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Here’s the scenario: a married couple is traveling for the next month and want to rent their home out. They’ve got a great property in Santa Barbara but with a baby on the way they don’t want to deal with managing the listing or ensuring the guest has a great experience (well, besides the local map they intend to share with their 10 favorite restaurants circled). On the other side of the country is a young man who, with his boyfriend, wants to stay in Santa Barbara for a month this summer while he’s working on an ad campaign. Corporate rentals are so uninspiring and a hotel is so impersonal, but can they rest easy knowing the home they rent will meet all their needs?
What will happen to our two young pairs? Will they ever connect? That answer might have been “no” until Pillow came along, bringing a new layer of hospitality and property management to the short-term rental industry.
WHO: Sean Conway and Justin Miller are no strangers to scaling local marketplaces. They grew their previous startup, Notehall, to 54 campuses before being acquired by Chegg. While recharging their entrepreneurial energies with some international travel, the pair encountered a problem with their own apartments and identified an opportunity they knew they wanted to address: making short-term property rental painless for owners and comfortable for guests. And so was born Pillow.
WHAT: Pillow is a modern, short-term property hospitality company. It offers property owners guaranteed income while managing their listing and handling all the cleaning, amenities and basic on-the-ground services. For guests, Pillow ensures an experience that combines the benefits of staying at a home full of personality with a standard of quality that lets them rest easy.
HOW: Pillow now operates in San Francisco and Los Angeles, with plans to move into other cities this year. In these core markets, Pillow has brought many homes that were previously not being rented on to the short-term rental market by delivering simple software and an income guarantee for owners. These properties give platforms like Airbnb, VRBO and Homeaway exciting new listings for their customers. And when someone rents a Pillow-serviced property, they’re sure to have a clean, well-managed residence for their stay.
WHY: One theme core to Homebrew is our belief that the Bottom Up Economy creates new types of marketplaces, revenue streams and efficiencies. Pillow lives across all three - leveraging the growth of short-term rental marketplaces to create additional revenue streams for property owners and five star hospitality for guests.
We’re excited to have led Pillow’s seed round and to back the team creating the future of hospitality. If you’re a homeowner who wants to be powered by Pillow, check their site out here.