Letter from Our Founder

My name is Melissa and I am the founder of HostHelpr.  I doubt many people will read this, but there is a part of me that wanted to chronicle the HostHelpr journey.  Today, we just invited 300 “seed helprs” from Austin, TX to join as founding members.  These are all service providers who target the STR industry.  Some of them work here in Austin, providing local services, while others provide remote services.  I’m excited, and nervous to see how many of them respond.

Let me introduce myself and tell you a bit about my background.  Like most of you, I didn’t start my career in the short-term rental industry.  My career background is actually the arts, education, or research. As you can imagine, those fields are not particularly famous for their high salaries, but they are very rewarding.  As a professional “do-gooder” and a single mom, hosting was a great side hustle for me.

Over six years I managed up to 4 listings at a time (superhost with 250 reviews and a 4.9 average).  My teenage son did most of the cleaning, and looking back, he was lucky to learn about carrying meaningful responsibility at such a young age. I hosted, mainly for the financial opportunities it brought me, but I enjoyed meeting guests from all over the world and I enjoyed the creativity involved in making welcoming spaces. During my hectic life,  I found some peace in setting out fresh eggs for my guests, and humor in gathering leftover beer and countless phone chargers. Oddly, I sometimes even enjoyed the rush of an urgent problem that needed to be solved.  Part of what made hosting possible was having a good team of people on speed dial in those moments, but overall, it always felt like a very solo project.  LIke you, I mostly figured it out on my own.

Then, at the end of 2021, a lot of change happened for me.  The pandemic was lifting, my son spread his wings and left the nest, and I moved and had to stop hosting.  I was one of the millions in a wave of people who said “Nope, I’m not going back to the office.”  HostHelpr was born out of a move into a new era: kid out of the house, no listings to manage and suddenly a lot of time for dreaming and scheming. HostHelpr is something I had always wished for as a host, and it is supreme pleasure to make that a reality now.

HostHelpr will certainly grow over time.  I have no intention for this company to be a solo endeavor.  I’ll need help, too.  If you are passionate about helping hosts and supporting innovation in this industry, please find a way to be involved.  Of course, join the platform and promote yourself! But if you have BIG ideas, contact me directly and we can dream together.

-Melissa Andrews, CEO and HeadHelpr