It seems like just a month ago that Peek launched as an editorially curated, aspirational travel site with a transactional business model. Actually it was! But don’t let that stop you from reading the rest of this article, because it’s doing something new.
At launch, Peek had only a few destinations for travelers to check out, with some in Hawaii and a few in California. But it provides travelers going to those places with some smart editorial, some high-quality activities to choose from, and some insight from celebrities and tastemakers who know those locations best. That list bit — what Peek calls “Perfect Days” — has been extremely popular so far, as users have flocked to check out what Jack Dorsey likes to do in San Francisco, or where Devon Aoki gets drunk in Napa.*
But “perfect days” aren’t just for celebrities, right? Anyone can have a perfect day every now and again. And so Peek is now allowing everyone to contribute and curate their own favorite activities for visitors to the site.
Peek has rolled out a section of the site just for Perfect Days that are created by the community for cities all over the world. And it’s giving users the tools to create their own curated lists of things to do in the cities they love. On the Perfect Days section of the site, users can easily build lists by adding places and short descriptions that accompany the location. The site works by pulling in Foursquare location data and images to make Perfect Day locations look good. And at the end of each Perfect Day, the site builds a pre-populated map of the area for easier navigation.
That means users will no longer just be limited to the half-dozen or so destinations that Peek has created editorial for, or struck deals with local merchants at. It also means they’ll have insights into locations submitted by the broader Peek community. And for Peek, the new feature gives it a view into which places and activities resonate with users as it expands into new markets, helping it to determine what content should appear in new city guides.
Peek was founded by Ruzwana Bashir, who previously worked at Gilt Groupe, Art.sy, Blackstone, and Goldman Sachs, and Oskar Bruening, who worked at VMWare and Symantec. The startup has raised $1.4 million in seed funding from investors that include Jack Dorsey, Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, SV Angel, and Khosla Ventures.
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* Lying. Most of Aoki’s Napa stuff involves moving and hiking and not actually drinking wine.