Editor's Note: This is the first in a Charlotte Inno series we're calling "In Your Own Words," where you'll hear from some of Charlotte's tech, innovation and startup founders and leaders on their experiences navigating 2020 during Covid-19, as well as their expectations for 2021. First up is Trent Hawthorne, the COO of Rabbu, a local technology and operations company in the short-term rental market that helps property owners manage their Airbnb rentals.
On Friday, March 13, as the potential effects of the pandemic were starting to hit home for all of us, Emir, James and I met in Rabbu’s South End office. The office was otherwise empty — the rest of our team was already working remotely.
With a tidal wave of guest cancellations flooding in, and with Airbnb issuing extenuating circumstances for all U.S. reservations — they gave guests the ability to cancel without penalty, essentially wiping out our revenue — the three of us met to answer one question: How would we survive this?
Our answer? Cut costs, and try to fill our properties by catering to a new type of demand — specifically, demand for mid-term stays. We discounted our nightly rates by 40%, increased our minimum stay length and started marketing to local Charlotte guests versus out-of-towners.
To our surprise and relief, our average length of stay shot up almost overnight from three nights to 23 nights. The demand for nice, furnished properties was out there; we could still earn our customers strong revenue, and we could still fight to stay alive. After accessing PPP funding and sticking to our austerity measures, our core team of eight rallied and delivered on the plan, achieving record occupancy levels from April to August. It was difficult and stressful, but our team showed its grit and problem-solving skills. To Suzette, Eryn, Cynthia, Justin, Hal and Barb — Thank you!
With 2021 approaching, and with pent-up travel demand building from the pandemic, our team is focusing on growth. It’s time to switch from defense to offense, and with Covid accelerating the trends of remote work and flexible living, we believe we are well-positioned to provide a great service that provides outsized returns for real estate investors.
Growth means sales. In Q4 we hired a thirteenth employee from Airbnb, Justin Hauge, as our chief growth officer. After a decade helping drive hyper-scale at Airbnb, Justin’s job will be to build a sales machine of sales development reps and account executives to grow our Doors Under Management and expand our service into new markets.
In addition to investing in growth, we will continue to invest in our proprietary technology. Our software is what sets us apart, and we will utilize it to drive excess yield for our customers and explore opportunistically licensing it to other operators. We intend to place specific focus on our “Insights Tool,” which helps investors easily underwrite properties under our flexible stay length model. The first question we often get is, “How much will my property make?” This tool, in addition to assisting investors to find more great properties, will answer that question. It should also help generate top-of-the-funnel leads for Justin’s sales team.
We know there are challenges ahead, and we’re looking forward to it. Here’s to a big year.
