Building From the Operator’s Own Pain Points

1. You built Boom while simultaneously running DesignedVR, your own property management company. How much does that dual perspective still shape the product decisions you make today, and is there a tension between building for your own needs as an operator and building for the broader market?

It shapes everything we do.

Boom was never built from a theoretical view of property management. It was built from the pain of actually running the business — dealing with guest messages at all hours, owners asking for updates, teams switching between systems, reporting taking too long, and margins getting tighter as the business grows.

That operator perspective is still one of our biggest advantages because we are not guessing what property managers need. We have lived it. We know where the friction is. We know which workflows look simple from the outside but are actually very complex when you are responsible for the guest, the owner, the cleaner, the maintenance issue, and the financial outcome.

Of course, there is always a risk when you build from your own experience. You have to be careful not to assume every operator runs exactly the way you do. So we use DesignedVR as a proving ground, but not as the only voice in the room. We are constantly listening to operators across different markets, portfolio sizes, business models, and now hospitality segments.

The key is to separate the universal problems from the personal preferences. Every operator wants better visibility, fewer manual tasks, faster guest communication, stronger owner trust, and more profitable operations. How they get there may vary. Boom is designed to solve the universal pain points while still giving operators the flexibility to run their business their way.

2. Boom raised $12.7M in October 2025 and launched BAM, the industry’s first Business Agentic Manager, shortly after. For operators who are still trying to understand what agentic AI actually means in practice, how would you describe what BAM does in their day-to-day, and what does a property management company look like when it’s fully running on it?

The simplest way to explain agentic AI is this: it does not just wait for you to click a button. It understands what needs to happen, takes action, learns from context, and manages work across the business.

For a property manager, that means BAM is not just another dashboard or chatbot. It is an AI business manager inside the operation. It can handle guest communications, review management, reporting, marketing workflows, and operational tasks with a level of context that traditional automation never had.

In the day-to-day, that looks like fewer repetitive questions landing on your team, faster response times for guests, reports generated in seconds instead of hours, and a system that can surface what needs attention before it becomes a bigger problem. It gives operators the ability to move from reactive management to proactive management.

When a company is fully running on BAM, the structure of the business changes. You no longer need a large team buried in repetitive admin work just to keep up. The human team becomes more strategic. They focus on growth, owner relationships, service quality, exceptions, and the moments where judgment and human connection matter most.

That is the real shift. Agentic AI is not about adding another tool to the stack. It is about changing the operating model of the company.

3. You’ve said publicly that AI will replace most STR operational work. That’s a bold position in an industry where many operators still rely heavily on their teams. What do you say to property managers who are excited about the efficiency gains but genuinely worried about what this means for the people they employ?

I understand the concern. This is not a small change, and I do not think we should pretend it is.

AI will replace a significant amount of repetitive operational work. I believe that very strongly. Guest questions, manual reporting, review responses, internal follow-ups, data entry, task coordination — much of that work should not require humans anymore. It is too expensive, too slow, and too difficult to scale.

But that does not mean people stop mattering. It means the role of people changes.

The best operators will use AI to take the low-value work off their teams so their people can do higher-value work. Instead of spending hours answering the same questions, they can focus on guest experience design, owner retention, quality control, revenue strategy, local partnerships, and business development.

There is also a very practical reality here. Many property management companies are already under pressure. Labor costs are high, margins are thin, and teams are stretched. AI gives operators a way to grow without burning out their people or constantly adding headcount.

So my answer is direct: yes, AI will replace tasks. It will replace workflows. It will replace roles that are built entirely around repetitive execution. But it will also create stronger businesses and better opportunities for people who can manage, guide, and improve AI-powered operations.

The companies that win will not be the ones that ignore this shift. They will be the ones that prepare their teams for it.

4. Boom started in the vacation rental space but has recently expanded into boutique hotels. What made this the right moment to move into hospitality, and how do you think about the differences in what those two types of operators actually need from a platform?

The timing felt natural because the problems we are solving are not limited to vacation rentals. They are hospitality problems.

Boutique hotels, aparthotels, serviced apartments, and vacation rental managers are all dealing with the same core pressures: guest expectations are higher, teams are leaner, operational complexity is growing, and profitability is harder to protect. They all need better systems, more automation, and more intelligence inside the business.

The difference is in the operating rhythm.

Vacation rental operators often deal with distributed inventory, owner relationships, complex housekeeping coordination, and a lot of variability from one property to another. Boutique hotels may have more centralized operations, more on-site staff, and different service expectations, but they still need fast communication, clear reporting, task visibility, and a better way to manage the business.

What both segments share is the need to move away from disconnected software and manual work. Traditional systems were built to store information. Operators today need systems that can act on information.

That is why Boom’s expansion into hospitality makes sense. We are not trying to force a vacation rental tool into hotels. We are building an AI-native operating platform for modern hospitality businesses. The product has to respect the differences between each segment, but the vision is the same: give operators a smarter, more autonomous way to run profitable, guest-focused businesses.