EP 489: $200k Shark Tank Deal, Cuban/Sacca, 30,000 People Booked $12M Worth of Sports Weekend Housing from RentLikeAChampion CEO Mike Doyle

Mike Doyle, CEO of Rent Like A Champion, a vacation rental platform for sporting events. He has hosted 50 thousand travelers and made over $12 million in sales. Mike is a Shark Tank survivor who received an investment from Mark Cuban and Chris Sacca and both Mark and Chris are still very involved in the business.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – The Hard Thing About Hard Things
• What CEO do you follow? –  Elon Musk

• Favorite online tool? — Trello
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Not now
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “Start earlier and take advantages of those resources”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:30 – Nathan introduces Mike to the show
• 02:00 – Mike took a total of $200,000 from Mike and Chris for 10% of the company’s equity
• 02:10 – Shark Tank was their first round of funding
• • 02:27 – Mike wanted to get the deal and the exposure
• 02:38 – Rent Like A Champion’s valuation during Shark Tank
• 02:52 – Rent Like A Champion is currently in the market for raising
• 02:59 – Rent Like A Champion’s episode was filmed in June 2013
• 03:18 – In Rent Like A Champion’s platform, the sellers are the homeowners who own properties around stadiums
• • 03:29 – Buyers are the sports fans who are travelling to watch the games
• 03:33 – Rent Like A Champion is focused on non-urban destinations
• • 03:33 – The focus is smaller towns where there are not enough hotels for fans to stay
• 03:46 – Rent Like A Champion was founded in 2012
• 04:07 – Since 2012, Rent Like A Champion has hosted under 60,000 fans
• 04:18 – Total booked destinations: 7500 different places to rent
• • 04:24 – An average of 8 fans per rental
• 04:28 – Rent Like A Champion’s market is families and groups
• 04:46 – Rent Like A Champion has over 3000 homes
• • 04:51 – Rent Like A Champion has properties in over 100 towns in the USA
  • 04:56 – About 25 towns are considered their core market
• 05:16 – 2012 total bookings equated to $630,000 and Rent Like A Champion kept 22%
• 05:29 – Rent Like A Champion is about to reach $4.5 million this year
• 05:58 – In 2015, Rent Like A Champion made under $3.3 million and kept $720,000
• 06:15 – Rent Like A Champion is getting a fee both from the seller and buyer
• • 06:25 – 15% from the seller and 9% from the  buyer
• 06:47 – Rent Like A Champion is seasonal
• • 06:54 – Most of the bookings come from college football
  • 07:05 – Rent Like A Champion is now partnering with 6 PGA tournament events
  • 07:15 – Rent Like A Champion is also partnering with NASCAR races
• 07:55 – Most bookings come 68 weeks in advance
• 08:23 – In September, total of 750 groups booked
• • 08:39 – Gross sales for September is about $1.35 million
• 09:05 – Average order value:
• • 09:08 – $1600-2000 for a 2-night rental
• 09:36 – Team size is 5 full-timers and 5 part-timers
• 09:57 – Total transaction volume since 2012 is a little over $12 million
• 10:13 – How do you beat Airbnb?
• • 10:17 – Rent Like A Champion considers non-hotel destinations
  • 10:52 – “On the demand side, we’re able to be so targeted with our advertising towards sports fans”
• 11:13 – If Sacca didn’t miss out on the Airbnb deal, do you think you are going to be as aggressive as you are on Shark Tank?
• • 11:28 – The night before Mike is going to film the episode, they still didn’t think that Sacca was going to be one of the sharks
• 12:00 – Did we accurately see everything that went down on Shark Tank?
• • 12:05 – “It’s super condensed on what you see on TV”
  • 13:03 – Schedule suddenly changes
• 13:14 – Average reorder rate is 50%
• • 13:53 – Buyers book once a year
• 15:10 – How do you expand market shares after the sporting events?
• • 15:14 – There’s a ton of green space around college football
  • 15:20 – Graduation is already big for Rent Like A Champion but they’re still pushing it more
  • 15:30 - Rent Like A Champion is starting to working with wedding planners for reunion weekends
• 16:08 – Rent Like A Champion is doing instant booking where list houses can put the availability of their houses depending on a scheduled game
• • 16:53 – The pricing depends on the homeowners
  • 17:08 – Rent Like A Champion can give homeowners guidelines in pricing
• 17:20 – Depending on the game, the amount of buyers vary
• 18:00 – What is it like working with Chris Sacca?
• • 18:30 – “Chris and Mark have been incredibly involved and been receiving weekly updates”
  • 18:45 – Chris and Mark are very responsive and prompt in replies
  • 19:00 – Mike threw a big marketing event and Chris and Mark came to talk about an update segment in Shark Tank
• 19:39 – Connect with Mike through his business’ website, Twitter and Facebook
• 21:15 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Your business will being to DEFINE itself as you keep moving forward.
• EXPAND your niche. Don’t stay seasonal—continue to think bigger. 
• Start as EARLY as you can and take advantage of those resources.

Resources Mentioned:

• Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal  for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal  developers.
• Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
• Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
• Leadpages  – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
• Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
• Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email.
• Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Drip – Nathan uses Drip’s email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel.
• @RentLikeAChamp – Mike’s business Twitter handle
• RentLikeAChampion.com – Mike’s business website
• Facebook – Mike’s business Facebook account
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives