Backed by some big-name global tech investors, Swimply aims to hit the aspirational luxury pool market with a splash.
Growing up as the eldest of 12 children in his family, it was Bunim Laskin’s desire to keep his 11 siblings entertained and cool during the sweltering New Jersey summer, that led him to launch global pool rental company, Swimply. Fast forward four years and Swimply has attracted some high- profile tech investors and raised $US62.3 million ($92.1 million) as it plans to become the “AirBnb of the pools”.
In 2018 Bunim Laskin’s mother, Fiega Leah, had given birth to his eleventh sibling. “I was 21 at the time and the eldest of 12. We never had the means to travel or send anyone to camp or anything like that. Once summer arrived and we were all off school, you can imagine, all 12 of us cooped up at home.”
Growing up in Lakewood, New Jersey, his neighbour had built a pool, but she figured if she let Laskin’s family use the pool once, “we would live in her backyard”. “She wasn’t wrong,” Laskin jokes.
“We were like: ‘who cares, your pool is empty’ and she said: ‘yes, but it will make the costs increase significantly with all 12 of us being in there all day.”
The families came to an agreement where Laskin’s family agreed to pay 25% of their neighbour’s expenses in exchange for use of her pool, and within two weeks she had other families doing the same thing. “We were all on this WhatsApp chat and we’re all paying our part and realising she’s covering her costs and making a profit.”
“I think the cool part is how unrealistic people thought it was [in 2019], then, like a year later they were like: ‘why didn’t I think of that?’”
– Bunim Laskin
Laskin thought it would be a “cool summer job” if he went on Google Earth to see how many local properties had pools and approached the owners to rent them out. There were 80 pools in his area, so he contacted all of them, proposing he rent out their pools for a small commission. Four pool owners agreed. His initial goal was to raise $1,000 for some spare cash before returning to college and his investment was his time and around $30 in printing costs.
“I charged them over Square and delivered cheques bi-weekly, and only by doing that did I see the amount of joy it was brining both sides of the marketplace. Often I would turn up with their cheques and they didn’t know why I was there – it was such an effortless hosting experience.”
“How quickly it grew was inspiring – but in those early days I was on the phone with every guest and I delivered the cheques personally. I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else really.”
It wasn’t long before Laskin dropped out of university and decided to run his business full time. His mother was initially not impressed that her eldest child had dropped out of university to start a pool rental business. “She wasn’t too enthusiastic about the idea, but I can tell you that now, she uses Swimply pretty much every week!”
“One thing we’ve found with Swimply is that pools are often a segregating piece of ownership. Like, we are a part of a group of people who own a pool, or people who don’t own a pool – we’ve democratised it in a meaningful way. It’s actually creating a lot of intimacy in neighbourhoods.”
The number one thing that draws people to use Swimply, Laskin says, is the hospitality and hosting aspect. Seven out of 10 users are mothers, and half of all hosts are mothers too.
“A lot of our hosts, they enjoy the money obviously, but a big part of what makes them borderline obsessed with hosting is the empowering local community,” he says.
Online platforms such as AirBnb paved the way for people to become more comfortable about sharing their personal space, Laskin says.
Growth happened organically, largely through word-of-mouth with people posting about their experience on social media. However, Swimply had a false start with investors at first, approaching around 60 venture capitalists and being knocked back by all of them.
“I actually had two runs at it. The first time I did it [pitched to investors], people actually thought I was crazy. Before it had a lot of traction and a lot of funding, we approached, I think 60 venture capitalists and got rejected by all 60. We had to go back and figure out how to roll up our sleeves and continue growing our company, and then it got to a point where investors started to reach out to us.”
It wasn’t until the company grew 4,000% in its first year from 2019-2020 that investors showed interest.
“I think the cool part is how unrealistic people thought it was [in 2019], then, like a year later they were like: ‘why didn’t I think of that?’”
In January Swimply completed a $US40 million ($59.4 million) capital raising led by Mayfield. In total, it has raised $US62.3 million ($92.2 million), with other notable backers including GGV, Ensemble Ventures Norwest Venture Partners and angel investors such as AirBnb’s Nathan Blecharczyk, Casey Winters, formerly of Pinterest and Grubhub, Lime co-founder Brad Bao and Instacart CEO Fidji Simo.
The company currently operates in the US and Canada, and has around 25,000 listed customers. The pandemic greatly impacted the company’s expansion plans and it is the second time it has attempted to enter the Australian market.
“We were such a young company during Covid and we didn’t really know how to react. We watched how our host reacted more than anything. We watched them develop their own safety policies and offer contactless experience. We saw a lot of the titles change, like: “Quarantine Paradise” and changing their marketing to lean into it.”
Laskin says while pools are the first focus of the company, it will eventually expand into other leisure sub-sectors such as tennis courts and basketball courts.
“The last two years with not many opportunities for people to get together … and La Nina in place and travel expenses going up – the timing couldn’t be more perfect,” he says. “We’ve got our eyes set on the prize.”