Startup Stage: Pitched wants to be the Airbnb of camping

Pitched

Ontario-based Pitched is modeled after Airbnb – allowing Canadian property owners to rent their land to travelers looking for unique, affordable places to set up their tents.

Founder Olaf Dunn, an avid camper, launched pitched earlier this month after dealing with frustration over finding a suitable campsite for his family.

Describe both the business and technology aspects of your startup.

Canada is known for its natural beauty, yet there is a severe shortage of campsites, which has led to overcrowded, noisy and an often unnatural camping experience. Pitched takes aim at this industry. Our mission is to disrupt the way people go camping in Canada. Pitched offers unique camping experiences. From farms to forests, vineyards to islands, Pitched is revolutionizing the entire camping experience from discovery to campfire.

We match our campers and hosts based on a shared passion, be it motorcycling, cycle touring, agritourism or culinary experiences. Hosts have a story to tell, and our campers want to hear it! Traditionally, the campsite reservation process in Canada is archaic. We aim to simplify the process and allow campers to find campsites based on their “perfect camping experience.” They can then immediately reserve and pay for a campsite, camping equipment rental and chat directly with the host to make final arrangements. After the camping trip, both the host and the camper are able to peer review to fuel our recommendations engine and provide social proof to other campers and hosts.

What inspired you to create this company? 

I love to travel. Throughout my childhood, I hiked, camped, sailed and cycled all over United Kingdom and Europe. After moving to Canada and becoming a father, it was time to help shape my children's future. But I soon discovered it wasn't so easy to take off and enjoy the outdoors with two young children in tow, diapers and all. With a background in product, web development and digital marketing, I decided to tackle the problem head-on.

Give us your SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of the company.

• Strengths: Founding teams unique skill set; amazing feedback from early adopters; compliments on the branding 
• Weaknesses: Large market to reach with limited budget; unable to offer insurance to hosts; no vetting of campers and hosts; own no campsite properties
• Opportunities: Boom in local tourism; inbound travel increased to Canada due to political nature of United States; taking advantage of the increased demand in "experiential travel"; able to quickly source camping locations to feed demand; clean user experience for easy campsite reservations; offer peer-reviewed camping experiences; first to Canada to offer sharing economy model for camping; government promoting active lifestyles
• Threats: Airbnb (or similar) to replicate model; U.S. competitors enter Canadian market; insurers unwilling to offer hosts insurance; local municipalities enforce camping bylaws

What are the travel pain points you are trying to alleviate from both the customer and the industry perspective?

• Customer Segment: The Motorcycle & Cycle Tourer
  When planning a tour, it is important to be able to find locations en route. However, the lack of accommodation options on rural routes means that detours for the intended route are necessary. Alternatively, tourers stick to common routes, and so accommodation on these routes books up fast. As a tourer, there is limited room to carry camping equipment, including tent, sleeping bag, cooking equipment, etc. Carrying this gear weighs you down, reducing the amount of kilometers that can be travelled. Hotels and B&Bs are increasingly more expensive, however with the increasing prices, a long weekend away easily starts at $300 for three nights accommodation. Some campgrounds are also very expensive, especially for a solo traveler.
• Customer Segment: The Family Camper
  Many campsites are within meters of the next camper and until you turn up at the campsite, you don’t know if they’re going to be a quiet retired couple, or a loud group of college kids up until the early hours. In direct contrast, a lot of parents have anxiety that their kids will wake the campground up at 5 a.m. Families may then decide not to go camping with younger children. The children miss out on the opportunity to spend time outdoors and explore our natural surroundings. Provincial and private locations are often fully booked well in advance, leaving no room for late bookings. This also leads to very busy campgrounds. Camping with a family requires a lot of expensive gear, and to cart this gear, you need a very large car.
• Customer Segment: The Casual Camper
  A common complaint on my surveys found that a lot of campers want to go camping after Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, almost all campgrounds are closed by this date. Many campgrounds are remotely located, so there may not be many dining or excursion opportunities. It's hard to schedule and coordinate a group of friends with different jobs and schedules for a week(end) camping months in advance. As a result, campers stick to their favorite campground, as they don’t have time to consider several options. They also need to know how many friends are going camping with them months in advance so that adjoining sites can be reserved quickly.
• Customer Segment: Private Landowner
  It can be difficult to join sharing economy if someone does not have a room in their house or a cottage to rent or if they feel uncomfortable about having someone stay in their home. Some users may already be operating a small-scale campground, but find it hard to advertise and attract the camping community to their sites. As a result, private lots sit vacant while campgrounds are booked to capacity.

So you've got the product, now how will you get lots of customers?

Camping in Canada has a large total addressable market (5.7 million adults went camping in 2016), but in order to reach that full potential, our go-to-market strategy is to start niche in order to gain significant traction, prove out the model and gain loyal following. The niche market we plan to address initially is the touring sport enthusiasts (motorcycling and cycling) within southern Ontario. With this niche, we are able to connect hosts to campers with a shared passion, who are then more willing to open up their property to the campers.

As we continue to get success stories back from the campers and hosts, we share those stories with other campers and hosts. This not only provides great proof, but also creates a sense of belonging to the tribe. With a tribe comes passion and a willingness to help out and share. This enables us to spin up referral engines so that it becomes easier and incentivized to get other to join them. Once the niche has shown its success, we’re able to open up to another niche, either by extending geographically or through new customer segments identified though data.

Tell us what process you've gone through to establish a genuine need for your company and the size of the addressable market.

In September of 2017, after brainstorming the idea, I decided to build a landing page to establish if this was something that should be pursued in more detail. The landing simulated a product page, but presented the user with a “coming soon” message and signup from once they tried to search for properties. In just two months, and only $300 in advertising, I acquired 600 camper pre-registrations.

As each camper pre-registered, I surveyed them to find out what their current pains were when booking a campsite in Canada. With over 100 responses, these surveys not only validated my idea, but also provided me with some highly enthusiastic campers whom were devastated that the service was not yet functional. In 2016, 22% of the adult population of Canada went camping, however 66% of the adult population have reported that they go camping occasionally.

How and when will you make money?

We monetize the service from the outset. The model is based on a 90/10 split with the host, plus a 5% camper service fee (replicate Airbnb model). A simplified example: $50/Night for two nights, $105 collected, $90 host earnings, $15 revenue. On top of the basic campsite reservation, campers can also reserve services, facilities and goods at the time of reservations. These are subject to a 15/85 split with the provider. Examples include firewood, food, canoe, fishing equipment and tents.

What are the backgrounds and previous achievements of the founding team, and why do you have what it takes to succeed with this business?

Our founding team has a strong connection to the great outdoors. Having worked for several outdoor brands they know the audience well. I have extensive technical skills, having built, launched and managed many SaaS products for various startups. I also have a passion for building products that people love to use. And I am an avid outdoors explorer. Lindsey Irwin brings a wealth of partnership, content and marketing experience that helps deliver real value to the customer. Lindsey is also a lifetime camper.

What's been the most difficult part of founding the business so far?

Being first to market has many upsides, however it has many more challenges that we need to overcome. Our biggest challenge to date is surrounding liability and insurance. We’d love to extend insurance to our hosts in order to protect themselves from liability issues and property damage, however we’re too early for many insurers to take us on as the risks are unknown. In addition, as this is a market when we need to move fast due to seasonality, getting access to funding to help promote the business quickly is also very challenging.

Generally, travel startups face a fairly tough time making an impact - so why are you going to be one of lucky ones?

In one word, timing: A) Consumers are used to the Airbnb model and have had time to understand how it works as both a host and guest. B) Local tourism is booming due to the rising cost of travelling to the US and overseas C) Experiential travel is becoming mainstream highlighted by Airbnb experiences D) Canada 150 heavily promoted the beauty of Canada, but this put a strain on the provincial and national campgrounds.