Overnight, App for Booking Last-Minute Spaces with Local Hosts, Raises $2.5M | Hacker News Reader

Overnight, App for Booking Last-Minute Spaces with Local Hosts, Raises $2.5M

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33 pointsromarv17 comments

This seems like a good supplement for people who are already AirBnB hosts because such people already have an intention to provide a space, therefore they are inclined to have the space relatively prepared in advanced for a future booking.

Perhaps the UX is difference on this app vs AirBnB, but what prevents someone from using AirBnB for a last minute rental except that the host must be prepared for such an event?

It's hard to set up. There is instant booking on AirBnB, but mostly you have to email people and have a conversation, introduce yourself, etc. and wait for the host to get back to you. I have booked relatively last minute on AirBnB, in fact one of my best experiences was at a "startup" hotel in San Francisco, but by and large it's difficult and unreliable. Especially the "request to book" thing. If I put in a request for same day accommodations, I can't put in a second request for fear of both requests being accepted. And requests have, I believe, 24 hours to be accepted. So in theory you could try to book this morning for tonight, and not get a response until tomorrow. Or put in multiple requests and they're all accepted and you're charged for many rooms.

And even if it works, you have to coordinate with the hosts on entrance, parking, etc. at the last minute, which could be impossible.

Generally AirBnB isn't optimized for last-minute bookings in my experience.

When I need something super last minute, I can always rely on Hotel Tonight. But something like this, a last-minute AirBnB without all the AirBnB hassles, would be pretty nice.

It seems that last-minute requests on AirBnB do not really succeed because the hosts aren't prepared to respond in time. So, it's a psychological / cultural issue because AirBnB was created without this 'last-minute' booking concept / ability in mind (right?).

Even with this app, don't you still need to coordinate with the host for entrance, parking, etc?

Also, the fact that multiple requests for the same accommodations by the same user aren't consolidated and yield multiple chargings seems like a bug...

The hassle seem more related to what you stated, that AirBnB "isn't optimized for last-minute bookings."

Definitely sounds like you would still need to coordinate with the host, but perhaps the different culture and mindset makes people more cognizant of the fact that they have to do the coordination quickly and be ready to do it.

AirBNB has needed a feature for a long time where I could send a request to multiple hosts and the first one who accepts gets the booking and the rest get simultaneously cancelled. Every time I've booked an AirBNB, there's been 3 or 4 decent places but being forced to go through them serially rather than in parallel is a major pain.

So, how do they compete when AirBnb launches this feature in a few month's time?

To be honest, this sounds like a nightmare for hosts. Hotels can do Hotels Tonight because they have paid staff at the checkin desk 24/7 and usually some spare, made up rooms. I'd have to get paid a lot to open up my spare room at a moment's notice.

I think this works better for people who don't want to schedule their entire lives around an airbnb calendar. If you have a room / guest house to rent, and you don't have hired help, you need to be there. Ruins the spontaneity of life, like if I want to take a few days off to go on a getaway. I could see this being useful as a seller.

However, as a buyer, it's risky. You need to trust that a room will always be available with your expectations, and you won't know until the same day. It would stress me out.

I'd be surprised if this is still around in 3 years. The things you mentioned are the first that came to my mind. Plus, there'll probably be high churn making it even worse for hosts because it'll probably mainly appeal to people caught in a city at short notice, and probably short term in that case.

I think there is a market for instant booking. A lot of time I find myself going to the traditional hotel route because i need to check-in within next couple of hours. Additionally going through hundreds of listing, reading reviews and deciding a place on Airbnb is time consuming.

I don't doubt there is a market for it. But who would want to list their room only for last minute bookings? I'm struggling to imagine it. So when (and if it's successful, it is a case of when not if) Airbnb introduces this feature they'd just take over the market immediately.

You're right. Think of it as free market validation testing for AirBNB. That's $2.5MM of their own VC funds or revenue they didn't have to waste.

Presumably there is a premium for last minute bookings over traditional AirBnB. And there's the factor that, hey, maybe I have a spare room tomorrow and didn't plan on having that, might as well make some money on it.

I've stayed with lots of AirBnB hosts whose "room" is a small guest house in the backyard or detatched from the main house. No problem opening that up because the guests aren't necessarily coming through your normal living space.

I think there's definitely a small market for this kind of thing, but also a small body of hosts with the ability and tolerance to host people last minute.

This is perfect for areas and buildings where Airbnb is banned. For example I was renting out my apartment in Chicago for $250 a night until someone from the building management company contacted me saying that rentals or subleases < 1 month were not allowed in my building and I needed to take my place off the site. I removed the listing and asked them how they knew that it was up. Apparently they had an intern look through all of their properties on Airbnb regularly and find all of the Airbnb listings for them. This app would allow me hide my listing from building management but to be visible by verified travelers. I am sure this wouldn't only be true of individual buildings, but entire neighborhoods or cities where it may be banned.

You have a window where you can use this app until the building management catches on and adds this app to the ban list.

How does this hide your listing except by putting it on a less known service?

For Airbnb all listings are public. In this app everything is private until you let specific users be able to view it.

I've always thought that something like this would be very effective for renting "space" rather than it necessarily being a full bedroom. The company could let the apartment/house owner rent fold-able cots or something to utilize, say, a living room as a sleeping space. There would be basic check boxes like access to a shower, a kitchen, etc., but it is more of a free-form lodging rather than renting a room.

My brain couldn't help but read it this way for a while: App for booking raises $2.5M overnight.

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