Looking to learn about pain points in customer acquisition, pricing and upselling

Research
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#1

Hello,

I am new to the forum. I’m a software developer currently trying to learn about the short term rental market.

I would love to chat with hosts to understand pain points related to customer acquisition, pricing and upselling. My goal is not to sell anything but to learn so that I can create useful software tools for the community.

Here is a link to schedule, in case you have 10-15min to chat: Calendly - Schedule to Chat

#2

This forum doesn’t take kindly to those who want to pick hosts’ brains for free to monetize the information.

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#3

Apologies, I was just trying to reach hosts, and didn’t see anything in the guidelines against trying to conduct interviews.

Do you have any suggestions on where to look for candid conversations about hosts’ experiences?

#4

We don’t?

202020202020

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#5

Perhaps you do, but it has always seemed that the majority of hosts here don’t. And it is against forum policy, I think. But I could amend that to say that most hosts here do not take kindly to it- is that better?

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#6

That’s likely because this is a discussion forum for hosts, not a place to source interviewees. And when the purpose of your interview is to glean info from hosts for free, so you can charge for a product you developed using that information, that’s different from, say, a student gathering information for a thesis.

Now if you were gathering information for a media expose on Airbnb’s abysmal customer service, you might find hosts would be interested. :wink:

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#7

Try Facebook…. Many many hosting groups there….

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#8

If he was proposing to pick our brains (which would only happen to the brains that actually volunteered) to mine information which was then sold to Big Data, well he should be politely chased out of here. However… it sounds to me like he’s exploring idea of developing some kind of software tool designed to be useful to Airbnb hosts – possibly even to some of… us!!

I’m not in a position to offer a response to mau.matsau on behalf of the entire forum or even “a majority of hosts,” but – speaking strictly for myself – I was slightly intrigued and not at all offended.

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#9

In which case contact the OP and offer your time for free to the OP @Spark

#10

Thanks for the clarification!
I would describe my goal quite differently though: I’m trying to understand whether there are win-win situations where I could create tools that would save hosts’ time and increase hosts’ profitability.
I am actually still far from having a product to sell. Rather, I’m trying to understand if this is a space that has software needs and would want attention from developers.

#11

That’s exactly right – I want to understand whether there are tools that could make hosts’ lives easier, and/or their businesses more profitable.
@Spark I’d love to chat in case you are open to it.

#12

The normal price for consultation from folks on this forum is $85 an hour. If you’re asking for help, make sure that this is the price point. Please respect their time. We found that $85 an hour is a reasonable cost for their consultation. But please, asking for people for free to help you develop a product to sell. It is against the rules of this forum…

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#13

Hosts have literally hundreds of software developers approaching us wanting free access to our time to do their market research so they can come up with software to sell us @mau.matsu

Why don’t you offer to pay a host for their time if you want to use our knowledge for your market research ?

What market research have you done to see what other host software is out there and what it offers ?

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#14

This has happened? On this forum?

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#15

Anyone asking for information from such a random group of forum members must be very wary of the data they receive.

We get a new member with a ‘great new idea to help hosts’ posting here on a very regular basis. Not once, to my knowledge, have any of them come back to say ‘here it is!’

Hosts themselves rarely agree on many subjects. Think for a minute about just a few of the variants.

  • A twenty-three-year-old new host’s experiences and knowledge , for example, are very different from the experience and knowledge of someone who has been in the STR industry for many years.

  • Some have experience of other platforms, while others don’t.

  • The experiences and opinions of a host, for example, in rural Indonesia can be totally unlike those of a host in the centre of London, or a tourist town in Florida.

  • Some hosts believe that all they have to do is put up their listing and Airbnb does the rest.

  • Some hosts fly under the radar and don’t have the necessary local licenses and/or STR insurance.

There are hundreds (thousands? More?) variations and permutations.

It’s such a huge industry (which is why hotel management courses exist in respectable universities) that the best way to do so is to join the industry itself and learn from experience.

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#16

Yes
202020202022020202

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#17

Some of us are cheap dates and will put out for an Amazon card.

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#18

I think it’s fun to do surveys and will do them for free :smiling_face:

@mau.matsu I’m sorry, but I don’t personally have anything to offer you. I’ve never given any thought to using software and don’t really have any pain points about acquisition, pricing or upselling.

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#19

I actually don’t mind folks asking to fill out surveys, what I dislike is the rhetoric about wanting to “help” hosts, when the goal is not to help but to make money off the gathered info and application.
It’s like influencers offering to “help” hosts showcase their listing, when what they are really after is free accommodation. Or Airbnb “helping” hosts get booked with insultingly low price tips.

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#20

Relevant short surveys I don’t mind. Asking for a one to one interviews and not offering to pay for our time/knowledge . Absolutely not

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