Founded by former HGTV producers-turned AirBnB hosts Annie Sloan & Mikel Hubbard, The Host Co offers property owners/managers an easy way to add retail items, specialty services or local vendor upsells to their short-term rentals, addressing a problem guests have had since AirBnb arrived in 2007. Their mission is to empower hosts (a majority of whom are women) to gain increased financial mobility through their platform.
$~2 million in seed funding
Enabled hosts to make an extra $100 with every booking
1,300 stores and counting
In January 2022, Annie Sloan, founder of The Host Co, knew she couldn’t keep leading the company and act as its Head of Product. She contacted The Product Consult to see if we could help. Over the course of our partnership, we created a small but mighty product development team and helped The Host Co exceed their annual goals by increasing total orders by 868%. Their new user adoption has increased by nearly 6x and their overall revenue growth has increased by 15x - all in 10 short months.
The Host Co knew they had a niche product that provided clear value to their users within the booming short-term rental space. They had a product in beta, but weren’t quite sure how to build a product management function to scale and find Product Market Fit. They knew it was time to bring in seasoned product expertise to help deliver on their 2022 roadmap, manage the technical team, and ensure they were working on the right things. Plus, they needed help getting things done asap, and didn’t have time to spend on a long interview and hiring process.
key feature releases
average order value
revenue growth
team velocity increase
We also established best practice processes to enable efficient intake and execution of new feature initiatives. We brought on a new & improved full-stack development team to partner on executing the strategic roadmap. We managed and launched key features like suggested products, guided onboarding and elevated support. Our partnership and the product development foundation we created has added significant value and positioned The Host Co for the next phase of funding and growth.
We also established best practice processes to enable efficient intake and execution of new feature initiatives. We brought on a new & improved full-stack development team to partner on executing the strategic roadmap. We managed and launched key features like suggested products, guided onboarding and elevated support. Our partnership and the product development foundation we created has added significant value and positioned The Host Co for the next phase of funding and growth.
Grew product development org from 5 across product management, design, and engineering
Enabled hosts to make more passive income with curated local vendor services
Launched key features like suggested products, guided onboarding, and elevated support
Demonstrated critical user traction and product market fit for next round of funding
Contact us to learn more about our customized engagements.
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