My father gave me one piece of good advice.
“Be your own boss,” he always said.
Both my brother and I followed in Dad’s footsteps, starting our own businesses and embarking on new ventures relatively late in life. At a time when some of my friends are raving about the joys of retirement, I’ve launched a new business.
I’m an innkeeper of sorts. For anyone who hasn’t heard of Airbnb, it’s a global business that got its start when two recent college graduates in San Francisco decided to put an air mattress in their living room. They wondered if anyone would pay to stay there. The answer turned out to be yes. They named their new venture AirBedandBreakfast, which eventually got shortened to Airbnb.
My decision to open my own Airbnb happened largely through serendipity. I spent a weekend in the Berkshires a while back and stayed at an AirBnb.
Although the host was lovely, the accommodations on the second floor of her home proved less than ideal. I had to share a bathroom with her sullen teenage daughter. My room didn’t even have a coffee maker. As much as I felt for this woman renting out a room in her home to make ends meet, a little voice inside me whispered, “I could do better.”
Still, I knew it wouldn’t be easy. If I wanted to offer guests privacy, which I did, I’d need to add on to my house. And that would cost money.
What if I spent thousands of dollars on an addition and my Airbnb flopped?
After much thought, I justified the expense by pinpointing multiple uses for the new space: a guest suite for friends and family, a place to recover from an injury, a suite for aging in place, and a strategy for increasing the value of my house. Instead of one possible justification, I had five. Besides, I’d fallen in love with my house during COVID and wanted to spruce her up.
Like a franchisee, I’ve gotten help with training and marketing from my parent company. It’s self-employment, but with a safety net. Of course, the big boss sets the agenda. Airbnb’s cleaning guidelines, for instance, take germ-fighting to new levels of antiseptic warfare.
My Amazon Alexa helps take some of the sting out of the chore. Classic rock songs like “Takin’ Care of Business” by Bachman-Turner Overdrive, get me dancing while I scrub.
Behind the song “Takin’ Care of Business” is a tale of perseverance and serendipity that echoes my own. Randy Bachman started writing the song while in his old group, the Guess Who. He got the idea for the opening verse from one of the band’s sound technicians who used to take the 8:15 a.m. train into the city.
After the Guess Who rejected the song, Bachman brought it to his next band, Bachman-Turner Overdrive. They, too, turned it down. Eventually he found a catchy new lyric when he wasn’t even looking. Listening to the radio in his car, he heard a deejay say the phrase, “Takin’ care of business.” The rest is history.
These days, Bachman and his son, Tal, have a show called Musical Mystery Tour, analyzing Beatles songs, on Sirius XM. Is the show an offshoot of Bachman’s musical career or a brand-new endeavor?
The question got me thinking about how my Airbnb fits into my life as a writer. On the one hand, it seems like a totally different line of work. On the other, it parallels the opportunities my writing has given me to meet people I never would have otherwise met.
Instead of leaving home to expand my horizons, I get the outside world to come to me. One of my first guests came to town to play a vampire in a music video. A nurse from New York City at the height of COVID arrived at my hideaway to renew and recharge. And coming up on my calendar are a pair of traveling wedding photographers, a profession I never knew existed.
Sure, I’ve had a couple rude or difficult customers, but they’ve been few and far between. Most of my guests come for joyous occasions such as weddings or concerts, and I get a contact high from their energy.
Maybe someday I’ll crave middle-of-the-road music and a life of leisure. Right now, I’m hoping that day never comes.
Joan Axelrod-Contrada is a writer who lives in Florence. She writes a monthly column for the Gazette, Only Human, that runs on the second Friday of the month. Reach her at joanaxelrodcontrada@gmail.com.