The Israeli Startup Challenging Airbnb | AI Property Manager | Shahar Goldboim

[00:00:03] Welcome to episode number 46 of the Israeli Trailblazers podcast. Today, we're diving into a story that has the potential to reshape how the vacation rental industry operates. Our guest, Shahar Goldboym, the visionary founder behind Boom. Boom is the world's first AI powered property management system. Why does this matter to you? Because this type of revolutionary

[00:00:33] technology is not going to be only about the vacation rental industry. Shahar's journey from his time as an IDF policeman to becoming a trailblazer in tech in America offers invaluable lessons on resiliency, leadership, and the very unique Israeli mindset on innovation. This episode is packed with insights that can spark ideas for you in your own life. Let's get started.

[00:01:03] Tell me about your background. Like, give me a snapshot of your past. Snapshot. Born in Israel. Served in the army. Left Israel when I was 21 years old. It used to be that if you wanted to be a big entrepreneur, you need to do it outside of Israel. That was kind of the gap where like internet started to be really big and you could actually make money from everywhere around the world. I started in retail. I used to have a retail location in 28 states in the United States. Moved into

[00:01:33] e-commerce and moved into real estate in 2008 as an investor and a broker. Got into the tech around 2016. And then 2017 got into the vacation rental space. I started a company that actually by mistake. I broker a deal to a friend of mine. His parents wanted to move in. And they told me, you know what, my parents decided not to move to the house. And I want to do Airbnb. And I told him, okay, great. But what's the connection to me?

[00:02:02] He told me everything that you do, you do good. So I told him, okay, let me think about it. And I found a company in Australia that can implement interior design on top of empty picture. I told him, let's take a picture of the property, the address of the property, but we install fake furniture, list it on Airbnb. Let's see the result, take it from there. So we've done that. And all of a sudden, we receive a reservation after reservation, I have some reservations. So I asked my wife, do you want to design the home? She said, hell yeah.

[00:02:30] So this is kind of how I got into the vacation rental space. So while we're doing it, I had a flip that I couldn't sell. So we changed it to an Airbnb. And we bought a multifamily on the ocean and we changed it to vacation rental. And all of a sudden, we have a management company that's running this kind of portfolio. So I used the tools that they found in the market, but they weren't good enough.

[00:02:54] So I started building our own tools and we actually built a tech-enabled company that grew up to be a company that managed around $150 million properties. And we used to do the brokerage, but we used to do the design, management, and the software development in order to put all of the stuff together. After a while, I went to my mentor in life and he asked me, what do you do? So I told him, we do the brokerage, we do the design, we do the management.

[00:03:21] And he told me, great, but where's the element of control? So I told him, what do you mean by that? So he was telling me, you can do it also in a function of a GP and LP and bring basically investors. So you will enjoy also from the appreciation, you will have more control over the asset. Told him, great, let's do it. So we deployed around $50 million this way. And around a year and a half ago, I decided to take the technology that was wrapped around PMS to the market.

[00:03:50] And with the change of AI, we decided that we have an opportunity to build this world-first AI PMS. We believe that the world is moving into a world of bus, which is business as a software. You have multi-AI agents that can really help you scale an operation in ways that weren't before. So that's a lot to unpack here.

[00:04:13] And having had real estate that I, by accident, sort of turned into an Airbnb, I get the trajectory. You said you got lots of calls immediately. It is very exciting when you see that kind of demand. But I want to back up, I want to talk about Israel and your role in IDF. You were a policeman. Was there a valuable lesson that you learned from your service as a policeman in your new life in America? Are there any lessons you can draw from that service? That's a question nobody has ever asked me.

[00:04:42] I think it's like you get into a situation in life in general that you need to take decisions. You need to be quick and you need to be assertive on the decisions that you are making, especially when you are in sensitive positioning. If you're in the middle of something and like you have two crowds coming to you and you need to act fast and you need to act with the assertiveness needed in order to control the situation.

[00:05:09] So it's definitely something that I took into how I'm doing business. Are you saying you can assess a risky situation, for example, in business or perhaps, you know, as a policeman? And you adapted that to your life in America and your business ethos now maybe? A hundred percent. Like I've never thought about it this way. But if you're in the middle of like a Muslim town and you have like two big groups that they want to attack

[00:05:36] or if you need to arrest a terrorist in the middle of a community and in your action, you need to be strong. So it's definitely something that they took into business. But to be honest, I've never actually thought about it deeply. So I'm thinking why I'm talking with you. And another thing is Israeli. You always want to try and to understand how can I do stuff better? How can I think outside of the box?

[00:06:02] And I think it's something that's really pushing us to be creative in matter of technology. Why do Israelis have to think outside the box? Because we are a small country surrounded by a lot of people who want us dead. You have to think outside of the box. Otherwise, how such a small country with so many enemies will be able to survive. So if you will take, for example, in one of the wars, we didn't have enough tanks.

[00:06:32] So there was a hill. So they were going down with the tanks, with the light on, turn the light off, go up and turn it back on. So the army, the Suryans that were fighting against us, wow, they have a lot of tanks, which we hadn't. So the thinking outside of the box, how to create a perception that we have a big, big army. It's kind of the thing, right? You have to think outside of the box. Think about all of the defense mechanism against missiles right now.

[00:07:02] Who would think that you can target a missile like that in midair? And that changed completely the war because now we can breathe, right? It's not like all day you have missiles that are basically destroying Israel. So the thinking outside of the box, thinking ahead, it's kind of how Israelis think. And by that, creating so much innovation around the world.

[00:07:26] What would your message be to other entrepreneurs who look at Israel and say, wow, how is a country the size of New Jersey have such a disproportionate number of successful startups and unicorns? It's crazy. I think that you take a history of the oldest religion in a way. And there is a reason why we still exist. So that's part of that, right?

[00:07:54] And the beautiful technology is that you don't need so many people to create humongous company. And the geographics that you're at is not so important anymore. I think it's really interesting what you're saying about creating an outsized influence. Your example of the tanks with respect to Syria many years ago. And that kind of leads us a little bit into your company, Boom.

[00:08:20] For an average person who's just listening to this, Boom is for the real estate owner or for the property manager. Who buys your product? The person currently buying our product is a property management company that manages over 50 properties on a platform like Airbnb, Booking.com.

[00:08:38] And what Boom does, it's allowing the property owner, he wants to know what's going on in his property, what is his P&L, what's the expenses, how much the property is doing, what's the review on the property. On the other hand, in order to manage a vacation rental, it's a really hard mission. Because if you manage like a hotel, it's a concentrated place, meaning you have 400 apartments, same concept, right?

[00:09:06] When you manage like a vacation rental, you have 400 properties that are in distance of two miles, three miles, four miles from each other. The sizes are unconfirmed, meaning you can have a 4,000 square foot or 5,000 square foot compared to 200 square foot of like hotel. Like hotel, the furniture are different. Your ability to control the movement of all of the people, it's really hard to manage all of that.

[00:09:35] So we created a task management, an office management, pricing algorithm, a unified inbox that you can talk with each channel, pricing that push to each different PIs to each person in your organization to understand who is a cleaner, what the review score is that he's getting on it, all of your project management, all of your website builder, your guest experience tool. Now, all of this stuff are talking.

[00:10:04] Right now, the market is built in a way that it's really fragmented, meaning I have one product, and to that I'm attaching a lot of product in order to give the capabilities to companies, create frustration with the team because they need to work on different apps, different websites, and all of that. We basically build something that is all together. So that's in the software aspect. But when you look at it, AI multi-AI agents, everything needs to be talking to everything.

[00:10:33] For example, if you're coming and you're asking me, hey, I want to do an early check-in, so I need to go to my task management and see if there's any service call to fix a toilet or to fix a shower. Then I need to go to the reservation if they're allowed late checkout or whatever it is. Then I need to go and see that all of the missions were done, and then I can give you an answer. Right now, it's built with SaaS models that come to help a position.

[00:11:01] What I mean by that, your accountant, your bookkeeper will work on QuickBooks. Your marketing person and sell will work on AppSpot. Your handyman will work on Monday. And what happened in reality, your bookkeeper doesn't have a receipt, so he's asking the handyman, hey, can you get me the receipt, right? So on top of all of these tools, you have people that are talking in between themselves in order to run a company.

[00:11:26] And we are looking at SaaS basically moving into a model of bus, which is business as a software, where everything is connected. So imagine, for example, that you have a booking, let's say, in February. Your calendar is empty. So one way, your pricing algorithm can take down the price, right? Then more people will want to book it.

[00:11:53] But in reality, maybe the first picture in Airbnb is not good and needs to be changed. Maybe the order of the pictures is not good. Maybe the listing description needs to be changed. Maybe the title, if there is a Tyler Swift event, if you want to change it in your title so people will know about it. If you're going to Colorado in summer, it will be a different description than in winter.

[00:12:17] Maybe I want to do an email campaign to pass guests that will book it with a discount, right? So there is so many ways to touch stuff. And the way we're looking at it is one whole ecosystem full with multi-AI agent that's helping you do the operation in a much better. So who runs the software? The property manager buys your subscription.

[00:12:41] And is there one point person who, or there's a multitude of team members in it at the same time? Yes, everybody has its own permission, right? So my guest communication person will have permission to go to the Unified Inbox. And then the owner of the property will have an app for him to look at his properties.

[00:13:05] And the handyman will have an app where he's going to the place and he tags a picture, cost, cost, cost material. But everything is connected. So when your handyman go and do the work, when the owner will go into his P&L, he will be able to see not just a line item. He will be able to see what happened, why it happened, videos, pictures, the befores, the afters. Everything is connected.

[00:13:31] So the owner has a really complete picture of what's going on with their property and maybe why their reviews have gone down or whatever the challenges have been. Or maybe the cleaning people are not doing a good job. How many properties do you have under management at this point? Under Boom, we have thousands of properties all around the world. In Europe, U.S., South Africa, Mexico as well. And we're growing around 40% a month currently. That's amazing.

[00:14:01] Mazel tov. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So if we sit here in a year, where's Boom? Booming. That was a softball, man. I teed that up for you. That was too easy. True. Too easy. Are there any last words of insight of how you've adapted to life in America from your upbringing in Israel? I'll tell you what, it's take time to understand mentality. I'm here for 20 years.

[00:14:28] I think that American is what in between the words, where Israel is like really direct. It's a beautiful thing to really live both of words and understand there is a beauty with everything. Meaning in America you have a beauty and Israel you have a beauty. And understanding how to bridge. It's really important. It's important to listen. Not just talking. That's my advice.

[00:14:57] And having lived in Israel and in America, I can agree with you 100% on that nuance between being very direct as Israelis are. And you totally understand where they're coming from. And you come to America and it's much more PC and you have to understand how not to push too hard. Boom is booming. And you've bridged that gap very, very well. Thank you so much for your time this morning. I really appreciate it. Thank you.

[00:15:25] Thank you for listening to this episode of the Israeli Trailblazers show. Shahr's very inspiring journey from his time as a policeman in the IDF to launching the world's first AI-powered property management system called Boom is another example of Israelis thinking outside the box. Trying to create something with technology that improves lives.

[00:15:50] I hope this episode highlighted the power of Israel's culture of problem solving. Maybe there are lessons that you can apply in your own personal pursuits. If Shahr's story resonated with you or sparked any new ideas, please subscribe, leave a good review, and post this episode on your social media. I'm your host, Jennifer Weissman. Until next time.