In 2014, I created a blog called RentalPreneurs.com, combining the words Rentals and Entrepreneurs. In 2020, it has changed names to become Rental Scale-Up. My goal is still to deliver actionable tips, proven best practices, and useful market trends to the women and men creating, leading, and growing rental businesses. Yet, the content is now better focused on a key audience.
In a way, this is what matters to you: A different name, but still the promise of delivering thought-provoking content for you. Behind the new logo and the new site, there is also the capacity to give you value on a more consistent manner:
- There is now a team writing content for Rental Scale-Up on a consistent basis, rather than just me trying to find the time between managing my own rentals in Bali and St Barths, leading projects and product marketing at the Booking.com headquarters in Amsterdam, studying market data and talking at conferences.
- I am now dedicating a big chunk of my work time to Rental Scale-Up. It means that I am already scaling up the educational content on this website while planning offline events in key places (more on that in a few weeks).
- You can rely on the delivery of a free bi-weekly newsletter, with the best of Rental Scale-Up and a roundup review of what it is new with the big players (e.g. Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking, Sonder, Sykes, etc.).
Why leave behind the name RentalPreneurs
It was a big decision to stop using the name RentalPreneurs. It was a great way to connect with you, rental business owners. It summed pretty well who you (and I) were. Over time, as I was writing more and more and as I was speaking at various conferences under the RentalPreneurs banner (e.g. VRMA, Vacation Rental World Summit), people started associating me with the name RentalPreneurs. So, why stop there?
First, when I tried to trademark RentalPreneurs in the US, I ran into the issue that the magazine Entrepreneur has been blocking small folks like me from using the term “preneur” in a brand. My US lawyer warned me that scaling an educational brand based on a shaky ground was not a good idea. So, in order to grow my brand, I had to change it. To know more about the issue, read Seth Godin’s blog post “Stop bullying the entrepreneurs“.
Second, at the same time that I was starting RentalPreneurs.com, fellow blogger Rachel Prince was starting her RentalPreneur.com website. Rachel has been delivering education through her blog, podcast and youtube channel. She’s doing a great job helping people invest in real-estate and use Airbnb to create a return on investment. As you can tell, our names and topics were quite similar. More than once, after speaking at a conference where I had mentioned the name of my website, some attendees would walk up to me, show me the RentalPreneur.com blog on their phone, and ask me whether it was the one that I had talked about.
Why Rental Scale-Up
While rebranding from RentalPreneurs to Rental Scale-Up, I first though hard about the people who have subscribed our newsletter, who like and react to the industry content that I am sharing on LinkedIn, who I have on Skype when doing consulting sessions, and with whom I hang out at conferences.
Most of you:
- have created what I call a rental business, e.g. manage a vacation rental property management company of 80 in a resort area, operate 25 short-term apartment rentals in a big city, or have transitioned from being a host to creating a full-fledged Airbnb property management company
- are looking to grow your revenues, become more profitable, and/or save time operating your business,
- are very busy, do not have much time for theoretical stuff, want best practices, see what is working, and beat their competitors by learning and applying new things
- are looking for ways to scale up your business, as the degree of complexity of coordinating operations, technology, and marketing is increasing
- like education, but cannot necessarily travel to conferences on the other side of the world
Thinking of you and of what I can deliver, I picked the name Rental Scale-Up: This is the promise to help you scale your business, to talk honestly about the issues you are running into, and to bring actionable solutions by finding advice from people who are walking the talk.
A new logo, a new website
Since February 1, 2020, RentalPreneurs is now Rental Scale-Up. The old website rentalpreneurs.com redirects to rentalscaleup.com.
You will notice that we have added a symbol for growth to our name. We are also using a more cheerful palette, yet still in tones that convey trust and seriousness. We are humble, friendly, reliable, and knowledgable.
How about your data?
My company operating RentalPreneurs, and now Rental Scale-Up, is the same. It is called Fashion Fox. It has always been the legal representative behind the website. So, if you had shared with us your email address to get our newsletter, nothing has changed. Similarly, if you were part of our educational circle called the RentalPreneurs Club, your data remains safe with Fashion Fox.
What is changing is that the newsletter and communications from us will be coming from our [email protected] email addresses. So, make sure to add these new names to your contact list. Here’s a cheat sheet on how to do in seconds, whether you are using Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, or other email services.
Contact Us if you have a question
Feel free to go to our contact page if you have any question. Let us know how we can help you scale your rental business.
You can follow our Rental Scale-Up LinkedIn page to read our latest insights about the vacation and short-term rental market industry.
Feel free to connect personally with me on Linkedin: Thibault Masson. Just mention that you are a reader of the website and let’s connect. Every week, I share the best of what I see happening in the industry and that matters to property managers.
