4 Swimple ideas for Swimply
When I first heard about Swimply, I was immediately reminded of Airbnb, Uber, and Snapchat. Namely, a seemingly farfetched idea could transform into a product with world-changing potential. By pioneering the concept of shared outdoor space, Swimply (and by extension Joyspace) has unearthed a new market and has the first mover advantage. Swimply put (couldn’t resist), Swimply has a tremendous opportunity at hand and is poised to be a revolutionary company.
Taking to heart the idea mentioned in the job description of “getting in on the ground floor and playing a critical role in helping build Swimply from the ground up” I wanted to identify 4 ideas for growth.
1) Educating and optimizing hosts
The backbone of Swimply are the hosts. It’s essential to build great relationships with them, show them the value of Swimply’s platform, and educate them on how to best use Swimply. In addition to always being available, it’s incumbent to help hosts expand their business — all while providing them with a great experience and building a fun engaging community.
Some examples of this could be:
- weekly/monthly office hours
- a newsletter featuring best practices and tips on optimizing the platform
- sharing host feedback with internal teams to best improve the product
- highlighting different hosts and what makes them successful
The main goal would be to ensure they’re always valued, attended to, and treated with respect. Being so customer-centric would help create a community of loyal users who are likely to recommend Swimply to their friends.
2) Monthly themes and events
Promoting themed months would be a fun way to drive engagement. Some ideas include:
- a pirate themed month, where the hosts are given some pirate decorations and for every person who uses is automatically entered into a contest for a treasure
- a “Baby Shark” month where pools are given “Baby Shark” pool toys
- posting a photo with a hashtag (ex: #swimplysummer) on Instagram and winners are rewarded with free credits
Another efficient way to build up hosts could be through a program called…
3) Swimply U
What’s Swimply U? A bit of background.
In 2012 I was fortunate to get a job at Square via a program called Square U (here’s a blogpost I wrote about it). Square U was a program that featured representatives from colleges across the country who served as part-time ambassadors for Square. This program was a smashing success and I think this program would be perfect for Swimply. For Swimply, this could work by engaging college students in warm weather climates to pitch Swimply to their communities and get compensated for signing up new hosts. The benefits of this approach would be:
- cost — rather than hire an expensive salesforce, success of the members in the Swimply U program is directly tied to Swimply’s success
- incentives — Swimply U could incentivize members to work harder. For example: the top 3 monthly performers are gifted an iPad
- working together — everyone would be part of a shared Facebook group where they share tips to succeed
4) Unique promotions that literally ONLY Swimply could run
Uber and Airbnb ran promotions based off of their offerings. Being vehicle-centric, Uber ran some awesome promotions utilizing all sorts of vehicles (here are some of the coolest ones), while Airbnb hosted guests in truly one-of-a-kind locations (staying overnight in Conan’s studio). Swimply could follow suit with their own unique promotions, for example:
- the opportunity to book a famous pool
- a “pool on wheels”
- a special promotion where people can book a pool that features a half hour with famous swimmers or other celebrities
These are just some of the many opportunities for Swimply- the future is bright!
