US: Revenue management startup Buoy, a Techstars backed company, has announced its official launch into the vacation rental market as of May 2021.
The SaaS company is the brainchild of husband-and-wife duo Tim and Candice Speicher – the former an experienced revenue manager and the latter a visual storyteller – together with software engineer Szabolcs Pasztor.
The difference between Buoy and existing products is that Buoy does not use the standard ‘base rate’, a subjective number set by the use that an algorithm pushes up for weekends and peak seasons.
Tim Speicher, CEO and co-founder of Buoy, said: “Anything that’s a wild variant to what’s actually happening in the market – like the pandemic – the base rate algorithm can’t cope with. So if rates are off the mark, owners and managers often don’t know until it’s too late.
“Over my years of working with property owners and managers, I saw a genuine need to address this and demystify revenue management for confused customers,” he added.
Instead, Buoy has created the first algorithm of its kind called the ‘buoyancy point’: a dynamic and entirely market-based index of millions of hotels and short-term rentals globally that sets an optimum rate for its users.
Buoy’s algorithm uses a daily feed of hotel APIs [the first algorithm to do so] and data from the likes of Airbnb, Booking.com and Expedia. Users can then adjust their rates directly relative to their competition through the dashboard.
The Buoy dashboard’s visual design was created by CCO Candice and combines rate-setting, market intelligence and reporting into a single interactive timeline. By communicating what users most want to know – their relative position to direct competitors and how professional revenue managers predict upcoming demand – it makes data-informed decision-making accessible to anyone who needs it.
Tim said: “We’re so excited to officially launch Buoy. It feels like the right time given the explosion of the industry which has cast a light on the importance of smart revenue management.
“Buoy does everything an incredibly talented revenue manager might be able to do with existing technology, but in a fraction of the time and with no risk of human error. Ultimately, we want to grow Buoy to be the primary way industry members understand the market trends governing their business and be the most helpful company in vacation rentals,” he added.
