Pass The Keys

Idea

Introduction

Pass the Keys is a leading tech-enabled short let management platform. To date, we have hosted +30,000 guests and earned £15M for our hosts.

Our vision is to become the biggest short let management company in the world by creating unparalleled opportunities for entrepreneurs, hosts and guests.

The Problem

Managing a short let property on Airbnb/Booking.com is very lucrative but involves a lot of work:

The Solution

Pass the Keys delivers all the requirements for property owners looking to take advantage of the short-term letting market. We do this through a scalable technology solution backed up by a 24x7 Guest Support helpline. Here is what we offer:

The market is massive: more than 7 million homes on Airbnb and 6 million on Booking.com.

However it is also very fragmented: short let homes are spread across more than 100,000 cities globally.

To solve this challenge we have built a platform for entrepreneurs who in turn manage all the physical activities of this service.

Intended impact

We started the business in 2015 to help homeowners rent their homes on platforms like Airbnb, Booking.com etc. without any hassle. We then built a successful business operating in 8 cities across the UK and achieving some of the highest ratings on Trustpilot and Google reviews.

In 2019 we opened ourselves as a platform for other entrepreneurs to succeed in building great businesses.

Growing as a platform by empowering local entrepreneurs allows us to

✅ be a lot more capital efficient as we operate on a revenue share basis instead of paying fixed salaries.

✅ deliver great quality as our super local partners know the market well and take full ownership for the service .

✅ expand to new territories fast (we launched 12 cities in the last 12 months) at a fraction of a cost.

Substantial accomplishments to date

Our biggest achievement is to have built an amazing ecosystem that delivers a win-win solution for entrepreneurs, hosts and guests.

We believe the reasons why so many entrepreneurs are joining us:

1) Growth potential

Our partners are able to leverage our high ratings on Google reviews and Trustpilot, endorsement by Airbnb as a Professional Co-Host, an optimized website and all the marketing channels proven and set up.

2) Knowledge.

We share all our knowledge in an easy to access way. Our franchisees can skip the easy mistakes and start scaling their business right away.

3) Technology.

Anyone can learn to manage 1 or 2 flats. Our technology allows to manage 50 with just one person.

4) Community and support.

Running your own business can be lonely. We try to make sure our franchisees always get help when they need it.

We are proud to have a 100% success rate - not a single franchisee has failed.

Other achievements include:

1) We have built a fantastic end-to-end technology that automates the majority of tasks such as job scheduling, invoicing, calendar syncing, pricing, and others!

2) We have achieved industry leading ratings on Google reviews, Trustpilot and Glassdoor delivering for our hosts, guests and team members!

3) We have grown roughly 2x each year over the last 2 years. We have also become a preferred partner for Airbnb as a Professional Co-host!

4) Over the last couple of years we have hosted more than 30,000 groups of guests while earning our hosts more than £15 million in the process!

* based on unaudited management accounts

Here is how it happened:

Monetisation strategy

A franchisee makes money by charging the host the management fee (18-20% of booking value) and the cleaning fee for each booking.

The interests of our franchisees are 100% aligned with those of the hosts. They only make money if the hosts make money.

As a platform we generate revenue through an upfront franchise joining fee (£12.5k) and an ongoing revenue share with franchisees (4.5% of booking value).

Our interests are also 100% aligned with franchisees and hosts. We make money when our partners and hosts make money.

This is the team that makes magic happen!

Use of proceeds

Franchise expansion. (50%)

In 2020 we want to expand the UK partner network from current 14 franchisees to 30 by the end of the year.

In 2019 we launched 1 franchisee a month. By February 2020 we have already 4 new franchises and aim to achieve 3-4 franchisee a month pace in the summer.

Product Development (30%)

We are constantly working on improving our product to increase the level of automation and quality control, i.e. increase the potential productivity of each franchisee from current 50 properties per person to 60, 70 while improving quality through fail safes.

We are also adding exciting new features to improve the product for the hosts and guests.

Training and support infrastructure (20%)

As we plan to expand our franchise network globally to include thousands of entrepreneurs, we are building online training modules that help our franchisees effectively access our vast knowledge base.