Gillian Morris is the founder of Hitlist, an app that sends travel listings based on your time, destination and budget preferences. Have you always wanted to go somewhere but wanted to wait for the best time for your budget? The app will even alert you to travel deals on the destination of your dreams.
The idea for Hitlist came to Gillian while she was living in Istanbul. Frustrated that her friends weren’t visiting, she started sending them airline deals, and made the observation that if she sent them airline deals, they were more likely to travel more. Those same friends then started asking Gillian to provide discount fare alerts to other cities. After another travel-related search engine business idea didn’t take off, Gillian taught herself to code through Code Academy. And then, with the help from the developer community, she wrote a first script for Hitlist.
In today’s episode of I Want Her Job: The Podcast, Gillian shares how she iterated her idea, what her day-to-day life is like running Hitlist, and we also discuss why she considers travel one of the best “side hacks for peace building.” We also talk about a meaningful way to drive social impact while gaining priceless perspective and learn more about her experience volunteering for Gaza Sky Geeks, the first tech hub in Gaza.