Solo travelers, Adventurely is the app you've been waiting for

Mita Carriman is a lawyer-turned startup wonder woman. When she's not running around the city getting trademarks for creative brands, she's hacking away on her new app, Adventurely. She has already gained some initial traction in NYC and Skift named Adventurely one of the top travel startups with bold ideas for 2016. We loved getting to know more about her venture and what drives her passion for solo travel!

What are you currently working on?

I'm the Co-Founder and CEO of Adventurely, an app for finding activities and getting matched with activity partners. The easiest way I could describe it is "Yelp" meets "Tinder." 

How did you get the inspiration behind Adventurely? 

I unexpectedly ended up as a solo traveler in Philly one weekend and wanted to find company to join me in checking out some of the city sights. I went on Tinder and not surprisingly the guys there seemed aggressively focused on meeting women only for casual hookups - not the type of place where I could legitimately find company to just go to a museum or something like that. I then tried Meetup, which is a great place to meet people in general for activities and networking, but there weren't any Meetups planned that fit my travel schedule, and it didn't make sense for me to try to purchase and grow my own Meetup group when I was only in town for a few days. I felt that there could be another option in tech for meeting people for activities with the trusted culture of Meetup, but with the flexibility of Tinder sans Tinder-shadiness. Hence Adventurely was born! 

Was there a moment in time that really made you think ‘wow, there is a lot of potential here’?

Absolutely! For me it was when I researched the market and saw how big the solo travel demographic is, particularly for women. 72% of all women in America are now traveling solo, and its not just about so-called "single women" traveling solo. Its something that married women and women in relationships are raving about as well. I think with women wearing more hats than ever in their professional and personal lives, they really just cherish a chance for quality time to recharge by themselves, and to indulge in enjoying a new place as a solo traveler completely on their own terms. 

What types of people do you think will benefit most from what Adventurely has to offer?

Solo travelers and locals who are looking for activities to do and activity partners to join them. I think we appeal to a lot of business travelers as well who often complain about being in awesome cities with money to spend and no one to join them during their downtime - so they end up getting room service and feeling lonely in their hotel rooms. Our app would be perfect for them. 

What are some unexpected thing that you’ve learned since being an entrepreneur?

 I always find it surprising to see how your ideas play out in practice versus theorizing about them in your head. Sometimes your ideas play out exactly as you imagined, and other times they take a wild detour you would have never thought of. To that end, i've become a big fan of the "fail hard and fast" mentality to quickly proof your assumptions, then adjust iteration based on the reaction of your users. 

What's your favorite Croissant space and why?

I LOVE LMHQ. I'm big fan of downtown Manhattan in general so location appeals strongly to me.  I also love the aesthetics and culture they have at LMHQ. Aesthetically its full of light and has modern design which makes it a great environment to work in. Culture-wise, I really appreciate their programming of events and introductions to interesting new startups and people of interest in the startup community. I really appreciate getting a chance to work from there with Croissant! And my productivity level working from there went through the roof. Thanks for making that happen team Croissant! 

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