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Colin James Belyea
Founder of Building PropTech
My background is in technology. I worked as a consultant/freelancer for almost 10 years. Mainly worked on web applications and big data projects in different industries.
5 years ago I decided to go on a trip to Santa Cruz, CA for a camp called code and surf. It was one week of surfing combined with courses and workshops on UX and coding. That’s where I met the founder of Outsite Emmanuel and started working with him. It’s the first time I work in hospitality and real estate but I really like the combination of tech and something tangible.
We are building accommodation for people who have the flexibility to work from anywhere in the world. Our customers are looking for a place where they can meet like minded people while being productive.
It’s been an interesting journey discovering how real estate for hospitality works. As nobody really has experience in the space we get the chance to have a fresh look at it. Also thinking tech first and making things as efficient as possible from the beginning allowed us to grow from 1 house in California to 300 beds in 27 locations around the world.
At the start we relied heavily on Airbnb and word of mouth that’s where our customers were looking for accommodation. Right now we manage to get 90% of our bookings through direct channels. To do this we introduced the Outsite membership that was easier to market and people could already sign up before actually staying with us.
Our biggest challenge is finding the right supply in a lean way. You can see Outsite as a marketplace where the supply is managed and operated by us.
For me it’s a whole new world and I was surprised to see how much innovation is actually happening. Both on the tech side but also on the business models.
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