Doris & Dicky is a UK-based startup with a razor-sharp focus on one product - budget boutique hotels - and two customer segments - 25 to 35-year-olds and empty nesters.
This focus comes out of a recurring complaint from travellers about too much choice. The global OTAs have worked hard to give customers the option to drill down by upgrading the search filter options on properties - price, location, facilities etc. But there is still room for niche and specialists to do the filtering for the customer.
The accommodation sector is, to an extent, dominated by Priceline and Expedia. But the market is so vast there is still money on the table for smaller sites. Not everyone will end up being bought by the giants, but there again, not everyone wants that.
Before the Q&A with co-founder Richard Dana, here's Doris & Dicky's Vine:
Tell us how you founded the company, why and what made you decide to jump in and create the business.
We dreamt up the idea for Doris & Dicky whilst sitting on a beach in Sri Lanka. We love travelling but were overwhelmed by the research required when planning our trips. There were plenty of sites catering for the higher end boutique hotels and also the more backpacker-style, cheaper options but we saw that there was a real gap in the market for a site offering great value, affordable boutique hotels around the £100 price mark.
Size of the team, names of founders, management roles and key personnel?
Roxane Gergaud and Richard Dana are the co-founders with joint responsibility for hotels, customers, marketing and technology. Roxane has a background in marketing and Richard in finance - his last position was head of cash and working capital at Thomas Cook Group.
We have a team of freelance travel writers working with us reviewing hotels and developing content.
We have outsourced the backend development to a developer based in Brighton.
Funding arrangements
We have raised £50k to launch. There have been a number of offers for further funding since we launched in July but we are in no rush to raise additional funds at this point.
Estimation of market size?
Initially there were two core target markets: 25-35 year olds and empty nesters who enjoy staying at small, unique boutique hotels and prefer independent travel. Both our core target markets generally don’t travel with younger children. In the UK, we estimate there are about 500,000 potential customers who could use Doris & Dicky.
What has been interesting since we launched has been the significant interest from the corporate market – particularly from the creative/media sectors whose employees want to stay somewhere other than the traditional chain hotels but without breaking the bank.
Competition?
There is overlap with some of our hotel listings with Mr & Mrs Smith, I-escape, Tablet and Design Hotels. The large OTA’s and Tripadvisor are also clearly competitors as is Airbnb.
Revenue model and strategy for profitability?
We take a commission when a booking is made. We do not charge any fee for hotels to list on the site. No one can pay to be a Doris & Dicky hotel!
What problem does the business solve?
In a world of so much choice, Doris & Dicky brings you a carefully curated selection of hotels that each offers something special. We found that the breadth of choice available when booking a holiday was totally overwhelming with it often being difficult to really gauge the quality and atmosphere of a place. On top of this, we would have to have multiple pages open comparing prices, finding out when the best time to go was, where the nearest airport is, which room was best etc. The booking process was incredibly time consuming and quite stressful. And, after all of that, we found that quite often reviews that we relied upon didn’t necessarily result in us ending up in our dream hotels.
How did the initial idea evolve and were there changes/any pivots along the way in the early stages?
As with any start up there have certainly been challenges along the way but our initial idea has actually held true and it has just been a case of working through each stage to delivery. We were clear from the off what the business intended to do and it has been somewhat surprising how little we have deterred from the original idea.
Why should people or companies use the business?
We have a fantastic collection of the best budget boutique hotels around the world. Our website is clean, informative and easy to use. We stay anonymously and our reviews are genuine. Our guests can also rest assured that they will receive unbeatable value with our average room price being below £100 per night. Doris & Dicky also offer a best price guarantee – or we’ll refund the difference. We offer flexible booking with the majority of the hotels listed allowing guests to book now and then pay nothing until check-out. Many of our hotels also offer a full refund for cancellations, without an additional fee.
What is the strategy for raising awareness and the customer/user acquisition (apart from PR)?
Our focus in on building partnerships with like-minded brands and businesses. We are having some great conversations with brands both in and outside the travel sector – where we will be able to work together to provide an enhanced offering to our customers. So we hope to partner with local food producers, artists, distilleries, publishers and designers to build our brand amongst our core target market with businesses that share our core brand values.
Where do you see the company in three years time and what specific challenges do you anticipate having to overcome?
The online travel market is incredibly competitive and there are constant innovations in technology which are improving the offering available to customers. But, despite all this there is so much information available to consumers that it is overwhelming. We aim to keep the booking process simple, well informed and reliable. So when you choose a Doris & Dicky hotel you will come to expect a certain standard where ever you go.
In three years time we will hopefully have a collection of the 1,500 best budget boutique hotels around the world. We will have a growing base of loyal and happy independent travellers and a network of expert hotel reviewers and travel writers located in destinations around the world.
What is wrong with the travel, tourism and hospitality industry that it requires a startup like yours to help it out?
There is too much choice available when you are looking to book a holiday or hotel. In the same way that many higher end restaurants are moving towards more selective menus – we aim to offer a far more curated, high quality offering to our customers. Technology plays a major part in improving the booking journey but, as yet, technology can’t tell you if the bed is comfortable, or which is the best room or where to sit in the restaurant.
What other technology company (in or outside of travel) would you consider yourselves most closely aligned to in terms of culture and style... and why?
We love what Airbnb do and have used them when we can’t find a hotel that is suitable. Many of our customers also use Airbnb. Sometimes you are after a specific location where there just isn’t a decent hotel – in which case Airbnb is perfect.
Which company would be the best fit to buy your startup?
We love travel so setting up Doris & Dicky is a dream for us. It’s a lifestyle business and we aren’t in it for a quick return, so we haven’t really thought about who would buy it. Maybe one of the airlines – BA or Easyjet.
Describe your startup in three words?
Authentic, Inspiring, Reliable
Tnooz take:
Doris & Dicky is a fairly straightforward business with nothing particularly innovative or ground-breaking leaping out. But what's wrong with that? Often in the startup world there's a feeling that you need to reinvent the wheel. What if that wheel is big enough to allow lots of people to give it a spin?
Moving on from the extended metaphors, where can Doris & Dicky succeed? The price-led proposition - the "best in budget boutique hotels" - might give it a niche in a market where there are lots of similar businesses concentrating on the product rather than the price.
"Doris & Dicky" is quite an easy name to remember and the site is nicely laid out with the "book now" buttons never far away from the content.
The decision to use "freelance travel writers" to review the hotels and write the articles is an additional cost for the business, but with "content" such a hot topic this might be a good investment. It has clearly identified two target markets and, presumably, the reviews will be written with the 25-35-year-olds/empty-nesters in mind.
This is a much better conversion proposition than licensing reviews from, say, TripAdvisor which would factor in opinions from people who might downgrade a property because there wasn't a high chair available in the restaurant, something which is of no relevance to a Doris & Dicky audience.
The interest from the corporate market and those creative types is something which can be developed over time. Not every business traveller wants to build up their loyalty points at a global chain.
Also of note is the founders' relatively modest aims. Happy with their £50K funding so far, quite content for it to be a lifestyle business, thinking that it might be a nice add-on for an airline rather than the subject of a bidding battle between Priceline and Expedia.
And again, what's wrong with that?