bloopers from a couple of our expert guides:
The Problem
Research has shown that social media has a negative impact on mental and emotional health and has become more disconnecting than connecting. Politics and social pressure has inundated news feeds, leaving people feeling unsatisfied and depressed, while feeling envious of their friend's "perfect life."
In fact, Facebook knows that its social network feed tremendously affects the moods of its users. For example, Facebook’s data scientists conducted a controversial human behavior experiment back in January 2012 where the News Feeds of 689,003 users were manipulated by having either all positive posts or the negative posts removed to see if it affected the moods of those users. It turns out the experiment worked as expected. Users that saw more negative content shared more depressing content and vice-versa.
Our Solution
First and foremost, S Traveler will always make decisions and create/add new features with the question in mind, "How do we create deeper human connection?" In addition, S Traveler will solve the problem in the following ways:
- culturally relevant self-development courses.
- metaphorical “travel” to expose users to different cultures and communities around the world.
- NO politics and negativity allowed on the site.
- less inundation of ads on the social platform as the S Traveler classifieds will display all advertisements.
- users will only be able to see their number of followers and the emoji reactions to their posts and journal entries on their dashboard. This information will not be made public for the intention of less ego and social pressure on social media. On the other hand, post/journal comments are made public.
- a gratitude board where users mention other users to express their gratitude for something they did that affected them in a positive way. This will encourage goodwill.
- the travel buddy option- where people can “travel’ together to another country - to do a new course together or join a new community.
What We Need & What You Get
We are currently working with a successful pre-seed investor who is going to fund 70% of the MVP (minimum viable product) and we have to come up with the other 30%. He is providing us with a tech team, focus groups/user testing, a marketing firm and mentorship.
Once it launches, we will be testing and making adjustments as needed. It will be a very scaled down version of the platform we envision. That said, we will offer a web application that gives all features of Facebook, however, users will have the ability to "travel" to different countries or locations - through an interactive map - that is always on the dashboard. Your community will change accordingly and the platform will suggest people to contact from initial info given by the user upon sign-up. Language will not be a barrier to connection as every chat feature will include translation to give the ability to talk to anyone, anywhere.
Also to note, we will not be adding courses, e-commerce souvenir shops and kitchens (relevant to culture and location) and culture experience in the different destinations until the platform gains good traction.
Once we are ready to go with the full platform, it was estimated we will need about $200k to build it (this doesn't include a web app, payment to S Traveler instructors, video content/production, etc). We are only asking for $100k as we are starting with the MVP and hope to gain enough awareness that investors will fund the rest. We have wireframes, user stories, graphics and content ready to go for the initial version. Here is the breakdown:
- $30k will build the MVP.
- $20K will go to the developers who will be creating the classifieds to advertise health and well-being services, mobile app, speakers and other people with awesome humanity/wellness services (this isn't included in the MVP Pre seed)
- $15k for marketing to gain users and service providers for online and local in person services.
- $20k will be used for professional grade hosting servers to accommodate a large audience and web security.
- The remaining $15k will be used for cultural research and education planning, instructor recruitment/contracts and legal fees.
(If you have any questions and need more clarity, feel free to email us!)
We would LOVE your help and have come up with several perks to THANK YOU for your generosity. We are offering everything from being listed on the website to actual S Traveler customized backpacks, beanies and t-shirts. We are SO excited about the project and really feel it will be life changing on a global scale and we want YOU to be apart of it.
The Impact
The time is now. Diversity is here. Culture is relevant. And, community is what we need. Human beings have been growing apart for far too long- it’s time to come together for a social revolution to change the world! Sounds dreamy, right? Maybe even impossible. But, what if I told you we know how to do it, right in the comforts of your own home! S Traveler is not just another social media platform, it’s a social SELF experience that creates deep human connection through a culturally relevant, self-development, and growth oriented platform. It’s a place where users can metaphorically travel to different destinations to be immersed in those communities to learn from each other. S Traveler encourages global unity, where language, race, religion, and geography is no barrier to human connection. Get your virtual passport ready, it’s time to go!
Risks & Challenges
We see two main challenges:
- all culture representations stay politically correct.
- subcultures within cultures are represented and not generalized.
S Traveler will have a Chief Culture Officer (CCO) - who will create and enforce policy to keep cultural integrity and diversity within the workplace and on the platform. We want women and people of color to be a big part of our team and will recruit them first as we need to fill positions. Our CCO will be apart of all departments, especially in HR.
Other Ways You Can Help
Please get the word out, share this to as many people as you can! Let us know if there's anything you'd like us to add in our platform...culture, courses, etc..we will be doing research, but would LOVE to hear from you if you have suggestions.
Do you know life coaches, inspirational speakers, spiritual teachers and mental health practitioners that have experience in teaching topics relevant to culture, diversity and/or self-development? Please have them contact us!
Finally, get YOUR virtual passport ready, become an S Traveler and leave your bags behind. We're traveling light for this trip!!
SIGN UP HERE FOR EMAIL UPDATES! www.straveler.io