Experience Houston as a Local

Localeur Launches in Houston!

Ever wanted to experience a destination the same way the locals do? Well, a new Travel Startup entitled Localeur has successfully provided this service in Austin, TX and now has expanded to Houston, TX.  Localeur is a curated community of local insiders who aid in helping you experience local in their city. Its authenticity and local credibility, along with its “live updates”, differentiates it from regular review sites and dated travel guide books. Tuesday, May 28^th, CEO’s Joah Spearman and Chase White, along with globe-trotting renowned DJ Mick (Localeur Investor), officially launched their Houston Presence. The Launch party was hosted by nationally known Houston native rapper Paul Wall, and was held at one of the leading live music venues in Houston; Fitzgerald’s.

During the party, we got a chance to sit down with the bright-eyed, enthusiastic Spearman for a quick interview:

TR: Thanks for sitting down with us! We are excited that you are launching here in Houston! Tell us about Localeur [what your mission is and what you guys are trying to accomplish].

Joah:  Yea, so Localeur is really a place for people who [start with travelers and also with new residents] come to a city. We want to help them experience local; meaning, we want to help them get thru the clutter of going to all the tourist places where everyone will tell them to go and send them to places that locals who live in that city will tell them to go: Eat, drink, shop, etc.  These are places that people who have lived here [local city] for years know about and [it would take travelers and new residents] a lot of time to learn about. We want to help them have a better experience while they are visiting or when they first move [to a city] by sharing that information.

TR: Right! I love to find hidden gems in my own city. How did you become aware of this market and what action did you immediately take to provide that market to others?

Joah: I mean, I think that the idea is borrowed from Indie Music. Indie Music has become very popular in the last few years, and part of the reason why is because radio died. When radio died people still wanted good music but they needed to know where to find it like Blogs or whatever. So festivals became very popular, like Summer Fest [Free Press Summer Festival]. So with Localeur, we are doing the same kind of thing. Its not that these are hidden gems necessarily, but these are places that are awesome but a smaller set of people know about. Those businesses actually need more customers to succeed and last longer and we don’t want to have to cater to the masses like Applebee’s or Starbucks. We want to help them by bringing them the kind of customers that do care about that local sentiment.  They are basically fans that they haven’t reached yet and we are bringing those fans to them.

TR: That’s interesting! I totally get it, so it’s like music in the fact that they [Local Businesses] are underground.

Joah: Yea we don’t want people to have to make a pop hit just to make it as a musician. So if you are a restaurant, we want you to make good quality food even if it means you have to use expensive local ingredients. That’s ok because there is an audience that wants those local ingredients. We don’t want you to copy other [mainstream] companies and cheapen your food just to survive.

TR: Exactly. So you guys quickly expanded to Houston. Do you know which city is next on your radar?

Joah: So the system that we have in place is [based from] a lyric that Jay-Z has “real recognize real and you’re looking familiar”, meaning locals know locals. So people that we think have the local sentiment, they know other people that have that sentiment as well. So we have been fortunate that a lot of people in Austin have introduced us to people who we think are cool and relevant in Houston. Our next city isn’t determined yet but we have some ideas in mind like more cities in Texas like Dallas or bigger cites like Los Angeles or New York. We think that our people in Austin and Houston can introduce us to people who are savvy in those cities who have that local sentiment as well.

TR: Right and that was going to be my next question. How is this curated community of local insiders established? How do you find your locals?

Joah: The number one way to become a Localeur is through the recommendation of another Localeur. It reminds me a lot of Facebook. When Facebook started you had to be in an Ivy League School and then a good public school and it grew from there. So we are taking that approach but instead of relying on colleges, we are relying on cities that we think cater to a local sentiment. Austin already has sort of a local angle verses Houston, people tend to think chain/big/corporate. What we are saying is there is actually an awesome creative local movement in Houston! So people who never thought about visiting Houston will see our site and say “I didn’t realize there were so many good restaurants in Houston, and I’m a foodie I’m going to go check it out!”; there’s more to Houston than Rockets Games and the Galleria].

TR: Right. Although your ideas are somewhat different, Localeur is compared to TripAdvisor and Yelp, how do you feel about that?

Joah: Those comparisons are merited in that fact that we are focused on a hybrid of travel like TripAdvisor, and local like Yelp. However the thing that sets us apart from both of those is curation. Curation is the single thing that makes us very certain that what we are doing is different. A lot of the businesses on Yelp are chains like Starbucks. But Starbucks doesn’t need Yelp’s help, but maybe the local coffee shop like Inversion or Black Smith does, and the same thing goes for TripAdvisor. No one needs help from them [TripAdvisor] to know that they should go to Times Square in New York, but maybe there is some hidden boutique that we can bring light to and we can help them. So really it’s about taking this approach to where we think Yelp is aggregating everything local and TripAdvisor is just focused on gathering everything tourist and we [Localeur] are sliding right thru the middle focusing on an audience that we think cares about traveling not like a tourist but only hitting the local stuff going straight pass the clutter.

TR: Wow what an amazing concept! Thank you for sitting down with us tonight and for making Houston your second city! We definitely look forward to the expansion of Localeur!

Joah: Definitely! Thank you! Thank you very much!

Synonymous with their Austin Launch, Localeur launched in Houston right before another huge music festival (Free Press Summer Festival) and later that night gave away two tickets. Since our interview, Localeur has added a huge number of Houston Locals to its site and the recommendations have been pouring in from where to find all vinyl dj’s to the best places to take a client for lunch! To Experience Local, more information, or to request Localeur in your city, please go to: www.localeur.com

Additionally, follow Localeur on Twitter & Instagram (@Localeur) as well for live recommendations!

–Bell