Why it matters

Good for operators, guides, and the town.

1. Operators make more money. The guidebook turns the middle of a tour into a channel: more emails collected and more reviews earned, without a single awkward ask, so operators fill more calendars and keep guests coming back.
2. Guides make more money. Guests tip their guide straight from the guidebook, cash-free, in a couple of taps. It turns the most grateful moment of a tour into money the guide actually keeps.
3. Local communities get stronger. The guidebook points guests to the local spots worth their time and money, sending more business to the small places that make a neighborhood worth visiting.

Where it started

A beer guide, back in 2015.

The idea first showed up in 2015, while I was building a beer guide for Chicago Beer Experience. A simple thing guests could pull up on their phones. It was obvious there was something bigger there.

Over the years it kept coming back. I built several prototypes, and a few of them genuinely worked. Operators liked them. But I could never quite get the thing off the ground as a real, standalone product. It stayed a side idea I refused to give up on.

Now

Up and running.

In 2026, it's live. Digital Guidebooks is a real product with paying customers, and those first operators are already shaping where it goes next.