The rental market is experiencing a fundamental shift. While short-term rental giants like Airbnb dominate headlines, a massive opportunity is emerging in the midterm rental space for stays of 30 days or more. At the center of this transformation is Furnished Finder (opens in new tab), a marketplace connecting traveling professionals with furnished monthly rentals across the United States.
A leader in this growth is Trent York (opens in new tab), CFO of Furnished Finder, who brings a unique perspective to the role. With 13 years at HomeAway and VRBO, including guiding them through their acquisition by Expedia, York now holds a triple leadership position overseeing finance, HR, and legal. He calls this intersection the "execution economy," and it's reshaping how the company approaches growth in a volatile market.
The midterm rental market is exploding
The numbers tell a compelling story. Furnished Finder has grown from 20,000 listings in 2019 to over 300,000 today. Booked nights of 30 days or longer have increased by 135% over the last three to four years. With 6 million visitors annually and 250 million site visits per year, the platform serves a market that extends far beyond the COVID-era surge in traveling healthcare workers.
"This is not tourism, it's infrastructure," York explains. The average stay on Furnished Finder is a little over three months, reflecting a fundamental need rather than a vacation preference.
Who's driving demand?
While healthcare professionals initially dominated the platform, representing over 40% of demand during COVID, the market has diversified significantly:
Relocating families is our fastest growing tenant type, with about 130% growth year-over-year
Business travelers and digital nomads on extended assignments
Construction and infrastructure workers building data centers in smaller markets
The data center boom has created particularly interesting opportunities. When Stargate announced plans for a massive data center in Abilene, Texas, Furnished Finder saw a 400% increase in local demand. Similar patterns are emerging across mid-market cities as hyperscalers build facilities in locations that lack immediate housing capacity.
The subscription model as a strategic advantage
Unlike traditional short-term rental platforms, Furnished Finder operates on a subscription model. Property owners pay $199 annually for a listing with no booking fees, and the platform doesn't sit in the middle of transactions. This approach represents a conscious strategic decision with multiple benefits.
"When you're in the middle of the transaction, it's very complicated," York notes, drawing on his experience at VRBO when it transitioned from subscription to transaction-based revenue. "The Furnished Finder value proposition is about how do we give landlords and tenants more control to directly communicate and talk to each other."
This model offers several advantages:
Simplicity for both property owners and tenants
Control over conversations and arrangements for stays averaging three months
Predictable revenue that acts as a hedge against market volatility
Lower friction in a market where relationships matter more than quick bookings
The subscription approach also positions Furnished Finder (opens in new tab) as what the CEO calls "a throwback to the original intent of the internet" connecting people directly without platforms controlling every interaction.
Macro trends creating a permanent rental class
Several converging economic factors are fueling sustained growth in the midterm rental market, creating what York describes as a more permanent rental economy.
The frozen housing market
Currently, 80% of homes have mortgage rates locked in at 6% or less, with most at 4% or below. This creates a "lockup effect" where homeowners are reluctant to sell and lose favorable financing. Combined with a housing shortage of nearly 5 million homes according to Zillow, and about a third of homes owned by baby boomers with extra rooms, the market faces a structural supply constraint.
Shifting life milestones
Wages haven't kept pace with housing costs, and student debt burdens have changed the traditional path of college, job, homeownership. Adult milestones like marriage, children, and home buying are happening later, if at all.
"Renting is more of a feature, not a flaw," York observes, contrasting today's reality with the Gen X expectation of a linear path to homeownership.
These aren't temporary disruptions. They represent fundamental shifts in how Americans approach housing, creating durable demand for flexible rental solutions.
The execution economy: How triple-hat leadership drives efficiency
York's role overseeing finance, HR, and legal creates what he calls the "execution economy." While company size enables this structure, the benefits extend beyond simple cost savings.
Speed as a competitive advantage
"The ability for me to wear multiple hats when it comes decision time speeds a lot of things up," York explains. "I have immediate direct insight of what's happening across different functions."
Whether evaluating talent decisions, vendor contracts, or capital allocation, York can synthesize perspectives without the delays of cross-functional coordination typical in larger organizations.
The balancing act
The structure isn't without challenges. York is conscious that speed can sometimes work against thorough deliberation. "I can go really fast, but it doesn't always benefit us as a company," he acknowledges. His solution is deliberately seeking input from peers and the CEO to ensure diverse perspectives inform major decisions.
He also leverages AI assistants to challenge his thinking: "I say, 'Hey, I'm doing this, here's my decision. Give me the pushback from a CFO lens, give me the pushback from a CHRO lens, give me the pushback from the chief legal lens.'"
The productivity paradox
The intersection of finance and HR creates natural tension. Boards push for productivity and margins while HR advocates for talent development and retention. York sees this dynamic becoming more critical as technology accelerates change.
"This dynamic has to coexist," he says. "I don't think people have figured it out yet in terms of what that's going to mean, but I think it involves how do we invest in our teams, how do we invest in generational game-changing talent, and how do you invest in tools."
Capital allocation in a growth market
When asked where he'd invest an extra dollar in talent, York refuses simple answers. The decision depends on balancing three priorities:
Upskilling existing teams to grab hold of productivity opportunities
Game-changing talent that can accelerate growth at light speed
Tools and technology that drive productivity without burning out teams
"Game-changing talent in this day and age is a little bit more important than five years ago because the ability to accelerate faster is just way more present," York notes.
Data-driven marketplace optimization
As a two-sided marketplace, Furnished Finder's responsibility is ensuring supply meets demand across geographic markets. York's team monitors where demand outpaces supply, then takes action through pricing adjustments, targeted discounts for new listings in high-demand areas, or providing market intelligence to potential investors.
The platform also serves up statistics to help small investors identify opportunities, showing where demand is strong, what bedroom counts are most sought after, and which amenities matter most. This data-driven approach helps balance the marketplace while maintaining the subscription model's simplicity.
Technology strategy: build versus buy in the AI era
York has strong opinions on technology decisions, shaped by experience watching companies make costly mistakes.
Architecture over ad hoc solutions
"I've seen lack of vision of the infrastructure holistically, the Frankenstein effect of we're going to do this and now we're going to do that," York warns. Having design principles and architectural vision prevents ending up with a hodgepodge of systems that don't communicate effectively.
The shifting economics of code
York challenges the conventional wisdom that "ideas are cheap but code is expensive."
"Code's becoming a lot less expensive," he observes. "What's really expensive is how do you grab the attention of your customers."
This shift changes the calculus on build versus buy decisions. York generally favors buying over building, especially when vendors already offer needed functionality. The risk of 18-month development cycles that miss the mark outweighs upfront capital costs in most cases.
His team recently discussed how the "intention economy" is becoming the expensive side of business. With code becoming less expensive through AI and modern tools, companies can iterate on ideas faster, creating more of a flywheel than ever before.
The future of prop tech and midterm rentals
Looking ahead, York sees several opportunities for innovation in the property technology space:
Accelerated underwriting for small investors using AI tools, similar to what's emerging in the mortgage space
Portfolio optimization across short-term, midterm, and long-term rentals, helping owners revenue-optimize across different rental types
ADU development acceleration for accessory dwelling units and backyard apartments, which could help address the housing shortage while remaining in individual hands rather than institutional investors
International expansion remains a future possibility, but York is focused on perfecting the experience for the U.S. market first. "We have a big market right now in the US that we're trying to get the tools and everything right for our customers here," he explains.
Career lessons from a veteran CFO
With nearly 30 years as a finance professional, York offers clear advice for those looking to advance their careers.
Learn the whole business
"Learn every part of the business that you can," York emphasizes. "The cool part is that's the fun part. That's really enjoyable."
He distinguishes between technical expertise and business understanding: "Don't double down necessarily on the technical accounting or finance stuff. Get to a point for sure, but then sit in as many meetings and forums in terms of learning what you can about how the business truly works."
Own your development
The pace of change makes personal development more critical than ever. "It is on all of us to make sure that we are personally developing in this new world," York says. "It's never been more bright line than right now that I own my own development because it's just too fast for companies to make sure everyone gets upskilled the right way all the time."
Choose your environment
York prefers mid-market companies over large enterprises, despite the challenges. "I have an impact today on a decision I make today, whereas a decision I make in a larger organization may have an impact in a month," he explains. The politics of larger organizations are harder to navigate than the resource constraints of smaller companies.
The intersection of finance and life
York's approach to leadership is grounded in personal values. As a father of four daughters, his hard and fast travel rule during years of international business was simple: "Never miss the flight home."
This principle reflects a broader philosophy about balancing professional ambition with personal priorities. It's a reminder that even as CFOs drive growth and manage complex organizations, the human element remains central to sustainable success.
Infrastructure, not transactions
The midterm rental market represents a significant opportunity at the intersection of multiple macro trends: frozen housing inventory, shifting life milestones, remote work normalization, and infrastructure development in mid-market cities. Furnished Finder's growth from 20,000 to 300,000 listings in just five years demonstrates the market's potential.
York's leadership approach, combining finance, HR, and legal under one umbrella while maintaining a subscription business model, offers a blueprint for navigating growth in volatile markets. His focus on the "execution economy" recognizes that in an era of rapid technological change, the ability to move quickly while maintaining strategic clarity becomes a decisive competitive advantage.
As the rental economy continues to evolve, the companies that succeed will be those that understand they're providing infrastructure, not just facilitating transactions. They'll balance investment in people, technology, and game-changing talent while maintaining the agility to adapt as both technology and market needs shift.
For finance leaders, York's experience demonstrates that the CFO role increasingly requires business acumen that extends far beyond traditional financial management. The future belongs to those who can synthesize insights across functions, leverage technology to accelerate decision-making, and maintain focus on what truly drives value in their specific market.
Transcript
Welcome to Liquid, how CFOs Outperformed. I'm your host, Tom Gavaghan. Today we're joined by Trent York, CFO of Furnished Finder. But Trent isn't just managing P&L as a typical CFO. He holds a unique triple hat role leading finance, HR, uh, and legal. He calls the intersection of these three functions the execution economy. On today's episode, we're going to be looking at the economics of the rental market. We all know the the short-term giants like the Airbnbs of the world, but there is a massive shift happening in the midterm rentals, those rentals that you have for 30 days or more. And my guest is right in the center of all of that. Trent is a veteran of the travel and growth space. He spent 13 years at Homeaway and VRBO guiding them through their acquisition by Expedia. Uh we're going to talk about why their subscription model is a strategic hedge against volatility, how he manages uh capital in a frozen housing market, and how the unique leadership structure drives efficiency within his organization. So Trent, thanks so much for joining us here today. >> Thanks, Tom. Look forward to the discussion. >> Let's get right into it. I mean, could you just tell us a little bit more about yourself, but also I would say maybe more importantly about for those that aren't aware, what also is Furnished Finder and kind of what the type of business you're in there now? >> Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I I think I had to take a little bit of a reality check when I when I looked at it and said, I think I'm going on 30 years as a finance professional at this point. So, I'm starting to age myself a bit. But, uh, the last 10 or so have been in various CFO chairs through Verbbo, uh, when we got acquired by Expedia. Then I went to another consumer business, was in the health and wellness business, which was which was a lot of fun. And then back kind of in travel and and hospitality here with Furnished Finder. So, for me personally, I've always really been attracted to consumer businesses where the pace of change and the pace of winning or losing out there with the consumer is every day. And so, that's really what's attracted me back to to what I'm doing here at Furnished Finder and uh really a big part of my DNA. >> Definitely want to unpack a bit of that experience, but also I think again the experience you're having now at Furnished Finder, especially organizationally, is is super interesting. We'll dig into that, but go a little deeper on Furnished Finder. like how big are we talking about in terms of the access that Furnished Finder has in the housing market itself or the rental market I I should say and how does it differ I guess than what the names we the other names we know. >> Yeah, absolutely. Give you a little bit of insight on Furnished Finder. So, we're we're a two two-sided marketplace just like a lot of the marketplaces out there in the world. We serve exclusively that monthly rental that furnished monthly rental marketplace. You can go to our site today, our app, etc. And you can search over 300,000 listings in the US. And these are going to be homes, rooms, you know, for for all sorts of traveling professionals. And professionals really is the key word there. The this is this midterm market, this monthly midterm market as it's called, really has been growing quite dramatically. There was a big COVID use case of course that this this market benefited from, but it's continued to since kind of drive up from there. But just to give you context, so Furnished Finder's been around for about 12 years in terms of the number of listings, homes, home listings on the site. Back in 2019, there were 20,000. Today, we have over 300,000. And that's kind of indicative as well of kind of where the market's gone. You've had the number of book nights that are 30 days or longer grown over 135% in, you know, the last three or four years. So, it's really kind of this shift that's happening out there where you're seeing kind of this monthly rental dynamic. And I think it has a lot of reasons why, but you're seeing this monthly rental dynamic continue to grow and accelerate beyond just what we experienced during and postcoid, which was traveling healthcare, traveling nurses, traveling physicians, things of that nature that really really amped up, but has since really grown and evolved to different use cases, including high growth relocation, families that are relocating. You've got traveling professionals across all sorts of industries that are on assignment. It's really been kind of a fun a fun environment to kind of continue to see kind of this this intersection of monthly housing that is not tourism, it's infrastructure. >> Um, you know, and it kind of intersects with all of the macro, you know, impacts that I think we're seeing right now. And I I feel like it's a little bit of right time, right place in terms of kind of what we're doing and how we're serving the market with the use cases that continue to grow. >> Yeah, I would agree with this remote world or hybrid world, right? I think the appetite is there even more. But I think one of the things that I learned about Furnished Finder that's different is you're bridging the kind of the marketplace, but you're not facilitating the transaction itself, right? Like you're not actually making the renter pay the landlord, if you will. Is that is that right? >> We are very different in the fact that we're not sitting in the middle of the transaction like all the short-term rental players, the VRBOS's where I came from, the Airbnbs, which are, you know, the consumers very used to. We are a subscription model. And what that means is, you know, you can buy a listing on our site for a year if you're an owner for $199. Gives you a whole year of advertisement. And our job is just like the other STR short-term rental kind of players, OTAA players, is to bring demand to you. And we do that very, very well. You know, we've got, you know, 6 million visitors a year, you know, 250 million site visits a year. The category's grown. But back to your back to your question and your point, you know, yeah, we are a subscription business. That's how the business was originally kind of orchestrated and designed and really, you know, we don't have any plans to change that as we move forward. And there's a couple reasons for that. I think it it fits into the value proposition of what we're how we are positioning ourselves in the marketplace right now. And that is if you think about the dynamics of a month-long rental. And to give you a little bit more context, the average stay on our site, the average time that a tenant stays on our site is about 96 days. So you're a little over three months. That feeds into the narrative a bit of folks want control. They want a bit more control when you're having someone stay at your place for 3 months or you're staying at a place for three months or you're renting a house because you're re relocating to a new a new city. And that control comes in the form of conversations, big platforms, ourselves, not getting in the middle of we're going to take all the money and distribute it out and force you to do this and force you to do that. It's really the value proposition is about how do we give landlords and tenants more control to kind of directly communicate talk to each other in a way that um I think we've gotten away from you know in this marketplace economy over the course of the last 20 years. I would even say too, I mean our CEO, you know, sometimes will will say, "Hey, we're a little bit of a throwback to the original intent of the internet, right? Which is to connect people directly to allow them to transact, communicate, interact in a way that cuts through all the clutter without all the big platforms stepping in and owning that entire communication, conversation, you know, transaction. And so, we've consciously stayed out of that. And we want to continue to give our our owners and our tenants the freedom, the control to interact, talk to each other, and then we provide them the tools to do that. We provide them the advertising to kind of attract tenants and landlords on both sides of the the equation, but then we stay out. And lastly, I'll just say too, Tom, I mean, it's when you're in the middle of the transaction, and I do think a lot of that's getting disrupted right now anyway in the terms of AI and merchant, you know, merchant models and things of that nature. I think there's risk of that, but when you're in the middle of the transaction, it's also very complicated. And so the this idea of simplicity for both our owners and our tenants as well as ourselves matters. And having having been at Verbbo when actually we we made this transition to go from a subscription model into kind of more of that uh sitting in the middle model like that exists today in >> Verbbo. >> Um it's not an inconsequential effort to do that. Um you know and the value ad is sometimes questionable along the way. So we've decided to consciously stay out of that in terms of where we're at and where we plan on going. >> I think it's smart. I think it's an underserved uh opportunity for sure. It's a unique one that I wasn't aware of actually until we started first talking. So uh there's definitely an appetite too and I think the growing one even at that if we talk a little bit more macroeconomics in a way right and specifically on the housing market itself which you're impacted by or a benefactor of let's say we have interest rates have locked many homeowners into their current mortgages super low rates and things like that. they're not going to move perhaps or or be willing to move and it kind of freezes the inventory which we've which we we've seen as a CFO in the residential space. How does that market I guess impact the rental side? Are you seeing does the lack of homes for sale create a permanent class of renters? Are we seeing more of that and and is that fueling the demand for what you guys are offering these midterm solutions? I'll call it. >> Yeah, I do I do think we're seeing uh more of a permanent class of renting kind of I think of it as like renting is more of a feature not a flaw. Like if you think about kind of, you know, I'm a Gen Xer. So if you think about kind of a Gen X point of view, generational, you know, you you think about kind of the natural pathway of going to college, getting a job, earning enough, buying that home, and then kind of that was the path. And I do think that path is very different now for a lot of reasons at the macro level. Wages have not outpaced housing cost, student debt, universities, all the things that we can get into and talk about at the macro. I do think kind of plays into this this notion that you've got rental is more of a permanent fixture in in this economy than ever before. The thing to think about on the housing market, you referenced it appropriately, you know, as well, and I think I saw this in an investor release not long ago from Home Depot, is if you look at kind of where everybody is in the mortgage rate, 80% of the homes right now are locked in at 6% or less from mortgage rate. And if you look at kind of how they presented it, they didn't show the exact numbers, but most of them are locked in 4% or less. Yeah. So I mean you really get this this dynamic of your point of hey everybody's locked in. Now the other factors to consider on a macro point of view is just in general the housing shortage that we hear about. Zillow did a study about a year ago that that said nearly we have a housing shortage in the US of nearly 5 million homes. On top of that you've got about a third of the homes out there owned by baby boomers. So again what does that mean? You got kind of this lockup effect. You've got baby boomers who you know who who have extra rooms. You know they don't have their kids with them anymore. And so then you get into this dynamic of do you have a rooms problem or a housing problem, right? And it's more of a housing problem than a room's problem right now. But all these other macro factors are impacting this from an affordability point of view, from a wage growth point of view, and then I think just in general from an adult milestone point of view of things getting pushed out later, marriage later, kids later, thinking about buying a house later, all impacted by these things. And I do think it's created this more durable, you know, consumer and market of kind of this rental this rental economy that's going to be different going forward also based on just how people view their their uh priorities in life. >> It's definitely a different world. I'm an elder millennial, let's call it. So in that, you know, camp of uh of of individuals, you know, bought current house in 2019. So definitely living in that real low interest rate on our end. And it does frees you up, right? Why move from that? But also as we look longterm these types of experiences rental is going is that the new norm as opposed to what you were saying right that norm that we've all set expectations of of acquire real estate at a certain point in your life I think it's completely flipped flipped around. What I also think is interesting though is again from an economic impact on your business. You had mentioned like health care professionals have been a huge customer base and obviously during co was even I guess further heightened I would say. Is there other industries popping up on your radar in terms of like where you're seeing more demand like construction or things like that, infrastructure maybe? >> Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you look back two or three years ago, I mean, you you you would look at our demand stats and, you know, and see that healthcare was about was over 40% of the demand coming through and it was, you know, higher than that directly in the CO area. that's really kind of balanced itself out to where we've got relocation, you know, of families and individuals now. You know, really one of our fastest growing, you know, uh tenant types, you know, people want to go, they're moving somewhere, they want to figure out where they want to live, housing costs are high, we don't want to make a mistake, that sort of thing. And so, you're seeing more of that use case really, really come to come to bear. The other one you're seeing, to your point, is just what we call just professional kind of business travel, if you will, for lack of better word. And what's interesting there is it it runs the gamut. It's professionals, digital nomads, like you would hear people talk about in terms of I'm I'm a consultant. I'm on an assignment for four months, five months, whatever, all the way down to quite frankly some of our biggest use cases which are in these smaller markets where you're seeing a lot of these data centers being built. And one of our fastest growing kind of demand and as a relate as a result supply markets is a town called Abalene, Texas, which is not far from where I am today. People go, gosh, Abalene, Texas, I've never heard of it. Why Abalene, Texas? Well, Stargate is putting in their massive data center in Abalene, Texas. They're building eight buildings over the course of x number of years. They're working on two now. We saw a 400% increase in demand as that got announced. And is the need for kind of workers to come in to build these massive data centers in a location that isn't ready for that sort of influx or doesn't have the housing readily available for that influx. And so it starts to kind of open up opportunities for again unlocking some of those those those things we talked about earlier, baby boomers who have an extra room in their house, that sort of thing start to come really start to become really more opportunistic for folks that more and more around the country. I mean every it's almost like every time you open, you know, you open the the news the next day, you see one of these big hyperscalers talking about data center that's going up here or there in some small town in market town. And that's really been a growing use case. Now, all that being said, healthcare use case is still a big one for us for sure. And it's not, you know, just these big cities, we skew very much towards kind of the mid-markets, these healthcare corridors or smaller markets. That's really where our use case comes into play quite a bit, especially when you compare it to the Airbnbs and VRBOs of the world who are beach, mountain, lake centric for the most part. We really kind of look at that other marketplace and kind of fill that niche. >> It makes sense. I mean in general right we know that there's more remote activity right as we all know and we kind of watch and monitor I would say but I guess the question would be maybe as a CFO right how how do you model this type of workforce moving forward where it's kind of the expectation now especially with maybe newcomers into the job market they they are expecting at least a hybrid model if not a remote experience what how do you approach that >> yeah we we definitely stay in tune to that I mean you know for us right now it's how do we model the growth and the demand look there's still infrastructure that that we're building quite frankly to really kind of match supply and demand at a more sophisticated level like we were used to doing when myself and a few many of our other executives who are former Verbbo execs, you know, what we developed over there. So, we're still kind of in that process of making sure that we can get really really granular and help the tenants and landlords out more than we do today. But we certainly stay in tune to kind of like the the migratory kind of element of what we're seeing. And you see that across demand in kind of these professional professional catalyst type of cities. you know, you get a lot of West Coast, San Francisco, Seattle, things of that nature that are generally more tied to those professional opportunities for folks. You see kind of other buckets of demand where it's it's it's more around kind of affordability. You can have people moving, you know, doing different things like Houston, Orlando, a lot of lot of cities in the south. Or you can kind of see that hybrid that hybrid opportunity from a city point of view, which you start to see a little bit more in the central part of the country, you know, your Austin's, your Chicago of the world where you can get to coast easily if you need to compared to flying across country. So in terms of how we model all that, I'd say we're still developing all that in terms of this is what we see as kind of the next big wave and but we do have statistics where we start to see where's we do follow those where's the demand really kind of peaking and it does range from those big cities to the Clarksville Tennessee you know to the Appalene Texas for various regional employment regions whatever the case may be. I'll give you a good example. We were looking at the news today. you know, the job support came out and surprised some people and it talked a little bit about some of the strikes in healthcare workers um that were kind of a part of that. And generally that kind of information, hey, we never want to see strikes in healthcare workers. When that happens though, those hospitals generally need to have some level of temporary employment assignment and that's where, you know, we can come into play to kind of be a part of that solution. >> Your comments on like data, right? We talk about data a lot on this show with various CFOs. How do you and do you need to even use that type of data in terms of where things are growing, where things are cooling down? Does that necessarily impact, you know, at a finances? Because a subscription is a subscription. It doesn't matter if I'm paying for my subscription for my house in Phoenix or if I'm paying for my house in Philadelphia, it's the same, right? So, do you use that data in different ways from a planning planning perspective or anything like that? >> I think progressively we will be using that data more in different ways. And I think, you know, again, if you take a giant step back, what we want to do is make sure that our customers are happy and getting what they need when they need it, right? And so in order to do that as a marketplace, it's our responsibility to really understand that dynamic and make sure that we're serving up to people that are travelers looking for a place to stay there's enough inventory in the place that they're looking. And so if we can see, hey, there's more demand than supply in those various cities, geographic nodes, however you want to call them, then we as a marketplace can then take efforts to kind of balance that supply out, right? Or supply and demand equation out. Whether it be kind of help people with pricing, whether it be, you know, our own, you know, our own pricing of hey, maybe we will offer a discount for people and subscriptions in this area because we need more we need more supply because there's a lot of demand coming this way. So, I do think it's it's our responsibility on that part. And on the landlord side, similar. I mean, we have a lot of people that come to our site. You would imagine we we have a lot of individual owners, but we also have more and more increasingly kind of that investor investor-minded, that small investor-minded individual that's been in the short-term rental side who's coming and going, "Hey, >> where's a good place to buy, you know, something that works on Furnished Finder for this monthly rental dynamic." >> And so, we serve up stats, you know, on our site to kind of help these these potential owners kind of figure out, hey, here's the dem here's where demand's strong. here's, you know, the number of bedrooms that generally people looking for, some of the amenities, etc. And so, we do serve that up. So, again, I think it's our responsibility as a marketplace to provide kind of that balanced marketplace with with the ultimate goal. Look, we just want to help our our consumers find what they want and landlords have quality tenants that can, you know, fill their fill their spaces >> beyond like what we know about in this in this market, in this space. You know, we know the names like we shared, right, the big names and now Furnished Finder, but I have to imagine there's probably a lot of further opportunities in this market in prop tech. What do you think's coming next? >> I think the current players are going to continue to evolve that. I do think technology is going to continue to accelerate kind of what we're seeing. I think there's a few things that are interesting interesting to me in this space. One is, you know, kind of how the underwriting process for smaller investors can kind of get accelerated. I mean, you're seeing a lot of this, you know, from a from an AI tooling point of view in the mortgage space. You're starting to see it more. I think you can start to see it more here to kind of accelerate the investment cycle. I think kind of this this portfolio optimization opportunity. And what I mean by that is you got you got people that have, you know, either their own single units or multiple units across short-term rental, mid, you know, monthly rentals, and then longer term unfurnished rentals, you know, with some of the big players. And how do you kind of revenue optimize for that? Whereas these tools today that are out there from a revenue optimization point of view, and they're out there and they're good, but they're specific for generally how do I optimize in short-term rentals? How do I optimize here? You can start seeing some tools like that start to blend that a little bit more. And then what you know the last thing I'd say kind of interesting from our vantage point and look there's a lot going on right now at the governmental level in terms of like this institutional investor trying to limit and there's there's bills in the Senate right now that are arguably detractful from what uh kind of the investment thesis is in the rental space. But one of the things that I think is interesting for us that I don't think it's impacted by that is like how do you you know how do you start to accelerate kind of this ADU like this you know the individual apartment in your backyard kind of deal. I think that's an opportunity for sure that's still kind of within the individual's hands and how do you use things to start start to accelerate on the prop tech side accelerate the development of those to kind of help address this you know the big housing shortage we talked about earlier >> the demand will remain it'll only grow it's the way I guess of the supply that might evolve with the technology and and things like that. So >> yeah, definitely mobility doesn't stop just because, you know, structural housing has frozen up. And so that's a lot of what we're seeing right now is mobility continues. The housing market's frozen a bit as we've as we've seen and thawing out hopefully a little bit as rates start to kind of fall now, but mobility is not slowing down. >> Certainly isn't. It's only getting getting bigger. We see it even internally in our company uh as well needing kind of uh to house people in Paris or something like that for for a couple of months. Anything stopping you from going international actually? I would imagine there's a demand there. We've said for sure I mean do we have international demands you know in in in our appetite? Yes. Uh do we have them tomorrow? No. Uh we have a big market right now in the US that honestly we're trying to get the tools and everything right for our customers here and this is a business that came a long way with product market fit and candidly like the the infrastructure and the technology behind it needed a lot of work a couple years ago. And so we started kind of really embarking down that path to kind of modernize the entire experience while we're building in all the automations and you know everything you're seeing from a technology AI etc point of view. Short answer is you know in the future is there international opportunity? Yeah I think there is but it's in the future still and it's TBD we decide to really lean into that. >> Don't dilute $300,000 300,000 homes is not not not insignificant at all. So you got plenty of uh plenty of opportunity here in the in the states. Let's take shift a little bit more about kind of like you kind of the operations there, finance and and and the impacts uh that you're making within within furnishinder and as mentioned at the intro right you you underneath of in the office of the CFO for you that includes HR as well as legal and we've seen that a couple of times here and there but I would say that usually it's kind of like a temporary kind of some way in terms of addressing maybe a leadership gap or something like that. So h how does wearing all those hats change how you maybe make decisions at Furnished Finder having those three things living inside of one or maybe where as opposed to before where you didn't have uh that that leadership over HR and legal specifically >> part of our ability to do that is still you know we're still a mid-market company we're not sitting here you know with some massive market cap with thousands of employees everywhere so there's there's no doubt there's a size element that enables this for sure I find it very enjoyable honestly you know there is a lot of context switching that goes on. We were talking with our leadership team this week about about this. I I do a lot of context switching back back and forth between the functions does get a little exhausting at times, but to the point of like how does it how does it interact with the operating model that we have, it speeds a lot of things up. I can tell you that the ability for me to kind of wear the multiple hats when it comes decision time, whether that be a talent decision, whether that be a vendor decision, whether that be a capital allocation decision, whatever the case may be, I have a lot, you know, I have kind of the immediate direct insight of what's happening across the different functions as opposed to, you know, my past at bigger organizations that takes a little time to go make sure that you're understanding the the components and the pieces >> that are leading into a decision. So, no doubt speed is is an advantage. Now the flip side of that is I'm very conscious of the fact that I need to leverage my peers and my CEO a bit more there because discussion is also very much needed in in exchange of ideas and kind of bouncing bouncing things back and forth before certain decisions are made. So my point is like I can go really fast but it doesn't always benefit us as a company and I think it's my responsibility to kind of take a step back sometimes seek out my peers and say this is what I'm thinking. Normally I would have done that with a leader of HR or a leader of legal who would have potentially have a different opinion, but I need to seek that out now since I'm kind of wearing all those hats. And so I, you know, I do that and my peers provide me great feedback and it helps to kind of balance out the equation while not reducing speed >> like you were saying like you could go faster. But there's another one where I would think of myself in that seat where I might even induce some self-parilis though. Do you ever find yourself kind of tripping over yourself with thoughts and and vision perhaps in terms of like your finance brain part of the brain maybe isn't aligned with the HR part of the brain? >> I definitely think there's I wouldn't call it devil and angels on both sides but the shoulders right but I mean you know there there's there's definitely conflicting views that happen. I don't know about kind of like the tripping the tripping over necessarily but there's no doubt there's some inherent conflicting views and you know look one of the other the mechanisms that I use and I think all of us are going to start using this more and more is I have my own AI assistance that I say hey I'm I'm doing this here's my decision you know what role I play give me the push back from a CFO lens give me the push back from a CHRO lens give me the push back from the chief legal lens and let me kind of consume that as well as kind of part of my synthesis and so I do think that's a very real use case of just being able to challenge and stretch stretch and find boundaries on certain decisions that are being made by using the tools that are in front of us today. >> I was mentioning to you before we got on uh the podcast that I I was interviewed on a on a Treasury specific podcast earlier this week and the question I was asked was like well how do the CFOs like how do they see Treasury for example? Like what's the overall theme and consensus there? And I'd say like I all the CFOs we've had on here have just been highly collaborative just like great people and I genuinely mean that and that that goes for you as well. One of the things I said is that everybody goes to get the CFO through different tracks and and maybe hadn't been in close proximity to that, but what they do is they tr put trust and faith in the leadership around those things and have good communication I think like you're saying. So I'd have to imagine I don't know if you had a legal background, right? So like is that how you've structured things internally as well, whether it's with legal or with your treasury function? I mean, is it really bringing in the right resources that you know and trust that know the things in detail or or are you kind of finding yourself sometimes micromanaging or forcing yourself to get into the weeds in those other functional areas that you might not have had experience in? >> I think a little bit of both, right? And I think in terms of bringing on the resources that includes kind of the use of outside resources. You're right. I'm I'm not an attorney, so I don't like sign off as as an attorney per se. I you know, I use outside counsel to help me when I need to. I think I've developed a decent skill over the years now in terms of like understanding when to do that and and really understanding where the risk is, right? You know, everything for me is kind of riskbased approach and so understanding, you know, where the risk is is is is really really relevant on the broad scale of your question. Absolutely. Right. I mean, it's it's very much a low ego, who who can drive this, who can help and and high trust, you know, trust but verify kind of, you know, situation. Not try to really actively surround myself and I have with very very talented individuals that can run and go and drive and you know I tell people from a management style my whole goal is to I'm there to pull you back if I need to pull you back but if I have to push you forward then we've done something wrong you know so go you know go and run and let's figure this out. When you think about from an HR perspective, but also kind of let's put the finance lens on it, right? You have an extra dollar to spend on talent today, right, to drive your execution economy, which I love, where do you put that? Do you put it into finding and recruiting the next wave of talent, or do you put it in kind of uh training and enabling the ones you already have? >> So, I'm going to give you my my chief legal officer clause here, which is it depends right? >> Yeah. And you're hedging you're hedging your CFO. >> Yeah. That's what I can bring to the table, Tom, from the legal side is hey, it depends. >> Yeah, >> it's a bit of use case specific because there's three things there, right? You know, in terms of all right, if I have my next dollar in this world of execution and productivity, where do I put it? >> No doubt, you know, I want to continue to invest in the in the team that we have. How do we upskill everybody across the organization? How are we enabling people to kind of really grab a hold of that productivity mantra, which is more and more what's going to be happening around here? And what do I need to do to kind of help them succeed? At the same time, you you're always looking for gamechanging talent, right? And I think gamechanging talent in this day and age, I think, is a little bit more important than five years ago in terms of what that means and how you define that because the ability to accelerate faster at light speed is just way more present than it was 5 years ago. And so, I think it's a combination of, hey, I want to upskill my team, but I'm also looking for gamechanging talent. Oh, and by the way, the third leg to that stool is, are there other tools that I need to be thinking about from an investment point of view that really drive the productivity execution kind of mantra? Because that's really what it's about. It's about how do you drive productivity in this world and also kind of balance that with burnout of teams, human talent evolution enablement development. And that's where I think kind of this intersection that I sit in between specifically HR and finance is so interesting and so fascinating because I think there's always been kind of the natural tugof-war between finance, you know, you're sitting in boardrooms and the board is, you know, pushing you for productivity and margins and all the other stuff and then you've got the CHR CHRO hat over here saying, "Yeah, agree, but we also have talent and, you know, we've got to maintain and incentide our talent with opportunities and develop because they are the asset and the resource. To me though, I think like with everything that's happening right now in the macro, this is just becoming illuminated more and more and more that this dynamic has to coexist. And I don't think people have figured it out in terms of what that's going to mean and how it's going to look like and how do you really kind of blend all this together yet. I think we're all going to figure it out together, but I think it involves a lot of how do we invest in our teams, how do we invest in generational kind of gamechanging talent, and then how do you invest in tools? And you know, that's the mix that I struggle with, not struggle with that I contemplate every day here. And certainly between my CHR, my my human resources hat and my CFO hat for sure. >> I totally agree. I don't think anybody's figured it out because I think if you had figured it out today, tomorrow it's it's a whole different game. It's it's evolving so quick like you were saying. I think more than ever it's about keeping that balance between gamechanging maybe new ways of working talent and fundamental let's call it way traditional ways of working and then also balancing it on the technology side or the tooling right and so if you go to that kind of part of it like what do you think the biggest mistakes that that you you think you see in terms of like growth stage kind of mid-stage uh companies and and with that tech stack do they buy too big too early perhaps and kind of overinvest or do they hang on sometimes We see that as well. They're just they're just latching on to archaic technology or technology that's not big enough now to kind of scale with their company. What do you see on your end? >> Yeah, I've seen a couple things. One, I I think um I've seen lack of kind of a vision of the infrastructure holistically, right? The architecture holistically, the Frankenstein effect of we're going to do this and now we're going to do that. And so I think having that early is critical. And yes, of course, it's going to change and it's going to morph and all the other things. But if you have kind of your design princip design principles around kind of what you're going for and how you're going to achieve it, then I think that keeps out and get puts some guardrails around some of the noise that kind of creep in because you end up five years later and you've got this hodge podge of stuff that now you're dealing with. How does it talk to each other? I think that's one. I think the other one is interesting. I I kind of take the opposite approach of the build versus buy. Meaning that I think often too the mistakes I've seen of of companies building instead of buying, especially in this in this world where we're living in, hey, I want to do X, Y, and Z. Well, there's plenty of vendors that do X, Y, and Z. And yes, they may cost maybe a little capital upfront and that sort of thing, which I get is always a bit of the trade-off, especially when you're in a growth business and you're balancing capital allocation everywhere. I totally understand that. But you end up making some bad choices on, hey, I'm going to invest here and build this and think it's going to take three months and then you're 18 months later and you're still not there. To me, like that's a little bit of, you know, those are the two big ones that I've seen. And I do think with both of them, again, with with the changing technology that we're seeing, you know, every news cycle now. I think both of those are are are becoming easier to remedy. Honestly, we met with our executive team a little bit this week and we were talking about how like the intention economy is is is what's really becoming the expensive side of the economy. Whereas the whole mantra the last 20 years has been ideas are cheap but code is expensive. >> Well, code's becoming a lot less expensive, you know? So, what's really the real expensive part is how do you grab your attention of your customers and what does that look like? And then are we investing enough there as opposed to everything that we're thinking about process-wise has kind of this end in mind of well it can't get all the way to engineering because that's really expensive work when in fact it actually can now more and more and you can iterate on ideas you can have a lot more ideas faster because more of a flywheel than it ever has been before and so how all that pivots and shifts I think is really interesting and I think that feeds back into like the technology stacks and things of things of that nature that these companies are dealing with is there's a lot more you repairable. I'm not going to make say it's easy because my engineering friends would have my head, but a lot more. >> Yeah, don't make them mad, but no, it's completely different. It's completely flipped itself around. I think it's very insightful the way you've kind of phrased that in terms of the ideation to the development. We see that as well. Uh, right. And we know that's kind of the world we're living in. It gives us a lot of opportunity uh jointly uh in the technology space, I would say. >> Agreed. >> But I guess that kind of leads into the career kind of element of the conversation which we can tie out here. What's your advice like how do you ensure that you don't get stuck in your career? And I think that's probably more important now maybe than ever for financial professionals. You've done a lot in your career and have kind of pivoted. What's your advice there? So in other individuals listening don't get stuck in their evolution. >> Learn every part of the business that you can. I I think you know certainly kind of in the seat that we sit in as CFOs I think that is something that we all take very seriously that you've got to know you've got to know a lot about a lot and that doesn't mean you have to know everything about a lot but you know that that was kind of the light bulb for me when I went from kind of a senior executive in the finance space to CFO was kind of the exposure to the understanding of and and how it all connects from the operations of the business and I know a lot of people will say that but and I had heard that before even jumping into the CFO and like oh everybody says this but it's really true. The cool part about it is from my vantage point is like that's that's the fun part. That's really enjoyable. My advice to people is don't double down necessarily on like the technical accounting or the finance and stuff. Get to a point for sure but then sit in as many meetings and understanding or forums whatever the case may be in terms of learning what you can about how the business truly works because that's the magic. And there's a lot of similarities across industries and and and businesses and companies. I've seen that. But there's a lot of differences too to me. Like that's the magic to bring to the organization because there's going to be a lot of streamlining that happens from a process point of view. What works and experiences that are broader than just the finance lens or the HR lens or the the legal lens is really what makes a good overall business executive. And so that's what I would tell people. Go for being a business executive. Yes, you have a functional expertise, but go for being a business >> exe exe. Is AI an enabler to that so that they can have quicker access to those things? So maybe they don't have to sit in the meeting. >> Absolutely. 100%. it is on all of us to make sure that we are personally developing in this new world, right? And you know, it's always been the case. Again, there's some universal truths that have been around for a long, long time. I don't think it's ever been more bright line than right now, at least in my career in in terms of the personal mantra or idea that I own my own development because it's just too fast for companies even to to make sure that everyone gets upskilled the right way all the time, even though we're going to try. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yep. 100%. I completely agree with you in terms of exposure and and experience and kind of like opening yourself up to those things. One of the things as well from your experience is you've worked for the larger companies as well as for the smaller mid-market companies. Is there a penchant there that you have first of all and then second which is harder kind of the leaner working in the leaner team or the politics of the larger teams perhaps? >> So start with the second one first. I actually think the politics of the larger team are harder. As much as I like like the interpersonal dynamics, I'm very much kind of try to build my my relationships in a way that that are positive. I', you know, that's what gives me energy is having good relationships with my co-workers, my peers, my colleagues. But I do think that's harder working at a big company with 25,000 people and I've got a 100 people in my organization across different continents and you start to figure out getting things to move and understanding kind of, you know, how you're dealing with it just becomes harder. It's a different job than the smaller than the smaller things. I like the smaller kind of mid-market, midcap a lot. I'm enjoying it. This has been my second ifo gig kind of in this space since I left the big company. I've learned a lot and it is an adjustment. It is a change. I think the part that I like about it the most is I have an impact today on some on a decision I make today whereas a decision I make today in a larger organization may have an impact in a month or you know a week or whatever. But and that that was something I had to learn honestly coming out. And again, something you kind of theoretically know, but when you actually get in there and experience it and it's like, okay, this decision just got made and 10 minutes later we're doing something about it, you're like, whoa, okay, this is a different game. >> It's exciting >> and and it's fun, right? It's enjoyable. And so I I enjoy that impact. >> I would tend to agree. I like feeling the impact. I like working quick. And yeah, I the politics are not of personal enjoyment, I don't think, to most, I would say. Uh so yeah, fair enough. Let's finish off. Let's talk about you a little bit. If you were to work remote for three months, right, wanted to book something through Furnished Finder, where you headed? >> All right, I'm going to tell you. I'm going to give you two answers on this because one of them is not through Furnished Finder, but it's going to be a shout out to where we have, you know, nearly 200 individuals working, which is Colombia. I might go to Colombia first, Tom, to be honest, because it is a very enjoyable place to go. I I thoroughly enjoy it. So, I might go spend >> I've heard amazing. I've heard it's it's such a growing destination, I think, for people. I hear more and more people going there. Yeah. >> Yeah. I mean, it's fantastic. So, my first choice now, if Furnished Finder were there, obviously I'd book a Furnished Finder, but I might go there. But if I'm going to if I'm going to stay in the States and use Furnished Finder, I'm probably doing something in the Smoky Mountains somewhere. Asheville, somewhere around there. Get a little artsy side of the the world. Get a little mountain side of the world. Get some some good eats, some good wine, that sort of thing. Um, that's probably where I'm going. >> Okay. Yeah. Mountain guy. See, I'm I'm aligned more to the to the coast and the beach side. It definitely was uh days of co when you're just kind of trapped. I remember looking at real estate in Hawaii, right? Just like you can be anywhere, I guess, right? And we I think we all probably toyed with those fantasies and ideas at that time. >> Now, now remember, Tom, I live I live in Austin, Texas. I experience the heat like it's hotter than the surface of the sun here sometimes. And so the mountains tend to be a little appealing. >> Yeah, absolutely. Yep. Especially coming here in these next couple weeks or months here as we get into the summer. >> That's right. >> Um your travels, right? Your experiences 20 years. What's a rule? I like like this this question because it uh I I can take advice on this. What's your what's your one hard and fast rule about travel? >> My one hard and fast rule about travel stems from the fact that I'm a father of four girls. And when I traveled internationally quite a bit, my wife was home with four with four young kids. And so my one rule that I used to always live by, especially when I traveled internationally, was never miss home. That was my one rule. I enjoyed my travels for sure. I I I don't want to like make it sound like I don't enjoy traveling. I absolutely do, but needed to get back to see my kids. I needed to get back to help my wife and you know, so don't ever miss the flight home. That's my >> mantra. >> Yep. Can relate to that, too. And last thing, what are you doing today? We're talking on a Friday here. Laptop will close. I know you're a CFO even afterwards, right? But what are you doing to uh kind of switch gears? >> My youngest daughter plays soccer for her high school team, and so I look forward to these Friday nights of going to kind of relax, grab a soda at the soccer game, and watch my daughter play. But generally speaking, I think my wife and I will go to dinner. Again, we're in Texas, so we like Mexican food quite a bit. And so, we'll go grab a Mexican food and a margarita, kind of end the week that way, and get ready for the weekend. >> That's awesome. You guys a soccer family, or is that just for the one daughter? >> Just for my littlest one. Yeah. Just for my littlest one. Yeah. >> Okay. Big soccer guy. So, >> yeah. Yeah. No, I've I've thoroughly enjoyed getting into it. >> That's great. Well, Trent, thank you so much for being here. It's been a great conversation. Anything parting thoughts? anything in terms of how the audience can keep up with you, Furnished Finder, anything like that you want to leave us with? >> Yeah, no, I think, you know, certainly kind of I think follow us, you know, from a Furnished Finder point of view. We continue to evolve and grow and add more unique inventory every day to our site. We're at Furnished Finder.com. Check us out. Otherwise, I'd say Tom, I mean, the only question I'm disappointed you didn't ask me is my favorite book because I think you tend to ask that question quite a bit. So, >> I do. I'm always, but I try not to be too redundant, but I'm Yeah, by all means. What's your favorite book? Well, it's interesting because I was listening to one of your episodes not long ago and I haven't read it yet, but I just ordered is I think it's called Killer Angels, if that's right. >> Oh, yeah. >> The Civil War book. So, I'm I'm excited to read that. But, uh, but in terms of what I have read recently, I'm a I'm a big Ray Dallio fan at this point. You know, kind of like the macroeconomic. I found his books to be very interesting and very compelling. And so, >> they're very good. They're very easy to read. They're dense, but they're easy to, you know, the topics are dense, but they're easy to read. He's very insightful. Yeah. has been was Yeah, but I'm so so thank you for asking and thanks for listening and also Killer Angels is a special book for me. It's a really interesting book. So, I'll definitely want to hear your feedback once we get through it. >> I got it. I got it. I got it. Got it just a few days ago. So, I'm excited to dig in. >> I read it cover to cover. Reads like a novel in a way and but it's obviously factual. So, it's awesome. Thank you, Trent. And uh and thanks to everybody else for joining in. To never miss an episode, subscribe wherever you listen. I'm Tom Gavaghan and this is Liquid. How CFOs outperform.