Eric Goldreyer

So my name is Eric Goldryer I'm the founder and CEO of savvy

Savvy

is a book direct marketplace for vacation rentals, so it's a place for Travelers to discover fine vacation rentals and book them directly with the host versus going through an intermediary like Airbnb or verbo Says travelers 15 to 20 percent or the platform fees that are charged by the big online travel agents Which adds up to roughly four hundred dollars per booking on savvy comm

I get gonna walk me through you know, this is alternative to kind of the Way things have been done with Airbnb and VRBO and all this up So tell me the the problem you guys saw and why you guys want to solve it

Yes, so the problem we saw and what we set out to fix is Just everyone's sort of frustrated with the current models, right? Whether it's Airbnb and verbo or its ticket master its stub hub. It's its delivery favor, etc

the fees have just got down to hand and Travelers are booking through a platform that really is just helping them find a place to stay But then they can't communicate directly with the host They've got to go through the platform's communication tool, which does a few things one it sort of prevents Hospitality from actually flourishing. I mean hospitality is relationships And and it adds a lot of cost I mean that's the four hundred dollar savings that savvy comm provides to travelers is is money that could go towards a longer stay Or a nicer stay or instead of being in Some beach town you can be on the beach or instead of being in a ski town You can be on the slopes or you can bring in A chef or a yoga instructor a massage therapist or whatever with that savings. So on the supply, sorry on the demand side What we're solving is just the frustration with the fees and allowing travelers That are savvy travelers to use all their money towards their vacation to have a better experience on the supply side. You've got Hosts and property managers that don't own the customer relationship. So when they get a reservation through Airbnb or verbo Oftentimes they don't even know who ends up staying in their property, right? The platform

Does all it can to prevent the property manager the host to figure out who stay in there, right? They're using temporary phone numbers. So you they don't the property manager doesn't get the phone number They're not allowing any third-party apps to get into the house or to get onto Wi-Fi that allow the the host or property manager to collect The the phone number the email address of their guests So instead of it being the property managers terms and conditions payment policies and guests to continue to remark it to Over the next five ten years and get repeat business When they get a reservation through Airbnb or verbo, it's like it's a it's a 15 to 20 percent Tax every time there's a reservation when a property manager gets a reservation through savvy there actually it's a customer acquisition cost They're getting the customer and hopefully for life

Where's the benefit? How is your company have a pivot to embrace the AI?

Yes, the AI obviously is gonna affect sort of everything and it's all people are talking about right now we've already Our leverage in internally, so I'd say half of our coding is done through Claude we've got you know a small but mighty team of full stack developers that That use it we use AI in our marketing Department when we're coming up with communications integrations into clavio for emails and automated triggers, etc We use it on the care side of the house. So sales team uses it So I think so far we've been using it to be more efficient because we're a small team And what will happen this year is you'll see us move into you know, allowing AI In the search box so you don't have to choose filters and destinations You can just tell us what you're looking for We'll have our own LLM of all of our data and we'll provide you with what we think is going to be the properties You're most interested in and then we'll end up standing up our own MCP server so we can Distribute all of our properties out through all the AI All right,

let's talk about kind of where you guys aren't now as a company and where you're trying to be at the end of this year and coming years

Yeah, great. So so where we are now and where we want to be we we launched savvy.com Right at a year ago February 1st of 2025 We've got a hundred and fifty thousand properties in North America on the platform from just under three thousand property managers You know since we've launched our Organic traffic growth has been over 20% month over month consistently our our booking value Which is how how much dollars are booked on our platform has been growing more like 50% month over month. So you know, we spent the last year really focused on getting the supply and building the product and Now we're at that point where we go out and we tell the world that savvy is an alternative to Airbnb and Virbo and really It feels like it's a game of just awareness. I mean Virtually everyone we we talked to Is like oh my gosh, how have I not heard about this? And we're like, well, we weren't out spending any money or time telling you because we had to get it built Otherwise we'd be spending a lot of money people become to the site and either it would be janky or we wouldn't have properties Where they wanted to go. We still don't have properties everywhere But you know with 150,000 in North America, we've got enough in the in the top destinations to start being meaningful So where we go? I mean continue to add supply I'd like to see us get from 150,000 to half a million to a million to two million over the next four or five years

International we've got a lot of opportunity internationally to add properties to a book direct platform And then it's just grow grow awareness and we think that You know when you have a product that saves people 15 to 20 percent or four or five hundred dollars per reservation We think word of mouth is gonna be Really big for us and we've seen it already in the last year without us really doing anything because our organic traffic has a percentage Of our overall traffic is growing and share

And that's you know people want to be savvy I mean they they want to be the the person that sort of tells their friends and family out Have you guys not Airbnb? Are you kidding me? Have you not heard of savvy you chump? so I I I think it's one of those things that once someone comes to the site and They book a property and they save four or five hundred dollars Next time they're together with their friends or their family. They're they're telling their friends and family

Okay, so I'm getting some hiring stuff You know you guys are relatively new company So you know for a company your size and of your maturity? What's the most important thing you're looking at when you build a team?

The most important thing we're looking at when we're building a team is that Is that people fit within the organization right meaning that you know? What successful people want to be around successful people driven people want to be around driven people?

We've got to bring people to the team That the rest of the team feels like they're going to pull their weight and they're going to really deliver And that they're going to get along with people and not just have sort of a cancerous approach to

How we how we move I mean our whole we run agile or we're sort of

Let's let's ship it fix it ship it fix it. You know, we don't want everything pixel perfect. It's it's go go go lean methodology, so We need people that can come in carry their weight don't need to be managed and And really just fit within the the vibe of the company

So, you know things You know like ai and and you know the job market is kind of all over the place What are some common hiring challenges you encounter in?

I Think it's the hiring challenges are really just finding the right people and it's uh, you know There's so many tools out there that you can use and there's some things that we've posted and we've gotten 2000 right, you know applications for

so it's like We've really tried to sort of use a you know, one or two degrees of separation hiring practice where We're hiring people that we know or that someone we know knows and vouches for which allows us to rely on again that relationship and someone we trust to validate Uh a potential hire

Uh, is there anything when you're looking at candidates that immediately pops out as a red flag?

Great question, I mean So full disclosure i'm not the one really doing the hiring Uh at the company the the the heads of the departments hire their teams I think the thing that we would look out for is someone that's more focused on themselves than then what's best for the company and

How do you Deluniate that or determine that really it feels like it's more of a nuance than A binary thing But just making sure that people are coming with the right attitude and I mean I want them to want the best for them because ideally

We're aligning our goals. So what's best with the company is is best for them Um, but we just want to make sure that they're team players, I guess

Okay, great. Uh, and yes as far as like ai fluency, is that changed the way you guys have hired? Is that something you guys look for primarily or is it secondary to the culture?

No, I would say I would say right now

culture Trumps skills because skills can be learned. I don't think ai is growing super fast But I I mean heck I mean i'm figuring it out not coding But i'm using it in our marketing and sales stuff uh, and I didn't know it so

I think the most important thing is that it's the right fit and then uh ai skills after that But we can get we can point people the right direction and if if you truly are higher and smart and motivated dedicated people

Ai is not, you know rocket science Okay.

So, uh, if you were to give a new founder a piece of hiring advice your best piece of hiring advice What would it be?

What would my advice be to a new founder for hiring advice, um

Be careful working with friends and family

so uh, I think there's a gut instinct

Because your friends and family are close and you want to Spend more time with friends and family. That's what life's about, right? Um, but when it doesn't work out it can be hard We've had to we've we've hired some some friends uh And had to let them go for various reasons because ultimately And when we hire them we say this but we got to do we've got investors We've got to do what's best for the business and if that Family member or friend isn't the right fit

We've got to make a change and that just sort of sucks So if you're going to do it Really think through it Great.