I admit to being skeptical when my daughter told me that when she travels for work or pleasure, she didn’t have to pay someone to walk and feed Walter (her collie) and take care of Olive (her cat). She has found a way to attract people to stay at her home and care for her pets without paying them a fee. Fanny told me it was a match made in heaven – well, actually online. Ever hear of Trusted House Sitters?
For more than forty years, my wife and I always had to hire someone to cat sit when we traveled. We often paid $25-40 a day or more to have someone stay in our home and take care of our fur babies. So a typical vacation for two weeks has an added cost of $500+ When we last stayed in Hawaii to visit our daughter, son-in-law, and grandson, we spent over $1,000 on pet-sitting fees.
Trusted House Sitters
Trusted House Sitters, launched by Andy Peck and Rachel Martin in 2010 and has grown to become the world’s leading international housesitting platform. They met when Andy was looking for a place to finish a screenplay. A friend had introduced him to the idea of house sitting. Andy had a near-death experience while traveling in the Bolivian Andes several months before and needed a quiet place to work and heal.
When they got together, Andy and Rachel spent a week house sitting in France after meeting and found a love for the adventure. They also saw www.trustedhousesitters.com as a partnership they could build together. They realized they were in the matchmaking business – matching pet owners with people who wanted to travel.
Matching Needs
This idea of matching needs is a robust business model.
When you see what you do through a matchmaking lens, you simplify your concept. Most companies are trying to match a pain point or need – with a solution. What Airbnb has done for travel, Trusted House Sitters has done for pet care.
Andy and Rachel figured out that a free- AirBnB experience could be exchanged for caring for pets. House sitting or pet sitting isn’t a new idea, but bringing technology allows you to scale this idea globally.
Want to stay in London for ten days without paying for a hotel? How about traveling to the North Carolina beach in exchange for walking a beautiful dog twice a day and feeding a sweet kitty. Both sitters and homeowners pay a modest annual fee of $129 to find a match. That’s the only fee each year no matter how often you travel or need a pet sitter.
My daughter had 15 people vying to sit for her in her place, which is about 15 minutes from the North Carolina beach. The woman she chose lives in Charlotte and wanted to explore the Wilmington area – and is a pet lover. So if Fanny has to go to New York for a Food Network appearance or to visit with Rachael Ray, she can easily find a match for her pets.
Everybody wins – especially Walter and Olive.
There are other house and pet sitting sites but Trusted Sitters has a few unique points of difference. They have a 24-hour customer care team in place, which you can call via phone, live chat, or email. Customer care is part of Trusted’s “only we” – no other platform offers this level of customer service, which is incredibly valuable to members. It helps attract more pet owners to use the service and works as backup support for sitter and owners should it ever be needed. And sitters are rated so you can weed out those with average or poor reputations
They are also introducing a further level of ‘trust’ into the platform with ID verification. Added trust means members will be able to build their ‘trust’ profiles even more, in addition to the current third-party references, video profiles, and peer reviews.
Is Your Business in Matchmaking?
Are you in the matchmaking business? How can you use technology to better connect people with products and services? What can you learn from Trusted House Sitter?
If you are thinking about starting a business, consider how a match made online could be the business model framework needed.
Photo by Fanny Slater with permission from Walter and Olive
