For the second time this month, a new guided walking tour app is launching in the District.
"Civilian Guides" startup Sidewalk, which went live today in D.C., offers users a free platform of specialized guided walking tours. The San Francisco-based company launched about a month ago in four markets — Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Seattle.
While the app is available for use in any city all over the country, co-founder and CEO Jason Donahue explained that by going live, D.C. will become their fifth featured city, and will be listed on the app's carousel page of cities with the most walking guides, or "Sidewalks," as they call them.
"Something that I think is unique about D.C. is that there's so much diversity in the city, so many different industries that are present, so many people who travel to D.C., whether it's for work or tourism or art or food or various other things," Donahue said. "I think D.C. has a higher proportion of opportunities to recommend people to go see certain things than almost any other city."
Anyone can log in to the app and create a guided tour, which are reviewed usually within 24-hours, Hotchkiss said. A content wizard prompts users through the process of building a guide, customized to a set of topics, like food or local history. It asks for personalized information, like insights into the best cupcake flavor at a local bakery, or fun stories about a great first date restaurant.
"They can be created by anyone, as long as they have passion for a place, stories to share or information about where they know and love," Donahue said, later adding, "It's the context that makes me fall in love with a place."
Donahue and Chief Technology Officer Dave Hotchkiss founded Sidewalk about a year ago, after quitting their jobs in Silicon Valley. Donahue was a group product manager at Jawbone, and Hotchkiss left his job as an engineering manager for Twitter.
The two met in high school, but the idea to go into business together was born about a year and a half ago.
"Both of us worked in roles that involved a fair amount of travel, so Sidewalk is born out of our own frustrations in what we saw as shortcomings [in touring a new city]" Hotchkiss said. "So, when I went to a city for work, I'd have a few hours and want to see something special, and in order to see or understand a neighborhood, it required I spend hours on the Internet... or buy a guidebook that might be outdated, or even wrong. Sidewalk was our idea to help people share their own stories."
The crowdsourced nature of the app, they said, is part of what differentiates it from other guided walking tour companies.
"We think the ability to share a city should be democratized," Donahue said. "We want anyone to be able to deliver their passions, and one of the nice things about it is that it's really simple to use. No one has to learn how to code, no one has to be sophisticated in terms of learning new tech. It really is, if you can use a smartphone, a keyboard on your smartphone and a camera, you're done."
Those looking to take a tour of a city can filter through their options and take the tour for free. At the end, they have the option to tip the guide creator. That tip is then split between the creator and the company.
Revenue comes in from tips and partnerships, Hotchkiss said. They can work with companies to create sponsored content on the app. They've bootstrapped their way so far, but the app is already generating revenue, they said.
D.C. will launch with seven Sidewalks, including an "Instagram-Worthy, Tastebud-Approved Walk Of Georgetown", a "Power Lunches, Lobbyist Happy Hours and the Hangout Spots of Capitol Hill Politicos" guide, and "Spooks, Spies and Saboteurs: Clandestine Organizations and Betrayal in Washington DC."
The seven D.C. tours will join a collection of 60 guides among the company's four other markets.
