Maximizing Profits through Insurance Claims in Mid-Term Rentals

So insurance can get very complicated for a lot of people, right? It's just because they have their specific ways of doing things and who you're working with. So we call them AOE service providers, AOE meaning additional living expense, right? You have your 3 players within this. Typically you have your insurance company, so your Allstate, your USAA, all of those things. And then you have your AOE service providers, AOE Solutions, CRS Temporary Housing. About 10 of them in the US. They handle about $30 billion. So pretty crazy.

Welcome to the She's Got Assets Real Estate Investment Podcast. I'm the host, Shona Lepus. 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 and it just helps us get found. I'm so happy to have a really special guest today. Oh, I didn't ask how to say your name. I'm going to butcher it. So correct me. I'll just— V, I'll say V, but she is the founder of HomeAds. It's a startup that focuses on midterm rentals. They're doing really cool stuff. I'm so excited. This is my favorite topic. I could just nerd out on it forever. So V, if you want to do like an intro and how you got started, and then we can go from there.

For sure. Thanks for having me, Till. So yeah, HomeNets, we are an insurance-focused booking platform. We help people find temporary homes in the wake of a disaster or a loss of a home. Obviously, our background started in the midterm rental side of things, which is why there is a lot of interest as we talk about that today.

Awesome. So yeah, I'm curious, the origin story, did you have a midterm? What was the need that you saw? Were you Cause it's no easy thing. It's not a small thing to start.

Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I joke around saying I'm so glad I was naive when I first started because I didn't know what I was getting myself into. Um, I didn't have the technical background back then. I do now. But when I first started, I started out as a host. I was backpacking Europe. Yeah, in my 20s, did not need to— I was the digital nomad persona. I just needed my laptop. I was helping manage editors. I just had a hard drive and a laptop and I could be anywhere in the world. And I said, I, at the time, my partner was someone that was a teacher. And so he had the whole summers off. So we're like, let's just go somewhere for a whole 3 months. And so we were in, I believe I was in a hostel. And it was the middle of the night in Spain and my septic had backed up into the house and it was the worst thing. So I was calling plumbers in the middle of the night and it was a weekend, obviously, because anytime you do short-term rental, it's only the weekend that you're really booking the most. And I was so frustrated because I was thinking, man, it would have been so nice had it been someone that was there for a month because then they would be like, hey, you know what, the water pressure is really low. You would hear something. But of course it only happens on the weekends. So I was like, this is such a pain in the butt. I wish I had something that was just the duration. I don't even have to think about it. No resets or anything like that. And so when I came back, I was like, you know what? I'll just sign up for something like that. I'm sure there's an alternative that is midterm rentals. And back then it was what, 2016? The term midterm rent doesn't even exist.

It wasn't even.

So it wasn't, right? People were just learning how to rent out their property. And the whole home sharing concept was new. And so we were definitely way before our time. We had actually coined the term medium-term rental or midterm rental and MTRs. So it's really crazy for me to even see there are MTR midterm rental conferences, books, all these things, because we struggled so much at the beginning of actually getting people to understand the concepts of it because Some parts is regulation side, some parts is behaviors. What are your renters like or what are your guests like? What are the things you got to worry about in terms of like landlord and renter rights? How do you cover yourself? What are their needs? So it's just so much that you just change just a small duration and it changes so much of it.

It's just so subtle, but it's such a game changer, right?

Exactly.

Yeah, man, that sewer— I feel like, yeah, I have a sewer story. I had a new property, and I tell people, like, stay at the property, right? Make a meal, see what you're missing. The colander, the spaghetti opener, can opener. And so I gave my daughter a bath, and I saw the water. It was, like, really slow. I'm like, oh, shit, there's something going on with the drain, right? And I'm like, call my plumber. Can you just snake it? No big deal, right? He gets over there, and he's like, I put 30 feet of snake in, and you need to do some kind of power wash thing. I'm like, and I had this rented. I had guests coming in 2 days, so we had to do a major back— it was like a major thing in 2 days. And it's, man, yeah, I got it done. Nothing like a deadline. I'm like, I need this done. I have people— I am not— they're driving cross-country. They're a nurse. I'm not going to reschedule.

Wow.

It was my first guest in this unit.

Oh, wow.

But I think it speaks to the whole, like, and I talk about this with midterm, right? If there's a problem, people are more understanding if they're there for a while, they're going to see the signs versus they're on vacation. They want like everything. I've had to go buy a fridge at Costco, like, on a dime, right? Because the fridge broke.

Yeah. The level of needs is different for sure.

It's different. And people are there to work and they're not expecting this kind of luxury experience with hot tubs and fire pits and all the fancy stuff.

Exactly. Exactly.

So to go back to your kind of story, so you saw this need and then was it just like, I'm gonna throw up a website, or how did you land on—

Yeah, I'll, I'll share a short, almost embarrassing story where I went to my friend and I had been out of college for several years, but I had known him and I said, hey, you did computer science. Does that mean you're a developer? That was literally my question to him, right? I'll give some context of where we are today. I rebuilt our site. I am like the technical person on— for Home Ads now, right? But 6 years, 7, 8, however many years now it's been, I had absolutely no clue. So I just assumed, oh, it would just cost a couple of thousand dollars, like maybe $3,000 to put up a website. Well, it won't be that bad. Not understanding like the teams that run Airbnb or VRBO, that sort of stuff, like just the concept wasn't there. And so I just thought it'd be a lifestyle business. I just thought, well, just create something and then, then I can use it. And I believe I was the second customer. We had someone else that had used it, but I actually ended up using HomeAds because I have a loft and the top loft I had a bedroom and then I had my master. And this is actually a very funny story when you think about it from a founder perspective, was I remember I had a co-founder at the time and she's not with us now, but at the time we both had our properties and I said, hey, list your place on HomeEd so that we can use it. And she was like, no, she just did not want to do it. And I was like, wait, if the founder doesn't want to do it, why would a user do it? And so that's when we realized like that trust was a big thing. So I— a lot of HomeEds for the last several years, we bootstrapped majority of it, is it was funded by HomeEds. I would have people— I house hacked, right? And so I would have people come in and I would start understanding who was renting and then what relationship do I have with this person? How is that different from a short-term rental? And I really loved it. I still do mostly midterm still, but I would hybrid it where it'd be like, you know what, these are good months to do short term, or I'm just tired of having someone here. I just want someone in for a couple of days. So I really understand it from the host perspective a lot because for the last several years I've been doing that. But yeah, it was definitely a learning lesson of putting yourself in the same shoes as your users, or a VRenter or, or host.

I love that because I think you have that like really hands-on experience and like you were filling a need that you saw, right? And I think that's why a lot of things are born, like Airbnb, right? They had a need and that's where that came from. So yeah, no, I used to do web design like back in the day, like hand coding pages, very, very— and then it was back when CSS was like a new thing. Just, I, I don't do that anymore. Now it's all WYSIWYG, but I Yeah, it's a—

yeah, yeah.

Okay, so you saw this need and yeah, I'd love to unpack. I think I love, and I know we talked offline about this, how you have relationships. I think there's this, there's different, I guess they'd be talking about who the avatars are, like, and I'll let you speak to that. And I get that asked a lot, but who's staying in Midterms and who is the site for in your eyes? Who are your mostly, who are your users?

For sure. So we do it, we have the marketplace, right? And so that's just all consumers. And so you see anywhere from traveling scholars, traveling nurses, people that are relocating, people are coming for contract work. We are born and bred in Austin, so it is very much a, you'll see a lot of scholars, you'll also see a lot of people come for Congress. So it's just very much is, is just dependent on your actual city. We keep the platform very consumer, very general on our backend. Oftentimes they, they call it like vertical SaaS, right? Software as a service. And so it's a certain vertical on top of a marketplace. And that vertical that we concentrate on is the insurance side. We just knew it's the side of midterm rentals that will likely pay you the highest. And they're not as discriminant of, oh, it has to be this high-end luxury thing, but it's more of it has to match the policyholder's lost home. So it's a very unique thing, right? So you don't have to be in the middle of downtown. It's actually better that you're in a neighborhood because these are people that midterm rentals really is. People are just living there. They're not there to go party or anything. If they partied, they're going to have to clean it up because they're there for the next month or two. Right. That's why I always joke around with our hosts is they would worry about that. I'm like, that will never happen. You'll probably get the district attorney at your place rather than anyone else. So it's not much of a concern.

Okay. So insurance. Yeah. No. And I think that's a really good point. I think going back to the landlord, I don't like that word, but I don't know what housing provider sounds like a nonprofit. So whatever you want to call it, I think there's this huge fear of I'm— someone's going to trash my place and they're going to— and I'm like, I've been a landlord for a long time. I've been a midterm host. If you have nice properties, if you're a good landlord, that doesn't really happen. And there's just such— there's so much fear about it, but especially with midterm, right? You have a very quality guest like you were just talking about, and it's not the heads in beds. I think that when you STR, you're like maximizing it. So yeah, the insurance thing, I think, and I also think there's like this myth that is it like right across from the hospital, right? It has to be walking. That's not really No, people want to live in romantic, nice neighborhoods with the right schools. So I think if you can unpack that a little more, like the insurance claim and families and how that works, I think a lot of people are really interested in that.

Yeah, for sure. So insurance can get very complicated for a lot of people, right? It's just because they have their specific ways of doing things and who you're working with. So we call them AOE service providers. AOE, meaning additional living expense, right? You have your 3 players within this. Typically you have your insurance companies, so your Allstate, your USAA, all of those things. And then you have your AOE service providers, AOE Solutions, CRS Temporary Housing, about 10 of them in the US. They handle about $30 billion. So pretty crazy. And then you have your hosts or your homeowners and What happens is the insurance company will say, hey, our adjuster went out to this house, to the policyholder's house, and we found that there's damage. They need about 3 months, let's say. We're going to send it over to your AOE service providers. And because typically— and that's up to the policyholder, actually. It doesn't have to go to AOE service providers if the policyholder is like, hey, we can handle it, we don't need them. Then they can do that. Is They're the decision maker, actually. The reason that they'll go to AOE service providers is because they're— those providers are the ones that front the money. Insurance will then reimburse them later. So, okay, from the host side, you're actually only— you're not interacting with the insurance company, right? Because they're— the service providers are the ones that are paying you first. And then they can then say, hey, you know what, let's get reimbursed there. As of right now, sometimes you'll see people that are hosts that are saying, hey, you know what, I got a lead from a service provider and then they'll syndicate or aggregate a whole bunch of hosts and then take a fee for it. We're seeing a lot of that and they're playing as the service providers as well. The problem we see is that there's not a lot of transparency on either In the end, right, hosts will say, hey, I'll do a finder's fee, whatever it is, and then it's under their portfolio, but they're not telling what that price is. Maybe they're giving you $3,000, but really they're going to take $4,000 on top, whatever it is. I'm not saying all hosts do that, but that is something that is seen, and it's— I believe it's called piggybacking, right? And it's really frowned upon, and which we didn't know either. But we then were hearing it from the service providers and we're like, oh no, we're actually a platform. So we have transparency on our fees, all those things. It's just similar to an air booking site. The same happens actually on the service providers. They tell insurance whatever it is and then they tell hosts whatever it is. And so the biggest question that you then get is from every host is, how much should I be charging?

Yeah.

And that's the harder part is because how much you should be charging is very dependent on a lot of factors. One is the rental comps, right? And again, this is why you don't see insurance. Yes, if the policyholder says, hey, I'm going to rent an Airbnb or a VRBO or whatever it is, then they have to go with that. But typically it's very difficult to do is because they want to understand addresses. They want to see how far is from the zip code of your lost home. They want to see what are the rental comps. Even if it's a Zillow's estimate, it's still something, right? If they're not pulling those, it has to just make sense, right? You can't have crazy amount. And then two, it depends on the policyholder's terms. If they buy insurance and they have a huge award amount, then the adjuster will be like, ah, if it's It'll fit the 7 months I need and they have extra for this and that. Okay, then $10,000 works. Okay. But if it's the, okay, there, we don't even know if the damage is going to be covered within the 7 months that we have. You may need to extend it. Then they're going to have to be reasonable about it. And that's where it's a little bit difficult for us to be like, hey, you know what, this is how much you can make. It is just so dependent. It's also dependent on supply, right? Let's say that it's a house like that you can find tons of supply for. You can find tons of listings that really match the same one that was lost. Then they don't really need to pay a lot. If you don't take that claim, then someone else will. And so it's not as big of a deal. But let's say it's a house where it's the— you can't find anything that's the same within that same zip code. And, but we found one and we really need that one. There's a lot more leverage where they're like, well, we'll double that if you'll let us have that. Right. Because they end up paying quite a lot if they can't find the right home.

That makes a lot of sense. I think that is like the biggest mystery. Everyone knows insurance, everyone wants the insurance claims. And I think that's interesting. So like to unpack the price, I mean, when I see, I'm like, okay, you look at your baseline. For just for midterms, it's like X, and some markets it's 2X that. Like, is there any kind of framework or tools of like, how do you even know what to charge? I have my ways, but like, how do you— or when you're new people on your platform?

I— it's funny is because even with all the service providers, no one shares, right? There's not a— there's two ways of looking at it. One is if, let's say, the largest player shares how they get their estimates of how much they'll pay out, that they can also get in trouble saying they're setting the standard in the market. And then you're like, oh, and then everyone else will try to be competitive within that. And so then it's, okay, you're charging it this way and you did that as a way to get everyone else to do it, right? So that's one, being careful on that side. And then insurance is all about like avoiding being sued, right? They don't want to play with that. The second part of it is also, it's secret. So in the industry, right, one, that's what makes them competitive from another. So that's the part where again, we do want a little bit more transparency within that. Just even similar to if you look at Zillow and Estimates and MLS, right? Like all of those things, that data, it is kept in a certain group and only certain groups would know that. And then Zestimate made it where, hey, this is very transparent. We're giving you like what the records are and predicting it out. That's what we're seeing here is we want it to be where people are a little bit more educated of, hey, what is insurance really paying? For this? What's reasonable? What can I expect? Because these, a lot of these aren't just people like me initially that were house hacking, right? There are people that have portfolios that need to be able to say, hey, I can predict how much I can likely get if a percentage of my portfolio is midterm rentals and I'm doing it mostly for insurance, right? And that doesn't exist today. You can't really predict what you can do. And you know, there's also disasters. That's a narrow part. That's un— it's predictable and unpredictable. It's predictable in that there will always be disasters, right? It's unpredictable in where it happens and how it happens. And that's, you know, if you want to look at it from a bigger perspective too, it's like being privy of that in terms of understanding weather, understanding locations based off that. Like if you talk about travel nurses, you're like, oh, I want to be close to a hospital. It's like how people try to predict that. With insurance, it's more— it's a little bit of— you think of the first wave of it, which is the direct disasters, right? Hurricanes happen when there's water, right? Whenever certain things like that. But then there's also secondary parts of it too, right? So for instance, like you get surge storms with a hurricane that's more inland or winters are really bad, like understanding how weather has changed, particularly in Austin. We had historically high summers, like high temperatures during the summer, and then also extreme winters. And so the secondary thing that happens is for the summer, ACs break. When ACs break, water damage happens. You got black mold. And then you're out of the home, right? Same for winters. If the infrastructure is not there, which in Austin that was true, is that we don't have insulation on our piping, so pipes burst, more water damage. So it's really the city from a very different perspective. You're not thinking of tourism anymore, you're now thinking of casualty, right? What happens in those instances? And so then it's the, okay, you just happen to need to be a home within that zip code. And so in some ways, that's why we like that we can help people understand that vertical, but then we keep it, you know, consumer is that you can't be like, oh, I hope that— you gotta diversify it and have people who are like, hey, I'm coming from Australia doing like an Onnit program for the next 3 months, which we've had people do that. and I just need a place to stay for these 3 months, or we're meeting at the Capitol for however many months, I need just a place to stay as I, before I go back home. So it's just different criteria of things, but insurance just happens to be the most complex one.

That makes sense. And it brings up the question that when you're underwriting or thinking, I get the question, what makes the best property? I'm like, if you're going after the nurse avatar, like a 1/1 is amazing because you can probably 2x your cash flow. You're going you're gonna have consistent, but then if you have a bigger home, you're going after more insurance. So it's like a tricky thing to navigate. Anything makes a good midterm and you can't, to your point, what are you gonna set a fire at your neighbor's house? Something like, totally joking. But you know what, I think there's this idea that, oh, I'm gonna, I've coached students and like they, I got this insurance claim and they made this $6K a month, but it's like, yeah, you might not get that next time. So how do you. I think you have to be conservative when you're underwriting. So do you have any metrics on—

I don't know.

It's just like a funny thing, right? Because you can't predict, like you said, but like when you're looking at a property, should I make it a midterm? I think you're saying like you need to be flexible and that's the beauty of like your platform is that you're getting the consumer and the insurance in the same group.

Yeah. And the thing is like midterm rentals. Is really at a stage where you do have to diversify a lot. And even honestly, with short-term rentals, that's why you're seeing the growth of midterm rentals is because people are— hosts are saying like, hey, I really got to diversify within my platform. If I rely on one and something happens there, that's my cash flow. And so it's the same. It's the same in midterm rentals too, right? Like you start understanding seasonality in different ways. For instance, people move a lot during the beginning of the year because they get their jobs, and then during the summer is because then they can move the kids. And so it's like you start understanding seasonality in very different ways than you would if it's only tourism. The positive part is that because people are starting to understand what midterm rentals are, they are the ones creating demand. right? So for instance, the insurance companies before, they could be like, oh, you need 3 months here, stay at extended stay. And then the policyholder would say, okay, great, that's my only options. COVID happened and they're like, I saw my friend and she stayed at this really awesome place. That's a midterm rental and I want that. And so all of these service providers actually came to us and they said they're demanding midterm rental is this huge thing. So it's actually the policyholder that's pushing that demand, right? Because again, they're the decision maker, not the insurance company. The insurance company just has to say, hey, we approve it. It's the policyholder that really needs to be like, hey, because they can go to any of those AOE service providers, and then the policyholder can be like, oh, okay, thanks for helping me, but you know what, I'm actually going to stay here. And then they end up losing that lead. In some ways. So that's really who you're selling to, is the policyholder.

Interesting. Okay, that makes a lot of sense. So I guess, are there certain— I feel like people ask me a lot, like, what amenities and how are you furnishing or what? I'm always like, you don't need a hot tub or a fire pit. But what are some things that are like— for me, it's like parking and a fenced yard. That's washer, dryer, right?

Those are two— parking, fence, yard, and pet friendly. That's one of the hardest things is pet friendly. People lose their home, they have— that's part of their family, right? And that's actually very difficult for a lot of people is because, um, a lot of people are strictly against pets. Sometimes if it's like a certain type of rental is because then if someone's allergic or something like that, it's really difficult for them too. But when it comes to insurance, that's one of the highest needs they have is, hey, they have dogs or they have a cat, you know, or whatever animal that they're bringing along. And it makes it really difficult. There was one where it was, I believe it was a farm, so they had like goats and stuff, and they're like, hey, we're trying to look for something that has acreage and maybe a barn if you have it on there. And so just very unique things like that, but obviously that's not a common case. Normally it's just their dog, or maybe they have 2 dogs. And the more they have in that case, the less likely someone will allow them to. That's changing a little bit. I see that hosts are more open to that now, realizing that's an amenity that's really necessary, right? Kids and pets, those are the hardest ones. And those kids and pets are also probably the least likely in short-term rentals. In some ways, right? Because you have this real fancy place and you're going to be like, hey, I got 3 kids, I'm taking over here. It's like terrifying for a host sometimes.

Yeah, no, the pets thing, I think there's just so many stories of like pets. I don't know if they're going to eat your house or something. And I'm like, you have extra hair and you got to steam clean your carpets. And to me, even with nurses, they're like, they're part of the family and they're, they're companions, right? Because they're away from their family. So I think there's just so much fear around pets. And charge a pet rent, have an addendum. Do you have any tips on protecting yourself? Because I've always allowed pets and people are very afraid of them.

Yeah, the, the thing is it's more of backtracking it backwards, right? In the sense of if you have a really high luxury place, which a lot of short-term rentals that makes sense, right? It's like before you sell a home, you think, what do I have to renovate? What's the ROI of doing this? It looks good, but if it's super durable and all that stuff, like, the ROI doesn't matter because the buyer may just replace it. But it looks nice and it helps them envision what it should look like, right? Or paint the walls white, right? Like, those are like really common practice of, okay, what's a renovation I can do and what's the ROI for selling it? And so the same is in midterm rentals and short-term rentals, right? Short-term rentals, it's the, okay, this is going to look really great, it's Instagrammable, right? Like that sort of thing. Putting a mural up on the side of a wall, like that may cost more, but that will get a lot of people on short-term rentals, right?

Yeah.

Midterm rentals, not gonna be a thing, right? It's gonna be— it's a balance. It's a balance in the sense of you, you're not gonna want to, because the more you renovate and make it look super fancy, the more you're going to need to charge to make it makes sense, cash flow positive. And but there's a level in which you make it look nice is because you want the policyholder to choose that one over the other one. And so it's that balance of, okay, what are amenities? Obviously a desk, obviously yard, parking. There's a garage, that's awesome. And then if it's pet friendly, that helps as well. Pet friendly is through your basic things of flooring. If you have really expensive flooring, you're going to get really upset if a dog scratches it, right? Find a nice fancy laminate that is very durable, and that's it. And that's the same for renters. So those things. And then if it's a lot of carpet and things like that, it's gonna be hard to clean after a pet, consider different things. Dogs will I used to have a Great Dane, right? If he gets sick, he'll take out rugs, man. He'll take it all out. So it's just one of those— it's just a casualty of pets, right? And so if something gets taken out, make sure that it's easy to replace, right? If you have carpet, you can't replace it. You have a rug, replace the rug.

Yeah.

So those are a few of the things that are like relatively make sense is you don't have to go all out on the luxury thing because they just want to live there. They just want their kids. Even if it's, um, 1 or 2 people. Yeah, they want something nice, but it doesn't have to look like a penthouse and whatever place. It just needs to be nice.

Yeah, you're not showing your friends off on Instagram. Look at this cool house I'm staying.

Exactly. Yeah, I'm sure there's like high-end corporate housing mentality. It's just you have to understand what percentage of that is going to be the people looking. Right. And so you will, if you're wanting to fill vacancy, then you got to hit the largest level of like percentage of people looking for what are their needs.

Yeah, no, I coach, it should be nice. It should be stylish, but it's not luxury. You don't need the fancy coffee maker and just take good pictures. Put some, just make, there's, you can do things with pillows and throws and some like Amazon has great artwork. Like it's.

Mm-hmm.

Surprising.

Yeah, you can definitely do a lot there. It, it is digital marketing in some ways, right? It's like just really educating on digital marketing. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. People just want it functional, but still aspirational in some ways, cuz they're— the mindset is very— a different way of looking at it is the mindset, right? Is when you have someone that's looking for a weekend getaway with their significant other or their best friend or whatever it is. It's the, oh, they want top-notch kind of thing. And their capacity to research and be aspirational is completely there. You have someone who is moving or you have someone who's lost their home, their ability to make a decision is very low. And so you have to put yourself in their shoes. Apparently when you move, Moving is surveyed to be the most stressful thing, life event in a person's life.

Wow. Yeah.

If you think about that, it's okay. Moving— you talk about moving with friends, a lot of times they'll be like, oh God, I don't want to talk about it. They're so stressed out about it, especially if they did the moving themselves. But even then, it's stressful in all ways possible. Think about it from their perspective. What are they wanting? What are the things that should make their life a little bit easier, right? You lose your home, you got the loss of a home plus you have to move on top of it, right? Yeah, exactly. So then it becomes, do I, do I really want to worry about utilities right now, or do I make it where it's just all paid within that, right? Do I want to have to put my name in that? Do I like make the processes easy. How do I handle Mel? These— it may— you may be thinking from your guest perspective, come on, this is easy, or whatever, but they're— that's the last thing they really want to think about. They just want to rest for a moment and process what is it that's happening in their life right now. And from there, they can then be like, okay, I have my grounding. Okay, now we know what's going on. And they slowly can start making those decisions.

That's really interesting. Yeah, it's a very— yeah, I think about moving and I just get hives. I can't imagine going through— like, when the— when our last move was 8 years ago, and I'm like, we're never ever moving again. It's just miserable. And you throw on, like, moving against your will, like, you weren't playing. It's not like an exciting move. Oh yeah, upgrading our house, or this is a new city. It's It's, yeah, it's really— and setting up utilities, that's a total pain in the butt.

Yeah.

Yeah.

In a way, it's the customer service that helps a lot too, right? It's higher-end customer service. Like, if you want to do something luxury to stand out, then make it the customer service.

I love that.

That will help you stand out rather than a hot tub. Yeah.

So, like, on that note, I coach have really clear, like a self-check-in, like I have smart locks. I just want people to get in easy access. I don't have to meet you there with the key.

Yeah.

You probably don't wanna meet me. I'd love to meet you, but literally here's the house notes. Here's when the garbage goes out. Like all those little things. Is there anything else that you coach people on that's helpful in kind of the onboarding phase of when they're moving in or anything like that?

I, I think it's mostly just you have to gauge, but you know this too, right? Depending on your audience, if it's the self-check-in and they're like not tech savvy, it's gonna add to that. It's a balance too. You don't want to be a host that has to drive out and do every single thing. So being able to scale it is one, but then two, it's the I think, well, especially if you have approval already from the insurance company or a service provider, all this booked, everything is good, is ease. One is not giving them too much information because then that's like data— what was it— analysis paralysis or something like that. Yeah, I always forget the term, right?

Totally.

And so it's like a little bit too much information. What is it that makes it where it gives them enough to where they don't have anxiety of what am I walking into? But then don't give them 20 pages of things that they gotta like process, right? Have an interactive conversation with them and give them whatever information. Try to read the room of where are they mentally on things.

Okay.

Most, from my perspective, most midterm rental Guests are very easy. They can be very easy in comparison to short-term rental guest needs. If it becomes a high-need thing, that typically to me is a red flag, actually, is if they're like super needy. I'm like, okay, what's going on? Is there a reason for this? Is there unhappiness? Trying to navigate that.

Yeah, no, 100%. I've broken it down to here's my— here's how to get in. There's a smart— if you want to use your smartphone, there's also a keypad if you're not savvy. There And I have the kind of locks where you can even use a key, because sometimes I have people that just want it. There's 3 ways to get in. It's, here's some notes on parking, and that's— and once you're in, then you can read all the house notes and how the, like, when the garbage— and in Portland it's every 2 weeks, which is just maddening. But I have to explain, just like down to all the nitty-gritty things. But I don't want to overwhelm them with, here's this, like, move-in instructions.

Exactly. Yeah. And it's It's one thing to think about and offsetting it too is like, it's not scalable to be there to help them walk through and understand how to use the property on everyone if it was a short-term rental. But if you have someone in for 7 months, does it hurt to do one, right? Or have a person. And that's where I say if you really want to differentiate yourself and you want to do it as a customer service side, is you could think about weighing the cost of doing something that differentiates yourself. And then is it a lot, right? Is it a lot or is it scalable? If it's scalable to meet them once every 3 months or once every 7 months on these claims, then okay, that's scalable. And then you won't have the questions coming in later. It's just more of, are you doing it? Are you hiring someone to do it? Is it, you know, what does that look like? Because the thing is, A lot of those insurance providers, or even with us, if we know you're a host that really cares with them, that is the, okay, you're my number one thing. It's because, again, insurance companies, they want their policyholder happy, right? That's the number one thing. They want them to be made whole as if the disaster never even happened, right? Their life just transitions just slightly. They're happy, and happy people don't sue. So that's The mindset. They care more about the happiness. It's not— I tease a little bit on the suing part, but they're—

this part, I mean, they're insurance, so that's their whole everything. Yeah, no, that's, that's— I love that. So I guess going back to the insurance, I— yeah, that's a really good way to frame it because I think I've gotten to the point where I'm like, I don't often meet my guests, but I always leave like a welcome thing, a bottle of wine. And I know there's like different allergies. I'm like, if they don't want it, they don't have to use it, but I like to leave a little something with the house notes and just to make it welcoming because sometimes they're like, love with nurses or traveling around or just feel like a little something.

Yeah.

But I, yeah. And sometimes I have plants. I'm like, here's how to water this stuff. But going back to the insurance. So what's the benefit of, because then there's all these styles, like there's, oh, you go out and you network and you make all these connections and that's great, but that's very time consuming, right? So the advantage of like your platform and that kind of, is it like a matchmaking thing to the insurer? Are you building relationships? Just how does that kind of work, if I can ask that?

Yeah, for sure. I think it's really— this is a space that is currently going to change, right? I think before with, let's say, let's compare it to short-term rentals, right? It was, oh, okay, how do you in a way compete with hotels? And so it was, how do I get tourists to come there? And it was different. And once Airbnb really— and really it was Airbnb that did it because vacation rental homes, it was more of HomeAway or VRBO that did it. The more urban side was Airbnb, right? Thinking of hotels in that sense. And so they made it so much easier for hosts to then just rely on that. Prior to Airbnb coming in, it was how do you get yourself listed? Do you have a direct booking site? Full 180 again, right? Yeah, because now people are doing direct booking again. But it is very much the how do you do that within the sense of tourism. The same now happens in, let's say, for French Finders. They are the midterm rental for traveling nurses typically, right? It's the understanding agents, like the agents that place those travel nurses. So you're gonna have to know all those people. And that becomes, it's either you rely or believe, hey, this is the route that will get me those travel nurses. If it's the, hey, I need more than that, or I'm more entrepreneurial than that and I can do the work of it. The reason people do those platforms is because then you don't have the network and you don't have to, because essentially you're being a business development rep. Yes. If you do that, because you're going in and you're getting, know all those agents and then you're like, okay, if they move, get promoted or someone else, I got to know who that is. It's a lot of work. And that's why those platforms exist, is that they're doing all the work for you. And you— so it depends on who you are as a host. If you're like, you know what, I'm great at this, I'm going to cut out all of those, I'll build those relationships. You could totally do it. Eventually, though, it does become where those players— and that's my prediction in terms of the midterm rental side, is that there aren't too many strong key players that are taking over that. And you're seeing a lot of these people that are popping up, they're saying, hey, I can do it, I can do it. Someone's going to come in and they're going to make it a lot easier, right? But it's such an early growing space that right now it's the Wild West. I have people that can go and be like, hey, you know what, I'll look at recruiters and see where are they placing or relocation specialists? Who are they? Or with realtors, it's like you can network with a slew of them. It's just— or even in the tech scene, right? In Austin, what accelerators are there so that people are coming in, their companies are coming in? But it's always just small pieces because in a way that's what HomeAds does is we kind of work with all those people, but the only one that we felt was a very strong one was insurance side, which is why we niche more on that. And then the rest find us and we say, hey, you can bring your companies to our accelerators. If it's— you're a company that's hiring out people and, you know, find— it's just referral, and then they just bring their people through that. Otherwise, you end up doing it yourself. So I would say, one, choose which route you want to go. I know it's painful, is because there aren't a strong— there is not a strong player right now. I would say that will change probably sooner rather than later. We have a few things happening on our end. I mentioned before, I'm not allowed to say the name of a partnership that we have, but we are planned actually late October for it to go live. So we are preparing for a lot of scale within that. We're happy. We are so happy that our hosts have been super patient with us because we know we have been getting listings. They're like, hey, hold off. Demand is lower. But these partnerships do take time, right? We signed a contract in February. It's not until like late October that we're able to start things up.

Yeah.

And even then, there's a lot of ways in which it is the sales cycle, more of the business development side of it. And so it takes a little bit of time. So if you're a type that can do that, great, you can do it. It will just take you a little bit of time to build that relationship with everyone.

Yeah, I think—

I'm not sure if that answered that question.

No, I think it did because I think there's a lot of people like, oh, just go get an insurance claim. But you know what? It's a huge commitment and it's networking and it's a whole different hat you have to wear. Like, I don't think most people love sales, I'll be honest. And you have to send emails. It's just, it's another kind of hat or a job. So if you can find the right platforms to be on that you get consistently just what do you want to prioritize? Like more acquisitions or do you want to be a salesperson? There's just a lot of myths around. That's great, but it's a lot of time. Yeah. These people that get these fat checks, like how many emails did they send to get them?

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

So I love that you guys are being more proactive and I can list on there and know that, hey, I'm more likely to get a great claim, but I'm also going to— I just think it's figuring out where to be and knowing that you can't just rely on that. So I think you have to be strategic. So I love that you're being proactive and building those relationships. So is it like— to unpack it a little bit, I know we're getting close on time here— do they do— do the ALE companies come to Home Ads and search, or are you saying, hey, we have a lead, what do you have, or how does that work on the back end?

Yeah, so they What's interesting is I'll talk a little bit about on the tech. Again, I mentioned like, yes, we're a real estate tech or insurance tech, right? But really tech is what I love. And so I'll talk, I'll nerd out for a couple of minutes here is why we love it in a sense is with these AOE service providers and insurance in general, to put it, they're just short of faxing you something. Right? Like the level of technology and speed and things is just like very antiquated. And we actually love that in the sense of it's easy for us to overdeliver in a way on our end. We were in a process of, hey, let's learn the process first and then we'll use technology to automate out. So for instance, typically they'll have 50 to 100 reps that are just on a certain type like residential housing, right? And that's it. Or alternative housing, I believe is what they call it. And what those reps will do is they'll go out and if they can't find in their database, they're going to Zillow, they're going to all these online websites that have long-term housing and they're like searching for that. And then they'll try to negotiate those hosts down or those homeowners down to being a midterm rental if they can't find it within their database. They'll also send it to us and say, hey, you know what, hey, we have this, and it's a paragraph. And we said, hey, will your reps just fill out a form that we create for them? One bedroom, one bath, this budget, pets, just the basic questions. And he said, no, they will not. They will email you, and they won't email you the same structure either. They won't tell you— some will tell you a budget, some won't. Some will tell you these things. And so we said, okay, how do we use technology and make this faster? So first we went in and we said, we'll just do it manually the way that they do it. And it took us from getting the lead to getting it to our hosts, reaching out to other hosts, negotiating them over and sending the lead back over or the listings over to the AOE service provider. And it took us for one lead, 5.5 hours to do one. And we're like, wow, that's crazy. So then we built technology to do it. And we said, okay, for every email that we bring in, it'll automate it. It'll parse out the information, create it as structured data. So it hits our records. Any record that we have that's in a certain zip code will automatically send out to all of our hosts within 10 miles of that zip code. And so what went from 5 and a half hours went to 25 minutes. Because speed is so important. And so we said, and then, but from our end, we'll then send an email as if we are that person that did it manually and said, hey, here's all the listings we have. We write it out as if it looks like an email, but it's really just our technology doing it. You got to be clever, right?

Oh, that's brilliant. I love it. That's really, yeah. That's just, it's just, it's leveraging technology, but still with a personal vibe, right? Way more efficient because they're probably trying to make them look better if they're like, here's 5 houses that meet your criteria and that are in this thing versus— Yeah, I love that. I love technology. I'm super geek.

Yeah, I could talk about all day. That's the aspect I love the most about it. Obviously, understanding the real estate side, like, you are much more— Even though we coined the term midterm rentals back in the day, like you will know so much more than I feel like, than I would know in terms of the host perspective, right? You know what it is of what they should be looking for, how they think, that sort of stuff. For us, that's a player in the space for us that we try to do our best to accommodate for and provide as many services and benefits for. But you're living that life 100% of the time versus that's a portion of how we're trying to accommodate for everyone.

Yeah, no, I love that. So I want to take this kind of full circle, right? So you're like, you, the insurance, ALE company says, I have a family, there are 3 adults, 2 dogs, parrot, whatever. Here's a stuff, a lizard. I don't know.

Yeah, it happens.

So they, that comes to you, they email you, right? And then you like do your magical automation and then you email hosts and then to the host, like I have this So what happens, just for someone that's, oh, this sounds amazing. What is the kind of, after that you get the lead, how does the communication go from there?

Yeah. So from there is we get a yes or no from the, essentially it's the policyholder, but then we'll hear it from the AOE service provider.

Okay.

And then it's the connection from there. And so this is where it is. There's pros and cons again of everything, right? Is being able to protect yourself. There's different things. Parties are short-term rental problems. With midterm rentals, then it becomes, okay, are, are they paying? That's why we like AOE service providers. But the thing is, there are some parts of liability. If it's the insurance company, let's say that the— not to scare people off on this, but it is something thing to consider, right? Especially if you do things on your own, is let's say insurance says, hey, there's a fire and we need 7 months for this, and they sign the contract with you, and the lease is between you and the policyholder. It is not with the AOE service providers, it's not with the insurance company. That has to happen, but that also puts a liability on you in the sense of, oh, okay, you're the one that handles all that. And so when, let's say, the insurance company figures out, hey, you know what, We found out it was arson. They did it themselves. This is fraud. They immediately stopped payment. So then AOE service providers, you continue paying or they have to identify and figure out some way of telling you that. But then you're screwed up. Screwed in that. Try not to curse here. Right.

No.

And then you have to figure out, oh, okay, what is it that I have to do to handle those things? And so it is a little bit more difficult, I think, sometimes in believing that insurance will cover all of it. But there are always some caveats, right? There are some parts in which it's the— you do still have to cover yourself within those types of situations. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen, right? And so from there, okay, so you have a lease then you got to understand all your regulations. You got to understand, okay, this person leave, then you got to think about eviction laws, all that stuff too. And again, this is worst case scenario, right? Typically, majority of time, you're never gonna have that happen. Or I wouldn't say never, but yeah, very rarely will have that happen. Let's say that it's a positive situation, they get connected and they say, hey, you know what, this 7 months We signed the lease, it's going to be taken out every month, and you're gonna— we're gonna pay you every month at the beginning of the month, right? They go in. If they are capable of doing this, which typically is within the same zip code, right? The best way— not everyone enjoys doing this, but the best way is letting them do a home tour. And why you want that is because let's say they said they love this space and then They go and they realize, "It's so close to the airport and it's so loud. I've been living here for— and it's driving me nuts and I can't sleep here." Yeah. It's like you want success from the policyholder. You want them to be really comfortable and happy. And so, yes, it's a pain to give them a home tour, but if it keeps you from actually losing the client in the future rather than engaging with them and then halfway— that's not a positive experience for anyone. And so actually we really pushed for people to be able to do a home tour first.

Okay.

And then there is a confirmation of, hey, I really want this place. Then the contract happened. Then we allow you to interact with them. We just pay from the AOE service providers every month. As long as everything goes the way it is, they will have certain terms as, hey, I we keep the rate as if they want to continue on board, some of those terms, that sort of stuff. Or you just say, hey, I only have it available for these 4 months, and then after that I'm doing whatever with it. Yeah, it just has to be upfront. There's like some terms of, hey, 30 days prior I need to know if they're continuing or not, that sort of stuff. So there's a few terms and things to have to navigate within that, but again, I'm giving a lot of edge cases. Typically it's a real straightforward, hey, it gets chosen, they're happy with it. Here's move-in day of when they prefer to move in. You go meet them if you can, you get them in, the end of it, you check in every now and then. As a host, I'm like a little bit particular. I like my— I don't like annual leases because I like my property to stay in a certain shape. So being able to schedule like, hey, I'm going to have a home cleaning come in, right, within this duration. Yeah, small things like that. They would love it, but then it makes me happier too. I'm not horrified of what's happening.

Yeah.

So it really is your basic thing. It's just more of the beginning part is there's some caveats of, oh, okay, who's paying who, who has to do the lease contracts, that sort of stuff. On HomeEd's platform, we— there are some legalities of it too. When it— like, when people get scared of evictions and things like that, is like, when you book through a platform like HomeEd, it is a license to lease, not necessarily a lease, right? Okay. And so then it becomes less of a landlord and renter situation and more of a criminally trespassing kind of situation, right? Which is just like an Airbnb or anything else. So it falls within that category because you're doing it through a platform. You end up having a lease though, that's whenever it gets into a certain mix again, right? But if you have the records on HomeAdvisor of conversations, things like that, it helps with your case of, hey, this is the situation. It's as much data as possible, right? That then police can go, or code conduct, whatever it is, or city code can look at and then assess that situation. Again, not trying to scare, but that's where my head always goes. It's like, we want to talk about those and address those situations because we don't want our users to ever have to go through that. You know, the best case scenario is you just have someone and 7 months later, every month you get paid a decent check. Yeah. You know, a lot of insurance companies will pay by check too. We obviously will direct deposit and, you know, all of those things. But yeah, that is a common practice as well.

Okay. No, that, that's— I mean, I think you really have to have eyes wide open and this is all calculated risk, right? Like for the— you just have to understand what it is. So that brings up a question though. I've long-term, I come from a long-term kind of landlord background. Are you screening like traditionally? I mean, I always have a very formal background credit check. Are you doing that with insurance claims as well, or is that a little bit different?

So within HomeAdvisor's platform, we use Intellerent, which allows you to screen your renters, right? Okay. I always suggest that I have always, we always suggest that one, you stay within the platform. Like we've had people that will then come to us and say, hey, I— someone scammed me and I found them through this platform. They're upset. And I said, did you use our platform? Did you use it to book? And they said no. And I can't help you. There are reasons why we tell you to use our screening. There are reasons why we tell you we escrow the money, we hold on to that money until you move in and then When you move in, you need to tell us within 2 days, this is not the place that I decided that was on the listing.

That was okay.

Exactly. And so there are reasons to use these things because rental scams happen all the time. It's really common.

I get calls and I'm like, they're like, you sound like a nice person. I'm like, yeah, I'm not a bot. I'm not going to send me. It's shocking that it still happens. I don't. And people apparently fall for it because they wouldn't be doing it if there wasn't a market.

So yeah, yeah, I would still suggest like screening even if it comes from insurance because they're going to put it on you still. That's why companies like Home Ads have to exist is we have to show, hey, you still have to do this. You can't just trust that because the insurance company also has to trust that person isn't a scammer or—

Right.

Whatever it is. And then once they figure it out, you need to make sure you're protected in certain ways too. It's the same, it's the same for short-term rentals too. You got to make sure you're protected with insurance and all of those things. And we've seen a lot of bad behavior, I think, in the last couple of years of COVID and all the craziness of that. It tends to happen a lot whenever the economy isn't great. People get desperate. They do, they bad behavior happens. But I would say always cover yourself when it comes to screening, making sure your lease actually is covered, making sure that you communicate through the platform so that they can see records of history of communication. That's really important in these cases too, because when it comes to legal matter, you want to know what conversations is happening. You do that from a landlord and renter perspective, all they see is a lease and that's it. Because communication isn't the same. And from a legal standpoint too, text is not always recognized in court. And so us having it on the platform, everything they message out also gets emailed. Email is supported, but not always through text. So really understanding like how law works in some ways too is helpful. And that's why I like— for me, it's one of those, obviously when I use HomeAdvisor, I do midterm rentals, I always use the platform, obviously because of who I am. But then also It's out of protection for myself too. There's a reason we built it. I built it because I wanted to use it.

Yeah, no, I— for my long-term, I have a resident app and I'm pretty intentional about— I want this to be in there. I want it— if anything ever were to go down, it's like documented.

I— yeah, I totally get it.

That made me think of a question. So I require renter's insurance for midterms. Is that something you guys recommend, or is it— I'm just curious. Is that something that you can require or how does that work?

What was that again?

Uh, renter's insurance. I usually require that for midterms as well as long terms.

Yeah. So again, it's the same, right? As especially if you're, you have a business out of it, like the more professional, I guess is the word that you can get in doing these things, the better it is for you asking them of these situations. Sometimes over renter's insurance, it. I think back then it was a little bit harder is because it was only annual leases and only hotel occupancy type of stuff, right? But there were cases where you could do midterm. Like we looked at providing renters insurance, but every insurance company did not understand midterm rentals, right? Because again, the wording has to be slightly different in these situations. Right? Pricing has to be different. So I think now because we're seeing it become a thing, these products will be offered a little bit more. The same had happened with short-term rentals where it wasn't offered before and then people started saying, hey, insurance for hosts has to be different. It's not for just a landlord-renter situation. And the same is happening here is being able to utilize those services, it protects you.

Right?

There's a reason why long-term and short-term have these things. Midterm may not have it. Find the best option that is now, but I, I believe that they're slowly starting to provide services like that. And of course, we try to partner with those players as well so that you're not having to have all these different companies that you have to manage too.

Yeah, no, it can be a sandwich for sure.

Yeah.

God, this has been so fun. Is there anything like we didn't cover? What's like your when you're saying sign up for Home Ads, what's like your nutshell? Yeah. What do you tell people or what would you tell people why they should sign up? I think we've— there's a lot of reasons, but if we didn't cover anything.

Yeah. Honestly, from our perspective is we're building this for you. That's it. You know that my story comes from being a host, so of course for us is we're building it for you. And when it comes to it, you're joining us, we appreciate it because we listen, right? We're small enough to listen. And also there's no way we can survive without listening to our actual users too. So being, if you're frustrated with the situation of where it is, we know we don't know it all. We have to listen to you and see what are our pain points and then we can go back and say, hey, you know what, we have a post on what hosts are wanting. And as much as it seems reasonable from the insurance side that you're asking this of them, this isn't going to work because of that. We can actually stand up for you, you know. And so that's why it's helpful is if you have the patience to work with us, which I will say we're getting steam on this. We've been at this for a moment now of building the community, but now it's also pushing more on the demand side of insurance companies with corporations, that sort of stuff, is like, hey, we understand what it is, we've engaged with them to a certain extent, and now it's the— we're starting to see a little bit of fruits of our labor of getting that demand to you. So again, we appreciate the patience of it, but we are really excited that we will be seeing a decent amount of traction in the very near future.

I love that. No, I— that's— it takes time, right? And I think I love that you're being really proactive and building that, because again, if you want to do that yourself, it's another hat, it's another job. It's— is that the best use of your time? I'll be honest, right?

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

This has been so fun. Is there anything— I have a couple wrap-up questions. Is there anything else that we didn't cover that you want to highlight or anything just before we wrap up?

I think this is it. I, I, I love this conversation. This, this has been really fun.

Okay, perfect. Yeah, I definitely— I feel like I would go on, but I'm going to try and be mindful of your time. So a couple like wrap-up questions, take with a grain of salt. I always like to ask because I feel like entrepreneurs especially have like really great advice. Top business or life advice to give someone to live life on their own terms?

I feel like I'm trying to think of a couple from an entrepreneur standpoint. It is very much a— they say if you aren't embarrassed of your product, so your product could be anything, it could be your first listing, let's say, right? If you're not embarrassed of it, you've launched too late. And so most people try to perfect everything, and then they are like, oh, okay, then I'll start it. But oftentimes people just don't start. Obviously get your baseline of it, but it's the— you will mess up, you'll mess up, you don't realize like this is the renovation I should have done, or maybe I went a little overboard and did this, right? But just get it started, get the listing up, and then if you're not getting enough traction there, like, oh, are my photos not great enough? But like, it's not going to hurt you to have your listing up and then You know, yes, there are ratings and things like that with other booking platforms. We don't actually have ratings on ours as of right now. It's just because it's a long-term duration for one, right? It's a relationship-based thing. Not necessarily is this like exactly accuracy of listing and all these things. So it is a little bit more relationship-based on our side, but again, it could be any entrepreneurial thing. Is don't— you're going to end up having 2 years later and be like, oh, I thought about this idea. We, you know, never— I hear it all the time. Right. So we're always highly embarrassed of our product. I will say that there's always something that we're like, oh gosh, that's so terrible, or that process is so terrible, but we just do it because it's better to execute than it is to have it perfect.

I thank you for saying that because I just launched a new course about buying your first investment and I feel like I'm like flying a little bit. So I really— yeah, it's so true that like my first people wait, they're like, wait. I'm like, don't wait till you just virtually stage it, get it out there. So yeah, that is amazing advice. Thank you. That is so relevant, especially right now as I'm trying to get my course off the ground. Uh, say, okay, and okay, next question is a little bit more fun. Take it how you want. What is your superpower?

Hmm. That one is, so I am very good with understanding people's strengths and weaknesses and then what motivates them, right? I am always, there, there's some people who are just great at sales. They can pump you up, get you to the right answer and close, right? I wouldn't say I'm a closer in that sense. I am a partnerships win kind of situation. I love it when it's with Home Ads, we bootstrapped, right? But we had a lot of people on our team prior to COVID and I still decently will have people. And the reason is not because we're paying them top dollar. Startups, you can't pay top dollar. You can't compete with the other companies. But it was understanding what they really needed. What do they want to be in their life, in their personal, in their business and everything? And if I or the company cannot get them there in the next 5 years, then I don't want to, I don't want to engage because if they aren't a part of HomeAdvisor and they aren't getting to their goals, like, what's the point, right? I want it to be where it benefits us to engage, but it also benefits them as a person, right? And so I feel like I'm I'm not gonna be the best at certain things, but I'll always find someone that can, right? And if you can puzzle piece it together, I think, and then everyone's happy to get to where they wanna be, then where do you lose in that, right? And so that, that would be my superpower.

I love that. Yeah, no, and that's really authentic. Really, that's great. Okay, last question. Again, this a wide open one, like a book or a podcast or something that influenced you. I— the entrepreneurial journey is— it's always a wild ride.

So yeah, for sure. Two of my favorite books, maybe not the entrepreneurial space that you would imagine, and the first is Man's Search for Meaning. I'm not sure if that is— let me see, I'm, I'm gonna forget what the— who the author is. I have like part of it, but I always butcher small details. But essentially it's a— I believe he was like a psychiatrist who ended up going through like the Nazi camps, right? Lost all his family. And the book is not about that. It's actually about how he found meaning in being there. And so a lot of this speaks a lot to hardships and struggles and how you move forward. And if you're an entrepreneur, sometimes you will have those moments. Sometimes I'm like, I don't want to do this. I just want to sell this.

I can't relate at all.

So it was such a lovely book and being able to find meaning in the smaller things and just in life. So I thoroughly enjoyed that, especially when you have historically loved what you've done and then there is a moment when you start questioning it. That was it for me. And then I was like, why am I doing this? And then you start realizing it. Second book is Give and Take by Adam Grant. He's an organizational psychologist. You can tell I like human psychology a lot. Um, and this one is about people who give, people who take, and people who match. You give me this, I'll give you that. And it talks about the trajectory from a long-term perspective of— they talked about medical route, but it applies to all— where it's like first 4 years it's medical school and then residency and all that stuff. And they said first 4 years, the takers won. They were the highest performing. And then at the 5th year, things started switching a bit. In 6 years, it was the givers that were winning. And long story short, it's very much about your reputation and your integrity. Those things take time for people to see. If you want to win and you don't care to be in the industry for that long, then I guess take everything, right? You'll just never work in that industry again, right? After 4 years, because people will know. And you win short term too. But if you're someone that has integrity, someone that helps and gives— and it also tells you how to give. You don't give everything away because you'll have nothing. You need to be sustainable. It's like, how do you give the best that you can? And in that, eventually you start performing better, right? And so I really love that because in tech, especially in such a bull market, sometimes you're just like How are people doing all of this? They're baking their numbers, but yet they just raised however much million. You get so frustrated, right? But then after a few years, I'm like, oh, they're not even here. Their company burned and was not around anymore. It speaks to success on the long term. And I think it's helpful for people that kind of get frustrated when they are doing the right thing, but they're not seeing the right results, right? Takes time.

Yeah, no, I love that. That's a lot of levels to that for sure. Yeah. But doing it the right way and with integrity, well, it does. It's building a lot, right? And sometimes you're building and it's growing and then you look like this overnight success. But you know what? You did a lot of work.

Exactly. Yeah. Many years behind that one. Right.

Yeah. I always have that seed analogy, right? All the— and then it pops up and it's just— yeah. But most people that are really successful have a whole story behind them, right? But you're just putting in the work and doing the right things. And then just how can people find you and follow you and all that good stuff? And that's it.

Yeah, for sure. HomeAd's pretty easy to find. We have your, your basic social medias, that sort of stuff. We actually do have a Facebook group that's for our preferred hosts too. If you sign up on our platform, it's homeads.com/preferred-hosts, I believe. And then on Facebook, it's HomeAdvisor Preferred Hosts. We'll add you in. It's a closed group, but essentially it's all the behind the scenes, right? Hey, we signed a contract with CRS. So you get— and that's when I say, hey, we want feedback. Tell us, hey, I really hate this process. I really think you should do— we can change it. Or I'm having problems on the site. So it's a lot of those things. So it's a very high contact way for you to work with our team.

Love that. I, I'm gonna go sort that out right now. This has been so fun. Thank you for taking the time, and I love what you're doing, and I love just your passion behind it. And kudos to you because I, I know it's, it's not easy in this journey.

Of course. Thank you so much for having me. This has been really fun.

Yeah, totally. Okay, I'm gonna say I'm gonna sign off and stop recording, and then, uh,