Headquarters: Chicago
Website: Buoy
Co-founders: Tim and Candice Speicher
Founding date: founded 2019; product launched in 2021
Investment: $370,000; about half has been from non-dilutive funding
Buoy automatically prices and reports on vacation rentals. Buoy is the world’s first automated revenue manager that saves users time by combining reporting, pricing and market insights into one easy-to-use platform, replacing what it used to take multiple tools to do.
PhocusWire coverage:
Strategic goals for 2023
Today, Buoy is most heavily used by diverse, complex portfolios needing lots of automation. The platform can do the work of an entire revenue management team. However, it’s only accessible to users who can afford to spend thousands of dollars a month to price their listings.
This year, we are creating a free version of Buoy built for new entrepreneurs and travelers. We believe people should know how much home they can afford, how much they can expect to earn and how to price their listing for success. This product, called the Barometer, is being piloted with groups of early entrepreneurs from the Southeast United States.
Lessons learned since founding
We are first-time founders, and we are married, so it has been super-important that we found founder communities. We owe Buoy’s success to our incredible mentors from Google for Startups and Techstars; they gave us the frameworks and language to communicate our ideas clearly. We’ve also been incredibly lucky to win non-dilutive funding from both pitch competitions and Google’s Black Founders Fund; this has allowed us to build a sustainable company without losing ownership.
Buoy is the product of Tim’s industry expertise and Candice’s design knowledge, but we attribute our growth to our incredible mentors and customer feedback. We’ve been so honored to be in these communities, and our goal is to create technology that gives back.
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