AirDNA Provides First-Class Analytics for the Short-Term Rental Market
When Scott Shatford, AirDNA Founder & CEO, was laid off from his desk job in 2012, he turned newfound free time into an opportunity for extensive travel throughout Asia. Instead of storing his belongings and renting out his desirable Santa Monica home, a neighbor suggested Shatford could list his property on Airbnb. This proved an ideal solution; renting out through Airbnb covered all of Shatford’s expenses in a matter of weeks. After returning home, Shatford focused on maximizing the effectiveness of Airbnb’s platform with his listing. His success led to friends and family asking for rental advice. Only then did Shatford realize there were no comprehensive “best practice” guides to Airbnb. So, he wrote a book and continued collecting property data on his first Airbnb “best-practices” website. As data accumulated, Shatford transformed his insights into the short-term rental analytics company, AirDNA.
Today, AirDNA is the most trusted and historically comprehensive short-term rental analytics platform in the world; tracking the daily performance of over 4 million listings from 40,000 markets worldwide. The platform is utilized by property managers, real estate investors, and publications such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. Last year, the company launched MarketMinder, a SaaS platform helping customers explore short-term rental markets with interactive maps and charts for over 25,000 cities worldwide. “MarketMinder is our first real subscription market— it’s the product I dreamed about when I started the company,” said Shatford, “In terms of product, it’s definitely our biggest milestone.” Experts estimate the global vacation rental market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 7.07% until 2021, meaning AirDNA is bound for many milestones in the future.
When asked about AirDNA’s primary focus in 2018, Shatford said, “… the goal is team expansion. As a bootstrap company, we hire the best staff available, and the goal is to create a cohesive team in Denver three times the size.” The company currently operates as a tight-knit staff of 16, spread out amongst their Denver headquarters and offices in California and Barcelona. “When you’re a young company competing against large corporations, you’re looking for self-starters who are motivated to create impact,” Scott added.
AirDNA continues to be a leader in the short-term vacation rental industry. BEN Colorado is pleased to serve Scott and his team. When asked about BEN’s usefulness towards AirDNA’s growth plans, Shatford said, “As a first-time Founder and Colorado transplant, BEN has been incredibly helpful [with] plugging me into experienced advisors to help me navigate this uncharted territory.”