0 (2s):
Boom shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire.
brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Inclusion and Marketing.

0 (15s):
Today, we'll be breaking down the mission to Democratize Vacation Homes. To drop these value bombs, I brought Paul Kromidas in the EOFire Studios. As CEO and Founder of Summer, Paul is a mission driven entrepreneur, pioneering an innovative approach to vacation home ownership with the vision to carve a new path for homeowners seeking to own a second home. Paul leads the summer team to open access to vacation homes by eliminating the headache and risk associated with buying. And today Fire Nation, we'll talk about democratizing vacation and second home ownership. We'll talk about examples of families Achieving this goal. We'll talk about what's coming up for summer in the future, the next six to 12 months, and so much more. And a big thanks for sponsoring

0 (56s):
today's episode goes to Paul and our sponsors,

The Sales Evangelist (60s):
Sales Evangelist hosted by my friend Donald Kelly is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Each week, Donald interviews the world's best sales experts, successful sellers, sales leaders, and entrepreneurs who share their strategies to succeed in sales. Right now, a recent episode you should definitely check out is The Five Ways to Do Daily Outbound with LinkedIn. Listen to Sales Evangelist wherever you get your podcasts.

Hostinger (1m 26s):
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0 (1m 43s):
Paul, say What's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with.

1 (1m 52s):
Hey, John, great to have time with you today. You know, I found in my life the moments where there is the most self-doubt is actually when you're right around the corner from turning a turning a turning point. Basically finding some inner fire within, having some grit, some determination when all the chips are down it, it probably does sound a little cliche, so maybe it isn't as contrarian as, as you might think, but it's very, very hard to do for very a lot of people out there, including myself at various points. But having that deep sense of grit and determination, that's just not gonna say, no, I think you can will your way to success.

1 (2m 34s):
So I think that might be a contrarian view to some people. You know, some people think people get lucky or luck into something. I do believe that if you just keep at it long enough, you will be successful.

0 (2m 46s):
Fire Nation Today, we're talking about Paul's mission to Democratize vacation homes, and I wanna hear more about this mission. What does it mean? Why are you doing it?

1 (2m 58s):
The mission is really focused around democratizing vacation, home ownership. You know, even the name Summer, I grew up in New England where there's a lot of people who, you know, use summer something that, a verb, something they're doing, I'm summering somewhere, right? It's always very aristocratic when it's used. Kind of like harkens back to memories of like the Kennedys and Hyannis or something like that, right? But I think we really wanted to turn that on its head, you know, make something make sense for a lot more people and show them that yes, you know, is owning a vacation home a luxury for many folks? Yeah, it absolutely is.

1 (3m 39s):
But can it also be a smart investment? Yes, it can. And can it actually make you money when you're not there? Yes, it can as well. People just want the risk removed from that process, especially folks that are in sort of the middle, middle, upper class. A lot of people have some money to be able to transact and buy something. If you're removing the risk from the process and showing them how to make money on it when they're not there, and be able to actually enjoy something when they are there, you're really getting the best of both worlds. And that's what we really set out to do here at summer, is make vacation home ownership. Make sense?

0 (4m 8s):
I love aha moments like that moments that you were just like, yes, this has to be created for this reason and I have to be the person to do it. What was that moments that led to the Birth of summer?

1 (4m 23s):
I used to work at Airbnb before starting summer, and one of the things I always noticed was how well Superhosts verified stays basically, you know, consistent quality supply yields on that platform. A lot of people, you know, read articles right now about the bust or the Airbnb apocalypse or whatever it may be. And I think it really speaks to our value proposition as a business even more. It is a little harder than it looks to just buy a home, throw some furniture in and expect to yield to cover your costs. But the folks that do this really well, that have consistent five star reviews, that have professional photography, that really set out to create a hospitality experience within their home, because that's what it is at the end of the day, do very well.

1 (5m 14s):
And, and when you think about from a consumer who's booking these homes, the reason they do really well is because, like I said, it is an extended hospitality experience. When you're booking an Airbnb or a short-term rental, you're really thinking about, do I book this or do I book the Marriott down the street or, or whatever it may be. And you know, with the Marriott, you're going to get a clean bed, put your credit card down, walk out the next day without having to take your own trash or clean your own bathroom, right? I think when people lose money on these, they expect too much out of the guest and expect that there's a labor component involved here. And I think when I realized that we could stand these up programmatically and do that for people who are, there's a, there's a healthy degree of interest in owning these, these homes and owning vacation homes in a smarter way and have that actually offset some of their costs.

1 (6m 7s):
I think that was the aha moment for me of wait, you can actually help people own homes and offset their costs by creating this branded hospitality experience that takes the stress off of them of having to be basically owner operators themselves.

0 (6m 21s):
I love examples of this actually happening in the real world. So give us a couple examples of either yourself or some clients or just some overall good examples that you think Fire Nation could really understand what this looks like in the real world.

1 (6m 35s):
I think one that really comes to mind is one of our first customers, he lives in New Jersey. We're based in New York City. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and two children. He has a, I believe a four And A, 6-year-old. They were looking for a vacation home in upstate New York, in the Catskills area, Hudson Valley. For those who are unfamiliar with that, it's about two hours north of New York City. And you know, he really wanted something for his kids to spend more time outdoors, sort of get off the grid, build special memories with them, and he's a wealth manager, right? So there was even more of an angle for him of this has to make sense for me, both financially and lifestyle wise. It's not a pure investment in the sense that, you know, some investments people make, they invest in stocks, they maybe they find enjoyment outta that or investing in a certain stock for fun, but a lot of it's just focused on return.

1 (7m 25s):
And I think what was interesting for him about our model was this ability to really hone in on homes that we're going to bring some yield to him and also get him own something now in a responsible way. And I think one of the things he always talks about that I've enjoyed is this special place that they've been able to build up there for themselves. They really love it. They love going there. They go whenever they wanna go, you know, 40, 50, 60 days a year and it's taken care of when they're not there. And they, they have peace of mind. They know it's renting really well and it's made, it made sense for him. And he's in his mid thirties and he'll tell me, you know, you've made this a place that I, you've made this affordable for me, And A place that I can bring my children to, and four memories with them now, six and four.

1 (8m 8s):
Instead, I would've had to have waited maybe 20 years to be able to afford a vacation home, you know, in my fifties. And my, my kids would've been long gone by then. I wouldn't have had those memories with them. So it's given me an extra avenue of investment and, and, and also lifestyle. I think we have countless folks like that. We also have folks who, you know, we have one customer in particular that brings to mind of, you know, they, they live in the bay, they bought a home with their friend, very, very little. You can afford in, in San Francisco proper for, you know, less than a million dollars. And they're now first time homeowners on a vacation home is their first purchase, right? And they bought a home in Park City that is less than a million dollars, but it yields really well when they're not there.

1 (8m 51s):
So they've been able to access, you know, real estate ownership before they would've been doing that living in the Bay Area. So I think those are, those are two stories that really come to mind for me.

0 (9m 0s):
And Fire Nation, again, this is you being able to put yourself in a situation where like, does this make sense for me? Like, can I see myself going down this path? And one thing that I really want to know about Summer is, it's just something that kind of just comes to mind when I'm thinking about this company is like, how do you differentiate yourself from competitors? What makes you unique and special?

1 (9m 24s):
I think the biggest one to me is the fact that we generate the best returns, the best and most consistent returns for our Owners. You know, a lot of companies will come out, there's, you know, sort of folks out there that will, you know, manage a property or maybe they'll take elements of this, you know, they'll finance or they'll, or they'll manage or they'll price and you know, we're a one-stop shop. We'll help you select the right home through data and, and we, we turn through a lot of it to be able to pick out the right home. We help you design it out and furnish it to an aesthetic that performs to the mass audience and also takes into account the location and your preferences.

1 (10m 6s):
We help you finance the purchase through basically a Renton program if you want to go that route. So you see how the home performs before you fully commit to buying it. That is a core differentiator of our product versus anyone else. And then we price it, manage it, and generate all the yield that you would have to do. I think, you know, so besides our Renton product called Gradual Ownership, which is definitely a differentiator and, and not offered anywhere else out there, it's really that plus the idea that we are performing much better than the market and we're more accurate with our estimates and then access to the summer network. Third and third and most final point, all of our homes are, you know, co-branded placed on our website, placed on our, our own Airbnb listing, our VRBO listing.

1 (10m 51s):
And folks benefit from being able to own a single asset on the network of homes and but benefit from the greater booking revenue and network effects that come with having their home on the summer network and they can actually stay in homes across the summer network as well. So we've really been able to build community with our network of homes as well.

0 (11m 7s):
Fire Nation, you can see how Paul really understands his key differentials. Like he really knows how he's different from his competition, how he stands out in the market, the unique value that he provides his customers, his clients as clear as there as valuable. and we have a lot more to talk about around this when we get back from thanking our sponsors

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0 (13m 32s):
code ONFIRE. Paul, we're back and you created summer to help families achieve their goals. We've talked about some examples, they were great, but I wanna get really detailed about how this is accomplished. Talk to us about that.

1 (13m 49s):
Yeah, I'll take one of the examples that I mentioned before around this family. You know, they were looking for a home upstate. I think they wanted something, it was in a certain price range and you know, created enough land, enough bedrooms, et cetera. There were some parameters, right? But they also wanted to understand, well, what's this home gonna make when I'm not there? And I think that's, you know, really where we start the process. We take a deeply analytical view on an entire market to understand and not just, you know, large swaths of the market and say this whole market will perform within, you know, 50 to $150,000 a year in terms of rental revenue.

1 (14m 29s):
No, no, no. We'll, we'll get very granular on a home by home basis and say this home on this block will generate this much in, in potential short-term rental revenue and sort of a base bowl And, A bear case. And, and I think what we found with that granularity is it gets folks comfortable and in this instance it got this individual comfortable with us as a platform and you know, they were able to compare that and validate that and they can see proof points on other homes we've done and we're showing them home after home after home. And so not only are we honing in with them on, you know, the profile of the type of home they wanna look at, but we're also, in this case, we were honing in on him with, you know, the economic returns he was looking to see as well, right?

1 (15m 14s):
Some people are comfortable just breaking even. I think that's a really, you know, if I told most of the listeners here, you could get a home for free, essentially having break even cover your costs. I think a lot of people, I, I'd be enthused about that. Some people are fine with that. Some people just wanna reduce their monthly cost, they wanna be in a certain location. This individual really wanted to be in a certain area and we did find a home that was able to cover its costs. So we ended up helping transact on that. You know, obviously if you want to go with the gradual model at that point, summer buys the home for you and you have the ability to put up basically a down payment and make monthly payments over two years to bridge into more equity in the home, in which case you can add up those monthly payments to your upfront payment.

1 (16m 1s):
The monthly payments are actually less and earn you more than any mortgage. And you could buy the home back at any point in those two years. If you don't wanna buy the home, that's fine too. You can walk away with your upfront payment in full at the end of the two years, no questions asked. Summer will keep the entirety of the monthly payments because we bought a home for you and, and took all the risk. In this case, this individual did end up transacting on the home. So we were very excited about that and they're now a happy owner of the home. All the while they got to see how the home performed via short-term rental before they actually fully committed to buying it. And now they own the home. We are in a management agreement with them at this point and we have kept them as happy customers in the summer network.

0 (16m 43s):
I love that concept that I've actually made a, a pact with myself that I'm never actually gonna buy a home until I'm at least allowed to sleep in that home one night, preferably multiple nights. Because man, you can walk through a home in the morning, in the afternoon, maybe even in the evening, and like, it's gonna give one energy, one vibe, one thing, but then when you're actually there overnights, you may be experiencing some things that are happening. And actually my real goal is to spend a night or multiple nights in that house and one of those has to be like a torrential downpour because I'd love to know where the leaks are before I actually take over that house because man, that can be a, a uncomfortable surprise and I'm speaking from experience being down here in Puerto Rico.

0 (17m 29s):
So yeah, good stuff.

1 (17m 31s):
No, that's definitely true.

0 (17m 33s):
So I love talking about what's just over the horizon, Paul, for companies of all shapes, sorts and sizes. So what does the future of summer look like over the next six to 12 months?

1 (17m 44s):
That's a great question. I think, you know, like a lot of companies out there, we wanna grow. We're an earlier stage company. We've, we've been able to accrue a little bit of funding thus far to the tune of close to $30 million and the on the equity side and about 50 million on the debt side. So certainly nothing to shrug your shoulders at, but you know, we do deal in real estate. So the, the, the figures are slightly larger than some other, you know, startup companies out there. We would like to grow, we'd like to expand. We're in the process of expanding nationally right now to more locations outside of the, the current six that we're in. So we are now becoming a national platform throughout the United States.

1 (18m 27s):
And I think, you know, when it comes to the network itself, I think that's what we're really looking forward to over the next six to 12 months is, you know, whether you are someone who is looking to transact on a vacation investment, second home, whatever it may you, you may call it in, you know, this economy or I think what we've also found is that there are a lot of folks who are current vacation home Owners who are not experiencing the best utilization out of their homes or their homes are underperforming for whatever reason. Or they're, they're, they're locked into a, a very nice 3% mortgage and are looking for a little bit of liquidity, but they don't wanna sell the home. Right? You know, our network provides a lot of that value. We can get you better returns on the home, we can get you more yield on the home.

1 (19m 10s):
So, you know, I think we've been, we've been very excited to see that side of the business turn up as well. And this economy as a lot of folks are sitting around thinking, well, I, I already own one of these homes and I just, I need to do something better with it because I, I don't wanna sell it. And this is a tough market. So we're very excited to continue to grow the, the, the homes in our network and, and continue to make more of a presence nationally and just really grow the brand and grow how people are interacting with us.

0 (19m 34s):
Paul, we've talked a lot about democratizing vacation homes today. What's the one thing you really wanna make sure Fire Nation gets from our chat today?

1 (19m 45s):
You can make money in short-term rentals, but it is much harder than people think. Everyone has this idea that you can just wing it and you know, don't get me wrong, if you want to put the sweat equity into it, you can. Maybe you'll get it right, but chances are you might get it wrong. And you have to be willing to take the bet and everything that comes with it because even if you do get it right, you're still having to call up contractors when something goes wrong and deal with it all yourself and figure out what happens and who you're messaging on a Friday night at 1130, you know, when they're locked out of the home and how they're getting in and you know, what happens if someone, you know, wrecks something in the home, whatever it may be.

1 (20m 37s):
And I think for a lot of people, especially, you know, people who have other jobs or things to do or families or busy things, it's, you know, it's probably not worth the, the headache, you know, to just make sure you're, you're getting the peace of mind for it. I think that's what I've found and that's what a lot of people have found. They've tried to do it themselves or brought it to other managers who aren't that great at it, to be honest. And yeah, I think it's a lesson that a lot of people learn the hard way. So if I were to say anything, it's just, it's, it's a little harder than a lot of people think. Really try to envision yourself doing it. And if you like that, go ahead, but we'll, we'll gladly take the paint on for you.

0 (21m 13s):
Fire Nation, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You've been hanging out with PK and JLD today, so keep up that heat. And Paul, if Fire Nation wants to learn more about you about summer, what's your call to action for our listeners today?

1 (21m 29s):
You can follow us on across all of our social media platforms, Instagram, Twitter or XI should say now, and you know, TikTok, et cetera, at Start summering. And our website is www.summer.com. Check us out.

0 (21m 45s):
You are that average of the five people, so please go find three more cool people to add to your quorum today. And Paul, thank you for being one of those five or for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that we salute your brother and we'll catch you on the flip side.

1 (21m 60s):
Thank you for having me.

0 (22m 2s):
Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Paul for sponsoring today's episode and Fire Nation's successful entrepreneurs accomplish big goals. That's why I created the Freedom Journal to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in a hundred days. And we're talking step by step. Visit the freedom Journal dot com and I'll catch you there. Or on the flip side, Sales Evangelist hosted by my friend Donald Kelly is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Each week Donald interviews the world's best sales experts, successful sellers, sales leaders, and entrepreneurs who share their strategies to succeed in sales. Right now, a recent episode you should definitely check out is The Five Ways to Do Daily Outbound with LinkedIn.

0 (22m 45s):
Listen to Sales Evangelist wherever you get your podcasts. Hostinger is among the top web hosting and website creation brands in the world. See for yourself. Head to Hostinger.com/ONFIRE and use code ONFIRE for an exclusive 10% discount. That's Hostinger.com/ONFIRE in the code ONFIRE.