My POV: There’s a natural ceiling to how big a business THS can become / how much revenue it can consistently generate, simply because there are only so many people who are trustworthy and responsible enough to want to take good care of a stranger’s home and pets. And those potential sitters aren’t uniform when it comes to willingness or ability to pay.
A savvy business would have done financial modeling and come up with various strategies. But THS ownership / decision-makers don’t seem savvy.
Note: Pricing right is actually a specialty, rather than something done well by random folks. Savvy businesses recognize such and don’t work backward, like by deciding how much they want to make and just slapping on new costs or fees. They realize that you can actually drive off too many (prospective) customers away if you get things wrong.
Great summing up, your comments will be “passed back to the team”, and, as you say, forgotten about.
The target of a 1,000,000 members seems like something an imaginative accountant (if that isn’t an oxymoron) has come up with. I wonder if THS did any real research in the probability of achieving that.
Doubt it. Probably a random number.
If you were British I might think you were being sarcastic. I don’t think PE investors would do anything randomly. It’s a headline number that carries a lot of weight, emotionally and otherwise.
I said random, because it’s unlikely to be based on any research or such about their actual ability to achieve it.
What you described, about trying to impress, is not based on anything I’d consider legit.
There will always be new sitters arriving to replace those who leave THS. No one is irreplaceable, especially today with the economic crisis; going on vacation and paying for a hotel or Airbnb is very expensive.
The THS pet-sitting model is well-known thanks to word of mouth. With 280,000 members and 15 years of experience, this brand is well-established worldwide.
However, we shouldn’t overlook the new alternatives. It’s a very large market. There are pet-sitting groups on Facebook three times larger than the THS community.
Nomador is an example of a platform that has survived and grown significantly. New platforms also seem promising, based on the work I’ve seen in creating the plateform.
Sure, there are plenty of people who would want to stay without paying. The question is, how many of those people are responsible enough to take good care of pets and homes?
About there always being new sitters: Sounds like more hosts are saying they’re not getting applicants or are getting ones who aren’t a match. That runs counter to the idea that there’s an endless supply of sitters.
Personally, I think it will be interesting to see how things unfold, business wise, even if I don’t renew.
I’m not sure THS will be recognisable if they reach the milestone of 1,000,000 members. Personally, I enjoyed it when it was a little quirky and niche.
The same applies to pet owners.
We have to do our best since we’re rated at the end. I read a lot of reviews, and 99% of them are 5 stars for both parties.
This isn’t a professional platform with selection and recruitment of professionals, so we can’t be too demanding or picky. Sitters are free not to return. Hosts are free not to use the same sitter, which seems to be very common despite the good ratings. There’s a turnover.
Personally, I’ve always received 5 stars, and I’ve sometimes told the hosts I’d be happy to come back, but they haven’t contacted me by private message on THS or on my personal phone number.
Relationships between people are very dependent on the level of expectation and chemistry.
Your answer seems tangential and wouldn’t change over time. Yet hosts saying they’re not getting applicants or mismatches is on the uptick.
As for repeats, some sitters like them; some don’t.
Personally, I get a lot of requests for repeats. The hosts message or text me directly most of the time. But I do only limited ones, because I prefer new experiences, as many sitters do.
We don’t know the breakdown of new members, who are sitters or HOs. If it skews too much towards one group that may affect long term viability and success.
I have a # of saved searches for the UK that I setup solely to monitor how many sits go unfulfilled, right now I see a lot with few applications and many with none. Lots of factors behind this, but whatever the reason it’s not good for business. Once word spreads that HOs couldn’t find suitable sitters that could be very damaging.
New members may be signing up, but the loss of experienced sitters with multiple great reviews will have a disproportionate effect.