SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

EP 489: $200k Shark Tank Deal, Cuban/Sacca, 30,000 People Booked $12M Worth of Sports Weekend Housing from RentLikeAChampion CEO Mike Doyle

Nov 25, 2016

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Mike Doyle, CEO of Rent Like A Champion, a vacation rental platform for sporting events. He has hosted 50 thousand travelers and made over $12 million in sales. Mike is a Shark Tank survivor who received an investment from Mark Cuban and Chris Sacca and both Mark and Chris are still very involved in the business.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
What CEO do you follow? – Elon Musk

Favorite online tool? — Trello
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Not now
If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "Start earlier and take advantages of those resources"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:30 – Nathan introduces Mike to the show
02:00 – Mike took a total of $200,000 from Mike and Chris for 10% of the company's equity
02:10 – Shark Tank was their first round of funding
- 02:27 – Mike wanted to get the deal and the exposure
02:38 – Rent Like A Champion's valuation during Shark Tank
02:52 – Rent Like A Champion is currently in the market for raising
02:59 – Rent Like A Champion's episode was filmed in June 2013
03:18 – In Rent Like A Champion's platform, the sellers are the homeowners who own properties around stadiums
- 03:29 – Buyers are the sports fans who are travelling to watch the games
03:33 – Rent Like A Champion is focused on non-urban destinations
- 03:33 – The focus is smaller towns where there are not enough hotels for fans to stay
03:46 – Rent Like A Champion was founded in 2012
04:07 – Since 2012, Rent Like A Champion has hosted under 60,000 fans
04:18 – Total booked destinations: 7500 different places to rent
- 04:24 – An average of 8 fans per rental
04:28 – Rent Like A Champion's market is families and groups
04:46 – Rent Like A Champion has over 3000 homes
- 04:51 – Rent Like A Champion has properties in over 100 towns in the USA
- 04:56 – About 25 towns are considered their core market
05:16 – 2012 total bookings equated to $630,000 and Rent Like A Champion kept 22%
05:29 – Rent Like A Champion is about to reach $4.5 million this year
05:58 – In 2015, Rent Like A Champion made under $3.3 million and kept $720,000
06:15 – Rent Like A Champion is getting a fee both from the seller and buyer
- 06:25 – 15% from the seller and 9% from the buyer
06:47 – Rent Like A Champion is seasonal
- 06:54 – Most of the bookings come from college football
- 07:05 – Rent Like A Champion is now partnering with 6 PGA tournament events
- 07:15 – Rent Like A Champion is also partnering with NASCAR races
07:55 – Most bookings come 68 weeks in advance
08:23 – In September, total of 750 groups booked
- 08:39 – Gross sales for September is about $1.35 million
09:05 – Average order value:
- 09:08 – $1600-2000 for a 2-night rental
09:36 – Team size is 5 full-timers and 5 part-timers
09:57 – Total transaction volume since 2012 is a little over $12 million
10:13 – How do you beat Airbnb?
- 10:17 – Rent Like A Champion considers non-hotel destinations
- 10:52 – "On the demand side, we're able to be so targeted with our advertising towards sports fans"
11:13 – If Sacca didn't miss out on the Airbnb deal, do you think you are going to be as aggressive as you are on Shark Tank?
- 11:28 – The night before Mike is going to film the episode, they still didn't think that Sacca was going to be one of the sharks
12:00 – Did we accurately see everything that went down on Shark Tank?
- 12:05 – "It's super condensed on what you see on TV"
- 13:03 – Schedule suddenly changes
13:14 – Average reorder rate is 50%
- 13:53 – Buyers book once a year
15:10 – How do you expand market shares after the sporting events?
- 15:14 – There's a ton of green space around college football
- 15:20 – Graduation is already big for Rent Like A Champion but they're still pushing it more
- 15:30 - Rent Like A Champion is starting to working with wedding planners for reunion weekends
16:08 – Rent Like A Champion is doing instant booking where list houses can put the availability of their houses depending on a scheduled game
- 16:53 – The pricing depends on the homeowners
- 17:08 – Rent Like A Champion can give homeowners guidelines in pricing
17:20 – Depending on the game, the amount of buyers vary
18:00 – What is it like working with Chris Sacca?
- 18:30 – "Chris and Mark have been incredibly involved and been receiving weekly updates"
- 18:45 – Chris and Mark are very responsive and prompt in replies
- 19:00 – Mike threw a big marketing event and Chris and Mark came to talk about an update segment in Shark Tank
19:39 – Connect with Mike through his business' website, Twitter and Facebook
21:15 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

Your business will being to DEFINE itself as you keep moving forward.
EXPAND your niche. Don't stay seasonal—continue to think bigger.
Start as EARLY as you can and take advantage of those resources.

Resources Mentioned:

Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal developers.
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email.
Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel.
@RentLikeAChamp – Mike's business Twitter handle
RentLikeAChampion.com – Mike's business website
Facebook – Mike's business Facebook account
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives