SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
EP 500: $5M Funding, $1.3M Revenue For LGBT Lifestyle Traveling like AirBNB with CEO Matthieu Jost
06 Dec 2016
Chapter 1: What inspired Matthieu Jost to start his first company at 17?
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Chapter 2: How did Matthieu Jost transition from selling a TV series website to creating Misterb&b?
Many people ask me what tool I used to sell my first company, Heyo. The answer is thetopinbox.com. I used it to send emails, schedule emails to be sent out later, and set reminders inside my inbox so I would know when potential buyers were actually interested. And I easily remember to follow up with ones that hadn't replied to me. You can try it for free at thetopinbox.com. Nathan Latke here.
This is episode 500. Coming up tomorrow morning, you're going to learn from Patesh Avora, who helped you track uninstalls with over $325,000 in funding and 15 customers with the CEO of uninstall.io.
top drive good morning nathan latke here our guest today is matthew jost and he founded his first company when he was 17 and exited that one at 21 we'll talk to that in a second most recently he started mr b and b in 2015 and it has become the world's largest gay hotel brand in the world matthew are you ready to take us to the top
Yes, sure.
Okay, good. So tell us first off, what was the company that you created when you were 17 and sold at 21?
So it was a website dedicated to TV series, and it was the largest website to TV series in Europe. And I sold it to the French equivalent of IMDB, which is called Allocine.
Oh, got it. Very good. What was the name of the company? It was called Planet Series. PlanetSeries.com. Yeah. And what did you sell it for?
At that stage, it was like $1 million.
Okay, like US dollars? Yes. And was that just kind of your company or did you have co-founders or a team or anything?
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Chapter 3: What makes Misterb&b different from Airbnb?
And we were a team of four in total. So mostly in content management and one people, one developer. And we got also one people managing our online store because we were selling series merchandising at that time. So yes, we were four in the team.
And when you sold it for about a million dollars, did just you and your co-founder kind of make money or did you have, did all employees make money? Did all employees have equity?
All employees make money and most for sure was the two founders, but most of the employees gets money.
And were you building this while you were still in school or did you skip university?
I was building when I was still in school, so it was a little bit challenging for me, for my family also, because my result in school was quite good. But it was a real, very interesting experience, very exciting experience. What did you study? I was studying computer science for two years, and then I quit because I really wanted to continue to work in the web industry. So I quit.
with my studies to start working in one of the biggest radio stations in France called NRJ. And yes, I started there.
And how old were you? Now I'm 35. When you started though, with the radio station, how old were you? Do you remember?
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Chapter 4: How does Misterb&b generate revenue from its platform?
How old I was? When you left university to start at the radio station, how old were you? Uh, around 21, 21. Okay. So that's around when you sold your first business. Yes. Okay. So take us, take us through kind of the story. How did you go from a kind of tea review website? You sell for a million dollars into, uh, Mr. BNB, which is basically, uh, could you describe it as like gay Airbnb?
Uh, it's a bit different than just that. Uh, today that's how the, the, But we are the largest hotelier in the world and we are giving the opportunity to our community to connect together in 135 countries around the world and to travel safe without any discrimination.
And how do you make money?
So... It's pretty simple. We are like a marketplace and we are taking a fee on every transaction going through the platform.
Okay. And so who, so I want to get more into the fee in a second, but every marketplace has kind of sellers and buyers. So in your case, a buyer would be kind of any gay male using your website. What about who's this? Who are the sellers?
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Chapter 5: What is the average booking cost and demographic for Misterb&b users?
Are they homeowners?
They are homeowners. Yes. And so what is interesting is that it's not only gay men. We are really open to everyone in the LGBTQA community, meaning that we have also women on the platform, also straight women on the platforms that are using Mr. B&B because it's safe and more cool.
Okay, so it's the entire LGBTQ community, but the people that are actually putting their homes on your platform, those are just regular homeowners, right? Yes, exactly. Okay. And then tell us who you're taking the fee from, the homeowners or the LGBT community that's booking through you?
We are taking a fee on both sides. We are taking 4% on the host side and 12% on the traveler side.
12% on the traveler side and 4% on the home? Yeah, exactly. Okay. And what is the average kind of booking cost?
The average booking is three nights, so it's around $300. US?
USD, yeah. Okay, so about $300. And what year did you found the business in?
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Chapter 6: How has Misterb&b scaled its operations since its founding?
Where? Which year? Which year? It was at the end of 2014. Okay, so 2014. And are you bootstrapped or have you raised capital?
No.
We bootstrapped when we launched for six months, and then we started to raise capital from Business Angel.
And how much have you raised? In total, we raised $5 million USD. Okay, so you raised $5 million so far. And how many folks are on your team? We are 22 people in the team now. Okay, so 22 folks on the team. So let me just kind of summarize. You've got your sellers or your homeowners, your buyers are the LGBT community. You're taking 4% and 12% respectively from each of these.
Founded in 2014, you raised about $5 million with 22 teammates. And the average kind of booking through you is three nights for about $300.
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Chapter 7: What are the future goals for Misterb&b in terms of revenue and growth?
Is that right? Yes, that's right. Exactly. And then tell us, so tell us more about kind of volume. So how many homeowners have their place listed on mrbnb.com?
Today we have around 80,000 hosts over 135 countries that listed their place on the website.
And how many people, you know, folks in the LGBT community have used you guys to book a stay? How many people? uh and so uh we are not communicating on this number but we have around 3 000 uh bookings per per month today okay and today is november 2016. yes okay so okay so 3 000 bookings uh uh per month and are people usually doing this are they solo travelers are they traveling in groups
This is a very interesting question. And we saw that most of our users are traveling alone. And it's really a question about gay men have some difficulty to connect together when they are traveling.
Chapter 8: What advice does Matthieu Jost have for aspiring entrepreneurs?
And also, when you are alone, it's always more expensive to travel. So we really answered that question about being able to offer something at a very good price and offer the capacity to connect with the LGBT local scene. That's why that 70% of our users are traveling alone and are booking mostly shared apartments on the website.
Okay, got it. And let's talk about kind of total transaction volume. So year one in 2014, do you remember kind of the total bookings you processed?
It was around 300K USD. Is that good or bad? For the book, it was a book during three months, so it was pretty good. It was good.
Yeah. What was total booking volume in 2015?
In 2015, we were around 3 million.
Okay. And what's your goal for 2016? 7 million this year. So are you already at, what, around 5 or 6 million?
around six okay right now got it and is it are you seasonal like you see a lot of travel in November and December yeah so we are very seasonal so most of our business is done between April to the end of September and then it's starting to be quiet for the end of the year and restarting only in the next year
And is it, in order to kind of understand your revenue, do I just take for last year, 2015, 3 million in transaction volume and multiply 3 million times 12% plus 4%? Is that how it works?
Yes, exactly. And we are also selling some advertisements. So we have a sales team here. And so we are also revenue coming from a big tourism board around the world, airlines company, train company. So yes, exactly. So we are not just only on bookings, but also on advertisement.
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