Hi Gil,
Thanks for your comment ! We haven't heard about them before but it is clear there are many others in the market. I guess it shows that there is some great potential to develop!
Now, comparing to them and more generally, there are some differences we want to focus on :
First, we had quickly realized that we have to take our time and talk to our community. Marketplaces need volume so many try to grow fast at early stage. But Marketplaces have also the famous chicken and egg problem (dealing both with the demand and offer side). Opening new cities fast means to focus less on building a strong and local community. Then, you can lose control on your offer (quality and coherence), flexibility (it is easier to make changes in 5 cities than 10 000).That's why we focus on 5 cities for now, even if we have people offering from many countries.
We also changed the way people list experiences to build confidence (ensured by quality and user experience). We make people come to us and talk about their project so we can first listen and then help them optimize their experience before the listing process.
We also plan to test experiences with our ambassador program (gradually), we attach a strong importance to quality photos, good descriptions, reduced number of people, coherent pricing...
Another thing this process allows is to create a new offer, something people would like to see listed or something we find great but doesn't already exists. This is an example we did last month : https://www.bubble-globe.com/exp...
We have imagined and created it from A to Z with our local guide. That's the real challenge we're all actually facing. But we believe there are a lot of people that would be interested to offer an experience but just don't know from where to start. We need to find them and listen to them first.
So the spirit and idea is basically the same but there are details in the way we do things (including the way we communicate and expand). But this is just a beginning, we've launched in December 2014. The challenge is also elsewhere and we have great plans coming up. Stay tuned :) I hope I had respond to your question. Best
GrowthHackers
BubbleGlobe
GrowthHackers
BubbleGlobe