EP 48 | How Shahar Goldboim Is Optimizing PMS Systems with AI

EP 48 | How Shahar Goldboim Is Optimizing PMS Systems with AI - YouTube Transcripts: (00:00) we are live with the short-term Rental Pros podcast today I am here with a fellow co-founder software co-founder space but also Property Management uh business owner Shahar I got introduced to to him through our friend Fred who uh does tree houses who you know Fred I'm gonna have you on a later episode but uh he really thought Shahar had an amazing story and amazing software product so I wanted to get him on as quickly as possible and hear his story so first of all Shahar thank than you so much for coming today uh where are you currently (00:34) and how did you get in the short-term rentals oh a lot of questions Jeremy so pleasure being over here first of all H fredd is also like a good friend and amazing entrepreneur so anybody would like to hear I think it it will be a really good episode with Fred in the future as for me I'm located in Miami uh I got into the vacation rental actually almost by mistake so I'm I'm in real estate from 2008 at 2016 I did a startup to real estate and in in the end of 2016 a friend came to me and uh we purchase a property to his parents like a $1.5 (01:16) million property and I property came to me and told me where was it in Eastern Shore if you know in Miami uh sits on the water so he came to me uh probably today it's a 3.5 million home the back then it was 1.5 so he came to me and was asking me uh he wanted to do it in Airbnb and at the time I was doing the uh the the startup so I told him leave me alone I have a lot on my play but at the time I was learning about the Lin Theory which basically means how can I get to the maximum result with the minimum efforts (01:54) in order to to validate what I think so I told him you know what let me think about it H for a night and the day after I came back to him and I told him you know what I thought about something I found a company in Australia that can actually Implement interior design on top of empty picture let's take the picture of the house let's put let's advertise it on Airbnb with the interior design that we created with this company and let's see the result and take it from there so we we did the listing on Airbnb and as (02:27) soon as we put it on we started like getting reservation after reservation so my wife she was a designer so I told her do you want to design a home she's like hell yeah and this is how we started uh the business and then I had a flip that we uh that we purchased that we couldn't move so I like we changed that to an Airbnb and we bought a multif family that we Chang it into into Airbnb and this is how I got basically into the space so when I got in into the space what I found out that I had a lot of um stuff that I didn't find solution (03:07) meaning we were working with gasty I took gasty as a PMS but I didn't find a solution for owner portal for all of the expenses so I asked my young brother that was with me also with the startup to the real estate uh we didn't find a business concept over there it was amazing solution but we didn't find and we basically move the angle into uh the vacation rental sector where we build a tech en a company I said you know what startup let's put it to the side let's build a tech enable company and that's what we've done with design VR that up (03:47) until 2023 we build a portfolio of around $150 million under management got it so and what what was design VR so it was it was it a property management firm ER first let's not talk about it as a pass it still is okay you said up until 2023 so I'm like I don't know what happened in 2023 no so 2023 I actually divided the company into two so I created a tech Wing H which called boom which we selling now technology all over the world we have customer in South Africa Greece Portugal Israel United States Mex me and we have design VR (04:32) which is the management company which I'm not part on the day-to-day operation anymore it's running by itself but I'm chairman of the board and yeah so we have design we have we have also like design VR Holdings which we are un functioning as a GP we deployed around $40 million in the sector of V mid luxury vacation rental in in East Southeast Florida and west side of Florida quick quick question so I I have two Florida properties and I people listening they know that every episode I I like to rip on Florida at least uh at (05:11) least one time one time per episode I did just get back I was in Miami yesterday if I you were there maybe we could have done this done this in person under the sun um but you have 40 million that you own what's up with the insurance man uh is that something you're dealing with the these insurance we 100% we didn't it like it's crazy so if it used to be like around one 1% give and take now in around 3% or two and a half% and it's really changing all of the equation of the return that you can make on a property uh you said three 3% increases (05:51) or 3% or from the grow like when you calculate when you calculate okay how much like insurance will cost me it went like double sometime time and a halfsometimes three times what you used to pay and it's really really changing changing the return no no doubt and a lot of companies went out of Florida and the few that are here raised prices like crazy um although we found one company that we we see much better pricing right now so uh so yeah it's definitely I'm going to ping you for that one later because that's yeah the situation we're (06:31) dealing with and and with our Florida properties that I'm not dealing with elsewhere is like yeah when I underwrite the property I usually write insurance as kind of like you know a fixed variable I mean I assume over time it can go up but like it's not going to be that material of a part of the investment like you know assuming it's going to go up two three% a year doesn't really do anything uh however doubling and tripling uh in one two three years that has like a s and then the fact that it can do that moving forward you know (07:03) I'm like well if it just doubled or tripled in the last two years can it double and triple again in the next two years you know uh so scary no no doubt no doubt and it's it's a big number it's not a small number it's it's a big number you got 40 million of it worth because because I've got one and a half million of it of Florida properties if you've got $40 million worth of Florida properties I'm sure that's that's you know that's ensuring a lot more worth of value right there 100% uh also it's not that I own (07:33) I'm a GP meaning I have ownership in it where also normally put five to 10% out of that but but it's definitely uh changing numbers totally and yeah God I have so much to dive into here wow uh because I'm curious how you structure your gplp partnership because I've also raised money I feel like honestly I've done a lot of what have you done just on a much smaller scale um you know I know I just met you and started talking to you but I I definitely you know I I manage 25 properties so I have a management company uh I've of which 10 or so of (08:12) those properties are properties where I'm kind of or nine of them like the quote unquote GP uh each deal was different each syndication was different so I didn't do it like all under a fund it was really like the terms of the deal were dependent on that deal in situation uh so I dang I have so much to dive into here I'm gonna take first thing no no go go ahead how how have you done your uh yeah how how have you how did you do your GP fund structure so basically we also did it as syndication as deals in order to build like a history so you fun (08:45) you build it as an LLC that's the LLC each one has its own LLC it depends it can be like two properties or three properties under like a one LLC as well it's like in Ser yeah got it in series yeah and uh we do a 7% preferred to the lp above it it's like 3070 to the GP uh with a clow back of one year if we didn't get to the 7% and a sunset of five to seven years uh in that matter and what else what kind of questions do you have yeah and and then does your management company design VR manage the properties as well and take the management fee yeah (09:33) yeah 100% so design VR manage the the property uh we normally also I own my own broke real estate brokerage so we do The Brokerage H deal as well we find the deals we analyze the deals uh and morgage ler too right didn't you say no no not yet mortgage we are not and I all Florida people you guys are all gc's you're you're real you're mortgage brokers you all are everything you know what that's that's was a big lesson that I actually had so I used to have also a construction company and also a cleaning company (10:14) which I Clos these departments because I realized H that we you can't be master of all and actually uh we lost a lot of money on the construction side because when I'm telling you a price going to be a certain price I will stand by what I told you and it caused me a lot of losses if to be honest uh so you get to understand what is your DNA what you really good at and what you not good at uh so I I hired a GC and I hired inspector but in the end uh we found out that if we move the work with a good contract to a GC to do the work we are (10:56) more efficient uh This Way H as for the design for example we kept it in house and we doing amazing design work in really amazing prices uh to to to people that uh used us so it's really what what your DNA is and how good you are at that and how understanding you are to to the small level about everything that's going on to that question and focus yeah and that's something I constantly have to remind myself and something that I'm making an active effort on you know not just talking to talk but showing it because I like you Property (11:40) Management business software business I actually started with boat rentals uh initially got into the short-term rentals through having a fleet now of seven pontoon boats and I can you know on a day-by-day basis if you get distracted your head goes to one thing you really got to be thinking about likewhat's the highest and best use of my time and then how can I either delegate responsibilities for everything else or just Outsource it so that's like I think that's just being like a leader uh or an entrepreneur getting to a certain point (12:09) like that's really people think oh it's like I want to do something new all the time yada y y yeah sure you want to do something new but like you really got to think about like how do I how do I systematize what I have and then what am I uniquely good at so let's get Shahar what are you uniquely good at man I know boom you you were excited to talk about boom so we're gonna we're going to save the meat of this this pod get to get into that but what what do you what do you want to do on a daily basis and and and and and what are you doing I think (12:39) the biggest point for me is being a problem solver and to create value uh to the people that are using Us in all matter if it's through the management what what is what is Boom sorry I don't mean to cut you off but what for those listening have no idea what it is which uh you know uh you guys will people will know who you are very soon but what is Boom so boom is a Moder solution sitting on top of your PMS allowing you because every PMS have his own problems right one doesn't have a good owner dashboard one doesn't have a good CRM one doesn't (13:14) have a good mobile so it's a Moder of solutions that sit on top of your PMS giving you like the optimized PMS solution with task management owner portal guest portal a website builder accounting like we have everything so when we sit on the PMS we create amazing one and then on top of that we give you business intelligence and artificial intelligence so we are moving away as the day-to-day missions that you have like in customer support in sales and giving business analytics in order to understand for example (13:51) Jeremy if I will ask you who is your best cleaner that getting the best course can you answer that well you have to Define best what what is best uh best cleaner that clean the fastest and get the best reviews on the cleaning that you have done can you tell me with it no I couldn't uh personally I like the cleaners who tell you the problems with your property that's like the cleaners I like I used to like I used to like the cleaner when I'm to a house and she was like Hey Mr shakar how you doing with a big smile but in reality in (14:33) reality you don't know who is good and who is not good and that's what boom does it's creating kpis for you to understand that if I will ask you how much time it's taking you to answer a chat who is your best salesperson where your C work your customers are coming from like all of this answer needs to be uh uh to create visualization that's what we do with the business intelligence in order to give you an opportunity to make a better operation for example we take the area manager area manager well I not sure how you do (15:07) it but like in design VR for example we have many others we have around 20 properties like luxury big properties that each area manager manage and we measure them how do we measure them we measure them on expense ratio because we want the ratio to be as low as it can in order to provide income we measure them on the review rate that the guest basically live how many refunds were given and how quick they are to get into important missions and based upon these four parameters they getting bonus on a monthly basis so they have a (15:46) visualization to their work and by that you create accountability and and and and that one part that that boom actually bringing from understanding operation in a really good way can can you do how quickly are is your team responding to messages is that something you can quickly figure out yeah oh interesting and I can tell you who is your best salesperson who is converting the most into sale and then you can trigger and I can tell you is your best handyman and and it's really really giving you an ability to control (16:26) your company and using data and not and not stuff from your stomach oh I feel this way because like you want to work with people with numbers and you want to run after numbers and you want to create this understanding of what is important to you so yeah so you establish kpis and you're able to track them so how do you said you work on top of the property management systems what so I have hospitable for example would I how would I plug into boom or put boom on we don't have API integration as of yet but if you work with guesty if you work with (17:03) hostway if you work with track we are on their Marketplace so you we get the kpi key API key and we are connecting easy got it so you don't and your your goal isn't to replace Property Management Systems it's to really be uh a like a a complimentary tool I I would say that we are focusing on your Workforce we are want to change your Workforce we want to take your cost of operation down so we started with customer support uh then sales agent Iwant to be able to give you a bookkeeper dispatcher and basically move all of the (17:44) online operation to be done by AI agent and the ability of you to run a company with much smaller amount of people where you can actually focus on the guest experience because as you said as a property manager you need to be master of a lot of missions a lot of stuff happening right you in charge of the maintenance sales marketing uh like so many facets and our point is how I can create the me the best experience to the guest because when the guest will have the best experience you will make ADR that will be higher you will have a higher (18:26) occupancy and how can I give you the ability to take the day-to-day mission that you're doing and doing by AI in order for you to be focusing on the guest and create much better pnl to your company okay so you said uh replacing like you know lowering costs replacing employees using AI so for example you said customer uh customer support representative sales representatives for me you know virtual assistance is kind of what I call them uh are you able to you their their big responsibility is guest communication so responding (19:01) quickly responding well showing empathy how is it is it a chat bot that can replace them or or how or I don't want to say replace but is it a chat bot that can you know do that same job or and and how is it done how does boom replace them okay so first of all with when in coming to your company we understand like all of your history of conversation one we understand all of your conversation we understand your policies we understand your Vibe and we want to answer by the way you answering and then it's also creating like videos and (19:37) information of the house so when a guest is asking hey how do I turn on the projector we will be able to send him thei will send him a link to how to use it so it's understanding the whole and the way that we are building our software is like a one source of Truth so if you were asking me if you can do an early checkin for example right so if you want to do an early checkin I need to go into the task management let see if I have like a work that needs to be done in order to fix the toilet or in order to fix the shower then I need to see that (20:17) we didn't allow any lay checkout then I need to see if cleaning was done or any other thing that needs to be done meaning I need to to go over different systems in order to give you the answer and that's a beautiful thing about boom creating that layer that allowing the AI to give you like a really answer uh that will will be good to what you're asking so P pulling out so on this on this pod I like to give like really tangible tips to people and I think you just brought an interesting point that I want to I (20:51) want to dive deep into so essentially you have to feed your database with things that can then be sent to the guests for example I think you use how to turn the projector on uh on movie theater whatever so first thing you need to do is just really record videos of everything right at your house uh you need to go around and you need to turn on the projector you need to turn on the like the keys do use a luck key how do you use TV so people are reacting much better into video than than text because then I have (21:27) Visual and it it's it's much easier that's why YouTube became so successful right sure it's your ability to to transfer it in such a way and and once you do screening to a house in a really good way then you're saving so much time on communication for years ahead hot tub I could just think the hot tub is like 50% of our questions oh the hot tub's too cold it's too hot it's yada yada yada uh so and I was like Yeah we actually we send over the uh we we send over uh the dang what's the thing called uh I don't know God I'm blinking right (22:05) now sorry this coffee needs to kick that like 00 oh the manual we sent over the pdf version of the manual but now I'm like wait a minute why don't I just send over a video uh exactly exactly video is so much faster so much better you can understand so quickly like stuff it's uh it's big yeah so next time I'm at my properties which I'm curious how often so you're not going to these properties very often you have so many of them they are geographically in Florida which is where you are but how often do you make (22:39) it out to them so currently not so much the reason because I'm not involved in the day-to-day operation what I do do when we have like a new property sometime will be the first one to check it uh we do like a soft opening H in order to to see if stuff are wrong if construction was done right like you know all of the little stuff that you don't notice like unless you're living in a place so a lot of time we will be the one I will take my family and we'll be the one uh to to do the soft opening otherwise like other employee get (23:19) bonuses like do you sleep there overnight yeah so you uh you really you soft open it so you party or you enjoy the properties firstthat's that's you know what it's soft opening you're right but in the end of the day you also find like difficulties right it's it's your way to really uh H check stuff to see if everything coming with a fresh eyes into into a property after construction after design basically finish it I think it's really important yeah and also yeah I tell people that at night like you got to be (23:55) there at night because a lot of times the the lights outside you know don't don't make any sense so yeah sleep there like that's again another tangible thing Shahar who at this point has so many properties and a lot going on he knows the value of walking the property uh experiencing the property and I I recommend to people and I just did this when I was in Florida I went by both of the houses I actually didn't stay there but that was mostly because my fiance was working with the Miami open and doing like uh interviews with the (24:31) players so we were staying down in Miami but I went to the property I and I walked it and I like the way I think about it is like all right I'm a guest I'm entering the home like you just want to think of it like I've never been here before I'm going into every room I'm touching everything I'm opening every drawer like what would my reaction be and a lot of times like cleaners for whatever reason like they just don't have that mindset like they you know they want to make sure it's clean but they're not really thinking about like (25:00) the little things of you know this should be put in this area like things kind of get disorganized no matter how much you you tell them so once a year like my rule is I want to be at the properties once a year and just to catch things that nobody else catches I have 25 so it's doable like I can physically do it you know a lot of them are in the same place so I can knock out you know at the lake I can knock out eight of them in the same day so it doesn't doesn't mean I have to spend 25 days doing it but I think that that's just (25:32) like so important you're a businessman you've got a lot going on but you're the one you know doing the soft openings of the properties and like feeling the experience yourself uh it's high leverage yeah 100% you check like the design you want to give them like input like you want to check the construction level like yeah there is nothing like experience the house like a guest exactly so what's so how long have you been building boom is that something you built for yourself and your company first before allowing others or what's (26:05) 2017 so from 2017 we built basically boom on top like it was designed VR right so and then we uh split the company into two around a year ago got it you split the company into two a year ago and then how's that how's that been going do you have any like data points you can use on how many properties are powered by boom powered by boom sounds cool uh how many or how many different property managers or anything like that the cool thing with boom that it's really fun to say so really happy about boom yeah all the time I'm writing a (26:40) post so somebody will write boom and and I love that I love I love the name uh we we have a really big grow right now like we are in let's see in let's see how many continents so we are in Africa we in Europe uh us uh yeah and Mexico as well got it and are you mostly right now the big property managers are the ones you're working with like you're working to support the the big guys or the people with you know one property so one property no right now although with the AI solution that we are going to to like that we are (27:22) bringing the point is to give the level of like a a high level company to this to somebody that even have one Properties or two properties ER but in reality our average customer right now will have around a 100 Doors uh which I think it's a set of mind I think where you want to be so for example one of the biggest developer in South Africa started working with us so they have 20 properties but they want to be in the end of the year 500 properties and by the end in two years like more than a thousand properties so so it's (28:03) really depends on on where you want to take stuff how you want to look at your company uh and how professional you are so I would say that if you have more than 25 proper properties you can definitely work with us that we you will feel how important the solution is and with the right infrastructure it's helping you really growing and scaling right so exactly so you got you guys can help anyone but those who like you know once you're at 100 properties like you're looking for solutions that that can help you uh even 25 properties frankly I'm (28:44) always looking for solutions that can make my life easier uh improve my team's productivity lower cost but obviously it makes sense for you to provide value to those who get the most value out of what you provide which is the big guys uh how do you do you charge per property currently or yes we charge we charge for propertiesdepends on the model solution that you pick and on top of that we are charging for AI solutions that will take the amount of employees that you have got so how big is your You're Building all this (29:14) stuff how how big is your team in between my companies I have more than 100 employees how how many how many's booming how many on on the AI team we we got AI doing everything at boom so it's just you so actually yeah no no in reality like the it's also a big thing what you just ask right because in reality AI will allow you to do much more with much smaller amount of people so the solution that we build for boom customers it's also the solution that we use as Boom for the outside if it makes sense meaning in in few years (29:56) from now not now but in few years from now you will have billion dollar companies that are running basically by a few people probably SE level people uh but that's the future that we're looking at because think for example who will be your best salesperson right so somebody that answering less than 30 seconds right that will argue on a price up until you tell him stop when you tell him stop obviously in the parameters that you will let him to do on it's if you say no it will give you comparable that will be like matching like (30:42) something cheaper or something more expensive and if you say you know what not this year I went with somebody else next year when it will come closer to the date you he won't forget to ask him hey are you coming again to visit your family and if it's some somebody from Portugal will speak with him in Portuguese if somebody from China will speak Chinese he will speak to him in different habits because somebody from Portugal have different style of negotiating from somebody from United States so also so the tone and (31:16) the levels that you're answering it will work 365 days a year 247 no six time no benefits so that's the huge benefit of an AI basically compared to uh to a human worker but but what we are good is how do I create growth how to create strategic how do I take the DNA of the company and giving the AI the ability to do it how do I do the small modification that really can improve so so that's where we will uh get into it yeah I actually uh yeah thinking about that I had the I gave the task to one of my virtual assistants customer support (31:59) Representatives that hey reach out to all the previous guests at this property and inform them that the owner has opened up the summer calendar uh you know it's it's March the owner had just given me the green light for the summer so we want let the previous people know and like that was a really manual process to click through every reservation and go in hey hope you've been doing well uh just a remind you know probably took him an hour and a half I was like this could take AI I could have just literally that message I (32:33) wrote I could have just you know whatever boom gdpd It and Bang it would have been done in three seconds you know boom yeah boomed exactly uh so yeah so what so obviously you've got I I think it's really cool that um so you built and what was your previous experience I know you said you've been in real estate a while prior to that you know $1. (32:57) 5 million house that turned into a three whatever million dollar house what were you doing before then so I've done a lot I had like a retail in 28 states in United States I had the e-commerce business I had the SEO business I had a laboratory of computers is a hustling Israeli we had a aome you know AA Karm on on turnover BMB no no we've had him on he's Israeli too he lives in Hawaii you Israelis love your uh love your uh tropical tropical American destination gonna hang out with me in New York come on I know you like (33:31) we like it in New York too and I I have Israeli relatives but I always I respect is the living crap out of Israelis for a multitude of reasons but one of them just like the hustle you know it seems like you have that in you that you've you've done a lot uh so you happy that you got into the short-term rentals you seem you've been doing a lot of different things was that uh and then someone listening should they get into short-term rentals and if so do you have like a piece of advice for them yes love what you do find passion (34:06) in what you do if you love you're happy you're Happ short-term rentals was you did you were doing retail 28 States I'm super happy I love real estate I love hosting I love uh problem solving so for me it's answer a lot of my needs H to be honest and I find a lot of passion in it so I love what I do by the way in boom I have both of my brother H in the company uh so I love it we have a lot of friends a lot of family and with the same core values and the same vision and when you love what you do that's that's when magic happen so if I have to (34:48) give advice to somebody love what you do because we work so much time out of our life and it's much better like to do something that we love that we don't feel like oh my God I have to do itagain so if that's the feeling don't do it if you love what you do it's it's make all of the difference I couldn't agree more and what tips you know again you you have that management operator standpoint you have that owner uh owner hat and now you have that software provider hat someone looking to get into short-term rentals in 2024 what advice (35:28) would you give them other than love what you do find your Niche find what you can bring to the industry that is a little bit different than others ER find how to create value like people with the same um values as you have like the team that's surrounding you is really really important in your ability to bring dream into life uh and and understand what the benefits that you can bring if it's a second home if it's for investment purposes if it's for Developers that needs to move inventory find how you can scale your (36:16) operation and understand your pnl of your company in order to give a a a a good wealthy life that you can really enjoy amen that's all that's all we want so what can we be uh anyone who's curious about boom how could they learn more about you ER through Linkedin I posting a uh on LinkedIn a lot shakar goldb uh through the URL boom now. (36:49) com u a demo with a team I think it will be great to know the product uh so yeah one one one question not to backtrack a little bit uh before we cut off here what also advice for those I know you have you you built a property management business piece of advice to get co-host clients you manage $150 Million worth of properties that's that's you know that's a lot these are properties some of which you've raise money for some of which many of which you don't own how do you get co-host clients cohost or Property Management sorry it's a interchangeable word uh (37:27) rent vacation rental management with with owners you mean like like how do you get basically listings yeah someone who's listening what what would be an your advice for them to get uh list to get clients to be honest honest honest honest I was never so good at it it was always word to mouth that cap us like growing rather than the advertisement in order to get like new clients but if I would had to do it all over again without the connection of word to moue I would create more connection to uh uh realators to the (38:04) community uh and by that create growth and developers this is where I would focus my time in got it so referral Partners you would and that's uh initially one of the large channels that I use when I had zero track record was the Realtors who wanted to sell houses or also they were that real estate experts in the area who wanted to refer someone who knew how to talk the talk and that's why they connected people with me because you know just to have a conversation and be like a value ad connection 100% And I think in general (38:48) in businesses how do I create win-win situation and once you create a win-win situation you create a long-term relationship so for realator just for example if he can make the sale and can make the purchase and I'm not touching him as a like I'm not touching his client on that aspect and he creates value to his client because they can make more money from rental then it's a win-win situation for him if you get referral fee right so how do I create this win-win situation uh and know how to present it and create a growth all about win wins (39:30) y'all heard it here first so follow uh follow Shahar me and him are connected on LinkedIn so connect to both of us uh you know we'll make sure to post this podcast too when it's live so I guess you wouldn't see that post because you sorry I digress uh but Shahar man yeah anything else any other uh tid pits you wanna you want to leave us with today and I appreciate you being on man I I'm really happy I enjoy the conversation Jeremy I really enjoyed it likewise well I look forward to continuing to to follow boom's progress and I need to I (40:09) need to get booming myself admittedly I'm not booming currently but there I I should be booming soon so going to check that out and uh yeah everybody stay tuned for the next episode of the short-term ril Pros podcast