We had a great month. I’m excited to share that our follow-on round is nearing fully closed, approaching $9m already wired with the remaining expected to close throughout the rest of July. You can expect the announcement toward the end of the month or early August depending on press timing! I’d like to give a special thanks to Lindsay Lee from Authentic, Chuckie Reddy from QED, and Alex Bard from Redpoint for your continued partnership. I’d also like to thank everyone who made and offered introductions to incredible investors, with a special thank you to Siqi Chen and the Pareto team. Please let me know if you know anyone I should connect with as we close everything out, specifically focusing on value add per dollar with any incredible operators, founders, and angels!
Notably this month, we continued to see very strong signal with Wander Operated. We did $26k in bookings for Wander Big Sur, our first operated location, in its first 24 hours. We also closed Wander Malibu Beach, a $10m beachfront home that would be far outside our buy box, with half a dozen more locations near signing. I could not be happier with the early signal. Given this early traction, together with the board, we made the decision to further lean into Operated – and re-allocate resources from Curated – to solidify Operated as an important supply channel and hold off on launching Curated for the time being.
We continue to see incredible demand, with a 90%+ occupancy rate for June and July already exceeding 80% across the portfolio with a $1,100+ average nightly rate. Customer satisfaction remains industry-leading at 93%. With Operated, we have unlocked an additional scalable supply channel for a truly differentiated experience our guests love. This additional capital enables Wander a clear path to profitability in the first half of 2024. Even though we are well positioned for the future, it’s important to recognize there is far more work ahead than behind and that it’s critical to make the most of the position we’re now in.
Marketing
Kyle Tibbitts
June was a great month for the Marketing team. We easily exceeded our 85%+ occupancy target for June and are pacing ahead on our goals for July, August, and September in our 120-day occupancy tracking window. We also launched our first Operated house, Wander Big Sur Coast, with a strong response from the community and $26K in bookings in the first 24 hours. Perhaps most excitingly, we exceeded our demand goals while driving acquisition costs down to their lowest point this year.
Anticipating a big inflection point on scaling supply, we’ve moved 50% of the team’s energy and effort over to scaling supply for Wander Operated. We launched version one of the Wander Operated owner-landing page and will follow with a much more extensive page in July. We’ve also ramped sales enablement with pitch decks, case studies, and video production. We’re excited to launch a robust marketing campaign next month that taps into new channels like direct mail, agent referrals, and more.
While the demand side is in a very good place, we know the combination of shoulder season and increased supply means we can’t take our eye off the ball. We launched a Wander Ambassador program this month that combines the best elements of our influencer and affiliate campaigns while driving costs down. We’re also experimenting with tactics like this smaller trip giveaway at Kane Kallaway at off-season homes to grow and nurture bookers.
We’re continuing to invest heavily in home-related content as we’ve seen the incredible impact it has on conversion across the funnel – from property pages to ads. Our photographer shot new photos at Wander Vail Valley, Cave Creek, and Asheville Meadows which has brought nearly the entire portfolio up to our new, higher standard. We’ve also gotten much more aggressive about shipping new ad creative every week and are seeing success with raw, UGC-style testimonials from influencers in our ambassador program. July is a very important month – especially regarding scaling supply – and we can’t wait to make it one of our best ever.