Yhangry - Revolutionizes STR with Private Chefs

Okay. Welcome back to the Boostly podcast. This is the podcast gives you the hosts, the tools, the tactics, the training, and most of all, the confidence to go out there and get more direct bookings. We talk about increasing your bookings no matter how you operate, no matter the size of your business. And one thing that we were talking about earlier on on a panel this week was that you need to stand out from the crowd. You need to offer things that your competition may not offer. And that is what we're going to be talking about today. A way that you can stand out from the rest of your competition and ultimately offer your guests something a bit different and something which they may take care of. So we've got a special guest with us today. We've got Siddhi from It's Whyhangri, and it's a great service which you are going to enjoy hearing about. And we're going to dive in. So welcome along. Thank you for joining me.

I'm so excited to be here.

The first question I love to ask on these is when. What would you like the listener to take away from this episode?

So the one key thing that I learned recently at all the conferences was that str industry, this is the very first time ever since 08 where there is oversupply and the focus is back on demand. So if you are in the STR space and looking to compete against hotels, you really have to focus on the guest experience. And a very core part of a hotel is little breakfast, little food. It's easy. So if you are a property manager, offer that to your guests. And I'm here to help you with that.

Awesome. This feels like a great segue into tell us about why hangry. How did it come about and what is the service and why is it important to you? There's quite a few questions there.

I know. I'll simplify it. So we started around four years ago, very much because everyone in this world says this thing in a dream pisses me off. They say private chefs are so expensive, it's unaffordable. And it bothers me because what they don't know is restaurant chefs barely earn any money. They make minimum wage, they have mental health issues, and they're trapped behind the kitchen. They earn like 20 to 24k a year. It's actually like a very terrible life. So, guys, come on. Everyone can afford a private chef, and it actually costs less than a restaurant. You save on the markup of drinks, you have a higher quality time with your friends and family, and the chef's happier so it's like a win, win, win. That's why we started yhengry. It just is a no brainer. Chefs actually earn three times more they would than a restaurant and they work like twice a week rather than like every single day. So it's kind of crazy. It's changing the life for chefs. Kind of like how when Airbnb started the it created the SDR industry and then host started earning money. So it's kind of the same thing we're doing now. Why is this relevant? We did start off as a consumer company, so we kind of went viral. People would post about it on Insta and all this stuff. But we realized more than half of our bookings now are coming in the str space. That's kind of wild. And I kind of thought about it and it made sense. People go on a vacation, they get a really nice home. Why are they going to leave that and go to a restaurant nearby? It just makes no sense. You want to make use of this beautiful house and that's where we come in. So with yaheng and we're doing a lot of product iterations, but guests, let's say when they. And I'm sorry, I use Airbnb very loosely and I know in this industry that probably isn't the right thing to do. But let's say in a house or country house, imagine if someone books it. You should be able to book food for your family and kids. You should be able to order breakfast delivery. You should be able to have a celebratory dinner with a MasterChef that costs just £70 per person. So all these things why Hengry can take care of. It's no fast, no cost to you, no tech integration. We do all the heavy lifting. You just need to spend what we do.

That's cool. So how does whyhangri help both the host and more importantly their guest? What is it? What is the pain point that you're solving for hosts? So many use the service.

So, you know, this is funny. I was looking to book one day of a staycation with my husband and I started saying, oh my gosh, let me just book a short term catering property because I'm now in this industry. Then unfortunately I gave up. I realized I don't know how we're going to get food, what we're going to do. There are no experiences. And I think we went back towards the hotel, we went back towards Soho Farmhouse that has a couple of restaurants and just something to do. And that's the choice customers Are making it is not just about booking a place, it's about having the optionality to have an experience. So as a host you are delivering, helping people create memories. And when a person comes to your direct website, let's say, which I know boostly facilitates, people are looking, people are like what are the things on offer? Imagine clay pigeon shooting. That's amazing. They might never book it but they want to know that they can. Like they have the option and people are lazy. But people need to know there's availability of stuff to do. And I think that's kind of the point because now people care a lot about experiences. And also I say the second thing I think stay somewhere and leave and that's cool. But how do you really deliver a six star experience? And I think when you offer amazing service in your sort of and the customer goes oh my God, I had.

Such a good time as a host which plays in my mind should I just be offering this kind of thing in the high end places or should we be spreading it across all home types? I mean in the industry we have like midterm stays, we have experience. Yeah. Should we do it across the whole portfolio?

So let me give you one anecdotal example. Someone who had a night stay of £400 between 10 people. So let's say they're paying £40 per night, split between 10 people, they book the chef for £1,000 and the chef can be way higher. Why? You've already paid for the trip, now you're kind of tagging on more experiences and people get loser with what they can spend. And obviously I'm not saying this is going to be the case with everyone. However now if you imagine two people, they gone on date night, you might just think they're not going to book a chef, but what are they going to do? Imagine if they could do a cooking class in their home and then have like a very nice interactive dinner and that just occupies the whole dinner and that's their anniversary celebration. That's incredible. Also imagine if you are two parents and you go with your kids your holiday yet you have to now hunt for food cooked. What if you could just have some delivery and it costs like £150 for have food delivered for the whole day for you, your husband, for your kids. So I think we have something at a lot of price ranges and we're making that product better by the day. But this is not an exclusive product. Like I said, people think private chefs are so expensive. It really is the same cost as restaurant delivery. Sometimes And a restaurant. So I would encourage you to offer this no matter the stage or the bedroom size, because our chefs can do a lot of things and it's not.

Just how easy is it to do? And is, is this which the host needs to sign up or is this something which the guest just needs to go on? How does that work?

I love it. Great question. No one needs to do anything. Why does all the heavy lifting? So as a host, you literally can just add in one sentence. Here, check out our private chef for the best rates. Here you get a unique affiliate link. Once someone clicks on the link, people, guests come onto our website. That's where they add a request. They've made the booking. We can track all these things and we can attribute it back to the host and the host can get a kickback by the commission. The guest does land on our website, but we're able to track all the metrics and actually we say accounts are high touch, middle touch, slow touch, but we have all the data and we pass it back towards our host and we set up the link for them. We also make the payments. All you have to do is add a line saying, here, book a private chip and hyperlink it.

Is it something which is offered? Is this England wide, UK wide, worldwide? Where do you come from and where is it sometimes difficult to find those services in those places? What do you do in those instances?

Great question. So we're all across UK, we currently have 4,000 plus chefs, way more than we actually need. So we have a 10x larger network of chefs just waiting to start getting jobs. We have so many chefs, we'll be spoiled for choice. So yes, when we started it was harder, but we really figured out how to get chefs to these areas. I would say the only place where it gets really hard, admittedly is I think there's something called the isle of something where when you go there, you have to get on a boat. And once I was telling a property, don't worry, a chef can get there. And they were like, even if they get a boat, where are they going to stay? And I was, okay, this is really hard. So I feel like even that's possible, you know, if it's a lunch booking, but away from really weird places to get to. Chefs can drive, no issues. Chefs can get there. We have a very robust network. And I think one other thing, some holes try to do it themselves and they're like, I'll just recommend a local chef. And they really focus on locality and they want to feel very like, cool and they're like, no, we're not going to use a platform. I think they're kind of missing a big point here. A chef, busy a lot of the key days and the chef is going to be unresponsive. It's one human being. What then ends up happening is if a customer contacts a chef, they're unresponsive. The customer is going to be like, fuck sake, like, I'm done. Like, people don't have time. We know that because for every single request, we actually match the request to 30 plus chefs. And that's what ensures that within the first hour, a customer can get up to three responses. And if they don't get a response, the chance of booking a chef drops ridiculously. So I think all I'll say is if as a property host, you're thinking, oh, no, I'll just curate my local supply. It's actually probably a terrible. It's very different saying here is a restaurant you can go to. The restaurant will most likely always give you a reservation. But if you're offering a local service provider, that is a frustrating experience. So please don't do that or try not to do it.

You know, it's not so much for your time on this podcast. And if you're listening to this and there's somebody, another host who needs to know about why Hangry, then you can check out the show notes. It's in the show notes. Or you can go to the website Sidi. Can you just give that website one more time so we know exactly where we've got to go?

Absolutely. Www.the letter y hangry. H a N-R-Y.com. so just type in whyhangri or just type in UK's number one private chef, Dragons Den. And the first link will be us.

Awesome. I love it. Thank you so much for your time and we look forward to seeing where Yhangry is and hopefully we can have you back on in years to come as it grows. And if you're a host, capitalize on this now. The reason this is happening on the Boostly podcast and why we're talking to you as a host about this is you should be signing up. You should be looking to do this because your competition won't be doing it. And that is exactly why you should do it now before. Before it becomes the mainstream and you can capitalize on it. So thank you very much for listening. We'll see you on the next podcast. Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee. Like Bruce Lee, because it's so hard and the T is loose leaf Licking up those rhymes don't write it, just do it loosely.