Are There Showers? Hipcamp and the Benefits of Exclusive Supply

Hi 👋 — New technologies enable new business models. Today, most of the world walks around with an internet-connected supercomputer in their pocket. Smartphones have allowed all sorts of new marketplaces to flourish. Airbnb lets hosts sell spare rooms. Turo lets car-owners compete with Hertz. ThreadUp is digitizing thrifting. This post digs into Hipcamp, a marketplace for outdoor accommodations. Happy camping. 🏕

There was a beautiful break. Had she known, she would have packed her surfboard, but the website for Andrew Molera State Park didn’t mention anything about surfing. As Hipcamp founder and CEO Alyssa Ravasio watched the Pacific surf break on California’s Central Coast, she knew there had to be a better way.

From Chaos to Order

This moment inspired Ravasio to build Hipcamp, a marketplace for campsites and outdoor accommodations. As Airbnb monetizes spare rooms, Hipcamp monetizes open space. Its mission is to help more people get outside. The product centralizes fragmented information from across the internet, including if a campground had great surfing. Hipcamp’s listings range from no-frills campsites to elaborate glamping get-ups — equipped, naturally, with Tesla chargers — and everything in between.

Hipcamp aggregated, structured, and organized data from county, state, and national parks into one location. Making siloed data accessible helped it gain traction. Most users didn’t care whether they were…