Antje Barth · Go-To-Market Final Project

Roamly Groups

A group checkout for hand-picked local experiences. Each friend pays for their own seat, the host holds the seats, and the group books together or nobody is charged.

PresenterAntje Barth

ProductRoamly Groups

DateSeptember 26, 2026

Most valuable segment

Friend groups of 3 to 8, reached through the organizer, a repeat Roamly user who fronts the money today.

Is the product ready?

The checkout is. The supply side is not proven: hosts must hold seats for unpaid groups. Each city launches at 60% host opt-in.

Without disrupting what works

Solo bookings, traveler prices and host commissions do not change. Hosts opt in; one city at a time.

Path into a new market

Group booking, entered through existing users. Every group invites up to seven new people. Next: host tiers, company teams.

Scroll or use the arrow keys

01 · GTM Strategy

Recover the group bookings Roamly already loses, product-led

Organizers try to book for friends, front the money, and the sessions die. The goal is Expand: each booking carries several seats instead of one.

Motion: product-led

Time to value in minutes: create group, share link, friends pay
Buyer is the user, no procurement, tens to a few hundred dollars a seat
Self-serve: nobody at Roamly touches a group booking
Scales by invites: every group reaches non-users
Community is a seeding channel, not a motion. Sales-led (company teams) is a later phase.

Target segment

The organizer: existing Roamly user, 2+ bookings in 12 months
Plans for a friend group of 3 to 8, self-funded
Today: group chat, spreadsheet, payment app, fronts the money and chases friends
Why first: demand is already in the support queue, the user is loyal, no new supply or channel needed
The friends, mostly not on Roamly, are who we have to convert

V1 one-pager

Promise: the organizer never fronts the money and never chases anyone
Channels: checkout entry point, email to split-pay ticket filers, invite link, creator seeding. No paid.
Launch requirements: slot hold, one-screen guest pay, split pay as headline, city gate
North star: at least 4 seats per group booking vs. a holdout
Leading: group completion at least 80% of the individual rate

The assumption I worry about most: the friends complete

21%group of 7 completes at 80% per friend (0.8⁷)

70%same group at 95% per friend (0.95⁷)

20organizers in one city test the guest-pay flow first; below 90% per friend, redesign

02 · Competitive Intelligence & Strategic Bet

Own the commitment moment, not the discovery moment

Nobody both finds the experience and lets the group pay for it. Viator can copy a checkout screen. It cannot quickly copy a supply policy its operators agreed to.

Competitor	Strong at	Weak at	How we win
Viator primary	300,000+ listings; Reserve Now & Pay Later holds a slot free	Still charges one card; no group object; no curation	Each friend pays their own seat on a held slot
Airbnb Experiences	Relaunched 2025 with group planning	Split Payments launched 2017, retired 2018: hosts disliked the hold	Move first; the lead is the hold record, not the mechanic
Cash App Pools / Venmo	Own the organizer's job; non-users pay from a link	Holds money, not inventory	Only a marketplace can confirm everyone at once
Status quo	Free, familiar, fine for the friends	38% of group travelers not paid back in full (Airbnb, 2017)	The organizer stops being the bank

If Airbnb copies it

It could, within a year. The mechanic is not the moat.

What it cannot copy in twelve months: Roamly's record of which hosts honor holds, organizers who rebook groups, and the friends each group brings onto Roamly. That history starts at zero, so the lead holds only if Roamly moves first.

Trap to plant vs. Viator: "When your card gets charged for eight people, what happens if two of them bail?"

The bet

Roamly Groups wins by owning the commitment moment, because per-seat checkout on an expert-held slot is the one thing Viator cannot copy without renegotiating its supply, and a payment pool cannot do it at all.

Not doing: discovery, breadth, group planning features, or cities where experts will not opt in.

Proves it in 90 days:

60%+ expert opt-in per city (a 3-option shortlist then has a bookable choice 94% of the time)
Group completion at least 80% of the individual rate
Held slots released unpaid below the cost experts agreed to

03 · Positioning

The host holds the seats, so nobody puts the trip on their card

Core product truth: the expert running the experience has agreed to hold the seats until the whole group has paid. Everything else follows from it.

Target customer

The organizer of a friend group of 3 to 8, a repeat Roamly user who has picked an experience and needs the group to commit.

Market category

A group checkout for hand-picked local experiences. Changes the criterion from "how many options" to "can the whole group commit."

Key benefit

Nobody puts the trip on their card. The group books together or not at all.

Competitive alternative

Group chat plus Venmo. Behind it, Viator Pay Later (one card) and payment pools (no seat).

Differentiator

The hold, done first: curated experts agree directly. Viator cannot promise it; Airbnb could return, so the lead is the hold record.

Proof

Split-pay tickets and same-slot drop-off; 38% not paid back (Airbnb, 2017); 60% opt-in gate per city.

Final positioning statement

For the friend who organizes the group trip and ends up fronting the money and chasing everyone to pay them back, Roamly Groups is the group checkout for hand-picked local experiences that lets each friend pay for their own seat while the host holds the seats, so the group books together or not at all. Unlike booking on one card and collecting on Venmo, or a marketplace that holds the seats but still charges one person, Roamly Groups never puts the trip on anyone's card and never charges anyone unless the whole group is in.

One-liner

Share one link, everyone pays their own seat, and the group books together or nobody is charged.

Why it holds up

Ownable: Viator cannot say "the host holds the seats" without renegotiating its supply.
Believable: true wherever hosts opt in, which is why each city launches only at 60%.
Relevant: a cold reader named the organizer who "fronts the cash and nags everyone" unprompted.
Durable: it rests on the hold, not a feature list, so new features do not change it.

04 · Messaging

Two audiences, two messages: one has the pain, the other has to pay

From: one person becomes the bank, or nobody does and the group never books.

→

To: booking for the group is the same as booking for yourself.

The organizerHas the pain, already on Roamly

The friendNo pain today, mostly not on Roamly

Value prop

Never be the bank for the group trip again.

One tap and your seat is yours.

Capabilities

One shareable link. Each friend pays their own seat. The host holds the seats until the group fills or the deadline passes. Roamly sends the reminders.

One-screen guest checkout with Apple Pay and Google Pay. No app, no account before paying. Not charged unless the group fills.

Evidence

38% of group travelers not paid back in full (Airbnb, 2017). Support queue shows workarounds and drop-off. 12,000 vetted experts in 40 cities. Pilot: 9 in 10 groups that shared a link filled and booked (illustrative).

Host rating, reviews and vetting badge on the pay screen. The countdown and who has already paid.

AI asset: social post for the organizer

Built from the organizer pillar. The proof line shows that groups actually book, the same completion metric set in Module 1. A stranger reading it cold named the organizer, the mechanic and the guarantee.

05 · Pricing Recommendation

The host pays through commission; travelers never see a fee

Value exists only when a whole group pays, and the host gains the filled capacity. Any fee at checkout would cut the completion rate the product depends on. Revenue comes from more seats, not a higher price.

Group-ready

20% standard, no uplift

Every vetted host. Launch tier; each city needs 60% opt-in.

Accepts the standard group hold
Becomes group-bookable

$60 to Roamly per group of 5 at $60

ROUTE HOSTS HERE

Group Plus

24% group bookings only

Hosts with unsold mid-week capacity who have seen group bookings.

Priority placement and group badge
Host-set price for parties of 6+

$72 per group. Pays for itself at one extra seat every 3.8 groups.

Private Groups

26% group bookings only

Hosts who can run a whole session for one group.

Everything in Plus
Private-session listing, monthly demand report

$78 per group

Model

Transaction-based, on the commission Roamly already takes
Rejected: organizer subscription, seat-based, per-seat traveler fee
A traveler fee that cut per-friend completion from 95% to 90% drops a group of 7 from 70% to 48%

Validate first

Hosts keep holding seats, not just sign up. Airbnb's hosts quit after living with holds.
One city, one quarter of real group bookings; below 60% still opted in, the city fails

Then research

Van Westendorp with hosts on the Plus uplift, in points of commission
Max-Diff on Plus and Private benefits to set tier contents
Conjoint can wait: one number, five benefits

Assumptions to replace with data: 20% commission, $60 seat, groups of five. The +4 and +6 uplifts are hypotheses for the Van Westendorp study.

06 · Launch Plan & Individual Insights

The product is a supply policy, not a checkout screen

Biggest aha: I started with the organizer's pain. Competitive research showed Airbnb built this exact feature in 2017 and killed it because hosts hated holding seats. From then on, the hold was the bet: the core product truth, what the asset had to show, and why the host pays.

Friction points

No data in the scenario. Every figure came from AI output I had to check, or from the structure.
Two AI claims were wrong: a 38% statistic cited to the wrong page, and a price threshold nobody could source.
Fix: recomputed every number, verified every citation, labeled the one invented figure as illustrative.

Key takeaways

Decisions trace upstream. The bet set the pricing; the pricing set the launch order.
Cold-read everything. Four blind reads of one post each found a different flaw.
Talk to hosts before pricing. A dozen interviews and the real drop-off rate replace most assumptions.
Monday: ask each team "can you do your job without me?", not "did I share everything?"

Launch: city by city, released before launched

A quarter-long pilot in the first city only; later cities release for four to six weeks, several at a time. Every city goes ahead only at 60% host opt-in.

Enable the host side first

Leadership, then host partnerships, host success and support, then marketing. Channels start owned (checkout prompt, email), earn through the invite link, and add paid only after a quarter at the completion bar.

Tripwires, set before launch

Hold: 48 hours, a pilot hypothesis. Pause a city if host retention falls below 60% or hosts release over 5% of holds early. Stop on any traveler charged for a group that did not fill. PM and host partnerships decide, monthly.