If this will sound obsessive, it’s because it is.
Before we land anywhere, our map is already full. Pinned. Color-coded. Emoji-tagged. Coffee spots get one marker, food gets another one, weird little shops nobody talks about get their own thing and hidden thrift shops. All of it curated days before we step off the plane, a lot of research goes into it
And then we walk. 20 to 25 kilometers a day. Every single day.
We start 8AM and start connecting the dots like some kind of urban treasure hunt with sore feet and a mix breed super well behaved that loves trains > Lupe.
But something was missing, two things actually. One of which was the documentation of that “journey”, the other we were already solving for with Ray Sanchez
Because of Asia Orlando’s work, and mine we are lucky to travel a lot. From LA to latin America, all the way through all of Europe (and the UK). Nothing in Asia yet but soon.
We are obsessed about finding those places, the coffee spots, the cardamon buns, my burgers (vegan/vegetarian ones for Asia), the second hand great places, not the good ones only, the great ones.
But, the other big part, something I rarely talk about (or brag) is my photography.
The funny thing I never considered myself a photographer, not until my photos ended up in some big brands assets, and magazines like Vogue, Rolling Stones, other cool ones. And on top of that I was paid for it.
Quite odd feeling, but pretty cool.
And even then, I never pursue this officially or as a “job” or “career”.
Why? a two fold
Because it’s a passion and every single time a passion of mine became work, I end up hating it after or get bored.
I’m 2eAuDHD.
The point is, I keep on going with my camera everywhere. Getting better gear, and with years getting better at it in general. Photography I mean.
And for the past 5 years I wanted to start a photography journal of sorts of places we visited and loved, talk to the owners, to the real people behind.
The second part of it, a book called “four seasons of” where I take photos of a city in different season through the year. But I never found the drive to do it, like formally do it.
The hard part for me was, the approach. Having a random startup founder finance guy going around taking pictures, even if it only takes literally 30min.
Or, something I figured later, I will stay longer if the conversation is good.
But early this year, that completley changed.
We started building Bargly with Ray Sanchez and while doing that we started, talking to shops owners and entrepreneurs more and more. That “spark” re-ignited this idea of creating and documenting stuff.
So I talked to Asia about it, about our obsession and how we can mix my photos, her discovery and creative writing. And a new project was born, started “officially” during our last trip to Copenhagen early August.
Finally this week, we the official name of the project was born Places by People is a Substack publication FREE + a website where we expand in content we can’t post on Substack.
So Substack is the distribution, and PLACESBYPEOPLE.com of those places and the documentation of great places by great people.
Started with the first interviews, and posts. I travel to places, talk to the owners, while we get to eat (always, always paying for it, no handovers), discover new things, buy a bunch of stuff (especially vintage clothes), now we can share that.
REJECTED
REJECTED
REJECTED
Getting your app rejected by Apple wasn't fun, getting the app approved isn't a straight line. In the video, I share a bit of our story.
About our the journey of launching Bargly in the app store, our digital awesomeness loyalty card app, after more than a few rejections (which is fine, we totally understand)
I talk a bit about why we were rejected (spoiler: it was about payments!), how we fixed it, and the moment we finally "Released the Kraken" and went live.
Bargly was designed to help shoppers keep all their physical and digital loyalty cards in one place so you never miss a stamp again, and get notifications when you are close to a golden goose (a promo) and shops to get discovered and have amazing marketing tools for their communities.
Download Bargly for free never miss a stamp or a promo from your favorite places:
As well our collections features so anyone can create collections of cool places they love and share them.
So since Aug 18th, Bargly the iOS app is already available in 175 countries, 22 languages.