02 10 / 2011
I’m building a web application for holiday home owners.
I’m Mitchell Bryson, a web designer from Sheffield, England. I’ve had the idea to build Holidaylodger for about 3 or 4 years, and I’ve only just had the free time to start building it!
I have a much larger vision for Holidaylodger from what it is right now. It allows you to manage your offline payments, bookings and guests in one place. This is useful for the organisation of your holiday home business, as it helps you maintain accurate records of every interaction with your guests.
But it won’t stop there. Next up will be online bookings through an external booking form right on your website. This will obviously require you to have a website in the first place. But if you do, it will take bookings for you day and night. With live availability and booking rules that ensure every new booking is a valid one.
At this point, the pricing will change. Don’t panic, you’ll still be able to use a basic version for free, but every major feature addition will cost a certain amount each month. Probably around £20, but you only pay for what you use.
Then we’ll add online payments. You’ll be able to receive deposits and payments online, made at a time suitable to your guests. This means you’ll also be able to take fully confirmed bookings through your website. This, along with some smaller features such as guest notifications, is where I consider phase 1 to end, and phase 2 will begin. More on that next time.
If your a holiday home owner, and you like to stay ahead of the competition, you can help me build something awesome, by signing up and using the feedback form to let me know of any improvements or bugs you can find.
