SPEAKER_02 0:00

Turnover BNB is a place where you can find excellent cleaners that know the Airbnb business because we all know that it's one thing to clean a house, it's another thing to clean an Airbnb efficiently.

SPEAKER_00 0:15

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

SPEAKER_04 0:26

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to another exciting episode of Live.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Let through Micah Malay. Yes, sir, yes, sir. What you been up to? Taking over the world?

SPEAKER_04 0:48

Man, working, hustling, ready to get back on the podcast, promoting, all that good stuff. Yeah, yeah. But today, what episode are we on?

SPEAKER_01 0:59

We're on episode 97. Almost to 100.

SPEAKER_04 1:03

Almost to 100. But yeah, we now have uh special guest. I don't want to mess his name up. Unless Steve say his name, because I don't want to butcher it.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Oh yeah, put me on the spot. We have Asaf Carmen, the CEO and founder of Turnover BNB.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Well, it's uh great to be here, and I uh really have to applaud you for not butchering my name. Very few people can do that. So congratulations.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Yeah, it's not my first rodeo, um Asof. Um well, see, it's awesome to have you here, and I gotta admit, I just started using um Turnover B and B. Micah's been preaching about it for a long time now. And up until recently, I was I was down on my hands and knees helping the wife scrub the toilets and hating life. But I I managed to fire me and my wife from the from that part of the business, and man, we're just so happy. And thank you so much. If I could shake your hand, I would. It's just it's it's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

Virtual handshake. From across the Pacific. Let me cross your hand.

SPEAKER_04 2:11

Yeah, uh definitely. The the app, man, it's really changed how I do business. So I guess la actually the first question I guess we had for you was like, how did you come up with the idea of turnover DVD?

SPEAKER_02 2:22

You know, j just like you guys, you know, I was bogged down in the logistics of, you know, cleaning and restocking and scheduling and texting that you know it's it was impossible to grow. You know, you just take on so much responsibility that you're okay, I have got to delegate it, and then you find the cleaner, but it doesn't mean that your you know all the coordinating um is taken care of. Uh so for me as a software engineer, that's my background. Um I always have software in mind as a solution for every problem. Uh and this one happened to be a problem that I was very intimate with. So this is how it started. Wow. So so where were your Airbnbs at? So uh in um in Honolulu, and I was also helping others with um you know their operations.

SPEAKER_01 3:15

Oh nice. So you already lived in Ha you grew you grew up there or you moved there uh later in life?

SPEAKER_02 3:20

No, so I actually uh grew up in Israel, and then I moved to the east coast. I lived in New York City in Boston for a while, and then um there was one really bad winter in Boston, and I was like, okay, gotta get out of here. Uh so that that's how I got to uh Honolulu.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Booked it to Hawaii. That's that's the dream. That's the dream. It is. That's awesome. And um so you so you how many rentals did you have before you just said this is enough, I need to I need to build this thing.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

So I it didn't have a huge operation, it was like under ten uh units. It was kind of you know up and down. Uh but it it's it's enough to even with with one or two, it's enough to drive you crazy.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

So it's that's what's really what drove it. So explain to us what turnover BNB is.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

So turnover BNB is a place where you can find excellent cleaners that know the Airbnb business, because we all know that it's one thing to clean a house, it's another thing to clean an Airbnb efficiently. Right? So we we have a marketplace with a huge network of cleaners that already know what they're doing. And then on top of it, we have the best scheduling and workflow software that's uh uh specifically designed for uh vacation rentals. So you can put in your property details, your property calendar, and we would pull all the reservations and then dispatch them to your cleaners. And you can have one cleaner or ten cleaners, and you can have different priorities, you can set different prices for different cleaners for different uh uh properties, and we will also pay your cleaners for you. So there's really nothing left for you to do. We have a lot of customers that use Turnover BNB and they never log in because we just do it all for them. So they only have to they only have to do something when you know there's you know something out of the ordinary. But usually we you know we get the reservations, send it to the cleaners. If the reservation change, we notify the cleaner of the change. When the cleaners are done cleaning, we pay them. So you can run your operation in another country. Like recently I was looking into uh getting a property in Brazil uh and just managing it through uh turnover BNB.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 5:53

And it's possible. And we have people who do it. We have people who manage uh properties from a different continent.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Yeah. I will speak to how good your app is. You know, I i we're not getting paid for this. We're gonna tell all the all our fans right now, we're not getting paid for this. I just like started loving this app right away, and I was like, man, you know, that's like the number one questions. The the question that we get from our fans is you know, how do I, you know, improve my turnovers or how do I find a good cleaner? You know, that's that's like thanks to and I and I've been telling them this app has been kicking butt for me. And um, but to show you how good, like you said, you know, it's like the awesome scheduling software, it does everything. Because I I I I was new to it, you know, and and we we you know, this is a full full disclosure show. So I'm gonna just go ahead and say uh make you mad or nothing. But when I when I had the cleaner and I I went I got to the house, I was like, whoa, this is this is insane how good she cleaned it, you know. She even put like rolled up towels and water bottles. She did like what above and beyond. I was like, this is freaking awesome. And um spotless clean. And I and I I called her, I was like, you know, thanking her for it, and I was like, so you know, how do I want you to be my forever cleaner? How does this work in the future? Do you want to, you know, I'll full disclosure, I'll say, do you want to operate outside the app so they won't take money from? I don't know what you know. I I'm sure this conversation goes on a lot a lot a lot. But anyways, um she said, um, you know, let's just stay in the app. It's just easier for me, so I'll know when my cleanings are. It just keeps everything neat and you know nice and and neat for me. So let's just just keep doing it like that. When you have one, throw it on there and I'll and I'll grab it. And I was wow, she she she loves it so much, she don't mind you taking a little a little nibble of her money. That's that's pretty that says a lot.

SPEAKER_02 7:39

I mean you we you know our thing is always to to give value, right? So one thing is when you bring your own cleaners, we don't get in the way, right? You can work with your own cleaners, we don't take anything. But when you use the cleaners in our network, you're not the only person that we're um that is giving her uh gigs through the platform. So the cleaners love it because they get consistent uh flow of customers. They don't have to deal, they don't have to text with you all the time. Everything is in the app, uh so it makes life of everyone very simple. Very simple and especially come uh tax time. This is when it really shines, and I don't know if you've been using it enough to experience a tax time with us. Uh you have everything documented. Everything is ready to be expensed. Uh and if you think about, you know, just working with random people, usually people don't get any receipts, or even if they do, do you keep them? Uh with us, it's just like you have a button, export all my receipts in the past year, and everything is just you know ready to be expensed.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_04 8:56

That's what I love about it.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

How long have you been using it, Micah?

SPEAKER_04 9:01

Uh I don't know how long exactly, but I know it's at least been six months. I don't think I've been using it since 2018, but it's been six months, maybe a little longer. I may have been using it in 2018. Uh, because I had a couple arbitrages I used it on, and that's when I fell in love with it because I was like, man, I ain't gotta go downtown. I'll I don't have to pass off a key and get it off to turn over. I'm like, oh yeah, this is perfect. So I love it.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

A nice pro tip is always have you know at least two cleaners per property trained. Right? Because the nice you know, if you really want to make sure that you never have to be like, oh man, I have to go to that unit and clean it because someone is coming and that you know that cleaner is unavailable, you know, people are people, right? Um then if you always have two cleaners uh that are trained, if one doesn't take uh a project t the second one will, right? So you always have that safety net. Um we make it very easy to work with you know m one to you know to ten um cleaners, even more than ten, whatever. But I I've only seen people with ten. Um so that's a nice pro tip. Always have backup because this is how you'll never be in a position where you have to scramble, and we've all been there, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Oh yeah, yeah, big time. Um one thing I was gonna ask, because like I said, I'm I'm a new I'm a newbie to this. And so what um what happened, I I had texted her, I was like, okay, I got another, you know, another one coming up. You know, I she did because I just started this Airbnb this past month. And so I got the you know, I got a couple bookings and and I put her to do one, the first one, and then she did a great job, and I was like, and then another one popped up and I was like, I texted her, okay, um, so we're gonna go through the app. What do I do? Do I just put it on there and then and then you bid for it? Or how she goes, Yeah, just throw it on there. And then um so I threw it on there, and all of a sudden, you know, I'm like, okay, what happens next? She's like, Oh, I already grabbed it. I'm like, 'cause I I gave her like five star, you know, great review, right? And so when when that happens, when you give a cleaner like a glowing review, does that cleaner able to just automatically grab it without, you know, without having to bid for it, or how does that work?

SPEAKER_02 11:20

So they they bid on the on the property once, right? So they say, okay, this is a small studio, it's fifty dollars, for example. So every time you get a guest, then they it generates a project on the checkout, and that project is fifty. Right? And you can um, you know, that that price can be revised, but it's usually the same price, always. Uh there's another option which is per hour. Uh it's kind of less popular, but some people do it. So we will measure the time that they're there, and um it would be like you know, by a fractional of minutes.

SPEAKER_04 12:02

Uh another pro tip, because you just said by the hour. That's one thing I actually suggest people to do. If you're charging $75 on Airbnb for cleaning, and if you can get a cleaner to clean your place for $15 an hour in four hours, you just made $15 off the cleaning. So, and then the rest goes to your cleaner. I I tell people that too. That's why I've actually I'm gonna start using that pay by the hour feature because I I like that idea.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

Yeah, it's most people like the predictability of a fixed price, but if you have a little bit of an appetite for, you know, experimentation, uh that's uh that's another way to do it. It's it's really up to the cleaner uh the price that they uh want to charge. You can always talk to them later, hey, you can remove to a different price structure. Uh, it's very easy to do through the app is to adjust the prices. Another cool feature uh if you're managing for other people, um and is to set a different credit card per property. So if you have a customer uh that you manage uh proper the property for and you want them to pay the cleaning fee, then you can put just put their credit card on file for that property and all the cleanings will be charged to that card. Sweet.

SPEAKER_04 13:24

Right. That's exciting. So like this one thing I guess we did because that was one question I had. Like, how many users are you guys up to and like what are you guys in all major are you guys in all major markets now or are you guys still trying to get there?

SPEAKER_02 13:41

So we're in uh last time I checked was 66 countries. So that's basically everywhere I think worth visiting at this point. Um sometimes I like to check out you know the exotic places where we have customers. Like you know, Bora Bora or like the Maldives, you know, places like that. Uh obviously Hawaii. Um But one of the one of the things people really love is that if you have one property, uh you can use it um absolutely for free. So that's with you know, if you use your existing cleaners, uh you can use the software for free uh with one property. So we want to make sure that you know people just at the beginning of their um you know real estate or property management career can just you know get started, get used to it, um, and really love it. And we get a lot of love from the community for that. This is why we have users really everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

And and after the first property, how much does it cost?

SPEAKER_02 14:49

So after the f if you're using our uh cleaners, um then it is that property is free. Uh if you use your own cleaners, then it's six dollars uh per month per property, which is I think very reasonable.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Yeah, that's not bad.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

So the amount of money it saves you, uh it comes out to like, you know, fifty cents an hour or something.

SPEAKER_04 15:16

Oh wow money and time.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Now now when did y'all start this? Um what year did y'all start this?

SPEAKER_02 15:24

So we we launched in um 2017. I remember I was in um I was in Tokyo on vacation and we had launched it uh the day before, and I was just got uh notification that we have our first user signed up.

SPEAKER_04 15:47

Okay, so you're in 66 countries and you launched two years ago. How did you guys advertise and how did you grow so fast? Because that's insane growth.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

We I mean people people love it. You know, we we give it away with one property, so that it's really like there's really no reason in the world why you wouldn't use it if you only have one property. Uh if you have more than one property and you have no value for your time, then don't use it. But if you value your time just a little bit, then it's a no-brainer. Uh we just I I think it's just a factor of value. You give people something that's saves them a lot of time, they tell their friends. And we uh have spent no money on marketing. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 16:37

Wow, that's that's crazy. Well, I guess you could thank us because we talk about you all the time. Maybe it's all because of you guys, actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We should have hopefully we can't.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

You can send the royalty the royalty checks to uh Fort Worth, Texas.

SPEAKER_04 16:53

Yeah, send me the ads. Yeah, because I did go crazy because I first started using it, I was I was like, man, you gotta think I turn over B. I was I was going crazy with it. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Because didn't you tell you told your cleaner to get on there too? Yeah, yeah. I've actually onboarded all my cleaners on there. Oh wow.

SPEAKER_04 17:11

Ones in different cities. I tell them, hey, get on there, and then it's easy too because you can when they like when you get a new booking, right? Something gets instant booked, then you can see, hey, I got a notification on my phone, hey, your cleaner has accepted your new project. I'm like, oh yeah, easy. So that's what I love about it. Oh, that's nice. You have multiple cleaners, so if one can't get it, another one can. So and then it actually encourages the cleaner to go ahead and get on and make sure they can always get it. So it's it's it's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

They're really one once you are on the system a little bit and you you sort of see how it works, the only times you really have to do something is let's say you get a notification, hey, you have a cleaning coming up that no one has accepted. So that's really the only time you step in and say, hmm, you know, do I do I find another cleaner? Uh do I do this myself, God forbid? You know. Uh so that that's really the only time you need to to do something. Uh then we also alert you uh in case there's something unusual. The cleaners would say there's an issue. They have a they have their mobile app and they'll say there's an issue. Uh like broken glass or you know, toilet flooding or item missing, and then you get a notification, issue reported. Um So it's really about a lot like autopilot, right? The the the pilot is there in case something happens, but you know, the the the system just flies the plane ninety percent of the time. That and that's our philosophy is uh autopiloting as much as possible because we know we're all in it really to make it a passive income source.

SPEAKER_04 19:02

Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Do you one thing one thing that um that crossed my mind and um especially since y'all are big now and you got the you got traction and everything, um the name you you turn over BNB. Did you get like a a warning letter from Airbnb saying don't use that at the end of at the end of your name? Did you get anything like that?

SPEAKER_02 19:23

No, I mean it's you know, their what they've are known for is the air part. The BNB part was there before, right? So people were running BNBs before Airbnb. The reason they named it Airbnb is because you know they they wanted to be associated with the BNB part, which is generic, which is you know, I've been to BNBs before Airbnb was launched, right? So um and and the the thing is we also do uh platforms that are not Airbnb. So you if you have a pl uh property where it's listed on Home Away and on Airbnb and on um you know some other platforms, you can add uh the integrations to all of them and we would treat them the same way and create one calendar for you for all of your reservations and all your projects. So we are agnostic to the platform. The majority is Airbnb. Airbnb is a wonderful platform that I think is the easiest uh to use, and I you know, I really like it. But you know, get a lot of business from booking.com, get a lot of business from uh VRBO as well.

SPEAKER_04 20:46

Wow. Sweet. So I kind of have a personal question for you, because like you got this awesome company off the ground. Uh you know, are you still doing software engineer work or do you expand plan on expanding to other avenues of uh software that Airbnb hosts may need, or how's that going?

SPEAKER_02 21:05

So we we have so I do a lot um of coding my s every day. Not as much as I used to do. I used to be the only developer. Uh now we have about ten developers. So I but I still do coding. I like it. That's I can't really um stop. Yes. You know, it's my baby, right? Uh so um I'm I'm definitely very much involved in the technical aspect. In terms of our uh plans for other services, we have a lot of things in the pipe uh that are coming. One thing that I'm I'm um excited about is uh we are gonna add a feature soon that will help those of us that want to do uh to hope to get more customers to their property management. management business is to help them with that. Um because you know there's a lot of people on the platform that have uh you know grown their business and we can see that they're doing really well and we want to help them um find even more customers because we do get a lot of people that ask us, hey you know I found great queen through you but do you know any property managers in this area that I can work with? And so we've been doing these connections um manually um you know sort of just like as a nice service to our customers.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

Uh but we're gonna try and do that um a little bit uh more automatically that's smart that's a smart one what about like um throw some hand handyman up there to like if there is an issue you can get a handyman out there real quick that's definitely in the pipe that's definitely in the pipe.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

Wow one stop shopping that's awesome yeah just just putting everything on autopilot and and you know reducing up you know your day-to-day involvement because what is it about property management? It's just communication right it's just making sure that the right people are in the right place in the right time.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

So we're there to take a lot of load off your shoulder whose whose idea because it is a really cool idea is the was the bidding process that people get to bid for your job. That's that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

That's pretty unique you know who who who did you come up with that or or what yes uh well not me personally we I mean we have a team here and we thought about this this um problem and we realized that we don't really know what the right price is uh per uh property per location right so that you can have the exact same property in Honolulu and move it to Texas I can guarantee it would be a different uh market price for the cleaning. Uh so we don't have the capacity to tell what's the right price.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

We also want to give the cleaners uh the independence to to set their own prices and those that really have an excellent reputation should be able to charge more than people that don't have that reputation because you know if they've served dozens of customers they've completed hundreds or even thousands of projects they really know what they're doing uh there should be a little bit of premium uh that goes with it so we let people set their own prices and and work out the the deal that works for them one thing that um that kind of stuck out at me a little bit was like okay I gave I gave my my cleaner like ray reviews you know five stars all that stuff the first time and she did another great job the second time but I there was no way for me to rank her the second time.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

Is that just a one-time deal yeah it's it's something that we're looking to also um I guess you don't want to see for example you know when you go to Amazon and you look at the product reviews and if you one person put ten re ten reviews in there it's got to lose its its meaning a little bit um but we might do something that would be sort of an internal feedback.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

Yeah that would be good because so what if she does a crappy job the second time and like uh I'm I'm still she's all still got my five star you know I'm saying not that she would but I'm just saying and I see your point yeah and also another thing um do do they rank us do they rank us hosts at all?

SPEAKER_02 25:29

Like this guy's house is always crappy don't go clean it you know I'm saying that's that's one more thing that we uh we have to work on uh we don't I'm not sure exactly how that's uh that's gonna play out but I think it's something that's important for cleaners to know uh so that's something that we're gonna work on. Uh you wouldn't believe the number of things that we have to work on. I mean the it work the work is never never finished. I remember you know when I used to do you know freelance jobs as a software engineer someone would say hey you know I'm going I have this app idea how long is it going to take to build it? And I would always say forever think about it.

SPEAKER_04 26:16

It's never it never stops. So you guys launched in 2017 how long did it take you to develop it and launch it like from development to launch like how long did that process take?

SPEAKER_02 26:28

So we we really believe in sort of you know the lean methodology of you know when you have something put it out there so we really what we launched with was just a calendar there's no there were no no marketplace no uh no payments uh it was just a calendar that you could share like a nice calendar that you can share with your cleaners and then we added checklists and we added payments and we added uh the marketplace and we've you know we're adding more features and making it into an one cohesive product but we you know we add another layer uh you know every couple of months so you just start with something small that gives someone a little value and then you add more value and more value and more value.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

Like the old adage um ready fire aim.

SPEAKER_04 27:22

Yeah yeah yeah and the one thing I love this is another one that's a pro tip for you guys that are if you that are going to use it uh the the the cleaning list that he brought up the best part I'm gonna tell you how I always utilize it is I'll go find someone else after I make a cleaning checklist I'll go view someone else's and usually they'll have something on there that you forgot and it's a great way or you can just find one you really really like and just use it. So yeah that's the that's the best part about it. I love that cleaning checklist.

SPEAKER_02 27:52

Yeah that that's really nice because you know there are checklists that people uh you know been kind enough to share um and you can see wow there are like a hundred items here but you really need to hit them all if you want well yeah I definitely didn't have you know clean like the refrigerator on my checklist for a long time right and so it never got done right or clean the back of you know some furniture or something that you'd always miss or like the the microwave plate make sure to wash it you know things that you would do but you can forget also.

SPEAKER_04 28:31

Then the biggest one I I seen off someone else's checklist was dust the top of the ceiling fan. That was a huge one I was like oh I never thought about that and sure enough after I seen it some guests complained about it and so I added it to my list.

SPEAKER_02 28:47

And and another another feature that we released recently um that I highly recommend is the guest checkout flow. So are you using this?

SPEAKER_04 28:59

Yeah I love it. Because uh a guest said they were checking out early and my cleaner got a hold of it and she would she'll the guests that they were checking out at six o'clock she went over there got it clean at six o'clock when they checked out yeah I love that.

SPEAKER_02 29:14

So that's actually enhanced now so we we give them a URL to go when they check out and then not only can you know that they check out early we also ask them for their feedback about their stay. Let's know. So the the situation is ideally they'd say everything was great five stars. So then you know that that this is good. But if they say hey there was some dust on the ceiling fan the microwave plate was a little dirty four stars then you know that uh they didn't have the best stay. Right? So there is opportunity for you to reach out to them and make things right before they they place a you know a review that cannot be removed. That's beautiful so this sort of a a protection layer uh that that gives you a window to make things right before uh a review is written a review that matters that's that's awesome so you just add that to your checkout instruction please go to this URL and say that you checked out so it's a very minimalistic uh flow it takes one second all they say is yes I'm checking out now and then we say how's your stay and they say you know four to five or you know one star or two stars. If it's a five great enjoy come again if it's less than five what happened you know let us know then you're notified you get a notification on your phone and then you can spring to action and and try and make things right before uh you get a nasty review. And and this goes and this review this well this feature goes directly to the guest right yes that is I love that I love that so it it had helped me numerous times from uh you know uh just people that you know they're just like unhappy about something and you know if you can get in front of them and just talk then then you usually don't get hit with um a bad review.

SPEAKER_01 31:45

Right. That is true.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

Obviously sometimes you know you deserve the bad review and you're gonna get it no matter what. But sometimes it's just about making that extra connection just to make people feel better, right? Uh when when people have that connection with you they're less likely to give you um a bad review. That is true.

SPEAKER_01 32:09

This this really helps you uh just focus your attention on the people that are um at this critical point of just making up their mind that's a cool little add-on right there I like that save the save the stars get the stars yes oh man yeah so much to ask you I got a whole bunch excuse me real quick um you say you have the best cleaners out there and and one thing okay uh yeah like I said we always dig in here um there's a lot of Airbnb bans and restrictions going on and there's a lot of you know there's a lot of Airbnbers out there that don't want their address easily accessed to the world you know what I'm saying and the first thing this the the app asks you is your address and I and I actually chimed in I talked to uh um one of you know I I chatted with you on your website and I was asking him some questions uh who gets this address and how does it how do you know someone from you know let's say someone from the city doesn't just hop on to look at people's addresses and pretend they're a cleaner and then go start yeah start ratting on people saying hey you know this is a party house blah blah blah trying to get you shut down that and that so that's what I was asking how how do you protect the hosts from getting you know getting their information out there to people that aren't actually you know the best are bid bidding they don't see your address they see it similar to the way Airbnb does it. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

Like you we draw a circle uh of like an estimated location so they don't actually see your address they can see as granular as the zip code um then once they um they bid and you talk to them and they accept the bid uh then when projects come they come with an address uh now not every cleaner from the street can uh join our marketplace it's actually quite a process so they have to submit uh an application that has references from other hosts uh on top of that we uh we need their bank information we need their uh photo ID back in front if there's a human being that validates it um and they also sign um a contract so this is not just any person uh from the street that it's there's really a vetting process that we do that makes sense because I mean you're letting people in strangers into your house you know they better be not just getting on the app to start robbing people. That that would be the worst uh plot in the world is to join our app in order to rob people because you would be instantly caught right look we know exactly right so we know your ch you know all everything that there we we need to know we have the ID we have the bank account information uh your phone number your address it it would be uh you know it wouldn't be very smart.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

It'd be like it'd be like an Uber driver driver trying to rob one of their clients. I mean the other information's there I mean are they gonna catch them real quick.

SPEAKER_02 35:36

It's like the easiest uh case to crack uh it it it really wouldn't make a lot of sense and and we we've done um I should probably know this number, but you know tens if not hundreds of thousands of projects uh and we there has been no serious issue of any kind. I mean the worst thing that has happened is um you know a cleaner took the laundry to clean but then had forgotten to return it and then we had to call them and ask that they go return it and they returned it. I mean that's that's as dramatic as it ever happened and and there was really a lot of projects Yeah yeah a ton of 'em yeah so it's it's like we it's really thousands every day and and it's it's it's it's pretty remarkable because I I was when we just started it I thought it you know we will have issues and how we will deal with them but no. It's just you know people want to work and people want services and we have enough validation in place um to weed out any you know bad actors. Um and we have a very dedicated uh support team that is on top of everything. So uh we have customer service twenty four hours a day seven days a week uh there's always someone on the chat that you can talk to if you have questions.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

Um and so far it's been going great. Now real quickly on that because I noticed the they yeah the a lot of these companies have these chats and sometimes you got to wait a long time before you finally get someone and and it's just like auto responses until they until they can figure out to put someone on there to answer your question. But y'all y'all's uh I guess you got some little pictures of people that are you're you're you're allegedly talking to and um but Matt he's a real picture that's the real people that's what I was going to ask is that the real is those are the real people talking to you.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

Yeah I we found that one of the things that people love the most is having that real person to talk to when they need it. And people like to do it over chat. I think that's the most natural way for people to communicate these days and you know sometimes we might be a little underutilized but I'd rather have that than you know you having to wait a long time uh to you know to get help.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

Because so it's only like four or five little pictures there or how many people that's that's the whole support team? Yeah and you know we have sort of eight hour shifts. And they're great yeah they're fast they're on it. Yeah. And so um customer service is big with y'all and so I'll ask a question like who does um I I don't know who who inspires you in business or what company or what person you're like wow you know they did it right I want to try to model my company like a around what they did or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

So um one of the the biggest influence that um I've had in my career was a company that I worked at at in New York City called the Conductor and they are a search engine um optimization tool that I use um in for our company and and we get really get a lot of value out of it. And for them there's this mantra of you know customer focused if you do everything that you can do for your customer and make your customer happy uh then you'll succeed and it and it's really you know a customer driven mentality is is uh is what we try to to practice. So I I picked it up there you know a wonderful company recently got bought by uh WeWork uh another company all the time. Yeah. I mean isn't it nice you go there and everything is beautiful and bright and makes you feel like you're a success just you know just sitting there.

SPEAKER_04 40:03

So yes oh go ahead I'm sorry go ahead so so I I think I soaked up a lot of a lot of um a lot of that customer centric approach over there okay so one thing I did say um oh you because Steve touched on a little bit he said the legislation's going on in Hawaii because we talk about legislations and laws all the time how are they going and have there been any slowdowns in Hawaii or how is that looking over there?

SPEAKER_02 40:38

I mean it's pretty bad. Um you know I was I was involved in the process you know trying to to persuade the city council to to tame it down. You know I've I wrote some op ads I went to talk to the council and it seems like there was a lot of pressure there um to be also to do something and I and they just really signed a a law that I think was probably completely drafted at the hotel lobby uh you know lawyers like they probably wrote the whole thing. Uh and so it effectively bans um any Airbnb outside the resort zone of uh Waikiki and um there's another little one in the North Shore and the one on one in the west side um and I think it's probably the worst uh law Airbnb law in the nation. Like the San Francisco and New York are are actually better. Wow yeah so I don't think they've actually have done any uh enforcement so far. It's been in in effect for maybe two or three weeks. I don't know that anyone got busted yet um but it it's definitely a deterrent and I know a lot of people that have uh that have stopped because you know their properties were outside the result zone resard zone. So um I mean I think the silver lining is that you know we do everything late here in Hawaii so um probably most of the cities that have had major political pressure to have done something already have already done it. Uh so I think we can take comfort in the fact that it's probably um most of it is behind us. Like the you know uh those these sort of uh laws. Now is that just in Honolulu or is that um uh Maui is that all the islands no it's it's just the island of Oahu so this is uh legislation from the city and county of Honolulu City of County Honolulu uh is the whole island of Oahu so Maui has its own laws and the big island has its own laws uh Maui and the Big Island have very big resort zones so there's still a lot of places to to work to do Airbnbs. Uh in in Honolulu the resort zone is very small. It's just Waikiki.

SPEAKER_01 43:24

But even outside the resort zones in Maui you can do it still or no?

SPEAKER_02 43:28

I'm you know I'm not really uh an expert on the other islands. Uh but I know that uh it's somewhat easier in Maui.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 43:41

It's like cities are just dropping like dominoes. Like the city that I live in it just got well they they did they became a little bit lenient. They had shut it down then they said hey you can do it in a certain area now they're saying you can do it in a certain area but it has to be a duple then in other areas you can do it but it has to be a duplex. So yeah it's it's getting Tough out there.

SPEAKER_01 44:01

Yeah. Same um hot hotel lobbyists.

SPEAKER_02 44:06

Yeah, it's uh I I think Honolulu really went way too far on this. Like they they there is just no leniency or never not even thought about what's gonna happen the implication. I think the implication is gonna be just a lot of empty expenses, hous expensive houses. That's what's gonna happen. You have a you have a lot of beachfront property on the island that, you know, it's like a three million dollar house. Uh no local family can afford to rent it, you know, on a regular basis, right? Like a no one's gonna pay ten thousand dollar rent. Uh and the owner can probably just sustain it just as a vacation home that they come to two or three times a year, and it's just gonna be empty the rest of the time. There'll be no tax money going to the local government, uh no revenue going to restaurants, tour operators, uh cleaning people, maintenance people, property managers, real estate people, uh all of that is is just money that was on the table and is not now not on the table and just gonna be an empty house.

SPEAKER_04 45:21

Yeah, and I think that's the you you hit on the biggest part. That's the what people are missing on. It's it's the money that you stop. You know, you if small businesses grow, tourism grows, it's crazy that they're willing to miss out on all that.

SPEAKER_02 45:34

It you know, it always comes down to who is better organized and who um has more concentrated resources, right? So the hotel lobby has a lot of concentrated resources, they're better organized, they sent out, you know, the union, you know, the hotel worker union uh to every city council meeting, to every demonstration, like here, take the day off, go make an impact, right? So you know the all the entrepreneurs and and service providers, they're not organized. They they can't you know concentrate their effort the way that uh the hotels can.

SPEAKER_01 46:18

I think that um uh big companies, big um, big industry saw what what Uber did to the taxi industry. And they're like, oh crap, we gotta get ahead of this faster than the taxi cab taxi cab industry didn't do nothing. And they just they pretty much they almost died because of Uber. And so I think uh yeah, the hotels are like, okay, this is getting pretty popular, let's do something about this, let's pay off the right talk to the right people.

SPEAKER_02 46:44

I mean, I I actually believe there there is room for you know sensible regulations on this. I totally get if they'll be like, okay, you can only have you know properties that are vacation homes, right? They're not lived in. Only like secondary properties should be allowed. Uh maybe only local people can have uh, you know, a license, right? Because everyone is complaining about money from, you know, foreigners or people from the mainland. Um and like, okay, so let's just uh let's let people that live here have that opportunity. Um or maybe just allow it for hosted uh you know units. That they were just like no, nothing. So it's uh I think there's there's other ways to do it. And I think there is room for leg regulation. I'm I'm fine with it. Uh as long as it makes sense. I I think in this case it it doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 47:49

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 47:51

But you know, it's a lot of people ask, well, how does that a affect your business? Well the answer is that it doesn't really affect our business. Uh you know, w maybe one percent or even less than that of our uh businesses in in the state. Um and even less than that is in the island of Oahu. So it doesn't really have a material impact on our business, but it's just that we live here, we're part of the community, and uh and it's painful for us to see all this opportunity being wasted.

SPEAKER_01 48:23

Yeah. Yeah. So back to the um back to your company. I was gonna ask, um what was I gonna ask? Okay, uh about the short-term rental industry. Uh do you still consider it the wild, wild west? Is there like big things to come, you know, aside from the bans and legislation, is there like big positive things to come out of this? And um, and do you have any major um competitors that that are that are fighting for some of the for the the the turnover portion of it?

SPEAKER_02 48:53

Yeah, we we have we have some competitors. Um none of them have um I think our focus on automation, on making things autopilot, I think they have a different take uh on things. Um they also don't offer the first property for free. Um and one of the reasons that we're have been very successful is that we do that. We let people like small operations, you know. Why don't you get started with it? And then when you're ready to scale, then we'll do it together. Um in terms of the industry as a whole, I think uh it is here to stay. I think people have gotten used to it and they're not gonna give up on it. I think what's gonna happen, for example, in Oahu, that's people are just not gonna come to Oahu. Like if you want to go on a family vacation, um and you know, it's like you and your brother and all all the kids, you've got like eight, ten people, you're not gonna stay in a hotel. It's just ridiculous. It is just there's no way to do it. Right? You're not gonna rent out four rooms. Uh it's you know, it's expensive and it and it's just not as fun. And people are just not gonna come to Oahu, they're gonna go somewhere else where they can do it. Um and we recently uh went on vacation with a family. Uh we didn't even look for hotels because it just it's it's not it doesn't make sense to do it. So I think the the the family vacation uh is completely short-term rental. That's the future of it. And you actually see um companies like Marriott going into vacation rentals because they can see it. Right?

SPEAKER_01 50:44

That's our that's i ironic right there.

SPEAKER_02 50:46

Yeah, you you can they can see that that's that's the future of it. Also a lot of business travel. Um you know, people just need a place to to rest and they don't want to spend three hundred dollars in a major city. Um and as a business, when you fly out your employees somewhere, like I'm not gonna get your room for three hundred dollars a night. Just get a nice Airbnb for you, you know, it'll be fine. I think what the consumer wants, the consumer gets. So the you cannot you cannot crush uh the demand. And people and you know, and if New York is gonna ban it, then people are gonna go to New Jersey. And if Oahu is gonna ban it, then people are gonna go to Maui. Exactly. And and I think it's it municipalities are gonna come to terms with uh the fact that that's what people want. And it's okay if they want to have more of that or less of that, uh or if they don't want it at all. But um what people want, people get people want that experience, especially in the you know, business travel and sp especially family travel.

SPEAKER_03 51:59

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 52:00

Yeah, and and you you hit a good point when you said people tra coming as families, so that if you get what, three hotel rooms the way they cost them two, three hundred dollars a night on there, yeah. You can get an Airbnb for three hundred dollars a night and fit everyone, yeah. You it it's it's ridiculous. You're right.

SPEAKER_02 52:16

And it and it's just it people are just not going to come to places that don't have that possibility. Um it it's just it's a it's a calculus that municipalities are gonna have to do. Well, if I don't want family uh vacations here, then that's fine, I can ban Airbnb. But if I want to have family vacation, then I need to have the kind of supply that families want. And I think Airbnb has enabled the families to have that nice vacation opportunity that um that wasn't available before, or was or was hard to to come by. You know, I I have still have family in Israel and sometimes we sort of meet in the middle in in Europe and you know, I bring my kids and they bring their kids and we all get like a big house somewhere and always through Airbnb because it's just so easy to do.

SPEAKER_01 53:15

H here's uh sp speaking on that a little bit, here's one thing like I, you know, I have friends that they know I do like a little bit of real estate, little you know, some long-term rentals and some short term. And they they are they always ask me with the short-term rentals and the vacationing of what um what happens if there's a recession that's gonna come, man, and no one's gonna travel anymore, which to me that's BS. But um people will travel. I I told them I think it'll actually it might help my business a little bit because they're gonna look for ways to travel cheaper if there's like an actual recession. People still want to do something besides just work and have five jobs. That's not American, the American way. Um they still want to have vacations, but they're gonna try to do it on the even, you know, save a little bit more money. They're not gonna stay at the Marriott or Hilton anymore. They're gonna look for Airbnbs. I think it might benefit us even more. So Yeah, I I I agree with you.

SPEAKER_02 54:10

I think you know uh recession if we were to come will probably have a dual impact. One will be like an overall uh sort of softening of of travel, but people are gonna be more value driven, and that uh and that I think is where we shine. Uh so it's gonna be it will probably have like you know uh net out to to keep us at the same level because there's gonna be like less demand for travel, but more demand for value travel. Um and it probably will have I mean, you know, even when you have a recession, then you have like five percent less, right? Or ten percent less. It's not gonna be like half. Right, right. Hopefully.

SPEAKER_05 54:59

Hopefully.

SPEAKER_04 55:00

Yeah, and I it's funny you brought that up because uh I was at a actually at a workshop about two days ago, and we actually ran the numbers on how was travel affected on the last recession, and it the travel only went down, I think, one percent per quarter. So people were still moving because that was my big thing because after I looked at the stock and I'm like, man, if I want to throw more money in Airbnb, what's gonna happen if there's a recession? I don't want to be sitting there stuck. So I did we did a whole me and two guys, we did a whole research on it, and it was only like one percent per quarter. So it dropped a total, I think, six percent.

SPEAKER_02 55:37

So it wasn't too bad. So so people still travel, uh, but they might change their travel patterns, right? They might instead going far, go close, instead of staying in a nice hotel, stay in a cheap hotel, instead of staying in a hotel at all, stay in an Airbnb. Uh so there's shifting of I think you know, where you're vulnerable is if you're like uh sort of high end, but not extreme high end. Uh because you know, extreme high-end, you know, they're millionaires, billionaires, uh they don't care, right? But uh but if you if you're talking about sort of like medium to high, maybe maybe this will be a little softening there.

SPEAKER_04 56:20

Yeah, see, and then that's that that is true if you're high end. See, that's what I was saying. Because I kind of hopped out of arbitraging instead of instead going towards buying, because I think if you buy, you kind of have more control over your your mortgage, how much you're paying per month. If you're paying one 1300 for a one bed, one bath, uh if a recession hits, that might be kind of hard to make, you know, because you you're limited to what four guests probably. So I think it depends on what what kind of unit you have. How the effect depends on the time of unit you have.

SPEAKER_02 56:53

Hopefully we won't have to we won't have to check our numbers against uh reality. Uh but I'm I'm optimistic. I think any negative impacts will be offset by positive impacts. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:06

Cool. Um one thing I always I always like to ask our our guests is um is to give some give like a tidbit, like something that you do different. You know, mostly we we interview people that do Airbnb and stuff like that. But um what you do different or something unique or advice, just general advice in the in the short-term economy or you know, or rentals. And um yeah, just just because a lot of people are starting out, you know, they might have be having issues and um they need they need some good advice. And since you you know you've done Airbnb before, but I mean I business advice, if you'd like to give some like business tips, because obviously y'all are running a successful business, whatever off the top of your head, some advice to our listeners that will help them on their journey in either Airbnb or business in general.

SPEAKER_02 57:57

I would say don't be afraid to take risks. Right? Business is all about taking calculated risks. So you know, if you're if you're going to go into this, then you're taking risks, right? Because you're taking on a lease or you're buying a property, um, and there is no guaranteed return, right? Like like you say, it could be a recession, it could be a problem, um but you don't get ahead without without taking risks. And it's nice to take them one step at a time. So instead of buying two properties, buy one, see if it pencils out in that neighborhood and buy another one. Uh but if you don't take risks, you don't get rewards. And and it it doesn't get any any simpler than that.

SPEAKER_01 58:52

Great. That's perfect advice. We like we love it. And we're gonna take major risk tomorrow. I'm just kidding. So um Asaf, where can people find you or or learn more about you know Turnover BNB?

SPEAKER_02 59:08

So you can go to turnoverbnb.com and you can learn all about our product. Uh you can sign up, start using it right away. Uh should be very easy. But if you'd like some hand holding, we have our uh dedicated customer service people around the clock just waiting uh for your questions uh and helping you getting started. Um it just takes a couple of minutes to set up and then you save yourself so much time down the road. And what you do with that time, taking those risks, you know, taking advantage of opportunities is what we're all about. Is stop doing repetitive tasks that we can do for you and get started doing interesting, rewarding things that only you can do.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:02

Great advice. And and real quick, Asaf, if you have any of uh those empty houses in Hawaii, we I mean I'd be I'd be happy to go over there and fill them up. Remind me and my family. Might be Micah and his family too.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:16

So what I uh so you know, our team here we're all about our quality of life here in Hawaii, and we love to uh um you know ex experience the the outdoors and uh if you guys ever come and I know you have a property mic, then we'll take you out sailing. Oh one of our co-founders has a sailboat and you go out sailing sometimes and you know in the sunset you feel like you know there's no no uh other place you'd rather be. Oh well.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:47

Well, just found our next vacation spot.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:52

And um yeah, man, this has been a great interview. What do you think, Micah?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:57

Yeah, it was a good interview. Thank you for being on. I love the app. I've been using it, I think probably six to eight months, and I'm I'm in love with it. So I have multiple properties on there. So it's my main source of cleaners.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:10

So I'm gonna all you fans and listeners sign up today. It's free, and we're not we're not we're not even pushing nothing. I mean, it's just it sells itself. It's it's the it'll change your life. There you go. Well, thank you, Asab, for hopping on.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:23

It's a pleasure to be here and uh um let me know if you want to talk more sometime.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:29

Yeah. Definitely. Well, thanks for thanks for hopping on, and uh, we'll talk to you later.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:36

Okay, take care.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:37

Thank you. See ya.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:41

All right. That was Asof Carmen for the CEO and founder of Turnover BNB, and that was pretty freaking awesome.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:50

Yes, it was, man. That is that's a true entrepreneur. Don't be afraid to take risks. I loved it. I just added him on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:59

So I saw I saw you, you know, because you've been using this um turnover BNB for a while, but I saw you more it seemed to look like you're more interested in the business side. Like, how the hell did he blow up like that, you know?

SPEAKER_04 1:02:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because like he that it to be launched in 2017 and in 2019 you're in 66 countries. That that's that's insane growth. Like when you start a business, that that is insane growth, man. Like you look at Airbnb, when they start 2008, they pop that fast. That's a f but at the same time, they're a pick and shovel of Airbnb, so it probably was easy for them to pop. Like, I think they're they're in the perfect market. Like, you know, most people are trying to find cleaners, you know, like I need a cleaner, and boom, here's an app for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:44

Yeah. Yeah, it's easy. And that's what I um I heard on a business podcast not too long ago. It was saying you don't always have to find the you know, invent the wheel, the next big thing, you know, invent something that ain't there. You can find something that's already there, like Airbnb is already there, already kicking butt, already doing good, and then make something that'll help that process even better, you know, in in any walk of life, you know. I'm saying renting a car, someone, you know, make that process better for people. Make you know, something that already exists. Just just find a way to make it better, you know, to feel the need. And and he definitely definitely feel the need, because you know that's the biggest the biggest problem is the turnovers.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:22

Yeah, the biggest thing in business, man, you gotta find the void. Find the you gotta you gotta find what what what people are gonna buy and what they need. Uh like even with uh Turo, you know, you may need somebody to clean your car. I know car cleaning has gone through the roof since Turo's been out there. Think about it, like the regular car companies, they just clean it right there, you know. Now you like somebody might be running the thing through a car wash nonstop, you know? But it's just it's just so many things that are coming about just from the share economy. And uh he touched on it good when he talked about Hawaii. And if you shut down Airbnbs, you're taking a huge chunk of change from everywhere else, you know, cleaners. Uh it's just like um I was talking to uh Josh, one of our podcast guests, yesterday, and we were talking about Uber coming to Dallas. I'm like, man, it's about to create a bunch of jobs. You know, you're gonna have to build the headquarters, you gotta get construction workers, then you gotta get the people that come in and work those jobs for Uber. So, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:18

Texas don't play, man. They're getting a lot of business here. And and the funny thing is, when you talk about a recession, that's when I got comfortable when the Uber said they were coming.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:26

I'm like, oh yeah, we ain't about to like we can get a recession, we might not hit it again that hard, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:32

Texas don't really, I don't think they're about to feel it again. I think everybody else is gonna be struggling in Texas. We're gonna be having our feet up, like we're chilling down here.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:39

And then and then more people are gonna move here and want to buy stuff. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:44

It'll turn into Cali cent. Well, I don't know if we'll ever come into Cali. We ain't got no coast. We got a coast. We got the Nah, we got we got a oil coast.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:56

Oh man. Well, that was a great show. It was uh it's also always awesome hopping on with you and and talking shop, man, and and meeting interesting, amazing people that are kicking butt in the industry.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:07

Yeah, man. Catch us at liveletrive at gmail.com, live let thrive.com. You can follow us on LinkedIn, man. I'm I'm I'm about to get a bunch of stuff popping off on LinkedIn, man. All our videos up there. Well, I'm doing a whole revamp, man. I'm I'm I'm uh really big on advertising right now, getting us out there, man. So yeah. Come and catch us, follow us, like us, rate us, subscribe to us on YouTube, iTunes, all that good stuff. We're gonna have more good guests coming for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:36

And keep living, letting, and thriving. Thrive. All right, y'all. Later. Peace.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:46

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.