From FIFA to Host Planet: James Varley’s Journey to Empowering STR Hosts

Alex Husner  3:10
Welcome to Alex & Annie: The Real Women of Vacation Rentals. I'm Alex 

Annie Holcombe  3:20
and I'm Annie, 

Alex Husner  3:22  
and we're joined by James Varley, who is the founder and CEO of host planet, James, it's so good to see you today.

James Varley  3:28  
Real pleasure to be with you guys to legends in the STR podcasting space. So yeah, thanks for having me on the show. I always cringe

Annie Holcombe  3:35  
when people say legends, because it makes me feel old, like you should be a lot older. But I know it's meant as a compliment. So thank you. Legend

James Varley  3:43  
is a term for any age over here

Annie Holcombe  3:47  
in the No, I appreciate that. Well, James, you and I just met, so I know that I didn't know much about you. Alex had introduced us, you know, through connections on LinkedIn, but I know maybe a lot of our audience doesn't know who you are and kind of your journey. So why don't you tell us a little bit about your background, and you background, and leading up to host planet, we could talk about

James Varley  4:04  
that. Yeah, sure. So my background is all media related. I started out about 20 years ago working in newspapers. I've worked for magazines, radio, TV, and then for 10 years, from 2013 to 2023 I was managing Corporate Communications for the FIFA World Cup project in Qatar. So I worked for the local organizing committee was based out there in the Middle East. It was while I was living in Qatar, I started investing in property. Originally, I bought a buy to let, so like a long term rental property in the UK, and then I switched to short term rentals, partly because I went to San Francisco and stayed in an Airbnb for the first time, and thought that was really cool. I should be doing this. But also because when I was traveling back from Qatar to the UK, I kind of got sick of staying with family all the time. I thought I need to have my own space, and especially after my daughter was born, we. Needed our own space so, so yeah, I ended up buying a short term rental holiday let, as we call them in the UK, and I've now got a couple of holiday lets at two. And when I made that switch from long term rentals to short term rentals, I noticed this huge difference in the amount of education and information that was out there, particularly in the UK, in the long term rental space, there are loads of websites, forums, podcasts, there are some really good multimedia, information, educational platforms out there. When I switched over to short term rentals, it was kind of like, I don't know, it was like a barren landscape. There wasn't really anything. And what I found was a lot of hosts and property managers like me, especially the ones starting out, they would end up in Facebook groups, where a lot of the advice and comments they would get would be quite variable, and there wasn't really a platform that was set up to really help people. So yeah, based on my own kind of frustrations, I thought maybe there's a bit of a gap in the market here to help host some property managers like me. And that's why, when the World Cup finished at the end of December 2022 I started working on, initially, an e book. It was called holiday cottage handbook. That's what I called the platform to begin with. And yeah, I wrote an e book about my own experience and based on my own research. And that kind of came became the foundation for the entire platform. So, yeah, the start of 2023, was me, you know, putting ideas together for this multimedia platform or what it would become. But yeah, just started as me writing an e book to help people. I wasn't really sure where it was going to go at the start. I was thinking, well, maybe this will be a bit of a side hustle, or I'll, I'll put the e book on Amazon for a few dollars. But yeah, that's, that's how it, how it started, and how I ended up in the short term rentals world.

Alex Husner  6:45  
I love that. I mean, your experience already being from, you know, the media business obviously helped you quite a bit, I'm sure. And just in getting started and having those, those ideas. I mean, if you compare Annie and I certainly have marketing and advertising backgrounds, but not specifically, just AV in particular. So I know for us, when we first started the show, our biggest struggle was just, you know, figuring out how we actually recorded this and how we got our mics to work. So we had to go over a bunch of hurdles, and I'm sure you just sped right past all that part. Well,

James Varley  7:15  
I'd spent a bit of time like working in radio and TV, and I got used to editing, but this was literally 10 years before I started my own podcast. And I thought at first with the show, oh, I'll edit them myself. It'll be simple. I remember editing. I used to put clips together and video and audio all the time, and then I got myself in front of some editing software. I was like, I've completely forgotten what I'm doing here. It wasn't a good use of my time, if I'm going to be like scratching my way through trying to edit stuff. So I quickly got myself an editor, and she's absolutely brilliant now, and deals with so many podcast episodes and social media clips and does them a lot better and a lot quicker than than I could, but, but, yeah, I mean, I think, in terms of my background, I think I had a little bit of short term rental knowledge, because I've got a couple of properties, and kind of enough to know, I think what host and property property managers really want to learn and but my main knowledge is, is the media background, and that's what I think I could, could bring to the space is, you know, creating content with really the audience at heart. And, you know, creating a multimedia platform like we have now with with House climate, where it's, it's not just a podcast, it's not just a newsletter. It's trying to tick off all the different things and and connect with a lot of different audiences. It's, it's interesting, when we look at the stats, how the audiences differ a little bit from, you know, our YouTube audience as opposed to our podcast audience, and like different social media channels, it's quite interesting to see they are kind of different, and see where people are getting their content. But, yeah, I definitely had a head start in the in the media stuff, but you've, I think you've got to pick and choose the things where you can really focus on and add the most value, and then get, get the help where you need the most help. And yeah, definitely need help hearing that,

Annie Holcombe  9:06  
yeah, we quickly learned that we needed to acknowledge that we were the talent, yeah, not the people to do, to do all the work. And we have somebody too. But I think the challenge is too, it's like you're doing something that is not a high generating revenue, right? Like, I mean, it just doesn't, it doesn't generate a lot of revenue, even if you break sponsors in, but it's like, so you got to, like, figure out how to, like, what's the, what's the best thing that you can, like, carve out and pay for, versus what you can do yourself. But I think for you, the fact that you had that it that, like, media knowledge, you knew how to do some of the things and how to deploy it quicker than, like, some of you know, other people that started out, they got, they got a lot of learning to do, right? Yeah,

James Varley  9:46  
definitely. I mean, I think as well, like, it helped with my network, because at the start, especially, I relied on a lot of people for, like, design work, graphic design, web development, and they very kindly helped me in. Was a lot of mates rates in there to, like, help me get started. So that was really useful as well. But I think that with the podcast, the biggest value for me is the business development opportunities and getting the time with CEOs and co founders of a lot of businesses. Because the most valuable part for me is having that interview, spending maybe 3040, minutes talking about them and their journey and their businesses, and then that five minutes at the end where I say, Oh, I've got to keep you hanging around while the episode processes. That's when we have a chat. Say, oh, maybe we can, maybe we can collaborate. So the podcast, if you look at it in isolation, you might think, Okay, well, that's, you know, you're not going to make masses of money out of that. But if you make it as part of the ecosystem and as a business development tool, it's been incredibly valuable. And, you know, making those connections, I mean, how often can you get 30 minutes, 40 minutes with, you know, loads of different CEOs in the industry? It's incredibly valuable for that, and it's definitely been the biggest driver for our business, like all our big sponsorship deals have been on the back of me interviewing the CEO or the co founder, and then at the end of the episode, saying, hey, let's work together. And then it's, yeah, that sounds good. I'll put you in touch with the marketing team. Let's go. So yeah, it's been so valuable for that. Yeah,

Alex Husner  11:15  
yeah. We've talked about that many times on the show that it could echo the exact same thing that there's just, you know, one, not only how much we learn just from having incredible guests on the show, and we get to get to know them, and get to hear from their perspective on their experiences, but yeah, to be able to, you know, draw on their network, and I mean, it just, it builds a nice bridge with somebody that it's very organic. And you're not, you know, cold calling them multiple times, but you're actually building that relationship. And really, that's what it comes down to. It's relationship building, and podcasts are a great vehicle for that. And I will say, actually, it's funny timing, because I just had posted this yesterday on LinkedIn that we have this quote from Heather Monahan, who's a influencer. I guess you could say she's an author. She does just incredible stuff for women in business, and somebody I've looked to for a long time for inspiration, and she had this quote basically about, when you get started, you just have to put something out there. It doesn't have to be perfect, you know. And I think that was the mentality that we had going into it also was, let's just, let's put it out there. We'll continue to iterate and grow and we'll tweak and see where it goes. But you got to get started, and the action is the strategy at the end of the day. I mean, you just have to take action and then trust that the next steps are going to fall in line the way that they should.

James Varley  12:32  
Yeah, 100% I mean, it's easy to talk about something, isn't it? You know, actually doing it and taking action is the hard part. And, yeah, you know, I love that, that quote, really, and that comment about just just getting started and just doing it. And, of course, like, yeah, you learn so much as as you go along, you know? I mean, I knew from like, very early on that we started out as being called holiday cottage hamburger. And I knew, like, straight away, I've got to change the name. This just doesn't make a lot of people. This doesn't make sense, especially to people in in America. So I knew change and rebrand and do all that stuff, but, but, of course, yeah, it's, you know, every, every day is like a school day in especially in the media, you know, I look back at some things I might have wrote over the years, or, you know, it might be a press release or a story for a newspaper or a video report or a social media clip. And I look back and I think, Oh, my God, did I actually post that? Did I actually write? You're learning new tips and tricks, and we take stuff like inspiration from other people as well. So yeah, it's all about, like, learning and growing, and, yeah, you know, developing something where you're going to provide as much value as possible to the audience, so long as you've always got the audience at the heart of what you're doing, then you can't go too far wrong.

Annie Holcombe  13:50  
So you started getting some properties, and you got into the business. And so what I think is really interesting is I go back to when I started in vacation rentals, and Alex started a few years after me, but we didn't have anybody to go to. There was no there was no media out there to kind of help you navigate. So you were just learning on the fly, and you didn't have anybody to share it with, other than maybe some people in your market. And at that time, people were very protective about kind of what they were doing. They didn't want anybody else to see kind of behind the curtain, because it was like their secret sauce, and you didn't want to share because it was, you know, so competitive. So what made you what made you recognize that you were learning things that you could share and put value behind it within your media company, or build a media company? Yeah, I mean, I think with

James Varley  14:31  
my journey, so I went to San Francisco, and it was part of a road trip up the west coast of the states, and I couldn't find a hotel room for under $300 and this was 10 years ago, for, like, under $300 a night. I thought, This is crazy. I've heard of this thing called Airbnb. Why don't I try? So I had a look. I found this brilliant place near Golden Gate Park. The family there had, like, converted. To the basement, turned it into a little studio apartment. And I just thought, I've this is, this is great. And the house was brilliant. Gave me loads of recommendations, you know, restaurant recommendations, information on where to go. It's very kind, very helpful. And the price was about half the price of a hotel. And the whole experience was just fantastic. And I thought, God, I should be doing this. This is, this is brilliant guest experience. So then I went back and it worked on my investing in my own property, got property, and because I'd had that experience on Airbnb, like a lot of people, when they start, I'm not ashamed to say this at all. I just started on Airbnb, and that was it. And I didn't really understand or know anything about the rest of the industry. Didn't really think about other OTAs. If you'd have asked me what an OTA was, I wouldn't have had a clue. If you'd have asked me what a PMS was, I wouldn't have known. If you'd have said direct bookings, I'd have been like for what you know, all I knew was this, was this Air New World, which Airbnb does an incredible job of, you know, making hosts think that only Airbnb exists. And for a while, actually, it works perfectly well. And you know, so many people have had the same things, haven't they go out on Airbnb, and, you know, you earn well. And this also was back in the day when, you know, my mortgage was was hardly anything. Energy bills were really low, and I wasn't that bothered about making much of a profit or scaling or anything like that. This was a property that I had while I lived in the Middle East. I just wanted it to pay the bills, you know, so long as the mortgage was paid and the bills were paid like, well, that's, that's fine, and it's there for me to use whenever I want it. That's, you know, no problem. But then, as you know, a couple of years went on, and I started to do more research, and you find out what's going on, you start to hear about new tech, about, you know, dynamic pricing. That was probably the first thing for me, that was, like, the first light bulb. Things like, Oh, right. There's this thing called dynamic pricing, right? If I try that, Oh, my God, look at how cheap I've been for like, two years. And I think that was the light bulb was like, trying the dynamic pricing, realizing that I just didn't have a clue what I was doing and but it was still fine, because the thing was paying its way. But with dynamic pricing, that was, like, the big light bulb was like, Okay, there's a lot more to this industry than than just Airbnb, and I need to find out more about it, and more people need, need to know as well. Because I could see from Facebook groups, people asking the same questions over and over again, and it was usually along the lines of, Hi, I'm just starting out. Where do I list should I allow pets? Should I charge a cleaning fee? How much all these, like basic things, over and over again. And do you know, when I started the platform, going back to the dynamic pricing, we I went into a Facebook group and I said, who uses a dynamic pricing tool? If so, which one? And the most common answer from about 75 80% of people was I didn't know they existed. So that for me was like, Okay, I really need to build this. Wow, help people. Because knowledge, I think, among a lot of hosts and property managers is, on average, really low. And I think some of us in in the industry, you know, we're the ones who go into conferences. We're kind of on top of things now, and we kind of see the same people over and over again. We know what's happening, but the vast majority of the industry is people, maybe with one or a small number of properties. And I think, like, the knowledge is fairly low, so we're trying, like, you know, you guys, and, you know, platforms like mine, to kind of plug those gaps a little bit and to help people to to, you know, have the knowledge of what's going on in the industry, and to build successful and sustainable businesses.

Alex Husner  18:43  
And I think the interesting thing too, though, that we see a lot is that there are these online forums, whether it's a Facebook group or places, that people are asking these questions. And if you are somebody new, and you ask, what's the best blank for blank, and five people say it's one tool. And that actually does not mean at all that that's the right tool for that person or for their market, right? So it's like, you have a lot of people that have just kind of jumped on the bandwagon of a lot of the softwares that are out there because they've seen in these groups. Oh, this is the best one for me, but it's the blind leading the blind. And, you know, there's, there's not a whole lot of coaching there, of like, this is what you should be taking into consideration. And like, these are all the options that you need to weigh, and, you know, choices that you have. So that's kind of the scary thing, I think, and that's where no amount of research is going to replace the experience that you have of actually doing it and really spending time with people that have done it to help you learn and grow. I think what you're doing is great, because you are trying to help get people in the right direction. Right direction by putting out this content, and hopefully they can make more educated decisions on things.

James Varley  19:48  
Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head there when you said that the blind leading the blind. And I think, you know, you see a lot of that, especially in the Facebook groups and some of the forums. I think you know, you know, with platform like our. As we're interviewing industry experts, it's not like I'm going out and saying, Hi guys, I'm the big expert. Like, not at all because, because I'm not. I've got a couple of properties, but I've got a platform that can help people. And if we interview experts and CEOs and founders and people who really, you know, they've built massive businesses in the space, they're the stars of the show, and the ones that are going to share the knowledge that people need to to get up to scratch,

Annie Holcombe  20:23  
very cool. So you were talking about you do newsletters, and you had, in the beginning, the holiday, the cottage handbook. Um, so you did you create an actual handbook that you were promoting? Or was this kind of a a tagline that was all encompassing for everything that you were doing?

James Varley  20:40  
Yeah. So in the beginning, I said the World Cup ended in December 2022 and in I had six months remaining on my contract, but very little to do because the tournament had finished. So I started writing this e book, and I called it holiday cottage handbook. And when I started the business, that was the name of the platform, holiday cottage handbook. We've just recently rebranded to host planet. But yeah, it was, it was an e book, and I wrote it, and it ended up being something like 65 pages. And when we launched the platform, which was in September 2023 we had our website. We had an e book that people could download for free. We started the podcast series in September 2023 you know, social media channels, blog posts and and all that kind of thing. When I was writing the e book, I wasn't really sure what I was going to do with it. You know, for a while I was working out kind of my next career move after the World Cup. So I thought, What am I going to do with this e book? Am I going to turn this into a business? Am I just going to put this e book on Amazon and sell it for $2 each? I really wasn't sure it was going to do. And then, as things kind of moved forward, and we got closer to the middle of 2023 I was like, I think I can turn this into a business. I think I can turn this into a multimedia platform, and if I can develop an audience of short term rental hosts and property managers and industry professionals. My feeling was that this could become a valuable audience to get in front of, that businesses in the space would want to leverage. So that's kind of got me thinking about how I can build a business and create that that content, and then, you know, how do, how do I get to that space where it's a valuable resource, or basically I have to, like, create a lot of, like, high quality, free content. That's, that's kind of what I ended up on. I wasn't sure what was going to do with the e book. Maybe I was going to charge a little bit for it or not. But I read a, I read a marketing book while I was in the planning stage for this, and one of the lines, just like, stuck out and me like a, like a sore thumb, and it was making content free and make it so good that people can't believe it's free. And I've tried to use that mantra for like, the whole platform since we started. So everything is free to the end user, including the events that we hosted. We hosted an event in November in London. We hosted an event earlier in April in London. They've been free to attend. We've even had, like, free lunch, free suites, free competition, a free competition to enter, and all this kind of thing. So yeah, it's, yeah, make the content free, make it high quality. And that's, that's the best way to build an audience, I think, in in the current media landscape that we have today. So yeah. So everything started in September 2023 all the platforms went live. Then I'd kind of thought, well, for the first six months or so, I don't really expect any traction in terms of sponsorship. You know, the way that we monetize the platform is through sponsorship, so and different collaborations. And I thought, well, I can give this six months, I can give this a year, and then at that point, I'll have to decide, is this actually turning into a business or or is it something that I need to, you know, have as a side hustle and go and go and do something else. But within the first month, we got our first sponsor. Then we got another sponsor in month two, and I think within about six months, we had about 1015, sponsors. Eventually we signed a deal with housefully So hopefully now sponsored one of our podcast series. We've recently done a big deal with hospitable as well, and then we've been working with companies like beyond and guesty and various others as well. So yeah, so it's been a, it's been a really great journey in terms of the growth and getting people on board and growing the platform. But yeah, it all goes back to, you know, trying to help host some property managers and, yeah, through, through free, free content, make it free and make it so good people can't believe it's free. That's, that's what we try. If some people have that thought, where they think, wow, I've downloaded this e book and I was expecting it to be one side of a four, and it's actually 65 pages, and they think, gosh, I can't believe I haven't paid for this. Then that's, that's the the feeling we we want people to have,

Alex Husner  24:38  
yeah, I love that. We'll be back in just a minute. But first a word from our premier brand sponsor, grand welcome. Many vacation rental operators reach a point where they want to grow, but the demands of managing everything on their own starts to hold them back. That's where the right support can make all the difference. This episode is brought to you by grand welcome, a fast growing franchise, brand that helps vacation rental companies scale using. Proven systems, dedicated support and the resources of a national brand while remaining locally owned and community focused. Since 2009 grand welcome has helped vacation rental companies grow their operations, expand into new markets and increase profitability, all while staying locally owned and rooted in their communities. Their turnkey franchise model provides the systems, tools and support you need to grow without the stress of building everything from scratch. As a grand welcome franchisee, you get access to the proven systems and processes of a national brand, along with a highly skilled support team that manages your back end operations. That means you can stay focused on growing your business and strengthening local relationships, while their experienced team takes care of the day to day logistics. It's the best of both worlds the scale and efficiency of a national brand, combined with the personal service and flexibility of a local business and with exclusive territories, you can grow your business in a defined market with no internal competition, giving you the space and clarity to scale confidently if you're

Annie Holcombe  25:53  
passionate about hospitality and looking for the kind of support that actually makes growth easier, grand welcome is worth checking out. Head

Alex Husner  25:59  
over to Grand welcome.com to get a free growth hack analysis and a P and L evaluation, and make sure to tell them you heard about this offer on the Alex and Annie podcast. Now, back to the show. You've taken it to the next level that you've also launched in person events, and unfortunately, we didn't get a chance to go over to the one that you just had over in London. But would love for you to tell us a little bit more about it and how it went. I've heard from some people that it was, it was great. So excited to hear your take on it. Yeah,

James Varley  26:27  
it was really fantastic. We had, it was kind of like a boutique event. It was in a space in West London, very nice part of London, just behind the Ritz Hotel. It fits about think that the venue said that the maximum is 110 but I think at one point we had about 120 point we had about 120 130 people there. We had some amazing guest speakers and exhibitors and sponsors. So the space actually for eight exhibitor spots in the room. So we had four either side. They were all filled. So we had guesty. Were there Avivo, beyond hospitable, few others kind of more UK brands. We also had some other brands who were involved, as in with speaking slots. So like price labs and link base and resi Central. And we got some, like, big property managers there involved in panel sessions. So we had like, Andy Easton, who's from Cornwall. He's got 240 rentals. James Cornwell from curated property, I think they've got 75 in Bath and London. Emma Kelman from the Isle of Wight, they've got over 100 rentals. So, yeah, it was lots of really knowledge packed day, like, really educational and very focused. You know, I think, like, I really like the boutique event format, because everybody in the room is, like, focused on what's going on at that particular moment on time. There's no kind of, like, other rooms and other talks going on simultaneously. It's like, we're either focused on the content or we're doing networking, or we're having lunch or something. So, yeah, it was, it was really great, fantastic location. And we're, we're looking forward to working on more events. We're, we're actually in the planning stages now for putting a UK road show together, so going to different STR hotspots across the country. So yeah, hopefully we'll be making an announcement about that pretty soon. But yeah, it's great to do events and connect with the audience and try to provide that real value for both sides. I think that's one of the big challenges of running an event really is providing loads of value attendees, but also providing lots of value for the exhibitors and sponsors as well. It's a, I think it's a constant challenge in the STR world, but one we're trying to we're trying to tackle. So you

Annie Holcombe  28:33  
mentioned the there just you touched on real quickly, like there's differences between the US market and the, you know, the the UK or the European market. Are you doing events or planning on doing events within the US market? I would

James Varley  28:44  
love to do some events in the US. Yeah, it's it's funny, like over the last week or so, I've been connecting with so many people in the industry, a few guys who are interested in doing events in Canada, somebody else in Portugal, somebody else in Belgium. US is definitely a huge opportunity for us. It's our second biggest market right now in terms of newsletter subscribers and podcast listeners and most of our biggest sponsors, beyond hospitable, hopefully that they're all based, you know, big US, US brands. So yeah, we'd love to get over there and work some stuff out. We have had a good conversation this week with one of our big brand partners about maybe getting involved in in the vrma later this year, so we'll see what comes of that. Yeah, I need to get over there for a few big US events, 100% and then, yeah, we'd love to do something in future. But I to be honest with you, the feedback I got was a lot of people have had, like, big challenges in the US in terms of, basically the cost, really, of putting together an event in North America, the cost in in the UK. You know what our model that we're working towards is working with property management companies and working with other brands so that they can kind of take care of like venue costs and lunch and. That kind of thing, and then leave us to focus on the agenda, getting the speakers there, getting the exhibitors and sponsors on board. So it's really a collaborative process that we're trying to go down in the UK, and that that kind of cuts costs massively, like for us, because we don't have to worry about providing the venue, and then, in turn, has a knock on effect, we can cut the cost massively for the sponsors and exhibitors as well. So the idea being that I can go to sponsors and say, Look, we're doing this road show events in the UK, and this is going to be the cost, and probably the cost for getting involved in six events might be less than taking part in. I'm sure it'll be less than taking part in for some events in the US and some even in Europe as well. So yeah, again, it goes back to, like, trying to deliver that value, but, yeah, it's the i I'd love to work on something in the in the US and well, maybe we can team up. Who knows?

Annie Holcombe  30:49  
Yeah, and the US is hard too, because it's so spread out, whereas in Europe, it's not, it's not a problem to take a train to another country. Whereas we don't have trains here, so it's not easy to get from state to state. And you're talking like, you know, if you just in the state of Florida, I mean, it's nine hours from or 10 hours from one corner to the other. So it's, it's not an easy thing when you think logistics on it. So, yeah, we are expensive, we are spread out. It's a challenge, for sure. Yeah, you know, the thing

James Varley  31:14  
I heard, actually, was the just hiring a venue, because a few people based in the States. Just said, basically, like, any venue you want, you're looking at, like, $100,000 it doesn't matter where you are, or, you know, like, kind of how big your platform is. And you know, like, frankly, for us as a business right now, I just would be, you just wouldn't be feasible. And even, like the brands that I was speaking to, very like well established brands, they're like, there's no way we could even consider that, because we know we wouldn't get an ROI. And there's a few people who have organized events, and they just said, for what we got back in the end, even after charging a high ticket price and getting sponsors on board and everything, the net result actually just just wasn't enough to justify carrying on. So yeah, some challenges there and, but, yeah, it'd be great to maybe, you know, work, work with different companies in the States, and work out how we can try and overcome those challenges and and deliver that value for all sites,

Alex Husner  32:10  
yeah, and a lot of places too. I mean, you've got a book sometimes two, three years in advance to get, you know, a venue and start planning. So definitely hard to get that level of commitment that most people don't know if they're going to a conference even next week, right now. So I mean, two years from now, my God, that's impossible to get an attendee list at that point. Yeah, and

James Varley  32:31  
also the the ticket prices as well. You know, like with with our platform, I'm always really conscious that we try to make the content as broad as possible. So it's relevant to people, whether they're starting the journey, whether they've got one or two properties, or whether they've got hundreds, and they're scaling, and they're a, you know, massive property management business. And then, you know, some events, you look at what the ticket price is, and it might be $1,000 or $1,500 and I'm thinking, to put myself in the shoes of people starting out, I'm like, Are they gonna spend that much money on on going to a conference? It's like, early in their journey. So again, it goes back to that, trying to deliver that value for both sides. And that's why, you know, with our events, because of the, you know, the venues and the locations, we don't have to pay $100,000 for a venue or anything crazy like that, we've had the opportunity to make it free and say to people, Look, if you are just starting out, you want to learn more, then come along. You know, you're welcome to be part of this. And we're not kind of excluding anybody depending on whether it's geography or the cost of the event, or whatever it might be,

Alex Husner  33:32  
yeah. And I mean, I think the riches are in the niches, in a lot of ways, with conferences in our space. I mean, we've obviously seen DARM has been the data and revenue management conference has been very successful in the United States. And it's just focused on data, revenue management, marketing, that side of the business. It's not about operations, you know, it's not about HR. And you know, the women's conference has been very successful. The Hyper regional conferences have been very successful. And I think where some of the larger ones have struggled is when you do have to, when you're trying to satisfy what you just spoke of, of trying to have something for the whole gamut. There, it's like you end up you alienate people, or they feel like this isn't my crowd, because there's too too much of the, either the experienced people or too much of the inexperienced people. So it's like, you know, to figure out the best way to do that. I don't know that anybody really has the perfect formula. I mean, I think I don't know that there even is one, to be honest, but I think that there's value in doing events together, you know, or at least, kind of like having one end at the or begin at the end of another one. So I mean, if you're going to Phoenix, for example, that if there's already an event going on, you tag yours on to the end or to the beginning, that if somebody's there, it's like, Well, why not? We're already, we've already flown all the way out here. And the event that you just had was kind of similar. And I don't know if that's how you decided when you were planning it, but you it was kind of a three peat. There it was the shorties on Wednesday night, and then Thursday was the STAA. Yes.

James Varley  34:59  
You have the shorties on Tuesday night, the short stay summit on the Wednesday, and then we had our event on the Friday. And yeah, to answer your question, yes, very much, by design. So at the first event that we did in November, we did it close to scale UK. And you know, you've got a lot of international and US businesses come over for scale. Same thing with the short stay Summit, and then, you know, for us, we can say, because it like, you know, we we know where we are, kind of in the ecosystem. We're just new to events, you know, we go along to our partners, especially in the US, and say, Look, we're doing an event. It's going to be next to scale, or it's going to be next to short stay Summit. And they're like, Okay, well, that kind of makes sense, because we're there anyway. We've already spent the money on flights and accommodation. We're going to stay an extra day, and we'll, you know, pay a little bit extra to come to your event as well. So, yeah, I think, yeah, it's just, like, where we are in the chain right now, you know, I wouldn't expect, like, loads of US companies to fly in for our event if we just, like, had something standalone, but, you know, hopefully we can get to that stage. But yeah, right now it's, yeah, you know, I guess like hanging off the coattails of the other big boys at the moment. Yeah, yeah. So

Annie Holcombe  36:05  
coming up the the tail of this recent event, what is, what's upcoming for you guys? Are you doing more this year? You mentioned potentially doing something at brma, but you're doing anything that you've already have planned over in your area?

James Varley  36:16  
Yeah, we've got, we're just having discussions now about setting up another event towards the end of the year, probably going to be October time. So we're just working on that. We're putting together. This has been an idea for a while, but a road show of UK Road Show throughout 2026 so we're going to try and do stuff kind of like shoulder season over here. So there'll be probably three events at the start of the year, January, February, March, and then three events towards the end of the year. And we'll try and get across the country as well. We're going to be doing that in partnership with with various different property management companies and brands. We're just kind of dotting the I's and crossing the t's right now, but planning to, you know, go to places like Cornwall the south of England, near the Cotswolds area around North of England, which, which is where I am, and also Scotland as well. And so tick off those, like big, short term rental hot spots. And, yeah, you know, I think give, give people, you know, house and property managers, you know, not. Or even though it's a much smaller country here, not everybody wants to travel to London or wants to take, you know, a week out of their schedule to attend a few events and all that kind of thing. If we can host something like on a day close to where people are with, you know, within an hour or something, then they're much likely to come along. So I think, yes, it'd be a great opportunity to, you know, meet the audience further. And I think a great chance as well for for the brands that we work with to, you know, really get out into the country, meet more people, meet more people, meet more hosts and property managers and, yeah, hopefully, you know, grow their businesses as we, you know, grow our brand as well. Yeah, I'm

Alex Husner  37:48  
sure you'll see the same thing that we see here, that when you do these road shows, there's a lot of people or market visits. You find so many people that they've never come to one of the main shows that you put on or that you go to. But you know, because it is local to them. They think, Okay, I'll go check it out. And that's great. I mean, like, that's just, that's gold, being able to find those people and get them more involved, and, you know, just have a better pulse of what's going on in the industry. Because I think all of us can kind of operate in a little bit of a very much, not a little bit of an echo chamber of what we think is really happening, because it's all the same people going to the same events, and we're talking about the same things, but it's like, let's hear boots on the ground reality from these people of what really is the pace there. And like Annie said, it's definitely a lot easier for you guys with the train system. I mean, that's one thing that would be amazing if we had over here, but makes travel certainly easier for y'all, yeah,

James Varley  38:39  
yeah, definitely, yes. A little bit easier to get around, although some parts of the country, like getting down to Cornwall, or like, the West Country near the Cotswolds area, I'll, I'll be driving to those events. Like getting in and out of London, for me, is really simple. It's a couple of hours away. But, yeah, getting to the southwest of the country is a bit of a challenge, so I'll have to drive. But it's, it's a drive that you guys had called, like, round the corner, like, you know, three or four hours, I think, the supermarket or something, don't you? So, yeah,

Annie Holcombe  39:09  
it was kind of an it's an event. So you've got these events, you've got multimedia. Is there anything else that you feel like you haven't tapped into yet that you want to

James Varley  39:17  
definitely, the states is a big target for us in terms of, like, extra avenues for communication. And I think, you know, a lot of companies in the space are concentrating on webinars and that kind of thing. That's something that we've thought of. I'd like to build an app, actually, I'd like to build an app for the business that can help us to connect us, you know, more closely with our audience. Also can help our partners and sponsors to connect with with our audience as well. If we can send alerts about, you know, new podcast episodes, newsletters, blog posts or even alerts saying, Hey, have you seen this 30% discount for house fully or hospitable, or whatever it is, I think that would be a great way to connect further with our audience. Yeah, we're, we're keen to build an app, and we're having conversations about that now. So that's, that's something hopefully which will be on the radar, um, fairly soon. But yeah, app events, and I think for us, it's, it's all about just getting more and more eyeballs on on what we're doing. You know, like I said before, everything we do is, is free for house and property managers. So I would hope that people, if they're involved in this industry, they would take a look and, you know, follow the newsletter, listen to a few of the podcasts, because I'm sure you know if they're interested in STR then, then they're going to get value from from the content that we're sharing. Yeah,

Alex Husner  40:29  
absolutely. Well, we're hoping that we will cross paths with you sometime, either later this year or into next year. It could be fun, maybe if we do some sort of collaboration for an in person event over here, but we'll see where it goes. And just, kind of, just like we said with the podcast, you got to put something out there and you figure it out. Trust the science.

James Varley  40:49  
Exactly, yeah, trust Yeah, trust the science. And yeah, let's it'd be great to host you guys on my podcast as well at some point. So we'll hopefully get that, get that sorted out as well. And, yeah, yeah, do a bit of cross collaboration. Yeah,

Alex Husner  41:04  
absolutely. What's, what's the best way for anybody to get in touch with you, James, if they want to reach out or learn more about host planet. Yeah.

James Varley  41:12  
So you head to the website, which is host planet dot club. You can email me, James at host planet dot club, or find me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active on all the social media and stuff. So yeah, head along to the website. And yeah, drop me a line interesting.

Alex Husner  41:26  
So because I was trying to get to your website earlier, and when I put it in, it came up as hostplanet.com.au came up, but it wouldn't let me go on to it. So it's make sure everybody has its host planet dot club. I would not have known that?

James Varley  41:42  
Yes, correct. Yeah, we, I did try. Do you know what I've having? I got sent some messages today from my friend Louis Andrews, who I was at the retreat with, and he's, he's Louie's very interested in buying domain names. I don't know if you know ovo network over France. He sent me a list of all these domain names that he's bought today to do with the new Universal Studios, which is opening in the UK in Yeah, now's that last week we're going to have the first Universal Studios in Europe. But anyway, so Louis was talking to me about the domain name, and he was saying, You need to get host planet.com I said, Well, I'd love to have host planet.com but it was really ridiculous amount of money. If I wanted to buy it. Sent me a screen grab of how much it would be. I think it was something like, think when I looked it was like $30,000 or something crazy, and it's, oh my goodness, wow. But yeah, yeah, that's why I went for club, because we're, we're a club of hosts and property managers, and you know that's not going to host planet. Dot club is not going to bankrupt me in the near future. So,

Annie Holcombe  42:49  
right, yeah, well, yeah, you're a smart community, so

Alex Husner  42:54  
that makes sense. Well, if anybody wants to reach out to you, go to host plant dot club. We got that. If anybody wants to get in touch with Annie and I, you can go to Alex and Annie podcast.com and thank you for joining in everybody.

Unknown Speaker  43:06  
You.