From Startup to Scale-Up: How I Built and Sold A 130-Unit Business

Summary

Podcast Title: The Boostly Podcast
Host: Mark Simpson
Episode Title: From Startup to Scale-Up: How I Built and Sold A 130-Unit Business
Release Date: November 25, 2024

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Introduction

In this episode of The Boostly Podcast, host Liam Carolan welcomes Sasha Tucker, the founder of Norfolk Holiday Properties, to discuss his impressive journey from managing just two family-owned properties to scaling up to a 130-unit business and ultimately selling it to a leading industry group, Host and Stay. The conversation delves into the strategies, challenges, and insights Sasha encountered along the way, providing valuable lessons for current and aspiring property managers in the hospitality sector.

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Starting the Business

Elevator Pitch and Beginnings [03:41-04:23]

Sasha introduces his company, Norfolk Holiday Properties, as a holiday let property management agency based in Norwich, covering the entire county and currently managing about 130 properties. He shares the origin story, highlighting how he began six years ago by managing two family-owned properties after deciding to return to Norwich post his stint as a photographer and videographer in Portsmouth.

Key Quote:

"I reached out to Stefi and I asked them, what can you do for the Boostly peeps? What can you do for the Boostly crowd?" – [02:06] Liam

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Scaling the Business

Growth from Two to Twenty-Three Properties [05:05-10:44]

Sasha recounts the initial excitement of listing properties on Airbnb, which led to immediate bookings but also the realization of the demanding nature of property management. He emphasizes the importance of building a solid database through tools like Stayfi for guest data collection and automated communication.

As demand grew, Sasha scaled his operations by hiring his first staff member when managing around 20-30 properties and a second hire at the 40-property mark. Moving into a dedicated office space marked a significant milestone, enhancing the company's credibility and operational capacity.

Key Quote:

"Businesses have got two problems. Not enough of the right team and not enough leads coming in. If you smash both of those things, get the right amount of leads but the right people, then you're on a good path there." – [10:17] Sasha

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Challenges Faced

Managing Growth and Maintaining Quality [05:33-14:48]

Sasha discusses the unexpected challenges that come with scaling, such as the increased on-call responsibilities and the emotional toll of dealing with dissatisfied guests. He highlights the necessity of building a reliable team to handle operations and maintain service quality, which allows him to delegate effectively and stay mentally present.

Key Quote:

"You can’t have bespoke arrangements with different owners. That’s how you will fall into trouble. You can’t have systems, you can’t train staff if it’s not the same process every single time." – [23:26] Sasha

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Acquisition Process

Decision to Sell and Acquisition by Host and Stay [26:37-32:32]

Sasha explains that the decision to sell Norfolk Holiday Properties was driven by personal strains and operational challenges at scale. He leveraged LinkedIn to connect with potential buyers and ultimately decided to sell to Host and Stay, a company that aligns with his values and offers comprehensive property management services. The acquisition process was smooth, facilitated by mutual respect and shared business philosophies.

Key Quote:

"Host and Stay are true disruptors to this industry and they are approaching it from a full management point of view." – [31:25] Sasha

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Advice for Aspiring Property Managers

Preparing for a Sale and Building a Sellable Business [27:16-35:45]

Sasha offers actionable advice for those looking to grow and potentially sell their property management businesses:

1. Quality Listings: Focus on acquiring high-quality properties and ensure they are professionally photographed to enhance appeal.
2. Diversified Portfolio: Avoid revenue concentration from a few clients to reduce risk and make the business more attractive to buyers.
3. Standardized Contracts: Implement uniform contracts with property owners to streamline operations and provide security for potential buyers.

He emphasizes that even smaller businesses are attractive acquisition targets if they maintain quality, diversified revenue, and standardized processes.

Key Quote:

"If you've got more than one unit, you know the pain of just operationally managing the day-to-day stuff, from cleaning to maintenance to guest communication, how do you manage that at the level of 130? Is there any tips that you can give saying that, you know what, these couple of things made it a little bit easier to do." – [22:37] Sasha

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Overcoming Operational Challenges

Standardization and Team Building [23:26-37:40]

To manage a large portfolio effectively, Sasha highlights the importance of standardizing operations and building a competent team. He advises against bespoke arrangements with property owners, advocating for uniform processes that facilitate training and scalability. Implementing internal guidelines to assess property quality ensures that only suitable listings are accepted, maintaining service standards and operational efficiency.

Key Quote:

"Having people to help you handle that is something that you can look forward to. So if you're looking to hire your first member of staff and to start growing your team, that's a massive point." – [09:05] Sasha

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Future Plans and Reflections

Personal Growth and Continued Investment [37:40-44:37]

Looking ahead, Sasha shares his plans following the sale of Norfolk Holiday Properties. With the impending arrival of his first child, he intends to focus on expanding his personal property investments rather than continuing in the high-demand, 24/7 nature of property management. He expresses a passion for entrepreneurship and business development, seeking new investment opportunities.

Reflecting on his journey, Sasha acknowledges the hardships and the personal growth that came with scaling a business. He advises aspiring entrepreneurs to find joy in the process and maintain resilience despite the challenges, as the path to scaling and potential exit can be both rewarding and demanding.

Key Quote:

"If I had known what it was going to be like and how hard it was going to be, I might not have actually gone in to do it. I mean, because there's no guarantee that you're going to get an exit at the end of it which will make it all worthwhile." – [38:48] Sasha

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Conclusion

Sasha Tucker's journey from managing two family properties to establishing and selling a 130-unit business offers invaluable insights for property managers aiming to scale their operations. Key takeaways include the importance of quality listings, diversified portfolios, standardized processes, and effective team building. His experience underscores that while scaling a business in the hospitality industry is fraught with challenges, strategic planning and resilience can lead to substantial growth and successful exits.

Final Thoughts:

"Businesses have got two problems. Not enough of the right team and not enough leads coming in. If you smash both of those things, get the right amount of leads but the right people, then you're on a good path there." – [10:17] Sasha

For those interested in learning more or connecting with Sasha, he can be found on Instagram under the handle @SashaTucker.

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Note: The advertisement segments from Stayfi and Hostfully have been omitted to focus solely on the content-rich parts of the episode.

Transcript

[Liam]

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[Sasha]

Okay. Welcome to the Boosley Podcast. This is the podcast that gives hosts the tools, the tactics, the training, and most importantly, the confidence to go out there and get more direct bookings. But we do a miniseries on this podcast which focuses on all kind of hospitality stuff. And today I've got a guest with me and we're focusing on management businesses and in particular we're focusing on how to start, scale and then sell a management business. So if you're thinking about doing this yourself, if you're a host and you've got management business at the moment, or if you're thinking about co hosting or managing for others, this you will really need to listen to because you can pick up lessons and tips and information that can help you on your journey from somebody who's been there and done that before. So let me welcome along, we've got Sasha. Sasha is somebody who operates local to me, so he's based in Norfolk. His company is Norfolk Holiday Properties. He's really wonderful chap. I know him personally, as I say, and I'm so excited to dive into his story and congratulate him on starting, scaling and now going for a sale of the business. So welcome along Sasha. Thank you for joining me today.

Thank you. Liam, you are a master at this. What an intro.

Thanks. It's not my first rodeo, as they say, but yeah. So Sasha, I know you've been on this podcast before. We talked maybe a year, year and a half ago and we got a bit of an introduction to the business. But for those of you of the listeners who don't know your business, can you give like an elevator pitch as to what it is? And then after that I'm going to dive into how it got started.

Yeah, absolutely. So my business, as you said, is Norfolk Holiday Properties. We're a holiday let property management agency based in Norwich. So we cover the entire county. So north northwest, Norwich, Norfolk Broads, east to west and we currently manage about 130 properties.

Amazing. So no small scale, you know, that's, that's quite a feat in itself to grow to that. What I'd love to know is how did you get started and why and what has the journey been like? How many, you know, how many years and what steps has it taken to get to this size?

Sure. So we, I started about six years ago and the way I got started was managing family owned properties and there were two initially. So after finishing uni I was up in Lincoln, I got my first proper job down in Portsmouth and I lived and worked there for three years as a photographer and videographer. And honestly I didn't see this being a path that I would have naturally moved in through or into from that point. But ultimately I decided that I wanted to move back To Norwich, which, as you said, is where I'm from. That's where my friends, my family are. So it was at that point that I took on management of these two, probably my mum and dad.

Nice, nice. And what I'm going to do is just, I'm going to make sure that we've got the recorder as well. I'm going to double record this, just for my own sake, in case one record has failed. So ignore where it says that we're now recording, but. So those two have kind of like started you off. You've got the videography stuff, which kind of. I'm always looking for transferable skills. And I imagine that helped you with the marketing of just those two properties initially. Is that the case?

Yeah, it definitely, definitely did. I mean, but to be honest with you, I went into this quite naively. I didn't actually know what it entailed. So, I mean, what I didn't anticipate is just quite how demanding it was going to prove to be, because we all know how hard it can be. I mean, the first thing I did with these properties was stick them on Airbnb because they weren't on there. And the very first properties we put on there got a booking this first day that they're on, arrived that evening, got the property ready and I thought, brilliant.

And just diving in there. What? How are you getting bookings before that? Because so many bookings do come, like 60% of the market is like Airbnb these days, isn't it?

Yeah, it was Business owners Direct days. Remember that?

I've got it. Yeah, it's very big at the time.

Yeah, massive. And that's how most bookings came through. It was an. Airbnb came and disrupted the whole industry, but we. It got booked straight away. Immediately I put it on there and I thought, this is. This is great. No problem at all. That evening, I'm sitting on the sofa and Airbnb notification pops up on my phone. It's this horrendously long message and the guest was complaining. And that was the first time I got that kind of sinking feeling in my stomach when you read an unpleasant message. And it was also the first time I realized that that could happen now at any time of day or night, forever. Which was a bit of a wake.

Up call for me, Gary, isn't it?

It is, it is. And it's not something that kind of goes away, honestly. That's like a big problem which everybody's trying to solve in our industry and there's never. There's not a perfect solution to it. That whole on call element, it's not something that goes away. It actually gets a lot harder when you scale. So even though we reached a point where, you know, a team and I was kind of out of the road to myself, you're still on. You're still the escalation point, so you're always on call. And I found I've had problems kind of being present in moments when I should be kind of socializing. I might be there physically, but I can say I probably wasn't there mentally. It was quite a sad thing to admit, really.

And I think that is one thing where when people go into this business and hospitality, it's like, say we done car sales, but we didn't like talking to people. It would never work, would it? We've got to. To be really comfortable with. You're going to deal with crap messages, you know, and that's not. It might be our fault, it might not be our fault, but you're going to deal with this quite often. And that's the mindset of going, well, I'm going to have to deal with this for a period of time. I'm going to have to put in systems and people and structures to not have any kind of breakdown, you know, I mean, you've got to, you've got to have that kind of stuff in place.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's something which, if you can build a, you know, a team, that, that helps because there's, you know, I remember the days we're doing it and it's just myself and it's, it's, it is brutal, to be honest.

And do you find, though, I mean, even, even with a team, obviously, 130. Is it still now the case where just because it's ultimately somebody's responsible, aren't they? And ultimately, as a company owner, we feel responsible. Do you still, even at the level that you're at, is that still the case or is there. Has it got any easier? Has it got harder? What should be people's mindset around the journey that they're probably going to go on regarding those horrible messages?

Yeah, that's a good question. For me personally, I got much, much, much better at dealing with that. And it's funny, I can think back now to say, the first few guests we ever had for Airbnb and I can still remember some of their names, seeing them pop up. And I can remember their names because they were people that probably left a negative review. Unfortunately, it's the negative ones which stick in your mind. And all the five stars you get, you can't recall those. So I personally, I'm much, much better at dealing with that now. You get a thicker skin for it and you just get used to it. I mean, once you've been doing it a few times, like the phrase you use, it's not your first rodeo and you can tell when somebody's just never going to be happy no matter what you do. But definitely having people to help you handle that is something that you can look forward to. So if you're looking to hire your first member of staff and to start growing your team, that's a massive point. And hire the right person, it will change your whole life. And I was fortunate with my first hire. These are absolute legends and still in the business now. And that kind of, that chain that's transformative for us, that's really cool and.

It'S important, isn't it? They say businesses have got two problems. Not enough for the right team and not enough leads coming in. If you smash both of those things, get the right amount of leads but the right people, then you're on a good path there. Okay, so going back to the. You've got those first couple, talk us through, then obviously you've gone from 2 to 130. What did that look like?

So the first few, so the first two properties were yeah, family owned and then some later on down the line some more family owned properties joined as well. We the, I remember the first few we had in it would be like, you know, connections of a friend of a friend or a friend of a family friend. The first ever property we took on that was a genuine, I call a genuine cold lead client who just found us, probably joined when we had, I don't know, five properties on the books. So this is someone that I'd had no introduction to, just found us and I couldn't believe they wanted to sign up with us. But they did and they're actually still on our books right now. Very long term, loyal client.

I'm interested. How did they find you as well as in what, what had you like any social media or is it just website SEO? What, what sort of thing did you.

So interestingly, we've never. So when I was running the business, I've never spent on social media ads or Google AdWords, I never did that and I think we did very well. Naturally out of our name we've got a cracking domain name which is norfolk holidayproperties.co.uk that's how they came across us so had a phone call. It's just when it was, yeah, it was only me. So I answered the phone and then I remember him saying, okay, sounds good. So what would the next steps be? And I said, okay, well, if you'd like to go ahead, we'd come out and photograph the property. He said, okay, do you book a photographer for that? And I was like, it's me, I'll come and do that.

Nice, nice.

And then the next thing you know, who's going to be managing the property? Who's kind of doing the cleaning and laundry?

Me.

I'm doing that. Yeah, in a way. That was a way. It's quite an easy way to win business. People liked that. And I think the challenge you'll have is that you'll find customers who want to go with you because you are as a one man or one woman operation and they like that. Then you'll grow and you'll find your initial customers don't like the idea that it's not just you looking after their property anymore. But then you'll start to attract customers who don't like the idea of being with somebody so small. So you attract different clients throughout your kind of your growth period. And things really started to ramp up for us, actually in the run out from COVID there was a property boom and lots of people were investing and we had a really, really good couple of years following that. I mean, the year leading up to it and throughout Covid was horrendous, but afterwards we did quite well.

That's the yin and the yang of stuff, isn't it, where, you know, like there's bad times and good times and once you've gone through that cycle, you can actually go, oh, hang on, this will probably happen again. So I can't let the bad time, as in Covid, hopefully won't happen again. But yeah, in general, something else, market changes, interest rates, government regulations, something will happen, won't it? And where you go, oh, hang on, it's not so booming on the other side of whatever that challenge is, you know, there's going to be another growth spurt, isn't there? And this is how markets work. But it's really interesting what you're saying there about the. You start to scale up at that time. So. And there are definitely people who like small, smaller entities and where they know one person sorting it. But did you, as you were growing to hang on to that client you mentioned there, did you have to kind of like, hey, we're bringing on people to actually make it better for you, you know, like was, did you have to resell this, you know, like to hold on to people, or is it just a case of naturally there's going to be churn and actually you just accept, hey, as long as we onboard more than what leaves us. Because it's a bit like a car mechanic, once they've found a good one, you don't really swap, do you? Like, a lot of the time, what did you find? Did you have to work hard on retaining or was it just a case of this natural churn and you just accept it?

I mean, we didn't have any churn at all back in the first few years and I think it's much easier when you haven't got a very big portfolio.

And like you say to you though as well, because obviously you're doing a good job of managing that relationship as well.

Yeah, well, we like to think so. I mean, but it is, it's, it's on your side, the circumstances surrounding it, because it is a massive job for them to move to another agent and people don't naturally want to do it. So as long as they're happy, it's unlikely they are going to leave. What you'll find from, based on my experience, is that you'll have your early customers who bought into you and they only want to deal with you. So even then, if you do expand, you start employing people, you have a team, those initial clients, they're still going to ring up and they'll ask, speak to you. That happens to me even now. So as hard as you can, try to kind of start putting them through the norm, the proper communication processes. I occasionally still get whatsapps on my phone. I just have to set that. You know, they're loyal customers of mine, I don't mind, I know them all really well. But that's, yeah, that's a challenge you have. So then focus on your team. They can serve the new customers which come in, they'll be their point of contact and it will actually work out quite well.

Nice. That's a great bit of advice in general because you don't want to lose the trust of your loyal customers who have got where you are and grow in the business. But all the new ones don't know any different. So if you've then got a member of staff as their point of contact, that reduces your engulfing workload as the company gets bigger, at least you can spread that, which is cool.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay. So at that stage, through Covid, you've then scaled aggressively. So to give us an idea of number of units. And are we saying you've gone from like 10 to X amount or did it just carry on from that stage and not. Or was there like steps where you're like hey I'm gonna get to 30, hey I'm gonna get to 50, hey I'm gonna get to 70, you know, like that sort of thing.

I'd say I'm not the kind of person that mate writes business plans. It's not my style. I never, I never have done. I know some people really like them and they would kind of plan out different stage. But I think you're kind of trying to, you're trying to forecast too much and the environment's too, too changing. You can't. It's just my, that's my personal view. So I can, I can remember like a vague timeline. I think that we, we scaled to 20 to 30 before I made my first hire. And then the next hire was probably around the 40 property mark. So two members of staff then it starts from a little bit of a blur. But one of the next milestone for us was moved into a proper office out from my despair at my dad's house. We were in there for six months and then we moved into our office on first street, which is where we are now. And that was, that was a massive moment because we've got the shop front name above the street which I always wanted to see there. And that was kind of a moment where it felt like we suddenly became a legitimate. Even though that's the wrong phrase, isn't it? But you know, just a bit of some credentials behind you. So that was, that was amazing.

Just on that point there, when was the. And the reason I ask this is purely selfish and hopefully this helps the listeners as well. Is that because I operate my management company from my home office, you know, like, and sometimes you do get clients go, hey, I'll come and meet you at the office. I'm like, you can come around and have a cup of tea. Do you know what I mean? Like, but it's not as professional as saying, hey, we'll meet here. Here's a, you know, the sign above the door. And how did you decide that, you know what, it's actually worth spending the money on the office? Because potentially that money could be a member of staff, presumably depending on the rent, it could be a small wage, part time wage for people. But also do you look back on that and go actually, do you know what the money I spent, it saved me spending on marketing ads because once you've got Shopfront, you've got a Shopfront.

It's a really good question.

And a bit loaded, that is as well. Sorry.

I think it's important to remember that we set it up just before lockdowns ever became a thing. And prior to that, remote working was not commonplace in the same way that it is now. So my whole thought process I had on it was that we need an office. So we, me and Joe was my first hire. So we used to work out of the tiny spare room at my dad's house because that was the only place we could have an office. But we still went there every day. If you were to start the business again now, you would just work at home remotely. But that just wasn't. That wasn't even in my. On my peripheral, we had to have an office as far as I was concerned. And then by time, Covid actually hit, we were already paying for our first office in the shared unit. So I had a different mindset, perhaps to what some people would do now. But having that office front on the street has been really important for us. I also think will come onto this more, but I think it also makes you look quite attractive if your goal at some point is to sell the business. If you've got that presence. I think that's. That does help.

Yeah. It's optic sometimes, isn't it? Because it's like. I mean, we've met operators and there's operators probably listen to this. Where you haven't got your own website or you haven't got, you know, every asset that you build which has your brand on it gives you more trust and more credibility. And certainly if you're selling the business, they can see what they get and the premise, that sort of thing. And. Yeah, that's very cool. So with this in mind, did you have to set up any kind of funnel? Obviously, in the early days, people would just call out of the blue and say, hey, will you manage my house? When you reach that point of going, you know what? This needs to be a serious funnel. At what stage did that switch to be a funnel? If it was, or even at this stage, is it still. Does it go by itself?

So new leads coming in. So how do we handle those new homes? Yeah, so now they'll call through and they'll talk to our property consultant who will go out and have initial chat with them and then they'll do a forecast of revenue. So we've got a whole process around how we structure those meetings and what we want to get out of it by the end of it. And ultimately their goal is to bring new properties on and they're paid commission for doing that. So before that it would just be myself doing it.

Yeah, that makes sense. And like you say, commissionable. This is why we talk a lot of the time on this podcast about tell your owners to refer you and give them a couple of hundred quid pay to get those new leads. Because one or two of those new leads, even if they stick around for a year or six months, you know that that easily pays back for itself, doesn't it?

It does. And that actually it's a great point because one, one of the things which worked really well for us is a. We paid a finder's fee, so we would offer this to our housekeepers. We don't currently employ our own housekeepers, so we've got loads of different cleaning partners and they're obviously working with other property owners. So we've all. We always encourage them to send new properties to us. So firstly, we make sure that we are their favorite agent work with. So just, we just try. We just, we like to think we're a pleasure to deal with and usually the feedback we get is quite, quite good. We like talking to people so we treat them, treat them well. And then number two is we say, look, we want to do more work with you. If you've got properties on owners on your books who perhaps don't want to be managing their properties, send them our way. We'll pay you £250 for every owner that you send our way. And it's a win win because then they get the finder's fee, they get to carry on working with us in the business on that property and then we get to grow the portfolio.

Yeah. And for, you know, for my cleaners, anytime they get a bonus work, you know, that, that feels like Christmas for them, you know, it's really good to do so. And what does that do? That encourages them to do more of that and bring you more results, which is cool. Just briefly, and we're definitely going to come on to the structure and to sell side of things, but just briefly, the managing 130 units. I know and many people listening to this, if you've got more than one unit, you know, the pain of just operationally managing the day to day stuff, from cleaning to maintenance to guest communication, how do you manage that at the level of 130? Is there any tips that you can give saying that, you know what, these couple of things made it a little bit easier to do.

So yes, we started off having lots of bespoke arrangements with owners and it's so easy to fall into that because you'll bring an owner on and they'll say ah, but I just need you to do this or this has to be done this way or I need to be invoked a certain way. And you can't do that at scale. So a big piece of work which we've undertaken in recent years and months is to standardize what we're doing. That's why it's a number one tip. You can't have bespoke arrangements with different owners. That's how you will fall into. You fall into trouble. You can't have systems, you can't train staff if it's not the same process every single time. And what we found especially is that when you get over 100, 110 properties, the business at that point becomes an entirely different operation to what, to what I dealt with previously. It changes operationally, logistically, financially, the relationships with your owners change and probably getting ahead of myself here. But that's part all played into the decision of selling the business ultimately because at that stage you either need some outside support in or you have to reinvest your profits into your, into your business to keep growing or not even just to keep growing, just to keep the level of service which you're accustomed to providing that requires significant investment. So it's kind of. It feels like jumping off a cliff when you've got it to like a.

[Liam]

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[Sasha]

Multiple stage. And it's whether or not you plumb all that back into the business, seek outside support, or in my case, you know, you look for a full exit.

Yeah, that's cool. So this nice segue, by the way, onto the kind of, like, selling questions. So first question I'd have on the kind of like, sales side of things is, did you always know back six years ago when you started the business, did you always go, do you know what I think? Or from that stage it became a serious business for you. Did you always think, I need to plan to sell? Or is this quite a recent decision?

Going into this, as I said, I was extremely naive. There was no business plan. I didn't know what I was getting myself into. It was just something that was available for me to do right then shortly after starting it, I did then. I've had dreams and I thought maybe what if it could be something which somebody might want to buy one day? And it's kind of. It's surreal that it's just happened, but no, it's something which has been on my mind, but I didn't set the business up with a view to making it something which can be sold.

Cool. That's cool. And I think this would be a really important time to mention. So what has happened? You've scaled it from the, you know, the two properties scaling up to five to 10. You've got to the 30 properties taken on your first member staff, 40 taking on the next member staff, systemized everything, made it all the same for owners and simplified it and then now you've got to 130. How did it come about and who is. Feel free to name the company if you wish to. Who has decided to purchase? Is it something that you instigated? They instigated. Talk us through that.

Yeah. What mad person has decided to buy us? Yeah, we've been acquired by Host and State. Absolutely fantastic group. Who. And basically I'll explain how we. How it came about. I suppose so for everything I kind of mentioned previously, I was in a frame of mind where I was ready to consider an exit. I think it's probably come across that there were strains on me personally. There were problems in terms of say on call within the business itself which needed to be solved. And this was one way I thought, okay, this is how we get out of this. So I was in the frame of mind that I was ready for an exit and the if anyone else is feeling similar that my best piece of advice is that LinkedIn is your friend. So I connected with a few different people on LinkedIn and that I just liked that I've been following and I had a few messages come back. So one of those was from Dale, who's the CEO and founder of Post and Stay Brilliant Guy. So we had chat, we got on really well and then it kind of went from there. We met up and kept chatting basically. But it's funny how it works because at the same time there were then I had other messages come in from other competitors. We ended up with a few different people looking to acquire us, which was amazing situation to be in. But ultimately I liked Hosons Day. They share a lot of our values. They like to do business the right way, they like to do it the same way that I like to do things. So it was a fairly easy choice.

That's cool. And just to shout out to Dale Smith, who is the owner and founder of Hostess Day and he's been on this the Boost podcast before and I remember him saying that they were looking for acquisitions and his motto at the end of the podcast was go so quick that if the wheel falls off, you've got enough time to put that wheel back on. And I can see at the time when we spoke to him last he was the 12th largest company in the UK doing short term rental. And I suspect because I know of a few acquisitions that he's done recently, I suspect that that has quickly become the 11th and the 10th and he really embodies that, you know, hey, grow, grow quick and. But at the same time it's one of the few larger companies who actually do use independent cleaning companies because a lot of these great big companies like the Nationals and I won't name names on this, but the Nationals just manage the listing and the owner still does all the cleaning and all the maintenance, everything like that. Whereas actually what hosts they do, and I imagine similar for yourself, Sasha, for you, for your business, is that we like to make sure that that kind of stuff is at least covered for the owners, if they need the help of that. Is that the case?

Absolutely. So, yeah, Host and Stay are a true disruptor to this industry and they are approaching it from a full management point of view. That's what Host and Stay is. It's a full management company. It's very exciting. I mean, it's unbelievable. Unbelievable, like the growth they've had and the products they have. So, yeah, very proud to be a part of that.

That's very cool and exciting for you as well. And obviously when it comes down to, like the acquisition, obviously, you said you had a chat, you've got to that stage where you know you're going to exit. Was there anything that you would do differently, looking at that process? I assume. Are you going through the process or has it happened already? What's happening at the moment?

Yeah, no, we completed. Yeah.

So, yeah, congratulations. By the end, looking at that process, is there anything that you'd do differently based on the fact that the acquisition process and that you knew you were going to sell or were you, or would you keep it the same as you did?

I've learned a lot from it. So I think obviously everything's worked out quite well for us, but I've definitely taken a lot from it, so I can definitely give some advice, just from my own personal experience about things that I would do. So if I was, you know, starting again, I.

Not.

I'm going to. I know what. How to set it up in a way that makes it attractive to a buyer. So even if you're not thinking right now, you can start doing these steps and make sure that you're building your business into the best state it can be, where somebody is going to say, yeah, I want that. So, I mean, the first thing which anyone in our industry is interested in is quality listings. So a buyer's primary focus is what stock do you have and ultimately do they want that in their own portfolio. It's more important than your brand, your website name. So make sure that the properties you're taking on are decent. I think a mistake I've made far too often in the early days is taking on listings subpar and wasting my time with them, when really I should have been focusing on the higher quality clients that we had. So get excellent stock and make sure that you photograph it professionally. No brainer, just make sure it's consistent, make sure it looks as good as possible on your website. Because even if your website is not like, it's not perfect, not great, it's just the properties that really matter there. Secondly, Try and avoid consolidation in your portfolio. Buyers don't want to see large portions of your revenue tied up with one or two clients. And it's a really hard thing not to fall into because it's really easy to end up with a key client. I think we've all been there, but the risk to a buyer is too high. If that one client leaves, then your business relies and it's too much. And it could be a barrier, like 100% barrier, to be honest. So try and mitigate that. And there's not really much you can do. So you're not going to just stop working with a key client to iron out your revenue. But if you are thinking of selling and you've got properties in your pipeline which are being onboarded and when they come on and start cash flowing, that's going to help the situation. I would just time it, try and time it so that those are already bringing in revenue by the point that you start this process. Thirdly, and probably lastly, contracts, make sure your owner contracts are in order. And this kind of goes back to what I said earlier. Try not to have bespoke arrangements with different owners. Make sure your contracts are standardized. Make sure that you're getting a decent notice period on them. So longer term contracts are much more favorable. Again, it's about that security for the buyer. The revenue is going to continue long term or at very least just make sure there's a notice period in there that's going to give some kind of security as well. Those three things, I think if you had all those in place, you're going to be looking in fairly good shape.

That's really cool and interesting because as you say those, I go, hey, I've made that mistake or I'm making that mistake. Do you know what I mean? And I'm sure that people listening to this go, oh, God. Actually, you know, like, I've definitely in the early days taken on subpar properties because I just wanted more units, right? You just go, oh, that's, that's got a roof over it. Even if the windows are smashed in. You know, like, you start to try and convince yourself that it'd be okay stock when it's just not. And this is one thing for me personally, saying no to a lot of stock is important. Do you find though, on the basis of that, can it go too far the other way sometimes where like for me, I'm so like, oh, I don't want the hassle of that, that I'm saying no so often that I might be saying no, to potentially some opportunities. But I think that's the key thing of the hassle. I can see there's going to be more guest questions, more owner issues and things like that. So how do you combat that struggle, internal struggle between taking on more stock and growing versus not taking on sub standard stock?

Yeah, I mean you have to avoid the substandard stock. Make some guidelines that basically you can then rank each property even if it's just internally. They don't need to share this with an owner. But you can say like if it's got X, Y and Z, that's a grade one property. And then you have one to five, basically. And you might say we're only taking on grades three and above. That would be kind of a good way to see it in terms of kind of taking on properties or not taking on properties because you think they're going to be a hassle. I guess that's personal preference. I probably just, I've just been full on gung ho. You know, we've never. We would cover the entirety of Norfolk. So our furthest property would be well over an hour away from our office. And if something goes wrong there, that's. It's a pain but we just deal with it. So that's, that's my attitude with it. But that wouldn't work for everybody.

Yeah, that's interesting. I guess one of the questions that I want to ask is, is and this is quite a broad question and mindset based for people out there at the moment who they've got a business one to five properties thinking, do you know what, I might grow this into an actual business, but I'm going to need to grow it to a fairly large size to make it salable. Do all those three points that you've just mentioned and there's going to be those texts and things which come in and there's going to be breakages and unhappy owners and all the stuff that goes along with the business. Is it still worth them going and doing this and actually focusing on growing that business with the exit in mind or is there anything else that looking back, was it all worth it? I guess is the question, is it worth dedicating that period of time to have that time interrupted when you're at social location, stuff like that to get to this end result? And I guess you've got a good perspective to talk us through this was.

Actually, to be honest, if I'd known what it was going to be like and how hard it was going to be, I might not have actually gone in to do it. I mean, because there's no guarantee that you're going to get an exit at the end of it which will make it all worthwhile. And I think because there's no guarantee of it, you do have to enjoy it in the time that you're doing it. Nothing is guaranteed in this world so you have to be able to enjoy it. Don't just think, right, I'm just going to ruin my life for the next five years with the hope that I can exit at something reasonable at the end of it. However, the good news, which people might be pleased to hear is that I thought that for a business to be sellable, it has to reach something really special in terms of its size. But since being involved in this, I've heard of acquisitions going on from everything, from about 15 properties upwards. There really is a market for every different size of business. So just focus on those the three things which I said have in order and your business is then potentially an acquisition target no matter how big you actually are.

That's very cool and positive and especially at the moment because I liken what we do to corner shops. When you think back to the 1950s and there'd be lots and lots of these little corner shops and what we see is that you get the slightly bigger stores and then you get supermarkets and companies. Certainly here in the UK there's, there's great big supermarkets in the top four or six, whatever it is. But that's the same sort of thing that's happened with every commercial business I can think of. Bigger businesses buy smaller businesses until you end up with a few big businesses running that kind of industry, don't you? And when you look at short term rental, which is, you know, it didn't exist 200 years ago, you know, 100 years ago or 50 years ago, you know, like you actually look at this and you can actually see that the middle sized companies are going to be buying other smaller companies. Those companies might get bought in the future by the great big global companies, you know, and you can see this acquisition is going on. So as a host at the moment who has got five, 10, two, you know, and they're thinking about really growing this business, then there's going to be some pain as you say, but actually the opportunity. How many businesses can you go in where you can go, do you know what this. There's a lot of uncertainty in the world and with the rise in the number of people traveling in the way that they do, you know, more people traveling and working from the properties More people prefer properties instead of hotel rooms. That even though there's more saturation ultimately there's still a huge opportunity in short term rental industry and to see what you've done. Sasha of Start Grow Sell is inspirational for me. It gives me motivation to continue and to push through those bad reviews and actually go, do you know what I mean? And one thing I've learned from this, and you're absolutely right is it sticks with you, the negative stuff. But another host I interviewed on this said, hey, just print out every five star review and start putting it up around wherever you occupy your time. And suddenly you go, oh my God. Actually in my head. And they call it the gap, don't they? As humans we focus on what we haven't got as opposed to what we have got. But actually by printing that out, you'll actually see you're creating an amazing business and a potential sellable asset in the future, which is great.

Yeah, well said.

Thank you. With that in mind, what are you going to be doing in the future? Is it going to be knees up on the, on the beach with like, you know, cocktails and that sort of thing or what are you going to be doing short and long term?

So yeah, I'm my, my immediate plans. As you know, I've got another significant life event on the horizon. I've got my first child due any day now. I've got my, my phone is here.

Congratulations. That's amazing, isn't it?

And this goes out, he probably would have been born. So that's, that's, that's really exciting. On the, as far as kind of my, my career goes. I plan to expand my own personal property investments. I want to grow my own portfolio. So that, that's one thing ultimately what I have realized even you know, in the few months since selling the business, I've realized that my passion is business. Right. I love business, I love entrepreneurship. So I'm definitely, I would never ever start another property management company again. I would never do another 24 hour a day, 365 day a year business, that's for sure. But I, but I am looking for projects to invest in if anyone wants to chat with me.

Yeah, that's cool as well. And I'm sure there's going to be people listening to this. Even the journey you've been on makes, you know, very investable and your knowledge around the sales acquisition, all of that is, it's all learning, isn't it? So it's been a pleasure listening to this Sasha and thank you so much for sharing your journey on here. I've certainly learned a lot and hopefully our listeners have learned a lot. If they want to reach out to you, is there any way you want to send them? Is there a website or a certain social media that people should go and check out?

Yeah. Finally, on Instagram is best. So it's Sasha Tucker. Search me.

Awesome. Okay. Thank you so much, Sasha. And yeah, look forward to seeing what the future holds for you. And congratulations on the little one coming along and other businesses and stuff like that. Then maybe we'll chat again. But thanks again and we'll see you on the next one.

Thank you so much, Liam.