Arianna O'Dell

Last week I just got back from a trip to Europe. This was my fourth trip to Europe over the last few years. Each time I have returned, I am met with the same response from friends and family.

“You’re so lucky.”

“I wish I could do that!

“I could never afford to do that..”

There is nothing that makes me sadder than hearing phrases like this. Anyone can travel. There are no excuses on why you can’t get your passport, hop a plane, and have the experience of a lifetime.

What are the excuses I’ve heard that cause people to never leave the country?

I don’t have the money for a flight.

Yes you do. For the past four years, between college and living expenses I have lived off around poverty level. (That said – I’ve managed to live great!) I had all the money I needed to put a roof over my head, eat well, and take amazing trips. Travel is not as expensive as you would think. I have not bought a plane ticket to Europe (round trip) for over $800 ever. This last trip, I found a ticket to London for only $432 dollars. There are so many great deals out there – you just have to look a bit harder. And to get you started, here’s a post for you on how to find these tickets.

I don’t have a passport.

Okay, go get one. For $140 dollars you can have your very own. This little book was the best purchase of my life. If you break down the cost over 12 years it costs you about 0.038 cents per day. For less than a penny a day, you can have 10 years of freedom to move about the world. For a college student or someone working paycheck to paycheck $140 is a lot of money – I completely understand. Once you take you’re first international trip – you’ll see it was worth it.

I don’t have anyone to go with.

The first time I had planned to leave the country, I had a friend planning to go with me. As the trip got closer, I never heard back from her. Silence. Since I had already bought my ticket, I decided… “who cares?! I’m going to go anyways.”Guess what? It was scary as hell. Prior to that trip I had never been to the airport by myself, I had never been on a plane by myself, and I didn’t know anyone in the whole country I was about to enter. It gets easier. Yes, it’s scary at first – but after about a day you feel comfortable, you loosen up, and you have the time of your life. There are tons of resources available for those traveling abroad. From finding new friends on Twitter, to Couchsufing – you don’t have to go the trip alone.

I can’t take time off from work.

If you have a job that doesn’t let you take even a week off during a year – you’re at the wrong job. With only a week, you can easily take a trip abroad.

I have nowhere to stay.

For anyone on a budget or traveling alone – hostel are a great options. From hostels, I’ve managed to keep my expenses low and make some amazing friends. I personally recommend HostelBookers for finding some great deals in amazing locations. If you’re even braver, CouchSufing is another option. CouchSufing is a global community of people willing to give travelers a spare bed or couch. In the past, I have hosted travelers and been hosted while in foreign countries. This site has given me some great friends and many once in a lifetime experiences.

I’ll travel when I’m older.

If you get hit by a bus tomorrow and die, traveling dead is going to be really tricky. Life is SHORT. You have no idea how many days you have left on this planet. If you want to travel – find a way to do it. There is no telling what your tomorrow may bring.

Women can’t travel alone.

Yes they can. The news is great at telling scary stories. For this reason, I worry my mom every-time I go abroad. (Whoever it was that told her to watch the movie, Taken, please let me know so I can punch you) If you watch your surroundings and stay smart – you’ll be fine. In all the international trips I’ve taken (while travelling alone) the worst that has happened was I got rude cat calls. You just brush it off.. and if that doesn’t work… the F word and the finger is pretty universally understood.

In the future, I plan to do as much traveling as I can. There are so many beautiful, wonderful places out there. You just have to hop a plane to see them. If you have any reasons on why you can’t travel, let me know in the comments and I’ll help you figure out how you can.

Oh yeah, and let’s be friends on Twitter?

Mis últimos tres meses han sido increíbles.

Gracias por amigos nuevos.

Gracias por comida y postres buenas.

Gracias por los tres meses de descanso y disfrute.

Gracias por abrir mi mente.

Gracias por enseñarme a amar.

Gracias por todo.

Nunca te olvidaré.

This year, I had planned to spend the entire year in Europe. 3 months in Spain and then 9 in Denmark. Because of misleading information by my school, this week, my plans have been torn to shreds. (Thanks, UW!) Because of visa complications, now I am unable to live in Denmark.

Not only am I disappointment I will not be going to Denmark, but I am a tad bitter that I poured a big chunk of (nonrefundable) money into visas, insurance, and flights. Now, I am required to book a flight back to Seattle (even more $). If you were to have asked me 6 months ago, where I would be in a month, I would have said – Copenhagen. If you ask me right now, I have no idea.

What do you do when everything goes wrong?

You allow yourself to pout for one day. (This includes ice cream and mindless television)
What happens the next day? You pick yourself off the floor and get over it.

Right now, everything is okay. I’m thankful for so many things. I’m in Spain for goodness sake! I have my health. I have a roof over my head. I have amazing friends. If I have learned anything from this experience is that I have the best support system in the world. From twitter friends, to IRL friends, you are all the freaking best. That’s all I have to say.

So what’s next?

No idea. I will be coming back to Seattle around the 20th of December. After, I have decided to officially start looking for a full-time job. I’m open to relocation and new adventures. Here’s to the future!

What I’m looking for :
A marketing or biz dev position in digital media. I’m looking for a job where I can use my passion for marketing to help take a business to the next level.
Industries of interest : music, consumer goods, travel, entertainment

Know of any openings? Wanna look at my portfolio? Here it is!

I got my coffee and I’m ready to work!

A few weeks ago, my friend Ludo Antonov and I attended the TechCrunch disrupt hackathon with an idea in mind. During the hackathon we build a product that enables businesses to quickly and easily establish a web presence – And so JustAbout.co was born.

During the 24 hour period we were able to build a functional prototype. Over the last few weeks, we’ve been hard at work polishing up the product and killing bugs. Yesterday, we finally launched! For our launch we got a few really nice stories from tech blogs around the web. Here are two of our favorites:

Thanks Jolie!

Thanks Drew!

Since then, a few people have messaged me saying “How did you do that? How can you get written up?”

My answer : You have to fail. You have to fail A LOT.

In the past, Ludo and I have worked on a number of start-ups and products together :
FlyByMusic – An online music streaming site that let you sync songs to your iPod from a web browser. (That got us in big trouble with the RIAA and cost us a ton of money in lawyer fees$$)
Lolzr- A platform we were going to build funny convertors on. Example : “Change your college tuition into beer.”
One Million Tweeps - An idea to get 1 Million Twitter accounts in a book.

Guess what? All of these went tank down and failed. Why?

Because we didn’t know what the hell we were doing!

….and that’s the beauty of entrepreneurship. You jump off a diving board while being unable to see the bottom of the pool. You have to change directions. You don’t know which way the current is going. Or as Pocahontas would put it, whatever is just around the riverbed. You have no idea. You have to go with the flow.

What did we learn from all these mistakes that helped us this time around?

Don’t keep your idea a secret – “My idea is super stealthy!” “Everyone will steal my idea.” 99.99% of the time, no one will steal your idea – stop flattering yourself. In the past, we’ve held off on PR efforts and refrained from talking about what we were doing. This time around, we talked a lot. We asked industry leaders for feedback and we talked about the product with all of our friends. This opened a lot of doors for us because we were able to get great feedback and feature suggestions.

PR, PR, PR – The first time I did any kind of PR I just made it up. I had no idea what I was doing. Now, people pay me to do it for them. This took a solid 4 years of mistakes to learn how to do it correctly. When you launch a product – tell people! PR is a numbers game – not everyone will write about you. Not everyone will care about what you’re doing. The more people and blogs you contact, the more of a chance you have to be written about. Everything in life is a number game.

Be flexible – Your business model isn’t written in stone and blood. You can pivot and change at anytime. Just because one model doesn’t work, doesn’t mean others won’t. Don’t give up – keep trying new things each and every day.

Though we still have a long way to go to reach success for JustAbout.co, we’re confident that this time around, we know how to run a business better than before. And on that note, I’d like to thank everyone who has given us feedback, connected us with industry leaders, and shared the website.

YOU are seriously the best. Remind me I owe you a hug when I see you!

(I’m a loser, baby!)

Moving to a new city is the easiest thing in the world.

PSYCH!

Moving to a new city is hard. New friends, new customs, new scenery, new everything.

This past month, I left Seattle and am currently living in León, Spain. This is my first extended stay in a non – English speaking country. So far it’s been amazing, frustrating, fun, lonely, and emotionally draining all at the same time.

Moving is always hard. Goodbyes are tough. Tears are shed. Then you’re gone..

The next day you hop a plane, pop some sleeping pills, and find yourself in a entirely new place. You know no one.  You don’t know how the city works. You get lost. You question your judgement for picking up and leaving your comfortable life.

But then it all gets better.

During my first few weeks in Spain, I was incredibly homesick. I longed to be with my friends at a pub on Friday night. I missed my fatty American sized coffees. I missed having entrepreneurship events to attend.

After having a pity party for a few days I realized “I can do that all here!”

“I can make friends.” – I just have to try a bit harder.

“I can go to entre events.” – I just have to find them.

“I can have 20oz coffees here” – I just need to order 4 coffees instead of 1

I just have to be proactive about it.

Making friends :

No one likes to be alone. No matter how tough you are, at the end of the day, everyone needs a friend. Making friends isn’t always easy. Personalities don’t always align. Not everyone will get your jokes. If you are sitting alone in a room, chances are people aren’t going to come up to you and say “Hi, I could use a new friend! Let’s be BFF forever!” YOU have to make an effort. YOU have to start conversations. YOU have to put yourself out of your comfort zone. This isn’t easy. Hell, it’s extremely hard to go up to random strangers and start a conversation. As hard as this is, I’ve been forcing myself to do it. Result :

I met some awesome people already!

Adjusting to cultural norms :

They say adjusting looks something like this :

From siestas to eating dinner at 10pm at night, Spain is very different than the United States. I’m a city girl at heart and the jump to a small town has been the biggest adjustment for me. Everything is slower than what I’m used to. If you know me, you know I talk a million miles a minute and drink coffee instead of sleeping. Leon has been different. I sleep at night here. I’m not stressed. THIS was the biggest adjustment for me. I love being stressed – as crazy as that sounds. I love being busy. I love having too many events to go to. I love not sleeping. (Okay, that last one is a lie.)

Fortunately enough, through Twitter, I found a lot of people who have eased the adjustment. From giving me music recommendations, to telling me about social media events – the Internet is a freaking amazing tool to find people and events of interest. Gracias amigos!

Language barrier :

I’ll come right out and say it – my Spanish isn’t very good. Though I’ve taken Spanish classes in school, my speaking ability has a long way to go. I feel embarrassed when I talk. I get frustrated. I don’t know what things mean. It took me 10 minutes today to try and figure out how to explain that I don’t like spicy food. (Picante – for future reference.) With anything in life, practice makes perfect. Over my next two months here, I will continue to practice and learn more each day.

Though the pace of life is different than Seattle, I’ve slowly gotten myself accustomed to the city. I’ve joined a gym, I’ve found a good coffee shop, and am finally getting accustomed to living here. It only gets easier from here.

Thank you to everyone that’s helped me out since I’ve been here. You are the best!

A few months ago, I decided I was going to just get up and leave Seattle for a while. So here I am, in Spain. Leon, to be exact.The past few days have been freaking epic, stressful, and emotional all at the same time.

Here is my internal dialog over the past few days:

The day before leaving :

“OMG”

“Wait, I’m not ready to leave for a year.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No, I’m not.”

“What if I have a panic attack on the plane? That would suck.”

“I like that new Usher song.”

“I should listen to Shakira to get ready for Spain.”

“Dammit, I’m going to miss my friends.”

“I’ll make new ones.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Yes, I will.”

“Okay, Arianna stop talking to yourself.”

At The Airport :

“Crap, I’m at the airport too early.”

“OMG I’m going to miss my flight.”

“No, I’m not. I’m here 5 hours early.”

“Yes. I am”

“I’m not ready.”

“Yes I am.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Wait, why am I going anyways?”

“Oh yeah, I wanna improve my Spanish.”

“Wait, why am I going to Denmark afterwards?”

“I wonder if Seattle will change when I’m gone.”

“I wonder if my friends will change.”

“I wonder if I will change.”

“Wait, so why Denmark? Spain makes sense. Why Denmark?”

“No idea.”

“Because I feel like it. Yeah, I’ll go with that.”

On the plane :

“Oh crap, I hope I don’t sit by someone that talks too much .”

“I wonder how much money this airline makes compared to Virgin.”

“Richard Branson is a boss. That would be cool if I ran into him in London.”

“That would never happen. That would be awesome.”

“I’m going to be so tired tomorrow.”

“I just won’t sleep.”

“No, I’ll just take some melatonin.”

“Shit, I hope the plane doesn’t crash.”

“What if it does? That would suck.”

“I wonder if I could swim my way out if we crashed in the water.”

“I wonder if I packed my goggles.”

“This movie is boring.”

“Ashton Kutcher is hot.”

“Why doesn’t this flight have wifi?”

“I am so boerd.”

“I should sleep.”

“I should take some more melatonin.”

“I wonder if you can overdose on this.”

“That would be a crappy way to die. At least a plane crash would be a cool story.”

“Ugh when are we going to get there?

At the border.

“Wait, do I tell them the truth about why I’m here or do I lie?”

“What if they don’t let me in?”

“What if I needed a visa?”

“That would be really cool if I got detained, how many people can say that?”

“Did I take those scissors out?”

“Wait, if I look drugged because I’m so tired…would I get arrested?”

“Am I going to get a guy or a girl border patrol person?”

*Freaks out before handing over my passport*

In London.

“I Effing LOVE THIS PLACE.” London morning vs London night below :

On the plane and bus ride to Spain:

“What if my Spain family is bad?”

“What if I don’t like it?”

“What if the people in my program are mean?”

“I can’t believe Ryan Air hosed me.”

“What if I get sick and hospitalized? Good thing they made me buy insurance.”

“That insurance was a ripoff.”

“I could have gotten at least a few hundred coffees with that money.”

“Coffee is so good. I wonder if the coffee is good here.”

“What if they don’t have a coffee maker.”

“I should really drink less coffee anyways.”

“But it’s so good.”

“I wonder how big the coffee market is in Spain.”

“I wonder what % market share Starbucks has.”

“Maybe the coffee there will be better.”

“I should import stuff from Spain back to the USA to make money.”

“I wonder how hard it is to be an entrepreneur is in Spain.”

“I can’t believe we missed our first bus today.”

“Ohhh, I should find some marketing, tech events to go to over here.”

“OMG this bus is going to crash.”

“That would suck.”

*Has half of a panic attack on bus*

“I hope my iPod doesn’t die on this ride.”

“I need to use the bathroom, but I don’t know how to ask this guy to move in Spanish.”

“Puedo mudarse?”

“No.”

“Necesito ir al bano?”

“I’ll just tap him and point.”

“Crap if they give me water then I’ll have to use the bathroom again.”

“Then this guy will hate me.”

“Or he’ll think I have a bladder problem.”

“What if I run into him in Leon?”

“That would be funny.”

“It’s such a small world. I wonder if I’ll see anyone from Seattle.”

“What if my family doesn’t like me?”

Gets to Leon:

So here I am, sitting in bed at the place where I will be residing for the next three months. So far the family is super nice, the food is good, and I’m really close to the classroom. *PHEW*

Here goes nothing…

Chapter 1 : Make Stupid Decisions.

On September 20th, I am leaving Seattle to go live in Europe for a year. This past few weeks have been CRAZY busy. For some reason, I made the (insane) decision to take a quick trip to San Francisco before heading out. I had completely no time to go on this trip but I’m glad I did.

Wait, what? Why San Francisco?

So it started like this : Random conversion at lunch one day with @NateWhitehill of Highlighter.

Nate : Something about how the place we went for lunch didn’t have a menu online.

Me : A few minutes later *light bulb moment* : “Wait, I don’t know why no one has made About.Me for business.”

Nate : “I don’t know, but that’s a good idea.”

A few days later….

Sitting in bed thinking (This is me talking to myself — Yeah, I know I’m crazy)

This is a super good idea.

Wait, why don’t I make this?

But I’m not a developer.

Maybe I can figure out how to build this.

Oh wait, I hate coding.

Oh I can hire one.

No… Wait, Ludo. He’s the best dev ever.

Let’s see what he thinks about this. *Goes on Facebook and messages Ludo*

Ludo the next morning :

Turns out, with my airline miles I had enough points to get a $5 flight to SF. *Tickets booked* #winning!

……until we then remembered we’d need to stay somewhere in SF. So I did what I always do when I’m in a crunch…. Twitter!

I then tweeted out “Yay. Flight booked! Going to Disrupt Hackaton with @Ludo_Antonov. Any generous SF people wanna let us crash on your couch/floor?” I shortly received

I’ve been tweeting at James for a long time on Twitter but it was so nice of him to let two strangers he didn’t know to come crash at his place. James is a founder of a company called Envolve that enables websites to be able to put real time chats on their own site. Envolve is a really spiffy idea and James is a great person to get to know. Great sense of humor and super awesome! Check him out.

Chapter 2 What’s up SFO?!

Ater reaching our destination, we met up with one of our good friends whom we had previously worked together on a start-up with. After a day of hanging out, sightseeing, and eating, we headed to Jame’s place. We got there, chatted a bit, and immediately crashed.

Chapter 3 And It Begins!

The next day after flying in, we made our way to the TC Disrupt hackathon. We quickly got to work building our project, JustAbout.co During the hackathon, I did things like put up a landing page, made social channels, and craft text for the website. Ludo is a freaking boss and coded away on the project (without sleeping once)! During the event, I wandered around and made some new friends! I met a ton of wonderful people who were hard at work on their own great ideas.

Shoutout to the CloudFlare guys! For a portion of the night I hung out with their team and played around with stickers at their booth.

Chapter 4 Zombies

After the 24 hours of the hackathon, it was time for the presentions. We had one minute to pitch and made our way to the stage. After no sleep my brain was fried.  (Prior to getting on stage I chugged a Red Bull.)

Though not my finest presentation, I was thrilled that we had something working (and beautiful) to present. And so http://justabout.co was seen by the public for the first time.

JustAbout.Co is a dead simple way for businesses to create a fast easy website and social media hub. Though we didn’t win one of the prizes, we won the prize of now having a foundation for our new business. Another bonus is that we got written up in Tech Crunch under staff favorites!

#winning!

Chapter 5 Disrupt

Turns out, if you attend the Hackathon, you get a free ticket to the $3000 Disrupt Confrence. w00t w00t. So here I am, sitting in the hall listening to Paul Graham give start-up advice. How cool is that? Great things happen when you get up, take spontaneous trips, and just do it!  See ya tomorrow, Seattle!

To sign up for our project go to JustAbout.co. We still have some bugs, but would love your initial feedback.

Be my friend on Twitter? @Arianna

Last night, the cool folks at Uber hooked me up with some ride credits to try out their service.  What is Uber?

Uber is a town car service that let’s you ping a ride via iPhone, Android or SMS.  I’ve been hearing about the service in the press for the  past year and was excited to hear they are planning to now take over Seattle.

So let’s see… what do I think of Uber? I’ll tell you about my night!

My friend and I are notorious for walking everywhere in Seattle. Last night, we decided to go for a walk.  We walked from the Udistrict to Capital Hill to Downtown Seattle. (Phew!)

Couple ‘O Pics from our night out –

 

At the end of our gallavanting around Seattle, we decided it was time to test out Uber. Sitting downtown by Pike’s, I whipped out my Andriod, pulled open the Uber app, and hit call driver.

The parts of the app I thought were cool were that  you received the name and number for your driver right off the bat. Another part of the app I thought was neat was that the driver was visible on the map via GPS so you could see how far away they were from picking you up. About 8 minutes after pinging the driver, our black car rolls up.

The driver was friendly, the car was clean (and swanky!), and we had a quick ride back to the Udistrict. Immediately, after I stepped out of the car, I got an email on my phone telling me how much the ride had cost with receipt. No hassle with payment, no hassle with tips – awesome!

I feel like the last time I took a cab from downtown it was maybe $5 less? (Roughly about the same) After this experience, I would definitely use Uber again for ease of use and the non-sketchyness of the driver. In the past, whenever I take a cab, I haven’t felt as comfortable as often cab drivers drive like maniacs or hit on you.

Next time I have a night out with friends – I’ll use Uber.

Note from Uber : “The first secret Ubers hit the road yesterday, that is our beta cars we’re excited, it’s been a journey.  This is not full launch and supply is pretty limited during this phase but we are encouraging people to ride to we can start ironing things out. “