The Bookster Podcast: Square pegs in round holes?

Transcript

Hello, I am Simon and welcome back to the Bookster podcast from inside the SaaS holiday rental software company Bookster based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

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

And thank you for joining us, and we hope that you find these conversations insightful and ultimately helpful.

Now, I'm joined today as always by CEO

Minute 1

and co-founder of Bookster Robin Morris.

Robin, nice to see you again.

Nice to see you too.

Simon.

Hello.

Hello.

And we're also, uh, luckily to be joined today by Johnny Brannan.

Johnny, welcome back to the show.

Thank you Simon.

Good to see you again.

Nice to see you, and to hear you as well.

For all those listeners out there, we should probably be up front and say you have done a couple of episodes before, but we've had to cut you out of one of them due to some audio issues.

So, uh, we apologize for that, but hopefully today it'll log, go smoothly.

Let's Keep our fingers and toes crossed.

So we are here today to talk about another aspect of Bookster.

Uh, we've gone through obviously a lot of topics so far.

Um, we've sort of touched on this I think before, but let's talk about it a little bit more today.

And that is finding the right customer for Bookster or the right fit for Bookster.

Um, so obviously it's a two-way process.

Minute 2

Someone's gotta be happy with you and you, I guess I've gotta be happy with the client as well.

So I dunno who wants to, to kick this one off, but, um, maybe one of you could sort of explain to the listeners and to me, who are the right customers for ler.

I suppose first of all, broadly speaking, if you're running a software company, it is, uh, this, this topic might be useful to you or interesting to you because it's a little bit of a dilemma sometimes about who do you pursue as a client, who do you try to attract, when do you, um, maybe even put people off using your software when they're not a good fit.

So, broadly speaking, that's why it's quite an interesting thing to talk about and might be useful to some people who are starting out or trying to, uh, produce their own product, their own software service or product.

Minute 3

Um, so, uh, who are people that are, uh, good for Bookster? Well, so obviously people who run holiday rental businesses, so people who run, uh, holiday homes, single holiday homes.

Uh, usually for us a typical good fit is someone who has between one and maybe even a hundred, 150 properties.

Um, uh, I mean the number of properties is not, uh, super important, but, uh, they, they are either an owner, so they own the property outright or looking to connect up those channels and things, or they are an agency looking after holiday rentals for, uh, multiple owners.

So, um, and they're usually not a hotel.

They're not a b and b, they're not a guest house, uh,

Minute 4

they're not a campsite, you know, they are that they're, they're looking after holiday rentals, holiday homes.

So yeah, those are our, our typical people.

Um, also usually English speaking at the moment.

Okay.

Okay.

So that's who, um, why I guess have you sort of, I guess, narrowed it down to that specific group of, of people? Why does that work for you? Well, it's not that we have deliberately narrowed it down.

Um, so you produce a range of features and functions that work really well for a niche group of people, and therefore that's what makes them interested in buying your software.

We have not

Minute 5

necessarily, if we could, you know, we could expand, uh, and try to appeal to different groups or broader groups, but we are, we probably don't have the resources to do that.

That's probably the truth of it.

But also we don't want to necessarily compromise our offer, our product.

And I think if we were going to expand dramatically expand and do into a different group of, or different niche, we might actually have a different product, something called different, something that was sort of completely new as it were.

So we have sort of meandered our way to this rather than, um, i, I dunno if it's, that's fair to say, we meandered, but we, we haven't produced a really broad product, partly because we want to be more deep

Minute 6

and make sure it's a really good thing for the people that we're targeting.

Maybe that it's not a great answer, but Well, every you know, everything, every business is different.

You find your own way to get to where you are, so that's absolutely fine.

Yeah, to answer that way.

Um, Johnny, if we bring in you at this point then, so we know what the right people are for Bookster and what the good fit will be, um, how do you go around finding these people, these clients? Well, I guess more often than not it's kinda inbound leads.

So people who are interested in Bookster would register on the platform.

They'd get a chance to kinda have a bit of a play around with a software.

So at that stage, I would reach out and we'd have a bit of a kind of discovery chat to where I can find out about their business, kind of at what stage of the, the kind of process they're at.

And that could be, they've just purchased their first holiday home, they've not signed up to any platforms, they've not got any bookings, really early stages,

Minute 7

and maybe they need a bit more help than most could be people who are already well established, but they want to save themselves some time and manage their bookings a little bit easier.

So when we kinda get to that discovery call, that's when it's the, the chance to find out about what kind of properties they have.

That's probably one of the first things to go through.

Like Robin said, single unit properties, not hotels, not guest houses.

So if someone said, right, I have a hotel and it's got X amount of rooms straight off the bat, that's kind of a, I'll be right up front with them and say, I don't think Bookster is suitable for you in, in the long run.

It's gonna be a waste of, of both our times and resources.

Um, I, I guess you can, you can kind of squeeze those, those people to make them fit if you really wanted to, but eventually down the line it's gonna fall apart.

And by that point you've put in kind of hours of the, the demo, the research, the onboarding,

Minute 8

and that kind of all goes to waste if you try and squeeze them into, I think, like Robin said, kind of fitting in a a square peg in a round hole.

Um, so that kind of discovery, finding out what type of properties, that's the first kinda stage of, of what we want to see what they're about.

Um, and we've also kinda got what type of of business is it that they're running.

We've had a few people who've reached out to say that they do longer term, lets, and again, that's not really something that's suitable for Bookster.

There are other softwares out there that do that sort of thing specifically.

Um, of course people will want to look at Bookster and they think it's great.

Of course it's, but it might not be a great fit for them.

Um, so just using those initial conversations to find out what they're about, how they run their business is kind of the, the essential first contact.

Yeah, I think, um, in this context,

Minute 9

what Johnny is doing when we're talking about the, you know, good fit or ster is he is almost, he's in part, uh, you know, obviously mainly trying to attract people to get them to persuade them to that fixer is a great thing, but also acting as a filter, like the first almost, uh, certainly the first human point of filter and there's obviously other filters in the process of people trying to figure out whether or not Bookster's a good idea for them.

But, uh, part of his job is to save, uh, us time in the future.

So what, I mean, I suppose it's worth going into what happens if you take on a client that is slightly a bad fit for your product.

Um, and this might just be that they, um, yeah, a good example might be like, there're a small hotel or they can be multi-unit

Minute 10

or something, something about them that doesn't fit that well and they're really just, they've sort of taken to Bookster, but it really functionally doesn't really a hundred percent work for them somehow, but Johnny's maybe used as magic to persuade them.

Now Johnny gets the credit for that first, like, oh yeah, we've got a new client, that's great, but then, uh, we will obviously have to give them more support because they might be doing something that's slightly out of the ordinary.

Um, we will have to, they will have more questions and they will be more demanding.

So they will ask about, I want this feature, I want that feature because we don't currently have it.

So they might say, oh, well, you know, I, I don't need it just now, but, you know, maybe, you know, it's something maybe we could do in the future.

And if they're, if they're just that slightly, not slightly, but if they're just a bit of a bad fit for us, they'll spend quite a lot long time, they won't be happy

Minute 11

and they will suck up potentially a lot of our time as well.

'cause they'll, you know, they'll be asking us questions, they'll be making the demands, which is sort of what Johnny was talking about before.

Like, they'll be asking us for, uh, features that we don't necessarily have or have no intention of implementing.

Um, so it's kind of those knock on effect that when you have a great client, they might come along.

Obviously everyone needs a bit of support to start with, but then again, to the rhythm of it, they use the Bookster, they, it works really great for them.

They're low support burden, they get load types of it, they're really happy and it's trying to make sure that we, those are the types of people we get because, um, yeah, they, other people, they, they can bun up the, the, the engine as what as it were of, or us as a team.

Minute 12

If we've got people that, or we've got clients that are really bad fit for us.

Um, we're always thinking about how we make Bookster better, how we improve it, not just for existing clients, but you know, can we broaden it, appeal a little bit.

Um, and it's always a, um, it's a, you know, it's a trade off.

You don't want to, um, make it more difficult for existing clients or existing target audience to use because you're tapping on things that are features and functions for other types of business.

Um, so, but it's absolutely, we're always constantly reviewing that situation and trying to broaden our appeal, but not compromise the usefulness of the, uh, of pixer.

So yeah, it's, it's a constant battle.

Minute 13

Obviously we, you know, we have limited development resources as well, so it's always what do you prioritize? But, but yes, that is definitely, and also it's not just so you're expanding, you might expand across niches, like you said, so yeah, hotels, but there's other ways you can sort of broaden your appeals.

So we could be more multilingual, for example.

Um, you know, we could, uh, hire people in different countries or advertise specifically in those different countries.

Um, but yeah, the more you broaden the software out, the danger is that you become more difficult to use for your target audience.

Uh, I think as well with things that we're rather considering or, or even things that we're doing doing now, we, we do want to be able to kinda cast the net out to,

Minute 14

to a wider audience, but you want to make sure that, that whatever you're changing to be able to do that is at a good stage and it's still gonna be an, an effective product.

Like we know that that Bookster is great for our target audience at the moment.

What you don't want to do is gonna of make it okay for a huge audience.

You still want to make sure that when you are bringing in those other people who it's not currently targeted to that it's ready for them, uh, as well.

I think.

Mm-Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, no, it sounds very sensible, to be fair.

Um, mean, I guess, you know, there will be this, as you said, Robin, sort of ongoing battle I guess between sort of income versus, you know, effectiveness or you know, of the company.

You know, it is always easy to try and grab that extra pound here and there, but if you, if you do it the detriment of, of

Minute 15

what you're offering, I guess that's not the way you take it.

Also, you can stumble into areas that you don't have any or don't have as much expertise in, which can be, uh, if it's done deliberately, then that's fine.

Um, but we don't know that much.

I mean, first of all, there's just an absolute ton of hotel software out there, let's be honest about it.

But we don't really know as much about running hotels as we do about running holiday rentals and all of the things that are required to do that and marketing them, and which, which platform worked really well for them.

So yeah, that's another factor too, is that we, we could create great software for, uh, hotels, but we don't actually have in people have the expertise on house to sell it, support it,

Minute 16

you know, so yeah, you might be broadening your appeal, but you can't actually then reach that audience that, well, you can't help them that much.

So yeah, you may not do as good a job.

Yeah, I think, I mean, you, you might, I wouldn't call myself a holiday rental expert, but I think the team collectively, we've got a lot of, we've got a lot of knowledge, um, just with the, the time we've spent in, in the business.

But I think hotel specifically, we would be hotel knowledge amateurs, uh, if we were just talking about hotels.

So yeah, just like what Robin says, we, we kind of know the, we know the industry and we, we know the business at the moment with, with who we're targeting.

Um, Yeah, and I mean, especially for you joining to have confidence in what you're selling, I guess is key to your job, really.

So in terms of that then, I mean, you obviously speak

Minute 17

to a lot of potential clients, uh, you know, some of them won't be the right fit for Bookster.

What, uh, sort of experience you've had, what's, what's the worst of client, not the worst, but you know, the most inappropriate client perhaps for Bookster you've had to deal with or, or perhaps then convince them that you're not right for them? Um, I think more often than not, we kinda get to that stage before they're, they're kind of onboard.

Um, I think some of the, maybe the worst experiences aren't so much that they're actually a bad fit, but more so that they don't want to change the way they work.

So they, they come to us and they think, okay, great, I've got a software, this is gonna save me time, blah, blah, blah, blah.

But then they say, well, actually we do our pricing this way.

Um, yours doesn't work like that.

Can you make my, can you make it work like that just for me? And it's, it's not really something that, that we can do.

Minute 18

So it's more so, well, here's the way that that Bookster works.

It works like this because it's compatible with the, the market and channels that, that we connect with.

Um, and it's almost a game of trying to convince them to say, I know you want to do it your way, but you're gonna get the same price for the bookings that are coming in.

You just need to, you just need to be a little bit more malleable, uh, in terms of kinda surrendering to, to the way that this is gonna help you in the long run.

You're maybe, you maybe have to give up a little bit, but it's gonna give you an advantage in the end.

I think that's, that's maybe one of the, the biggest kind of tasks more so than people who are really bad fits like a, a hotel, um, kind of coming to us, because usually we can, we can see that quite quickly.

Yeah.

And um, I think that's a really good point.

Minute 19

It's almost like, well, there's someone who just started their business out and they're just sort of ready to learn from us and they're almost the best type of new client that, you know, it's like, yeah, you know, we can tell 'em how to do it, they'll do it our way.

But there are people who come and they, you know, they're, you know, they, they've been running, operating their business for a long time.

They've been built other software or, or spreadsheets or spreadsheets or whatever, and they sort of have to be ready, they have to know that, you know what, um, I've been doing it a certain way.

It's worked for me, but I'm actually ready to change so that I can be more efficient and I can do things quicker.

Now, my way or Brewster's way might well be, you know, is necessarily the case that their way is worse than our way.

It might be.

It doesn't, it actually isn't about that.

Minute 20

It's just you have to choose, you have to decide this is how you do it.

You know, for example, we do, um, you take an initial payment when you're doing a direct, okay, and this is actually similar for most platforms.

We do an initial payment and then a balance payment, but you know, you could take it in four payments or six payments or whatever, but we just don't do it like that.

If someone else had said, well, oh, well, we do it in four payments, can Bookster do it like that? If they're not ready to let go and say, well, actually, yeah, my way might be better, but ultimately Bookster just does it like that, so this is gonna save me loads of time just to get Bookster to do it, then yeah, they're a bad fit because they're, they're kind of holding on stubbornly to their own way of working.

Minute 21

Yeah.

To us.

They're to us, they're usually really we things as well.

Um, like, like Robin said, the way that they want to do their pricing or if they want to take payments and installments.

And in the grand scheme of things, it's not, it's not a particularly major issue, but, uh, it's almost like a sentimentality to the way that that people have been working.

And yeah, it's just that they need to kinda let go and essentially like a small sacrifice for, for a bigger gain in the long run.

Yeah.

I think actually you've bizarrely, I think answered my question before.

I was actually gonna ask it there, Robin, which is, or both of you, which is, um, what clients do you prefer the client that is on day one of their business or somebody is, you know, year five coming into ster, but it sounds like, uh, you might like day one client.

It, it depend, well, like, because you've, you've obviously got the clients who they could have been in the game for a decade and they might be more than willing to give up the way

Minute 22

that they've been working for that decade.

And if that's the case, when they do get going, they probably need a little bit less of our kind of time and support, like once they get up and running.

Whereas the new ones maybe do need a bit more of a help in hand, which is fine.

We've got a kind of support team there and an onboarding team there for a reason.

Um, but yeah, I, I wouldn't say there's a particular preference out of new or established more so kind of who's, who's willing to work the Bookster way if, if you will.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's the yeah, it's the person rather than the Yeah.

Fine scale within the business, I guess.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, so I guess with that in mind, just a, just a silly question I guess is it's how old is your oldest client and how new is your newest client? Well, our oldest client has been with us since we started for 2007.

Minute 23

Right, okay.

Um, and yeah, they're stuck with us this whole time.

I, I knew client obviously was whenever we last The other week, The day or whatever.

No, yeah.

Good.

So, um, yeah, and people do tend to stick.

I mean, and, and we're aware of it as well, you know, booster is a type of system that once you're, once you're using it, once you've kind of got into it, it is quite difficult for people to move to other systems without a chunky amount of effort.

We have to be cognizant of that and sympathetic to that as well.

It's good for us, you know, in a way.

But also the flip side is it is quite difficult for us to win clients from other, like if they're using another platform, uh, another system, it's actually really difficult for us to persuade people, even if they tell us they've had a really bad time

Minute 24

and Mm-Hmm.

They really love Bookster and they've used it and they really love it.

It's quite difficult.

Just persuade them to let go of the old thing just, and it's not just because like things are set up for them and they, they've invested a lot of time and effort into it.

Um, so yeah.

Anyway.

No.

Okay.

No.

Um, great.

Well look, I mean, conscious of time again, we're almost hitting that 30 minute mark.

Uh, again, very easily.

It's, uh, conversation's great again.

Um, I think probably we should wrap up at this point.

So thank you both for your time and for being so candid today.

Um, for anyone listening, it's a quick reminder that we have, uh, our sister podcast, which is smashing your holiday rental goals.

Um, and that is out there in the internet or to be found.

So if you want listen to that, please do.

And, uh, if you can leave a nice review for that,

Minute 25

that would be very helpful.

And if you can leave a review for this podcast as well, that'd be great for the received as well.

Um, if anyone has any questions that, uh, they'd like to ask, uh, Robin or the team at Bookster, please send them into podcast@booksterhq.com.

That's podcast@booksterhq.com and we'll get around answering those on future episodes.

Um, some interesting points raised today, I think, which we should explore another podcast like your overseas, um, uh, clients perhaps and time zones and all that sort of support issues for, for international clients.

So we'll come back to that in another podcast, but right in that case, glad, we'll, uh, we'll chat to you later and we'll speak to you all again soon.

Cheer Byebye.

Thank You.

Bye.