The story behind NearPin

In 2011 I was working on a website to compare hotels. When a big player started advertising on television, I thought: there is no point anymore. Two or three large companies had taken the market, so the market was done. The plan stayed on the shelf.

A few years ago I was hit by a serious series of cardiovascular illnesses, including pulmonary embolisms and a stroke. I still feel the effects every day. That I am now building a company in spite of everything is, for me, proof that you can still be valuable after a setback.

In 2026 I put the plan to an AI chatbot and asked whether anything could still be done with it. The answer was the same as in 2011: no. But it also said I could make something different out of it, and came up with five ideas.

NearPin was one of them, and in my view the weakest. Still, it kept haunting me. After two or three weeks I started asking questions about it, and more and more came out of that. That is how NearPin was born.

It is really the reverse of that old plan. A comparison site lets guests choose between providers. NearPin shows a guest what there is to do around your hotel, campsite or holiday park, without a competitor on the map.