It’s a little crazy to think Horizon has been on the App Store for a year. We’ve learned a lot, and validated the challenges with incentives on the host side of a hospitality exchange marketplace. There are numerous reasons people host others, but not a lot of urgency or incentive to do more of it.

One strong need for our app is by hosts looking to fill sublet or roommate opportunities with someone from their trusted network. In fact, prior to building Horizon, we subletted our apartment from another Start-Up Chile team prior to our arrival in Santiago (see our post about Bureo here). Thus, in addition to offering up a couch or room for few days to travelers, our lastest iOS update allows hosts to advertise the fact they are interested in subletting an extra room or apartment for a prolonged period of time.

What’s changed in the product?

Expanded, redesigned profile. As a host, you may include a text description to explain your accommodation scenario, link to an external URL such as AirBnB or Craigslist which contains photos or more information about your space, and indicate whether you’re willing to sublet. The icing on the cake is the ability to edit your bio (one of our most requested features).

We’ve migrated to a tab bar for our primary navigation. Bye bye, hamburger menu.

New interface for filters. There is now a funnel icon in the upper right of the home screen (where the hamburger menu was previously) as well as city results which gives you quick access to available filters. Changing filters now updates results and counts across the entire app rather than just for a specific city.

If you’d like to post a sublet opportunity, a more detailed “how” can be found here.

Feedback, suggestions - and even criticism - is welcomed. You can reach us at support@horizonapp.co. Thanks for your continued support.

PS: If you’re a host on AirBnB/HomeAway (or others), please read this.