Alayna Holkesvig just wanted to take a nap in a pretty place. She had a headache after a long drive to Minneapolis, she and her friend were arguing, and they had time to kill before the concert that night. So they stumbled upon a nice place by the Missisippi river, put down the seats of her Santa Fe, and took a snooze.

Not long after this trip, Holkesvig and her friend were back for another concert and in need of a nap. But that perfect riverside spot was nowhere to be found.

“We were just a mess,” she said. “We were like, ‘Where is this place! We just need a nap!”

It occurred to Holkesvig how useful it would be to have some way to track ‘hidden gems’ like their nap spot, so that one could find them again without having to dig through Google Maps bookmarks or spend a long time tracking it down on a map.

“At that point I was like, ‘why isn’t there a thing where you can pin it and then go back?'” she said.

Building Outside the Grid

She took the idea to Women’s Startup Weekend on April 17-19, where she formed a team with web-designer Lydia Gilbertson and graphic designer Rukia Aden. Over the course of 54 hours, they designed a website called Outside the Grid, a place where adventurers – or ‘Gridders,’ a term coined by Holkesvig, – can map their favorite travel spots that might not be on a traditional map.

Outside the Grid won First Place, and the women received a legal package, access to CoCo Fargo, and books to guide their new venture. They are also presenting Outside the Grid at 1 Million Cups this Wednesday, May 6. But what’s more is that Holkesvig’s idea, which started as just a small budding thought before Startup Weekend, she said, suddenly blossomed into something real.

“We hang out all the time and talk about it,” said Gilbertson, who became fast friends with Holkesvig after working together on the project.

“Now it’s just expanding,” Holkesvig said. “We can’t sleep sometimes because we’re thinking about the business. It’s constantly on our mind.”

Ideally, she said, they’ll have an app developed in a year and a half that can be used on and offline in the United States to track those places that are ‘outside the grid.’ For now they are starting in the U.S., but hope to expand to Europe and the rest of the world in the future.

Creating the Gridder Community

But since the initial development of the site, the idea has expanded beyond just mapping travel points with an app. It’s about creating a culture as well. That could be seen when the team presented at Startup Weekend, all wearing OTG t-shirts branded with the Outside the Grid logo. They plan to sell these shirts in order to fund the development of their app.

The Gridder culture is woven throughout the website as well; on the homepage, the first thing you see is a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

Besides just mapping their travel spots, Gridders are encouraged to share their adventure stories and photos, and can browse music playlists tailored to “enhance your journey.”

“If you find yourself consumed by wanderlust and always looking for the road less traveled, consider yourself a part of this community of ‘Gridders,'” the website reads.

The wanderlust culture – which has taken hold particularly with this generation, Holkesvig noted – is exactly what she and her team hope to target. While other apps offer ways to track cool restaurants and bars, they want to use their app to track more outdoorsy spots, and then create a communal atmosphere around the site for storytelling.

“I knew we didn’t want to do anything commercial, we want to do things that are more natural. Trying to find that waterfall that’s in the woods when you’re hiking. Or a cool cliff with a unique feature,” Holkesvig said. “It’s for the traveler, where they can go on and look around and say ‘oh here’s a picture. This would be cool. You guys want to go check this out?'”

It’s not about the money

The entire process has been a learning experience, Gilbertson and Holkesvig said. Gilbertson, a 26-year-old web editor at Spotlight Media Inc., is a master with WordPress and is building up the website from scratch, working from a closet-turned-office space in Holkesvig’s room.

Holkesvig, a 22-year-old music industry major at Minnesota State University-Moorhead, also runs her own DJ business with her mother and has learned a lot about business strategy – both there and in her classes from MSUM, she said.

The two meet-up after work and school, putting in their free time to making Outside the Grid real. Even if the expenses come out of her own pocket, Holkesvig said, she wants to make this happen.

“We’re doing it for fun,” Holkesvig said. “It’s not about the money at all.”

“I think we’re partially doing this because we’re just trying to see if we can do it,” Gilberston added. “To make something that functions.”

Now, their goal is to get as many travel stories as possible. Visit outisdethegrid.co to check it out!

Come hear Lydia and Alayna talk about Outside the Grid on Wednesday, May 6, at 1 Million Cups, 9:15 AM at the Stage at Island Park.

Find Outside the Grid on Facebook, or on instagram as @outsidethegrid.

Photos courtesy of Marisa Jackels and Outside the Grid.