9 ms·

Sonder Raises $135M to Turn Airbnb Apartments into Hotels

118 points by anguswithgusto 8y ago

gnicholas 8y ago
I heard about Sonder last year and have been surprised how under-the-radar they are. It's a great concept, and the pricing sure beats the cost of a high-end airbnb, which to me is their main competition. We've had too many dodgy, misrepresented airbnb experiences and my wife has sworn them off. Looking forward to using Sonder when we're in the cities they serve!
dawhizkid 8y ago
Surprised Airbnb doesn’t just do this themselves, though I suspect it might just be a matter of time? Agree the one thing I really don’t like about Airbnb and why I still prefer hotels is the inconsistency of the experience from check-in to check-out. If I’m in a new unfamiliar city all I want to do is minimize the unknowns as much as possible and everything about Airbnb from key hand off to cleanliness to whether the listing is even real is a big question mark until you’re actually there.
- omegaworks 8y ago
  >Surprised Airbnb doesn’t just do this themselves, though I suspect it might just be a matter of time? Airbnb has gotten a lot of pushback for commoditizing spaces that would have likely been used as long-term rental properties. They very meticulously craft their brand and community relationships so as to avoid negative repercussions from operating in a city. This is an attempt to directly capitalize on the prime, long-term rental stock drained by Airbnb's presence without damaging the Airbnb brand.
- rrdharan 8y ago
  They are doing it - see AirBnB Plus: https://www.airbnb.com/plus https://www.airbnb.com/plus
dano 8y ago
This would seem to negatively impact the rental market for long-term tenants, no?
- cycrutchfield 8y ago
  Only if supply is artificially constrained.
  - khazhoux 8y ago
    I disagree. Even loosely factoring in parameters such as construction costs and timelines, permitting, current construction activity, and overall housing stock elasticity, you find a correlation with hotel/short-term housing and regional sale prices and availability.
    - cycrutchfield 8y ago
      In markets where supply is not artificially constrained nobody demonizes or really cares about short term rentals. It’s only in markets where housing is constrained where suddenly Airbnb is to blame for all our problems.
  - jseliger 8y ago
    I have no idea why this is being downvoted. It's correct: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-14/california-affordable-housing-is-no-mystery-just-build-more https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-14/californi.... The real question is why we started artificially constraining supply so severely in the '70s: https://jakeseliger.com/2015/12/27/why-did-cities-freeze-in-the-1970s https://jakeseliger.com/2015/12/27/why-did-cities-freeze-in-....
whatsstolat 8y ago
Interesting. First disrupting hotels with holiday rentals (airbnb) which is now disrupted again by a hotel.
ordinaryradical 8y ago
"Compared to your typical Airbnb, no one “lives” in Sonder apartments except for its guests. Each rental comes with a living room space and kitchen so people can cook and relax like they would in their own home. Units range from studios in a heart of a city to sprawling a six-bedroom unit in downtown Montreal." This is bad news for cities that are already short on housing. You're taking what could have been space for housing and erasing it with larger, lower-density hotel suites. Very luxurious and pleasant for the travelers, sure, but you're ballooning the space taken up by the "hotel" and magnifying the market pressures on everyone else in the process. What's pretty surprising about this article is the breathless, unquestioned enthusiasm for these kind of ideas. Is this really a sustainable model for urban centers and hotels? Is this how we want to conduct our cities and use our most precious, economically productive spaces? I'm pro Airbnb--when the room is actually rented out by the renter, everyone including the little guy wins. But this is a very "rich get richer" style of tourism with the fig-leaf of the share economy strapped to its extravagance, right?
- samclearman 8y ago
  Most Americans have spare bedrooms for when guests visit. You could have your guests stay at a hotel but typically that will be really far from your home which sucks for everybody. Having Sonder or Airbnb style short term rentals distributed throughout cities could allow people to live in smaller apartments, eliminating bedrooms that sit unused most nights creating more space for everybody. To be clear I'm not talking about the model of renting out your spare bedroom on Airbnb because nobody actually wants to do that. I'm talking about full time airbnb studios / 1BR's obviating the need for guest bedrooms.
  - ordinaryradical 8y ago
    That's remarkably optimistic. But people also have guest bedrooms so that family members can stay with them, not away from them. And so that they can have part-time home offices. And simply to increase the overall value of their home investment. I think expecting the presence of Sonder in the market to efficiently trade space with houses by obviating the need for guest rooms seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of how the housing market works, particularly why people buy houses larger than what they need or utilize.
drum 8y ago
"Comfortable beds, nice linens, soft towels, and well-chosen amenities and essentials." Clean linens alone has me interested. That is by far the biggest headache for me when comparing an AirBnB to a hotel. Can I trust that the host actually cleaned the bed sheets?
- nightfly 8y ago
  You can't trust that a hotel did either.
  - coltonv 8y ago
    Don't know why you're getting downvoted. Hotels cheap out on that stuff all the time.
    - puranjay 8y ago
      I remember reading that hotels often prefer using harsher detergents because it gives the impression of "cleanliness" more than a milder detergent. Cleanliness is often a matter of perception
- robotnixon 8y ago
  The first thing we do when we get to an AirBNB is wash the linens. I'd never rent a place without a washer and dryer for this reason.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
tptacek 8y ago
How does Sonder qualify the spaces they purchase? If they aren't careful, aren't they really just one big target for lawsuits?
babesh 8y ago
This is what other people are doing already but on a larger scale with VC backing.
joelrunyon 8y ago
Why can't the US just start serviced apartments like they do in Australia and Asia? Apartment type buildings w/ laundry + kitchens stuck in a hotel like building w/ front desk to check you in. That's gotta be a way better use of city resources.
- duxup 8y ago
  There are some hotels in my area that have apartments on the upper level that get service from the hotel.
- rahimnathwani 8y ago
  The US already has hotels that specialise in apartment-type experiences. A couple I've stayed in for >1 week stays: Residence Inn in Seattle, and Staybridge Suites in Sunnyvale. The main difference between them and pure serviced apartments is that they have a breakfast room, and rates usually include breakfast.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    They also usually have daily maid service. I often favor this category of hotel, especially in cities, because I prefer a refrigerator, sofa, and some more space over more typical hotel amenities that I often don't use (bar, full-service restaurant, etc.) Serviced apartments in Europe are often a better deal than conventional hotels too. I suspect I don't value conventional hotel amenities as much as the average person does. On the other hand, especially for business travel, I do value having a staffed front desk and reliable check-in, bag storage, etc.
babesh 8y ago
The logical stable point is that all city centers will be in effect hotels or homes of the very rich who can afford to bid against the expected return of those units.
minitoar 8y ago
This was so confusing to me at first because last year I stayed in a Sonder that I booked through AirBnB.
theologic 8y ago
I'm struggling with the angle here. A. The secret to AirBNB is that everybody had extra space, and Gig Economy allow you to get value out of your extra space. B. When you are in the Gig Economy, you have two things that you need to do: 1. Have the extra space 2. Manage the extra space Sonder initially focused on #2, and this worked out well. Bring professionalism to the management interface turns out to be very good deal because a lot of people with #1 is not good at #2. My problem with the next step on their is that they are leaving the core of the gig economy. Buying the facility and coming up with unique rooms with different paintings is simply getting into the hotel business. The fundamental driving force of the AirBNB business model is the use of an asset that is otherwise unused, and sparing somebody from needing to invest CapEx in building rooms. This is a massive lever to get into the hotel business, which is what AirBNB really is. Obviously, I'm totally ignoring the moral choice of if having somebody else consuming and reselling beds is good or bad for cities. I'm simply on the point that hotels are a going business that is pretty competitive, with a series of operators at all levels. It's not clear to me how Sonder business model is superior to the standard hotel model once they are forced to spend CapEx for rooms, because having unique hotel facilities or rooms does not appear to me to drive a competitive advantage. Secondly, if having unique rooms turns out to be brilliant competitive advantage, and I'm totally wrong on this point, I don't see how this drives a real moat (as Buffet would state) that is defensible. I would think that the entrenched hotel operators should be able to pivot and counter the threat.
- tptacek 8y ago
  Isn't this really a kind of regulatory arbitrage? Hotels totally could buy up condominiums all over cities and then manage them centrally, but they're not allowed to do that. Airbnb gets away with it by distributing the liability and claiming plausible deniability; they're the Napster of hotel zoning. Isn't Sonder just trying to slip in under the radar, the confusing ostensible aegis of people renting out their rooms temporarily, to do what Marriott can't do?
  - theologic 8y ago
    That's another angle I wasn't thinking of. I'm no expert, but the Blackstone group and some REITS already focus single houses and renting them out. The REIT market is well understood, thus having a easy line of investors. If this is simply a way of getting past local rulings, I would guess that somebody in the aforementioned rental market buying single homes might explore short term hotel type operations instead, although it is unclear to me the leap from longer term rentals to overnight stays.
sperling75 8y ago
Sonder's sales channel was and is primarily airbnb itself which could easily turn it off if they determined them to be a threat. So it's a business highly dependent on future competitive partners (see Airbnb plus). Their company was called Flatbook but the service and reviews were so terrible and so full or irate customers who had been scammed that they had to try and erase it from the internet and reimagine themselves as Sonder. You can still find a few places with flatbook review if you search ex. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sonder/@45.5198842,-73.5877813,17z/data=!4m7!3m6!1s0x4cc91a337df40af7:0xb7718325314fcfa6!8m2!3d45.5198805!4d-73.5855873!9m1!1b1 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sonder/@45.5198842,-73.587... . Anyhow miles of bad service, scams, and very serious negative reviews. Since they used Airbnb as the primary sales channel on a grand scale they would just wipe property listings once the reviews were negative and replace with new fresh listings. I do believe they have professionalized their service recently however I am surprised they were trusted with a large investment and shows you the poor judgement of VC. Their product message was cloned rather than originated, they have a history of scam level of service, their revenue channel is largely dependent on competition, not to mention their business is neither innovative nor defensible, the product is not great for cities and community. Really SV at its worst.
- justinjlynn 8y ago
  If the VCs continue to invest in poorly conceived and doomed ventures then they will lose money and eventually fail once they've lost investor confidence. There's evolutionary pressure at play here. VCs are incentivised to take risky investments with potentially high returns; but there is a limit. In a very real way we're exposed to the outliest out the outliers here in SV. It should eventually get better. However, nobody said that evolution, or capitalism for that matter, was efficient; so it may be quite a long time.
  - yayana 8y ago
    It's true that VCs that invest in utter nonsense will eventually be eliminated, but I think most VCs who never invest in a success invest in enough doomed models that survive until IPO, (often with built-in failures like a model of exploitation that requires obscurity.) The highs and lows of tech average together well enough to satisfy Wall Street and then have huge profits for some that VCs that find and hold good investments, and more VCs that feed off a constant influx of sucker investors.
siruncledrew 8y ago
Interesting... I suppose their game plan is to get bought by Airbnb for providing them with a convenient add-on service that could boost their revenue.
- devmunchies 8y ago
  or by Marriott or Hilton to compete with Airbnb.
- ibrahimcisse 8y ago
  I am not sure if they will ever be acquired by AirBnb, the main difference is that they either own the apartments but most likely They have signed long term leases on the apartments, this is a completely different model than Airbnb. They're much more closer to WeWork' Business model. This is typically a vertical where WeWork could make acquisitions. The space is quite competitive, and a company like https://www.staylyric.com/ https://www.staylyric.com/ is doing pretty much the same thing.
sudonim 8y ago
I stayed at this location last January - https://www.sonder.com/destinations/chicago/Handsome-2BR-near-Restaurant-Row-by-Sonder/759?stay_type=nightly https://www.sonder.com/destinations/chicago/Handsome-2BR-nea... It photographed really well which is why I stayed there, but the bedding was terrible. The worst of any Airbnb experience and it’s part of why I generally choose hotels for short stays now. This rental had cheap pillows, linens that felt like sand paper, and the comforter was bare sandwiched between a large sheet. Towels were tiny and cheap motel quality. I was really disappointed. Hopefully their other locations are better than this one. I personally wouldn’t go back. I filled in their after-stay survey and never heard a response.
pucado 8y ago
In India there's a massive unicorn by the name of Oyo rooms which has been doing the same
purplezooey 8y ago
We've not built enough of all kinds of buildings for 20 or 30 years. We're seeing it hit housing affordability now, and Airbnb is a reaction on the commercial side. It's the fault of junk city councils and HOAs that oppose all development no matter what.
Rainymood 8y ago
Sonder is also a made-up word that means "the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own." Originally from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, which has a lot more beautiful neologism definitions like this you might enjoy. I felt deep sonder thinking about the all the people who looked up this word along with me." [1] And in German Sonder means special and in Dutch Zonder (with a Z) means without. [1] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sonder https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sonder
- jjmorrison 8y ago
  Actually, the founder is french Canadian. "Sonder" is just french for "wondering" with a bit of an inquisitive connotation.
- microtherion 8y ago
  In Germany, in particular, I can't see the company catching on with that name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderbehandlung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderbehandlung
kevinyun 8y ago
This might be a far shot, but any landlords here who have leased to Sonder? I read through their About Page and Lease page but still am not clear on exactly what they look for, or what the catch is. Also, crazy how under the radar they have been, really curious to see how they built up traction over these years without any mainstream buzz
puranjay 8y ago
Off topic, but people who use Airbnb over hotels, what is the primary motivation to do so - besides cost? One of the experiences of traveling for me is the hotel experience where I can just let go of all my worries and let the hotel handle everything from clean laundry to changing the sheets.
- EliRivers 8y ago
  I like having the place to myself. Entirely. No staff coming in, all facilities I need right there. Washing machine, cooking facilities, all that. I value the increased privacy and the convenience of being able to do laundry and cooking myself as I wish. I used to find short-stay serviced apartments for this; the kind of place where the service is once a week or so I could put up with. Now, there's AirBnB as well.
- chx 8y ago
  I visited Tel Megiddo and Tel Hazor by asking my airbnb hosts to drive me there. One of them did for free, the other for a pittance. Given that I do not drive and these places are not really accessible without a car, this was quite a win. Also, there are no hotels nearby. The place argument repeats elsewhere. I have been visiting friends in Europe who didn't have guest rooms and I was able to able find airbnbs nearby while there were no hotels. I was able to get an airbnb close to a train station in Milan where no hotels exist (admittedly this is a cost issue -- obviously I could've went elsewhere in Milan to get a hotel for significantly more). Quality/place. I went to Bratislava for a concert and the only hotels in walking distance had terrible, terrible reviews, I know what a socialist hotel can be, I had the bad luck to be born in Hungary and could only fix the problem when I was 31 (now I am Canadian, yay). I was able to get a nice airbnb within spitting distance of the venue. There's the kitchen problem. I love going out for dinner and often there is food I could bring to my temporary home -- only if it had a microwave. People with various food sensitivities find it easier to cook. It happened more than once that a hotel maid found it acceptable to put my teddy bear on top of the freshly made bed. I heard some find this cute. But for me, a stranger touched the teddy bear I am sleeping with for thirty years. No. Don't dismiss price so easily. Three times, five times savings happens all the time when I go to the head office in Bellevue. Or I could stay in a motel but I am too old for that crap. There might be more but these come to mind easily. Ps. Wifi! How could I forget that.
te_chris 8y ago
"Compared to your typical Airbnb, no one “lives” in Sonder apartments except for its guests." So just like Airbnb then....
emphasis 8y ago
As you can imagine, Sonder is hiring like crazy as we are positioned to grow at blitz scale. Check out our open positions here and feel free to DM me if you have any questions: https://jobs.lever.co/sonder?lever-via=KHoOVtOKv0 https://jobs.lever.co/sonder?lever-via=KHoOVtOKv0

I heard about Sonder last year and have been surprised how under-the-radar they are. It's a great concept, and the pricing sure beats the cost of a high-end airbnb, which to me is their main competition. We've had too many dodgy, misrepresented airbnb experiences and my wife has sworn them off. Looking forward to using Sonder when we're in the cities they serve!

dawhizkid 8y ago

Surprised Airbnb doesn’t just do this themselves, though I suspect it might just be a matter of time? Agree the one thing I really don’t like about Airbnb and why I still prefer hotels is the inconsistency of the experience from check-in to check-out. If I’m in a new unfamiliar city all I want to do is minimize the unknowns as much as possible and everything about Airbnb from key hand off to cleanliness to whether the listing is even real is a big question mark until you’re actually there.

omegaworks 8y ago
>Surprised Airbnb doesn’t just do this themselves, though I suspect it might just be a matter of time? Airbnb has gotten a lot of pushback for commoditizing spaces that would have likely been used as long-term rental properties. They very meticulously craft their brand and community relationships so as to avoid negative repercussions from operating in a city. This is an attempt to directly capitalize on the prime, long-term rental stock drained by Airbnb's presence without damaging the Airbnb brand.
rrdharan 8y ago
They are doing it - see AirBnB Plus: https://www.airbnb.com/plus https://www.airbnb.com/plus

dano 8y ago

This would seem to negatively impact the rental market for long-term tenants, no?

cycrutchfield 8y ago
Only if supply is artificially constrained.
- khazhoux 8y ago
  I disagree. Even loosely factoring in parameters such as construction costs and timelines, permitting, current construction activity, and overall housing stock elasticity, you find a correlation with hotel/short-term housing and regional sale prices and availability.
  - cycrutchfield 8y ago
    In markets where supply is not artificially constrained nobody demonizes or really cares about short term rentals. It’s only in markets where housing is constrained where suddenly Airbnb is to blame for all our problems.
- jseliger 8y ago
  I have no idea why this is being downvoted. It's correct: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-14/california-affordable-housing-is-no-mystery-just-build-more https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-14/californi.... The real question is why we started artificially constraining supply so severely in the '70s: https://jakeseliger.com/2015/12/27/why-did-cities-freeze-in-the-1970s https://jakeseliger.com/2015/12/27/why-did-cities-freeze-in-....

whatsstolat 8y ago

Interesting. First disrupting hotels with holiday rentals (airbnb) which is now disrupted again by a hotel.

ordinaryradical 8y ago

"Compared to your typical Airbnb, no one “lives” in Sonder apartments except for its guests. Each rental comes with a living room space and kitchen so people can cook and relax like they would in their own home. Units range from studios in a heart of a city to sprawling a six-bedroom unit in downtown Montreal." This is bad news for cities that are already short on housing. You're taking what could have been space for housing and erasing it with larger, lower-density hotel suites. Very luxurious and pleasant for the travelers, sure, but you're ballooning the space taken up by the "hotel" and magnifying the market pressures on everyone else in the process. What's pretty surprising about this article is the breathless, unquestioned enthusiasm for these kind of ideas. Is this really a sustainable model for urban centers and hotels? Is this how we want to conduct our cities and use our most precious, economically productive spaces? I'm pro Airbnb--when the room is actually rented out by the renter, everyone including the little guy wins. But this is a very "rich get richer" style of tourism with the fig-leaf of the share economy strapped to its extravagance, right?

samclearman 8y ago
Most Americans have spare bedrooms for when guests visit. You could have your guests stay at a hotel but typically that will be really far from your home which sucks for everybody. Having Sonder or Airbnb style short term rentals distributed throughout cities could allow people to live in smaller apartments, eliminating bedrooms that sit unused most nights creating more space for everybody. To be clear I'm not talking about the model of renting out your spare bedroom on Airbnb because nobody actually wants to do that. I'm talking about full time airbnb studios / 1BR's obviating the need for guest bedrooms.
- ordinaryradical 8y ago
  That's remarkably optimistic. But people also have guest bedrooms so that family members can stay with them, not away from them. And so that they can have part-time home offices. And simply to increase the overall value of their home investment. I think expecting the presence of Sonder in the market to efficiently trade space with houses by obviating the need for guest rooms seems like a fundamental misunderstanding of how the housing market works, particularly why people buy houses larger than what they need or utilize.

drum 8y ago

"Comfortable beds, nice linens, soft towels, and well-chosen amenities and essentials." Clean linens alone has me interested. That is by far the biggest headache for me when comparing an AirBnB to a hotel. Can I trust that the host actually cleaned the bed sheets?

nightfly 8y ago
You can't trust that a hotel did either.
- coltonv 8y ago
  Don't know why you're getting downvoted. Hotels cheap out on that stuff all the time.
  - puranjay 8y ago
    I remember reading that hotels often prefer using harsher detergents because it gives the impression of "cleanliness" more than a milder detergent. Cleanliness is often a matter of perception
robotnixon 8y ago
The first thing we do when we get to an AirBNB is wash the linens. I'd never rent a place without a washer and dryer for this reason.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

tptacek 8y ago

How does Sonder qualify the spaces they purchase? If they aren't careful, aren't they really just one big target for lawsuits?

babesh 8y ago

This is what other people are doing already but on a larger scale with VC backing.

joelrunyon 8y ago

Why can't the US just start serviced apartments like they do in Australia and Asia? Apartment type buildings w/ laundry + kitchens stuck in a hotel like building w/ front desk to check you in. That's gotta be a way better use of city resources.

duxup 8y ago
There are some hotels in my area that have apartments on the upper level that get service from the hotel.
rahimnathwani 8y ago
The US already has hotels that specialise in apartment-type experiences. A couple I've stayed in for >1 week stays: Residence Inn in Seattle, and Staybridge Suites in Sunnyvale. The main difference between them and pure serviced apartments is that they have a breakfast room, and rates usually include breakfast.
- ghaff 8y ago
  They also usually have daily maid service. I often favor this category of hotel, especially in cities, because I prefer a refrigerator, sofa, and some more space over more typical hotel amenities that I often don't use (bar, full-service restaurant, etc.) Serviced apartments in Europe are often a better deal than conventional hotels too. I suspect I don't value conventional hotel amenities as much as the average person does. On the other hand, especially for business travel, I do value having a staffed front desk and reliable check-in, bag storage, etc.

babesh 8y ago

The logical stable point is that all city centers will be in effect hotels or homes of the very rich who can afford to bid against the expected return of those units.

minitoar 8y ago

This was so confusing to me at first because last year I stayed in a Sonder that I booked through AirBnB.

theologic 8y ago

I'm struggling with the angle here. A. The secret to AirBNB is that everybody had extra space, and Gig Economy allow you to get value out of your extra space. B. When you are in the Gig Economy, you have two things that you need to do: 1. Have the extra space 2. Manage the extra space Sonder initially focused on #2, and this worked out well. Bring professionalism to the management interface turns out to be very good deal because a lot of people with #1 is not good at #2. My problem with the next step on their is that they are leaving the core of the gig economy. Buying the facility and coming up with unique rooms with different paintings is simply getting into the hotel business. The fundamental driving force of the AirBNB business model is the use of an asset that is otherwise unused, and sparing somebody from needing to invest CapEx in building rooms. This is a massive lever to get into the hotel business, which is what AirBNB really is. Obviously, I'm totally ignoring the moral choice of if having somebody else consuming and reselling beds is good or bad for cities. I'm simply on the point that hotels are a going business that is pretty competitive, with a series of operators at all levels. It's not clear to me how Sonder business model is superior to the standard hotel model once they are forced to spend CapEx for rooms, because having unique hotel facilities or rooms does not appear to me to drive a competitive advantage. Secondly, if having unique rooms turns out to be brilliant competitive advantage, and I'm totally wrong on this point, I don't see how this drives a real moat (as Buffet would state) that is defensible. I would think that the entrenched hotel operators should be able to pivot and counter the threat.

tptacek 8y ago
Isn't this really a kind of regulatory arbitrage? Hotels totally could buy up condominiums all over cities and then manage them centrally, but they're not allowed to do that. Airbnb gets away with it by distributing the liability and claiming plausible deniability; they're the Napster of hotel zoning. Isn't Sonder just trying to slip in under the radar, the confusing ostensible aegis of people renting out their rooms temporarily, to do what Marriott can't do?
- theologic 8y ago
  That's another angle I wasn't thinking of. I'm no expert, but the Blackstone group and some REITS already focus single houses and renting them out. The REIT market is well understood, thus having a easy line of investors. If this is simply a way of getting past local rulings, I would guess that somebody in the aforementioned rental market buying single homes might explore short term hotel type operations instead, although it is unclear to me the leap from longer term rentals to overnight stays.

sperling75 8y ago

Sonder's sales channel was and is primarily airbnb itself which could easily turn it off if they determined them to be a threat. So it's a business highly dependent on future competitive partners (see Airbnb plus). Their company was called Flatbook but the service and reviews were so terrible and so full or irate customers who had been scammed that they had to try and erase it from the internet and reimagine themselves as Sonder. You can still find a few places with flatbook review if you search ex. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sonder/@45.5198842,-73.5877813,17z/data=!4m7!3m6!1s0x4cc91a337df40af7:0xb7718325314fcfa6!8m2!3d45.5198805!4d-73.5855873!9m1!1b1 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sonder/@45.5198842,-73.587... . Anyhow miles of bad service, scams, and very serious negative reviews. Since they used Airbnb as the primary sales channel on a grand scale they would just wipe property listings once the reviews were negative and replace with new fresh listings. I do believe they have professionalized their service recently however I am surprised they were trusted with a large investment and shows you the poor judgement of VC. Their product message was cloned rather than originated, they have a history of scam level of service, their revenue channel is largely dependent on competition, not to mention their business is neither innovative nor defensible, the product is not great for cities and community. Really SV at its worst.

justinjlynn 8y ago
If the VCs continue to invest in poorly conceived and doomed ventures then they will lose money and eventually fail once they've lost investor confidence. There's evolutionary pressure at play here. VCs are incentivised to take risky investments with potentially high returns; but there is a limit. In a very real way we're exposed to the outliest out the outliers here in SV. It should eventually get better. However, nobody said that evolution, or capitalism for that matter, was efficient; so it may be quite a long time.
- yayana 8y ago
  It's true that VCs that invest in utter nonsense will eventually be eliminated, but I think most VCs who never invest in a success invest in enough doomed models that survive until IPO, (often with built-in failures like a model of exploitation that requires obscurity.) The highs and lows of tech average together well enough to satisfy Wall Street and then have huge profits for some that VCs that find and hold good investments, and more VCs that feed off a constant influx of sucker investors.

siruncledrew 8y ago

Interesting... I suppose their game plan is to get bought by Airbnb for providing them with a convenient add-on service that could boost their revenue.

devmunchies 8y ago
or by Marriott or Hilton to compete with Airbnb.
ibrahimcisse 8y ago
I am not sure if they will ever be acquired by AirBnb, the main difference is that they either own the apartments but most likely They have signed long term leases on the apartments, this is a completely different model than Airbnb. They're much more closer to WeWork' Business model. This is typically a vertical where WeWork could make acquisitions. The space is quite competitive, and a company like https://www.staylyric.com/ https://www.staylyric.com/ is doing pretty much the same thing.

sudonim 8y ago

I stayed at this location last January - https://www.sonder.com/destinations/chicago/Handsome-2BR-near-Restaurant-Row-by-Sonder/759?stay_type=nightly https://www.sonder.com/destinations/chicago/Handsome-2BR-nea... It photographed really well which is why I stayed there, but the bedding was terrible. The worst of any Airbnb experience and it’s part of why I generally choose hotels for short stays now. This rental had cheap pillows, linens that felt like sand paper, and the comforter was bare sandwiched between a large sheet. Towels were tiny and cheap motel quality. I was really disappointed. Hopefully their other locations are better than this one. I personally wouldn’t go back. I filled in their after-stay survey and never heard a response.

pucado 8y ago

In India there's a massive unicorn by the name of Oyo rooms which has been doing the same

purplezooey 8y ago

We've not built enough of all kinds of buildings for 20 or 30 years. We're seeing it hit housing affordability now, and Airbnb is a reaction on the commercial side. It's the fault of junk city councils and HOAs that oppose all development no matter what.

Rainymood 8y ago

Sonder is also a made-up word that means "the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own." Originally from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, which has a lot more beautiful neologism definitions like this you might enjoy. I felt deep sonder thinking about the all the people who looked up this word along with me." [1] And in German Sonder means special and in Dutch Zonder (with a Z) means without. [1] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sonder https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sonder

jjmorrison 8y ago
Actually, the founder is french Canadian. "Sonder" is just french for "wondering" with a bit of an inquisitive connotation.
microtherion 8y ago
In Germany, in particular, I can't see the company catching on with that name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderbehandlung https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderbehandlung

kevinyun 8y ago

This might be a far shot, but any landlords here who have leased to Sonder? I read through their About Page and Lease page but still am not clear on exactly what they look for, or what the catch is. Also, crazy how under the radar they have been, really curious to see how they built up traction over these years without any mainstream buzz

puranjay 8y ago

Off topic, but people who use Airbnb over hotels, what is the primary motivation to do so - besides cost? One of the experiences of traveling for me is the hotel experience where I can just let go of all my worries and let the hotel handle everything from clean laundry to changing the sheets.

EliRivers 8y ago
I like having the place to myself. Entirely. No staff coming in, all facilities I need right there. Washing machine, cooking facilities, all that. I value the increased privacy and the convenience of being able to do laundry and cooking myself as I wish. I used to find short-stay serviced apartments for this; the kind of place where the service is once a week or so I could put up with. Now, there's AirBnB as well.
chx 8y ago
I visited Tel Megiddo and Tel Hazor by asking my airbnb hosts to drive me there. One of them did for free, the other for a pittance. Given that I do not drive and these places are not really accessible without a car, this was quite a win. Also, there are no hotels nearby. The place argument repeats elsewhere. I have been visiting friends in Europe who didn't have guest rooms and I was able to able find airbnbs nearby while there were no hotels. I was able to get an airbnb close to a train station in Milan where no hotels exist (admittedly this is a cost issue -- obviously I could've went elsewhere in Milan to get a hotel for significantly more). Quality/place. I went to Bratislava for a concert and the only hotels in walking distance had terrible, terrible reviews, I know what a socialist hotel can be, I had the bad luck to be born in Hungary and could only fix the problem when I was 31 (now I am Canadian, yay). I was able to get a nice airbnb within spitting distance of the venue. There's the kitchen problem. I love going out for dinner and often there is food I could bring to my temporary home -- only if it had a microwave. People with various food sensitivities find it easier to cook. It happened more than once that a hotel maid found it acceptable to put my teddy bear on top of the freshly made bed. I heard some find this cute. But for me, a stranger touched the teddy bear I am sleeping with for thirty years. No. Don't dismiss price so easily. Three times, five times savings happens all the time when I go to the head office in Bellevue. Or I could stay in a motel but I am too old for that crap. There might be more but these come to mind easily. Ps. Wifi! How could I forget that.

te_chris 8y ago

"Compared to your typical Airbnb, no one “lives” in Sonder apartments except for its guests." So just like Airbnb then....

emphasis 8y ago

As you can imagine, Sonder is hiring like crazy as we are positioned to grow at blitz scale. Check out our open positions here and feel free to DM me if you have any questions: https://jobs.lever.co/sonder?lever-via=KHoOVtOKv0 https://jobs.lever.co/sonder?lever-via=KHoOVtOKv0