Gil Chan
Founder, CraftedStays
Gil Chan is the founder of CraftedStays, a direct booking platform for short-term rental operators focused on conversion and discovery through AEO and GEO.
He spent 15 years as a product manager at six Silicon Valley startups, including about six years in e-commerce. He worked with brands like Gap, Sephora, Nordstrom, and The Home Depot, and on e-commerce platforms including Shopify, BigCommerce, Squarespace, and Wix. He saw the gap between the two industries. E-commerce had sophisticated platforms that let brands launch high-converting stores in days, plus tools to find and target customers. Hospitality was still running on bespoke WordPress sites. He started CraftedStays to bring the same infrastructure to the vacation rental industry.
Gil is also a property manager with rentals in Tennessee and Missouri. He is a coauthor of Hospitable Hosts: Couples Edition, was named a 2026 Truvisionary by Truvi, and hosts the Booked Solid Show podcast.
