Couchsurfing catching on a storm

Uday Balaji talks with Annie Fishman, Director of Marketing and Community at Couchsurfing

Uday Balaji: It has been a year since CS became a for-profit enterprise. However, no revenue earning services seem to have been introduced. What services can be expected and in what timeframe?
Annie Fishman: We have spent this past year focusing on improving the CouchSurfing site infrastructure, stability and member experience.  These are the most important concerns for us at this stage, and although we have been exploring possible revenue streams, we not yet ready to share or implement these ideas.  Rest assured, we won’t be introducing any revenue model that will disrupt the current member experience, and connecting with members for surfing and hosting will always remain a free service.

UB: Again, given that it has been a year and the petitions/protests when CS decided to go the for-profit route, have you seen a change in the member demographic? For instance, has there been noticeable attrition or reduced usage from the older members?
AF: CouchSurfing has grown by almost 1.8 million members in the year since the conversion to a Socially Responsible B-Corp.  We continue to attract a wide variety of people, from all demographics—from the backpacker to the retiree, from every corner of the globe.  Although our US tax status changed, our mission and vision has remained the same, and this mission appeals to many explorers, travelers and local hosts. 

While it’s true that some members have been skeptical or unhappy about the conversion, we haven’t seen a noticeable attrition.  This community is filled with passionate members who closely identify with CouchSurfing’s philosophy and it’s understandable that some members would be concerned when major changes happen.  These members want to make sure that they CouchSurfing they know and love will still be there and that we still care about the fundamental principles of sharing, connecting and building this global community.  Our job, as we continue to grow, is to not only stay true to our foundation, but to keep these core principles in the forefront of our member’s experience of CouchSurfing.  Hopefully the skeptics in the community will see that we are staying true to our values, and that the CouchSurfing experience is now becoming possible for more and more people who wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to explore and connect in this way.

UB: In the B-Corp appraisal, Accountability and Employee treatment scored as areas of excellence. Given that CS is a service to its member and community, the Community, Consumer and Environment parameters seem low. What actions are you taking to improve them in the next appraisal?
AF: The B-Corp certifiers institute a very strict and high caliber evaluation.  In order to qualify as a B-Corp, a company must score 80 out of the 200 possible points.  For 2011, CouchSurfing scored 106.8. 

There are some areas of evaluation that don’t apply to CouchSurfing, and it’s my understanding that if the question doesn’t apply, then the company doesn’t get credit for that topic.  So, it’s understandable that some scoring areas seem low for almost all B-Corps.  Most companies have scores around 90-110, so our score is pretty average.

We are new to the B-Corp world and we’ll be looking more closely at how we are evaluated and taking steps to ensure that we are continually living up to the standards.

UB: What changes have you made specifically in the area of transparency over the NGO-avatar that you feel would make members more comfortable with the move from non-for profit to for-profit?
AF: I am not sure what you mean by NGO-avatar, but we do everything we can to make the operations of the CouchSurfing organization as transparent as possible.  As with any company, total transparency is not feasible. 

We must weigh the community’s need for information with our need for agile decision-making and implementation. 

UB: It has been a year since CS introduced FB Connect. Currently the functionality seems limited to adding friends in ones extended network and sharing events. How do you plan to leverage FB further? Is there a plan to monetize this relationship in some way?
JF: There’s no current plan to monetize the FB connect.  We’re definitely looking at ways to make it easier to connect CouchSurfing activity with Facebook, and also for members to use their Facebook network and profile to kick start their CouchSurfing participation.

UB: I have been a member since 2008 and in the recent past have seen a large set of members with very limited profiles using CS basically as a free place to stay or even a dating site. In my opinion, this seems like a departure from what CS is meant to be.  Are you taking any measures to educate these new members and maintain the CS spirit?
JF: We are constantly looking and new ways to engage members and educate new CouchSurfers about how the community works and best practices for participation.  It’s certainly a challenge as we grow.  We have a dedicated team at CouchSurfing focused on Community and we’re developing a variety of approaches for educating new members and ensuring that we maintain quality above all else.  Our New Member Welcome team of volunteers sends personal messages to the newest sign ups, and the local Ambassadors field questions and organize new member orientation meet ups to help educate people about how to best engage with the community.

We are also looking into ways that we can improve the functionality of the site so it’s easier for members to connect authentically and respectfully.

UB: Who do you see as your realistic competitors? Triptrotting for instance has gone the VC route, while bewelcome.org comes across as the old CS. What threats do you see and what actions are you taking to stay a step ahead?
JF: There are a variety of organizations and companies with similar missions and visions to CouchSurfing, but we don’t see them as competitors.  What makes CouchSurfing unique is the strength, size, and quality of our community, and we see our job as providing them with the best website and mobile tools with which to connect with each other and facilitate inspiring experiences amongst each other.  All of the actions that we are taking – from converting to a B Corps to raising funding to hiring a new CEO – are in service of improving the ways that we serve the CouchSurfing community.

UB: I have read that CS aims to increase the member base to 100M+ in coming years. This appears ambitious and also begs the question as to what a member base of this magnitude would mean. Where do you see CS in say, 5 years from now?
JF: I’m not sure where you saw that number, as we don’t have any publicly announced projections.  Our goal is to provide the best website and mobile tools for our community.  The better the tools work, the more people who can experience CouchSurfing to explore and connect.  We believe that as long as quality of members remains high, there is no reason why more and more people around the world should not be able to experience the magic of CouchSurfing.

VISION latest sustainable tourism special offer: Sustainable Tourism Report 50% OFF HERE