Hot 25 Travel Startups for 2024: Kindred

Kindred

Kindred is a members-only home swapping network. By sharing their places with those they trust, Kindred members unlock a lifestyle richer with travel and human connection, staying in vetted, comfortable homes for a fraction of the cost of a rental.

PhocusWire coverage

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Justine Palefsky and Tasneem Amina

Strategic goals for 2023

At Kindred, trust and experience quality are absolutely everything. Our top priority for 2024 will be to continue investing in the product and operational infrastructure we’ll need to maintain an extremely high standard for trust, quality, reliability and magic while scaling thoughtfully to serve more Kindred spirits from around the world.

Lessons learned since founding

I was speaking with one member recently from Mexico City who booked 80 nights and hosted 89 nights on Kindred within about eight months. She never planned on spending that many nights away from home. But when you can take 10 trips for the price of one, that changes everything. Suddenly the internal calculus is different; it becomes a “why not” instead of a “why,” and people can live a life richer with experiences, memories and value than they’d previously thought was possible for them. 

Seeing how this product changes people’s behavior is exciting because it points to the latent demand out there among people who want to live a life where they can move around more freely. While travel is already a big industry, it should be much bigger – IF we can deliver a way to stay at comfortable “homes away from home” at a radically more affordable price point.

Talking to power users is extraordinarily rewarding because that’s when I see the future winking at me. The future is a place where by working together with those we trust, we each are able to squeeze so more into our time and get so much farther for less. And I, for one, am stoked to live there.