Here at Amons Inc. we have created a web platform that allows travellers to exchange their skills and services for a place to stay from a local host.
Hosts benefit from the varied skills of their guests and the travellers get an authentic travelling experience with local hosts. The tasks can be anything from language exchange, painting the apartment, cooking, even web development.
The purpose of the platform is to create affordable travel opportunities as well as opening up hosts to highly sought after skills and solutions for their everyday tasks. The beauty is that there’s no money involved in their exchange. Basically, hosts gets the tasks done for free and traveller gets the room for free.
What is interesting about us is that I’m the only founder. Developers usually hear from VC’s that company with one founder can’t succeed, that may have been true about 7 years ago. I personally believe that a company with 2 or more founders have lower chance of succeeding. From my experience they tend to have a conformist attitude when it comes to execution.
I’m lucky to have a great team, the interaction of all elements are awesome so far, creating a really great synergy. We are extremely passionate about the idea which is super important. Creating an environment where persons from around the world can connect in order to travel almost for free we are definitely creating new type of cooperation. This type of voluntary cultural exchange is so important for globalization and improvement of individuals. Diversity is hugely influencing our lives in many positive ways. The world is already experiencing diversity through globalization (voluntary trade). To change that, there’s going to be a lot of work, understanding how voluntary exchange is actually prerequisite for a happy world.
Never underestimate the impact of culture…
I believe strongly in company culture but most importantly I believe in diversity and spontaneous actions, followed up by great guidance. Diversity is amazingly enhancing our creativity and it’s one of the most important values that we have and it’s what our whole story is based on. We don’t have particularly prescribed non-company activities but we are encouraging the team in numerous ways to take rational risks and we are giving them numerous opportunities to engage in spontaneous actions.
But, of course, we expect nothing less than the best from them — it’s them who need to objectively understand why they need to give their best and we are there to guide them. If they don’t understand this, they are not a fit for our team. Our values are highly tightened with the individuals — if our individuals prosper, Amons will prosper.
There are no “big” or “small” priorities with us — everything is equally important. This is why i said that the individuals need to deeply understand the values that we have and that we are working on. Focusing on travellers and hosts and giving them fanatical support is our top priority.
We are seeking raw, young talent with lots of endurance and integrity!
It is always welcome but I have to say that “experience” is an extremely relative notion today. Rather than hiring people who think they know the business only because of their experience we are focusing on what you can contribute in the long term, and maintain a lot of energy. From my recruiting experience, the majority of experienced folks tend to have an attitude “it can’t be done because it was never done” while younger folks tend to have a more lucid attitude which is really important for us.
We are doing a wonderful thing by providing possibility for people around the globe to connect and exchange their services in “real” life without expenses. It’s important for anyone who is with us to do tasks that have meaning — to understand their role and that they can prosper with no limits.
It helps to have an awesome team of people who will always give constructive feedback. We have a nice tools to work with so anyone would feel great working in our environment. Anyone who loves diversity will enjoy open-active-mindedness of our team. There are occasionally some unique benefits for each member of our team and we really care about each others work and lending a helping hand outside of work.
Our Future
Ultimately we are providing a platform where individuals can travel amazingly, cheaply and hosts get help from travellers with no expenses.
We don’t want to endorse anybody but we want to become leaders in our niche and possibly influence the other travel/hospitality markets. Understanding the current social and economic trends, our goal is to completely reduce expenses for travelers and hosts. Being a great place to connect where people are inspired to be a part of our community is really our major goal. We not only want to change the way how people can cooperate but to continuously improve their lives through the exchange that is not limited to one type.
Written by Founder & CEO of amons.co — Marko Islamovic
Edited by Imriel Morgan, Head of Content at Nudj
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