If your next holiday is in Bali, Thailand, or Sri Lanka, this startup has a villa for you

Image by Dennis Jarvis

David Chambat, founder of Villa-Finder, has been living in Singapore for the last 10 years. Originally from France, David’s journey started as an MBA student at INSEAD Singapore, after which he accepted a job at a startup producing and distributing video content for the online hotel booking industry. During the course of his work David was exposed to exotic travel destinations in Asia and fell in love with what he saw.

“I almost bought a villa in Bali around three years ago,” David tells Tech in Asia. “My aim was to rent it out to tourists, but in the process of putting it on the internet I saw there were no suitable portals. Most of the existing websites had small images, no options of booking online, and poor technology infrastructure.”

David’s quest to buy the villa fell through after he wasn’t able to secure the relevant permits. But by now he understood there was a real gap in the vacation rental market despite the existence of Airbnb and was determined to capitalize on the opportunity. He decided to use the money he had set aside to build a company instead.

“Initially the project just concentrated on Bali and the aim was to make it easier for both owners and travelers to rent villas,” says David. “We designed a simple website but concentrated on original, authentic images as well as updated availability information. That gave us an edge in the market.”

Villa-Finder team

Locking in supply

Villa-Finder started operations in August 2012 and David says it was able to reach profitability in just a few months. Demand was not an issue – there was overwhelming interest from holidaymakers to rent out larger properties, especially for those traveling with families or in large groups. The problem was supply – no entrepreneurs had concentrated on this particular niche before and so the market was fragmented.

To overcome the problem David spent a lot of time in Bali, driving around on his motorcycle and meeting with villa owners. Slowly, as word of his new venture spread, many owners also started approaching him. The number of villas on his portal began to grow.

But the entrepreneur says he never wavered in his goal to have a “very unique selection of villas”. All the properties on the site have to meet strict quality control guidelines before they’re accepted. Some of the key criteria are maintenance, location, and quality of structure. Furthermore, it is the startup’s own internal team which takes care of photography and uploading content. “That’s a key selling point for us,” adds David.

We are kind of a go-between between the customer and owner. We make sure the property is ready for your stay and that it’s clean, ready, and maintained with stuff like toiletries, towels etc. We’ll only market villas that can meet these demands and have a team going to monitor the villas all the time.

Bootstrapping to success