How Minoan Helps Short-Term Rental Hosts Save Money and Make More Money

Quick Summary

Explore Minoan, platform designed to help short-term rental (STR) hosts save money while furnishing their properties and earn additional income by making their spaces shoppable for guests. Minoan connects STR hosts with premium brands, offering steep discounts on furnishing and amenities while enabling guests to purchase items they enjoy during their stay. This innovative model converts furnishing costs into potential revenue streams and helps hosts elevate their guest experience by providing high-quality products.

Key Points

• Minoan enables hosts to purchase high-quality furnishings at significantly reduced prices, turning furnishing expenses into a strategic investment for guest satisfaction.
• Hosts can monetize their properties by allowing guests to purchase items they enjoy during their stay, earning commissions of up to 25% on certain products.
• Offering quality furnishings and personalized touches tailored to the target customer’s preferences can improve reviews, boost ADR (average daily rate), and maintain high occupancy.
• Minoan’s platform simplifies the furnishing process by consolidating multiple supplier orders into a single cart and providing project management tools for tracking and delivery.
• Understanding your target customer and designing your property to meet their needs is crucial for long-term success in the STR market.

Full Transcript

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Jeremy: We are live with the Short-Term Rental Pros podcast. I'm here today with Marc.

I'm not even going to try his last name because I'm going to completely butcher it, but he is the founder of Minoan—one of the really exciting startups in the short-term rental space, and one that's adding a ton of value. At this point, I mean, you told me some of the stats earlier—thousands and thousands of hosts around the country, as well as their guests.

So, Marc, I'll let you take it. What is Minoan, and how did you, like, decide this was what you wanted to do?

Marc: Yeah, Jeremy, it's great to be here. Minoan is effectively a Marcetplace that's connecting, you know, consumer brands—brands that you would find in a home, things like Casper, Parachute, West Elm, Pottery Barn, Article, Crate and Barrel—to hosts and hospitality professionals.

What makes us really unique is we're creating this very symbiotic relationship between the two sides. Basically, these brands that I just mentioned want to get their products in front of people. You know, if you're Casper, you want to get people sleeping on your mattress. That's like the holy grail of retail: getting people to actually use your product.

And if you're a host, you need mattresses. You know, you need lots of stuff. Actually, if you're furnishing a property from scratch, you're going to buy upwards of 250 items. You don't think of it that way, but when you look at each room, like in the kitchen alone, it's like—you've got cookware, utensils, glassware, plates, appliances. You're talking about 50 or 60 items just in the kitchen.

So, we're kind of making this line up where it's like, "Hey, the hosts need these products, and the brands want to be in these spaces." We've set up this platform where hosts can apply to be part of the program. If they're accepted, they get access to really steep discounts from great, high-quality, recognizable name brands.

And these are really Marcet-leading discounts. Most of these discounts are not ones you could even find on Black Friday. The brands really discount them because they want the host—they want to be in these properties.

Then, the last part of the business that we have is connecting this full circle. We have a way for hosts to actually make their property shoppable in a very tasteful way—without, you know, putting a bunch of products up and having QR codes hanging everywhere.

It's set up so that if a guest is staying at the property, and they say—well, we hear this a lot—guests will ask, "Where did you get the mattress? Where did you get this artwork? Where did you get this coffee maker?"

Through Minoan, if you're buying everything through us, not only are you saving money upfront on that stuff, but we can actually turn your property into this really nice shoppable experience. If the guest loves the products they're using during their stay, they can go through this curated experience right there, on a tailored site for your property.

So, they might say, "I really love this Bellaforte glassware. I want this. I want to bring this home. I want to have this product in my own house." They click "add to cart" and check out. We handle all the admin, logistics, and customer service.

The host just sits back and collects their commission checks on anything that sells. So, it's kind of a unique model—really connecting hosts to these brands. There's a guest element as well, but the goal is to just make life for hosts a lot easier when it comes to ordering stuff and finding ways for them to make extra money. That's sort of what motivates us.

Jeremy: Yeah, I think that's really interesting. It's funny you say that because I get questions a lot from my guests like, "Hey, where'd you get this mattress? We're moving in a couple of weeks—that's why we're staying at your property—and we need mattresses. Where'd you get them?" Or, "Where'd you get this couch?"

Honestly, my response—or my VA's—will send me a screenshot. My virtual assistant will send me a screenshot of their question, and I'll go, "Uh, tell them... we'll ask the designer." Then we'd say, "We'll ask the designer."

And if they follow up in a week, it's like, "The designer didn’t tell us," because I don't want to go through my account.

Yeah, my order list and, and also, yeah, if you want to make money off it, what you—you have to go to an affiliate link from Amazon to make like three dollars or something. Yeah, and I'm not trying to make myself look lazy, but come on.

Marc: Yeah, you've got to think about—yeah, you have to think about where your money comes from. Your money comes from the bookings, you know. It comes from ADR and occupancy—that, that—that's the real cash flow. This is all incremental, and so that's why we want to make it as easy as possible.

The really interesting way to look at this, though, is that you can take things that are traditionally like a cost center. You know, you've got to invest in all these products to put in your property. That's like kind of just a line item in the P&L. It's a cost like, "Alright, I’ve got to invest in all these things."

In the Minoan model, not only can you save on those costs, but over time, these things could actually pay for themselves. So, if you're getting like 50% off a mattress and then you're getting, let's say, like a 15% commission every time you sell one, if you sell three, four mattresses, they pretty much paid for themselves.

And so then you're in a situation where you're like, "Well, now the commissions that I've earned are equal to what I paid for the mattress in the first place." It's a net profitable asset or at least break-even within my property. The brand has taken one sale—one sale from them to you—and turned that into three, four more sales to guests who had such a great experience that they wanted to buy it.

And then we're just kind of sitting there, like connecting all the dots and taking, you know, slivers of each transaction to make sure we can keep the lights on.

Jeremy: That’s that’s, thank you for being honest. I was showing you earlier BNBCalc and, you know, profit and loss, but that’s, you know, for me, that’s—that’s what this game is about. That’s why, you know, I was able to quit my job.

And actually, I want to take that into kind of your "why" and what—Marc, awesome—we’re both living in New York. It seems like at the— the opposite of Covid now, if you guys are watching this on YouTube. But Marc's in some sort of ski lodge right now.

But, you know, what's your kind of—what gave you this idea and, like, kind of what was that initial "why"?

Marc: Yeah, I was an early employee at a company called Jet.com. So, if you're in New York, I don't know if you remember Jet, but it was an e-commerce Marcetplace during, like, 2014, I think, and I joined.

Jeremy: Right, the guy who owns the Timberwolves?

Marc: Yeah, Marc Lore. Marc Lore. Yeah, yeah. So, we—I worked for Marc and Marc's team. Scott Hilton was the Chief Revenue Officer that I kind of rolled into.

I was an early employee there. They were a rocket ship. I learned a lot about e-commerce. They went from launching the business to being at a billion-dollar annualized run rate within 10 months. So, basically going from zero to $80 million a month in 10 months.

Jeremy: Sales?

Marc: Yeah, yeah—which was pretty wild. And then the founders sold that business to Walmart. So, then I went over and worked at Walmart for a few years. And, you know, I spent a lot of time in e-commerce. I spent a lot of time in stores on the Walmart side.

And my biggest takeaway from that experience was that the best product experiences don't happen on screens. And they don't happen on shelves or in aisles the way they do in stores. The best product experiences happen in real life, in moments of use.

So, if you're in the Marcet for a Peloton, it's much better to get on the bike and use it and see how you feel than flipping through images on your phone or looking at a cardboard box, you know, in a store.

And you can make that argument for anything. You talk about mattresses. You're talking about bedding. You're talking about silks and shampoos. It's much better to use the shampoo in your hair under a shower and see how you feel afterward. That's the way to see if something's a good fit for you. It's not looking at the packaging on a shelf, and it's not scrolling through images online.

So, we call that native retail—when you actually use the product. And as we were talking to brands, they're like, "Oh, we're constantly trying to find ways to get products in front of people, get people using products."

We just realized, and I had my own experience at a short-term rental upstate New York, where I connected the dots. I was like, "Wait a minute. Why are these brands spending so much money on Google and Facebook to try and create magic?"

Like, they're trying to create these moments of inspiration. And I'm like, "Those moments are happening here—when I'm sleeping on this mattress, when I'm tasting the coffee in the morning. Why are they spending there? They should be spending here. This is where they want to be."

And there wasn't an easy way for hosts, you know, to take advantage of collective power. Because every individual host—like you said—well, I could go and make an affiliate site, or I could try and reach out to Casper and negotiate. But we need to make a larger platform where this is frictionless and easy—where the host can buy everything they need.

They can save tons of money. I mean, like, our average customer saves thousands—around five thousand dollars. And that's including individual hosts. You're talking about our larger customers who have multiple properties. That's significantly higher.

And the brands are getting access to this sort of Marceting channel with hosts that, you know, they really value. And we're trying to connect the dots there.

Jeremy: Got it. So, I love—so you just have that aha moment of—and I’m guilty of listening to one of your earlier podcasts as my homework here—but you said you were working to empower the four-walled influencers.

Meaning, yeah, you know, they’re staying in your space. You’re influencing them, alright—that was my impression. So, you were getting influenced. You were at this Airbnb in upstate New York—I mean, maybe that’s why you ended up buying this place in upstate Vermont, ski lodge.

And you’re like, "Oh my gosh, I’m feeling it firsthand from the four walls around me. Let’s see if there’s something going on here on a bigger scale and if we can turn this into kind of like a Marcetplace."

And that’s definitely what you have—or, for better or worse, that’s what you’ve done.

Marc: Yeah, and I think the thing we’re most proud of is just how much we’ve saved hosts. Like, we’ve really helped hosts stretch their budget where they can take maybe a three-star budget and turn it into a five-star experience.

Because we’re using this business model to go out and create leverage against these brands and say, "Hey, you want to be here, and if you want to be here, you’ve got to pay up—which means you’ve got to give really good discounts."

Jeremy: Yeah, do you have any cool numbers? So, usually when I have, you know, a real estate person or someone who’s themselves doing short-term rentals, I’ll have them walk us through one of their deals. Just to kind of have that "Oh my God, aha moment" for everybody. So, for you, I guess, do you have any cool metrics on just how much you’ve saved your users?

Marc: Yeah, we’ve saved users—I mean, this is not public, so I can’t get into specifics.

Jeremy: Okay, sorry, what stats can you give me?

Marc: Yeah, we’ve saved our customers millions—and it’s not just millions like "Oh, it’s over a million." So, we can say millions. We’ve saved our customers millions of dollars, and the average savings are really anywhere between 30% and 45%.

So, you can think about how much you spend furnishing a property. Thinking about between 30% and 45% on that amount, on a kind of unit level—from a case study. But, in aggregate, the savings add up to the point where we’re, like, some of the biggest partners for these brands that they have.

Like, we’re platinum accounts. Meaning, they see us as one of their top five accounts nationwide. And it’s because we’ve been creating this really unique business model where there’s a lot more value for them.

It’s like a B2B2C for them. So, it’s like, "Hey, you can sell to this customer who then can also help you reach new customers. And because they’re doing the service for you, they should get better pricing than if you’re giving this discount out in the world."

They should be, like, down here, you know. They should be getting a really good discount. But the other thing—and I can’t quantify this one as much, so maybe it’s not as helpful as a statistic—but we do save hosts a lot of time.

Because Minoan is also built like project management software. It’s like procurement software, basically. And so, if you’re ordering those 250 items or whatever, instead of ordering from 10 different places or tracking stuff in emails or whatever, you know, you can order everything in Minoan. The linens, the sheets—you can get them from a bunch of different places.

You can order your soaps and shampoos from Public Goods or Zodix, which is a huge distributor we work with. You can get furniture from Wayfair or Crate and Barrel or Roof Concepts or Castle or West Elm, Pottery Barn.

You can get your mattresses from Casper. And you can order all that in Minoan, in one cart, in one place. You can see when things are going to be delivered, how much you’re spending. I mean, staying on time and on budget is like the Holy Grail of project management. And so, we’ve really designed the software to do that well.

Jeremy: I think, honestly, this is good for me, you know, because—I mean, I have heard of Minoan. And I was showing you earlier my portfolio. I think I—I don’t even—I'm at 26 listings according to what was there. And, like, I’ve set up most of them in the last couple of years.

Marc: For real? That’s a lot.

Jeremy: Yeah, trying. Well, yeah, while doing some other things too. So, for me, exactly—staying on schedule. And really, you know, if you’re buying a place, for me, it’s like, "Alright, I paid the down payment. My next mortgage payment is in a month.

"I’ve got to get this place—this place has to be pulling in money before that next purchase. I can put the furniture on my credit card." You know, I can put—yeah, get a zero percent APR credit card. I'm gonna worry about that one later. That one—yeah, that one, I'm gonna punt down the line.

But, uh, my mortgage payment—they don't take that from my credit card. So, for me, it's been like time. Like, time times nothing—that’s where... and not to—this is good to know now because, like, I’ve been critical of, you know, kind of platforms such as yours, where I’m just like—for me, I’m like, "I got that Amazon Prime. You know, I know. I mean, quick—it’s coming quick. That’s what I care about."

So, I guess, how—how have you tackled that aspect and that kind of, like, host need? Or, for more—probably more hosts like me—but other hosts like myself?

Marc: Yeah, it depends on the lead time. So, some people have longer lead times. If it’s like a net new construction or something, it’s like they have time to plan things out and be really thoughtful about the big FF&E—your furniture and stuff like that. And so, that opens up the full, you know, all 150 suppliers are in play.

We also have a lot of customers and partners who are like, "We work on a two-week turnover." So, like, "We close, and we have two weeks to furnish. We have guests. That’s two weeks."

And so, that list of 150 suppliers—we’re like, "That’s probably like these 20 that you want to stick with." You have really strong distribution networks where they can ship pretty much get you anything.

Jeremy: Go to Minoan.com, Tap in Wayfair.

Marc: Yeah, we work with Wayfair. Wayfair is a huge customer of ours. So, I think the only—Amazon's great. I mean, you can’t be—I sort of grew up my career in retail—you can’t be interested in retail or e-commerce to not have a ton of admiration for Amazon. Just an incredible company.

And I would encourage all hosts to have Amazon Prime because there’s going to be moments where you need—I don’t know—you’ve realized you’re low on toilet paper, or you just quickly—yeah.

Jeremy: I was just getting toilet paper, are you sourcing toilet paper for...

Marc: No, we—we can get you bulk, and we can get you, like, real bulk toilet paper through—we work with Zoro.com, which is a subsidiary of Grainger.

Grainger's a Fortune 500 company. Grainger’s who, like—you know, all these big buildings in Manhattan, when they need to order toilet paper or cleaning supplies, whatever, they go to Grainger.

Grainger has really good costing. You and me can’t order from Grainger—it’s business-to-business only. Zoro.com is Grainger’s sort of, like, direct-to-consumer business. They bought Zoro—it was originally tools.

Now, they’ve broken into a lot more stuff, and so, through our partnership with Zorro, we actually can get you, like, bulk Angel Soft toilet paper—the same stuff that buildings are buying, who are saving. You know, they are, like, really pinching pennies when you’re running those types of businesses. And so, we can get you those…

Jeremy: Get the most pleasurable bathroom experience in those.

Marc: Yeah, I mean, they have—you know, they have a ton of different types of toilet paper. If you want, if you want, like, the real—the cheapest one-ply, you can get that. But they’ll also have two-ply and, uh, quilted, you know, nice stuff.

But regardless, I—I think everyone should have an Amazon account. It’s just an unbelievable fulfillment network. And the customer service—oh, no, it’s not been as great, you know, now that they’re really focusing on the bottom line. Customer service has definitely taken a hit.

But the reality is that you’re paying the same price as a consumer. You’re not paying business pricing because—and even if you have an Amazon business account—we’ve looked at this—it’s not like you get wholesale for business pricing. You just get some other benefits, and there’s nothing wrong.

Jeremy: They’re literally giving you a penny, because I have an Amazon business account, they’re just giving you pennies off.

Marc: Yeah, exactly, and he's off. It’s more of a, "Hey, you’re a business. We’re gonna give you, like, this credit card and give you a little bit extra," but they’re not actually treating you like a business in the way that, like, Grainger and these B2B suppliers sell to businesses at true wholesale cheap costing.

And so, that’s the downside of Amazon. You can get really good, cheap stuff, you know. If you’re really focused on affordability, the furniture stuff—you can get it at good prices.

But what you need to understand is that those are consumer prices. And if you look at the underlying cost structure—and this is something, you know, from working in retail—it’s like everything builds into that cost: where you get your materials from, how you manufacture, you know, how you’re shipping.

And so, a lot of times, those cheaper products—they are cutting corners. You know, maybe they’re using an MDF material for furniture, which is pretty fragile. It’s a lot of what—you know—Ikea uses that stuff.

In a short-term rental, you should not be surprised or upset if something breaks or has a hole in it that you need to replace.

Jeremy:So, I have a couch where the leg just came off, and there’s a hole going through it, I think. And that was—yeah, I think that’s…

Marc: Yeah. And it’s because the manufacturers that are optimizing around low cost are cutting corners. Like, if you’ve ever been in a manufacturing plant or looked, like, there are ways you can pull costs out. And usually, you’re trading off between cost and quality.

The thing that we’re really proud of at Minoan is that we can give you both. You’re gonna get the quality and good costing because we’re working with quality suppliers who are selling out in the Marcet at a price that’s up here, but we’re getting it to you for this price.

Whereas on Amazon, they’re selling in the Marcet here, and you’re paying that—or maybe pennies below it.

But again, like, everyone should have a Prime account. Like, the breadth of the assortment, the speed of delivery, the distribution network—there’s just going to be times when you’re in a pinch and you need something quickly, and you need a broad assortment.

So, I’m not going to sit here and be like, "You know, drop the Prime account and come to Minoan." I think that there’s a time and a place for it. But I do think it’s smarter to order particularly the bigger stuff that needs to be sturdy for the guest experience, where people are sitting, sleeping, or eating. Those are sort of the centerpieces of the home.

Those pieces—we would encourage you to invest in quality and then try and save as much as you can. And that’s what we deliver on.

Jeremy: Well, this podcast is brought to you by Amazon Prime Membership. Subscribe now have one year free, yada yada. Okay, cool. So, uh, so I think the two sides—you’re obviously saving money.

First question is—so let’s say, guys, I will disclaim—I’m not a Minoan customer, and I’m kind of sold.

Marc: Yeah, beforehand, I was like, "He’s not even in here."

Jeremy: Live action. This is live action. So, so, yeah, let’s assume I’m not a customer because I’m not.

Um, adding another unit—you know, I was just making offers this week on another property. You know, potentially adding some more arbitrage units here. So, let’s say I get under contract, or I know when my rent date starts. I just come to you guys with a list of items like that I want? Or what’s—what would—what would I do?

Marc: Yeah, you would apply. So, you’d go to MinoanExperience.com. In the top right, you’d apply. You’d tell us.

Jeremy: Oh you’re playing hard to get.

Jeremy:: Yeah, yeah, well—there’s a standard. There’s different strategies in the short-term rental Marcet. As you know, there’s folks who are really competing on just price and being, like, the best price in town. That’s not really a fit for Minoan’s ethos. We believe in high-quality guest experiences.

Jeremy: And so, yeah, I do, I do, I do as well, because ultimately, that is, like…

Jeremy: Maybe you’ll get accepted.Um, I’ve seen your listings earlier—you have quite nice—you seem to do a pretty good job there. But you’d apply. You’d tell us a little bit about it. So, a lot of times in the application process, people are saying, "Hey, just closed. First guests are coming in October 16th."

You know, so we see that in the application flow. And then, if you get approved, you go into a platform where you can filter through about 150 brands, you know.

Furniture brands, soaps, shampoo brands, amenity brands, linen brands, mattress brands, you know, electronics suppliers, toilet paper, paper products—you know, all that. And then you can go through and go off to their sites and grab all the products that you need.

If you do need help, you know, if you’re like, "Hey, I need a little bit of guidance," we have a few folks on our team. Charlotte—so her name comes up all the time—people love working with her.

Jeremy: Shoutout to Charlotte.

Jeremy: Yeah, shout out to Charlotte. I just see her name all the time in these Facebook groups. People really love—you know, and we pride ourselves on customer service—but people really love working with her.

Jeremy: And Charlotte helps. "Oh, you should go with this," like you see right here. Like, she kind of gives recommendations or design.

Marc: She can narrow the range, so she can tell you, like, "Hey, for these types of products, I would look at Zorro, or I would look at West Elm. Or, you know, maybe if it’s, oh, you’re in two weeks, I would go to Wayfair, you know, and I would look at these types of products."

So, we’re not—we’re not designers, so we’re not giving you, like, a spec sheet. But we can help you narrow the range.

And then you would build your cart there. You would see when everything’s gonna be delivered, how much it costs, how much you’re saving. Once you check out, we show you all that tracking in one place.

So, you can look at this and say, "This will be on the 18th. This will be on the 20th. This one—shoot—this one got pushed back. Now it’s going to get around the 23rd." You can say, "What’s going on here?" We’ll check with the supplier, see if we can expedite it.

Jeremy: Does it tell you to go to UPS.com and then look at the UPS tracker?

Marc: No, it’s all—yeah, it’s all in there. And the nice thing is, because we’re a larger account, like when we reach out to our suppliers, they pay attention.

So, if we’re like, "Hey, is there anything we can do to make this—?" Yeah, sometimes they can’t. Sometimes it’s like just backed up at the warehouse, and it’s like there’s nothing they can do. But if we can get it on a different carrier or, you know, switch the route or do something out there more quickly, you know, we try to be as helpful as we can be.

Jeremy: Got it. So, I’m buying a five-bedroom house—which I did buy, a five-bedroom house. I’ve already furnished it, so let’s just—hypothetical new five-bedroom house.

I guess, you know, I’m—I just bang for, you know, I want the best furniture at the best price that’s gonna create that great user experience. You talked about how much. So, a 3,000-square-foot house, five bedrooms—how much can I anticipate spending to furnish the place

Marc: On a five-bedroom?

Jeremy: Three thousand square foot, I don’t know if a cost per square foot is a better estimate for you.

Marc: Yeah, yeah, that’s like a good—you know, there are people on the team. I spend less time now with the properties and more time sort of, like, with our suppliers and on higher-level things.

Or someone, like, closer to our—they would probably give you a good estimate.

Jeremy: And show up for the podcast?

Marc: Yeah, just show up for the podcast. I don’t know. But it really depends because—and it depends on your ADR. There is a very clear correlation between ADR and furnishing spend.

And so, we have some folks that will get, like, a smaller, like a two- or three-bedroom. I would always put in a lot of—as many beds as you can respectfully.

And they’re furnishing through, like, Restoration Hardware or Ore House. And that stuff—even with our discount—we get a good discount, but it’s still pricey. It’s really expensive stuff. But they’re renting it out at the top of the Marcet. You know, if you look in their Marcet, they’re in, like, the top 10 percentile for ADR. And it works. Like, their occupancy looks good.

And then you have folks whose strategy is different, and they’re like, "I just think that there’s an inventory shortage here, and I’m just trying to sop up some of the demand. And I don’t need to be at the top of the Marcet. I just want to be in the middle of the pack." And that’s where I want to price.

Jeremy: I’m not a middle-of-the-pack guy. I’m a top performer.

Marc: Yeah, then you’ll spend—then you’ll be spending, you know, some money. I don’t know—I can’t give you an estimate. I could try and give you a number.

Jeremy: Yeah, sure. Can we say—can I say 10 bucks a square foot, or, you know, or any square footage?

Marc: No, I—I really—we tend to look at it on a per-room basis. And that’s also how designers look at it. So, they’ll look at per-bedroom, per-living room, because that’s what really dictates—I think, because square footage can be used in lots of different ways, you know.

And so, there are some more expensive areas, you know, that could be, like, densely packed. But—but per-bedroom, I mean, really, per-bedroom, you can get—You get people who can do it on a tight budget, like really a few thousand dollars. And you get people who are spending—they’re getting up through maybe—through a, no, they’re getting a $4,000 bed, and they’re getting it 50% off. So, they’re spending $2,000 on it. But still, $2,000 just on the bed. And then they put the mattress in that, and so.

Jeremy: They’re not getting just your gel memory foam 10-inch mattress for $275.

Marc: Yeah, but they’re not spending a thousand. I mean, mattresses—we can get people, like, luxury, luxury mattresses—king size—and they’re still, like, $675.

Jeremy: Oh wow,

Marc: We can get people really good mattresses. They’re super influential. All those mattress brands want to be in these. I mean, where else do you get someone to sleep on your mattress three, four, five nights in a row? You know, that’s like an incredible value for them.

So, we get really good costing there. But the other thing is, if you look at the ADR—and this is not just true in short-term rentals, it’s in hospitality—like One Hotel, the One Hotel group, they spend $40 grand per room, per room, on their properties.

But they charge, like, a thousand bucks a night, so the payback period is pretty good. Then, you know, it’s like month two, and you’re good—you’re in the green. And then that thing is just generating a ton of cash.

And so, that’s sort of the—the game. It’s like, what’s the right amount to spend? Really, what’s the aesthetic we’re looking for? Who’s the customer we’re going after?

You know, are we going after people who are coming from areas where they have a lot of money, and what they’re going to value is convenience and the experience over just a crash pad or a place to lay their head?

That should be sort of your nucleus. And then you look into, "Okay, well, if that’s my core customer, I need to design around that customer."

Do I think that customer appreciates the finer things? Do I think it makes sense to invest in a nicer coffee setup because this customer is going to be impressed by that? Do I think this customer is going to be working? Do I think that the customer I want to sort of, like, appeal to is—are people who are working a lot?

Does that mean I want a desk setup in the rental that I can put in my pictures and Marcet and say it’s work-from-home ready? I mean, that’s what—you know, there are great companies like Rove, who we work with. Rove Travel—they’re in—they have a ton of properties in Manhattan.

And, man, you get a nice property in Manhattan, you put some desks in it, you do 30-day rentals—you can charge a lot of money. And they—they spend a lot furnishing them, but their margins are still so great.

And so, it’s all really connected. I think the nucleus is, like, who’s the customer I want to serve? And is there an opportunity? Am I looking at this Marcet where, for example, where I am—up by Stowe, Vermont—I’m a little bit north of that.

Jeremy: You’re in the cut?

Marc: Yeah, I’m in—I’m in the cut. I think there are, like, opportunities here for—I think there are opportunities for travel accommodations here that aren’t being filled currently. Like, modern—there’s a lot of, like, old stuff, like these old cabins. And, you know, it’s old. It feels older, and that’s cool—it’s kind of heritage, part of the vibe.

But there’s not a lot of, like, modern, big glass window, beautiful views. And they’ve been popping up recently up here. And we just worked with a property in Stowe that is, like, super modern, super clean, right close to the mountain. And their ADR is—it’s like $1,800 or $2,000 a night. It’s got, you know, four bedrooms.

But it’s like—they’re just cleaning up. And so, it’s about finding the opportunity with the customer set, I think. And then that should determine how much you spend.

You know, if you want to be—if you’re looking for a luxury client, and you’re like, "Well, we want a luxury clientele, but I’m not going to be thoughtful about my amenities. I’m just gonna buy Dial soap from Costco, and we’re gonna get the cheapest sheets on Amazon."

So, like—that—you need to understand that that doesn’t sync up with the customer you’re trying to attract. And that, over time, could create some issues.

And there are some large groups—I won’t name names—that have tried to appeal to a luxury segment and haven’t really put enough on the spend. Or they did initially, and then they became very, you know, focused.

And now, like, their occupancy’s dropping, and it’s kind of—you know, it’s a tough thing to manage. This is hospitality at the end of the day.

And so, you can look at the hotels kind of like the early—you know, like, I think us in the short-term rental industry can learn a lot from hotels. We can learn a lot about what to do and what not to do.

But if you look at the segmentation within hotels, and the ADR swings, and how much they spend furnishing—you know, there’s decades of experience in that field that you can kind of learn from.

Jeremy: Do you ever go to High Point Furniture Marcet? The big convention line?

Marc: Yeah, no, they haven’t yet, but I’ve heard incredible things. I would love to go. I’ve heard it’s awesome.

Jeremy: Yeah, it’s all—it’s near where I’m from, and I have some properties over there. So, okay, that’s why I was gonna say, "Oh, do you need a place?" Too bad—they’re all booked for that. So, yeah, I can’t help you. Maybe go stay in a hotel.

Marc: I love high-end experiences. I love product design and really well-done products and how that impacts the guest experience. I mean, it makes the job—I just love what I do. It’s—it’s really fun.

Jeremy: Got it. Okay, cool. So, I’ve just—I’ve gone with you. I’ve ordered—I’m not cheaping out, probably not your, you know, most high-roller customer, but, guys, we’re not cheaping out here. You can’t cheap out. Um, like, you don’t want low ADRs and low occupancy.

So, I’ve got a nice place. I can now see when stuff’s coming. I can look on your website. I can see the tracking, which is super important. One of the items comes broken—you know, oh, the leg is—you know, whatever. The mirror is—has a shattered glass. Do I call Charlotte? How do I—how do I get that dealt with?

Marc: Yeah, we—you can—you can call Charlotte if—if you know, if she’s—she’ll help you. But we also have a 24-hour support team. There’s a chat in Minoan that’s on all the time. You can tell if something’s real broken, we’ll ask a few questions, and then we handle it.

You know, we’ll go to the supplier, figure out either compensation or just a replacement. But, yeah, we take care of a lot of the admin work there. We may ask you to package something up and ship it because we can’t—we’re not there. But, yeah, you won’t have to wait on hold with the supplier or go through all the hoops. Yeah, we take care of that for you.

Jeremy: Do you want—do you want pictures?

Marc: Yeah, sometimes, because the suppliers—got it. You always think picture—you should always take a picture if something arrives broken.

Even now—I’m very—going back to Amazon, you know, the economy is tightening up a little bit within retail. The return—the free returns and stuff like that—you know, everyone’s kind of tightening their stances on that.

And returns, you know—what used to be free returns is now, "Okay, well, you have to pay for shipping," or—and they’re cracking down. If you used to not need to take pictures, now they need evidence so that you can prove there’s damage.

So, whether or not you’re using Minoan, I would encourage you to make sure that you’re really documenting that stuff as it shows up because it’ll be helpful down the line. Also, for, like, reconciliation, stuff like that.

Jeremy: Sure. So, I’ve gotten things returned, or I’ve gotten things refunded. I’ve got my place furnished. And now, how do I make money? When guests stay at my place, and, you know, they ask me that, "What mattress do you use?" What do I do? I send something back to them, or do they just—do they already know? How can I monetize?

Marc: Yeah, we would—if you—once you’ve furnished, you’d work with us, and then we would—we would set up and build your shop. We’d send you something like this. So, this is—they can’t see it super well—hold on a sec.

Jeremy: It’s a little bright.

Marc: Like, this is, like, a really nice powder-coated stand. So, it’s really elegant. It looks nice on the property.

People can scan that code—it takes them to the shop. Or—but we’ll create a custom link, basically, that’s for your property, that has images of your products, images of your property. And so, you can just send them that.

Jeremy: Does it—like—is it, does it also do guidebooks?

Marc: Not yet, not yet.

Jeremy: That’s been a discussion point.

Marc: Yeah, I mean, it’s all tied to the guest experience.

Jeremy: Everybody has a guidebook. Every short-term rental company of some sort, like, throws in doing guidebooks.

Marc: Yeah, and so, if we were to do anything, we’d want to make sure we do it well. So, maybe there’d be a partnership or something. But we’re not—we’re not really looking at that yet.

Jeremy: Got it. We’ll do what you’re—what you’re good at. Cool. Well, I know—so, okay. So, I’ve now monetized my property. Guests can easily find access. They’re ordering.

How much can I anticipate—let’s say, you know, I bought a—let’s call it a $500 mattress. And a guest buys one—is there—is it depend, or is there a fixed percentage I can expect to get in my pocket as a result of that?

Marc: Yeah, it’s variable by brand. On mattresses, it’s usually pretty high, so you’d be looking at, like, between 15% and 25% as commission.

Jeremy: Oh, wow.

Marc: And then, as you get down, like, to smaller soaps and shampoos, it’s usually—you know, the minimum is usually 7.5%, but it can be as high as 25%.

Jeremy: Alright, so a pretty penny. Not literally pennies. We are making more—literally dollars. Okay, so we’re making money. Legit money, I guess. I don’t know if you have a stat on—the average host makes this amount per year in their referral affiliate? Minoan affiliate?

Marc: Yeah, yeah. It’s like, a few hundred bucks.

Jeremy: Oh, wow.

Marc: A year

Jeremy: Oh, oh, that’s—that’s serious cash. Alright, so you are—okay, so you’re making money on the back end. Wow, well, we’ve just went through the whole experience there.

I guess, what other—other than "Use Minoan," what would be your pro tip for a short-term rental host—an existing one looking to level up their portfolio or a new one looking to get started?

Marc: I’ll say what I already talked about for a little while, but, you know, you gotta—it’s a business. With any business, you gotta think about your plan, think about your customer. And I would spend a lot of time in that part of the exercise. And then I would, like, furnish—I would plan the entire guest experience accordingly.

And so, what type of customer are you? Why—is it families? Is it bachelor parties? Is it a romantic getaway? Is it people—are you really being specific? And you’re like, "We are a—you know, an hour away from Washington, D.C., and we’re gonna get people who live in D.C. to come out."

But knowing your customer, and then building your entire strategy around, "How can I build something that I think this customer would really appreciate?" Which will show up in reviews, which will help me drive ADR, which will maintain occupancy. So, approach it like any other business, and be customer-focused.

And then, stand out. You know, don’t just do what everyone else is doing—that’s not the hospitality experience. Think about when you travel. Like, anyone who travels—you know, if you’re looking for a place to lay your head, it’s all about cost. How can I save money?

And so, try to stand out. Try to be different, you know, and think about your customers, I would say, are the most important things.

Jeremy: Beautiful. So, how can somebody find you and get in touch with your team?

Marc: We’re at minoanexperience.com. We’re on Instagram—very active—@MinoanExperience. And then my email is marc@minoanexperience.com.

Jeremy: Awesome. Well, thanks. Anything else you want to share with folks while we have you here?

Marc: No, I think that was great. It was great to be on. I appreciate you coming.

Jeremy: Well, guys, stay tuned for more. It’s the Short-Term Rental Pro podcast. Marc, thank you so much for coming today.

Marc: Yeah, great to meet you, Jeremy.

Jeremy: Alright, likewise. Alright, have a good one.