SPEAKER_00 0:00

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

SPEAKER_06 0:11

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to another exciting episode of Live Let Throw.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

What is up, Micah?

SPEAKER_06 0:23

Man, I'm chilling, Stevie Stacks. How you doing?

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Wonderful on this beautiful day. Got my coffee ready. We're gonna have some, we're gonna talk some shop with a uh industry leader, an expert in the field of PMS or PMPs or whatever you want to call them. It is Igor from IGMS joining the show. And I can't wait to dive in. We are Live Let Thrive, as you know, episode 276 of your favorite short-term, mid-term, long-term rental podcast in the world. And we're always trying to learn new things, and we got a great guest today. And Igor is gonna tell us everything that he knows, and we're gonna, you know, use it to grow our business. So I'll give a little lead-in on Igor. He's uh says the founders met years ago at a baby shower in Vancouver. Both had a history of entrepreneurship and were engaged in the sharing economy, particularly as Airbnb hosts. Recognizing Vancouver's appeal to the international investors, especially from Asia, they noticed an absence of major players managing short-term rentals. This led to them to establish a short-term rental management business named BB Care. As their business grew, they encountered difficulties managing communication across multiple Airbnb accounts. Despite searching extensively, they couldn't find a software solution that integrated with Airbnb, leveraging their IT backgrounds. One founder even had experience selling a project to BMW. They developed their own solution, initially named Airbnb MultiChat, later referred to as Air GMS. And I'll stop there. It's a long thing you got going on, but welcome to the short show. Igor, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_07 2:06

Hi, hi, I'm doing well. Thank you. Thank you. That's a cool intro.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Yeah, um the caffeine helps a little, man. Uh sorry if I messed up on some things. So, real quick, uh, how did you get your start personally? I know we went over the thing a little bit uh in the short-term mental uh economy, the business, the you know, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_07 2:30

Um it's a good question. I I I I never thought I'm gonna go this way. It was just like all random and deafness, so to speak. Uh, because I've always been in technology and uh I love developing applications and like distributed systems. So I've been working with the banks, automation of uh you know uh different um systems and stores on the multinational levels. Uh but this time I moved to Canada and I was looking for some kind of business to start over here. So originally I'm from Russia. This is uh my background is Russian. Uh and by moving over here, I was looking for the partner in a new business opportunity. And initially we wanted to replicate uh technology company like uh to leak um make make pretty much make uh the marketplace for the cleaners. Residential cleaners, you you go to the website, you order some cleaners, just go through reviews, and you get um your appointment and like your cleaner order to do the cleaning for you. So we're looking to solve that, but after a couple of periods we figured out that we there is like huge potential in uh short-term rental industry because pretty much like half of our orders coming from Airbnb managers. This power went to Airbnb and short-term rental.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Oh, cool. And um, so that's how you started IGMS, and and so you started catering to you did say Asian investors, so you started um you noticed uh a bunch of Asian investors in Vancouver.

SPEAKER_07 4:15

It is the fact like Vancouver is growing, and it I think that like hold inflation here is probably few by Asian um immigrants, they bring big money, uh, and you can see that a lot of real estate belongs to them, and that's that's nature of facts here. And as a customer's like initially it was not as a software company, we started as a property management company, so like pretty much doing the Airbnb management for the end customer for the owners. And when you're dealing with uh big investors, uh they don't want to do the STR or Airbnb themselves, but they want big money right that you can earn for them. So this is how we started, and then we created a technology pretty much for us as a set of tools. And at some point, I remember like me and my partner Ivan were discussing like how would it be cool to actually sell it worldwide? And like not in the state like this one. So let's put a Legend page and pretend that we have like a full technology, like nice nice feature to the market and uh and and check if there is any demand. And I remember that that slip this night just putting a Legend page all together, pretending that we have robust technology that's solving what we actually solve in here. Uh, and over two weeks we got a lot of leads showing the interest to this technology, and we say, Okay, let's put the money in and let's develop it, like real product.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

I love that. Fake it till you make it, right? That's right, yeah. And so what's cool about that? People are like, oh, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, we got to get everything perfect before we start putting our name out there or release a product or whatever. But no, not really. You can go and test the waters, and and you know, I I heard a story a long time ago, like when Home Depot first started, right? These owners that uh the founders of Home Depot, they were starting to show investors these stores and they they didn't have even all the products yet. So they started you know closing empty boxes and then stacking them like they had a ton of product before they even before they even got the investors. The investors walk in, they see some of the tools out, and then see a bunch of empty boxes. Oh yeah, we got plenty of plenty of products. We you know, we can do we can do big things. And so they they faked it till they made until they made it. So uh it's a good it's a good little trick right there.

SPEAKER_07 6:38

That's 100%. And this is a lesson I learned before I started this business because uh back in Russia, uh I had I was running my software development company. We've been doing like very custom projects for big clients, and among you know mid-sized customers, there were so many ideas. Like people just came to us and say, like, um, I want to develop something like Facebook before Facebook was born. Like I want to develop something like uh Gmail with multiple domain names before Gmail is doing like like the proper that uh thing properly. And a lot of those requests being failing because they wanted the whole like ideal thing and did not want to start and just test with like small, small things.

SPEAKER_06 7:26

So with there being like because there's a lot of property management systems out there now, right? A lot of them. How does IGMS, how do you guys differentiate yourselves from the rest of them?

SPEAKER_07 7:37

Uh all right. So, like first of all, um I like to come from the UX experience. Like the UX experience is if important, you know, like uh we do have Android and I uh iOS, right? It's like two companies, like they produce like excellent phones, but some people prefer one, other people prefer different ones. So I personally own uh iOS, and I like the UX of the iOS, and I like the modern UI of the FEMA system that we're building over here. Uh so from the very beginning, we started to build something that is very unique and um useful uh on on the UX side. Um we also distinguish ourselves by the customer support. Um instead of you know pretending that we do have customer support like other um companies do, like for smaller, b-size that there's like a whole long way to actually get this attention. Uh we provide this uh online chat within the application and we we listen to our customers. That's pretty much how we build the company. Like it's we we listen to the customers and their needs, and by that intake, we build custom features that they need actually need for their businesses.

SPEAKER_06 8:56

That's awesome. Now you said you said that you like the iOS. So I'm assuming do you guys have like an extensive app for your users? Because I know when I was with a couple of PMSs before, it was like no one had got the app thing down, right? So do you guys have like an you know an extensive uh app for your users? And can you go into that a little bit if you guys do?

SPEAKER_07 9:18

Yeah, we do have that on both platforms, Android and iOS. You're welcome to try that. Uh iOS is pretty, pretty good. Uh, we have a lot of functionality in inside, and you can use as board winners as well as property managers. So we actually like when we build BMB care as a property management company, I've been the guy who've been in the fields trying to answer and do the key exchange at the same time while you know doing the communication of like two more guests that are just trying to check in somewhere. So I've been in there, and this is why we build our mobile app uh user-friendly solution, so you can actually do this while you are in the fields or on the laptop. Actually, our stats can currently show in that more than half customers right now using the mobile app uh and mobile interface rather than the desktop version.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

So you you have uh you can connect your cleaners to it too.

SPEAKER_07 10:20

Yeah, yeah, you can invite your cleaning team or you know um assign your head of cleaners a manager, and she can do this or he can do that for you, managing the whole team from different countries. We have a lot of customers who present internationally in different cities and countries, and you can overlook like how different departments are doing in different countries, and it's slowly growing in number of team team members over there.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

That's cool. Yeah, because we usually keep our cleaners like in turnover, you you know, formerly turnover BNB, we keep them all there, and then we have our you know PMS doing like a part. You know, I never thought of putting them together. That that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_07 11:00

We do support uh churn integration as well. So if you if you want that advanced uh uh models and functionality, you can do that. But we do have an internal in-house solution for simpler uh procedures. You know, I love your team.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

I love simpler, you know, that's my favorite. And this is what I what I would love is is is uh a company, you know. It's it's cool that we ain't sponsored by some uh PMS right now, so we can just talk, you know, all the good, the bad, the ugly, whatever. We don't have to say, oh, but uh, you know, guests are sponsored we have to respect them. But no, we don't got to. And so I currently use hospitable. You know, they're not paying me, I'm paying them, so I can say whatever I want about them. Um, so, anyways, I would love for a PMS or PMP, whatever you call it, system, you know, property management software system to be able to do everything for me. Because I I have, you know, I got price labs over here, right? Of course I have the Airbnb, VRBO, and all that stuff. And then I got um, you know, uh, what did I say? Who's mine? Uh Hospitable. Hospitable my PMP, yeah. And then I got um turnover BNB. So I got a bunch of different things going on. But is there do you all offer like something an experience where it's all in one that you can even do pricing on yours? Like you can adjust pricing to the levels of something like uh price labs or something like that.

SPEAKER_07 12:23

Um, we currently do have integration to four players and this dynamic pricing systems. So including price labs. Price labs is a it's a cool solution, easy to use, uh, very popular among our customers. Um so currently we seamlessly integrate to those systems. You it's like so easy, you just go to IGMS, and once you click on your property, you choose one of that and create a link account, and you go from there. Um I'm personally in a communication to three of those companies that we integrated in order to do something like all-in-one interface solution to bring their experience into the system itself. We already have full control and you know prices, like recommendations come to our system, and you see that you can override that, you can change, you can call the dates, easy to control. Basically, it's a suggestion level from them coming from them that a magically apply. But it would be cool to actually have all their small settings within the application, so you don't need to switch at all.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

That would be awesome because here's here's the real quick, and I'm done. No, no, go ahead. I know Michael's got a million questions. Um, because what I come across, and like I said, I ain't a genius at this. I I do all right, I get I get the places full mostly. Um, I do have gaps, whatever. It it happens. Um, but I'll I'll do a change like uh price labs, for example, and then it'll it'll shoot it out to to um uh hospitable and then it'll it'll change it on Airbnb. But sometimes there's uh a rule set in Airbnb that overrides the rule set in Price Labs, which overrides the the hospitable. And if you don't, if you're not on top of all three, you you might screw something up big time, and then you're you're letting someone stay at your place for 20 bucks a night or something stupid. And so and so that's why that's why for me, as my my simple brain, I would love to have it all in one spot where I could just go and do my changes I want. I know it's gonna it's gonna change it, it's gonna be, you know, it's gonna set everything like I need it to be instead of having it three different places, you know.

SPEAKER_07 14:33

Right, right. Yeah, uh normally how you deal with uh with uh um this dynamic pricing, you go, you set up your um preferences, like the like what your property looks like, what strategy you select, and you don't use price laps after. Like you basically the AI works, the sends um it sends like all recommendations to us, and you have full control in IGMS for the calendar. If you don't like the price, you can switch it over directly on our platform. And price laughs would know about that and they will uh adjust their predictions based on your preferences because your preferences take over. Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_06 15:11

Um so regarding that, because you know, I I know where Steve's coming from. It's easy just everything in one place, right? So, what are the considerations for you as a PMP when deciding like, is it worth the investment to hop into pricing and all that, or are y'all just rather just focus on the property management side and then we just do a bunch of integrations? Is that kind of like is that like the more I guess that the more cost-effective way to do it? Or you know, what are your thoughts on that? What are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_07 15:43

Um it's a very good question. So of course, as a business owner, I want everything in our product, right? That's like pretty much like take the whole well value of the all of the whole industry, but to be realistic, um it wouldn't be possible. It's like too many brains needs to be involved, and this is why we have their companies risking their investments money with their directors and so on and so on. I I do believe that integration is a key, um, although deep integrations between the companies is very, very important. And we're already doing this with um insurance companies like safely, so you can you do not need to leave the interface of IGMS, you can uh like switch all the uh settings over there directly from the interface. Um would be a good example as well, like similarly integrated. Um and we're working on uh additional integration. So for example, one of the projects that uh advising right now, uh it's called DTravel. It's pretty much where crypto meets short-term rental. Uh you go you go search for that, they they do amazing things. They uh like I'm advising on putting them putting up the industry standard protocol for short-term rental. So whenever you have linked to Jesus, for example, you can start defining your business and they can easily migrate to any other PMS system, or just go directly with your like basically in the crypto world and start selling directly to the users who are using uh crypto payments, uh independently on any of any like Airbnb platform or any platform at all. So very cool uh things, and uh I believe that uh SPR is still like a blue ocean, it's kind of dead and reddish. Um but the protocol and standards are common here, and uh they're gonna be some some way to integrate everyone, every player on some protocols. So it's more convenient for everyone.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

I I I guess I see it because you mentioned iOS earlier, right? And and Apple is notorious for wanting to be end-to-end, right? And what you want everybody, everything they want to do everything. It's not like, okay, we're gonna have Microsoft handle text messages, we're gonna have we're gonna have so-and-so handle phone calls, we're gonna have so-and-so handle the internet for us. They want their safari, they want their text team, you know, the blue, you gotta have blue, otherwise you're you're chastised. Uh, and then they want their their phone call with whatever network they choose. So that to me, I I just, you know, they took over the world by trying to be simple and having everything in one spot, you know. And that's that, you know, they do have the app store, which is which is great. They they realize that they can't do everything in the world, and then then there's the app store, right? But you're really when you ask somebody about if you hand hand an Apple user an Android, they're like, ah, what the hell is this? You know, I can't I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know what's going on. It just fries their brain. I started with Android, so I went to Apple. So to me, it was like easy to go to Apple because I was like, oh, this is everything's simple. Oh, I need to find something in settings. I don't know how to look for a file and open folders and looking, you know, like like an Android. So so the the simplicity was was of course helped them take over the world. But um, and to me, I guess the uh what are the three major things, Mike, uh, in in um in running your short-term rental business is it's um uh communication, right? And pricing, and uh, I guess the calendar is that is those are the three major things that you gotta keep track of, or or or the cleanings. Cleanings, yeah. Calendars is kind of pricing. So calendar and pricing, communication, and and the turnovers. Those are like the three major things. And I don't know, you you said integrations, and you can work with other companies, and that's great. But um, if I didn't have to pay, you know, you know, you gotta you gotta pay for all these apps and they add up, right? So I'm paying like $370 a month to Price Labs, and I'm paying another whatever, $300 something to Hospitable, and I'm paying, you know, the hot the turnover stuff. But like, yeah, that's all I'm saying. And I don't know what I'm just rambling, you know. I'm not gonna do that. I got a question behind that.

SPEAKER_06 20:06

You you make a good question. You you lead into a good question with that. What kind of communication products does IDMS offer? Because, for example, I use one PMP, but their communication isn't as good as hospitable. So I kind of still use hospitable on the back end. So what do you guys offer like a variety of like smart uh communication? Like, hey, if this guest doesn't, if this if there's days available, uh and before the guests check out, do you have like something where it can automatically tell the guests, hey, if you want to extend, there's days available or anything like that?

SPEAKER_07 20:41

That's uh that's a good question. Uh, we don't have this right now, but it's on the roadmap since we we receive those requests from our customers and it's coming in Q1 next year, uh, as well as like extension, like you know, you have like two days uh window after your stay. Why don't you take this customer and bring this like convert it into extended stay through your direct booking? So basically, don't even to deal with the Airbnb or Verbo. Uh, you can send this offer if they accept, they pay the risk extension, right? It's so simple.

SPEAKER_06 21:17

Okay. You said a very key word that I love. You said direct booking. So do you guys do you guys have a direct booking website? And are you guys partnered with any like direct booking companies?

SPEAKER_07 21:31

Uh that's a technology that we have in-house. We have currently the free-to-use uh website that it's easy to start. And we also have an advanced version that is embedded version right now, in better release. We have better group, uh over a thousand people testing property management companies testing that right now. It's um very advanced uh website builder where you can customize a lot of things, um, and it's we build a It's with a with the best UI, I would say, because we I'm coming, I'm putting I have experience on this. Um so the guess phase in presence should be really, really clean and like you know crispy.

SPEAKER_06 22:16

Awesome. So and and you guys said, oh, you're a thumbscene?

SPEAKER_01 22:22

No, that was the that was uh Mike Brown's big question. Ask them if they have AI capabilities, you know. He wanted that too.

SPEAKER_06 22:28

Yeah, because that that that is not that speaking of that in general, like because AI is starting to it's starting to take over, you know. I I just watched them on 60 minutes and I was like, it was kind of scary the stuff that they could do, but you know, it's starting to like really take over. Um and I noticed um Airbnb had their winner release today, and they are implementing some AI with the photos and like how they present the photos to the guests. Um, what other areas of AI, if you don't mind sharing, that you guys could that IGMS is getting into?

SPEAKER_07 23:01

Um well I keep track on AI news as well. This is like very exciting technologies around. I use ChatGPT on a daily basis. Uh I bounce the ideas and uh brainstorm like together with ChatGPT now. Uh more than I do with the people in our company, I would say. Yeah, it's crazy. Um but what what I believe and what we build in right now is basically integration to the external personal AI rather than bringing uh the technology into the application. We want I be I believe that you're gonna have your personal AI in some infrastructure. For example, ChatGPT is a good example. You can plug and play a lot of plugins right now, right? So like so many uh startup projects, not mature yet. Uh well, we basically build on a bridge over there. So you would be asking questions about your STR business directly through Chat GPT, and it will have access to all the data within PMS system. So that kind of things I think is it makes more sense than just automatic replies. Automatic replies is like easy to do. Um and like we haven't done that with ChatGPT because we believe in a bigger vision on this topic. It should be like data analysis, how you're gonna bring like more value and not only pretending like we're replacing the people over here. Like, you know, you you want to grow, you wanna you want a smart decision. This is where you you want AI, not like small in uh small tasks, not only small tasks.

SPEAKER_06 24:40

Yeah, so this is what because I was at an AI event, and um maybe this is kind of where we're uh kind of glow with it. And basically this guy, he took he took like all these these cities' laws and he put it in this large language model and he could ask the the AI bot, hey, what is the law regarding this? Is it eventually gonna be where we could actually have a large language model of only our properties? So when a guest asks a question, it's automatically shot back out. Is that kind of where you where you see it going? I'm not gonna say if you guys, but is that where you kind of see it going?

SPEAKER_07 25:16

Yeah, it's it's um it's a first layer, so to speak. Like the knowledge of you all your properties based on listings and information internally. But the second layer is like you as a business owner, you can ask questions uh and like the AI would have all the data from the your preparations, answering those questions uh directly, like like you, you know, like I think we we come into the world where you know you use an uh spreadsheet to making your decisions is no longer a thing. You should be talking just like to the you know, very expensive uh consultant, that consulting company, like you know, representative who came to your business and say, like, let's an extra from here, uh, but it costs like $20 a month. We I I deal with like once we plug plug this all the information into the chat GPT, uh, and uh we have a prototype already, you'll be able to query a lot of business related things that just blow your mind.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

Man, see that's I know Micah's big into it. I have um uh I tried it a little bit. I haven't I haven't dove into it, but and I know Micah's addicted to it, you know, he's he's a computer background. Um, but it is it is amazing because I mean you could uh the stuff I'm hearing, you could tell it's hey, make me a website like this, and it'll drop all the code and create you the exact website you want, uh, and um write me a book on on this, and I'll write you a freaking book. I it's it's it's insane, man. So yeah, that's yeah. And in a sense, I'm like, are is this gonna we won't need to hire VAs anymore, virtual assistants?

SPEAKER_07 27:05

You would need the smart ones who can do the prompt engineering because eventually you know you're running a business, you're asking the right questions, but now you need your operational managers so you can get your vacation finally.

SPEAKER_06 27:29

There's like free courses on LinkedIn, and you can teach them prompt engineering and get prompt engineering certificates. Because my my VA uses Chat GPT heavily, and I encourage it. So you know it it makes things a whole lot easier if you're using ChatGPT. Like even if you don't know how to respond to a question and it's like not documented, you can throw it in Chat GPT and get an answer like that, and a professional answer too. So um definitely something worth looking into um if you guys are into doing that with your VAs.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

So so the um so Micah touched on it earlier. You um you'll have a direct booking website that when when you sign up with IGMS, you get your own direct booking website.

SPEAKER_07 28:13

That's right. Yeah, you plug your properties, or if you have them on the Airbnb Variable, you plug those accounts and you create uh the website within like five minutes. Uh we do have webinars on this topic, like that we call it workshops, pretty much, because this is where we showed in action how you quickly you can do that, like professional, professional looking website, ready to go, connected to Stripe, and start accepting reservations directly uh with a nice interface that is on on the level of Airbnb and iOS, like pretty much Apple Apple style.

SPEAKER_02 28:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 28:50

And like you don't need to pay thousands of bucks anymore for that kind of solution.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

So it's free with when you sign up with IGMS.

SPEAKER_07 29:00

It's not free, it's it's premium version, but it's a fraction. Pretty much it's a monthly payment for whatever you publish over there.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Nice, nice. Now, here here's the thing too, with with um doing direct bookings, uh, people worry about chargebacks. And how do you all protect against chargebacks?

SPEAKER_07 29:19

Uh it's a good question. So, first of all, we uh partner with uh Safely on a protection. So like first thing is like you need to protect yourself from the damages, right? As for chargebacks, uh well uh we have Stripe, and Stripe has a whole bunch of uh fraud protection in embedded. Uh they also started to uh implement some additional insurances on the deals and like pretty much like monitoring the fraud and ID verification within Stripe, which I like a lot. Um it's uh in states, it's uh it's a it's a new technology, but they uh by just processing the credit card, they already know about that guest a lot of information. So they are the best place to actually measure those risks for you. Uh and they have additional products that uh that would cost you percentage of the revenue. If you're ready to do that, pretty much their AI monitors every send and decline reservations there. That's like too risky. That's cool technology, you don't need to do this manually anymore.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

That's awesome, man. Because that's the biggest fear uh you know, from everybody I talked to about doing direct. Oh, what if they just do a chargeback and I don't get paid, you know? Because we've been in that before in a in a deal with Stripe, and I guess we weren't paying for the uh, you know, the what is it called, chargeback protection and stuff like that. So we got a bunch of charge. Once we went live, our site started getting a lot of direct bookings, and we started, and we got a ton of chargebacks. And so Stripe locked up our account and and then held like 4,000 of our dollars until everything got figured out, and so it was just a mess, man. So so I'm glad that they have they're hip to it too, that people are uh abusing uh the direct booking sites and doing these chargebacks and and getting, you know, and then the the hosts are getting screwed. So it's bad for their business too. So if they offer some kind of percentage, and and Michael spoke to it before, they offer like three percent, and you're protected from chargebacks. So so that's cool.

SPEAKER_07 31:20

Yeah, they're evolving, and that's not a single industry. Stripe is applicable for all industries, they're doing really good, great things. And the next thing that the big thing is about the chargebacks is uh it's the next service they pretty much like developing right now, it's being able to accept crypta. Crypto is irrevertable, right? So like you cannot just do the chargeback. There is no thing as a chargeback over there. Um, so they ain't working on integration of crypta, and this is something that is coming in the next two years, and tell you like this is gonna be big for direct for direct.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

No, that's awesome. Crypto paying in crypto, right?

SPEAKER_06 32:00

You can't charge back on that. Go ahead, Steve.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

No, uh so like I mean you could pay with any coin or Bitcoin. I get man, see, I'm I'm a novice at that too, because I know Bitcoin and Ethereum are the big ones, but then you have your your wallet or your purse or whatever it's called, and and you can pay with any, I guess, any monetary form or any coin, and let that company y'all work with uh converts it to us getting a payout in cash or something like that.

SPEAKER_07 32:26

Yeah, that's pretty much what DTRL is working on right now. As uh uh they they pretty much accept in uh any different coins and you uh settle that in uh in a whatever merchant you as a property manager select like what whatever currency you want. Use DC, for example, stable coins.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Yeah, that's cool, man. I need you know that's it. That is awesome. Um one thing, um, because I know these like these businesses spring up to help us entrepreneurs, you know. For here here's another thing, too. Let's just say it's it's a huge booking, a direct booking that we're gonna get, right? And and um and and there's no and there's here's the thing, what we do with direct bookings, if it's a big booking, you know, over 30 days, you know you know, it's a few months, we pretty much do the whole like it's a like it's tenant, you know, take the risk and letting them stay at our place. And then they get tenant rights, and we had and if they did stop paying us and overstay, were they gonna get evicted and all that stuff, right? So there was really nothing in place once we went off platform to get a big booking. You know, it's always better to go off platform to get the big booking because you don't, you know, you say you make hundreds of more dollars doing it that way, or thousands possibly. But um so but here that the the thing is it takes a lot of uh it takes a lot of hosts. They don't like to go off platform for nothing because they have that Airbnb protection, you know. To them, that's it's a secret protection, right? Um But there's companies popping up that will kind of that will that will back that payment, you know. So so there's one called Pay It that I'm talking to. And I know you probably talk to all these people too. There's one called Pay It. So this one that somebody wants to book for three months, I'll get that three-month payout immediately, right? And then they have to work it out with pay it to pay these payments to rent my place for three months or six months or whatever it is. But I'm safe because I got all my money already. If they start trying to screw pay it, you know, they'll that pay it's gonna gotta go after them for that. So I think I think these things are popping up because we need them, you know, the chargeback protections and then being able to take payments, which is huge because this is how American society works. Everybody wants to do payments on everything, all the way from uh uh you know uh a textbook to uh to a car to a house. Everybody wants payments, nobody gets cash. So so, anyways, so so I know that um that you're you're probably already talking to these kind of companies that can help host, you know, receive money and and and make more money.

SPEAKER_07 34:53

Uh Stripe is a main technology and uh safely, which we already integrated. We're working on a deeper integration right now. It's gonna protect you against all damages and like some pretty much like wherever uh Airbnb has is a guarantee, it's it's the same thing, but through uh the partner that's deeply integrated in the product.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

So now oh, sorry, your turn, Mike.

SPEAKER_06 35:20

I was just gonna say, like, because that you you guys get firsthand knowledge from owners, right? So because me and Steve can tell you our pain points, and then like what are like main challenges or pain points that you're seeing from property managers right now, and how does IGMS like work to alleviate those pain points?

SPEAKER_07 35:40

Um, it depends on the location. You know, some locations are very hard because of regulations. Regulations was like a huge deal for Torona this year, like pretty much the whole Torona, Metro Torona, like destroyed on uh Airbnb and short-term rental. Oh lots of lots of yeah, it's a it's a disaster, right? But before that, there was New York. Um, like we see that because we have customers everywhere, right? And like when the war starts and there is like regulations, people trying to survive, you build your business, you you run like a company, successful company for 100 properties, and now regulations coming over, and like your business costs zero. Uh what are you gonna do, right? You're gonna fight for that. You're gonna try to figure out what ways to survive, right? So we've seen that war in Japan first, then New York, then Torona. Uh so regulations uh important part, and um this is where we support our customers, like you know, like pretty much you need to do the pivot, right? So there is if it's regulated, you need to adapt to this new reality. Um, this is what's going on, this is a requirements. Like, why don't you do that? And you know, in some cases it is completely impossible if they put the ban, like you go long-term now, and this is where we also offer like mid-term and long-term uh capabilities on the platform now, um, including this direct booking. So you can actually get your guests uh with a mid-term monthly rental or even annual contract uh for the rental uh directly um booked through direct booking platform.

SPEAKER_06 37:24

Oh yeah, regulations is is huge. Go ahead. Go on tool. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

That that is it. That is what I was gonna ask you because uh you know you're at the forefront. You have a lot of uh uh what's it called? A lot of uh customers, a lot of business. So so and we've all heard of IGMS, but here's the thing, that's what I was gonna ask you with all these regulations. I mean, even even red states like Texas regulations everywhere, you think that would be more laissez-faire economics, where you know we can do whatever, but no, it's just like regulations sweeping across Dallas, uh, all the all the surrounding cities, you know, Austin, San Antonio, wherever you it's just going across the whole country. And and so do you see your y'all's business suffering because of it? Like, is it growing or is it shrinking, or is it kind of like staying the same, or what's going on?

SPEAKER_07 38:15

Uh I would say overall, globally, STR is growing, and there's a huge way to go still. Like STR um taking value from like the market share from the hotel industry. That's just not a question, right? That's like Airbnb is growing, we we keep track, like we use like 30% every year. Every year 30% growth. Like for that huge company, it is very amazing. And and same thing, same same time, like uh booking.com and Xpedia, they're growing too. Like, it's not like the new Airbnb, the new technologies, like because it's the innovative, right? It's it's overall the kitchen rental is growing. People prefer to to exchange homes, it's a new way of thinking, right? So industry is growing, and I do believe that there is huge potential because of that. So regulation comes to actually stabilize the growth. So it will be growth, it won't be stopped, right? It's it's gonna be like more moderate. So you don't want to go too fast, otherwise you would be killing like local communities, right? It's like this is what actually happened uh in Toronto. This is why there was a crackdown on Airbnb. Like people were so motivated because of the huge dollars, right? It's like you take all the inventory from downtown, and now there is less uh units to for for just like workers around this area, like for normal employees and like normal normal people around. So it was, but if if if it's not that fast, if developers are fast enough to build a new inventory and add it to the market, then the growing is sustainable. And I think the regulations is a is a good thing for overall.

SPEAKER_06 40:00

Man, I love how you said that. I love I've never heard someone say regulations stabilize the growth. I like that. That's a it's a good way to look at it. It stabilizes the growth. Because I didn't know what was going on in Toronto, I just looked it up, like, yeah, it was a lot of units up there. That's crazy. Wow.

SPEAKER_07 40:16

So and like for for for a little bit it's gonna be it's it's gonna stay like this, but I'm sure like everything is always it goes in wave, right? It's like if you side it too too too much, they're gonna be uh different problems in the city. Like you want you wanna attract your tourism as well, so there's gonna be some balance even in in Toronto.

SPEAKER_01 40:41

So now um do you integrate uh because I hear some PMSs um they will get your uh listing on Google. Do you do you do you get the listings on Google?

SPEAKER_07 40:54

Uh we do have the current project that's called uh Google Vacation Rental to get get you on Google. So right now um if you use our advanced uh dragbook and website builder, uh everything is SEO friendly already. So it gets indexed by default free for you. But you need to invest into your marketing and promote your website through social media, and this is why we uh uh planning to roll out educational materials and also educational courses around how you actually build a brand. Uh but there is a second way, which is more expensive, you pay for advertising, right? It's like you pay to Google to get this uh Google vacation rental and rotate over there. Uh it's a good to start, but it's always going to be expensive. Basically, you can feed into the advertising budget of the Airbnb itself, which by the way, uh it's not only living on your fees that you pay, right? But also uh sponsored by all investors. It's a public company after all, right? It's like it's a billion dollars over there in cash, and they keep putting this into advertising budget. So it is very important if you local businesses, it's very important uh not only pay for advertisement, but think about strategy how you actually build a brand who attracts free traffic, SO traffic, organic. You need organic growth.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

Michael's big on the Google, that's why I asked that question.

SPEAKER_06 42:24

I'm big on Google Vacation Rentals. Um, the reason why, too, they just showed face at Vacation Rental World Summit. So they are actively showing that they're going to be in the space. So yeah, that's I'm real big on them right now.

SPEAKER_07 42:37

And and it's the right thing to do because it's still blow ocean for that. It's just that technology just started by Google itself, and uh, I've been there because um I used to have uh a client uh who've been selling uh uh physical products, and Google did this, you know, uh Google shop like pretty much like the same technology, but for retail. So you can advertise your products, and when it just opened, there was a lot of traffic, lots of profits, and then profits just like goes lower and lower and lower because you you have more players already plugged into that technology. Now you can beat into pretty much all the top performers, right? Um, so I would say right now it is uh a very good tool, it's very productive, it will bring you a lot of uh guests, but over time you need to reuse this uh revenue and profits and build your brand. Because over long term uh you need your brand to be bringing you as much as you paid advertisement, at least.

SPEAKER_01 43:43

Give us a few uh tips on how the best way to build your brand online.

SPEAKER_07 43:50

Okay, so first of all, you know um Uthri, those guys are really good, they sell all this uh knowledge about. So I would suggest to actually go and educate, like just take the professional educational by them, like just they give a lot of knowledge. But right now, what we're building uh with this website builder, the technology is not a problem. Like technology is here, but now you need procedures, right? You now you need to promote this. Uh, how are you gonna reach out to the previous guests? How are you gonna select and target those previous guests? How are you gonna use Google Advertising with uh with um Google Pixel and Facebook Pixel to actually remarket to the potential guests who visited your website but haven't put any uh haven't made any any uh bookings yet? So it's a whole marketing experience. And I think uh if um if property manager decides to actually invest into own brand, it's a new set of skills. Now you need to think about what marketing is, right? What advertisement is, and learn these new skills. I would say invest into these skills as a business owner because that if you learn that whether you apply this to your property management company or your next venture in any different industry, that's going to be very valuable as a business owner.

SPEAKER_01 45:21

Test in your skills, I love that. Branding is key, man. And you mentioned something earlier, real quick. The um you said hotel, it this whole short-term rental thing has has shifted how people look at hotels or stay at hotels, and and there's um and at I spoke with Micah about this a while back. I said once I saw that the old people were using the word, oh, we're gonna rent an Airbnb, the old people at work, you know. I was like, oh, but like the year before I didn't even know what an Airbnb was, and then they're all saying, Oh, we rented this nice Airbnb over here, and it was wonderful. Um, so so I see the shift happening. Now, and now are hotels really struggling because of this?

SPEAKER_07 46:01

Um, I would say they losing the market slowly, they're still pretty big. Um, because you know, I think COVID actually was a pivot point on this on this topic, so to speak. Um because hotel industry they had it it has a lot of money. And uh and uh and um COVID actually reduced this amount of cash they they have at hands. Um and now there is a different balance. So what I see when I analyze uh the bigger players in STR, they keep growing. The hotels are not growing, they they stagnate. Uh and now it it's it's a question of uh what's the population is gonna be. If the population overall is gonna switch from growing to stagnant, then I believe the short-term rental will will just drive a lot. Uh because there is no more people coming to hotel industry and str the same way. It's basically they will they will choose only like the new technology.

SPEAKER_06 47:03

Would you and I'm happy you brought that up because would you say hotels are almost like a convenience factor at this point? Because okay, I'm about to go stay at a hotel, but the only reason I'm staying at that hotel is because there's an event there. Without that event that's in the hotel, I'd probably go stay at an Airbnb with my family. Would you see that? Like that's playing a huge part in it.

SPEAKER_07 47:25

Uh it is part and will be, of course. It's it's it's convenient. Also, uh, I would say if like three years ago, there was also such a thing as like, you know, of course, hotel, like like I'm I'm on travel and my business is paying for that. So right now, like it's still like just slowly starting. Not many people know that you can write off your uh Airbnb as a business expense. It's just starting as an idea, like like it can be for business purposes. Um, this is what Airbnb actually did the push, initial push for uh business travels, but now you they have like very better version of receipts and invoices, and everything like easy to to to give the tax authority, so everything can be proven, uh, and this is where I see the shift is happening as well. You know, for example, even for bigger conferences, like you know, you go there and if there is good places for your BD same price tag, like I would prefer your B D.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

Yeah, that's interesting, man. Yeah, the whole write-off thing. Um and I would and we mentioned it back a long time ago on the shows. I said, why don't they do I said one thing was cool about hotels when I was going staying at them was you that you'd get part of you'd get on their rewards programs and stuff, and you get like a free night or a free couple nights, you know, if you stayed at enough of their of that chains hotel. Now, I don't I don't think Airbnb doesn't do that. Uh not that I know of, but do you foresee them doing something like that, maybe?

SPEAKER_07 49:03

Um probably they will. Like loyalty programs are always important. Um, but I'm more betting on uh on a like independent player, like Deep Travel, for example, they they put in this crypto payments. And why should you be linked to Airbnb only? If you can be industry standard for all the players, like Airbnb Verbor Booking.com and also your whole set of drag booking websites and local brands to be put in the same technology with reward points that you can spend wherever you go. So I more believer of this uh direction over time, but it's something that in the 600 takes time. Like it's not gonna happen within like next three years, it's it will take time.

SPEAKER_06 49:53

Um, do you now this actually kind of brings me, I'm gonna bring this full circle. You do does IGMS kind of have like a um does it create a database of all the past guests that have stayed? And can that information be pulled by the host?

SPEAKER_07 50:07

Uh we do have that information. Um, you cannot pull this information right away. There's gonna be some marketing materials, uh marketing tools that they can and will be allowed to use to actually reach out to them and and basically do the advertising, like for example, the pixels and so on. Um but there is certain restrictions by the platform themselves, so you still need to comply with the terms and conditions of Airbnb variable. So they don't allow you to steal the customers and the guests, right? So there is other topics that you need to put in. So how you normally do it, um they don't allow you to take the guest information and mark it to them, right? But if guest feels a check in form in your place, or you send us information and you now capture that information, not from your BD but from the tools, you're free to go. Like you you can and the good thing about that is that on the check-in form in online version, you actually tag them by Facebook pixel. Now, whenever they think about your brand and like they think about travel, you would show the advertisement right in front of their eyes if you have availability on that drag booking or the days they're looking for. So I think that overall this is a huge opportunity, and this is where why I bet on drag booking direction itself. But every pro it's it's more than just like managing the cleaners, right? Now you need skills to think about it, to properly not waste a lot of like thousands of dollars on on Google advertisement and saying like oh it's gonna work. It can work ten times more efficiently if you do this properly.

SPEAKER_06 51:52

So so yeah, you I think you said uh did you say Facebook Pixel?

SPEAKER_07 51:57

Facebook and Google Pixel, they are pretty much like we ended up to have two bigger platforms, right? You you can either advertise in Google if you have Google Pixel installed, right? So and Google is not just Google search, now it's also YouTube. You probably spend some time on YouTube. Probably this episode is gonna be on YouTube, right?

SPEAKER_02 52:17

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 52:17

Uh so people actually watch that and see a lot of advertisement, unless you paid for uh paid subscription over there. And among that advertisement, it could be your brand showing that okay. Here we go. You you actually visited us here in Vitcoura last year. How about this year? Like, share the advertisement, they cost you like one cent, right? It's like and you have a way to convert them after just send this traffic back to your drag booking. Like, this is a good idea. Like they had like five-star review for you, like the so they're motivated to come back. There's personal connection, and the same thing to Facebook, because Facebook is not only Facebook anymore, it's Instagram, right? You spend time on Instagram as the guests, you're watching all the stuff, and then there is like cool um video creation potentially created by AI of your like your personal AI, created this video advertisement, appealing to your guests who visited like two years ago with a family, paid 10,000 bucks for one month, and they're ready to go back. They just don't know this idea. They need to be reminded. So, this is what I see it like as a as a future of direct booking.

SPEAKER_06 53:33

Now, are you guys partnered with any of these companies?

SPEAKER_07 53:38

With uh Facebook or Google? Yeah. Like we we don't partner, we just use the technology, it's up, it's open source. It's like yeah, it's we embedding this technology into marketing tools that we develop and right at this moment.

SPEAKER_06 53:51

That that is powerful now. That's not one that yeah, I I've heard people talk about it, but not actually you guys use it. That's actually cool. I love that.

SPEAKER_07 53:59

This is a way I'm thinking about AI, it's not about the AI answering the questions for you, just like what you VA can do, right? It's about how we can actually reduce the cost of acquisition of this booking, right? So, like how we can get the guests back to our property.

SPEAKER_06 54:21

But the reason I asked about the um the if you could pull the data, because it made me think maybe we need uh we we definitely need to start our own loyalty rewards programs, you know what I mean? If we have the guest data, we see, hey, they booked here, here, and here. Hey, you've earned a free night, you know, or you've earned two free nights. And I was just kind of thinking how the best way to do that. So maybe Facebook and Google are the best way to do that, and you already have their data. I like that idea.

SPEAKER_01 54:50

Oh, man. So how does how does pricing of your of your service uh compare with the other the other big boys in the industry?

SPEAKER_07 54:58

Um I would say we're not as expensive as Guesty, um, but not as uh as cheap as other players. So we still quite expensive product, the quality uh is it's important for us. Uh but we prefer this all in one. So you pay for listing only when bookings happening. Like if you, for example, uh have like 30, 40 different listings and 10 of them on the long term, and they already have like like you you maintain them on different platform, or you don't generate new bookings, you don't pay for that. We only uh charge you for um listings that are currently involved in producing generating them some revenue for you.

SPEAKER_01 55:46

I love that. Yeah, I need I I need to try it out, man. Um, I I mean it's I I'll say you know, Hospitable's been alright. You know, I kind of inherited Hospitable, but it's it's it's so slow, man. If yours is fast, uh I'd I definitely like that better. Uh it's just scruciatingly slow, man. Especially if you have VAs trying to do it from another country where they don't have very good internet. It's brutal, dude. So y'all is y'all is y'all's fast?

SPEAKER_07 56:16

We try to keep it fast, yeah. You tell me. Like uh, if you if it's not fast for you, we'll we'll make it fast for you. We do have a different different size of the customers here, and this is what we prioritize. Uh we have a lot of smaller customers where just like independent property owners decided, oh, we overgrown Airbnb. So we're gonna put this on verbo. How are we gonna deal with uh multi-channels, right? So they come to us and we give them solutions. Uh, it is of course very, very fast. And then we have on another sector we have a huge company called um OEVacation Rentals, 20,000 properties. Can you imagine it? 20,000 properties. We've been customizing our application for them for over two years. We made it fast for them. 20,000 properties, playing with the calendars, playing with the new properties, like there is like in it in the inbox, there is so much activity they actually need seven online agents like simultaneously to handle those. Wow. What's that company called? It's uh Oya Vacation Rental.

SPEAKER_01 57:27

Oya? How do you spell it? Oyo Vacation Rent.

SPEAKER_07 57:29

Yeah, Oya, it's uh it's um uh OYO. Oh yeah, there is Oya Hotels and Oyo Vacation Rentals, so this is a very big company.

SPEAKER_01 57:37

Yeah, I know the Oyo. I've seen the Oyo hotels, you know, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 57:41

Motels have vacation rental like direction, so it's uh it's very big as well.

SPEAKER_01 57:47

Man, I'm gonna look them up. That's 20,000. Holy smokes, that's insane. And and um and yeah, wow. So y'all had to build something that could handle that much.

SPEAKER_07 57:57

Um exactly, like like they they actually been um the the the um the customer of uh hospitable when they used to be a smart BNB. Uh they bull got back to us and say, like, it's very slow. What do you guys can build for us? And we've been building prototypes and like live products since that, you know, to keep this customer satisfied like with their needs.

SPEAKER_01 58:21

Yeah, that's crazy. That's so cool. Yeah, I need some speed, man. I got the need for speed. Um, it's we we got around 70 properties on there right now, so so it's not near as as much as them, of course, but yeah, we need yeah, it's getting a little, it's dragging a little on the on the hospitable. No offense, hospitable. If y'all are gonna sponsor us in the future, just send me the money. Um not anymore. Maybe IGMS will sponsor us. Who knows? Um, yeah, man. So I I can't wait to try it out. Um what else would you want to ask him, Mike? Are you got any burning questions?

SPEAKER_06 58:55

Yeah, it's like towards the future. Like, how do you guys like plan to expand expand your offering, your markets, and uh what do you see in coming years for you guys and your growth?

SPEAKER_07 59:07

For us, uh, first of all, we went through COVID, like that was a disaster. We supported a lot of customers. Now we're thinking like uh like drag booking is a big thing. Drag booking plus AI plus three uh this three technology that they're embedded in right now. Uh Airbnb, of course, is keep growing, but they cannot grow forever. So at some point they're gonna be uh you know like slowdown of the growth. And then when slowdown happens, what they what they're gonna do? Like uh they would they still want to cut a lot of money, right? It's like 16% is no job, and drag booking is is a is a it's a thing to invest if you if you do the business. So we're working on uh tools internally that would allow you to build your uh business in the internet, like like pretty much do the drag booking uh offerings. And eventually, if you very successful, yeah, maybe you can do association of the companies like yourself in the in a in your area and using our technology, build a portal where you would be on Airbnb locally. Imagine like Airbnb in Florida, owned by association of local players. There is no Airbnb, like there is like pretty much association doing the drag bookings, and then you can split this. Like, so this is my thinking. Like, you know, you like localization is good, but you need to build your own local theme that is working quite well, high quality.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:39

That that right there is powerful. I that that is one I think. Mike talks about that all the time. I know Mike B is probably in this car shaking the wheel because he's been talking about doing that. So uh yeah, I think that is a good idea. I love that. I love that. I that's something we do need to work on. We do need to work on that.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:56

Come to us, we can talk, we can talk about details since the the technology wise, it is on the road on the roadmap. We have better tests, like this is the way we go, and we can provide this technology pretty much on very, very cheap.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:10

Yeah, go ahead. So, what special offerings you got for our our listeners, you know, live, let thrive listeners, any special um trials or offerings?

SPEAKER_07 1:01:20

Uh we can we can offer 50% discount right away on the monthly payments if you if you go there, like just um type in the like the special code, like we're gonna post it, I guess, in the in the description below. LLT.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:37

LLT? Yeah, LLT. LLT, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:40

I love it. Yeah, yeah. I'll send this to my uh goodly department. We'll set up this code and we'll track it.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:47

50% off right for monthly for the premium product for the monthly, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:56

For subscription, yeah. We we have like um advertised price for the service, like for the product. Uh so take half of that price, and that's this is gonna be a deal.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:09

Dude, that's awesome. 50% off. I'm in. I'm in. I'm gonna try it.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:13

Yeah, cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:15

Cool, brother. Thanks for hopping on. And I guess we all know where to find you. IGMS, right? If people want to find you or talk to you directly, you want to give them any information, or what do you what do you want to say?

SPEAKER_07 1:02:27

LinkedIn X, as um used to be Twitter, so find me there. Um, and of course, our support chat. If you have brilliant idea, we can set up a direct meeting. I love talking to technologies.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:42

Love it. Good, man. Well, thank you for hopping on, and we will we will keep in touch for sure.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:47

Yeah. Thank you, Igor. See ya.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:51

Bye bye.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:53

Man, that was actually a really good. That was like the the last part when he was saying build a local association and then get off Airbnb. Imagine if that was already built before Dallas had their shutdown, man. You know how many people would still be in business.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:09

I mean, it would be I don't know, be illegal, but you ain't on none of the major websites.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:15

Well, that yeah, there's there's that, but also it would have been a lot more bargaining power with the city. We said if if one group, one collection of all, you know, speaking for all the short-term renters in the area, talking to the city, you know, it would have been, it would have been uh it would have been cool. It would have been cool. I don't know if it would have helped, but maybe.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:35

Yeah, I mean, what if we had our own like association? People want to come to the city of Dallas. This is where you go for your short-term rental, not on Airbnb. One, that would hurt Airbnb's pockets. You know what? Airbnb, because I I was talking to someone today and they they're uh they have an Airbnb and they're looking to shut it down. And they're outside of the city, they're in like Lancaster. They're like, yeah, but I'm just looking to shut it down on Airbnb's kind of slow. So I'm like, there's a lot of those people out there, but if they have a local association, damn, that's powerful.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:07

Something funny happened today, real quick before we hop off. Uh so someone rented one of our uh places that we were that we managed, right? Yeah. For like uh 36-day rental, nice booking, you know, 3,400 bucks. It was it was a pretty nice booking. But the the owner, she's kind of she's you know, she was they're supposed to hop out today, you know, but then they said, Oh, we want to extend, we want to stay here because we're gonna be in town for a little bit longer, we're using the condo, blah, blah, blah. So I reached out to the guy, you know, uh text message, you know, because I do have another unit right down the way, right? A house that we have that we do, you know, short-term rental in in Arlington. And and um, and I just texted him, hey man, you know, this is what's going on. I do have another place over here. We can give you a great deal outside of Airbnb, right? You know, we can we can match that price that we were you were gonna pay through Airbnb. You're gonna get a nice house, you know. And um, I didn't hear no nothing. I asked him, hey, is this you know, blah, blah, blah. Uh, our VA reached out to him inside of the platform. Of course, we didn't, we didn't say that, you know, we're gonna go outside of Airbnb and all this. We just said, hey, you know, blah, blah, blah. Well, this is happening, we can put you in another place. And and um, so he he responds, but he responds inside of Airbnb and he puts that screenshot that I sent, right? Of the, hey, you know, he you can stay here at this Airbnb and we can handle it outside direct, blah, blah, blah. And then um Airbnb gets involved in saying, oh, you know, we have no problem with you trying to put him in another one of your Airbnbs, but you're you're offering to go off platform doing it, and this is against his violations. This is I was like, oh, this guy went and snitched on a good deal. It was a good deal. You know, I was trying to help him up, hook him up, you know what I'm saying? And he went and snitched, he was all scared, and he and he went and told Airbnb on us. And then I was like, oh my god, this is crazy. It's never happened to us. Every time we've done like an offer like that, it's always worked out great. Know of course people want to save money. Y'all be texting people that this guy didn't want to save money. Y'all be texting people that well they've already booked and we're gonna try to move them around somewhere. You know what I'm saying? No, no, I called him first. He wouldn't answer his damn phone. I called, and I'm like, Well, he doesn't know my number, right? So I called him, and then um, then I was like trying to figure this thing out, but he won't answer his phone, so I texted him. Of course, I'm not gonna do it on write that on Airbnb, but I texted him after that.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:29

And anyways, try this. Okay, go ahead, finish your story.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:33

Oh well, well, so so luckily uh the the owner was like, you know, we if he wants to check in tomorrow, we can we can leave tomorrow. We got somewhere else we can stay, you know, for the rest of our trip here, blah blah blah. And and and so of course I reached out to him and said, Okay, you the place will be available, you can stay, you will honor your original booking. And and finally he he he you know, he came to say, Okay, that's great. I'll I'll stay, you know, and and it just turned into a mess. But um, yeah, what were you gonna say? Your suggestion.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:02

Yeah, I would say, man, just always uh hit him up with a text and just say, Hey, this is your host. Um, we do have another place available. Give me a call. Because I've I have had them like this happened a couple weeks ago. I have that, you know, you have the idiot that you don't let extend because he's an idiot. Like he kept asking, and I'll kept ignored. We kept ignoring the question. Hey, we see on your refrigerator, I can get 10% off if I book direct. Uh, can I just book direct?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:32

And so we just kept he asks inside of Airbnb.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:35

Inside of Airbnb. So we just ignored it, right? And I I was gonna have my VA send a text, but I was like, no, I don't even want him in there because his level of intelligence isn't the type of guest I would want. Any intelligent person, because there's a QR code on it, all you have to do is scan it. Once he scanned it, it would have took him to the property and he could have booked it. Like it seriously says, get 10% off, scan the QR code. That's all you had to do. Instead, he's typing this in there, so I just ignored it. So I've always learned with Airbnb guests, you don't know their level of intelligence. I hate to say this, the price they pay is their level of intelligence. The people who pay $300, $400, they'll go off Airbnb and they don't have a problem with it because they can figure out how to book off Airbnb. They and plus our name is in all of our pictures. So if you scroll that says sharebnb, sharebnb, shareb. Anyone would sense. So yeah, I've ran into those situations where they put shit and I just ignore it. Well, or we will even counter it and say, uh, by the way, if you do are looking to extend your say, you'd have to extend it here on the app. Because yeah, you get so he wasn't answering the phone. Yeah, man. Certain guess. How much did he pay per night? That's the question.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:48

It was 36 nights and it was $3,400.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:51

So he's saying about 108, 150, 108-ish, 115. It's like between that number. That would be a guess you think could figure it out, though. Uh I would put that in. Yeah, but yeah, I but to to to sit respond back, and he screenshotted it.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:10

He sent a screenshot in the group to in the in the Airbnb messages, yeah. So what did he say to the screenshot? Well, he said, What's going on here? Are you trying to cancel me or blah blah blah? And like I guess he was thinking that was some line of uh third-party fraud. Yeah, and and and one thing I did think about was uh we use we do use open phone to communicate, you know, like our phone or phone numbers, uh, our company phone numbers. So he saw me calling and texting. He's like, it didn't match the phone number on our on Airbnb. So I this is the first time it's happened. We've we've we've you know we've had many happy customers that we deal direct with, you know what I'm saying? But I noticed Airbnb's telling all the VAs be sensitive to this, uh, people taking people off platforms, man.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:53

Yeah, because I I I get it a lot with my with my uh magnets. Uh I only get it here and there, but the people who get it, they'll just scan the magnet and book and extend, you know what I mean? You this guy just kept adamantly uh I seen on your refrigerator, like we'd ignore it, then we said, Hey, you have to book through Airbnb, and then he comes back and he goes, You mean to tell me I can't book directly on your website? I'm like, Oh my god, and we're like, No, sir.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:21

He's typing it in Airbnb, bro. Like, come on, dude. Oh my gosh. We start getting pissed off at this point. I'm like, Oh man, this ain't the guy we want, man.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:31

This ain't the guy. Yeah, he's that guy, that guy who texted, yeah, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:37

Like you're like one of your kids saying something to in front of somebody that you had might have mentioned some things about before. Didn't you say they had big feet?

SPEAKER_05 1:10:46

Oh yeah, what yeah, you know that uh what's that commercial, the play-by-play commercial? The girl was like, Well, you said you don't go to her house because she talks too much. The little girl standing, the little girl snitching on her mom at the bus stop. It's exactly what it is.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:59

Like, oh, come on.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:01

Shut up.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:04

You gotta put on those magnets now. Do not message me through Airbnb, just book direct right here.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:10

That's exactly. I don't know how more clear you can be about it. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_06 1:11:14

Um, in your situation, a little bit of grace because your phone number didn't match, but yeah, maybe try like telling your VAs because can they call your VA on open phone?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:24

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:25

I just like like maybe y'all should just make it a practice. Like, hey, whenever we want them extend through text, just say, hey, this is your host. If you'd like to extend, just call us here. Oh, well, this is your host calling about uh your question about extension. Give me a call at this number, something like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:41

Just something, yeah. I I've been in that situation, bro. You always get that idiot, bro.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:46

Well, I finally got one, and whatever. Yeah, but he's he's he rented anyway, so it's all good, man. So you're not an idiot if you're listening to that. Yeah, no. IGMS, check him out, man. It sounds like some cool shit. Um, hit up Igor, he'll he'll he'll help you out. And um we'll get a great show, yes. Yeah, LLT, mention LLT, and you get that 50% off. That's a discount. A lot of guys come on. Oh, you get like a 30-day trial. What the hell's that? 50% off. That's a lot of money you're saving right there. Fitty. So fitty, big fitty. All right, my brother. Well, great show. Where can people find us?

SPEAKER_06 1:12:25

Find us Instagram. You can visit our website, livelethrive.com, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube. Make sure you subscribe, hit the subscribe button if you're on YouTube. Follow us. Thank y'all for launching our shorts, man. We're getting a lot of good feedback on those, man. And uh, yeah, uh, check out IGMS. Um, we are not under sponsor, so check them out. We are out.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:47

Live let thrive. Peace.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:49

Later. 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 of Airbnb and all that entails. Bye-bye.