Local Bird - a virtual concierge service

Hello, everybody, and thank you for joining us on the Boostly podcast. This is the podcast that gives you the tools, the tactics and the training so you can get more direct bookings. My name is Liam Carolan, and today we are shining the Boostly spotlight on one of the services that will help you and your guests live like a local. So let me introduce to you Ben Levy. He is the CEO and founder of localbird. Welcome along, Ben.

Thanks for having me, Liam.

No worries. So I'm not going to steal any thunder away from you, Ben. I know sometimes I like to give an introduction into service, but I'm going to let you introduce yourself and Local Birds. So let's get started by saying, you know, introduce a little bit about yourself, whereabouts in the world that you're. You're broadcasting this from, and. Yeah. Anything else you'd like to say about yourself before we then dive into Local Bird?

Yes. So right now I'm broadcasting this from Miami. I grew up in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. It's a small suburb outside of Philadelphia. And when I was 19, I moved to Israel, served in the military. After that, went to school, started kind of a little startup that was a marketplace, so was really trying to understand how to get into entrepreneurship through that. And Local Bird is a virtual concierge for vacation rentals. And we help vacation rental managers provide more value to their guests while being able to monetize off of the experiences and services that their guests are booking during their stay. And it kind of started when we, you know, at the peak of COVID when, you know, everything was shut down. Our original startup was kind of, you know, didn't really work out because of kind of what's happening around tourism. And we stayed a vacation rental in Hawaii, and, you know, we were looking for things to do, specifically wanted to run a surfboard. And we asked the host, you know, if he can help us with recommendations, and he basically gave us, you know, this guidebook or like this, you know, binder with a bunch of, like, printed, you know, information that was. That was, you know, at that moment, we understood that there's a lot of, you know, opportunity in digitizing the guest experience, especially when it has to do with finding local experience and services.

How did you feel when you first realized that it was a good, you know, a good idea, that there's actually, you know, something in this that you can actually develop. And what problem do you think it solves overall? What is the. In one or two lines? What sort of problem does it solve?

Yeah, so, you know, at first we Weren't sure that, you know, transactions were actually going to occur. You know, we figured we're going to give this as a service to hosts and you know, we, you know, we aim to get transactions and do whatever we can work to make it happen. But you know, it wasn't a given. But once it started working, it was a little bit of a surprise to us that, you know, people were actually going and booking things, you know, through the service.

Where did the name local bird come from?

Honestly, I think at first it was something with a bird, I think it was like something else. But it kind of evolved I guess, you know, as soon as we launched and we, you know, had to really figure out a name because we had the logo with the bird. We were just, you know, looking for something. A bird is a symbol of freedom in a lot of different cultures. And, and yeah, just if it fit together is like, has to do with.

You know, travel and how does a host get started? So if there's going to be hosts listening into this thinking, well, you know, how do I get started and how do they interact with, with the platform?

Yeah, so basically you can go into the website and you know, sign up as a host and then from there, you know, we'll get on a zoom call and chat. But you can basically from there you can share your link in the post confirmation emails as well as send the link pre arrival and through a QR code. And you know, we're really trying to get creative with how we share our, our experiences with guests through, you know, various blog posts and discounts that we're offering. So, so yeah, it's really kind of a partnership kind of scenario where we're constantly trying to provide more content and, and more experiences to then offer the guests.

Why would those local service providers want to get involved?

Yeah, so actually like whenever there's a place where there's a lot of tourism, a lot of times, you know, the most of the travelers that are booking things with tourism providers are actually coming from hotels and vacation rentals. So the hosts are actually in a unique position to sell those experiences and to partner with the local vendors. And you know, we've had local vendors that, that we've reached out to and they told us, yeah, we're actually looking for vacation rentals and property managers to partner up with. So it kind of, you know, fits perfectly, you know, when we kind of are trying to digitize and streamline that transaction as opposed to having it happen, you know, with, you know, a bunch of phone calls and tracking, you know, how much commissions are being owed to who and, and, and manually facilitating the transaction.

How do you get paid as for your service, you know, is there a sign up fee or is it a case of are you making money on the transact, you know, how does the host get paid as well?

Yeah, so it's free for hosts. Our business model is based off marketplace transactions. So whenever a guest books an experience through localbird, we'll have a take rate that we charge the vendor and we'll give a portion of that to the host. So the hosts are earning 10% off of each, off of each experience that's built through our platform.

Is there any aspects, One of the things we do on Boostly is talk about direct bookings. And is there any aspects where you can think this helps promote direct bookings and if so, how?

Yeah, I think, you know, what we're doing is directly aligned with the direct book, like the book direct strategy. Because, you know, if you're, if you're not relying, you know, on a Airbnb or booking or ota, then you're kind of on your own in terms of providing the seamless user experience. And you're competing with people who, their whole job is to create that seamless user experience. And one of those, like, one part of that experience is actually giving the local experience of the place that your destination is because people aren't coming and saying, hey, so excited to stay in this vacation rental. They're coming and saying, I'm so excited to stay in this destination. And that's like, once you kind of incorporate that in the user experience of, you know, while they're booking and after they're booking, actually providing those experience and, you know, and obviously being able to monetize off of that is really what we're going for. And that's, I think it's also a good way to, you know, give, you know, an alternative booking experience that's not as, I mean, that is equally, you know, smooth and seamless.

What does the future look like for localbird?

Yeah, so right now we're, we're super focused on, on expanding in the US and you know, we're looking to be a global brand and, you know, really consolidate our position as the market leader of virtual concierge services, which is, you know, a pretty loosely defined term nowadays, but we're really looking to, you know, to set the standard for what it's supposed to look like.

Thank you so much for your time and thank you. If you're listening to this or watching on the live, I know there's a lot of places you can put your attention and I really thank you for putting it with Boostly. Hopefully you've got some good insights as to localbird on this and we look forward to seeing you on the next one. Thanks very much and bye bye for now.

Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast Bruce Lee like Bruce Lee Cause it's so hard and the tea is loose leaf making up those rhymes don't write it, just do it loosely.