Cold open

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Live Let Thrive, a podcast about the Airbnb live, the share economy, and everything in between. Here are your hosts, Micah and Steve.

SPEAKER_03 0:11

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to another exciting episode of Live Let Thrive. Coming at you from Fort Worth,

Introducing Turno founder Assaf Karmon

SPEAKER_03 0:21

Texas. I am Stevie Stax. Mike didn't join us today, but we're gonna have a great show. We got a special guest on this episode 282 of your favorite short-term, mid-term, long-term rental podcast in the world. And we have Asof Carmen from Turno B uh sorry, just Turno. Used to be Turnover BNB. Now it's just turno.com, T-U-R-N-O.com. And he's a repeat guest. Well, he he came on the show years ago, and he is the founder of Turno. And I'm sure many of our um listeners out there use the use turno. Hopefully you all do because it's awesome. And I can personally attest to I I couldn't run my business without it. And I have over 50 rental properties that I manage, uh, short-term rentals, midterm rentals, and I I love Turno. They're not even my sponsor, but I just you know I love these guys so much. And uh I'm so happy to have you on the show again, Asof. And man, let's dive into it. First of all, uh tell me who you are, how you started this, you know, just just catch us up to speed if someone didn't hear the previous episode with you on years ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Well, thanks for having me on the show. It's it's really nice to be back. You know, I've been listening to you uh for years and uh, you know, learned a lot of things and got inspired. Um so yeah, I'm the CEO and founder of Turnov, formerly uh Turnover BNB. We're a vacation mental cleaning uh platform. We help people find cleaners, we help people manage their existing cleaners, um, and we do it uh worldwide. Um we're also um connected to your favorite PMS and uh Airbnb

From hosting burnout to building a cleaning marketplace

SPEAKER_01 2:10

and every other booking source you can imagine.

SPEAKER_03 2:13

That's cool, man. Yeah, you've been doing it for a few years now. How many years have you been in business?

SPEAKER_01 2:18

It's been uh six years or almost seven.

SPEAKER_03 2:22

Wow, wow. And what made you want to start this business? I mean, if you could refresh us, did you start off in the exciting world of short-term rentals, Airbnbs, and you thought this would be a cool thing to invent uh to help keep everything organized and the cleaners and and all that stuff?

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Yeah, so I was hosting myself and found it um really time consuming, you know, just to stay on top of schedule, stay on top of quality, finding people, paying people. I felt it was you know sucking up my time. Um, I came into it with you know a passive income mindset, um, and it wasn't passive. So I I figured let's start with the hardest thing first. What is the hardest thing about um about this business? And and for me, it was um the operations and the cleaning. So that's what I set out uh to solve, you know, in my education, my training, um, as a software engineer, as a tech lead, uh helped build a marketplace prior to that. So I've kind of had all this experience in building software, building marketplaces, and I figured we could I could apply this uh to this specific problem, and and that was it.

SPEAKER_03 3:40

You saw a problem, you came up with a solution for it, man. And you stuck with it because um, yeah, it's not easy to just create software, you know, that that actually works and that people want to use, right? But there was a big need for it because I mean you know, back then it was just pretty much Airbnb, and they were like, okay, uh, rent out your place, uh, here you go, go find you a cleaner, you know, or do it yourself, which is a lot of us started doing the cleanings ourselves ourselves, and then um then we found like uh a cousin to do it or uh uh a

How Turno eliminated the Craigslist cleaner hunt

SPEAKER_03 4:13

relative, and then we ventured off into the crazy world of um because we we've been doing this for like um man, I've been doing it for like seven or eight years already. But so, you know, back then we were like, okay, now I I can't keep doing these cleanings, right? You know, it's it's getting more and more uh difficult to stay on top of this myself, or uh my cousin really doesn't isn't very good at it, or family member or friend or whatever. And so we venture off into the world of um back the you know, Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist to try to find cleaners, and then um and we go through all that and try to keep them on their schedule and and stuff like that, you know. So I'm um I bring it all the way back around to like when whenever we discovered you. I think Micah told me about you, and and we said, Okay, you can go on there and find cleaners, that's cool. And then it keeps everything, you know, the schedule, it keeps the schedule for them because you link it up with iCal to Airbnb, VRBO, and then they know when to go clean. We don't got to tell them, hey, you gotta go clean tomorrow, you know. I'm saying, and so it was just like it was a game changer, big time, and and then you know the cleaners were ranked and they had stars, you know, five-star cleaners, and and people wrote, you know, a about a thing about them if they were great cleaners or or not so great, and and so that that's what was was uh that was so cool because you know, one stop shopping, you created something awesome, and and we still use it, man. I still use uh turnover BNB. I'm sorry, I still use turno. Doug, I knew I was gonna say that. I was trying, I was telling myself not gonna mess up, but I I still use it, you know. Um, well, my VAs use it, you know. So it's easy it's user-friendly, they they handle all the cleanings, turnovers, you know. We don't have to like um ask for pictures or videos, it's all uploaded to the site. Um, every single you know, it's not like infomercial, but every single uh um property has has its own uh uh you know um checklist. Checklist, there you go. That's the word on how to clean. And you if you don't know how to do a checklist, go he has a bunch of examples on there. Go go steal someone else's checklist on how to clean.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Our philosophy has always been we want people

The manage-by-exception philosophy

SPEAKER_01 6:21

to manage by exception, right? Just go ahead, create your kind of operation script, the things that you want done, find the people that you want to work with, set up everything so that it happens automatically. A guest books your place, the cleaner is notified when to go, they know what to do. As they're finished, all the documentation gets uploaded, they automatically get paid. You don't have to do a damn thing, right? Unless there's an exception, and this is where you know you step in or you your VA step in. Um and that's how it should be, right? Like it should be passive. That that has been my mission, you know, since starting this, making this a passive income, right? So you set up your operation, and if there's no exception, you don't have to do anything. You just uh sit back and relax, or you know, add more properties, or keep working on the other things you're working on. Um but just create a template, create a script, and and just let it run, you know. Um that that has been our mission, and you know, we're working to make it to reduce you know those exceptions um to the bare bare minimum so that you can grow your business.

SPEAKER_03 7:46

Nice, nice. And and I always and I told the story before, I think when you first hopped on, I was a little embarrassed to tell the story, but but as a you know, an early operator, we're always looking for ways to save a buck, right? And so I was like, okay, you know, I'm gonna find I'm gonna find me a cleaner from there, you know, get started in the in the app, whatever, and then you know, maybe make a deal

Why cleaners choose to stay in-platform

SPEAKER_03 8:06

with her outside of the app and save some money for both of us. You know, I was thinking of doing something, you know, guilty, whatever. We we try to save money when we're we're bootstrapping it early on, right? And and so what tripped me out was like the cleaner that I that I told this to. I was like, hey, dude, you want to just deal outside the app, save us both money, whatever, no fees. She's like, you know, no, I'd rather stay inside the app. I said, Really? Why? Is it well? Because you know, it just keeps everything organized for me. Because now I'm picking up more houses, it keeps my schedules in line, it tells me when I have cleanings, I don't have to rely on a last minute call from uh from a host saying, Oh, you need to get over here and clean, you know, as so that blew me away, you know. And now, I mean, that was like an early on thought, you know, when I'm getting my first cleaner off of there, but after the after, you know, we have several cleaners for different properties in different cities, there's no way I could step away from the app, you know what I'm saying? So so I thought that that was uh that was cool that even though you're taking a percentage of of their money, you know, a little small percentage of ours, that that they still want to stay within the app and do everything in there. That that speaks volumes to what you've created.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

You know, well, thank thanks for uh keeping it honest, or at least uh failing to not keeping honest. But you know, I think our you know our pricing is we we take five percent um of a cleaning fee, which is you know ultimately just a couple of dollars. Uh and I think we earn it because we we save people a lot of time and a lot of headache and a lot of mind space, knowing that they don't have to think about you know communication, they don't have to think about scheduling, everything is in one place for them. Oh, you know, we do your even your taxes for you, you know, collect all the receipts, we issue 1099 to the cleaners. It's just a tremendous amount of work that if you are even a little bit serious about running this as a business, uh then you you should embrace, right? There's very few things in life that only cost a handful of dollars and save you so much time and so much trouble and give you so much value.

SPEAKER_03 10:15

Oh, yeah, big time. And once you start scaling your business, you you look for things like that that that'll save you time because it just gets overwhelming. And if someone can take care of an issue for you 100% and make it passive, the clean-ins, you know, the most important part of this business, then then man, that's a that's just a lifesaver right there. And so you mentioned 1099s, we're coming up on the end of the year. This episode is like December 13th, I believe, of 2023. And so that was a that was a problem too, earlier. Like, you gotta send these cleaners a 1099, hopefully they fill it out, you know, and and you gotta keep track of that and keep track of how much you paid them, and they're like, Oh, do you have to report it? Kind of, you know, with you guys, y'all do that for us, and and that takes uh that takes that off of our plate. So we do appreciate that as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

I mean, just the amount of money that you'd have to pay your uh accountant to deal with it, right? We we we s we saved you that. But yeah, I mean that's you know, I tell that to a lot

Replacing clunky chat with best-in-class messaging

SPEAKER_01 11:17

of operators. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. You know, there's a lot of tools that have been created for you. Adopt it and roll with it. Um, and you don't have to think about it twice. When you run a business, there's gonna be, you know, a few costs here and there. Um, I think our app specifically is really, really inexpensive compared to the value that we deliver. Um, and in the end, all businesses are basically a bunch of other services duct taped together, right? Uh in one way or another, if you're looking at it, you know, our business, we run it. I don't I don't know how long is the list of services that we use. We have a little software for everything that we do. Um, and that helps you keep um head count low and help you keep productivity high if you're using really great tools to solve specific problems and you don't have to reinvent the wheel.

SPEAKER_03 12:20

So, like what was one like you like you said, you started this uh six, seven years ago, something like that, right? Six or yeah. Okay. So what was something that that was like an issue that kept coming up that you had to had to fix within the app? Do you remember something that sticks out that like early on you were doing it a certain way, but then after a lot of complaints came in or whatever, you were able to to you know discover a problem and fix it?

SPEAKER_01 12:49

For example, you know, our chat system used to be kind of clunky. Um, and that was because we were using, you know, we built it ourselves. Um, and then after really a couple of years of of just keep hearing that people didn't like our chat system, we went ahead and and we, you know, we just paid quite a bit of money for you know a service that only does chat, right? Like their chat is as good as WhatsApp or iMessage, uh, and you can just bolt it into your software uh and it really elevates you know the user experience. And and like I mentioned before, don't reinvent the wheel. If someone else uh invented it and it's the top of its class, then you know, shelling that little bit to use it is is a wise choice.

SPEAKER_03 13:43

Yeah, yeah. Even so even you, you know that you outsource what you can't what you can't do uh extremely well yourself. You outsource it.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Yeah, you know, it's like uh you know buy or build is um you know kind of a business dilemma that every business owner needs to face. Like, do I make my own or do I adopt something that someone else built that is really specialized at? And you know, most of the time the answer is buy and not build, unless it's something you're really passionate about, and you think that is the point of you know differentiation that is going to make your business um you know thrive.

SPEAKER_03 14:26

And how how is the um you know the ranking

Cleaner ranking system and marketplace accountability

SPEAKER_03 14:29

there the rating your cleaners uh how has that improved over time, you know, instead of just I don't know. It how has that improved where we can rate them better and they can rate, I guess, us too?

SPEAKER_01 14:40

So so it you know it really is a um an issue of just having on a critical mass. Uh once we have you know a lot more users and a lot more volume, a lot of more time, then uh the quality of the reviews increases uh and we have more data that kind of shapes our ranking. Uh so you know, we look obviously at the reviews that the customers um left, uh we look at the responsiveness, uh, we look at you know the overall number of customers someone is serving, um, and are they able to retain customers, right? So if you're you know the cleaner that you've talked to that you uh were trying to make a side deal with, like they knew that you know if they were gonna go off platform, that they were gonna lose their access um you know to more customers. The same way that an Airbnb host knows that if he's gonna take his guests offline, that there's a risk that Airbnb will know and then you know that they would lose their ranking on Airbnb.

SPEAKER_03 15:49

Oh yeah, yeah. Have you ever had uh kick cleaners off of the platform?

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Um yeah, absolutely. So if someone is not uh you know, I don't personally deal with it right now on a day-to-day basis, but it does happen. Uh, you know, if someone is not performing, you know, not doing a good job cleaning or not showing up or you know, going off the platform, then then yeah. You know, it's when you're running a marketplace, your job is to make sure that um there is consistent quality experience, that the people who are providing the services are doing a good job in a similar way to Amazon or Airbnb. You know, if someone is getting consistently poorer reviews, um then you they're not gonna stay on Airbnb, or that they're not gonna see the light of day in terms of being on the top of the list.

SPEAKER_03 16:53

Now, have you noticed your um turno being more like um accepted and just like the residential area, like like my house? If I want to have a cleaner, start cleaning my house once a month or something like that. Have people from that um, I guess just regular day and day day-to-day life been utilizing turno, or is that just more is this more for just short-term rentals?

SPEAKER_01 17:16

We are focused on short-term rentals. Um we have some people that are you know using us for vacation rentals and also for uh their own homes, uh, but not we don't have a dedicated residential offering. We might we may go there in the future. I, for example, use Turno uh on my home. And you know, I just love the experience of just having it on autopilot. There's a there's a really nice lady, she comes every Wednesday and she uses the checklist that I created. There's some things that I'm particular about, and she's following my checklist, she's letting me know through our inventory. Uh, you know, if I need to buy Windex, if I need to buy um, you know, paper towels or detergent or um stuff like that. So it helps me stay on top of things. You know, being kind of a busy person, it's it's sometimes uh hard to stay on top of things, and you know, I need all the help I can get.

SPEAKER_03 18:23

How does Cerno help with like the logistics sides of things as far as supplies?

SPEAKER_01 18:29

So you can create your supply list um and ask, and you know, once you create your supply list, every time the cleaner goes in to clean uh the unit, uh, they would report the level of supplies. So for example, toilet paper. Um if you track that uh and it falls behind below a certain threshold, it would trigger a notification for you um to go ahead and replenish. Um and you can do that for you know, shampoo, for soap, for coffee, for sugar, for salt, pepper, oil, whatever your guests need, you can set um as an inventory item, and that would help you stay on top of that because you know if if you look at all the reviews you're getting on Airbnb, usually the poor reviews are one where a guest was expecting something and and wasn't receiving it. For example, no toilet paper or no soap, like you'd get dinged for that.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Oh yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

So it it a really smart thing to to make sure you you have like an operational script that prevents you from um falling into that trap, right?

SPEAKER_03 19:52

Yeah, exactly. And and is there like a way to do supply runs within the app if you need a cleaner to go pick up some stuff?

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Uh you'd have to, you know, you can message them on our our chat and ask something, or you can create uh a project that is a supply run. Um and it's something that I've been thinking about, and and maybe it will happen in the future where we automate uh supplies, where let's say something falls beneath a certain threshold that we create you know an automatic purchase order, you know, and with Walmart or Amazon or Target, um, and that just kind of arrives. Um, I think that would be next level cool. I'm still thinking about ways to do it. Please do that.

SPEAKER_03 20:40

I that was one of my questions, too. If you're gonna kind of you know make a widget to link up with Amazon or or Walmart, you know, that's where we order most of our stuff. So if you're if you're able to do that, that would be awesome.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Yeah, I I I love Amazon and Walmart. I think it you know really makes life's easier. Now that Walmart does this, you know, they deliver stuff within hours for ten dollars, it's it's a lifesaver.

SPEAKER_03 21:07

I love it, man, so much. Uh I've been using them a lot.

Trash removal projects and recurring automations

SPEAKER_03 21:11

Uh man, that yeah, that was one of my questions I was gonna ask. Another, another, another issue I think I asked you a long time ago, um, with houses in particular, um, is is trash pickup or trash uh removal, you know, and that's a big thing. Is there is there something you're you're working on in the app that could help us with that? Because sometimes, you know, a guest leaves and it ain't trash day until like two days later or something like that. And the cleaners, you know, driving around a little car, they're not gonna take all these trash bags. So we got to find another um you know, another answer to to this problem.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

So right now we don't have a way to to link you up with trash removal, but if you know a trash removal person, you can add them to your um team members section, and you can create A project that is like a trash removal project. Um, and you can um sort of automate that so that it happens on a recurring basis.

SPEAKER_03 22:14

Okay, so like and they would see when the turnovers happen, of course. And then they would go there and and check for any trash and maybe exactly clean around the outside of the house a little bit if some you know trash accumulates if people hang out in the front yard or backyard. So yeah, that'd be a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

You can get a trash pick up project, you can set a price against it, then once they do it, we automatically pay them. So, you know, it's one more thing that you don't have to do, and then you know, ultimately you arrive at that completely passive uh source of income, right?

SPEAKER_03 22:49

You you love passive man. The word of the day.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

I mean, this is what we get into this for is the yield, right? You get a better yield on your on your uh property than you do from a long, you know, a long-term resident. But now the goal is to reduce the effort so that um you're not trading, you know, a lot of your time in exchange for that higher return.

SPEAKER_03 23:22

And speaking of passive, I I do laugh when I when I see gurus out there saying, start you an Airbnb, make some passive income. I'm like, oh my gosh, these people don't know that this is like the least passive way to do real estate, but you're helping making parts of it at least more more um passive for us or for you know operators out there.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

That's the goal, man. That's the goal. The goal is to make this as passive as possible while um you know mean maintaining your time for yourself.

SPEAKER_03 23:56

Yeah, no, it like I said earlier, you know, it it it I couldn't run my business without without turno, and and it and it helps tremendously and have everything in one place. I don't even you know, I don't even look at any, you know, tell you the truth anymore because I taught the the uh my VAs how to do it, and they took it from there. It's it's like something I could pass off to them, so it's even more passive to me because they're the ones communicating with the cleaners, getting all the you know the the pictures, videos, whatever in in the app. Um, they have the instructions there. So I don't even look, I don't even log in eternal, you know, truth be told. If we need more cleaners, we got a new unit coming in. I say, hey, we got more units. They they go find the cleaners, they set everything up. I mean, they do everything because it's it's it's easy to use.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

That's that's what we were here to do. We we want to be the infrastructure that people use when when they operate short-term rentals, right? There's no need for everyone to do all this work of scheduling and communication and sourcing and issuing manual payments and doing taxes and taking pictures. Like, no, stop doing that. We've built this for you. Use it so that you can you know spend time with your kids, find your next property, get a hobby, right? You don't have to, if you just kind of relink will relinquish a little bit of control, um, and you know, trust you know, our platform that you know tens of thousands of people are using, like you can really claw back a lot of time to and then invest that time somewhere somewhere else, get another property.

SPEAKER_03 25:34

Nice, nice. Now, uh is there more competition now doing something like you're doing, you know, an app for the you know cleaners.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Listen, you know, if if there is a big opportunity, it's always gonna attract uh more competitors, and and that's that's natural. Um we know we're lucky that we were able to kind of be first here and kind of create this uh leadership position. But yeah, obviously, you know, wherever there's an opportunity, people are gonna come in and um you know, welcome.

SPEAKER_03 26:11

I'll tell you, I'll tell you something that that um that occurs. And like I said, we have uh a ton of properties and hundreds of turnovers, and and so what happens sometimes, and it's happened before, a cleaner might show up. I mean, we won't realize this till later, they'll they'll show up to a property late, you know, like an hour or 30 minutes before the the next guest gets there because just because they have a full schedule, and I understand you know, cleaners get a good cleaner sought after, they might have a full schedule, but they'll be like, oh my god, this place is a mess. I need more time, blah blah blah. Tell the people and and um we're like, oh, what's going on here? But we we we look at the cameras later, like, holy crap, they they got there like 30 minutes before the get the guests arrive. So do y'all uh do y'all have anything like uh you know the pizza tracker or the the GPS tracker, the Amazon tracker? Do you really?

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Absolutely. Yeah, so if you if if you go into your app and you look at a specific project, you can see kind of the the time that they they started and where they were when they started it. Um so that you know, the nice thing about using turno, you know, we obviously we don't eliminate a hundred percent of the problem that happens when you work with people, but we give you the tools to help you solve them. For example, like this like geolocation uh that's associated with every project. Um and and also the nice thing of working through a platform is that there is accountability that is built into this. Uh, because when someone is working on on our platform, they know that they are ranked. Um and you know, when they mess up, that you know their rank is is diminished, uh, which doesn't happen when you work with you know an individual that is like straight off of Facebook Marketplace or or whatever. Um you know, sure that there's always going to be problems uh with people, but we help reduce those um to a bare minimum. You know, sometimes you get an Uber and and it's not a good experience. And then there is a you know, there's a feedback process that helps keep people accountable and and overall elevate the level of service that you're getting. Uh so we strive to do the same thing.

SPEAKER_03 28:40

Okay. Now, do you because here's the thing too, uh we've had in the past is a cleaner will if they finish the cleaning, like, oh, I forgot to hit the start button. You know, they hit the start button and then one second later they hit finished. So is that is that still are they still able

Geolocation tracking catches late-arriving cleaners

SPEAKER_03 28:56

to do that? Because that doesn't seem like a cool thing, you know, where they can start and finish it right away.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Yeah, so you know, we we we try to keep make people aware of of things that so that they started and ended the same amount of uh you know at the appropriate time, but we also want to keep it flexible so that in case people make mistakes that they can recover for them. We don't want someone to go and clean and then forget to click start and then never get paid, right? Um, so we we keep it um as flexible as as we can.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

Okay, cool. Yeah, that the geolocation thing, that's pretty cool, man. So we'll know when they actually arrive to start cleaning and not give us grief and say, hey, this place is too messy, I need more time. And that screws us up, you know. So that's it. No, absolutely, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

And and you know, I I think it's these are not robots, right? I mean, cleaners are are you know people that are you know working really hard and the vast, vast majority are really on top of things, um, and really try to provide a great service um to the extent that they can. Um but if someone does disappoint you, make sure to you know leave a review so that um they are being held accountable.

SPEAKER_03 30:26

That's true. That is true, man. Um, so like we all gonna get into like uh go back to houses, you know. We got the yeah, the trash pickup thing. And and I think I told you about it, uh a thing I was working on back then. I still have the name, I still have the domain name. And so I might, you know, I might do something like that. What was the domain name? Trash B. Trash B and B. Yeah, it's actually a strong name according to uh GoDaddy. Um I sold gamer B. I had I had started one called Gamer BNB and I sold it for like 4,000 bucks. I was like, whoa, a little ten dollar domain sold it for 4,000. So if anybody wants to buy trash BNB, hit me up. Um so so I think I asked you before, like, what about like for lawn service? And and you you thought about doing something like that, you know, incorporating, you know, because like Airbnb is out of houses, we need someone to to do the lawns, and we're still that's still kind of old school. I still got to find a guy, I gotta call him. Oh, some guest said, or somebody the cleaner said that the grass is high, they need to go clean it. You you got anything like that in the works?

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Yes. So we are working on kind of expanding the the range of services that that we offer beyond cleaning to also um you know, maintenance, pool service, yard service. That's a long, longer-term project. It's gonna take some time to to build that network so that it's reliable. Um, it took us a long time to build a very big and reliable network of cleaners kind of all over uh North America and now we're in Europe. Um, it's gonna take some time, but this is something you hopefully next time I come on the platform, uh on the podcast, which shouldn't hopefully not gonna be another four or five years, and we can talk we can talk about that because it the the vision is to really have all the services that you need in order to run that passive income asset.

SPEAKER_03 32:26

Hmm. That that I mean when you said that, I automatically thought, you know, the some of the online the the biggest complaints are man, the the the guests got there in the pool's green or the hot tub's disgusting or stuff like that, and they don't have you know, they have a guy that comes every now and then, right? Or or whenever they can they can make it out there. But if yeah, if you could automate that too, because that's a that's huge, man, because people will cancel. They'll cancel a big a big trip because they're paying a lot of money for that pool or hot tub, you know.

SPEAKER_01 32:55

You know, we we we're competing with hotels, right? And hotels they have really, really structured operation scripts, so you need to be on par with that, and you need to have your operation script that's automated, uh, and that leaves less room for error. Like, like you mentioned, you know, you you work hard, you buy a property, um, you you renovate it, you decorate it, you put it out there, and then someone comes and like you know, the pool is green. You can't blame them for being upset. No, you can't, for sure. You just you just need to create the process that that makes sure that it doesn't happen.

SPEAKER_03 33:38

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 33:39

And and um so just right now with Turner, you can create pool projects um on the platform. You just have to find your old your own pool person um to do it. We we don't have pool people for you right now, but hopefully in the future.

SPEAKER_03 33:59

And you can just plug them right in. Yep. No, that's that's beautiful. And the um what was I gonna say? Uh I have a question right here. Oh well, I guess another thing, um the cleaners. So they I heard them say it takes a few days to get paid. Now, is that is that being sped up at

Two-day payout lag explained

SPEAKER_03 34:19

all? Um cleaner payouts.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

So we pay them immediately, right? So whenever we charge a customer, we immediately pay out the cleaner. It's just the time that it takes from the card processing to hit their bank. Okay, right? So if you if you know if you're running a business and you are accepting credit cards, there is a lag uh from um the time you charge it until the time you get the money. It it is we get the money at the same time that the cleaner gets the money. Um it it's just the way that card processing works. Um, there's there's a two-day delay um that is just part of it. Are you still in Hawaii? I personally live in Hawaii. Love it here. It's it's uh it's a wonderful place to live. Actually, today is kind of like a sucky rainy day. It's been raining all day long, but it's usually not like that. It's just like nice sunshine and kind of mild weather and like gentle wind. Um, but I'm I'm loving it here, man. It's it's great. You're in Texas, right?

SPEAKER_03 35:34

Yeah, yeah. Over here in Fort Worth. Yeah, it's um I mean, it's all right. It's okay. We get extreme heat and extreme cold, so we get both of them. Yeah, it's really nice. Yeah. The the um you know Honolulu, right? It was it Honolulu, yes, Honolulu, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

So I've never been promise to uh hit me up whenever you come over. We'll get you a Mai Thai by the beach. We can maybe record a special episode.

SPEAKER_03 36:04

Oh, yeah, that'd be awesome,

Supporting Maui cleaners after the Lahaina fires

SPEAKER_03 36:06

man. You can write it up. Uh it's a right, definitely a write-off. It's um yeah, I've never been to Hollywood. I've been to I've been to um Maui a couple times, beautiful, and of course, that was before the you know the fires and everything.

SPEAKER_01 36:23

So you know, Maui is open for business. Um, Lahaina, you know, beautiful, beautiful historic town. Um, but it is a very small part of Maui. Uh, the rest of Maui is actually it's a good time to visit because prices are relatively lower uh because of because of the this crisis. Um and I mean it's still Maui, it's still very expensive, but a little less so. Uh and they really need the business. I think some people overdid it asking people not to come to Maui. Um, and now they're suffering from both the you know the the consequences of the fire and also from kind of a dip in business in the rest of Maui that is coming from this perception that sort of Maui is all burnt up. It's not like the rest of the island is is as beautiful as it's always been.

SPEAKER_03 37:19

It's a big island, man. I know it hit that one spot pretty hard, but like you said, yeah, yeah. But um, yeah, that is weird. People get on pedal stools online and start, you know, saying things they shouldn't say.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

We yeah, we started this like you know, uh GoFundMe to um kind of offer some support for the turno cleaners um on Maui that specifically in Lahaina. There's a group of them that used to uh turn a lot of properties in Lahaina, and because they're all burnt up, then they had to um they had to leave. Uh, you know, we raise you know several thousand dollars and and give it to them, and we also offer to you know move their kind of reputation on turna to wherever it is that they're moving to so that they continue can continue operating their cleaning businesses uh somewhere else.

SPEAKER_03 38:14

Yeah. Has did the um strict short-term rental laws loosen up because of the fires or not really?

SPEAKER_01 38:22

Um so Maui has its own um, it's separate from Honolulu, but short-term rentals have kind of proved their worth in that situation because all those people who are displaced, they needed places to live on a short-term basis. Um, and they were able to find places to live through Airbnb, which is you know, it's a great platform for for exactly this kind of situation. And and people have been going to Airbnb after every major kind of natural disaster, right? If it's like a hurricane or a flood, people need a place to stay. Where do they go? They go to Airbnb, or they're not gonna be you know living out of a you know a small hotel room. Yeah, yeah. Right? They need a place to be in Airbnb has been really great as a platform for exactly these kind of use cases.

SPEAKER_03 39:17

Man, yeah, yeah, that's absolutely right, man. So then any kind of natural disaster and stuff, you know, people they even it lets you put your place on there for free to help people out, stuff like that. So it's um it's been a big help for sure.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

Yeah, no, and and you know, obviously it's not free. Um, it's infrastructure that is expensive to run and operate. And I I'm I'm a big fan of Airbnb, you know, creating creating this whole category out of thin air, um enabling all the entrepreneurs to, you know, uh to make a good living, giving travelers a great choice of you know a place to stay. Um, I was just in Vancouver two weeks ago and

Serving two masters: hosts and guests

SPEAKER_01 40:01

stayed in an Airbnb. Um it was great. You know, it was adds like so much character. Uh, you know, it had a fireplace. Like which hotel is gonna let you have a fireplace in your room and all that liability.

SPEAKER_03 40:17

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean it's to me, I you know, to me, it's a net positive, of course. Um, I'm in the industry. A lot of people badmouth Airbnb, and and you know, I mean it's hard to serve, it's like they say, it's hard to serve two masters because they're trying to please the guests and then they're trying to please the hosts, right? And it's hard to do both perfectly. I understand their dilemma, right? So if a host complains and you know they want to get paid for something that messed up, broke, I don't know, trashed the place, and but same thing, guests wanna, you know, get a full refund because it wasn't like they thought it was gonna be. You know, it's hard to make everybody happy, right?

SPEAKER_01 40:55

I I can really relate to oh you do that, you know, because we're in exactly the same spot. We have two masters to please, we have you know the cleaners that we love, and we have our hosts that we also love, and we want to create a platform that serves both, um in a way that everyone is happy, but you sometimes you can't can't make everyone happy, and and that's difficult. You know, an Airbnb side you in the end, like this the money comes from the guest and you right, and and um you have to make sure that the guest is happy because if the guest is not happy, then there's no industry, there's nothing.

SPEAKER_03 41:44

That is true. There's no industry. Maybe there's no turno.

SPEAKER_01 41:48

I mean that's no turno, right? So you know, it's all ultimately we're all feeding from the from the guest. So we all have to make sure that the guest is happy, and and you know, and our role in this industry is to make sure that the good guest has a quality stay, that you walk into a property and it's clean and it's up to par with with what people expect.

SPEAKER_02 42:16

Right?

SPEAKER_01 42:17

You want to make sure that you have your towels, you have your coffee, you have your toilet paper, you have everything that you need to have a really nice day, and then that you're not turned off by vacation rentals. You know, like, oh, I had this bad experience, I'm only staying in hotels going forward. So, you know, our role in the industry is to make to make it you know more standardized and more um you know repeatable as a quality stay, that every time you go to a vacation rental, you just feel this like you know, sense of order and cleanliness and everything in its place and everything you need is where it is, uh, and reducing those errors and those you know kind of oversights that ultimately turn people off from vacation rentals. So even if we're not serving you as a vacation rental owner, we're serving other people and we're elevating their level of service so that people who use them are be like, oh wow, I stayed in an Airbnb or vacation rental and I loved it. It was great, it was clean. Um, and I'm gonna do it again. Here's an idea, man.

SPEAKER_03 43:32

I uh I don't know, I get ideas all the time. But uh this this kind of motivates this is kind of from um I'm thinking of back you mentioned hotels, and and you expect that perfectly clean, you know, crisp sheets, and uh you got the little coffee bar over there, everything's in this perfect spot, and the cups in the in the sink, everything has you know perfect. They do so many of the same turnovers in the same place, so you know it's it's a machine, those hotels, but um they would always leave this car. Right, this card and say, you know, the cleaner. Hi, I'm Maria. I'll be the cleaning. And and and it motivates me to put a few bucks to Maria, you know. Hey, take care of the cleaner while I'm here. Um, what if you sent out cards, you know, to the your cleaners? It has a little has a little uh you know that square that you scan with your phone, you know what I'm saying? Uh what is that called? The the QR code. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

Um so you can tip the cleaners. If you hacked into my phone, how do you know? How do you know about we're working on something very similar?

SPEAKER_03 44:39

Before you finish, uh that's what I was uh because I keep staring at your your logo right there, turno. And it's hi, you know, I'm Maria, and you this this room has been cleaned by a a professional turno cleaner. If you if you're happy with my work, you know, you can scan this QR or whatever. If you need anything, scan this QR. I can bring you whatever you need. I think that that'd be cool. And then you like you said, uh I hacked into your phone, maybe that's where I saw it.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

I I think so. I think ultimately cleaners, it's a really hard job. Um, and what I love about you know the the cleaners

QR code tipping cards and guest checkout feature

SPEAKER_01 45:14

on our platform is that they're all so so hardworking and they're all hustling, right? Like they could work retail, they could work other jobs that are less demanding, but they choose to do this you know because it pays well. Um, and you know, they they have their own schedule, um, and and they're all really striving and working really hard. Um, and if we can make their life easier, if we can like you know drive them some tips, then we're gonna try and do that.

SPEAKER_03 45:44

Well, yeah, and it's not even just the tips, you know, didn't mean to make a pun there, but but um also it's showing somebody, yeah, yeah, professional turn. This is a turno clean, you know, professional clean. Any comments or anything, you know, um you'd like to add or any anything that's out of place. I don't know, I don't know how to write it off my top of my head, but please scan here, let us know. It would help us tremendously too, because a guest would walk in say and see a card sitting there and you know, by the fresh the waters and snacks or whatever, be you see a card there, and they say, Oh, you know, there's yeah, that bed's a little or or something a little messy, or they they missed a spot here, they can scan it and and and tell us it will freaking fix it instead of going straight to Airbnb and trying to get a free night or free whole stay because uh you know Steve, we have that already.

SPEAKER_01 46:39

Okay, um, that is called the guest checkout feature uh on turno. If you go there, you can enable it. Uh it will give you codes for each property, and then you can send it to your guest through you know your guest messaging, or you can like create a little printout, and then um as they're checking out, they can rate their stay internally um and then also write you some feedback, and that would give you some time um to you know work with them on a resolution before it hits um you know a review on the platform so that because those are harder to remove and edit. So if if you know that they've had a bad stay before they they are leaving a review, then it it helps mitigate those.

SPEAKER_03 47:36

Okay, and that's great for the checkout thing, but uh on our end, the most of the complaints is right when they walk through the door. Yeah. And that's when they're demanding a full refund or or give me a day as a night stay because of this, because of that. But if they walk through the door, they see their little snack thing and right by the card and say, if you have any complaints about this professional turno clean or this from Maria, please let us know, or please scan this and it'll send and let us know exactly what's wrong, and we'll fix everything. That would help us tremendously on the front end. The back end, they might already be pissed after day one and day two. They just have a terrible stay and they just want to, you know, whatever. But if they as soon as they walk in, they know that okay, we're gonna fix the problem right away. And and that that's I think that would be helpful.

SPEAKER_01 48:22

Yeah, absolutely. And and it, you know, we've written uh we've talked about it a lot, but our job is to make sure that they do have that great experience when they walk through the door, and a big part of it is having uh a property that's been turned and and immaculately clean and is inviting and and and all of that, so that we we meet that kind of first um first impression with with a good score, right?

SPEAKER_03 48:55

Yeah, yeah, and I mean a little bit of advertising for you guys too. So turno, turno clean. You know, I've been I've been wanting to host a Airbnb. And then you know, nowadays we host a lot of hosts because it's everybody almost everybody does Airbnb nowadays. So so yeah, I'm sure a lot of them use it, but if someone's on the fence or wants to start an Airbnb, oh turno does you know Airbnb cleans. That's that's who I need to call. Yeah, I don't know. That's right. Good advice, yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm here for.

SPEAKER_01 49:22

I should come on the show more often.

SPEAKER_03 49:25

Yeah, bring a notepad or I'll send you the video. Um no, but uh yeah, I'm just um I love I love what y'all do, and and I know I know you got a million things you want to implement, you know. Oh, and so that's that's cool. And but um, yeah, I'm just trying to give you some some feedback from our end, what would help us? So, like, yeah, the the same first impression is everything. So that's what's what we want to get right to the guest, you know. Yes, and so um, yeah, man. I have you know, you've answered uh every question that I've had that I was thinking of asking you for a while. The Walmart thing, Amazon thing, a plug-in, that'd be cool. Um, discounts for big operators, you know, then you already offer something like that for uh you know professional hosts, you offer a discount on on the uh percentage, you know, that you take from from the from our side, right?

SPEAKER_01 50:18

Um, you know, so to be honest, our margin is kind of small, you know, it's five percent. It's not like we take like 20%. So we don't really have a lot of room to work with in that sense, but we we do have you know custom pricing if uh you're using your own cleaners and you know if you want to work on a subscription um discount, but we do have an offer for your listeners. Um if you go to turna.com slash thrive, I made it short so that people don't misspell or mistype. Uh so turna.com slash thrive, uh, they will get a hundred and fifty dollar Amazon gift card um after they complete their first marketplace project with us. So if you go to turn.com, you find your cleaner. Um after you complete your first project, you're gonna get uh a hundred and fifty dollar Amazon gift card. Uh you just have to start your journey at turner.com slash ride.

SPEAKER_03 51:25

Wow. So so hire your wife to do the first clean so she gets paid, and then you get paid.

SPEAKER_01 51:30

And then everybody always, always, always thinking in you know shady stuff.

SPEAKER_03 51:35

See hey man, whatever brings us in it your product's good enough, it it'll survive dudes like me. But hey, you know, if your wife wants to start a clean business, you know, let me know.

SPEAKER_01 51:46

We can we can help her out.

SPEAKER_03 51:48

Okay, she did used to clean back in the day. Yeah, it was bad. We I mean, not to want a bad cleaner, but I would I would walk in from work and say, hey, what's this over here? What's uh what you know, it's just it wasn't it wasn't a good uh yeah scenario. So she got out of the cleaning of the units, and then yeah, we got into turno. So that's uh yeah, it all worked out great, man.

SPEAKER_01 52:09

You know, we I bet we've saved plenty of marriages uh from you know people trying to clean their own uh rental and stressing out about it. And I have a cool story. One of our first investors um was this couple, uh, had a beautiful rental, and and one of them was doing the cleaning, and there was a lot of frustration and anger about uh the scheduling and all the stress involved with it. And you know, after they started using turnover, or at the time it was turnover BNB, like all that stress disappeared, and they were so happy that they want they thought it was the greatest thing in the world and they wanted to invest in it. I I think they did a great good decision there, but um it's all about removing stress and removing all that um kind of negative aspects of hosting.

SPEAKER_03 53:02

Yeah, that's it, it is it is stressful to be a host, it's very stressful to bring a spouse into it as well. So so if you can take take that off the plate, which you did for us, and I and I appreciate that. And you know, we met a nice cleaner, like like you said, you know, you set up your house through turno to get cleaners to clean the house. So we met nice cleaners, and then for our own house, outside of that, not with the business, we they've they've done some brilliance for us at our own house, so it's really helped too. The white helps the wife out, you know. She loves to oh, cool, that that's a really cool gift. Someone's gonna come clean our whole house, and and of course, we wouldn't hiring someone off Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace, you don't know what you're gonna get. But if you already know you have a great cleaner, then clean your house too. So it was a win-win. Awesome. Yeah, that's great. So, yeah, man. Uh I love the I love you guys. Uh, thank you all for for uh all you do for the community out there and and um empowering these cleaners to start their own businesses. I think that's really cool too. A big side of it, you know, big side effect of it is there, yeah, they can actually start start a business and it helps them keep everything in order and and um and thrive on their end.

SPEAKER_01 54:16

For for us, it's not a side business, you know, effect this is what we wanted to do. And um nothing makes me happier than seeing someone who signs up as an individual cleaner and you know gets the reputation up, and then they're like, Oh, I need to hire another person and another person, another person, and all of a sudden a couple of years later, they have like a huge staff and they have a big business, and and they've built it on our platform, and it just makes me it makes it all worth it, you know. It really does.

SPEAKER_03 54:47

That is cool, man. Well, thank you, brother. I would ask where people could find you, but I think they could find you at turno.com, right?

SPEAKER_01 54:55

T-U-R-N-O.com. Five layer domain. We're very happy with it.

SPEAKER_03 55:00

That's nice, man. And then turno.com slash thrive and get you a $150 Amazon card just in time for Christmas and start your own little turno journey, man. I I can't say enough about these guys. Thank you, Soft, for hopping on again. We will see you again in the future with all these cool new things you're gonna implement in the next coming years, and um, yeah, man. Thanks for having me and happy holidays. Happy holidays, brother. Take care. Take care. Live let thrive. See y'all later. Out.

SPEAKER_00 55:34

Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of Live Let Thrive. Be sure to tune in next week for all the latest in the world. Bye bye.