After founding and growing D.C.-based subscription stock media company Storyblocks to more than $30 million in annual revenue, Joel Holland was feeling burnt out.
So, nearly five years ago, the tech entrepreneur decided to take a break from his cubicle life and try something new.
“My wife and I spontaneously bought an RV to hit the road and figured we’d do it for a month, get bored and go back to real life,” he said. “We ended up loving it and over the course of a couple years, RVed through the lower 48 states.”
The trip ended in Colorado in 2016 and Holland and his wife settled in Vail where he’d become a ski bum for the next two years.
“The first year was intentional and in year two I started getting really antsy to do something,” he said. “I was too young to retire and it wasn’t fun playing all the time without some purpose.”
Holland began looking for his next venture and explored the RV landscape, leaning into his fondness for the trip that landed him in Colorado.
He landed on Harvest Hosts, a barebones club for RVers offering unique overnight stays at farms, wineries, breweries, distilleries, golf courses and other small businesses across North America.
“It was a great idea, but they didn’t have any tech experience,” he said. “My experience was in subscriptions and memberships and I said, ‘I can do this in a different industry.’”
So, Holland purchased the company from its original founders, Don and Kim Greene, in 2018 and began to put his subscription knowledge to work. His original plan was to run Harvest Hosts as a lifestyle business, not anticipating huge growth for the niche market.
But, in the year leading up to Covid-19 and especially after the pandemic hit, Harvest Hosts saw its business boom and Holland was left with a difficult decision.
“The growth we ended up experiencing was so large that we had two options: I could sell the business or raise funds to take it to the next level,” he said. “The idea that I could sit back and passively run it as a lifestyle business was gone.”
After an initial dip at the start of the pandemic, Harvest Hosts doubled its membership base from May to December.
Excited by the potential growth and not ready to abandon Harvest Hosts, Holland opted to raise outside capital and recently closed a round that will help the business capitalize on its recent interest.
The company announced a $37 million growth investment from private equity firm Stripes aimed at growing its host network and expanding its membership base.
Harvest Hosts has built a network of nearly 2,000 small business hosts across the country, and with this round, Holland is hopeful to surpass 3,000 in 2021.
As a membership-based business, Harvest Hosts charges its customers a $79 base subscription to have unlimited overnight stays at its host locations, with no additional nightly costs.
To help support the host businesses, Harvest Hosts asks its member to buy the products of the locations where they’re staying — a bottle or two at a winery, a six pack at a brewery.
According to combined host and guest data, Harvest Hosts estimates that guests spend $50 per night when camping, which equates to an average of $13,000 per year on average that hosts take home.
“It’s a meaningful amount for some of the smaller wineries that are struggling right now,” Holland said. “We see they’re doing well because of the pogrom and telling their friends about it.”
The company will also use the recent capital to further build out its platform to enable booking. For Harvest Hosts’ history, booking traditionally was done by phone calls with the camping locations. In the near future, Holland said Harvest Hosts is rolling out a technology-based booking system on the company’s site and application.
After a busy year, spurred by the travel restrictions of the pandemic, Holland is optimistic for the long-term future of Harvest Hosts.
“I think that people are re-experiencing the fondness for backyard exploration,” he said. “I don’t think you put the cat back in the bag.”
