Welcome to Behind the Stays — a podcast that shares the stories behind your favorite boutique hotels, short-term rentals, and hospitality brands and the hosts, operators, and entrepreneurs who’ve brought them to life. Every Tuesday and Friday you’ll meet the military veterans, retired flight attendants, tech entrepreneurs, school teachers, single moms, hoteliers, and real estate investors who are all, in their unique ways, shaping the future of travel and hospitality. Discover how these visionaries — from all over the world — have built stunning landscape hotels in the mountains, designed bohemian bungalows on the beach, erected eclectic off-grid and nature-immersed escapes, and so much more. Behind the Stays is brought to you by Journey — a first-of-its-kind loyalty program that brings together an alliance of the world’s top independently owned and operated stays and allows travelers to earn points and perks on boutique hotels, vacation rentals, treehouses, ski chalets, glamping experiences and so much more. Behind the States is hosted by Zach Busekrus, Head of the Journey Alliance.
Episodes
Friday May 03, 2024
Friday May 03, 2024
Meet Whitney Hansen, the creator of The Flower Pot, a truly spectacular, one-of-a-kind experiential stay in Burley, Idaho.
Whitney has always been entrepreneurial — she owns her own consulting business, she hosts a podcast on investing and financial freedom called The Money Nerds, and is now also a hospitality entrepreneur.
After building one of Idaho's only geodesic domes and seeing it perform remarkably well on Airbnb, Whitney began dreaming of what her next build might look like — would it be an A-Frame? A Treehouse? A Pirate Ship?
And then she had a crazy idea…her family owned some farm land in Burley and her mother nurtured a beautiful flower garden on the plot. What if, she thought to herself, what if we created a giant flower pot that folks could stay in?
And while the idea sounded totally crazy at the time it didn’t sound that crazy to Airbnb. That’s right, Whitney wound up being a winner of Airbnb’s OMG fund and got $100,000 from the company to help her bring the project to life.
In this conversation Whitney and I discuss:
- How she heard about and ultimately won Airbnb’s OMG contest
- What it cost to bring this unique stay to life
- Some of the hardest aspects of owning and operating unique stays that not enough people talk about
- How the Flower Pot has performed as an investment so far
- Ideas she’s cooking up for her next build
- And so much more
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