Memopin. "Connect" people's travel experiences.

The Armenian travel platform Memopin helps to discover interesting places and share personal experiences. It allows making travel notes on a map, saving memorable suggestions, and creating captivating collections. With Memopin, it is also possible to plan and compile personal lists, thematic guides, share personal experiences and recommendations.

Memopin's co-founder Karen Vardazaryan told iTel.am about the creation and future plans of the platform.

Memopin's concept and creation

I graduated from the National Polytechnic University of Armenia, majoring in engineering. I love creative work, and design won over programming for me. I have worked in various design studios and gained my main experience from freelance work with various companies and clients. Later, I joined different IT companies. I worked at Picsart and was the head of the design team at Joomag.

Traveling is my hobby, and I have traveled a lot both alone and with family and friends. My friend, Alexander Amirbekyan and I decided to design the Memopin platform from scratch as our startup project.

The purpose of Memopin is to connect people's experiences. For example, if I have been to a city and discovered interesting places and want to share information and impressions with my friends, I can easily do that through the Memopin platform.

Over time, we realized that it is needed not only for travel enthusiasts but also at a professional level. For instance, hotels can use it as a tool to make their guests' stays more exciting and memorable.

photo © Mediamax

We are developing a B2B solution, integrating activities and infrastructure into a single map. We can also offer location-based navigational services to guides.

Collaboration with Extraordinary Travel Festival

We began collaborating with Extraordinary Travel Festival back in 2019. We worked on programming extensively and paused work at times. We have become more active again recently. Last year, the world-famous Extraordinary Travel Festival took place in Armenia, with many well-known travelers coming to our country to participate in the event. Its map-based informational support was provided by us.

Guests at the festival used Memopin maps. We created a map with the festival's colors, branding, and logo, helping guests see where they could go and what they could do. We received quite positive feedback from there. The next festival will be in 2024, possibly in an Asian country, and we are working towards collaborating once again.

Karen Vardazaryan
photo © Mediamax

The popularity of the site has greatly increased due to the relocated people because of recent events, and we offer interesting places in Yerevan for families with children, and for individual visitors.

Competitors

We are studying our competitors. Google has captured the market, but the biggest problem is that it is not personalized. Users can see good marketing or algorithm work, but we are personalizing the experience, while the large platforms generalize it.

Investments and the team

Investments are made with personal funds, and we have done everything to create and develop a quality product. We have received grants from EIF, but mainly we have invested in development ourselves.

My friend and I are the co-founders. Aleksandr is an engineer, working in that direction, while I am a designer. We also have friend and partners who help with marketing.

Future plans

Memopin is currently available as a web version. In the future, we plan to develop a mobile app as well. We are including the element of artificial intelligence, integrating ChatGPT into the platform, which will provide personalized suggestions and hints about new places.

photo © Mediamax

We are currently conducting trials with small groups, involving local guides and tour operators. We will soon launch the beta version. The platform is ready for business solutions, and we are developing the updated multi-platform for future large-scale launch.

We plan to partner with American market players, working with small and medium businesses, and are negotiating in that direction.

The main goal is to bring people to our platform, where they can create branded lists, experiences, and stories.

Nune Grigoryan

Photos by Agape Grigoryan