Mark Simpson (founder) gives an update on Boostly: the company is seven years old, recently scaled from ~20 to 52 staff, and in the last 14–15 months has generated nearly $50 million in tracked direct bookings via client websites. Boostly now supports ~2,500 host-members (~10,000 listings). Rapid growth exposed operational bottlenecks—particularly post-launch communication—and the team is implementing changes (bringing an external expert, adopting Traction/EOS) to improve systems, SOPs, and project management. The update asks members for patience during the transition and reiterates the mission to increase direct bookings and host influence with OTAs.
Questions this video answers
Seven years
52 members of staff
Nearly $50 million (tracked direct bookings)
About 2,500 host-members and ~10,000 listings
About 20 (just under 20) members of staff
Chapters
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, and welcome everybody to a very special episode of the Boostly podcast. Because there's no guest, there's no talking about new things. This is just talking about the latest steps of Boostly. And as you know, I like to document the journey that we have been going through over the years. We're now seven years in, which is phenomenal. And I just wanted to give a little bit of update of where we are. So Boostly right now we are at 52 members of staff and, and, and growing. We have generated in the last 14 to 15 months nearly $50 million of tracks, direct bookings for our clients websites. And the community is growing and growing and growing. We're touching 2, 500 hosts members, which means there's about 10, 000 listings that are currently being running through Boostly as we speak. And that's what being tracked. We are moving to a method where every single listing and person that we impact and help is tracked. We're working towards that. To give you a bit of context, 13 months ago, before I read Clockwork by Mike McCloud, Fired Clockwork by Mike McCallowicz, we were probably about 20, just under 20 members of staff. And now we've grown to 52. That book has helped us exponentially grow to the level that we are at now. But that becomes a problem and this is the problem that we currently have within Bruce Lee. When we grow, the team grows and the more heads and more bums that you adds on seats, virtual seats, bearing in mind we haven't got an office, we're all virtual. Problems can occur and we have grown very quickly because of the demand that has been growing for diary bookings. And obviously one of the things that I've been working to do over the last seven years is to verbiage direct bookings. So when somebody says direct bookings, they think of Bruce Lee. Just like what Airbnb have done with short term rentals. I've tried to verbiage that with, with diary bookings which, which is fantastic. So we can get more people involved. Now the mission now, which is why, you know, I have to adapt my role within Boostly is to get the attention of dotas. I need to get the attention of the book and holiday group, the Airbnb group, the Expedia group. And my ultimate mission and the ultimate goal, the big goal is to get a seat at a table so that hosts can have a say with all the decisions that they bring in. And I want it to be third party, which is us, which will be all about direct bookings so that we don't get left behind. Now for me to be able to do that, I need to make sure that the day to day running obviously is taken care of. And this next book that I have just been reading is called Traction which is massively going to impact the future. Now the current problem that we have within our system is that I believe that we are too much in the business and that the communication post website going live is a current bottleneck. Our communication as we stand is broken and I apologize for that. If you've been caught up in this, if you are a Bruce Lee member, our communication is not where I want it to be. Now this is not to belittle any member of staff. This is literally the tools and the systems that I have given you we have put in place is not right for the next level of Boostly. We could handle it when it was 10 members of staff, when it was under a thousand members, when it was, you know, all of the things that it wasn't now. But as we've grown, we've not adapted. And as much as I like to think that we've improved other areas of Boostly, I believe now the project management team, the onboarding, the build is phenomenal. I believe the tools that we've created to help with that, with the API connections, I feel like it's one of the best out there. I feel like with the coaching that, you know, we brought Liam, Carolyn closely into the, to the unit he's running, the coaching and the masterminds, which is fantastic. I know that the, the CRM and the thing that we've built out there is, is going to help revolutionize it. But there's another problem and that's just communication. And so this is what I'm telling you now, this is what we are going to fix next. I'm a massive fan of who, not how. So instead of me trying to work out like how am I, how are we going to fix this with the leadership team that we have that I believe is working too much in the business and within the bottle, it's sometimes hard to see where the problems are. So we have gone, who can we bring in? So we're bringing a person from the outside, an expert in, somebody that helps teams get rid of problems, make sure that the, the tools and the systems and the software and the things that you've got in place, the SOPs are correct. Now that will take time. It's not going to be a quick fix, it's not going to be a snappy fingers and it's done. It's going to take time. So what I ask from everybody, whether you're somebody who's just on the, on the, on the sidelines of joining Boostly, you've just joined or you've been with us for a while, is bear with us while we make these changes again. I document everything of Boostly ever since day one. You can go back and find all the videos where, where we talk about Bruce Lee from 2016-17 to where we are today. And I look forward to doing the next video in a couple of years time where we document even more of the journey as we are getting towards this big goal. But every business isn't perfect. Every business needs to have a little bit of reflection point. And I can all or only but give good words about Gino Wickman Traction. I feel like I'm such a late bloomer on it. So many people recommended it to me and they were right. And we are implementing the EOS system right now into Boostly and I'm excited to see what we come out of it with that. But as we go on, I just want to say to everybody that what everything that we do, everything that we create, everything that we bring, bring in, everything that we test and tweak is all to affect you, is to impact you, is to impact your business. Again. I want everybody to get the two Cs back into their business. Control and confidence. When you've got the confidence in your business, you've got the control. When you've got control in the business, you've got confidence that you will be able to run this and grow it without the OTAs. Okay, so with that being said, under 10 minute episode, I wanted to give everybody an update of where we are Bruce Lee right now. Thank you to everybody who is joining us on this journey. Thank you to everybody that is is trusting us to get their website up and running live and functioning and taking direct bookings. To everybody who's coming to the coaching and the masterminds for everybody who follows, who buys the books and all those cool things. Thank you very much and I am looking forward to repaying it all back to you in the future. Take care.
Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee like Bruce Lee. Cause it's so hard and the T is loose leaf Making up those rhymes don't write it, just do it loosely.
