Which services do you use as a host, and how much do you pay for them?
I use lots of services and, as you said in your other topic, you’re a host so therefore you do too.
You joined just an hour ago and yet you expect us to tell you. Collectively the hosts here have spent many, many hours researching available tools and services, testing them, configuring them, getting feedback from guests and utilizing them to their best advantage.
We give away a lot of free info here but I think that because you’ve just joined, you’re asking quite a lot.
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I very much appreciate all of the information you’ve provided. My interest is to learn more about some of the challenges that other hosts face, so I could perhaps develop an offering to help them save time, save money, increase revenue, increase occupancy rates, increase average ratings, etc.
I realise that you might have the best of intentions. However, there are many tried and tested tools and services that have been around for a long time. Some hosts swear by some, whereas others wouldn’t touch them with a bargepole, All hosts are different and there’s no ‘one size fits all’ answer.
You can find out a great deal about the challenges hosts face by taking time (probably weeks!) to read this forum.
To be honest, there are regular posts here from people who have just joined the forum wanting to know how they ‘could perhaps develop an offering to help them save time, save money, increase revenue, increase occupancy rates, increase average ratings’. It’s a sort of ‘yawn’ thing - we’ve read it all before.
There’s one huge difference between this forum and others that you’ll find online. We are mostly composed of members who have been hosting for a long time and are wary of new members who want to ‘help’ us. Our collective experience is huge.
Develop your service first after intensive research. Only then should you post here, maybe for beta testers or with a free one-year trial.
To be brutally honest, this forum doesn’t exist to help you develop a product.
It seems that you are putting the cart before the horse. I understand ‘find out what people want and build a product to solve their problems’ but you really have to be more innovative yourself.
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Thank you again for your reply.
I’ve been hosting for an extremely long time, and that’s exactly why I gravitate to Airbnb hosts as a market that I want to help. I relate to the many challenges we face, as I face them myself. Perhaps the hosts that are active on this forum, do not need any help- and as a result, they are not my target market.
As someone who has experience bringing products to market, I very much disagree with your assessment to build something and then find people to pay for it. That’s the exact wrong way to develop a product, and the exact right way to waste a lot of time and money. In my experience, the best way to figure out what to build is to talk to people to understand their needs and problems. They may not know what they want, but they do know what problems they have.
If you are interested in helping. I am interested in learning more about the services you use to help you as an Airbnb host. I completely understand if that’s not information you want to provide.
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I think that you have misunderstood me because basically we agree.
However, it would benefit you to ask questions rather than a blanket ‘which services do you use and how much do you pay for them’. For example, ‘would you use a service that ensured that your guests check out on time?’ or ‘would you use a tool that ensured that your guests conformed to the house rules?’
This sort of approach might be better as they show that you have identified certain problems are willing to be working on a solution.
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An app/service I’d make great use of is one just for hosts to use to order a cleaning for either a room or complete property where the fee would be paid directly through the app. I would want to have a profile for a standard room turnover, and periodically I’d want to order other services too such as front porch cleaning, etc. The cleaners would have to have background checks and proof of identity, etc. as well as being licensed, bonded and insured.
I currently live near my listings but am considering moving out of the area. And currently I only have one reliable cleaning lady. It would also be nice to help her generate new business.
I think for this to work it would need to target only STR listings so cleaners understand specifics of host needs. Maybe the dreaded star mechanism so we hosts can grade/review their work to sift out the bad ones, and also have confidence that they can get the job done well. But we hosts would have to have lots of space to customize our requirements, such as needing the laundry done or just left somewhere for the host to collect.
I’ve searched for an app like this but none have cleaners in my area (Central California) and none are STR-specific.
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The way you have spammed the board the is NO WAY I would look at your product - you are RUDE!