Hospitable Inspired: Toby Okeke’s Journey from Software Builder to Host

The special guest of our latest Hospitable Hosts podcast is our team member Toby Okeke from Abuja, Nigeria. Toby works full-time as a support software engineer at Hospitable, "handling all the customer support stuff on the more technical side," he is also a host on Airbnb. Chatting with Miles, Toby shares his story of going from a Hospitable team member to a Hospitable host and explains how Hospitable allows him to manage everything hassle-free.

Tune in to discover a unique story about a Hospitable employee who turned host himself so that he could better understand the challenges that hosts face.

If you prefer to read the highlights, we've got a summary of the key takeaways below.

How Toby Started His Hosting Journey

As part of onboarding at Hospitable, every team member creates a fake Airbnb listing and connects their account to Hospitable to see what customers see and guide them when they need help. So Toby's hosting journey started with having a bunch of fake listings, which in some cases got blocked, so he had to create them a few times, and it became a hassle.

"Then one day I was like, wait, why can't I have a real listing? With Hospitable, managing it won't be that much of a hassle," Toby explained.

A year ago, Toby created an actual listing for his small studio apartment in a lovely town spot. "So I now have the full experience of what the host feels," he adds.

Using Hospitable to Save Time on Guest Communication

Since communication with guests is one of the most important aspects of hosting, Toby included as many details about his property as he could when creating a listing. But guests always have questions, and most of the time, they ask about the same things.

That's why Toby used Hospitable to set up automated messages to provide guests with the necessary information in small chunks at the right time. He also took time to create answers to the most common questions and to automate sending quick responses.

Toby can save much time on repetitive messages, like check-in instructions. "And I feel like guests have a better experience when they get that from communication rather than dumping a big old PDF at the beginning of their booking," he underlines.

Toby also likes Hospitable's AI features, which allow hosts to draft and correct responses to guest messages and reviews quickly. He thinks the quality of AI-suggested replies is really impressive. He also uses automated messages to upsell extra unoccupied nights. "Those things make a huge impact. So I'm looking forward to the AI making those things even smarter," he says.

Advice to New Hosts

Toby points out that he had just one listing when he started hosting. "So it was at the beginning stage straightforward for me to get the hang of hosting and what matters versus what doesn't matter," he clarifies.

"So start, but start small. That way, you can learn, find your optimized point, and then scale the optimized setup you've gotten from learning," Toby recommends to hosts just starting out.

Being a Part of the Host Community

Toby admits he likes being a host. "For sure, I enjoy it so much. I think this is something I'm just going to keep on doing. It's passive, interesting, and you meet nice people." Toby interacts with local hosts, and they often discuss how to improve their operations, share ideas and tips, and learn from each other. He's also part of the Hospitable Hosts group on Facebook. "I see a lot of hosts sharing many things that I have implemented."

Listen to the full episode of the Hospitable Hosts podcast to get inspired by Toby's story of going from employee to entrepreneur and find out what valuable lessons he learned along the way!