Behind the Stays

Hi! My name is Zach, and I like building things.

No, not cool things like entertainment centers or custom floating shelves — in fact putting together IKEA furniture gives me anxiety.

I like building brands. ‍ By day, I lead growth at DD Agency, Enrollify, Novus, and DD Studio — brands that serve the education and nonprofit sectors. ‍ By night, you’ll often find me brainstorming new product and service ideas with my amazing wife. who loves poking all sorts of holes in my go-to-market strategies...

When COVID hit, we decided to break out of our 750-square foot apartment in Washington, DC, and beta test the digital nomad lifestyle by hopping around to new Airbnbs every 2-4 weeks. If you care to follow our personal journey and watch us pretend to be Instagram influencers, you can do so at AirGnZ.

We‘ve spent hours on Airbnb and have learned a thing or ten about how to discern the wheat from the chaff, when to book (and when not to), and how to find the best deals and steals…

And that’s what led us to found Sponstayneous — a carefully-curated weekly newsletter featuring the best last-minute deals and upcoming steals on Airbnb. Each week, we sort through 3,000+ listings and bring you our top 60 finds.

You can subscribe for free at www.sponstayneous.com...and yeah, it’s a bit of a mouthful...but I’ll bet you $100 you think of us the next time someone says “spontaneous.”

But enough about us...it’s time to talk about Behind the Stays.

After our first couple of Airbnbs, we found ourselves talking most nights about the character of the bungalow, apartment, or lake house we were staying in. Our hosts were all fantastic communicators, but there’s only so much you can learn via the guest book and the occasional “check-in” texts.

We were hungry to learn more about the story behind the place. Was this their first home? What’s up with the mural in the bathroom? Was the dining table custom made? Did they build the home from the ground up specifically to rent out on Airbnb?

And that’s when the idea of hosting a podcast that featured the stories of the hosts behind the stays was born.

Our goal is to use this space to bring you the stories behind your favorite Airbnbs and the hosts who’ve made them memorable.

If you know of an Airbnb host you think we should have on the show, please reach out directly to me at zach@sponstayneous.com and I’d be happy to talk with them.