Behind the Stays

Meet Damian Sheridan, founder of The Book Direct and Scale Rentals Shows — a couple of the leading events for short-term rental hosts and property managers interested in building their direct booking strategies. Growing up, Damian wanted to be a professional footballer…but, he quickly learned that in addition to passion for the game, you needed the skill as well! Years later while working at a travel agency, Damian developed an affinity for Search Engine Optimization — also known as SEO.  The idea that, with the right set of strategies and tactics,  you could rank #1 on Google for a term like “best vacation rentals in Miami” fascinated him…and before too long he became something of an expert in SEO! Tune in to hear the motivational story of how Damian parlayed his SEO skills into a full-time gig and what inspired him to build a collection of niche, in-person events for hosts and operators interested in growing their direct bookings.  Connect with Damian on LinkedIn Learn More the Book Direct Show  Learn More about the Scale Rentals Show Rate and Review this Episode on Apple Podcasts  Subscribe to Sponstayneous This episode of Behind the Stays is brought to you by our friends at Touch Stay.  Touch Stay enables hosts to build beautiful, digital guidebooks in a matter of minutes…   And enhances the guest experience by packaging your recommendations for coffee, wine bars, artisan bakeries, and Michelin star restaurants in a single online location.    Guests can access everything through a simple link — and yes, it works WITHOUT a wifi connection.    Touch Stay allows you to customize your guidebook to match your brand — pick the colors, fonts, and images that best align with your STR.    Learn more about a plethora of other features they have, and start your free trail at touchstay.com/bts (as in, Behind the Stays).   About the Show Behind the Stays is brought to you twice a week by Sponstayneous — a free, biweekly newsletter that brings subscribers the best last-minute deals and upcoming steals on Airbnb.     You can subscribe, for free, at www.sponstayneous.com.  Behind the Stays is hosted by Zach Busekrus, co-founder of Sponstayneous, you can connect with him on Twitter at @zboozee.

Meet Janice Smith, the creator of the Cozy Rock Cabin (@cozyrockcabin), a 750 square-foot cabin on 3 acres of wooded land in Freeport, Maine. Janice has always had a knack for project management — and this skill has served her well as she led an ed-tech startup, launched her own video production agency, and brought not one, not two, but three cozy Airbnbs to life.  Now Janice has used instagram to promote all of her homes, but one in particular, the Cozy Rock Cabin, has become what some might call “insta-famous” having garnered over 70k followers.  Tune in to hear the moving story of why Janice wanted an Airbnb in Freeport, how she DM’d the creator of The Raven House — one of the OG insta-worthy cabins — and convinced him to help her develop the plans of her own cabin, and her theory on why Jimmy Kimmel follows the Cozy Rock Cabin on Instagram. Book Your Stay at the Cozy Rock Cabin Follow the Cozy Rock Cabin on Instagram Rate and Review this Episode on Apple Podcasts  Subscribe to Sponstayneous This episode of Behind the Stays is brought to you by our friends at Touch Stay.  Touch Stay enables hosts to build beautiful, digital guidebooks in a matter of minutes…   And enhances the guest experience by packaging your recommendations for coffee, wine bars, artisan bakeries, and Michelin star restaurants in a single online location.    Guests can access everything through a simple link — and yes, it works WITHOUT a wifi connection.    Touch Stay allows you to customize your guidebook to match your brand — pick the colors, fonts, and images that best align with your STR.    Learn more about a plethora of other features they have, and start your free trail at touchstay.com/bts(as in, Behind the Stays).   About the Show Behind the Stays is brought to you twice a week by Sponstayneous — a free, biweekly newsletter that brings subscribers the best last-minute deals and upcoming steals on Airbnb.     You can subscribe, for free, at www.sponstayneous.com.  Behind the Stays is hosted by Zach Busekrus, co-founder of Sponstayneous, you can connect with him on Twitter at @zboozee.

Meet Sara Roitman,  the creator of Field and Lake, a new collective of boutique vacation rentals on the shores of Lake Michigan. Sara is an attorney by trade and lives in Chicago with her beautiful family.  A few years back, Sara and her husband had purchased a vacation home on Lake Michigan so that they could escape from the city with the kids for long weekends and a couple of weeks each summer. When COVID hit, the home next door to their lake house became available…and, upon hearing this news, a bold idea began to form, and ultimately take residence, in Sara’s mind. And that idea?  Well, it was to buy this home, launch a hospitality brand, build a portfolio of beautiful yet casual escapes, oh — and leave her job! Tune into the fun and inspiring story of how Sara ideated, planned out, and ultimately launched Field and Lake. Follow Field and Lake on Instagram Book a Stay at Field and Lake This episode of Behind the Stays is brought to you by our friends at Touch Stay.  Touch Stay enables hosts to build beautiful, digital guidebooks in a matter of minutes…   And enhances the guest experience by packaging your recommendations for coffee, wine bars, artisan bakeries, and Michelin star restaurants in a single online location.    Guests can access everything through a simple link — and yes, it works WITHOUT a wifi connection.    Touch Stay allows you to customize your guidebook to match your brand — pick the colors, fonts, and images that best align with your STR.    Learn more about a plethora of other features they have, and start your free trail at touchstay.com/bts (as in, Behind the Stays).   About the Show Behind the Stays is brought to you twice a week by Sponstayneous — a free, biweekly newsletter that brings subscribers the best last-minute deals and upcoming steals on Airbnb.     You can subscribe, for free, at www.sponstayneous.com.  Behind the Stays is hosted by Zach Busekrus, co-founder of Sponstayneous, you can connect with him on Twitter at @zboozee.

Meet Ethan Abitz — one of the OG Airbnb Instagram Influencers. Ethan first started using Instagram in high school to promote an apparel line he started. This was when Instagram let you upload a photo and select from just a handful of filters before posting your shot — no stories, reels, etc. In college, Ethan thought he wanted to work on Wall Street. He was interested in finance and investing and was always good at spotting opportunities.  But around this time, Ethan began to further explore his creative abilities — especially in the context of photography. And he soon realized that his love of capturing moments and telling the stories behind them outweighed whatever affinity he had for buying low, and selling high.  Tune in to hear the inspiring story of how Ethan pursued his love for adventure and photography and grew his following to hundreds of thousands across Instagram and TikTok. Follow Ethan on Instagram Follow Ethan on TikTok This episode of Behind the Stays is brought to you by our friends at Touch Stay.  Touch Stay enables hosts to build beautiful, digital guidebooks in a matter of minutes…   And enhances the guest experience by packaging your recommendations for coffee, wine bars, artisan bakeries, and Michelin star restaurants in a single online location.    Guests can access everything through a simple link — and yes, it works WITHOUT a wifi connection.    Touch Stay allows you to customize your guidebook to match your brand — pick the colors, fonts, and images that best align with your STR.    Learn more about a plethora of other features they have, and start your free trail at touchstay.com/bts (as in, Behind the Stays).   About the Show Behind the Stays is brought to you twice a week by Sponstayneous — a free, biweekly newsletter that brings subscribers the best last-minute deals and upcoming steals on Airbnb.     You can subscribe, for free, at www.sponstayneous.com.  Behind the Stays is hosted by Zach Busekrus, co-founder of Sponstayneous, you can connect with him on Twitter at @zboozee.

Meet Spenser and Marcy Kernea, the creators of the Retreat at Fall Branch Falls, a pristinely crafted escape in Georgia’s Blue Ridge Mountains.  Spenser has always been a big dreamer.  And while Marcy is fond of big ideas herself, she often has to counterbalance Spenser’s idealism with just a smidge of realism. Spenser once had this grand idea of opening up an authentic Italian gelateria in Tennessee, and Marcy had to remind him that he didn’t know the first thing about making ice cream or running a restaurant! So, after Spenser’s dream of becoming the Guy Fieri of gelato were tabled, he and Marcy began discussing a dream they both shared — and that was to be able to create welcoming spaces where people of all backgrounds might feel at home.  Tune in to hear the somewhat miraculous story of how Spenser and Marcy found the perfect piece of land, created a magical Airbnb on that land, and grew their Tiny Houses’ following to over 30k across Instagram and TikTok. Book your stay at the Retreat at Falls Branch Follow the Retreat at Falls Branch on Instagram Follow the Retreat at Falls Branch on TikTok This episode of Behind the Stays is brought to you by our friends at Touch Stay.  Touch Stay enables hosts to build beautiful, digital guidebooks in a matter of minutes…   And enhances the guest experience by packaging your recommendations for coffee, wine bars, artisan bakeries, and Michelin star restaurants in a single online location.    Guests can access everything through a simple link — and yes, it works WITHOUT a wifi connection.    Touch Stay allows you to customize your guidebook to match your brand — pick the colors, fonts, and images that best align with your STR.  Learn more about a plethora of other features they have, and start your free trail at touchstay.com/bts (as in, Behind the Stays).   About the Show Behind the Stays is brought to you twice a week by Sponstayneous — a free, biweekly newsletter that brings subscribers the best last-minute deals and upcoming steals on Airbnb.     You can subscribe, for free, at www.sponstayneous.com.  Behind the Stays is hosted by Zach Busekrus, co-founder of Sponstayneous, you can connect with him on Twitter at @zboozee.

In just a moment you’ll meet Jamie Lane, Vice President of Research at AirDNA. After spending a decade at CBRE, one of the country’s largest American commercial real estate services and investment firm, Jamie was itching for a change…   He had always loved the hospitality space, and the short-term rental space in particular, so when he got a call from Scott Shatford the founder of AirDNA about joining the team, Jamie couldn’t say no.   Tune in to hear Jamie’s thoughts on:  How savvy STR hosts should be using pricing strategies to increase their occupancy rates How STR hosts should balance OTAs and the building of their own brands As well as his hot takes on the future of travel and hospitality Learn More about AirDNA  Connect with Jamie on LinkedIn Stream Jamie's podcast, STR Data Lab This episode of Behind the Stays is brought to you by our friends at Touch Stay.  Touch Stay enables hosts to build beautiful, digital guidebooks in a matter of minutes…   And enhances the guest experience by packaging your recommendations for coffee, wine bars, artisan bakeries, and Michelin star restaurants in a single online location.    Guests can access everything through a simple link — and yes, it works WITHOUT a wifi connection.    Touch Stay allows you to customize your guidebook to match your brand — pick the colors, fonts, and images that best align with your STR.  Learn more about a plethora of other features they have, and start your free trail at touchstay.com/bts(as in, Behind the Stays).   About the Show Behind the Stays is brought to you twice a week by Sponstayneous — a free, biweekly newsletter that brings subscribers the best last-minute deals and upcoming steals on Airbnb.     You can subscribe, for free, at www.sponstayneous.com.  Behind the Stays is hosted by Zach Busekrus, co-founder of Sponstayneous, you can connect with him on Twitter at @zboozee.

Meet Emir Dukic, founder and CEO of Rabbu. Rabbu helps investors find and manage short-term rentals.   Emir started working in tech via a cold email.  He reached out to the founder of Kick, which was a social network dedicated to talking about all things soccer, asking if he could help the company grow in any way. He started volunteering for the company, was eventually hired, and then worked his way up into a leading operations role before the company was acquired by NBC. Tune in to hear the fun story of how Emir got into the STR game as a host and how that experience inspired him to found Rabbu.  Follow Emir on Twitter Learn more about Rabbu This episode of Behind the Stays is brought to you by our friends at Touch Stay.  Touch Stay enables hosts to build beautiful, digital guidebooks in a matter of minutes…   And enhances the guest experience by packaging your recommendations for coffee, wine bars, artisan bakeries, and Michelin star restaurants in a single online location.    Guests can access everything through a simple link — and yes, it works WITHOUT a wifi connection.    Touch Stay allows you to customize your guidebook to match your brand — pick the colors, fonts, and images that best align with your STR.  Learn more about a plethora of other features they have, and start your free trail at touchstay.com/bts (as in, Behind the Stays).   About the Show Behind the Stays is brought to you twice a week by Sponstayneous — a free, biweekly newsletter that brings subscribers the best last-minute deals and upcoming steals on Airbnb.     You can subscribe, for free, at www.sponstayneous.com.  Behind the Stays is hosted by Zach Busekrus, co-founder of Sponstayneous, you can connect with him on Twitter at @zboozee.

In just a moment you’ll  meet Evan Dolgow, Head of Predictive Hospitality at Jarvis ML.  Jarvis ML was founded by the guys over at Google who built the machine learning platforms powering Google Ads and Payments.  Evan and his team have a vision of democratizing the data and technology that OTAs have and making these tools and insights accessible to short-term and vacation-rental hosts in order to increase direct bookings. Tune in to discover what short-term rental and vacation rental hosts can learn from the ecommerce space about building independent brands and moats. Learn more about Jarvis ML here Connect with Evan on LinkedIn This week's episode is brought to you by Guesty for Hosts.  One of the questions I get asked a lot from listeners is what they should look for in a PMS or Property Management System. Now, we’re lucky — there are a lot of great options in the market, which can’t be said for software platforms in all industries.  That said, I always encourage them to take a good look at Guesty for Hosts — and here’s why: 1. Guesty’s Channel Manager helps you centralize data across the major booking platforms and stay on top of all activity on your listings without having to hop back and forth between channels such as Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo.  2. Guesty’s automation tools enable you to ensure you connect with guests in a meaningful, creative, and instant fashion. You can make custom messages for a variety of situations, from a response to an initial inquiry to a post check-out follow up encouraging your guests to leave a review. 3. It includes a Website Builder feature that allows you to create your own branded booking website in just minutes…allowing you to grow your listing’s brand value and increase your direct bookings.  4. And finally, Guesty just raised over $170 million dollars which means they got some serious cash to continue to seriously invest in their product!   So here’s the deal.  If you’re a STR host without a PMS system or a host looking to explore a new one, I’ve got a treat for you. The team at Guesty is giving Behind the Stays listeners and Sponstayneous subscribers 20% off of their first year when they use the discount code “SPONSTAYNEOUS” at checkout. Get started with a 14 day free trial today  — no credit card, set up fee, or commitment required — and cancel anytime if you don't love it. Once your 14 day free trial is up, use the discount code “SPONSTAYNEOUS” for 20% off of your first year. Guesty for Hosts — it’s the bestie of top-rated STR super hosts.  Try Guesty for Hosts for Free. About the Show Behind the Stays is brought to you twice a week by Sponstayneous — a free, biweekly newsletter that brings subscribers the best last-minute deals and upcoming steals on Airbnb.     You can subscribe, for free, at www.sponstayneous.com.  Behind the Stays is hosted by Zach Busekrus, co-founder of Sponstayneous, you can connect with him on Twitter at @zboozee.

Meet Lauren and Cam Green, the founders of The Fort Treehouse Company — Canada’s premier luxury treehouse company. Cam and Lauren met at summer camp.  They were a part of the same friend group for more than 15 years before they started dating, but once they did, it was clear that they were a perfect match. Both Lauren and Cam are quite entrepreneurial.  Lauren tends to have the big ideas and Cam is incredible at finding ways to bring them to life.  While working on staff at the camp that he and Lauren met at, Cam discovered a sustainable treehouse design and build program in Vermont. And it was this moment where Cam first realized that what he really wanted to do was build beautiful escapes in the trees!  Tune in to hear the remarkable story of how Cam and Lauren brought their first treehouse to life and what the couple has planned next for The Fort Treehouse Co.  Learn more about The Fort Treehouse Co. Follow The Fort Treehouse Co. on Instagram  This week's episode is brought to you by Guesty for Hosts.  One of the questions I get asked a lot from listeners is what they should look for in a PMS or Property Management System. Now, we’re lucky — there are a lot of great options in the market, which can’t be said for software platforms in all industries.  That said, I always encourage them to take a good look at Guesty for Hosts — and here’s why: 1. Guesty’s Channel Manager helps you centralize data across the major booking platforms and stay on top of all activity on your listings without having to hop back and forth between channels such as Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo.  2. Guesty’s automation tools enable you to ensure you connect with guests in a meaningful, creative, and instant fashion. You can make custom messages for a variety of situations, from a response to an initial inquiry to a post check-out follow up encouraging your guests to leave a review. 3. It includes a Website Builder feature that allows you to create your own branded booking website in just minutes…allowing you to grow your listing’s brand value and increase your direct bookings.  4. And finally, Guesty just raised over $170 million dollars which means they got some serious cash to continue to seriously invest in their product!   So here’s the deal.  If you’re a STR host without a PMS system or a host looking to explore a new one, I’ve got a treat for you. The team at Guesty is giving Behind the Stays listeners and Sponstayneous subscribers 20% off of their first year when they use the discount code “SPONSTAYNEOUS” at checkout. Get started with a 14 day free trial today  — no credit card, set up fee, or commitment required — and cancel anytime if you don't love it. Once your 14 day free trial is up, use the discount code “SPONSTAYNEOUS” for 20% off of your first year. Guesty for Hosts — it’s the bestie of top-rated STR super hosts.  Try Guesty for Hosts for Free. About the Show Behind the Stays is brought to you twice a week by Sponstayneous — a free, biweekly newsletter that brings subscribers the best last-minute deals and upcoming steals on Airbnb.     You can subscribe, for free, at www.sponstayneous.com.  Behind the Stays is hosted by Zach Busekrus, co-founder of Sponstayneous, you can connect with him on Twitter at @zboozee.

Meet Ali Nichols — Co-Founder of Getaway. Getaway is on a mission to make vacation rental real estate accessible to the next generations  of investors and to reimagine travel memberships by allowing investors to stay in the premier homes they own.  Ali has been interested in real estate since she was a young child.  She’d come home on Sunday mornings after church and circle listings in the newspaper with open houses she wanted to visit.  After working for technology companies like Uber and Bungalow, Ali was bit by that entrepreneurial bug and began desiring to start her own company.  Tune in to hear the story behind where the idea of Getaway came from and what her goals are for the company over the next 12 months. Discover Getaway Connect with Ali on LinkedIn  This week's episode is brought to you by Guesty for Hosts.  One of the questions I get asked a lot from listeners is what they should look for in a PMS or Property Management System. Now, we’re lucky — there are a lot of great options in the market, which can’t be said for software platforms in all industries.  That said, I always encourage them to take a good look at Guesty for Hosts — and here’s why: 1. Guesty’s Channel Manager helps you centralize data across the major booking platforms and stay on top of all activity on your listings without having to hop back and forth between channels such as Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo.  2. Guesty’s automation tools enable you to ensure you connect with guests in a meaningful, creative, and instant fashion. You can make custom messages for a variety of situations, from a response to an initial inquiry to a post check-out follow up encouraging your guests to leave a review. 3. It includes a Website Builder feature that allows you to create your own branded booking website in just minutes…allowing you to grow your listing’s brand value and increase your direct bookings.  4. And finally, Guesty just raised over $170 million dollars which means they got some serious cash to continue to seriously invest in their product!   So here’s the deal.  If you’re a STR host without a PMS system or a host looking to explore a new one, I’ve got a treat for you. The team at Guesty is giving Behind the Stays listeners and Sponstayneous subscribers 20% off of their first year when they use the discount code “SPONSTAYNEOUS” at checkout. Get started with a 14 day free trial today  — no credit card, set up fee, or commitment required — and cancel anytime if you don't love it. Once your 14 day free trial is up, use the discount code “SPONSTAYNEOUS” for 20% off of your first year. Guesty for Hosts — it’s the bestie of top-rated STR super hosts.  Try Guesty for Hosts for Free. About the Show Behind the Stays is brought to you twice a week by Sponstayneous — a free, biweekly newsletter that brings subscribers the best last-minute deals and upcoming steals on Airbnb.     You can subscribe, for free, at www.sponstayneous.com.  Behind the Stays is hosted by Zach Busekrus, co-founder of Sponstayneous, you can connect with him on Twitter at @zboozee.