That’s a wrap: Thanks for reading The Host HQ
The Host HQ is a Chicago-based independent media outlet to help Airbnb hosts navigate rules and taxes, learn from each other, and optimize their business. Visit us at thehosthq.com and follow us on Medium to see what we’re doing behind the scenes.
It’s been a whirlwind 10 weeks of developing The Host HQ — and fruitful at that, thanks to the close involvement of Chicago’s Airbnb hosting community. We’ve published nearly 20 articles and gotten enough feedback to inspire 100 new story ideas.
This project was born as an experiment in sustainable content production using innovative frameworks like design thinking and agile development. In the process, we grew passionate about understanding our users — vacation rental hosts in Chicago — and figuring out how to address their needs.
Our project has come to a close. In our final thoughts, we want to share our growth vision for The Host HQ if we continued it.
This is adapted from the final pitch I delivered to present our prototype.
We’re The Host HQ, and we help vacation rental hosts to host smarter.
Once upon a time, I was an Airbnb mogul. After quitting my staff job at a local newspaper in South Korea, I was nervous about income stability as I prepared to dive into the world of freelance writing. My friend and I decided to put our money together to invest in an apartment in Seoul and list it on Airbnb.
It went great — the money was way better than freelance writing. I was clearly in the wrong industry! We broke even after three months, and within a year we had seven listings across the country. But somewhere along the line, something went wrong. Without notice, Airbnb began taking a 10% withholding tax from our earnings, even though we were listed outside of the U.S. The company told us to contact the Internal Revenue Service directly to apply for the refund. A year and a half later, we’re still owed $15,000 with little word from the IRS. Had Airbnb been clearer about its rules, we might have been able to avoid this whole debacle.
We struggled to find trustworthy information as we navigated this situation. As it turns out, thousands of other hosts worldwide shared our pain. Hosts often depend on forums to get information, which can lead to the spread of false intel.
In Chicago, where regulations have changed every year since 2016, navigating the legislative and tax landscape is especially difficult. One local host told me he’d applied for his license renewal six months ago and still had not heard back. He believes even the short-staffed city office handling the licenses does not know the procedures.
We at The Host HQ seek to provide clarity to reduce uncertainty around the hosting experience. Being an Airbnb host is like running your own business. Hosts value financial independence, flexibility and human interaction, and just need some trusted guidance along the way.
Our service offering
Starting with home-sharing hosts on platforms like Airbnb and HomeAway in Chicago, we are building content for a community. We’re focusing on delivering verified, localized content to help them with three core areas:
- Navigating the legal and tax landscape, as well as insurance and real estate, which is unique for every city and hard to find verified information
- Learning financial tools, budgeting tips, recommended products or best practices to optimize their business, and increase profitability
- Hosts trust each other, especially in small communities. We want to amplify their reach instead of competing with it. We share tips from super hosts on how to be better hosts.
Here’s how we’re doing it
We’re working closely with the local community to understand and serve their needs. Our product is twofold to serve hosts in whatever stage they’re in.
For newer hosts, we want to inspire entrepreneurship and creativity around the hosting experience.
Our journalists are delivering content on everything from navigating Chicago’s license registration procedures and tax rules to giving host-recommended tips on the quick wins that will set their listings apart.
We’re not affiliated with Airbnb or other vacation-rental platforms, so we act as a watchdog to reduce uncertainty.
Our content is delivered through our website, social media and newsletter.
We do this with a small in-house production team. In the spirit of entrepreneurship, we plan to outsource articles to freelance journalists as we expand our coverage to other markets.
Our listings platform, on the other hand, connects local hosts with local businesses. This bridge delivers value to the city’s economy by giving small businesses access to a niche audience.
Both new and experienced hosts can find companies that serve their specific needs, like cleaning services that work around their particular schedules, photographers who specialize in listings, and other products and services recommended by fellow hosts. Companies can advertise their products and services and offer special discounts.
We’re also partnering with the Chicago Smart Host Community, which is a group of local business-minded hosts who have banded together to reach deals with vendors. We are aggregating the products and services that are part of the collective, and in the future, we can work together to create new deals and share commissions revenue.
Our market position
The information need for serving hosts is largely untapped. User-generated information in forums and Facebook groups are unverified, and general mass media is not dedicated to serving our users. Even Airbnb magazine is a coffee table travel magazine that targets guests, not hosts.
We are the only dedicated information resource for home-sharing hosts that is verified, localized and objective.
User acquisition
We launched only a few weeks ago, but we’ve found promising traction. We’re engaging with hosts both online in forums and offline at local events, and user feedback has been positive that we’re addressing their information needs.
One graphic for our story on hosting business travelers kicked up a lot of chatter on Facebook. It performed especially well in national groups, which signals our content’s scalable potential.
With our Listings product, our partnership with the Chicago Smart Host Collective has nine affiliate partnerships so far, and the pool is growing every day.
Target market
Hosts earn around $13 billion in the global market, and the market is only growing.
Chicago is a great testbed because hosts make the third-largest profit margin in the country, behind San Diego and Miami. For the average two-bedroom listing, they make $24,000 a year in profit. Cook County hosts altogether earn $109 million.
Airbnb says it makes a $345 million economic impact in Chicago alone, and we believe there is a strong market to be tapped by connecting local hosts with small businesses, which make up almost half of local jobs.
We believe our localized model has global potential. We also see strong synergy with bringing property managers, real estate brokers and Airbnb-adjacent service providers into our core audience.
Once we prove our fit in Chicago, we aim to scale this model to other major cities.
We aim to expand to similar-sized markets including Seattle, Houston, Las Vegas and Davenport, Florida, before hitting large markets like New York and Southern California.
Growth strategy
In the first stage, we’re focusing on user acquisition of our main audience — hosts. Our business model is based on advertising, branded content, and affiliate marketing.
In the second stage, we build out our two-sided market. Listings will be a go-to resource for Airbnb-specific goods and services from smart locks to property management, and we aim to expand to hyperlocal ecommerce services for vendors like guest experiences or gift-baskets or quick on-demand services like plumbing and heating & cooling repair.
After proving both sides of the market, we’ll scale to similar cities.
Team
We’re a great team to do this. I’m Elaine, and I’ve worked as a journalist for global publications like Forbes and trade publications like Bloomberg BNA, on top of being a former Airbnb host.
Our team has a background in tech, design and content, with diverse experiences in property revenue management, national and business media, product reviews and legal issues.
We’re optimistic about the opportunity of addressing an unserved segment in a $13 billion global market that’s growing every year. We’re confident that we can continue engaging with our core audience and we look forward to developing the second side of our market as we expand.
Closing
While we believe this problem-solution fit has great growth potential, we recognize the challenges of monetizing on a relatively small audience. But it is not impossible: The subscription model of providing necessary content for hosts to do better business is employed by data and software sites serving this community. With more time, we may have adjusted our content strategy and built out the Listings page to create a more monetizable product.
Nonetheless, we are proud of the work we’ve done over the past quarter and have many lessons to take away — in fact, they’re compiled in a 40-page report. We hope you’ve enjoyed following our journey and reading our content on TheHostHQ.com.
Thank you for your support.
Team
Elaine Ramirez, editor and project lead
Danny Hwang, product manager
Melissa Hovanes, tech lead
Louis Oh, design lead
Tyler Sonnemaker, reporter and audience development lead
Jessica Qiao, reporter
Cyan Zhong, reporter
Advisers
Joe Germuska, tech
Richard Gordon, product
Rachel Davis Mersey, audience insight
Karen Springen, editorial
Special thanks
Julie Cole
Erik Cornelius
Rob Elder
Jon Friedman
Sean Griffey
Suzee Han
Dave Hart
Marty Kohr
Abe Peck
Shorge Sato
Hope Wallace
Nick Wright
