Latest / Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights / Why your cheapest cleaner is your most expensive problem

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Why your cheapest cleaner is your most expensive problem · Host Planet: Airbnb, Holiday Let, and Vacation Rental Insights

• 0:00
  Welcome to the House Planet Playbook, your go to guide for
• 0:03
  mastering short term rentals. In this special series, we're
• 0:06
  sitting down with 30 of the world's top property managers to
• 0:10
  uncover what really drives success in the vacation rental
• 0:13
  industry. You'll hear their stories, learn
• 0:15
  the key lessons they've picked up along the way, and discover
• 0:18
  the game changing tech they use to deliver 5 star guest
• 0:22
  experiences. If you're serious about growing
• 0:25
  your STR business, you're in the right place.
• 0:28
  We've also developed an ebook featuring the stories of every
• 0:32
  manager in this series and you can download it for free.
• 0:35
  Head to house Planet dot Club to find out more.
• 0:38
  In today's episode, we're chatting to Freddie Blunt from
• 0:41
  Red Kite in the Cotswolds. Stand by for a deep dive into
• 0:44
  five Star hosting, in house cleaning and how to deal with a
• 0:48
  horse on the loose. This special series is brought
• 0:56
  to you by Hostplanet and Hospitable, the smart AI powered
• 1:00
  property management software trusted by hosts worldwide.
• 1:03
  With Hospitable, you can automate guest messaging, sync
• 1:06
  calendars across platforms and manage your rentals with ease,
• 1:10
  all from one powerful, easy to use platform.
• 1:13
  If you're keen to run your short term rental on autopilot, try
• 1:17
  Hospitable today. Visit hospitable.com/houseplanet
• 1:21
  to see how the platform can save you time, reduce stress, and
• 1:25
  maximize your earnings. Freddie, thank you for being
• 1:27
  part of the House Planet Playbook.
• 1:29
  Let's start with you. What's the name of your company,
• 1:32
  where are you located, and how many rentals do you manage?
• 1:36
  So yeah, we're, we're Red Kite. We're located in the Cotswolds
• 1:40
  and surrounding areas and we look after 110 homes at the
• 1:44
  moment. So tell us how you got started
• 1:46
  in the world of short term rentals.
• 1:48
  Yeah. So it would have been 2012 now
• 1:52
  showing, shame showing, that's been quite a long time.
• 1:55
  But I joined a company called Love Home Swap and they were a
• 1:58
  sort of luxury home exchange website and we did some rentals
• 2:02
  as well as part of that. That kind of got me into the
• 2:05
  long line travel accommodation that business sold to Wyndham
• 2:09
  Hotels. And I then joined a company
• 2:12
  called Air Sorted, which had been founded about six months
• 2:15
  prior. And they did Airbnb management
• 2:19
  in it sort of, you know, bread and butter form, but bringing a
• 2:22
  very sort of technological and automation approach to it.
• 2:27
  And it was just rocket fuel. It was, it was extremely high
• 2:31
  growth when I when I joined, I think we had 90 homes agreed to,
• 2:36
  you know, 900 in London, expanding to Edinburgh, Dublin,
• 2:40
  Manchester, all over the UK to further afield, Madrid, Lisbon,
• 2:44
  Dubai, you know, you, you name it, 20 cities as turning up like
• 2:48
  4000 homes that we were managing.
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  So crazy growth ended up rebranding to to house.
• 2:54
  And so that's was my sort of, I guess, sort of melting pot for
• 2:58
  industry experience being there for about 5 years, seeing all of
• 3:01
  the good, the bad and the ugly and everything that, that, that
• 3:04
  goes with it. And then 2020, my wife and I
• 3:08
  moved out to the Cotswolds and I saw an opportunity to to start
• 3:12
  my own business leaning on my experience.
• 3:15
  And yeah, so Fast forward a little bit to today.
• 3:17
  Superb. So tell us about the business
• 3:19
  that you've started in the Cotswolds and just talk us about
• 3:23
  the the growth. Yeah, definitely.
• 3:25
  So I ran it initially as a as a side hustle for about a year
• 3:29
  whilst I was working at another company just to see whether
• 3:32
  there was an opportunity here. I thought there was.
• 3:35
  And so we're spending a lot of time, you know, on the train
• 3:38
  into London, commuting, testing, landing pages, copy and speaking
• 3:43
  to first big clients, managed to grow that to 15 or so clients.
• 3:48
  And that point where I could go full time and that was so that
• 3:52
  would have been yes. So that was January 2022 and
• 3:57
  that first year was really about, you know, can I get to
• 3:59
  the next phase now? Can I hire the next first
• 4:01
  employee and kind of building it up there.
• 4:03
  And then then for me, I think where I see the opportunity the
• 4:07
  the Cotswolds is we had a very long standing relationship of
• 4:11
  sort of, of holidays and holiday letting operators for me, very
• 4:17
  traditional, very quite outdated in their approach, you know,
• 4:22
  doing silly things in, in my opinion, things like restricting
• 4:26
  when owners can stay in their home, charging owners, you know,
• 4:30
  to stay at their homes. And, and sort of lacking that
• 4:33
  flexibility in the world that I had come from at house was very
• 4:37
  much let's use technology to, to make this industry as sort of
• 4:42
  flexible and, and, and reliable as possible.
• 4:45
  So sort of bringing that, that mindset and trying to make the
• 4:48
  end to end management as sort of effortless as possible and quite
• 4:52
  a rural setting. So, yeah, it's been, it's been a
• 4:55
  really, really interesting journey.
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  And yeah, so now managing 110 units and the sort of growth has
• 5:01
  been sort of accelerating year on year with sort of the first
• 5:07
  team member, proper team joining in January 23.
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  And that's when we've been really starting to kick on.
• 5:12
  So yeah, we're excited for the future.
• 5:14
  So talk to us about your USPS then why do you stand out among
• 5:18
  the competition in the cost world?
• 5:20
  Yeah. So I think there's not a lot
• 5:23
  that do end to end full service management.
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  Some of the bigger national players will and then there are
• 5:28
  lots of sort of smaller players that will as well.
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  But there's no one really operating in that sort of middle
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  ground of probably 100 to 500 homes.
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  And that is, you know, a few reasons why, but I think we're
• 5:43
  we're really just sort of adding value is that end to end
• 5:46
  management and, and particularly around housekeeping.
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  I think a lot of people don't take housekeeping as seriously
• 5:53
  or they don't don't really design the company from the
• 5:58
  ground up to actually like add value and really control the end
• 6:04
  end cleaning, please. Like a lot of companies will
• 6:06
  lean on on on cleaning companies and they'll outsource it where
• 6:10
  it's a revolving door of sending a different cleaner each time.
• 6:13
  And that adds up to to loads of different issues.
• 6:16
  You know that that tea stain that was on the carpet there
• 6:18
  last week, They're not going to pick up.
• 6:20
  And those are the things that over time can just really add to
• 6:23
  add to poor owner experience. Poor guest experience to home
• 6:25
  gets quite tatty. And so for us, we really pride
• 6:29
  ourselves in taking housekeeping in in house.
• 6:32
  So the way that we work is we go to the effort to recruit, train
• 6:36
  and on board a specific housekeeper for each home.
• 6:39
  So they assign them to that home.
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  So they're there at every changeover.
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  They get to know the home. They have total pride.
• 6:44
  It's their it's their it's their income.
• 6:47
  They look after it extremely well and they sort of it's, it's
• 6:50
  really about property care and property maintenance.
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  And I think that's, but that that level above holiday, like
• 6:55
  cleaning really isn't just about cleaning.
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  It's really about the extra details that go into the great
• 7:00
  stay noticing, for example, you know, this, this cupboard used
• 7:04
  to have 12 hangers in there, but now there's only one left.
• 7:08
  So when the guest checks in, you know, notion those little
• 7:10
  details that I think cleaning companies wouldn't.
• 7:15
  And so that's where we're really adding value.
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  And the owners really like that as well because they often meet
• 7:19
  the housekeeper, they end up building a relationship with
• 7:22
  them as well. So they can hand over quite sort
• 7:23
  of unique points and it's really coming from that, that, that
• 7:28
  care and understanding that the home needs to be really well and
• 7:31
  monitored and, and, and looked after.
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  So I'd say cleaning, housekeeping, how we manage
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  housekeeping is, is, is a big one.
• 7:39
  And then the flexibility piece is also a big one.
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  So every owner that on boards for us, you know, we give them a
• 7:45
  drop down of options of how they want their home managed,
• 7:47
  particularly around like maintenance.
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  So if they want us to handle everything, don't call them
• 7:51
  unless it's a fire, but there's a, there's a certain, certain
• 7:54
  threshold of spending that they're happy for us to crack on
• 7:58
  with or whether they want to be informed or everything that
• 8:00
  comes their way. So it's really about partnering
• 8:03
  with them, I think, and, and, and adding that flexibility to
• 8:07
  their service, you know, within, within reason to ensure that,
• 8:11
  that we're partnering with them and that the home is being
• 8:12
  looked after as, as they wish. Because we know that every owner
• 8:16
  is different, every home is different.
• 8:17
  So it's important to the designs of our management service which
• 8:21
  can, which can deliver on that. So in the Cotswolds then, what
• 8:25
  are the main challenges and opportunities in your location?
• 8:30
  Yeah, I think the main, main challenges definitely come to to
• 8:33
  talent. It's quite a, it's quite a wide
• 8:36
  geography, but there isn't, you know, population density is
• 8:40
  isn't huge. And so, you know, good cleaners
• 8:44
  particularly are hard, hard to come by.
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  And so we sort of scour the earth quite, quite carefully
• 8:50
  trying to find them and, and pay them really well.
• 8:52
  As a result, they're paying between 20, you know, coming up
• 8:54
  to £25 an hour now to find, find the best one.
• 8:58
  And then we've done the maths and it works out downstream
• 9:02
  that, that, that it, it pays itself off very, very, very
• 9:04
  easily. So yeah, I find talent as well,
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  not just on the sort of on the operation delivery side, but
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  also I think in internally as a team.
• 9:12
  So we're, we're fully remote and that's enabled us to hire talent
• 9:17
  outside of the Cotswolds where where needed.
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  So for example, we've got two and two in London, we've got one
• 9:25
  in Wales, but also you know 5 or 6 located in the Cotswolds
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  itself. So it's enabled us to think, OK,
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  is this role really required to be in the day-to-day in the
• 9:34
  thick of it? Or can they sit back and be much
• 9:36
  more kind of like operationally strategic in terms of our
• 9:38
  processes and the software that we're using and really be smart
• 9:41
  about how operating. But you know, of course, we, we
• 9:44
  get together every two or three weeks for a long lunch and we
• 9:47
  don't, don't do that much work to be honest.
• 9:48
  When we meet up. It's just about getting together
• 9:50
  and, and, and, and hanging out. But so, yeah, I think it comes
• 9:54
  down, comes down to talent definitely as, as, as the
• 9:56
  challenge here locally. And then in terms of
• 10:00
  opportunities, yeah, I think there's a huge market to to
• 10:04
  uncover here. I think we're only really
• 10:06
  scratching the surface. We want to get 500 homes by by
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  20-30. We definitely think that's
• 10:12
  possible. I think the biggest opportunity
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  is, is convincing owners that are doing it themselves to
• 10:18
  partner with a company like us. We're really focused on the
• 10:21
  details and have that personal approach and we're confident
• 10:24
  that we can do that, you know, relatively at, at scale in the
• 10:28
  systems that we're using. But having that, that, that,
• 10:31
  that local person on the ground with, with paired with the
• 10:33
  dedicated housekeeper, we think we can get that.
• 10:35
  So the, the challenge is really to how can we communicate that
• 10:39
  to, to owners and convince them to go over the service like ours
• 10:42
  so that they don't lose that, that personal and approach to,
• 10:46
  to guests, which often they like.
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  So and we've had some really good success with that so far.
• 10:50
  So we're excited to to to go after them, but also to go head
• 10:54
  to head with some of the competition where everything we
• 10:56
  can move, move a bit further on as well.
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  Really interested in your approach to cleaning because I
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  think it makes a lot of sense to to the house and property
• 11:05
  managers out there who just think I'm just going to employ
• 11:09
  the cheapest option. What are the perils of doing
• 11:12
  that? I mean, so many.
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  So yeah, first of all, preparation of the home, if it's
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  not done to, you know, five star standards throughout 100% of the
• 11:25
  property, the guests are going to pick up on that.
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  So first of all, unlikely to get a five star rating, they might
• 11:31
  ask probably ask for a refund on that.
• 11:34
  So the sort of already you're, you're at back foot in terms of,
• 11:38
  you know, financials, right, If you're paying some £12 an hour
• 11:40
  that you're getting 20 lbs refund, you know, may as well be
• 11:43
  paying a housekeeper 20 lbs an hour.
• 11:46
  But also, yeah, in terms of ranking on Atas, if you're if
• 11:50
  you're reliant on those, if you're being marked down on
• 11:52
  cleaning schools, you know, the downstream effects of that are
• 11:56
  of being booked versus someone else who's got very high
• 11:58
  cleaning schools obviously are obvious.
• 12:01
  But I think just in terms of the property care perspective as
• 12:03
  well, not picking up on damage, not looking after the home, you
• 12:09
  know, proper bin management. Yeah, like I mentioned, if
• 12:13
  there's like chocolate or wine stains on sofas, the next guest,
• 12:17
  you know, the cleaner comes in, just cleans over it, doesn't
• 12:19
  raise it and then holds the previous guest accountable and
• 12:22
  deduct it from their security deposit or air cover.
• 12:24
  If it's via AB and B, it's really about being really on top
• 12:29
  of the home and, and not not just cleaning because, yeah, if
• 12:33
  you need to, you get the sofa covers and dry clean, that's an
• 12:36
  extra cost, right? Whereas if you have that
• 12:39
  previous guest accountable or whether you need to replace an
• 12:41
  item over time, these costs are going to add up.
• 12:44
  So you really need to be on like a hawk at every changeover.
• 12:48
  And if you hire a really fantastic housekeeper who takes
• 12:52
  pride in their work and is really focused and is a good
• 12:55
  match for that home. And the, the number of issues
• 12:59
  that it solves down the line is, is, is phenomenal.
• 13:03
  And I've seen on, on both sides, right?
• 13:05
  Like at houses, very much a marketplace model where you'd
• 13:09
  match a housekeeper with a, with a booking based on, you know,
• 13:13
  cleaning rating or location. It was in London.
• 13:15
  So it's, it's a different market.
• 13:17
  And then also on the cleaning company side.
• 13:19
  And I think for us in the market that we're, we're in our, our
• 13:23
  model makes sense and we're seeing some really, really good
• 13:25
  results there. Great cleaners are worth their
• 13:28
  weight in gold, no doubt about that.
• 13:32
  Guest experience Then what are your top tips for delivering an
• 13:36
  outstanding guest experience? Yeah.
• 13:38
  I mean, you know, I think when you're in the in the thicket of
• 13:42
  the industry, it's so easy to over complicate the stuff.
• 13:46
  Really it just comes down to getting the basics right in in,
• 13:49
  in my view and really becoming laser focused on that.
• 13:51
  But as you grow, things get more complicated and with your
• 13:54
  systems and how you deliver that.
• 13:56
  So like it's easy to get lost in the sort of web of reviews and
• 14:00
  feedback and everything. But I think for me, what it
• 14:02
  comes down to, first of all, it's been setting expectations
• 14:06
  on the listing. You know, what are they booking?
• 14:08
  Have you take the right amenities?
• 14:09
  If you have take the wrong amenity by mistake, you can get
• 14:13
  found it very quickly and a refund's going to be owed.
• 14:17
  Is your photography, you know, is it selling it too much?
• 14:19
  Have you got really wide angle lens on there?
• 14:22
  Is a photography realistic? Is your description realistic?
• 14:26
  If it's a 15 minute walk into town, say it's 15 minutes, not
• 14:29
  an eighth and 10 minutes stroll. Just be really realistic with
• 14:33
  the property. I think, you know, you'd
• 14:35
  probably want to sort of undersell it slightly so that
• 14:39
  guests are really pleased when they walk through the door.
• 14:43
  So, yeah, I think it comes down to setting expectations in terms
• 14:47
  of the property that they're booking.
• 14:49
  Secondly, I'd say responsiveness.
• 14:52
  You need to be responding to, to to messages, you know, I'd say
• 14:54
  within within 30 minutes, ideally 20 minutes.
• 14:57
  So that guests, I've got that customer service, they've got
• 14:59
  that, I've got that responsiveness.
• 15:01
  So there any questions like can we, do we need to bring towels,
• 15:03
  can we check in early? Any of those sorts of things are
• 15:05
  dealt with really quickly. And then the final piece comes
• 15:09
  down to, I think what makes a great stay and not cutting
• 15:14
  corners. You know, things like leaving
• 15:16
  out salt, pepper, loads of spices.
• 15:17
  You know, we go to the extent of leaving olive oil and balsamic
• 15:20
  vinegar and extra bits and pieces, ensuring that there's
• 15:23
  plenty of tea towels, you know, bath mats and just making sure
• 15:26
  that home is really well configured so that when they
• 15:29
  walk through the door, they have enough of the basics to get
• 15:33
  going. Of course, the self catering
• 15:35
  puppy, you've got the benefit of cooking from home.
• 15:37
  So buying things like olive oil and gold salmon mini gives a bit
• 15:39
  of a bit of a pain if you're not going to take it home with your
• 15:41
  rights. So having that already in the
• 15:43
  home is is nice and obviously hair dryer and ironing boards
• 15:47
  exception all those pieces. So I think it's about not
• 15:49
  scrimping on the basics that don't cost very much and
• 15:53
  ensuring that the homes can, guests can just walk through and
• 15:56
  start enjoying the home and relaxing and and having that
• 15:58
  well, well love to have time off.
• 16:00
  And what are your top tips for keeping owners happy?
• 16:06
  Yeah, I think for, for us, we've had, we've had quite a good
• 16:10
  ride. Our NPS is really high for us.
• 16:14
  We have very candid conversations with our owners.
• 16:17
  So in terms of projections and a lot of them want to know what
• 16:20
  they're going to be earning when they're coming on board.
• 16:22
  We're very realistic with our projections, that hard way of
• 16:26
  being too overzealous and ultimately not being able to
• 16:28
  meet those. So taking decisions.
• 16:30
  I think similarly, like with listen, descriptions and so on,
• 16:33
  it's about setting expectations about what's realistic and so
• 16:38
  that they're often pleasantly surprised when they're getting
• 16:40
  their earnings through being a great team to work with.
• 16:44
  I'd say, you know, we're all very personable, I'd say
• 16:48
  trusting a nice bunch of people. But I think, you know, in this
• 16:51
  industry, you have to be, you know, you weather a lot, you
• 16:53
  have to be positive, upbeat. And that goes a long way for
• 16:57
  earners. You know, they're really,
• 16:58
  they're trusting you with their homes.
• 16:59
  They want to have that relationship.
• 17:01
  So yeah, we assign a dedicated account manager to them so that
• 17:05
  they have that point of contact. And the third piece I'd say is
• 17:09
  simplicity. There are so many moving pieces
• 17:12
  and holiday let's and owners look to management agency to
• 17:16
  hand over a lot of that. So we have to really earn our
• 17:19
  keep there. And so we've worked really,
• 17:21
  really hard to simplify things as much as possible.
• 17:24
  So that's things like through through onboarding, you know,
• 17:26
  what can we take off their shoulders?
• 17:28
  So we do a lot of maintenance before the home gets up and
• 17:31
  running up to our standards. We've got a long requirements
• 17:34
  list. You know, we're happy to go and
• 17:35
  order all of the items to sort of take that weight off the
• 17:38
  earners. You don't take a margin there.
• 17:39
  So it's really about staging the home and getting it well set up.
• 17:42
  So in our interests as well, but it's all about kind of working
• 17:45
  in, in partnership and you know, many other things specifically
• 17:50
  around billing. We manage all of the payments,
• 17:53
  we pay them out once a month, one easy account statement with
• 17:55
  their debits and their credits. So it's just nice and
• 17:58
  straightforward trying to treat it similarly like a long let and
• 18:01
  just trying to remove that friction without them really
• 18:05
  knowing that we're managing, you know, 10 or 12 changeovers a
• 18:08
  month and everything else that's going on in between that sort of
• 18:11
  really earning our management fee and trying to take that
• 18:14
  workload off their plate and, and, and, and, and pay them out
• 18:18
  once a month. And what's been your biggest
• 18:21
  lesson learned since you started the business?
• 18:25
  I mean, I think starting a business has been a much tougher
• 18:30
  hill to climb than I thought initially.
• 18:34
  I'd worked closely with with founders and previous
• 18:37
  businesses. So it kind of gave me the
• 18:38
  confidence to start my own thing.
• 18:40
  But I think it's, it's, it's, it's a different chapter in
• 18:46
  every phase of growth. And whether that's your first
• 18:48
  hire, your third hire, your 7th hire, or, you know, the number
• 18:52
  of clients that you bring on every, every phase has slightly
• 18:55
  different challenges which, which, which, which which it
• 18:58
  brings. So I think you have to be like
• 19:00
  super adaptable and I think not necessarily just property
• 19:03
  management, but yeah, having to be a chameleon and wear like 18
• 19:08
  different hats and every day and just look at everything with
• 19:12
  with intense focus and you're having to work incredibly hard,
• 19:15
  but also smart when the opportunity arises.
• 19:17
  So I think for me, like the, the number one thing that I've
• 19:22
  learned is, is, is resilience. Like you have to be absolutely
• 19:26
  committed and really believe in what you're building with utmost
• 19:29
  conviction. And that will get you through
• 19:31
  some really long days, some really long weeks.
• 19:33
  But yeah, we thankfully a lot of that is behind me now with with
• 19:38
  a great team in place slightly on the other end, but we're
• 19:41
  ready to get cracking with Phase 2 now and.
• 19:44
  What do you love most about hosting?
• 19:48
  It's got to be, it's got to be the reviews.
• 19:50
  You know, when you get a review of a guest saying we've stayed,
• 19:54
  we've travelled the world over, we've stayed in, you know, over
• 19:57
  50 airplanes or other places and this has been by far the best
• 20:01
  place we've stayed in. You know, the service, the
• 20:03
  responsiveness, the detail as it's been second to none.
• 20:06
  You know, that's, that's really what, what keeps you going and
• 20:08
  what we're really striving for. So I've got to say that it's got
• 20:11
  to be a guest. Guest feedback, when it's like
• 20:15
  overwhelmingly positive, helps. When it's in the beautiful
• 20:18
  Cotswolds, of course, that makes the Five Star review.
• 20:22
  Yeah, we've had some great weather recently as well, so
• 20:24
  that helps. All right then, Freddie, we've
• 20:27
  got a few more quick fire questions to run through.
• 20:30
  So which PMS do you use? We use host away, but we have
• 20:36
  quite a lot of bolt ONS through their API that we that we run,
• 20:40
  yeah. Which dynamic pricing tool do
• 20:43
  you use? Price labs good.
• 20:45
  Shout out for Price labs. Which piece of tech couldn't you
• 20:48
  live without? It would be retail, which is our
• 20:53
  yeah, front end for, for our database, Yeah, probably used to
• 20:56
  be breezeway, but increasingly we're we're building much more
• 20:59
  on retail. Excellent.
• 21:02
  OK. Then ideally pets, yes or no?
• 21:05
  Definitely pets. Yeah, hot tubs, yes or no?
• 21:09
  Definitely not. Can't stand hot tubs?
• 21:11
  Definitely not. Ideally self check in or a
• 21:15
  personal welcome. Definitely self check in.
• 21:18
  And telephone call or AI response?
• 21:21
  Definitely telephone call. And your most memorable hosting
• 21:25
  moment? I mean there are, there are so
• 21:28
  many positive and negative. We've got one which is probably
• 21:32
  very Cotswolds focused. We had a guest call our
• 21:37
  emergency line at about 10:00 one night on a cold February
• 21:41
  evening. He was totally panicked and
• 21:45
  freaked out because there was a horse bolting around the lanes
• 21:49
  and didn't quite know what to do with it.
• 21:51
  And yeah, we had a new starter. He literally joined the week
• 21:55
  before. You know, it was really right in
• 21:57
  the back to the survive. You know, there's no playbook of
• 22:00
  what what to do when you've got a horse running around.
• 22:02
  It's the first time we've handled it as well, so we had to
• 22:05
  call around neighboring farms and ask if anyone had lost a
• 22:08
  horse and finally have to track them down and get them reunited.
• 22:11
  So yeah, that was quite memorable.
• 22:13
  I mean, there's so many. Maybe we've had cleaners
• 22:18
  rescuing cats, we've had weddings, we've had proposals,
• 22:23
  you know, you name it, we've seen it.
• 22:25
  It sounds like with with the horses and cats, that sounds
• 22:27
  like you're doing the fire break as well.
• 22:32
  Shout out time then. Is there an individual in the
• 22:35
  short term rental industry who's perhaps helped you on the way
• 22:38
  that you'd like to give a shout out to?
• 22:41
  I'd probably say James Jenkins Jates.
• 22:43
  He's the founder of of of house. It's definitely battles and fire
• 22:48
  for me into into this world. And yeah, his sort of a strategy
• 22:53
  around being very tech focused gave me a different lens into
• 22:56
  the sort of work of, of, of working world.
• 23:00
  So yeah, definitely, definitely him.
• 23:01
  I've got him to to thank for a lot of this is where I've built
• 23:04
  my experience and I know how to to start the business and crack
• 23:07
  on the next stage of my career. Fantastic.
• 23:10
  Final question then. Ultimate goal for your business.
• 23:14
  Yeah. So we feel like we're really
• 23:15
  just scratching the surface. We want to get to 500 homes
• 23:19
  before 20-30. We'll probably do some regional
• 23:22
  expansion in the process. But yeah, we want to be best in
• 23:25
  class, in, in, in, in what we do.
• 23:28
  And we're really excited to to hopefully, hopefully get there.
• 23:31
  Superb Freddie, it's been a real pleasure.
• 23:34
  Thank you for being part of the House Planet Playbook.
• 23:37
  Cheers, James. Thanks very much.
• 23:38
  Catch you soon. All right, that's it for today's
• 23:40
  episode. My thanks to Freddie for sharing
• 23:42
  his journey and for being part of the House Planet playbook.
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