Completion Date: 4/1/2021 | Locations: New York, NY and Miami, FL | Partners: @bretthelberg, @2bermz
The Business: Flex Living Our Story: In the summer of 2017 a few college friends and I started a small Airbnb side-hustle out of our modest West Village apartment. We initially thought it'd be a cool way to meet people from around the world and make some extra cash to pay for our beers on the weekends. But, it quickly turned into a real revenue-generating business. Over the next three years, we expanded to four apartments in New York City and eventually formed an LLC with our first property purchase in Miami. However, when the world went into a global pandemic due to COVID-19, our business got hit hard... the majority of our customers were vacationers / tourists and nobody was traveling, of course. We didn't know where our next dollar would come from, so we rolled back our sleeves and found creative solutions to stay afloat. I'm very grateful to say that we somehow managed to turn a profit in what we expected to be a devastating year for both the business and our personal wallets.