The Bookster Podcast: Vertical Integration

Transcript

Hello, I'm Simon and welcome back to the Bookster Podcast.

From inside the SAS Holiday Rental Software Company, Bookster based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Follow along as Bookster discuss their journey and their inner workings.

Thank you for joining us and we hope you find these conversations insightful and ultimately helpful.

Minute 1

Now I'm joined today as always by CEO and co-founder of Bookster, Mr.

Robin Morris.

Robin, hello again.

Hello, Simon.

How are you doing? Very well, thank you.

How are you? I'm good.

Yes.

Looking forward to the cold wet winter.

I know.

We've certainly changed seasons since our last podcast.

It's now very dull and green.

A lot of leaves on the ground.

So we've also today lucky enough to be joined once again by Adam Aaron and Adam.

Welcome to the podcast again.

Hi, Simon.

Hi, Robin.

Adam, for those of you for those people at home who perhaps haven't heard of podcasts before and if not why not, but if they haven't perhaps you'd like to introduce yourself, your role in the Bookster Company.

Sure.

So I work at Bookster as the support lead.

So generally I will be on TransSupport tickets all day.

I also work on things like documentation and that sort of stuff.

Minute 2

Okay, great.

How long are you running the company? Good question.

It's going on 11 years, I think.

It could be more.

11 years.

You must have started as a fan.

I have stopped counting.

Oh, thank you.

I've stopped counting after tense.

All right.

It's been a while.

Great.

Well, ladies, great to have you back.

It's going well.

Well, like I say, it's good to have you back again.

You have been on a previous episode or two so if anyone wouldn't figure back and listen after this to previous episodes, you're very welcome to try and do that.

Today though, we thought we would talk about a topic that is a key to what Bookster does and how Bookster does things and that is a topic of vertical integration.

Now, Robin, perhaps you would like to sort of explain to me and our listeners what vertical

Minute 3

integration is.

Well, the thing that we mean by vertical integration, which is not necessarily what everyone means by it, but what we mean by it is that we try to allow our clients to do everything that they need to do to run their business inside Bookster.

Once they've logged into Bookster, they shouldn't, as you know, our aim is that they don't have to log in elsewhere.

Now, the very obvious part of Bookster where that applies is OTA, so connecting up to channels.

So for people who don't know, ever, Bookster basically is a bit of software for all the rental providers.

So you get lots of agencies or property owners that use Bookster to run their business.

Minute 4

So one of parts of it is it connects up to booking.com, Airbnb, Furbo and some other OTA providers online travel agencies.

Now, the general idea, the general gist is that when they're running their business, when they're talking to guests, when they're setting their prices, when they're adding bookings or getting bookings, they don't need to log into booking.com, they don't need to log into Airbnb, they don't need to log into all these different places.

So everything is sort of integrated inside Bookster.

But that actually applies to lots of other areas and as a general rule of what we were trying to do.

So it does apply in other parts of the system as well.

And it's something that hovers over our thoughts about when we're trying to develop the product.

How can we either add functionality and features, but not just how do we cover the bases that

Minute 5

they need to cover without asking them to go and log into some other system.

And that's the basis of it.

Right.

So it's sort of for the customer then or the end user, I guess it speeds up the process for them, does it? It makes it easier.

Is that the idea? Yeah, yeah.

The idea is that say, for example, cleaners or cleaning or changing, changeer ends.

Bookster has inside the ability to see arrivals, to see departures, to mark a property as available or unavailable.

No, it's not.

We haven't drilled down into being much more of a task manager or allocating tasks to cleaning companies or paying cleaners.

But we have provided someone with the basis of what they would need to run their business.

So we've covered that base off for them.

If they really wanted to,

Minute 6

they could go and use some of the bit of software to run, if they were running, if it made up a much bigger part of what they were doing on a daily basis.

But we're trying to make sure that there is something in there that does allow them to stay inside Bookster and complete those tasks, basically.

So that's a good example of that.

And I mean, what made you from a sort of business point if you want to do that, to keep everyone into Bookster rather than have them log into other sites, is that obviously a conscious decision from you guys to do that? It's not really a business decision, it's more a usability decision.

So it's more about making sure that they don't have a bad usability experience that they have to go and use some of

Minute 7

the system and jump off to use other things.

And because it can be confusing, they couldn't lose their plot and what they're doing.

So it's not really directly a business decision, as opposed as in, you know, we're not doing it so that we can capture more revenue out to people.

We're doing it really so that they get the most out of Bookster really.

So it's more of a way that we approach what we're doing, how we're developing the platform.

Right.

So Adam, how does this affect your role at Bookster in terms of, you know, customer experience? In terms of customer experience, you've got to know about if we are using another system

Minute 8

and sort of being the gatekeeper to our end user, we have to know about the other system, whereas the end user wouldn't.

So there's a certain amount of hiding the complexity from the end user or keeping things as simple as possible for them.

It's not always easy to explain because part of the whole, if you're integrating with a third party, then you don't necessarily want to shout about it to your end user, but at the same time you don't want to hide it, if you're, at the end of the day, you're trying to help them to run their business, and the simple you can make the better.

One thing I would touch upon about what Robin just

Minute 9

mentioned, I don't know if it's called the 80-20 rule, we're trying to solve a problem for 80% of your audience, 20%, it's not going to perfectly solve it, 80%, like it's going to do more than solve it.

And I think maybe from a business point of view, that could be where we're coming from as far as business decisions, where nobody is going to get everything 100% for 100% of the people, it's not possible because people are different and have different needs, but if we can identify our audience and solve a problem in a way that makes their lives much simpler as a result of what we've done, maybe it won't be for everyone, but if we can do it for most of them, that's still successful, I think.

That's interesting.

What if, and obviously just

Minute 10

coming from not knowing anything about this? Because you're vertically, I guess, integrate all these different providers and stuff, you're effectively, are you making a user, a customer use one of these third parties that you've chosen? It's not always the third parties, vertical integration, I suppose, it could be third parties, but it could be a decision of do we develop something ourselves? Sometimes that's the better option.

Often that's the better option, you have control, it's easier to, you're not relying on somebody else's business to make decisions that affect your business.

So if we can develop functionality without having to integrate, from a user's point of view, it shouldn't really make a difference, but it does.

If you're relying on, you're translating someone else's decisions into how your

Minute 11

software works, it's from a support perspective, anyway, it's much easier when you're in full control.

It's much easier to rectify any issues, you're not playing a game of going through loads of different channels to get to speak to the right person who's a decision-maker somewhere down the line.

It's much quicker if you're developing a functionality yourself in that way.

It's not always possible, it's a question of resources, etc.

Yeah, but from a guest perspective, from a bookstore user's perspective, our goal is that they should just work.

And mainly they don't know or don't care.

Yeah, and so a few examples of that.

So we have

Minute 12

instant websites.

So you can come along to a bookstore, you can create a website from your property content, stick it on your own domain, where you go pretty much create a website in five minutes, 10 minutes or something.

Now that is all us.

That's 100% bookstore.

We wrote all of it, basically.

But we also support dynamic pricing.

So you can go into bookstore, you can say, I want to price my property using dynamic pricing, which essentially means some system somewhere is setting the prices for you based on something that you don't really understand.

Now we use a third party to give us those prices.

And we're transparent about that inside

Minute 13

bookstore, you know, there are links, whatever they say, who this is.

But from a bookstore user's perspective, they shouldn't really care.

They don't pay anything to that third party.

They pay us directly.

They select, this is how I want to apply my pricing.

They just decide to choose dynamic pricing.

And that's it.

In the same way that they've used the website or created a website, it just so happens that we've done all of the stuff for the website.

But for dynamic pricing, we are building something in from someone else.

Now, as Adam says, in terms of support, it's probably easier to answer some esoteric questions about the websites because we know everything about them.

If someone asks, how do you generate these prices? The only honest answer is

Minute 14

this third party.

It's somebody else.

It's somebody else that does this.

So we don't know really.

It's a black box to us, you know, you ask them if you want.

But but from fundamentally, we or I think, and I think, you know, Adam was talking about this 80-20 thing, I think 80% of the people that are using a platform or 80% of the people that are likely to use looks couldn't care.

They don't care where prices come from.

As long as they're kind of giving them something useful that they can use.

Now, 20% will care or some small percentage will care.

They'll be like, oh, I want to.

I want to use X provider instead of Y.

Yeah, you can't solve that problem for them because we use Y, not X.

That's kind of just reality.

And for those

Minute 15

people, ultimately, you can only do so much.

They've got to make a decision.

Is it worth, is it worth holding on to this thing that they feel is important to them? There's probably not in certainly 80% of the people's cases is not.

So if they do fall into this sort of group of people that want control over everything, and I'd say you get 80% of those people that eventually figure out 80% of the 20 that eventually figure out, actually, it's a lot of hard work and I'm not actually gaining much.

And then suddenly they're joining the majority again.

And it's like, okay, the bookstores has made the decision for me, but that's okay because they've done all that

Minute 16

hard work.

And essentially that's a service you are providing.

You're doing the hard work so that they don't have to.

And in terms of hard work, I mean, I guess the question is because the way you produce things is is vertical integration, I guess, in terms of how you're describing it, causing you more work as a company, or is it easier harder? I mean, from a support perspective, I would say it's harder if it's if it's a third party or integrating, whether it's a, if it's a, you know, something you create yourself, probably not, you know, it's not causing any extra work in that.

So if anything, it's easier.

I suppose, yeah, one way of looking at it is we're trying to give people the tools to

Minute 17

make, to make the choices that are most consequential to their business, but automate most of the other stuff without them having to make a choice.

Now, that's tricky because it means that we have an opinion, but we do have an opinion.

Another example of that is around emails and bookings emails.

Now, we have very specific booking emails, they're very simple, they have a link and then you link back into our guest area, but again, you know, if you're a guest, you're getting these simple books or emails.

Now, lots of other providers will give their clients the ability to create

Minute 18

really random elaborate emails, which gives them a lot of time, thinking about the emails that go out backwards and forwards.

Now, we do have marked to email marketing built into bookstore, because we think that's, that is where you should spend time and that is where you should be maybe thinking about how you present your brand and whatever, but when you're actually communicating with the guest in terms of the booking, it needs to be very simple, very easy, easy for the guest to understand, easy for the guest just to go in, make a payment, understand how to access the property, etc.

And so we've sort of tied all that down and made a choice for them and we're opinionated about it.

So it, I mean, it's kind of sets a little bit in the vertical integration, but it's also saying, these choices that you make about what you sent to your guest in the booking process, we don't think will make much difference to your business in terms of

Minute 19

getting more your guests or making the guests happy or sad, remember.

But maybe the ones that you email choices that you make when you're marketing to people before they've booked or after they've left, you should probably spend more time thinking about those, and where more flurry emails are more valuable.

So yes, we've made that choice for people, but it's hopefully freeing them up to do other things.

I mean, I guess, you know, from a client's point of view, that's why they're coming to you, though, isn't it? I mean, they want things to be easy and they want things to be, you know, I guess, like you say, the 80% of them anyway just want it to work, I guess.

And they don't care, I mean, the decisions behind the scenes really doesn't, you know, they're not that worried about that, I guess, it's just what happens to them on a day-to-day basis.

Yeah, and you have to sort of buy into that a bit for it to, for books to be the right thing for you.

Minute 20

It's not necessarily a bad thing having an opinion or even shouting about having an opinion of if if your opinion doesn't agree with going back to the 20%, there's other software out there that will probably work better for them and that's fine.

You know, there's a market for different types of software to do, you know, similar things, but in a different way.

If you work a certain way and books to, you know, also works that way, then you're going to be a really good fit.

Not everyone is a good fit and that is a reality that is okay once you accept it.

If you can't accept it, then you're going to be constantly up against that.

From a user's point of view and the company's point of view, I would say.

Which is probably what leads other companies to constantly look to

Minute 21

do one of two things.

They either implement features based on one or two clients demands or the implement integrations with third parties to try and fulfill those clients.

You know, maybe very small number of clients demands and as a result, they make it difficult for the user to use the system.

But not always some people could do a really great job of that and that's fine as well.

But you know, by having lots of different things all joined together, you are increasing the chances of something going wrong.

So, you know, and as Adam points out, it's more difficult to support because people will ask, you know, people don't know the boundary between one bit of software and another necessarily.

They'll ask you, you know, if you integrate with

Minute 22

some of the third party, even if you've never logged into it, you don't know what it is.

They're going to ask you questions about it.

So, it's better if you can answer them inside books and understand.

Yeah, and you're going to, and I guess, you know, that leads on to, I guess, for what we touched on, I suppose.

But any problems that the client has, you guys are probably able to fix these things a lot quicker than, because the way you do it within books there rather than having to, like, you say, go to a call center somewhere else in another company first.

So, you can provide a better service, I'm guessing.

And it is, which is all good.

Right.

Unless I think you've got anything else to add about our actual integration, we're probably about up to our time.

So, I think on this point, we'll sort of wrap up.

20% more to say.

Minute 23

Right.

What I will say is that we do have a sister podcast, obviously, which is smashing your holiday rental goals, and people can go in and find that on the internet.

If you'd like to leave a review for that podcast or indeed this podcast, that'd be great as well.

And if you have any questions that you'd like answered in future podcasts, please email them to podcast at booksterhq.com.

That's podcast at booksterhq.com.

And we'll get to them in a future podcast.

For now, though, Jens, thank you much for your time.

Adam, nice to see you again on the podcast.

Robin, we shall try to get you very soon.

And until then, take care and good bye.