
PopulStay
PopulStay is a booking and property management platform for
vacation rentals that uses blockchain to create a direct connection between
hosts and guests and to lower transaction costs.
Founder Wang Yue tells Phocuswire properties on the platform also use a blockchain-based
smart door lock that is managed through a smart contract. Using a mobile
interface, hosts determine who can access the lock and for how long, and the
guests must confirm the rental transaction and receive authentication before
the lock will open.
Describe both the business and technology aspects of your
startup.
We are rebuilding and challenging the Airbnb business model using
blockchain technology. Airbnb charges a platform fee for every booking.
However, for every booking, we charge 3% of the commission and use it for
community rewards (1.5%) and founder’s team (1.5%). This significantly reduces
the cost of make a booking.
The early token holders will enjoy the
re‐distribution of the tokens as well as the price appreciation of the token
should they purchase our token.
On the other side of our startup, we are building the first
smart door lock based on blockchain to be used in daily operation of the
listings.
This makes the lock work as a node in the network instead of managed
by a centralized server, which is easy to be hacked. The lock is expected to
come out in Q4.
Therefore, PopulStay is not simply an Airbnb clone, but
rather a new home sharing community redesigned based on blockchain technology.
Website
www.populstay.com/
Facebook
www.facebook.com/populstay
Twitter
www.twitter.com/populstay
Instagram
www.instagram.com/populstay
What inspired you to create this company?
I was a part-time Airbnb host since 2013, and I have received
a lot of visitors from different cities.
Some of them are repeat visitors, and
they want direct booking instead of using Airbnb and some others trust my
reviews and reputation would also like to book directly from me. This made me
think if we can build a trusting community, the cost of booking can be reduced
and there should be no middleman to take a cut.
Also, my previous startup was
about using a smart lock to improve the operations of Airbnb, specifically around
the check‐in process.
I’ve also spent my spare time since 2013 reading about
bitcoin and blockchain, and I have become an early investor in bitcoin since
then.
So I become quite excited to combine blockchain with sharing economy and
IoT and thought it would be a great experiment to run in the next couple of
years.
Give us your SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities,
Threats) analysis of the company.
- Strength: Solid team with experience in engineering and blockchain
development. More importantly, the team has IoT experience and domain knowledge
about the business.
- Opportunities: The blockchain technology opens a new world of possibilities
for startups to redesign such products, especially since the world is shifting
from a business with middlemen to a business without middlemen using
technology. We see this can be another unicorn in the next three to five years.
- Weakness: Millennials are starting to accept the idea of home-sharing
as an alternative to the hotels, however they are still in the early stage of adopting
cryptocurrencies, so it will take time for millennials to use them as a payment
or investment tool.
- Threats: The internet giants like Airbnb, Xiaozhu and Tujia may try
to use their powerful resources to compete with us in terms of customer
acquisition or listing acquisition. For example, they can force the host to not
list their properties in our community should they want a listing on their
website. This could block our development.
What are the travel pain points you are trying to alleviate
from both the customer and the industry perspective?
Two major pain points coming out from my own hosting and
traveling experience using Airbnb in the past five years.
We are solving the
trust issue to reduce cost for the community, as well to provide a better check-in
experience for guest using smart lock.
So you've got the product, now how will you get lots of
customers?
On the supply side, we partner with property management
companies in different cities because they are cost-sensitive. We provide an
alternative avenue of revenue for them, therefore we could get their listings.
On the demand side, we have our own community to start with,
and this will be our first seed users to start with. Specifically we will
distribute our token to the users for them to be part of this community and use
our product.
Tell us what process you've gone through to establish a
genuine need for your company and the size of the addressable market.
As a host, I would like to help get better profit by taking
way the middleman fee to the platform, while maintaining the trust level and
quality of the guest.
Blockchain can help alleviate the cost by improving the
trust level in the community.
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As a guest, I would like to have a frictionless check-in
experience while abroad. Waiting for a host to give me a key is not fun at all.
Therefore we designed a smart lock for this pain point.
The travel marketplace is a trillion dollar market in the
next 10 years. We have seen successful startups like Airbnb to grow magically
10,000 times since it was founded.
We hope to become the next successful one in
blockchain world.
How and when will you make money?
We take 3% cut of every booking, distribute 1.5% to the
community, and 1.5% to our founding team.
The token in our community will appreciate
overtime when more and more users start to use it.
What are the backgrounds and previous achievements of the
founding team, and why do you have what it takes to succeed with this business?
I was an early data scientist of Singtel’s spin-off
DataSpark, which focuses on geolocation data analysis from Teleco. I was an
early investor in Bitcoin and Ripple since 2014 and became interested in blockchain
since then.
In 2015, I co-founded Igloohome, which focuses on a smart key box
product that is shipped to over 80 different countries.
I left the company
since in December 2017 to embrace the new challenges in blockchain industry.
PopulStay recently got a strategic investment from Bitmain, the
largest bitcoin miner producer in the world, and Qtum, one of the popular
public chains.
I think I will be successful because I have solid domain
knowledge about Airbnb, both as a host and a guest.
Also I co-founded a smart
lock company to help solve the guest’s check in experience, and I have solid
blockchain expertise since I have engineering background.
What's been the most difficult part of founding the business
so far?
Finding the right talent and complying with the legal aspects
of every jurisdiction.
Generally, travel startups face a fairly tough time making
an impact ‐ so why are you going to be one of lucky ones?
We are patient enough to develop the product and make the
brand awareness, so we will see.
PhocusWire Startup Stage
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