Subscribe
Sign in
Overnight — Book a last-minute stay with local hosts
56
Replies
Patrick Coombe
itunes only?
Share
I had known about this literally yesterday I would have used it, I was in LA needing a last-minute crash pad in the Arts District.
It's funny reading about your vision because it's exactly the same intention we have behind @hitlist_app - inspiring and enabling people to travel more frequently. The average American travels to 2.9 times a year and we want to get it to five by making it easier to discover what airfares are available, spontaneously or even when you're planning further in advance. I will be using the app I am definitely looking you up when I'm next in LA !
@gillianim @hitlist_app Awesome. Let me know next time you're in LA! I'm a big fan of your app, and have been since it came out. I spent like 40 minutes onboarding all the places i had been.
@guygal I second this! Such a good idea to reverse this and not spend so much time as a traveler making booking requests, then potentially waiting 24 hours to hear back.
This is a cool take on last minute, on demand bookings. very well thought for mobile, kinda uber for couch-surfing :) i dig it, especially b/c all the big companies in the space were never mobile first. congrats @asherhunt!
@benrbn Thanks man. Very excited to be solving the problem of last-minute stays. Our goal is very simple - we want more people to travel more frequently. We believe that if we can surface alternative accommodations faster, then we’re on our way there … If we can get someone who travels twice a year to travel four times a year, we’re doing something very special.
@asherhunt @benrbn "Our goal is very simple - we want more people to travel more frequently."
I am 100% with you on that sentiment. We have the same long term mission with @gethorizonapp
I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on host incentives, as well as traveler fallback options. Do hosts get a premium for being more accommodating last minute? What happens if a traveler arrives in a city expecting to be able to find a last minute host and can't? Hoteltonight? It seems many are going to be terrified of arriving in a new city and have even a slight risk of not being accommodated.
@asherhunt your product looks pretty awesome! Would complement ours pretty nicely ;) We're focused on spontaneous travel from a flights perspective!
We've hosted a couple of guests at our loft and the experience is amazing. Being mobile first and last minute lowers the planning overhead for both sides. Super stoked to be joining @asherhunt and team on the journey ahead.
Your prior name was Crashpad, correct? Anything you can share about what led to the pivot / re-brand?
Love the idea will try it out for sure.
Some unsolicited feedback on the website -- The homepage doesn't appear to have a download app button which seems like a no brainer-- had to search it on iTunes. Also I couldn't easily find an email address/contact form to send questions/comments/feedback. Am I missing something?
@nickwoodhams Hi nick, if you're on your phone there's an easy download button. It's responsive. On the web there's a form to just have it sent directly to your inbox so you can download it from there! Also if you're on an iPhone and you view it, there should be a smart banner that shows you a download button. Let me know if I can be any more helpful!
Also great feedback on the feedback section :)
We do have this for users, and it's very easy to find support. I also made this quick page. https://www.joinovernight.com/help, but it could be better. I'll take a look at what I can build quickly.
Great idea and a really nice looking app, well done @asherhunt & team. Digging the vision behind it, I immediately thought of @gillianim also when I read that. Spontaneous (& mobile first) travel adventures is the future of travel (I hope).
Picturing my next trip already: 1. Book a spontaneous cheap flight somewhere never been before using @hitlist_app (do no other pre-planning or booking of anything, just get on flight). 2. Arrive, open up @partywithalocal and find some fun locals to party with, have epic night out somewhere you never would have found on your own. 3. Find a place to crash with locals using Overnight. 4. Uber to locals place (via kebab joint?) 5. Wake up and explore a new city - likely with a bunch of great insider tips from your host and locals you met/partied with last night - sounds pretty cool to me!
@gillianim @hitlist_app @partywithalocal Hey thanks @dan_fennessy I think we're all on the same page and I think it's a really great think that we're ALL pushing for exploration, more spontaneity, more exposure to more places and more of a human connection. Really cool world we live in right now - I could not be more excited.
Oh this is _really cool_.
Totally dig the convenience here, that you just say "I want to stay in this area" and hosts can contact you to say they've got a place to stay. Really nice reversal of the normal setup there.
Can totally see myself using this when travelling. Great job @asherhunt & team!
p.s. Mobile first 🙌
Love this - just listed my place in Venice! I've Couchsurfed and Airbnb'd all over the world, both as a host and guest. As a guest, neither platform is friendly with spontaneity, occasionally leaving me scrambling. As a host, updating my calendar and committing to future bookings was always a tough. Really excited for the way's you've solved these pain points, @asherhunt and team!
As you grow, one of my favorite Airbnb features are the professional photos for your listing. Perhaps a future feature for power hosts?
Happy to provide any/all feedback!
@nnezhat amazing, I really can't wait to get your feedback and I'm very excited that you've listed. We've been thinking through this and how to really profile our hosts. We think human connection is important, and you don't get that feeling staring into an empty room. We're thinking of how we can change this and profiling our power hosts in such a way where it represents them as individuals.
Great concept (actually surprised this hasn't happened sooner).
What cities does it work in?
@hankleber Great question. We're in Los Angeles and launching Austin just ahead of SXSW! LA is our home base (very proud) and it's the perfect city for us to polish our flywheel. These are cities we're activating actively and @schabelman is killing it with community. That being said we have hosts who have self on-boarded their listings in 30+ cities across 12 countries and counting!
This + Party with a Local ensures you have a good night out, but if you make a fool of yourself (looking at you @bentossell), you still have place to sleep.
Excited to see how this app does. One of the challenges of the peer-to-peer rental space is that home owners don't update their availability calendars regularly which leads to a lot of fruitless searching. This is shifting as more companies move their owners away from Inquiries to Book Instantly.
@tylerswartz We're really excited to introduce a new framework for thinking about hosting which doesn't require a calendar or calendar management. Also listings are private. When you get an incoming request you decide if you want to make your place available to that traveler after you vet them in the app.
@asherhunt that sounds like a good approach 😃. How long do you give each homeowner to respond, before the request is passed to the next one? Or, does it go to all of them and the first to respond gets it?
@tylerswartz Good question, multiple people can respond, and we do this so the traveler has a handful of options to choose from, while still diminishing the analysis paralysis of traditional booking options. That said, we do push requests to hosts who are available that day, within that radius.
For example, within just a few minutes of requesting in LA you'll get a handful of responses to choose from. We're flood-gating right now as we've had a bit of attention today due to our launch but it also gives us a great opportunity to have great conversations with our would-be guests and welcome them to the community.
I tried signing up with my German number and received a "Please specify a valid phone number" error. If you aren't available outside the US, you should let users and know offer to text them when the app is available in their area.
@danielfoster437 we'll definitely look into this. The number should never be a gating issue - that's a bug, and thanks for the heads up. People are notified if they try to make a request in an area that has no listings. If you're able to make a request at all, that means there is some number of hosts in the area!
