• Airbnb has an ambitious new plan to help you book anything.
• It's using celebrities like Patrick Mahomes to promote its new "Experiences."
• Those "Experiences" aren't quite like the ones you'll actually book — but its new "Services" seem useful.

Airbnb is trying to expand beyond just vacation rentals — and it's enlisted some celebrities like Megan Thee Stallion and Patrick Mahomes to get some buzz going for its new offerings.

I have some questions.

It seems like these big names are only here to tout the new "Experiences" — things like throwing the pigskin with Mahomes or hanging out with Megan for the day. These all cost nothing, but go to only a handful of contest winners.

The celebs are obviously only going to be around for this promo period. After that, are people going to turn to Airbnb for a day tour of Philadelphia or a cooking class in Honolulu? Maybe. I have my doubts.

Meanwhile, another one of Airbnb's launches — called "Services" (think private chefs and photographers) — could make a lot of sense for people on vacation who need to find a trusted … well, service person.

There's also something big in all of this for Airbnb: your data. More on that later.

For now, let's look at a couple of these "Airbnb Originals" that are part of its new Experiences.

Spend a Sunday Funday with Patrick Mahomes

Toss a football and have a barbecue lunch with the Chiefs quarterback at a rental cabin near Kansas City.

Only four people (and their plus-one ) will get to do this.

Become an Otaku Hottie with Megan Thee Stallion

This is the most exciting option (to me), but also one of the more confusing ones. Twelve winners will get to make ramen with the rapper, dress up in a costume, and play Xbox with her.

The description of the actual run of events looks like this:

There are a handful of other slightly less famous celebrity experiences that do charge. Brooklyn Peltz Beckham (son of David and Victoria, son-in-law of billionaire businessman Nelson Peltz) offers a cooking demonstration for $150 per guest. Pro wrestlers Nikki and Brie Garcia offer a chance to sit in on their podcast taping for $195. Chance the Rapper is having a listening party for $110.

A rep for Airbnb told Business Insider that pricing was up to the celebrity and that another A-list celebrity would soon be doing a paid event, with the fees going to charity.

How to actually win these free experiences

There's a disconnect here between these star-studded promotional things and the new Experiences Airbnb is trying to promote. These are largely contests to win a free prize, not an experience or service you pay for.

It's not unlike a classic radio station contest where the 25th caller gets to meet Paul Stanley, or the 1990s MTV contests where suburban teens can win the chance for a big band to perform in their backyard.

The actual product Airbnb is launching is more practical and down-to-earth: high-quality tours and food experiences from vetted providers.

Even charging a nominal amount makes these celebrity experiences very different. Airbnb subsidizes the event, likely cutting the celebrity a big check to participate. This is a different business model from the regular tour guides, who make their money from customers.

A prompt to fill out your user bio with more information

Well, there is something that makes sense about all of this. I figured it out when I started the process to sign up for Megan Thee Stallion's event on the Airbnb app.

It's about getting your sweet, sweet data.

As part of my application process, I was asked to continue to fill out my user bio — adding things like my favorite song from high school, my hobbies, where I went to school, and my pet's name (as a tech journalist, I must warn you here not to put information in a public bio that is commonly used for password reminder questions).

Tens of thousands of people want to hang out with Patrick Mahomes and Megan Thee Stallion. Only a handful will get to, but many will fill out their expanded bios, giving Airbnb lots of information on prospective users.

These expanded bios are part of Airbnb's new ambitious rebrand: to be a place not just for vacation rentals, but for people to hire other people for anything. And part of that is building out is convincing customers to make personalized bios, so that the vendors can better see who they're dealing with and vice versa.

I think the new feature called Services actually seems like a great idea — things like a hair stylist or makeup artist to come to your home or Airbnb rental for a big event are the kind of things people only want once in a while. And it will certainly open up tons of opportunities for chefs, trainers, stylists, etc., to get themselves in front of more clients.

But the Experiences? I'm not sure what this will all look like in a year after the celebrity buzz has died down.

• Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky says he does his most creative work at night.
• Chesky is leading Airbnb's redesign to go beyond stays to include booking services.
• In recent interviews, he said his night-time routine includes drawing, exercise, and late-night work.

Running a multibillion-dollar company often requires lots of early mornings. For Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, however, much of his work gets done late at night.

The 43-year-old is leading his company through a major redesign that enables users to book services on Airbnb in addition to stays. Chesky spent his Thanksgiving holiday weekend working on a 10,000-word plan to bring his vision to life and revising it to 1,500 words over the span of a few days, he recently told Wired.

There's a good chance that the plan came together at least partly in the late hours of the night. The billionaire told The Wall Street Journal that his creativity begins to peak at around 10 p.m. and lasts until bedtime, which is typically 2:30 a.m.

Before that, at 8 p.m., he exercises for about 90 minutes.

While CEOs like Apple's Tim Cook and Snap's Evan Spiegel set aside time in the morning to read and answer emails, Chesky said he prefers to use texts and phone calls since 2020.

Some of his nights include time for "personal stuff" like dinner, watching TV, or drawing. When he's in work mode, however, he's checking in with employees who are available at night or doing "heads-down work," Chesky told Fortune in March.

Chesky said he can afford to go all in on work some nights as a single man with his dog at home.

Airbnb declined to immediately comment further on Chesky's routine.

He's not the only CEO who has talked about working on his company late into the night. Aaron Levie, cofounder and CEO of the cloud services company Box, told Fast Company in 2013 that he goes to bed around 3 a.m. And in a 2023 podcast episode, Bill Gates said he once believed "sleep is laziness" before realizing the importance of a good night's sleep as a man over 40.

As the boss at Airbnb, Chesky said he can largely make his own rules, and emailing was the thing he "hated the most" about his job. He's also decided that he won't take meetings before 10 a.m. — about an hour and a half after he wakes up at 8:30 a.m., Fortune reported.

"When you're CEO, you can decide when the first meeting of the day is," Chesky told the Journal.

While Apple's Tim Cook and other CEOs often get into the office early, Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett, who plans to retire at the end of the year, has said he prefers to start his workday later in the morning.

"I will usually sleep eight hours a night," Buffett said during a 2017 interview with PBS.

"I have no desire to get to work at 4 in the morning," he added.

• Airbnb is now offering Airbnb Services for people to book private chefs or personal trainers.
• You can hire them — or hair and makeup artists or photographers — to come to your Airbnb or home.
• An Airbnb executive told BI it's one way the company is trying to win back customers from hotels.

In 2007, when Airbnb's cofounder Brian Chesky charged $80 for tech conference attendees to sleep on an air mattress in his San Francisco apartment, the rental did not come with the option to have a personal trainer stop by and lead a workout.

The short-term rental booking giant is in a different era these days. The $84 billion company lowered its revenue guidance for the second quarter, saying travel demand had softened, some local regulators had cracked down on Airbnbs, and competition with hotels was fierce.

On Tuesday, Airbnb launched an offering called Airbnb Services, which allows people to hire on-site professionals. These professionals — including private chefs, photographers, massage therapists, personal trainers, hairstylists, and makeup artists — can come to your Airbnb or to your home. Airbnb said that services are available in 260 cities and that many start below $50.

"Maybe you're staying at an Airbnb for a wedding. You don't have a spa on-site. Guess what? Bring the spa to you," Dave Stephenson, Airbnb's chief business officer, told Business Insider.

The new feature could sway travelers deciding between an Airbnb and a hotel, Stephenson added.

"People choose Airbnb often because of their location and amenities, but our amenities usually are maybe more space, more bedrooms, maybe a washer-dryer," he said. "But then there are still things that we don't provide that a hotel does."

Travelers are often deciding between hotels and Airbnbs

Time will tell if Airbnb Services can win over customers who might otherwise use local directories, other online listings, or social media marketplaces to hire in-home professionals.

Travelers deciding between hotels and Airbnbs have cited reasons beyond on-site amenities.

Duane Brown, a digital marketer who travels internationally at least seven times a year, told BI in August that he had decided to switch from staying in Airbnbs to booking hotels because of consistency.

The change of heart came after a stay in a Budapest Airbnb. Upon arrival, Brown was disappointed to find that the listing pictures hid damaged walls and a run-down bathroom. He said he began to trust the "standard of care" hotels provided. Airbnb has said it cracked down on quality control and, in March 2024, reported that it had removed 112,000 subpar listings from the platform.

"If there are no independent hotels or Marriotts, well, then maybe I'd go to Airbnb, but there's always been at least one of those in a city I go to," he said.

Mikhaila Friel, a former BI writer, enjoyed staying in Airbnbs on group trips, but for solo adventures to London, Luxembourg, Brussels, and Oslo, Norway, she booked hotels, in part to meet other travelers.

"It's not unusual for solo travelers to get lonely once and a while," Friel wrote. "I've found that staying at hotels helped massively, as I was able to socialize with employees and other travelers when I was there."

Joey Hadden, a BI travel reporter, said she preferred the quirks of unusual Airbnbs, choosing geodesic domes in Canada and a converted lifeguard tower in Florida over typical hotel stays.

"Hotels offer me a comfortable place to doze during my travels," Hadden wrote, "while Airbnbs give me another new adventure."

• A homeowner in Washington state turned a dilapidated chicken coop into a successful Airbnb rental.
• He said it cost about $38,000 to renovate the coop, which now brings in more than $2,000 a month.
• What started out as a shed used for personal projects is now a reliable way to cover his mortgage.

This as-told-to essay is based on conversations with Landon Wilkinson, an Airbnb host in Yakima, Washington, about two and a half hours southeast of Seattle. He and his wife have two rentals on the Washington property — a converted chicken coop, with rates from around $120 a night and up, and a shipping container —and a third in Montana. The conversations have been edited for length and clarity.

I've been an Airbnb host for going on 10 years now.

Before Airbnb really became a thing, I did some couch-surfing. That was a bit of a precursor to Airbnb and a really fun experience.

From my own travels, I got a taste for what was possible when people opened up their own homes and did cool things. When I was younger, I had a construction company. We fixed up houses and started doing long-term rentals. Then, around 2016, we attempted Airbnb with a really small house.

The house might have rented for $900 or $1,100 a month as a long-term rental, but we were pretty routinely making $1,600 to $2,000 a month as an Airbnb.

I grew up flipping houses for my dad, but the chicken coop was more ambitious than a lot of my previous construction projects.

Trying to visualize something out of that building was a very organic process. It started with fixing up the roof a little bit, and putting in some nicer windows. I thought, "I'll just make it a little shop. I'll make it more insulated."

Then, through that process, I realized, "Actually, I could make something really nice with this if I wanted."

Then I went all in.

Demolishing it would have cost $20,000, and fixing it up was around $38,000

I bought the 55-acre property in 2018 from my parents, who had bought it and were basically using it as additional farmland for hay.

There had been a house on it at one point, but it had burned down. There was nothing really on the property besides the chicken coop walls with a sort-of roof on it.

We didn't think we were going to do anything with the chicken coop. It was a 100-year-old, board-formed concrete structure. It was super dense and very difficult to demolish.

I thought, "We could either spend $20,000 trying to get rid of this structure, or we could see what we could make out of it."

In 2019, we were trying to landscape the property near where we had built our primary home. Every morning, we'd look out the back porch and see this chicken coop that was a real eyesore.

We started chipping away in the winter of 2019. It started to become more of a project, and I brought in some of my guys from the construction company to help.

We put in $38,000 — and a lot of nights and weekends — to get it live and set up the first time. Then, over the last couple of years, we've updated things, like furniture. We got a nicer hot tub.

I found a new back window on Facebook Marketplace and paid just $40 for it. If you're just a little bit creative on some things or willing to be flexible, those can be really big finds. That window new would've been a couple grand, probably.

I thought th coop wouldn't appeal to Airbnb guests, but my wife saw potential

This is the part of the story where my wife will say, "Make sure you tell them how much you resisted," because she was the one who felt confident about it being an Airbnb. I still had the image of a chicken coop in my head.

We argued about it a fair bit. She said, "Let me list the property photos of the landscape and describe what we can about the property and put a fairly low nightly rate on it, and we'll set a date when it's going to be available."

We started the project in December 2019 as a shed for my storage. By January, we realized it could be more than that. We turned it into the rental by April of 2020.

We had a nurse who came in April of 2020 and stayed there for two months. Once we got that booking, I thought, "I guess we really have to do this well and get it done on schedule."

When the nurse first moved in, we were still finishing up the landscaping, and we just barely got it done in time for her to be able to stay there. By the time she left, everything was really well done on the outside, and the landscaping had matured a little bit, so we were able to get updated pictures.

We have a nice branded sign on the door and on a pole outside the house that says "Ahtanum Cottage."

Income from the Airbnb quickly covered our mortgage

The cottage went live in the spring of 2020 and started doing really well. The 12 or 24 months after were the highest volume.

In August of 2020, we made about $6,000 in one month from that house. That's a peak outlier scenario. We usually average $2,000 to $3,000 a month in revenue. It averages around 65% to 70% occupancy.

I had a 40-foot, high-cube shipping container that I used when we stopped using the chicken coop for storage, to put our lawn and garden stuff. After the coop cottage was built, I started to envision what might work with the shipping container. So we embarked on building that in 2022.

The two Airbnb listings are more than covering our mortgage, which is around $1,100 a month. Our utilities in Washington, with three properties and two hot tubs, is somewhere between $400 to $500 a month.

It's harder to start an Airbnb these days, but the potential for profit is bigger

It takes a little bit more work to get an Airbnb set up — especially now that the competition is stiffer. In the early days, it was pretty easy to make something work on Airbnb. Now, you have to be a little bit more competitive in adding amenities that really sell the property.

If you're able to manage a property well, Airbnb is generally a much better return on investment than a long-term rental. In many cases, you can't make long-term rentals work at the current mortgage rates anyway. So, unless you got in while rates were still low, you're kind of forced to be somewhat creative.

The chicken coop started as, "How do we get rid of this thing?"

It was hard, when we were looking at it in its former state, to visualize it as anything else. But once you start to fix up a few little things, the vision becomes clearer.

We probably could've marketed it as a chicken coop, but it's one of those things that, to me, seemed like it could backfire. We wanted it to be something that people perceived as what it is now instead of, "Oh man, it was a dump before."

It probably would have been a great marketing move, but I was a little bit chicken, no pun intended.

At the time, we weren't as confident that a unique stay, being a chicken coop, would've been a positive thing. Now, in hindsight, it probably would've been a good idea.

• Airbnb's CFO said fewer foreigners are booking nights in the US than last year or earlier this year.
• Airbnb CFO Ellie Mertz also said Canadians, in particular, are pulling back on travel to the States.
• Canadians are visiting Mexico, France, Brazil, and Japan instead, she said on an earnings call.

The number of foreigners booking Airbnbs in the US has decreased from last year and earlier this year, with Canadians "traveling at a much lower rate," according to Airbnb's CFO.

CFO Ellie Mertz said during Airbnb's first-quarter earnings call Thursday that US reservations from foreign travelers were down, citing "economic uncertainty" as a factor.

"We absolutely have seen a decline in popularity of foreign travelers coming to the US," she said on the call.

"Guests who would have in a prior year come to the US are simply choosing a different location," she added.

Nights booked by Canadian guests to Mexico increased 27% between March 2024 and March 2025, according to Airbnb's letter to shareholders about first-quarter earnings.

In earnings calls this week, executives at Hilton and Booking Holdings, which owns Booking.com, Priceline.com, and Kayak, said that Canadian travel to the US had flagged, spotlighting Mexico as a place with upticks in Canadian visitors.

On the Airbnb earnings call, Merrtz said that Canadians are traveling more domestically. She also said they visit Mexico, Brazil, France, and Japan.

"In this moment, it's not necessarily that people don't want to travel, they are just using different destinations," Mertz said.

Canadians have expressed dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump's tariffs and remarks about annexing it as another state. Some have boycotted travel to the US.

Mertz also said that even if Canadians and other international travelers are choosing destinations outside the US, foreign travelers to the States only make up about 3% of Airbnb's business.

She said most nights booked on Airbnb in the US are by domestic travelers, and only a "single-digit percentage" of global nights booked come from international travelers to the US.

Shares of Airbnb closed higher by about 1% on Friday after the company reported earnings that were roughly in line with expectations.

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky told investors and analysts on the earnings call that he believes the booking platform has endured during past periods of economic stress because it offers travelers options at affordable price points.

"We started Airbnb during the Great Recession of 2008. People turned to us for a more affordable way to travel, and they started hosting Airbnb to earn extra income. Then, in 2020, when the pandemic hit, we provided a way for people to travel close to home," he said. "Today, things feel uncertain once again. But just as we've shown in the past, as the world changes, Airbnb will continue to adapt."

• Vrbo took shots at its rival Airbnb in a Super Bowl commercial and a cheeky billboard campaign.
• Airbnb challenged Vrbo's phrasing to the National Advertising Division, an independent regulator.
• Vrbo said it would stop using some of its claims that imply Airbnbs always have on-site hosts.

Vrbo has taken a few big swings at Airbnb, its main competitor, in the past nine months.

First, the vacation-rental company ran a commercial featuring famously intimidating football coach Nick Saban. In the ad, which debuted in August, he pretends to be an overbearing Airbnb host, lounging in a hot tub with guests who plainly preferred to be left alone.

"When other vacation rentals make you share your turf with a host, try one you have all to yourself," the narrator said.

The spot also ran during the 2025 Super Bowl, when 30 seconds of airtime cost a reported $7 million.

In March, Vrbo put up tongue-in-cheek billboards, including one right outside Airbnb's San Francisco headquarters. The text on some billboards emphasized that Vrbo is host-free.

Now, a national watchdog group has ruled that Vrbo took some of its claims too far and recommended it stop using the commercial and billboard. Vrbo said in a statement to Business Insider that it will comply.

The National Advertising Division, an independent regulatory body founded in 1971, reviewed the Vrbo campaign after Airbnb filed a complaint. This week, the NAD determined that Vrbo inaccurately communicated to consumers that "Airbnb always has hosts that cohabitate with guests during their stay."

Airbnb filed the initial claim for the NAD to review Vrbo's campaign, but both companies' cooperation during the NAD review process was voluntary.

Companies typically file a complaint with the NAD when "they see advertising by a competitor that is unsupported or might be misleading," NAD attorney Eric Unis told Business Insider.

"We're pleased with the NAD's decision," a spokesperson for Airbnb told Business Insider.

Vrbo said in a statement to Business Insider that it took issue with some of the specific critiques in the NAD review but did not elaborate on them. Vrbo also said it would follow the recommendation.

"We stand by our messages and respectfully disagree with NAD's findings on two claims, but will comply with the required changes," a spokesperson for Vrbo said.

Advertising expert Ashley Rutstein told Business Insider earlier this year that confrontational marketing can be a fruitful strategy, especially when an underdog is trying to punch up.

Airbnb commands a 44% market share of the global short-term-rental industry, dwarfing Vrbo's 9%, according to a 2024 estimate by travel news site Skift.

Rutstein told BI in March that she believed travelers could easily find listings without hosts on-site via Airbnb, not just Vrbo, which weakened the Vrbo campaign's effectiveness.

"They had the right idea, but not the right execution," Rutstein told BI.

The NAD recently issued another ruling in a spat between beer rivals Molson Coors and Anheuser-Busch. Molson Coors claimed its competitor's light beers "taste like water," but the NAD found Molson Coors submitted no evidence supporting the claim.

• Darrel and Patrice Maxam started renting out bedrooms in their Atlanta home on Airbnb in 2015.
• They ended up building additional units — tiny homes and treehouses — on the property to rent out.
• Their latest project: a group of wooden cabins in upstate New York that make over $30,000 a month.

When Darrel and Patrice Maxam moved from Connecticut to Georgia, they bought a 1956 bungalow for $249,400. Because they'd used most of their money to buy the home, they struggled to afford the $1,400 monthly mortgage payments.

"When we moved to Atlanta, we were really broke," Darrel Maxam told Business Insider. "We literally spent all of our money on a down payment — we had $1,000 in our bank accounts."

They decided to list a bedroom in the three-bedroom bungalow on Airbnb. Then they rented the entire house. Later, they began renting out a tiny house on the property. Eventually, the Maxams filled their two-and-a-half acres with nine different short-term-rental units: the main house, a tiny home, a converted barn, a triplex, and three "treehouses."

Now, the Maxams build and operate short-term rentals full-time. They sold the Atlanta property in September of 2024; Fulton County property records show it sold for $655,000. Their focus is a village of 13 custom-built cabins and properties in upstate New York that brings in between $30,000 and $60,000 a month.

Read on to see how the Maxams built their Airbnb empire.

They evolved from renting a single room to renting out the entire house

Renting out rooms brought in about $1,000 a month in profit, Maxam said, and renting out the entire home doubled that amount.

Maxam recalled packing up every weekend during the summer and vacating the premises while Airbnb guests were staying in their Atlanta home.

He said the couple would take 10% of his weekly paycheck, 10% of his wife's weekly paycheck, and 10% of the amount they were making from Airbnb and use it to find a hotel within 300 miles that worked within that budget.

"If we only had $400, we were going to plan a trip for $400," he said. "We would go as far south as Destin, Florida, as far east as Mississippi, and as far north as the Carolinas and Tennessee area."

Maxam figured the more units they put on the Atlanta property, the more money they would make.

First, the Maxams partnered with the HGTV show "Tiny House, Big Living" to build a tiny home on their property, which Maxam said earned them an extra $2,500 a month in profit.

"I was hooked at that point," Maxam said. "We had a barn in the backyard. I converted that barn to another livable space. Then, another year after that, I ended up building three more units. After the fifth unit on the property, we were generating roughly $15,000 a month."

At one point, the Maxams had their main house, a tiny home, a barn, a triplex with three rentable units, and three treehouses on the property. They took the tiny home with them when they left.

Maxam resigned from his full-time job working for the Department of Aviation and made hospitality his career.

They've built a village of cabins in upstate New York

In 2022, the Maxams' main project became Finger Lakes Treehouses in Sodus, New York, a small town 33 miles east of Rochester.

They partnered with Red Falls Timber, a New York-based firm that sources its wood from Finland, to build five A-frame cabins.

Each one has a kitchenette, a bathroom, air conditioning, and a private wood-fired hot tub. Nightly rates are around $250, according to the Maxam Hotels website.

Each A-frame structure cost him about $65,000, Maxam said. Since launching in 2023, the five cabins have brought in anywhere from $30,000 to $60,000 a month, he added.

"We don't touch a project unless we can be cash-flow positive within 18 months," he said.

The Maxams are planning to build five non-A-frame cabins with Red Falls Timber on the Sodus land this year.

Both cabin styles are prefabricated, which means they can be put together quickly, cutting down on both time and cost per unit.

"It'll take about three days to get them erected," Maxam said.

"You, right now, can come on site, look at my plans, and be able to put my building together," he added. "That's how easy they are — they're like Lego."

The Maxams have other dreams for the Sodus development.

"We have three Airstreams on the property right now, so by the start of the season, we'll have 13 units total," Maxam said. "Next year, we're going to go into phase three. We have these really luxury-style safari tents, and we'll build a bathhouse for them, also."

The plan is to have 19 total units in Sodus by next year, he added.

The couple has also purchased land in Belize with plans for a beach-centered venture in 2026 or 2027.

They believe slow and steady is the best growth

The Maxams entered the short-term-rental world humbly, but now feel like they are thriving.

Maxam said to get here, they took their time, using proceeds from one unit to build the next one.

"Everyone wants to rush and rush and race to do the largest project — and they don't know what they're getting themselves into," Maxam said.

"The only advice I have to someone starting out like me is to stay small enough, long enough, because soon enough you'll be big enough," he added.

• Abe Chong transitioned from copywriting to recruiting at Big Tech companies in his 30s.
• Chong's career change was driven by both dissatisfaction and a desire for higher earnings.
• He leveraged his experience and doubled his old salary to $250,000 in his current role at Airbnb.

I was 36 when I changed industries entirely. For the first 13 years of my career, I worked as a copywriter at agencies and on in-house marketing teams in Los Angeles.

My last few years in copywriting were spent in complete misery, despite a decent salary of $120,000. I was over everything about the job.

I hit rock bottom in 2018 after getting fired by a manager I didn't agree with.

Now, I'm a senior recruiter at Airbnb, making over double my old copywriting salary.

After getting fired, I reassessed my career

I applied for unemployment, and then I asked myself a sincere question: Do you hate your job or hate your career?

You might hate your job because of a micromanager or a brutal commute. Finding a new job can fix that. Hating your career? No new job can help.

I knew the title I badly wanted of creative director would never happen. I didn't have what it took to get or succeed in the job. I always fell short, and my self-confidence fell even further.

It's tough to admit you aren't good enough, especially after 13 years of trying.

I decided to try something entirely new

I could stay the course and make a decent living, but picturing myself as a 55-year-old copywriter arguing with a much younger social media manager over punctuation on an Instagram post was downright depressing. I had to change careers.

To start, I identified what was important in my next step:

• I wanted to increase my earning potential in Big Tech
• I didn't want to go back to school
• I didn't want to be in a field where my work was subjective

I set my sights on becoming a tech recruiter. No courses were required for entry-level positions, and I'd be judged by hires, not by somebody randomly liking one of the dozens of taglines I wrote for a product I didn't care about.

I considered program management and corporate learning and development. Most of my options centered on my strengths as a people person who enjoys guiding others. Ultimately, I felt it was only fitting to become a recruiter: I could help others in their careers after agonizing over my own.

Targeting a specific career was a critical next step

People contemplating career changes often ask me, "What do you think I could do if I'm a (insert job)? Or they'll send a résumé and say, "I'm open to anything you think I'd be a fit for."

That's not an efficient approach — not knowing where you want to go can lead to wandering. As I was closing in on my 40s, I didn't have time to try out different things.

I tailored my résumé to highlight the professional achievements I felt would be valuable as a recruiter: pitching and managing clients and working under tight deadlines.

Additionally, I searched LinkedIn to find recruiters at companies I admired and noted the responsibilities they listed on their profiles. I then filled out my résumé with similar responsibilities I had as a copywriter.

I contacted recruiters who had found me work as a freelance copywriter and asked if they were looking for trainees. I applied to agencies accepting entry-level applicants. I cold-emailed recruiting managers at companies I liked to see if they took interns. I wrote cover letters for the first time in a decade.

I also set realistic expectations

Many people who want to change careers are unwilling to take significant pay cuts, or they only target dream companies. It's fair to have standards, but starting over takes sacrifice.

I was fortunate enough to have a working partner support me and some severance from my last job — I recognize these are luxuries many don't have.

After a few months of searching, I landed an associate role at a tech recruiting agency called Binc for $60,000, half of my previous income.

I built trust quickly

I put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed, but I quickly learned age and experience can be huge advantages.

Many of my peers I trained with were 10 to 15 years younger than me. They were all awesome recruiters, but I had an extra decade-plus of experience managing projects and relationships.

I was comfortable working with client engineering managers as I had been dealing with demanding advertising clients for years — being around their age helped build and maintain the relationship.

My mental health drastically improved

I was excited about work and learning new skills daily for the first time in years. Despite my pay cut, I couldn't have been happier.

Luck was also on my side: I pivoted right before tech growth went parabolic, and my very first agency provided top-notch training while letting me gain experience at startups like Affirm and Robinhood.

I cracked 6 figures in 2 years

After just two years at Binc, I was making $100,000. I couldn't believe I was making almost as much as I was as a copywriter with nearly 15 years of experience.

In another stroke of luck, Binc was acquired by Robinhood in 2021, and I became an employee of one of the hottest tech companies in the Bay Area. Since the pandemic was still fresh, Robinhood was remote, and nobody was required to relocate.

I got restricted stock units for the first time, and my compensation approached $200,000. I even got to experience Robinhood's IPO and the infamous Gamestop short squeeze from the inside.

Now, I work at my dream company

In 2022, I landed a new role at my dream company, Airbnb, where I'm now a senior recruiter. It's been nearly eight years since I started this journey, and my total compensation is over $250,000 a year.

The alternate version of my life — the one where I turned into a 55-year-old copywriter writing Gen Z slang posts for a much younger social media manager — will never manifest. I made sure of it.

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not represent Airbnb.

• Green Bay, Wisconsin, is hosting the NFL Draft, with an expected 250,000 visitors coming to town.
• Some local Airbnb hosts expected to fetch rates four times that of a regular Packers game day.
• One host said she had to cut her Airbnb's nightly rate by over 80% from the initial price.

Airbnb host Matthew Bassuener owns a shrine to football in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

His unassuming ranch-style home — a 10-minute walk from Lambeau Field, home of the NFL's Packers — is decorated with an oversized mural of a vintage football game and memorabilia from Bassuener's own time as an Arena Football player.

When the NFL announced its annual draft would be in Green Bay, Bassuener was ecstatic. After reviewing projections from tools Airbnb hosts use to determine pricing, he listed his three-bedroom, two-bathroom Airbnb for $5,000 a night for the three-day event. A group booked it last July. For a typical Packers game, Bassuener will get around $1,200 a night.

In January, though, the group canceled, getting a full refund. Bassuener slowly slashed his rates until a new group booked at $2,250 for the whole weekend.

"It was definitely painful," Bassuener told Business Insider. "There are other hosts scrambling to get what they wanted."

On April 24, the NFL Draft kicks off in Green Bay, with an estimated 250,000 visitors descending on the city, according to ESPN. Some Airbnb hosts told Business Insider they had to adjust their initial sky-high expectations and cut nightly rates significantly to get bookings.

Hosts overall, though, are still seeing bigger-than-normal payouts. Airbnb and Vrbo hosts in Green Bay are projected to see an 846% increase in revenue compared to the same period in 2024, according to early data from short-term-rental analytics site AirDNA. Hosts told BI they just hoped their personal gains would be even bigger.

Short-term rental hosts often capitalize on major local sporting events and concerts, raising prices around the dates when more travelers are coming to town. Just ask the residents of Augusta, Georgia, who annually rent out their homes for Master's week, with some making enough during the annual golf tournament to pay for family vacations or cover their mortgage for the year.

The widespread use of online short-term rental booking platforms like Airbnb has created pop-up markets for big-dollar bookings. In 2023, the first leg of Taylor Swift's Eras Tour brought in more than $27 million for Airbnbs and Vrbos in the US, according to AirDNA.

Ahead of Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter tour, which kicks off next week, searches for Airbnbs in stops Houston and Atlanta went up by 620% and 400%, respectively, Airbnb told Axios in March.

Pinning hopes of profit to big events doesn't always pay off. Ahead of the 2023 Super Bowl in Phoenix, Arizona, some hosts were disappointed by demand and slashed prices. The city had recently experienced a surge in supply, with 21,000 Airbnbs and Vrbos opening.

Other Green Bay hosts have had to adjust their expectations

Green Bay native Nikki Engelbrecht owns two Airbnbs just outside the stadium: a five-bedroom she initially listed for $6,000 a night, and a three-bedroom she initially listed at $4,000 a night. They ended up booking at $2,500 and $650 a night, respectively.

Engelbrecht blamed the fickle nature of short-term rentals in Green Bay for the disconnect. For an off-season weekend, her rentals' rates will hover around $250 a night, but shoot up to $2,000 a night for a premier game.

"I think everybody just got really excited and thought, because it's the draft, they could charge $10,000," she told BI.

Michael Friedman, CEO Simple Life Rentals, which oversees 150 short-term units across Wisconsin, said one of its homes directly across from Lambeau Field rented at $3,200 a night for the whole draft after it was initially listed for $7,500.

Though he was disappointed, Friedman said he is still holding out hope. Because the NFL Draft is free, unlike a typical Packers game, some area fans from nearby cities like Detroit and Chicago might be keeping an eye on nightly rates to make a spontaneous trip, he added.

"I've talked to some people who said they're still waiting to see if the weather will be decent," Friedman said. "We're still hoping to get some bookings last minute."

• The number of Canadians traveling and booking Airbnbs in the US dropped 12% in March year over year.
• The decrease is consistent with dips in flight bookings and car travel to the US.
• It's another sign Canadians are pulling back on US travel as tariff tensions grow.

The number of Canadians staying at Airbnbs in the US dropped sharply last month, according to new data from AirDNA, a site that analyzes the short-term-rental market.

In March, there was a 12.1% decrease in nights booked by Canadian travelers compared with March 2024.

Canadians have been pulling back on travel to the US in response to growing tensions between the two countries over tariffs announced in January by President Donald Trump.

The short-term-rental market as a whole stayed steady in March, with average revenue per listing rising 1.3% compared with last year. Canadian travelers make up only a small portion of the overall US short-term-rental market, with just 2.6% of all bookings last year.

It's unclear whether the decline recorded in March will persist in April and beyond. Canadians booked US short-term rentals at slightly higher rates in January and February 2025 compared with the same months in 2024.

But Canadians hold a greater market share in certain destinations close to the US's northern border, including Buffalo, New York, and Bellingham, Washington, along with popular destinations for snowbirds, such as Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

"It may not affect the industry uniformly, but some places are going to see more impacts," an AirDNA economist, Bram Gallagher, told Business Insider.

Airbnb declined to comment.

Some Canadians are canceling trips to the US and expressing their patriotism

In February, then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau encouraged Canadians to reconsider travel plans to the US and instead support domestic tourism.

It seems some Canadians have heeded his call.

The number of Canadians driving to the US in February fell 23% compared with the previous year, according to Statistics Canada data. In March, the travel firm OAG said bookings on flights to the US from Canada had dropped more than 70% year over year for April through September.

An Airbnb host in Palm Springs, California, told Business Insider in March that a longtime, regular Canadian guest had abruptly left his California vacation that month and canceled a coming $7,000 reservation.

"I'm having real trouble sleeping here right now. I'm cutting my stay short and am going home to Canada," the guest wrote in an email to the host, Robert Carlson.

Carlson said he was worried that a Canadian couple with a $17,000 reservation later in the year might follow suit.

The US Travel Association estimated that a 10% decrease in Canadian travel could result in 14,000 job losses and $2.1 billion in lost spending in 2025.

Some Canadians, meanwhile, are feeling a sense of strong sense of national pride. A Toronto consultant, Dylan Lobo, told Business Insider there had been a massive spike in traffic on his website, Made in CA, an online directory of Canadian-made goods.

Since January, he said, there had been days when site traffic tripled overnight. The biggest surge came on February 1, when Trump imposed 25% tariffs on most Canadian goods, and traffic reached 100,000-plus visitors, he said. BI couldn't independently verify Made in CA's readership.

"There's a lot of patriotism right now in this country," Lobo said.

Gallagher, of AirDNA, suggested that worried Airbnb hosts in the US could promote themselves as sympathetic to Canadian travelers.

"It could turn into something you market around, expressing solidarity for Canadian visitors," he said.

• New vacation rental company Savvy took a swipe at Airbnb and Vrbo with its new Texas billboard.
• The company chose a spot near Vrbo's Austin office, mimicking Vrbo's recent sign targeting Airbnb.
• Savvy is emphasizing its no-fee model to lure hosts and guests away from the two bigger platforms.

Just in time for summer, a rivalry between vacation-rental companies is brewing.

Last month, Vrbo crowned itself the "hotter, cooler, friendlier" platform with a billboard teasing rival Airbnb. Vrbo put the billboard right outside Airbnb's San Francisco headquarters.

Now Savvy, a brand-new vacation rental company, is taking a shot at both of its much-bigger rivals.

Savvy placed a billboard close to Vrbo's Austin headquarters to drive home its "no-fee" model, mimicking Vrbo's own playbook for poking fun at Airbnb.

Savvy — an Austin-based startup with 13 employees that launched in February — promises no fees for hosts to list their properties for rent or for guests to book with them.

"As the new kid on the block, we thought it would be fun," Savvy founder Eric Goldreyer told Business Insider.

Savvy has 150,000 properties across US, Canada, Mexico, Goldreyer said.

It has a long way to go before catching up with its competitors. In 2024, Airbnb said it had 7.7 million listings around the world, while Vrbo said it had more than 2 million.

Goldreyer said he thought focusing on fees was a way to capitalize on common customer gripes about Airbnb and Vrbo.

"What customers really care about is saving money on their stay," he said.

Airbnb called Vrbo's sign "desperate," though Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky did post a laughing emoji on Instagram in response to it. Airbnb and Vrbo both declined to comment on Savvy's billboard.

Savvy is trying to draw attention to its no-fee model

Fees on Airbnb have been a sticking point for guests and hosts over the years, with some saying rising costs made them quit booking via the platform altogether. Airbnb has gone to extra lengths to make sure guests can easily see the total price of a stay including cleaning fees and taxes.

Airbnb primarily uses a split-fee model, where the most common arrangement is a 3% service fee for hosts and a fee around 14% for guests. Vrbo charges hosts a 5% fee and guests up to 20%.

Hosts list their properties for free on Savvy, and guests don't incur booking fees, Goldreyer said.

However, hosts can choose to pay for a subscription that boosts how prominently their home is featured on Savvy. Current subscription packages range from $5 to $20 a month, Goldreyer said.

Savvy is primarily targeting larger-scale rental operators to grow its listing base.

The platform only registers professional short-term-rental hosts who have at least five properties and use formal booking software, among other requirements.

Goldreyer said Savvy wants a consistent experience for guests.

"We don't want people that host as their side hustle," he explained. "We want to know if our guest gets there at 11 p.m. and the Bluetooth lock goes out, there's a professional they can call."

• Photographer Whitney Boykin rents out her home each year for the Masters golf tournament.
• Boykin, her husband, and their two kids pile into an RV while guests stay in their home.
• They spend $5,000 getting the house ready, but the eight-day booking pays their mortgage for a year.

This week, golf's greatest stars descend on the tiny city of Augusta, Georgia, in pursuit of the famous green jacket awarded to winners of the Masters Tournament.

It's also time for photographer Whitney Boykin and her family to pile into their camper to make way for the guests renting their home in North Augusta, South Carolina.

"I'm one of the rare locals who says I love Masters week. I just want visitors to see how amazing it is here," Boykin told Business Insider.

Boykin and other locals rent out their properties to golfers and visitors directly, on Airbnb, or via other platforms. In the city of Augusta alone, the number of rentals jumped from 725 in March 2024 to 1,700 in April 2024, data from short-term-rental analytics site AirDNA shows. The average revenue for rentals in the city jumped from $2,700 in March 2024 to $5,300 in April 2024, AirDNA found.

While Boykin declined to share exactly how much she makes, she said it's enough to cover the family's mortgage payments for a year. This is the seventh year the family is renting out their house for the Masters.

As of April 4, homes similar to Boykin's listed on Airbnb were available to rent from about $9,000 a week to $28,000 a week.

For Boykin, one week of sleeping in a camper with her husband, their two kids, their cat, and their dog is more than worth it. Take a look inside the home they rent out during the Masters.

Whitney Boykin and her family moved into their North Augusta, South Carolina home in December 2020.

The house, just over the state line from Georgia, has five bedrooms, three full bathrooms, two half bathrooms, and a large outdoor space designed for entertaining.

The home is a 12-minute drive to Augusta National Golf Course. But during Masters week, traffic adds up to about 30 minutes.

Boykin said she passes the Augusta National Golf Club when she drives her kids to school.

"The rest of the year, it's just not that big of a deal," she said.

Boykin said many North Augusta locals rent out their homes for the Masters and use the money to go on vacation for a week.

Area schools typically schedule spring break to sync up with the tournament.

"Everyone looks forward to this because it's great money," Boykin told Business Insider.

In the past, Boykin has used Airbnb and Vrbo to rent out the home. There is even a local rental agency dedicated to the event called the Masters Housing Bureau.

For the past two years, Boykin's family has rented their house to a Texas company that brings its employees to the tournament.

Boykin was connected with the company through a local friend.

In January each year, Boykin starts to think about getting the house ready for the Masters. The family spends about $5,000 to prepare it for renters.

"Once the Christmas lights get put away, it's time to get ready," she said.

Preparations include pressure-washing the facade, adding new landscaping, and getting the home professionally deep-cleaned.

Boykin stores all her seasonal Masters gear in a section of the attic that's off-limits to the rest of the family.

She keeps paraphernalia including flags, pillows, and golf supplies with the Masters logo locked away for most the year, along with special sets of crisp, white linens for the bedrooms.

"My kids know which sheets are Masters ones. We don't touch them," she said.

Guests arrive the Sunday before the tournament begins and pay for an eight-day stay that includes the Monday after the finals.

Local schools have extended spring break, Boykin added, with kids returning to the classroom on the Tuesday after the tournament.

Boykin likes to check on the home twice during the week to clean and make sure everything is OK.

Boykin said cleaning visits are more for her peace of mind because they've rarely had issues. Visitors in town for the Masters often try to maximize their time at the golf course.

"They're not spending a lot of time in our home," Boykin said. "They take care of our things better than we do."

Other families renting out their homes travel, but Boykin's family stays in an RV for Masters week.

Boykin's husband, who works in the car industry, is especially busy in early April.

This year, the family will park the RV at a local equestrian facility that has dozens of walking trails.

Boykin's family first stayed in a camper one year when their home was still accidentally listed for rent in July.

Out-of-towners rented their house for a youth basketball tournament called Peach Jam.

Even though the family had no plans to rent out their house for any time other than the Masters, Boykin said her husband felt it was worth it.

He drove to Myrtle Beach to pick up an RV he found online so the family could honor the booking.

Boykin added that he told her it would allow them to take "an extra vacation."

• Elvi Caperonis was laid off from her Big Tech job in July 2024.
• She used the layoff as an opportunity to focus on other ventures she'd been running on the side.
• Caperonis now runs her own career coaching, content creation, and Airbnb business.

Elvi Caperonis had a dream to work in Big Tech — and after five years and over 100 rejections, she reached it by landing a role at a prominent Magnificent 7 company in 2017.

But in July 2024 — seven years later — Caperonis was laid off.

Instead of her dream morphing into a nightmare, though, Caperonis told Business Insider that the layoff actually boosted her career.

She was able to focus on her own ventures as a career coach, content creator, and Airbnb Superhost and grow her entrepreneurial revenue to six figures in 2024, which Business Insider verified with documentation.

"Now that I work for myself," she said, "I have freedom to live life on my own terms and have discovered more profound happiness."

Working in Big Tech was exhilarating

It wasn't that Caperonis didn't appreciate her Big Tech job. In fact, she loved it.

"I saw world-class people build teams and was always on the cutting edge of technology like AI and machine learning," she said. "I was always fascinated by learning something new and having fun."

Her company felt like more than just a workplace — it was a platform where she thrived on the joy of learning and being constantly challenged, an opportunity she called "genuinely exhilarating."

The role included a lucrative six-figure compensation package, quality health insurance, remote work opportunities, and company parties.

Her LinkedIn kept growing and growing

In January 2020, Caperonis began building her personal brand and business on the side. She created content on LinkedIn to share her personal experiences and practical advice, in hopes of helping others boost their self-confidence and land jobs in the tech industry.

Thanks to a daily posting schedule — balanced with her full-time Big Tech job — and some viral posts, she grew her LinkedIn to 10,000 followers within a few months.

She began charging $150 per coaching session to help job seekers land their dream jobs at companies like Meta, Coinbase, Sonos, Microsoft, and Amazon.

In 2021, she started doing live sessions on LinkedIn to share her career insights and expertise, and in 2022, she grew her LinkedIn follower base to 80,000.

"I struggled to find new ideas but eventually shared my rejection journey in multiple posts, which in total got over 6.5 million views," she said. "It wasn't easy, but sharing my experience and the lessons I learned from it resonated with many people."

After going viral a few more times in 2023, Caperonis' LinkedIn surpassed 100,000 followers, which also brought in new clients. She started posting successful testimonials, which helped her increase her prices to $499 for a package of three coaching sessions.

In March 2024, just prior to her layoff, she secured her first official brand partnership on LinkedIn, which paid her $3,200 for three LinkedIn posts.

"This partnership provided a substantial financial boost and validated the value of my work and the reach of my personal brand," Caperonis said.

Caperonis also began co-hosting on Airbnb with her sister in October 2022 and earned the title of Superhost in 2023. This gave her another income stream alongside her coaching business, earning them $43,911 in revenue in 2023 and nearly $50,000 in 2024.

The layoff turned into an entrepreneurial opportunity

In April 2024, just one month after landing her brand partnership, Caperonis was told that she'd be laid off from her Big Tech job in July.

Instead of dwelling on the adversity, she used it as an opportunity to put her full effort into developing her side gigs.

"The layoff spurred me to tap into my entrepreneurial instincts," Caperonis said.

Coaching and content creation became her full-time job. She started engaging and posting up to twice a day on LinkedIn, and more brands reached out to her for partnerships.

In July 2024, she launched her business, Reinvent Yourself Academy, and the following month she received the LinkedIn Top Voice badge. She now charges clients $5,000 for her formal coaching program.

She is able to balance her time between her various ventures by automating her hosting business as much as possible, spending around 35 hours weekly on content creation and career coaching and five to 10 hours on Airbnb.

Having a backup plan that can't be taken away is crucial

"This journey has shown me that it's possible to turn challenges into opportunities with determination and the right mindset," Caperonis said.

If she could turn back time, she says she would've started building her personal brand on LinkedIn and her business much earlier — and planned her exit from the corporate world sooner.

"I've come to understand that it's essential to create something for yourself that cannot be taken away," Caperonis said. "Since layoffs can happen unexpectedly, having a backup plan is crucial."

Do you have a story to share about life after being laid off? Contact this editor, Jane Zhang, at [email protected].

• Vrbo put a billboard outside Airbnb's San Francisco office saying it is "cooler" and "friendlier."
• Airbnb called the ad stunt "desperate" and said the campaign just gives Airbnb "more visibility."
• One advertising expert told BI that while confrontational ads can work, she isn't sure Vrbo's did.

Vacation rental company Vrbo took a swing at its main competitor, Airbnb, this month with a provocative billboard campaign.

It may not have worked.

"Think of us as Airbnb's hotter, cooler, friendlier, long-lost twin, that never has hosts," reads a sign outside Airbnb's headquarters in the South of Market, or SoMa, neighborhood of San Francisco.

Airbnb was not thrilled by the stunt. "Vrbo just spent millions on ads that appear to be as confused as they are desperate, even giving Airbnb more visibility than its own name," Airbnb said in a statement to Business Insider.

Vrbo, pronounced "ver-boh," stood by its claims. "Our latest work addresses common frustrations travelers associate with not only our competitor, but the entire vacation rental category," a Vrbo spokesperson said in a statement.

Airbnb commands a 44% market share of the global short-term-rental industry, dwarfing Vrbo's 9%, according to a 2024 estimate by travel news site Skift.

Creative director Ashley Rutstein told Business Insider she thought the campaign didn't have the right execution. While some underdog companies are able to gain publicity by poking fun at the major players, Rutstein thought Vrbo should've picked a different issues to address.

Vrbo also put ads in other cities, including Los Angeles, Dallas, and Chicago.

"Want a family-friendly villa you can't find on Airbnb?" read another sign, photographed near Times Square in New York City.

One user on X, formerly Twitter, who posted a photo of one of the billboards, said it was the "pettiest thing I've seen all month."

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky took the ads in stride, posting a screenshot of the billboards to his Instagram story with a laughing face emoji, Skift reported.

It's not the first time a competitor has tried to get under Airbnb's skin.

In July 2022, international hotel chain Hilton took aim at the short-term rental giant with an ad featuring a young family who checks into a spooky mansion, complete with creepy dolls and a horrifying checklist of chores.

"When you prefer a dream vacation over a rental nightmare, it matters where you stay," the voiceover said. The ad did not directly name Airbnb.

An advertising expert questions how effective Vrbo's ad strategy is

Confrontational marketing isn't inherently a bad strategy, said advertising expert Ashley Rutstein.

"The best ones punch up, where its coming from the underdog," said Rutstein, a creative director who's worked with brands like Jenny Craig and a content creator with 118,000 followers on TikTok.

Rutstein pointed to a recent swipe that prebiotic soda company Olipop took at its larger competitor, Poppi, after Poppi's Super Bowl stunt of sending vending machines to influencers received backlash.

In this case, however, she said Vrbo missed the mark. Travelers can easily find Airbnbs without a host on site, Rutstein pointed out, which makes the point of the San Francisco billboard moot. Other issues that competitors rag on Airbnb for, like chore lists, could've landed a bigger punch.

"They had the right idea, but not the right execution," she told Business Insider.

The key in confrontational marketing is to solve a problem for the customer, she added. Rutstein pointed to a 2024 Wendy's ad that featured Frosty trucks driving to McDonalds' locations, playing into a viral meme about McDonalds' ice cream machines often being out of service.

"That's an actual problem customers talk about all the time," Rutstein said. "So Wendy's shows how they'll solve that problem for customers."