Past Strategies (Move Completed or Archived Strategies Here)

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Purpose: Communicate Otto’s current strategies through the folloing framework:

1. The challenge each aims to address
2. The guiding policy for how we’re tackling it
3. The coherent actions we have, are, or will be taking
4. Intended Outcomes </aside>

• Table of Contents

Foundations That Scale

Status = Active 🌟, current focus for 2025

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Diagnosis: Problem/Situation

Marketplace Adoption:

• 💵 Marketplace accounts for a small percentage of processed rentals, despite its potential to drive growth and profitability.
• 🔒 Limited functionality for attracting hosts and customers, including discounts, referrals, and policy management.

Product Usability and Performance:

• 🎨 Core SaaS functionalities, such as modifying bookings and trip/booking UI, require significant updates.
• ⚡️ Backend performance issues are limiting scalability and user satisfaction.
• 📈 Invoice and VAT handling, a critical feature for larger, formalized companies, is incomplete.

Operational Efficiency:

• ♻️ Several deprecated features in the backend need to be removed, creating clutter and inefficiencies.
• ✉️ Hosts lack tools for self-service onboarding, slowing customer acquisition.

Feature Rollout Challenges:

• 🚒 Rolling out features like the open marketplace, referral programs, and policy management requires coordination across multiple teams.
• 🌐 Limited flexibility in overrides for future dates (e.g., price, minimum rentals, and blocking).

• WHAT MAKES A GREAT DIAGNOSIS? </aside>

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Guiding Policy: **How are we going to deal with it**

1. 🌐 Marketplace Growth: Double down on developing features that drive adoption and engagement in the marketplace, targeting the goal of 30-50% of rentals processed through the marketplace.
2. 🔧 SaaS Optimization: Refine and enhance core SaaS features to provide a seamless experience for both informal and formal rental companies.
3. ♻️ Operational Cleanup: Improve backend and frontend performance, remove inefficiencies, and enable self-service tools for hosts.
4. 🌎 Incremental Expansion Readiness: Focus on building robust systems that can scale to new markets while ensuring strong foundations in the Kenyan market.
5. 📊 Market Penetration: Prioritize achieving 10-20% of the Kenyan market in 2025 before expanding to Uganda or Rwanda to ensure product maturity and market dominance.
6. 🏆 Partner Quality Program: Implement a comprehensive scoring system to incentivize software adoption and customer service excellence through gamification.

• WHAT MAKES A GREAT GUIDING POLICY? </aside>

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Coherent Actions: **Steps to address diagnosis & guiding policy**

🎨 User Experience & Interface

• Modernize trip/booking flows and modification system
• Enhance notification system across all channels

💰 Financial & Business Operations

• Implement comprehensive payment and fee management
• Deploy invoice/VAT system for formal businesses
• Streamline business settings and policy management

🌍 Marketplace Development

• Launch open marketplace platform
• Implement partner quality scoring and rewards
• Create discount and referral programs
• Enable host-to-host market transactions

⚡️ Technical Infrastructure

• Optimize frontend and backend performance
• Implement self-service host onboarding
• Enhance document management system
• Deploy flexible pricing and availability controls
• Remove deprecated features and optimize systems

📊 Strategic Planning & Evaluation

• Regular review of customer feedback and market research
• Monitor market penetration progress
• Evaluate partner quality program effectiveness
• Assess readiness for market expansion

• WHAT ARE COHERENT ACTIONS? </aside>

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Outcomes

🌐 Marketplace Growth: Achieve a 20-30% share of rentals processed through the marketplace.

⚡️ Improved SaaS Product: Deliver a highly usable and performant product for both informal and formal rental companies.

♻️ Operational Efficiency: Streamlined backend and self-service tools to improve scalability and customer onboarding.

🌎 Foundation for Expansion: Robust systems and marketplace readiness to support future growth in neighboring markets.

📊 Market Penetration: Capture 10-15% of the Kenyan market, solidifying product dominance before entering Uganda or Rwanda.

🏆 Partner Excellence: Achieve 80% partner participation in quality score program with 50% reaching 90% or higher

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