Jon Wolf Shares Mid-term Rental Success and His Vision for MiniStays

Our vision is to be the go-to source and be a household name for midterm rentals. Like right now, if you asked anybody, where would you go for a stay 30 days or longer? If you were looking to go somewhere this winter and stay there for 3 months, where are you going to look? And nobody really has a clear answer to that. They're like, I might check out Airbnb or something, but people that aren't familiar with the space, they've never heard of Furnished Finder. So becoming a household name, I think is really important. And for long-term vision, yeah, I want to steal all of Airbnb's and Furnished Finders' market share. That's the long-term vision. And I think we have the ability to do that because there's nobody that's really implementing everything that hosts and guests want to see in the space. And I feel like we're doing a really good job at doing that.

Yeah. I like that you're taking in the guest perspective too, right? Welcome to the She's Got Assets Real Estate Investing Podcast. I'm the host, Shona Lepis. Follow along as we unpack and demystify real estate investment strategies through expert interviews and personal experience. From how to find off-market deals to creative financing to long-term and midterm rentals, we aim to educate and inspire others to gain financial freedom and generational wealth through real estate. And as always, please subscribe so you never miss an episode. We really appreciate reviews. It helps others find us and just helps us get found. All right, we're live. Hey everyone, welcome to She's Got Assets Podcast. I'm Shona, the host, and I have a special guest today, John Wolfe. He is the founder founder of Ministays, really exciting new midterm platform. So John, I'd love to have— introduce yourself a little bit about your background and about Ministays. Let's dive in.

Awesome. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me on. Again, my name is John Wolfe. I'm the founder and CEO of Ministays. A little bit about my background. I've been investing in real estate for about 10 years now. I bought my first duplex when I was 22. Didn't really know anything about real estate at the time. People around me said it was probably not the best idea. I had no real estate background whatsoever, but I felt like I did enough research where I, I moved forward, bought my first duplex when I was 22, did the whole house hack thing, lived in one side and rented out the other. And then I played football in college, so I spent the next 3 years or so pursuing a career in the NFL. Ultimately that ended up not working out the way I had hoped or planned, but I always knew I was going to get back into real estate full-time once that was done. So when football was officially done, I got back into real estate. I became a realtor. And over the last about 6 years or so, I became a top 2% realtor in the country, as well as building a multimillion-dollar real estate portfolio. And about 3 years ago is when I heard about midterm rentals. I was actually dealing with a pretty bad long-term tenant and I had to Unfortunately, go through the eviction process. She had completely trashed the units. It was in pretty rough shape. So I was like at the point of, do I sell this place? Do I turn it into an Airbnb and try that? But here in Minneapolis, they have a lot of restrictions around Airbnbs. You can only have one Airbnb in Minneapolis and there's a huge long permit process. So I just didn't feel like that was really worth it to get one Airbnb. And then somebody thankfully had told me about midterm rentals and travel nurses, and that sounded interesting to me. So I didn't really know where to start. Somebody told me about Furnished Finder. So obviously everybody knows about Airbnb, but I listed on Furnished Finder and Airbnb, and within a week I had my first tenant. She was a travel nurse. She stayed for 3 months, took amazing care of the property. It was the best thing I've ever done because when she left, it almost looked like she hadn't even been there. And my rent went from $1,800 a month to $2,500 a month. So I was completely sold on midterm rentals. I started converting all of my long-term over to midterm and the rest is history. And so that's where I got my start in real estate and yeah.

Yeah, I love that. I feel like once you get a taste of midterm, like you don't go back.

It's just, right. They take better care of the property. You charge more rents. It's just a win-win all the way around. I know some people say that they do Airbnbs and they make maybe 20 to 50% more than I would on a midterm rental, but the amount of work that you do on an Airbnb doing weekly turnovers versus now I only do a turnover every 3 months, it's, you can't really beat it.

I know. And I think those numbers we hear, they're not taking vacancy into account and all the work and just the, I think the guests, that the level of guests, the like communication, even with all the software, it's a whole— midterms, I don't hear from them. It's just like they do their thing. They're here to work. Yeah, it's awesome. Okay, so I think, I think the biggest like pain points with midterms are like how pricing and advertising, and clearly that's where you come in with Minnie Stays. So what was that light bulb moment? You're like, let's do this.

I actually realized the need for a, a new platform since that first week when I got started because somebody had told me about Furnished Finder. I went on the site and I'm like, this is what people are using? Like, from somebody that has no idea what to do or where to list my property and somebody says Furnished Finder's the go-to place, you go on there, it's what? This is what people are using? But within a week I had my first guest from there, so it was great in that regard. But then being a new host, I didn't know. How the whole process worked. So I would ask every guest that came to me and said, hey, what questions am I supposed to be asking you? Do you do a lease agreement? Do you, how do you do payments? Do you do a background check? And so I was asking about their experience and from their side of things, they said, yeah, Furnished Finders is great for finding properties, but there's a lot of times where I have to message 20 or 30 different hosts to one, find availability because they don't auto-update their calendars because payments aren't done on the platform. So we have to do those manually, either through Venmo or Zelle, and that can get a little sketchy when you're dealing with people you've never met before, exchanging thousands of dollars. That gets a little sketchy. And then, so there was a lot of frustrations that I heard about from the guest perspective. And then from the host side, it's the same thing. Reservations aren't done on the platform, so it's really hard to track. So even now, I, to track my reservations. I have Post-it notes on my wall here and it tracks my reservations for me, but it would be nice if they were done like on one platform and I can do everything from one place, like an Airbnb where they have all your reservations and you can extend.

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Do cancellation policies and everything from your host dashboard. So that was our goal with ManyStays was to combine the best features of Furnished Finder and Airbnb to create one platform where you can do everything in one space that's revolved around midterm rentals. So on ManyStays, it's free to list. We focused on it being very user-friendly. So when you come to the site, you know exactly what you're looking for. All of our users are verified. You can enforce cancellation policies. You can do background checks. You can edit your reservations. You can extend, cancel everything from your host dashboard. So it's really easy to track and follow. And then payments are automatically deducted. Calendars are automatically updated. And our fees are extremely low because we allow the host to collect a security deposit. People ask what makes ManyStates better. I wouldn't, it's hard because there's different needs for everybody. I'm not saying it's hard for me to say ManyStates is better than the competition because we're ultimately different. So Airbnb, you're going to be paying extremely high fees, but you get the air cover included in that. So we went the route of having really low fees, but we allow the host to collect a security deposit. So that's their protection of any damages. So we wanted to put the power back into the hands of the consumers and not be that third party that steps in and says, we're going to give you this much money because that's what we think your claim is worth. And then nobody's happy in that instance.

Mm-hmm.

So we wanted to put the power back into the user's hands. We feel like that's a better solution, but some people might just want the comfort of knowing that an Airbnb or a company is going to step in and do that. And we have discussed a, a potential for an optional insurance coverage. So in lieu of the security deposit, a guest can have the option to select like traveler's insurance. So then they don't have to pay the upfront refundable security deposit. They can pay a lower insurance fee and then that'll act as like an air cover for the guest.

Interesting. Okay. Yeah, no, I like that. I require like renter's insurance because if something happens to my guest stuff, I don't cover that. So that's just, I think insurance is really important. And I love that you're thinking about like the background credit check and all that stuff, because typically in Airbnb, we're, we're, our vetting is, do they have good reviews? There's not a whole lot of vetting. And if it's direct booking, I have a full-on application. Right. So I like that you're actually including that because I think that's really important.

That's the other side of it with Airbnb there. It's, you can't, it's really hard to take people off platform and do a background check or a lease agreement or something before they book. So you're really relying on Airbnb to do that. So on Minisites, you can run your background check, you can do your lease agreement, you can vet the tenant thoroughly before you decide to commit to having them. And especially with longer stays, you want to avoid any squatters. You want to make sure they are who they are. And if you're dealing with nurses or people with a contract or insurance agencies, you feel a lot more secure.

Yeah, no, definitely. I think that's even, I know nurses are highly vetted and I get that, but I feel like that's, I, it's so important to vet guests and make sure you have to think like a bank. You have to make sure they're financially responsible. And so I love that you're including that. I'm curious on the leases. I'm in a very like landlord unfriendly place, right? Every there, and it's down to the county specific. Are you able to use your own lease if you have a very specific lease, like local to your area, or do you have to use like what's included in many lease stays?

You can certainly use your own lease. Okay. So in, we have Messenger on our platform. So if a, a guest inquires on your property, it goes to Messenger and you can ask any questions you want. You can send attachments, you can exchange your email address. So right now we don't have the, on Airbnb, if you try to give somebody your email address, it's going to instantly block you. So we're operating on a very like trust basis right now. Whereas somebody reaches out to you and they want to put through the ManyStates platform. We're working on trust right now and it's been working pretty well because we have low fees. There's no reason to really take it off platform based on all the tools that we have. So we have all of the tools that you need. Why would you take it off platform if you're already paying a low fee? And then you can track all your reservations right there. Because I know a lot of times with midterm rental operators, they find their leads on Furnished Finder, then they have to have full systems in place on multiple different websites, one to do background checks, one to do lease agreements, one to collect payments, and having all of that in one place, there's no reason to really take it off. So that's why we're operating on a trust basis right now.

So just to clarify, because I, I'm in a very litigious place, if I would keep the booking online, I could use my own lease though, but keep the booking online. That's cool. With the, within the platform. Okay. Is that okay? Okay. I just, it's very, it's a very tricky place that I'm in. Okay. I love that.

Right now we don't have lease agreements directly on our website. We have our terms and conditions, which you're agreeing to. So it outlines essentially like a lease agreement, but we do eventually want to implement actual lease agreements that will be state-specific, that will automatically pull in all the reservation data. And then the host can edit any other specific details like take out trash or when to clean it or how to take care of the property where they can edit it. So that's something we plan on rolling out in a couple of months, most likely. But of course you don't have to, you, we won't make you have to use that mini states lease agreement. You can still supply your own if that's what you're comfortable with.

Okay. Yeah, no, I just, I think it's really depends on where you are and what the laws are like. So know your landlord-tenant law because We are in landlord-tenant law. Okay. That's all. I love that. 'Cause I think, yeah, when I first found Furnished Finder, it was probably 4 years ago. I didn't know if it was real. Yeah. Good job.

Yeah. And then you go on their site too and like I had my, I told my mom about it because she always wanted to do the whole snowbird thing and go to Florida in the winters and stuff. And I told her, I can check out Furnished Finder, see if you can find a place. And she was just like over her head. What is this? How do I find a property? How do I contact a property? She did the inquiry, like the, what is it, the request thing. She put a request out there for Fort Myers on this timeline and she was just having like hundreds of people reach out to her that, and none of 'em like matched what she was looking for. And she wanted a, a whole house or a whole place. And a lot of people were sending her rooms. So that can be overwhelming if a guest is looking for a place. And she also, when she first went to the site, She, it says travel nurses all over the page. She's like, is this just for travel nurses? So that's another thing is they don't do a great job. I know they're trying to expand to like different, uh, diverse, uh, traveler pool, but I think still right now, last I checked, I'm always checking out competitors. So on the first page of their website, it mentions travel nurses 17 times. So I looked at that and I'm like, they mentioned travel nurses 17 times. They don't mention any other type of traveler. So a lot of times when people aren't a travel nurse and they go to Furnished Finder, they go off right away because they think it's just for travel nurses.

Interesting. Yeah, they're, I have to dispel that myth too, or people just think MTRs are just travel nurses. I'm like, no, there's a whole wide avatar there. That is, it's a very big, that's what people think. So interesting. Yeah. Okay. So many stays. So your vision is to be, is it to be like, what's the vision of it? Like be the go-to MTR platform or?

Yeah, our vision is to be the go-to source and be the household name for midterm rentals. And that's the other thing is becoming a household name. Like right now, if you asked anybody, where would you go for a stay 30 days or longer? If you were looking to go somewhere this winter and stay there for 3 months, where are you going to look? And nobody really has a clear answer to that. They're like, I might check out Airbnb or something, but people that aren't familiar with the space, they've never heard of Furnished Finder. So becoming a household name, I think is really important. And for long-term vision, yeah, I want to steal all of Airbnb's and Furnished Finder's market share. That's the long-term vision. And I think we have the ability to do that because there's nobody that's really implementing everything that hosts and guests want to see in the space. And I feel like we're doing a really good job at doing that.

Yeah. I like that you're taking in the guest perspective too, right? Because I've heard that a lot when I talk to leads, like they're like, oh, you call me. I'm like, yeah, I call. I, I, it's communication is very difficult. I think with especially not all operators are professional.

Right.

So I'm curious about like your name and that big vision. My background's marketing. So did you do a lot of research or was Many Stays just like, how did you land on that? It's a come up with a clever name?

On the name?

Yeah.

Process of elimination and availability. Because I would, I, and we're from Minneapolis, so I felt like Mini, Minneapolis, that's where our headquarters is at. I felt like it fit there. It was cool to connect those two in a way. But then based on availability and something that's catchy, I did a few idea generator things with AI and, and then it was cross-checking that with available domain names and available trademarks. So we got trademarked and we have our website domain. I felt like landing on Mini States was a good fit.

Very cool. Yeah. Finding when all those stars align is tricky for sure.

And then also picking up like, uh, sorry, one more thing with the name of Finding something that's a little, uh, kind of catchy and can, uh, eventually be used as like a verb, like Airbnb. Mm-hmm. Oh, I have an empty property, Airbnb it. I have an Airbnb, or I have an empty property, you can Minnie Stay it. Um, so think of it as like a verb, or, um, if you're talking to a potential traveler, it's like, oh, I want to go to Florida for 3 months. Oh, you should do a Minnie Stay.

So I like, yeah, no, that's, that's strategic, right? Because Airbnb has become a verb. Like everyone just inherently knows what that is. Yeah, it's become household. So I'm curious, I feel like when I first started, I didn't even— midterm wasn't even a term that was commonly used. Do you think people are— know that term more or is it getting on the— I feel like it's on the map, but I'm so in it. It's hard. I don't know if I have perspective on it.

Like, yeah. Yeah. That's something we've been navigating too. And I think hosts, whether you're short-term or midterm, are definitely catching on. So from a host perspective, midterms is catching on. But I think from a guest side of things, they may not have heard of midterm yet. So that's why in a lot of our marketing and blog posts and everything, we use monthly furnished rentals instead of midterm rentals. Because when I feel like when guests are looking for a midterm rental, their first place to go is on Google and they type in monthly furnished rental in New York City or wherever they're going. So yeah, I feel like From the two sides, guests, monthly furnished rentals, hosts, midterm rentals.

Interesting. Yeah. It's all about the, the SEO, right? Okay. That makes sense. All right. So what are the, let's talk avatars, right? Who are you going after certain niches or is this like, this the go-to place or what do you find? Like there's so many like niches in, in midterms, right?

That's something I want to differentiate us from like Furnished Finder is we're not putting ourselves in a box, but obviously from a marketing standpoint, you need to be niche-specific, especially when you're a startup, because you, if you're too diverse, your marketing dollars won't go as far.

Hmm.

But ultimately our ideal customer profile is travel nurses, any other traveling professionals, snowbirds, military, digital nomads is actually the fastest growing segment or demographic. And that's been a huge catalyst because of the whole work remote. Movement. So there's over 17 million people just in the US that identify as digital nomads. And if you don't know what a digital nomad is, it's anybody that kind of doesn't have a permanent address. They work remote and they just bounce around every 3 months to different cities and explore new areas. They just don't have a permanent address in one state or city. And that's why midterm rentals, if you look at the analytics, it's the fastest growing segment in real estate investing because of people that work remote and can travel. They're thinking, why do I want to lock myself into a 12-month lease? I have to buy all the furniture. I'm in New York City. Winters are miserable. Or I can go to Florida for 3 months, Arizona for 3 months, and visit all my friends and stuff. And especially people that are ages 22 to 26, when they graduate college, all of their friends are living all over the country and working remote jobs. So now they can all travel together and do things together and still have roommates. So that's a very exciting demographic, and that's why I see many stays as not just filling a need right now for the current users. I really see many stays as being a catalyst to change the way that people travel and ultimately live, because I feel like people can use this as a way to live and they're just starting to catch on of, I work remote, I can live wherever I want. So, yeah, that's interesting.

Yeah, I know, like Sarah Weaver has been living digitally for like years. It's like the, the author of that book. Yeah, that's super cool.

And I keep meeting people over and like that New York City reference is I actually met somebody at a brewery like 2 or 3 weeks ago and they were doing their, they said, we've been living in New York City. We didn't wanna sign a whole nother 12-month lease and we wanted to travel before we settled down and have kids. So they've been. Bouncing around cities 3 months at a time. And I keep meeting more and more people that are doing just that.

I know that's an avatar. I didn't realize that the stat— the stats behind it. That's super cool. That's just a great way, like the, yeah, before you have to settle down and have a mortgage and all that stuff. That's super cool. So that makes me think of, I always put like dedicated workspace, like what amenities are we looking at with the different, or what do you, what do you see in the most demand?

Cause I feel like that Dedicated workspace is huge. Pets yard. A lot of people travel with pets. So allowing pets in your place, uh, that's a huge bonus because there's so many people and like if you don't accommodate pets, you're cutting yourself out of a lot of people that could potentially stay at your place. Uh, I had something else, but can't remember it.

Sorry, what was the, so the question was what kind of amenities or Yeah, like digital nomads, right? Like I started, I've started to put desks even in bedrooms cause I've had requests. So what are there certain amenities that you can see like behind the scenes or in high demand or I'm just curious cuz I feel like the other thing I love about midterm is it's not vacationy. It's like people there to work. You don't need all the fancy Instagram walls, but there's certain things that people are looking for. So I'm curious of what you see the most, if you get searches on those.

Yeah, and we did a lot of, uh, digital nomads back to Minnesota too and Obviously Minnesota, you might not think of it as like a vacation destination, but there's a lot of digital nomads that have moved to— there's one staying at one of my rentals right now. They moved to Texas a few years ago, but they still have family here in Minneapolis. So he's been here for 6 months visiting family, his— visiting his parents, friends. So having a dedicated workspace for him has been important because he works remote. And then it also comes down to what demographic are you looking for? If I talked to a few people that do a lot with insurance companies, and they might, there, there's a larger market for people that might need ADA accessible, handicap accessible, no stairs, ramps, wider hallways, all of that. It kind of depends on who your target market is and where you're located.

Totally. Yeah, I see, I'm seeing a rise in the ADA stuff too, so yeah, totally. Okay.

Yeah, that was a request by a few people that do a lot with insurance companies of having filter on our platform and they said that Airbnb doesn't have that filter. Furnished Finder doesn't have that filter. They get insurance requests that they need no stairs. They don't, they can't search for it. So they have to look through every picture to find out if there's stairs.

Yeah. And I get requests for a bedroom on the primary main level and stuff like that too. That's interesting. Yeah. Okay. All right. So we covered avatars. So are you, how are you guys like marketing yourselves? Are you trying to network with like insurance companies or what's your like game plan to get, get in roads with all these different avatars?

Yeah, that's a good question. And that's one that I think every host wants to know most about is, okay, if I list on your platform, how are you going to market it to travelers? So we have a very extensive marketing plan. So I'll just give a brief overview. We're doing all the obvious of every social media platform, paid and organic. SEO and Google search, paid and organic. We have a Facebook group that we purchased, uh, a few months ago that it was, it started out in 2014. It was dedicated around travel nurse housing. It was the first ever Facebook group for travel nurse housing. We purchased it from the original owner a few months ago. We converted it to a, uh, housing group for anybody. So we opened it up beyond travel nurses and it has over 106,000 members in there, anywhere from guests, hosts. Placement specialists, travel agencies, the whole thing. We've been utilizing that to spread the word. And then, uh, networking and building relationships with staffing agencies, insurance companies, and universities.

Awesome. Yeah. So what are, if you could give someone a tip, this is like a leading question, but I know we talked before about photographs and marketing and positioning. What are some of the things that you'd recommend of Hey, if you're going to list, like, do these things. These are like critical.

Pictures. Get professional pictures. Get professional staging. Get second opinions from family or friends. Like, how does this room look? Use colors. Get new furniture. Don't get everything off of Craigslist. You can find deals on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, which I've done because I've found furniture from somebody that's leaving the country and she's selling her entire apartment and I bought the whole apartment of furniture. Because it looked nice. So furniture staging, have a thorough description, make sure it stands out how many beds and baths they have and local amenities. And from a travel nurse perspective, they don't— this is a different market than vacationers. So being close to certain like city attractions may not be as important as like how far are you from the grocery store? The gas station, things that they need to live, like a gym or something like that. Because they're staying there for 3 months, they're just trying to live their life. They don't have time to go party or hang out at the beach or do things. So they're looking for more like, what are things that I can be, that are useful that I can use?

That makes sense. Yeah. I feel like when you're positioning yourself, it's not about vacation, it's about like just being comfortable and having like things like that. So yeah, I love that. And I think for— obviously those things are nice if you're 5 minutes Don't hide that either. So, right. Yeah. Photographs though, man. Um, and I know I asked you this before that your algorithm, how you're like kind of prioritizing listings and if you can explain that again, cause I loved your answer.

So, um, yeah, so our algorithm picks up on quality photos, so it can pick up on how pixelated photos are and if they're not high quality photos, you're not going to stand out in our search results as much. And then having a complete listing, filling out your description thoroughly. If you just put one sentence, you're probably going to fall to the back. Obviously reviews are a big one. If you have more reviews, you're going to be pushed towards the top. Filling out your location bullets, just making sure you have a complete listing will help you in our search results.

Okay. That's just to answer the questions, right?

Build it out thoroughly and you'll be fine.

Awesome. And I know that you're, you're pulling Airbnb reviews now, right? Or you were working on it maybe.

Yeah. So that's something really cool that we haven't talked about yet, but if you are already on Airbnb, you can transfer all of your Airbnb listings over to Ministays in 30 seconds. And Shona, I know you did this, you had a little bit of a hiccup, but we ended up getting that result.

Yeah, super easy. Yeah.

Well, all you do is you click connect with Airbnb, enter your Airbnb password, click transfer to Ministays, and it copies over all of your listings over to Ministays. And then you can also sync your reviews. After you transfer your listings to Ministays, you click sync your reviews and all of your Airbnb reviews will come over to Ministays.

I love that. That's, I think that there's no, like with, with Airbnbs, there's a lot of software, but like with midterms, like the listing thing, there's no syndication. Syndication is tricky, right? There's so many places. I love that you can just, 'cause you should be on Airbnb and you should be on MiniStays, so you can just sync them. So some of the things I hear a lot of questions about, vacancy rate, like pricing. Do you have any, are you gonna share data on that? Because it's a really tricky thing to price, I think mid—

Yeah, that's—

range.

Definitely one of our high priorities is being able to share data, and that's something I'm really excited about. But being a newer company, we don't necessarily have all that data yet. We just opened our site about 10, 14 days ago. We had a beta phase about, we started our beta phase about 2 months ago. And feedback's been amazing from all of our early hosts. We've had quite a few bookings go through. And feedback's been great from both sides, the hosts and the guests. They, they love it right now. But we anticipate maybe 6 months down the line we'll have enough data where we can start publishing some of that.

Mm-hmm.

Of vacancy rates and how many, what the supply is in a certain area and what the demand is and what the going rate is. I'm really excited to be able to roll that out.

I love that. 'Cause I feel like there's a really big range. Like you go to Furnished Find, you go to Airbnb, and then sometimes it's just, you have to just find comps. And that's like the best way to do it, but there's no go-to kind of place to be like, okay, this is like range I can be in. Okay. Yeah.

And that's something we really saw as a valuable asset to many states because there isn't a complete platform that's focused just on midterm rentals. So being able to have that data is going to be so valuable in our opinion. So we're excited to be able to have that.

Because again, thinking through this, you're, if you're doing bookings are through there, you actually have the numbers like Furnished Finder. They don't, you could be renting it for more, for less.

Furnish Finder has no idea what rentals are actually renting for. If you're listed at $4,000 a month and then you negotiate and you actually book it for $2,500, Furnish Finder has no idea. So they can give you estimates on, you know, what people are listing their property for, but it's totally different than what they're booking for.

And they have that. Yeah, exactly. Interesting. Okay. That's really exciting. So what is some of the feedback you got? I'm curious. That was like, this is really different than my other experience. Or like, why would someone be like, Clearly I'm, I think everyone should list with you guys. What is some of the feedback that was like?

The feedback has been overwhelmingly supportive and it feels so good to hear the same reason why we started Ministays is the same feedback that we're getting from hosts and guests. And it's really been along the lines of this is the perfect combination of Furnished Finder and Airbnb. Furnished Finder is really clunky and outdated and hard to use, and you need a lot of systems in place. Airbnb is just so expensive and hard to navigate for a guest because they have to deal with weekend bookings and finding a continuous stay is really hard.

Mm-hmm.

So they feel that the feedback has been pretty much unanimous, the same of ManyStates being the perfect combination between Furnished Finder and Airbnb.

I love that. Yeah. You found all those pain points. Yeah. I got your—

they're all those same pain points that I had when I started and I'm building this platform based on my experience and it just happens that everybody's having the same experience. So that's why I feel like Many say is, is gonna take off.

So, yeah, that's, so how long did it take you to develop it? That's a pretty big, uh, endeavor.

Yeah.

How long?

So like I said, I actually, I had the idea for my very first guest 4 years ago, so it's been on my mind. I'm like, and it just seemed like everybody's waiting for somebody else to do it. Mm-hmm. And 2 years went by. Doesn't it feel like that?

Yeah. I feel like there's kind of a race right now and every, it's like list, my listing thing is like 50 places that you need to list on right now.

There's not one place. I just hit a point where I can't do this anymore. I have this idea and I just would be, have so much regret if I just didn't try and just didn't take action. And so last year I had this goal in real estate that I wanted to become a top 2% realtor in the country. And I hit that goal. And then as soon as I hit that, I was like, all right, I'm pulling the trigger on MiniStates. I have to, I can't live with this regret of not trying. So it actually started in about last November of 2023. That's when I hired our developer team and went to work. So over the last, coming up on a full year of when I first reached out to our developer team to start working on this. So it's been a really long, stressful process. I've been working 7 days a week, 10 hours a day at least. and some of my developers are in different time zones. So I'm up at 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning talking with them, working on different features that we want to add and making sure that this is done right. We didn't want to rush it because our first projected timeline to roll out was in March. So if you think about that, we're almost in November right now. But I wanted to make sure things were done right and it had everything that we wanted. Everything worked right. Where you come on the platform and first impressions are everything. Yeah, we were supposed to launch in March and then we just, I, it wasn't good enough for me to, to roll out to the public. So we officially rolled out about 2 weeks ago and really we expedited our rollout even because of the hurricanes on the East Coast.

Right.

And we just, yeah, we, and I feel like you were gonna ask about this, but I'll just go ahead and get into it.

Mm-hmm.

The hurricanes happened and there's just thousands of people that lost their homes that are staying in shelters. And we just felt that being a platform that's focused on monthly furnished housing, we had an opportunity to help. We did everything we could to get this out there as soon as possible. And we've actually been helping people find— that are living in shelters right now, find housing. From a lot of Airbnb hosts that had all of their reservations canceled. So now they have open properties and we're helping match the people living in shelters with people living in the properties. And we started a nonprofit arm of our business called the Mini Stays Community Project. And we started a GoFundMe. I am personally invested in this mission. I, this mission means a lot to me. I invested personally $5,000 of my own money. And then with some donations from other people around the country, we've actually been able to place these families in housing and pay based on, or based on the generous donations that we've received. And one of those in particular, our last one was a father and a daughter who were living in a shelter and they described it as 100 people living in a gymnasium on cots and they have shared bathrooms, shared showers. And they reached out to us for housing and we connected with an Airbnb host who had lost all of her bookings and it was a perfect match for them. We paid on their behalf and they were just affected by this and grateful that they finally had somewhere to stay where they can take a nice warm shower, not be rushed, and just have some return to normalcy even though they're living in somebody else's house. It's been really heartwarming and Probably one of the top 10 things I've ever done in my life.

I think ultimately in this business we, we're helping people and that, that is, that's ultimately what it's about, right? Providing places for people, especially in, in that kind of circumstance. That's amazing. I really love that. I'll include the link, um, in the show notes for that cuz I think it's a business, but it's also about people. And even especially with like with insurance claims and there's damage to homes, families are so appreciative to be in a place, right? So we're, we're doing a lot of good.

I've done a lot of good for people without power. And we're based in Minneapolis, so our reach is only, is a lot of the Midwest right now.

Mm-hmm.

And I don't think the Midwest fully grasps how devastating this has been to those communities on the East Coast. But yeah, if you have people that are watching this that are in those areas that understand how much this has affected people, sharing that would be amazing.

Yeah, no, that's really important. I think especially if you have You're open, let's help people, right? That's what it's all about. That's really, and they may never go back to Airbnb after that.

Right.

Shit. That's the thing. Yeah. No, I love that. And I think we are in the hospitality business and helping people. Okay. Amazing. I really love that. So what if you, what are like some, I feel like when we're operators, we forget what are the most common questions you get if someone's like just starting out? What would you recommend they do? Or maybe they're switching from Airbnb because there's a lot of questions, right? Lease terms, pet friendly, all of those things. I think it's a really great model and it's easy to transition from short-term to midterm, right? In my opinion, fairly easy.

Sorry, you cut out the last 5 seconds.

Oh, sorry. I think I just— someone that maybe, I think someone just is maybe in the Airbnb space is tired of the turnover, the regulations changing constantly. I think it's an easy transition to go to midterm. So how would you like, what would, how would you guide someone on that? Or like with mid— many states especially, what would you say? Like how could you help them with that?

Yeah. And I know short-term has taken quite a hit over the last couple of years with either city restrictions or the slowdown, the economy going down, people not traveling as much. But there's a, what's really cool about midterm rentals is there's a huge pool of people that need midterm housing. And then there's a huge and growing population of people that want midterm housing, like the digital nomads. So it's a perfect combination of that. And then whether you want to switch from short-term rental to midterm rental or long-term rental depends on your preferences. Like we talked about, if you're an Airbnb operator, you're doing weekend stays, you have weekly turnovers, it's a lot of work. You might not be getting filled as much as you'd like and revenue might be down. Whereas midterm rental is the perfect combination of, okay, I got somebody in there for 3 months, they pay a healthy amount of rent. It might not be as much as I was getting as an Airbnb, but the work is way less. They take good care of the property. They're not partying. I don't have to worry about neighbors anymore complaining about noise. So there's a lot of benefits to both. I think it's another thing of a situation of, I don't know if many states is necessarily better than some of these other platforms, but it's different. And I think we do a good job of making it better. Similar with midterm rentals, you might feel that the revenue is more important and better as a short-term rental, but I'm team mid-term.

Totally. Yeah, no, me too. I would never go back to short-term. I'd have to, yeah.

You still have one short-term, but it's, it's location dependent. It's, we have a cabin up north that we Airbnb that wouldn't make sense as a midterm rental. So it's really location dependent on which route you want to go to.

Yeah, that's the thing about real estate and just knowing your exit strategies and what makes sense, right? There's so many options. Okay. I kind of want to go back to pro— developing the website and the platform. Like, what were your tips? That's pretty daunting. I'm— you have this idea, right? But going from an idea to implementing it to marketing it, that's like a huge process. And is this your first time kind of developing something like this? Like, it's impressive.

Yeah. Being in real estate for the last 10 years, I've always been, you know, on my own. I was never part of a real estate team, so I was a 100% independent realtor, so I had to build my own business from scratch. And same with going into rental properties. But this is my first time building, so it has been extremely daunting. And similar to when I first found out about midterm rentals, I didn't know where to look, so I started Googling stuff and going on chat forums. And so when I was ready to start a, build a website, I Googled, how do I build a website? So it was just step by step and I've just learned so much throughout this process. It's been exhausting and stressful, but it's also been one of the most rewarding and I love learning new things. Being able to learn throughout this process has been really awesome. Yeah, when you just handle the challenges as they come and when we started out as Looking out, looking into, all right, who are we going to hire as developers? And then vetting a few people and pulling the trigger and then going through the process and then testing all the bugs and tweaks and adding features. It's just, you just handle it as they come. And if the, if your why is strong enough, then you're going to figure out a way to make it work. And I felt strongly enough about this where I was going to do whatever it takes.

That's so true, right? Yeah. Know your why, because those little bumps in the road. So were you like your beta tester? Were you able to use it with your own guests as you were going along or? Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yep. So I had all, I put all my properties over and every time somebody would reach out to me on Furnished Finder, I say, hey, I've, I've been working on this new platform. Would you mind listing on or booking it through Ministays? And everybody's been really receptive. And some of these nurses are like, oh my gosh, thank you so much for People are thanking me for doing this, which is awesome and flattering. Like I'd be lying if I said I didn't cry throughout the process of some of the feedback that I've been getting from people and like why we're doing this. And, but yeah, these nurses are like, yeah, I already told everybody at the hospital about this. I love it. And it was so much easier than Furnished Finder. It, it adds the trust and credibility of Airbnb with the focus on Midterm, like Furnish Finders. Yeah.

That's, yeah, that's gonna be really rewarding to get that feedback cuz it is, it's a pain point and I think it's, I forget, you forget the experience of the nurses or people using that cuz I think calendars aren't up to date, like people aren't responsive. So it's pretty frustrating. So what are your, I know you're rolling out lots of cool stuff. I feel like you just rolled out the Airbnb thing. Do you have like a, is a, how do you like prioritize like features? Right? Cause I got, I imagine you get like requests and you're I was thinking of fun things or—

so every time we roll out a new feature, there's some bugs and tweaks and we have users find those bugs because everybody uses a platform differently.

Mm-hmm.

So being able to test a hundred different ways to get to a problem is, we do our best in trying to do that on our own testing. But once we go out live, then getting that feedback from other users like yourself and you ran into that error. Then okay, we need to prioritize that first and we need to make sure that feature works 100% no matter what first before we roll out our next feature. So yeah, priorities are bugs and tweaks and then next is rolling out a new feature.

So can you, do you have a wishlist or how do you, can you tell us anything about that? Are you, is that still like secret or something?

I do have a wishlist. I don't know how much I wanna disclose yet, or maybe just a surprise.

Totally. That makes sense.

Okay. Yeah, I have quite a backlog of things that I want to change. If you want to stay up to date, go ahead and create a profile and we'll have your email address and we'll be updating you through email. Or you can follow us on any of our social platforms and you'll stay updated there too. But we'll keep it a secret for now and then we'll just keep you updating as we go.

I love it. It seems like you're on a real path though, and I think you're solving a lot of the problems that are ubiquitous, right? Like where to list, the pricing thing, you're gonna get the data. Like what are the other pain points? I think vacancy rate, just style. Those are like the things that I hear a lot, like of people like, you know, having to get like all these different platforms for leases and rent collection. And so I think that you guys, the fact that you're including, and I love that, that you're doing the background check, that's part of it, or it's Because I think that's so important. I think people often gloss over that stuff. Um, and they have bad experiences. So yeah, that's really important. Yeah.

Um, our, our focus has always been since the beginning, and if you go on our website, you can see that is user friendliness, simplicity, and have every, having everything in, in one place where you don't have to leave and go to different things. So that's really been our focus and we modeled that after Airbnb. If you go to Airbnb, it's easy to use. You go to their homepage and it's just properties right away, right? You know exactly what they are. If you go to Ministays, you have properties right away and it's listed by monthly rates. So that's the other thing of, if I go on Airbnb and I see a daily rate, I'm a monthly traveler. I don't want to have to pull out my calculator or go all the way to the checkout page to see how much I'm going to be paying. So from a monthly traveler standpoint, it's the monthly rate. And You know exactly what MiniSTAYS is and how much you're gonna be paying.

That's true. Yeah. Because like we don't, it's monthly, not nightly, and then you're having, and there's like discounts and it's just confusing, right? So you know exactly what you should expect. Okay. That's super cool. Yeah, no, it seems like you guys are on a really, a cool path and I was really in need. So I, I hope that becomes the go-to platform cuz I'd love to tell students, hey, these days and like something new for us. Yeah, totally. And I know you said you're kind of network, you're building relationships with traveling medical staff. Are you getting into the insurance as well? We kind of touched on that, but I don't think we impacted too much.

Yeah, that's a big one that we obviously can't overlook and that's why I've done a few meetups and group sessions with other people that focus primarily on insurance. Placements. So that's why we've gotten a lot of their feedback. We're going to be implementing some of the features that they've requested and want to see in a platform. So yeah, we're definitely targeting the big ones of Yale Solutions and, and then the independent insurance agencies, like where do they want to send their clients to look for housing? So we just want to build out those relationships and say, hey, we're here, we're a resource for you. And we want to be that go-to place for them to, you know, tell people where to look.

Yeah, cuz I, I, some calls for insurance, the families are looking and sometimes it's a temporary housing person specialist, so it really depends, but there oftentimes families are looking themselves.

Mm-hmm.

That's interesting. Yeah, that's super cool. Yeah. God, you guys are doing fun stuff. That's super cool. Anything else that we didn't cover as far as the platform or your vision or like how it's really easy to join. Like literally you click a button, right? And there's just no excuse not to do it because you're not charged to join. You're just charged when you get a booking.

No, I don't think so. I encourage anybody to go out and try it. And like Shona said, we are open to feedback and like I said too, but we're open to your feedback. So if you want to go ahead and check it out, create your profile, list your property, and just let us know what you think of the process, anything that you want to see in a platform. Feel free to send it out and we'll add you to that wishlist that we have going on.

And I just wanna say too, I think if you're, I like to test things, so sometimes like I have long terms and I've tested it, put up a listing even if you're more focused on short-term or long-term and see what happens. Right? I don't know. I like to do that and I think that's a great way to test it.

Yeah, I think that's a great idea.

Yeah.

All right.

I guess if wrap it up and just everyone check it out, ministays.com, right? And you can just make a login. It's super easy, like really intuitive. The other thing I really appreciate was like, I feel like in all of these other sites, there's so many screens to go through with all your amenities and it's by the bedroom and you're just like, it's just very tedious. I appreciate the simplicity, like you said, of just making, getting everything in a couple screens. I feel like there weren't too many screens to get through to get your property online. That was refreshing.

Yeah, that was, like I said, big emphasis for us is user friendliness, simplicity. Keep it simple, easy to understand where somebody like my mom could go on there and figure out how to use it. Oh, I just thought she's one of my main testers. If my mom could figure this out, that's a good beta.

Yeah, that's perfect. I forgot to ask, as far as messaging and communication goes, do I get like a text alert or how do you get alerted when there's like a new inquiry or whatnot?

Uh, you did a text, email, and in, in website notification.

Okay, perfect. Oh, and the other thing I, we, just to call out too, you can, you don't, I don't know if you call it instant book, but you can like request, it's not instant book, right? You have the option.

You can select instant book or you can require an inquiry. Most people in this space probably want an inquiry first so they can vet the tenant.

Mm-hmm.

But did put the option on there to Instant Book, if you prefer that.

Okay. So I have to ask algorithm-wise, you know, I think Airbnb really prioritizes the Instant Book, right? Do you guys prioritize that or is it neutral or?

No, no, because we're midterm friendly. So I understand.

Okay.

We understand that most midterm rental hosts will want to vet their tenants. Airbnb focuses on getting bookings as fast as possible. So they don't care if the guest is a little sketchy or they don't care if you vet the tenant. They just care that they're booking your property. So that's why they promote that and force that to everybody. We just want a fair and trustworthy platform.

So, yeah, no, I love that. I see both sides of it, but I just, I, sorry, I just thought of another question. Like dynamic pricing, seasonal pricing, length of stay, is there anything like that built, baked in, or is it just like one price or?

You can actually set your price by month.

Okay. Oh, interesting. So higher seasons you can. Yep. Okay. Okay. That's interesting. Okay. Very cool.

I thought that was important because I think Furnished Finder only has one price. Mm-hmm. On Ministays, you could set it different each month.

The other thing that sometimes I've sort of do is if you're booking 1 month versus 3 months, like it's a little bit higher for 1 month, right? So Yeah, that's another, maybe it's a feature request thing, but awesome. Okay.

That's a conversation you can have, or you can put that in your description and then a conversation you'd have with your guests. Like, I'm typically looking for a 3-month stay. If you stay for 1 month, it's gonna be this. I apologize. That's what we have to do to cover our expenses. And, and then you can change the price.

Yeah, that's typically with insurance, they start out with 1 month and you're just, it's, they'll usually extend, but you just don't know. So you have to Cover your bases. But yeah, no, I like that seasonal because there is, I don't know if you, I notice, I feel like midterms are a bit seasonal. Nothing like short-term. Have you noticed that with yours?

Yeah. And that's location dependent too. Nobody wants to come to Minnesota in the winter, but people love it in the summer, you know? So yeah, rents are definitely different from April to August than they are from September to March.

That's really, 'cause I'm in the same, it rains a lot in Portland and I, what I do, I set my prices like the winter prices and I forget. So like when I have a turnover, so I love that you have that baked in so I can just do that now so I don't forget when it, when the spring comes along. All right. So a couple kind of wrap-up questions I like to ask all guests. These are kind of open-ended. What do you, what is like your biggest asset in life? If I guess a broad question, but I always like to ask.

It's a good question. It's probably the easiest question you've asked today. My biggest asset in life is definitely my wife. She's been a supporter throughout everything that I've wanted to do. I've had big ideas, I've had big ambitions, I've taken a lot of risks and she's been there to support me through everything. Whether it was buying that first property when I was 22 years old, and that's, we had been dating for a year or two and my parents, her parents, her friends were like trying to advise me against it. But she was supportive through it the whole time. She was like, I know you've done your research, you have a plan for this. So she was there living with me and the duplex that we bought, it was in rough shape. It barely had running water. It, everything was disgusting. It was a disaster, but we had to fix it up and she supported me through that entire journey. And then the next house we bought was maybe even worse than that one and we fixed it up and lived there. So she's been through a lot with me and supported me the whole way. So I would definitely say my wife is definitely my biggest asset.

I love that. And that's unusual. I think with real estate, a lot of times one person has bought into it and it's risky, but yeah, it's well worth it. Yeah.

And she's allowed me to, you know, believed in me and allowed me to take these risks. And she understands, she knows how much I believe in it. And if I believe in it, she supports it. And that's what's put us in this position for me to take this risk down many states too, is because of our rental properties that are allowing me to take this risk. It's not as, how do I, what do I, I don't have any other income coming in right now. It's from real estate cuz I put that on the back burner. So she is a little like stressed at times, but she believes in Mini Stays and believes in what we're doing. And so she's fully supportive.

That's amazing. That's, yeah, that's so important. All right. I love that. Okay. I think maybe we've covered that. Top business or life advice you'd give someone to live life on their own terms.

I would say you have to believe in yourself 100% in what you're doing. Surround yourself with people that believe in you. And lastly, and probably most importantly, is take action. And without those three things, it's really hard to make anything happen. And especially with taking action, I've, I've had so many friends that have these awesome ideas and want to do all these cool things and they're just ideas and they never, you know, eventually take action on it. And if you're not taking the action, then it's ultimately just a dream, right? Yeah. Believing in yourself, surrounding your people with your— surrounding yourself with the right people, taking action are probably my most important life goals to live life on your own terms.

That's so true. And I'm pretty, I think the action part, even if it's messy, right?

Yeah. And you're gonna run into challenges. You're gonna have ups and downs. You're gonna have moments of doubt. But if you believe in yourself, you believe in the vision, then every moment, whether it's a success or a challenge, it's a learning opportunity. And that's where I've gotten to many stages and I wouldn't have been able to, uh, build this to this point without having these core values of believing in myself and taking action.

Yeah. Very excellent advice. All right. This one's a little bit silly, but what is your superpower?

Is that like a, what I want my superpower to be, or what is it currently and how I've gotten to my business?

Like how you've used it in business, but it could be what you want it to be. It could be aspirational or what your actual, yeah, what's propelled you.

Okay. For, for what it has been for me in business is, Identifying opportunities and taking action. So combining a little bit of my life advice and then identifying opportunities and actually pulling the trigger, whether it was identifying the right rental property or certain businesses to go in and then identifying the opportunity with Mini Stays and everybody seemed to just be waiting for something to come along. I took action. I saw the opportunity, pulled the trigger.

Awesome. Okay. I always like to ask a book or a resource or something you'd recommend that's, it could be life advice or bit real estate advice, anything in that level.

I think that depends on what stage in your journey you're in. If you're a new investor and just starting out, I would definitely say Rich Dad Poor Dad. I don't know if you've read that one or, mm-hmm, I'm sure you've at least heard of it, but that was my most light bulb moment of a book that I read. I read that when I was like 21, so it was right before I got my first rental property. And that book, if you're not familiar with it, teaches you how to buy assets to pay for your liabilities. So I went years of sacrificing and not buying anything that, you know, increased my lifestyle. Didn't go on trips, didn't buy that new car, didn't get a new fancy job to pay for that lifestyle. So making, so it teaches you how to make sacrifices, buy an asset, which then will pay for your liability. And an example of that is when I, after 2 or 3 rental properties, I was cash flowing enough where it would pay for a new car. So that's when I got a new car was when I had something that would pay for it. So now it's essentially a free car.

I'm making my 13-year-old listen to that book.

Yeah, that's a good one. And then you, if you're a little bit further along, I really like the 10X Rule by Grant Cardone. Teaches you how to maximize your expectations for yourself, believe in yourself. And if you think I have to produce X amounts to reach my goal, okay, raise those expectations by 10 times and then go out there and do it. And if you, and set your goals 10 times higher, like if I want to make $100,000 next year, raise that to $1 million. I want to make $1 million next year. And if you raise that bar, even if I fall short, it's probably higher than if I set my goal at $100,000.

Mm-hmm.

So don't be afraid to fail at a higher goal because it'll still be higher than a, a lower goal that you had set for yourself. So that's why I really like that book.

You covered all the, the— yeah, I love it. That's a classic book too. I've read both of those. I love it. Okay. Last question. How can people find you, reach out to you, get on Minnie Stays, all that good stuff?

I'm on all social media platforms. So if you search my name, if you just, if you Google my name, John Wolfe Real Estate Minneapolis, I'm sure all of my social media will pop up. You can search Minnie Stays and my information will pop up. Yeah. Facebook, LinkedIn. Instagram, all of those. My email is johnwolf@ministays.com. If you have any questions, throw that out there.

Awesome. And then just ministays.com to go list your property.

Ministays.com. Yep.

And it's literally like a couple minutes, right? If you have an Airbnb, it's so simple, I feel like, to list it.

Yeah. Oh, something else really cool that I keep forgetting to call out, and I don't know if you've noticed this, but we have a really cool chat support. On our website and it's AI chat support. So it's really cool because it can read our entire site. It can read all of our blog posts. And then if you ask it a question, what is midterm rentals? What, how much are your fees? Any questions about the website or how this works, how do I list a property? Our chatbot will be able to answer those. And if it can't answer those, you can request to speak to a live person and you'll get passed on to a live chat person. So. That's right on our platform. A lot of people have used it and it's been really helpful.

That's awesome. Gotta love AI. It's like magic.

Yeah. Yeah. It's really awesome. Especially for a lean startup that we need to maximize all of our, maximize all of our dollars and having something like that to alleviate some of our customer support is helpful.

Oh, I bet. Yeah, totally. That's awesome. Thank you for taking the time. This has been really fun. Everyone go sign up for Minnie Stays, like no excuses. You guys are going places. So I appreciate it. This was really fun. I'm excited. Yeah, no problem. All right. Thanks everyone. All right.