Avery: Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of The Short Term Show. Today, I’ve got a really cool guest. I’ve got Daniel Rusteen, and he has one existing book out about short-term rentals called Optimize Your BnB. He’s got another one that’s in pre-sale/slash coming out soon, called Profitable Properties. A super cool story that we’re gonna hear from him today, so I’ll go ahead and let him introduce himself.

Daniel: How’s it going, Avery? It’s going very well, thanks for having me on, and I am glad to be on, especially because I read your book. I just finished it!

Avery: Thank you for reading it! It’s stupid, I read yours too, yeah, thanks.

Daniel: You! It’s, uh, your book is the only book, as far as I’m aware, that’s rated higher, rated with more reviews than mine. I had that title for like three years, and then yours came out, and I was like, “Oh, who is this girl?”

Avery: Thank you for pointing that out! But yeah, let’s talk about you for now. So, great! Tell us your story, how you got into short-term rental Airbnb investing, and what you’re doing now.

Daniel: Sure. I’ll start to finish, and then I’ll ask questions off of that. I started at Airbnb. That’s where I kind of got started. I was unemployed, I had a public accounting job, I quit that job, and I was looking for other jobs. I was in San Francisco, the startup scene, exploring all the different startups. I didn’t find it, but my roommate came in when I was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and he said, “Hey, have you heard of this company called Air Bed and Breakfast?”

Avery: Yeah, that’s what it was called for anyone super, super new.

Daniel: Right! And I thought, “Oh, wow, that’s like a guest!” That clicks for me. I was like, “That’s cool,” so I looked into the company. They actually had a job open for accountants. So I applied, got an interview, and they said, “Thanks for coming in, but no thanks.”

Avery: Wow!

Daniel: I stayed in touch, though, because I was like, “Oh, this is a cool company.” You know, it was a typical startup scene: office, people riding around on scooters, free breakfast. I remember going in one time—I think it was a Friday, though honestly, it could’ve been Monday or Tuesday—and I clearly remember going into one of my interviews, and somebody stood up from a desk, not talking to me, looking at someone else. It was like the sun was out, and he was like, “Hey, do you want another beer?” And I was like, “What? Who’s he? What’s going on?” Because I was working for a public accounting firm at the time.

Avery: A whole different world!

Daniel: Exactly! So, I stayed in touch. A few months later, there was a different job in the same department. I interviewed, and I got the job—that was 2013. I left in 2016. During that time, I became a host of the living room on my couch. The same way that Airbnb got started in San Francisco, I was working at the headquarters in San Francisco.

Avery: Amazing!

Daniel: Yeah, there’s a whole story with that because, when it was all said and done, the city of San Francisco…