The Invisible Host
After building a vacation rental business with my wife for 5 years, we had many answers to the questions people around us asked: where to start, where to buy, and how it all works. Instead of sharing random insights, I created an interactive guide to document our journey.
Building
The Problem
My wife, Meghan, and I spent five years building a vacation rental business from scratch: four properties across California, $1.5M in revenue, and 30 minutes a week of active management. It took us years to find the right automation, tools, and team. Setting up properties for remote management wasn’t easy. When we sold one property, buyers kept asking the same questions. How do you manage from LA? What software do you use? How did you start? Their questions distracted from the sale. They didn’t know how to evaluate, finance, or set up pricing automation. We started from zero, too. Airbnb guides we found were either flashy revenue videos or checklists. Few mention the 14% HELOC, partner fights over budgets, scam guests, or unreliable rural appraisals. The real playbook didn’t exist.
The Insight
We spent five years building that playbook by trial and error: every framework, tech choice, and lesson. It lived in our heads and Notion docs. People at our open house wouldn’t figure this out from YouTube. They needed real operational knowledge, organized and accessible. That is a product.
What I'm Building
The playbook we wish we had is now a product that helps you invest with confidence. Phase one is a $59 guide that shows you step by step how to shortlist properties, calculate profit potential, avoid common mistakes, and set a clear target for your first acquisition, all within your first week. Phase two is a $197 membership site with an AI chatbot trained on five years of real-world experience: decision frameworks, tech tools, field stories, and financial data. This leads to tailored advice and actionable recommendations, not just generic information. The tech stack behind our properties runs at about $300 per month, and you can book a stay to experience our process firsthand.