{"id":11830,"date":"2020-01-15T14:33:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-15T19:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/content-manager\/?p=11830"},"modified":"2020-01-15T14:34:38","modified_gmt":"2020-01-15T19:34:38","slug":"alexis-ohanian-created-the-hipmunk-chipmunk-and-renthop-wally-mascots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.renthop.com\/blog\/alexis-ohanian-created-the-hipmunk-chipmunk-and-renthop-wally-mascots\/","title":{"rendered":"Alexis Ohanian Created the HipMunk ChipMunk and RentHop Wally Mascots"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
HipMunk just announced they will be shutting down next week<\/a>. Back in 2010 when they first launched, they were by far the best site for searching for flights. They also had the chipmunk mascot – who people have told us strongly resembles RentHop’s<\/a> Wally the Wallaby.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Turns out they are brothers! Or long lost cousins, or something. Alexis Ohanian created both, back when he was the Y Combinator Ambassador to the East<\/a>. Obviously NYC<\/a> is home to many startups now, including YC Alums. But back in 2011, there was still huge bias towards staying in the Bay Area after graduating from YC. Office hours and all the investors and other founders were still near Mountain View (or SF), so moving back to New York meant giving up many of the alumni network benefits.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n RentHop was among the first to lead the charge to New York, along with a handful of the old guard: Octopart, OMGPop (Draw Something), The Muse, Amicus, and TutorSpree. Aaron Harris’s TutorSpree at the time hosted Alexis Ohanian and Kat Manalac in their sweet SoHo<\/a> office spaces, and there we would have our office hours which led to RentHop Wally’s creation!<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Probably the best piece of advice we got from Alexis was to organize all of our data and search results in a way that was very useful for consumers. He pointed to the innovative AgonyScore, that HipMunk used with great success. Back in 2010, no search engine sorted flights in a sensible way (and no apartment site sorted listings sensibly). They realized travel is painful, but they could find the least agonizing flight possible. Good flights take off and land at desirable times and minimize craziness with transfer. Almost everyone would pay just a little bit more if it meant far more convenience. HipMunk would also suppress flight options that were obviously bad (same price but longer layover), and they were the first to clearly display WiFi capabilities on the flight (back when in-flight WiFi was usable — it seems to be getting worse).<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Early NYC Years For YC Alums<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
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HopScore and AgonyScore<\/h2>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n