API integrations elongate sales cycles because customers find them too complex
Andrew Lockhead · COVID nearly bankrupted him. Then with AI he grew from $0 to $25M ARR in 4 years. | Andrew Lockhe... · PMF Show · May 13, 2024 · at 2:27
Andrew Lockhead, co-founder and CEO of Stay22, discusses why their initial API-based product struggled before switching to an embeddable map iframe.
0:00 / 0:06exact quote · 6.4s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“No one want to integrate API. It's too complex, take too much time, and the sales cycle was really low because of that.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Andrew Lockhead
Stay22 sued investors who refused to wire funds after signing investment agreements
“I actually had to start a legal system against them. So we had to openly sue them and say, you know what? You need to send their money and so on. They never send their cash. We just opened up the legal case and decided to move on after this.”
Stay22 offered ticketing platforms $5,000 upfront to overcome API integration hesitation
“Some people, we had told them, you know what? We'll pay you 5000 dollars up front, and we're going to recoup that money as soon as you generate revenue.”
Airbnb's 2021 affiliate program shutdown wiped out 72% of Stay22's supply
“March 20, 21, we lost our biggest supplier, which was Airbnb. So Airbnb decided to drop complicated affiliation platform. They wanted to go public. So go with the S one show that 95% of people go direct to Airbnb. So they shut down everyone and Airbnb was repr…”
Partnering with platforms scales much faster than selling to individual annual events
“We started with an event at first because we needed to get a go to market and like, see if it works for them. And as soon as we saw it was working, we're like, cool, but one event a year, it's not going to work out. Like, cause you had to wait another 365 days…”
Building a direct B2C travel brand is nearly impossible against established incumbents
“And for us, we always came to the conclusion that they're always going to end on their direct brand. Booker.com, Airbnb, Expedia, wherever they have more loyalty points. So for us to create such a strong brand that we will be able to attract customers to us, w…”
Modern travelers book event tickets first before arranging flights and hotels
“In our paycheck, one of the things that we said to investors was the way that travel changed over time. Back in the days, your parents probably just booked their flight for their bus, or they took the car, and after this, once they were at destination, they we…”