Mobile app provider Dwellable has just raised $2m in seed financing to disrupt the world of vacation rentals (read here). CEO Kirby Winfield answered our questions and unveiled some secrets behind the Seattle, WA-based startup.
FinSMEs: Hi Kirby. First, can you tell us a little bit more about you? What’s your background?
Kirby: I have been in digital media since 1996, and this is my fourth startup. I helped take Go2Net (1997) and Marchex (2003) public and sold AdXpose (2011) to comScore.
FinSMEs: Let’s speak about Dwellable. What’s the opportunity you found in the market?
Kirby: There’s a huge opportunity in making it fast and easy to find vacation rentals anywhere from any device. The vacation rental market is $100B globally, but there really isn’t a household brand in the category, and the mobile channel has been largely unexplored. We saw the space as ripe for disruption, and we’ve already seen a ton of traction for the Dwellable apps without any marketing investment to date.
FinSMEs: How does Dwellable work? Tell me something about the features…
Kirby: Dwellable collects vacation rental listings from suppliers worldwide, and uses the industry’s only quality-based sorting algorithm to surface the best homes quickly. We’re mobile-first, so the product is optimized for connected devices. Since vacation rentals are largely collaborative purchase decisions, we enable favorites, social sharing, and other group-focused functions on the platform. Everything is about making finding a great vacation rental fast and easy. The days of spending hours hunting a cluttered website full of sponsored results are coming to an end – Dwellable app users find what they’re looking for in half the time of our competitors’ websites, and they convert to leads at twice the rate.
FinSMEs: Can you introduce me the other team members?
Kirby: We have two founders: Adam Doppelt is the product visionary and software engineer who created UrbanSpoon (sold to IAC), Strangeberry (sold to TiVo) and a host of other successful software products; and Nathan Kriege is the amazing software engineer who founded social VOIP company Snapvine (sold to WhitePages).
FinSMEs: Where are you now in terms of growth? Some numbers?
Kirby: We have more than 300,000 listings on the platform today, up from less than 100,000 a year ago. For now that’s the sole metric we’re sharing.
FinSMEs: You just raised a seed funding. What can you tell me about the investors? How are you using the funds?
Kirby: We have some pretty smart folks from the travel industry involved. Tapping the knowledge of investors like Rob Solomon, who was on the HomeAway board and ran SideStep, or Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff, who previously founded Hotwire and ran lodging for Expedia, can really help us accelerate our growth. There are some hedge fund folks and VC’s who are investing privately as well, which bodes well for future rounds. Plus, these guys see a ton of deal flow, so it’s a huge endorsement that they see Dwellable as worthy of their time and money. And we’re using that money to hire engineers to continue to innovate on all mobile platforms.
FinSMEs:…future plans?
Kirby: We like to think we can build a unique, huge stand alone business here. Dwellable can be the brand people grow to associate with finding a vacation rental anywhere, from any device, because we’re first and fastest already in mobile. We’ll do whatever we have to to chase that goal and build that brand.
FinSMEs: Dwellable is based in Seattle. What can you tell me about the startup ecosystem? Exciting?
Kirby: Seattle is an amazing place to build a startup. Engineering talent is everywhere and folks are eager to be part of something early that has a chance to change the landscape. People work hard but they value balance as well. Plus, it may be the most talent-rich region in the world for mobile developers. There’s no place we’d rather be.
FinSMEs
10/06/2014