The creator gives a tour of his seven-cabin micro-resort, telling the origin story of how he built it with only $19,000 in savings. He recounts a major crisis when Airbnb unexpectedly suspended his account just two weeks after launch, forcing him to pivot. He explains how a $950 giveaway generated $40,000 in direct bookings, and how this experience led him to build a successful direct booking business with 150,000 followers.
Post caption
Two weeks after launching @liveoaklake, I woke up to find our entire Airbnb account suspended. No warning, no explanation.
Six days later, after getting nowhere with customer support, I tried something risky: a giveaway.
The rest is history. 🙏😊
To this day, I never got a clear explanation for why it happened. But it taught me one of the most valuable business lessons I’ve ever learned.
As someone wise once said: don’t build your house on someone else’s land!
Comment “lake” and I’ll message you over a link to attend my free workshop where you can learn my 10-step process to develop your own micro-resort.
Transcript
Here at Live Oak Lake. It's a seven cabin micro resort that I designed and built a few years ago with just $19,000 of savings and a dream. Somehow I convinced the bank to give me a construction loan. We dug out this small lake, built seven cabins around it with a commons area, shipping container, pool. Crazy tier, Airbnb actually suspended my account with no warning or explanation best two weeks after we launched. On the brink of foreclosure, it forced me to think outside the box. A $950 giveaway resulted in $40,000 of bookings and about 5,000 followers from scratch. And then as fate would have it, Airbnb restored the account. They said it'd been a glitch, but we went all in on direct. Build a 150,000 followers, 80% direct bookings. That's all because it was what I call word-of-mouth worthy. All the little decisions of design and, you know, aesthetic detailing that went into creating this
