Avery: Hey guys, welcome back to the short-term show! Today, we have Margot Schmorak, CEO and co-founder of Hostfully. How’s it going, Margot?

Margot: Good! You’re getting a cameo from my cat too. I’m so glad to be here, nice to meet you.

Avery: You too! I also have a rescue Chihuahua in the back, so she might show her face here in a minute.

Margot: Exactly, I’ll try to save everyone from cat butt, but if you’re listening, you might miss that part.

Avery: Haha, no worries. You’re a cat owner, what else do you have?

Margot: Well, let’s start at the beginning. Let me tell you a little bit about myself and how I came into the idea of starting Hostfully.

Avery: Sure!

Margot: My name is Margot. I live in San Francisco. I’m married and a mom. I have three kids, ages 11, 8, and 4. I’ve had a long career of building products that connect people together. Before Hostfully, I was at Apple and launched the iPhone developer program. I was there when my job was to take the iPhone SDK and help it get into the hands of developers for the first time. Honestly, I had no idea that it would be such a big deal for the world. After that, I was at a company called ServiceSource that managed recurring revenue streams. I worked there in your typical roles in the Bay Area.

Avery: Wow, so you worked at Apple and then moved into ServiceSource?

Margot: Yeah! ServiceSource manages recurring revenue streams for large companies like Dell and VMware. While I was there, I was a Senior Manager in Solution Marketing. Then I ended up becoming Chief of Staff for the head of sales, and eventually, I became head of marketing for their $250 million business unit.

Avery: That sounds amazing! So, you were really heading towards a career in high-powered corporate jobs, right?

Margot: Yeah, it looked like I was on track to be a CMO of an outsourcing company. There’s plenty of money in that, but I wasn’t really excited about making money for big companies just to make more for their analysts.

Avery: So, what changed?

Margot: I realized we were adding value, but in a very distant way from people’s day-to-day lives. So, I stepped back and started looking at other industries like healthcare, travel, and education. My co-founder and I met because our kids were in preschool together, and he was working on an idea to improve hospitality experiences for Airbnb hosts and guests.

Avery: What was your first reaction to his idea?

Margot: When he pitched it to me, I was like, “This is a terrible idea.” He was an Airbnb super host, and I didn’t see the potential initially.