Sarah Karakaian and Annette Grant are Airbnb Superhosts based outta Columbus, Ohio. They met at a City Council meeting, of all places. They were there to fight for their right to list their places as short-term rentals.
They became fast friends and then business partners, eventually launching a podcast and e-learning brand called Thanks For Visiting.
Sarah’s background is in organizing and interior design; she’d spent some time working in luxury hotels.
Back in like 2009, Sarah had a friend who was already doing Airbnb. He asked her if she could swing by a property and make the bed, as he was tied up, couldn’t get over there, and guests would be arriving soon.
Sarah had no clue what Airbnb was, but sure, no problem.
She shows up, proceeds to make the hell outta that bed. Hospital corners, fluffy pillows, left some bottled waters on the nightstand – the works. No biggie.
Goes home, starts researching what Airbnb is.
At the time, she and her husband had just bought this crappy little place in Queens. (She would later move to Columbus.)
But it did have its own entrance to the basement, which had a half bath and a decent living area. Maybe 350 square-feet in total.
Anyways, inspired by her friend, Sarah and hubby decided to turn the half bath into a full bathroom and list the basement on this weird Airbnb thing.
Whaddya know, it worked, and Sarah loved it.
She thought it was so fun to welcome people from literally all over the world. She got to flex her interior design and hospitality muscles.
And it made enough to cover her mortgage. They’ve been all-in ever since.
As for Annette, she got canned from a job she’d poured her heart and soul into for eight long years. Wasn’t so much devastated – she was ready to move on – but she knew she never wanted to work for someone else ever again.
She realized this was the start of a new era: the sharing economy, right? But she didn’t really wanna drive for Uber.
So she hits up her old landlord, who owned an apartment building in this beautiful area of town, talks him into living in one of the vacant units and Airbnb’ing the other vacant units.
She then finds a business partner to fund the staging and design and utilities and whatnot, while she handles the rest; and then they’d split the profits.
“Looking back,” Annette says, “I don’t even know what I was thinking. I’d only stayed at one BNB in my life. I didn’t even really look at the platform, to be honest. And I was just like why not? I didn’t even know if I’d be able to rent it for one night, for 30 nights. I just went for it.”
“That was back in 2016, and I’ve never looked back. At my peak, I had four properties listed, but I still don’t own any real estate.”
“It’s been unbelievable,” she continues. “And I cannot wait to host more and meet more people. I have just as much fun meeting my guests as I do fellow hosts.”
“And so that’s kinda what brings Sarah and I to this podcast. We see this as such a bigger opportunity than, you know, just living in our small Airbnb world with our listings. We wanna teach other people how to do it, how to share their space, how to live their dream, how to offer that hospitality up to people that are visiting your cities, your countries, your states.”
Also, Sarah and Annette realize it’s a two-way street. They can learn a lot from you as well. So they wanna bring together as many STR entrepreneurs as they can, where everyone can share their tips and tricks and mistakes and wins – and the entire community is better for it.
Through their podcast episodes, their webclasses and courses, they’ll geek out on all things Airbnb. From what kinda sheets they use, to tax strategies, laundry, cleaning, best guests, worst guests, cohosting, buying properties, and more.