How do you scale a hotel business without losing the culture, agility and human connection that made it successful in the first place? In this episode of Pillow Talk Sessions, Jessica Gillingham speaks with Hjörtur Valgeirsson, Chief Operating Officer of Íslandshótel, Iceland's largest hotel chain, about the challenges and opportunities of growing a hospitality business in one of the world's most distinctive operating environments. With 19 hotels across Iceland, from large conference-ready pro

A houseboat that no bank would finance and no insurer would cover might seem an unlikely starting point for a hospitality brand. For Brian Meyer, it was the beginning of FLOHOM. Brian Meyer grew up on the water. He paddled competitively, built a paddleboard company in downtown Annapolis, and spent years living at the marina where his business was docked. When it came time to move, he couldn't afford a waterfront home, but he walked into a refurbished 1970s houseboat and couldn't get the idea ou

AvantStay started with a simple proposition: create a consistent guest experience in a fragmented market. Eight years later, Reuben Doetsch has scaled it to more than 3,000 homes across 100-plus US markets. In today's episode, I ask Reuben a deceptively simple question. What exactly is a short-term rental operator in today's market? AvantStay spans large group homes, aparthotels,, and branded residences, with technology and data at the center of how it operates. Reuben makes a case that the bo

Like many entrepreneurs entering the short-term rental space, Maxime Leufroy-Murat started out believing growth was a function of acquiring more properties and scaling operations. After more than a decade in the industry, he has reached very different conclusions. Maxime Leufroy-Murat has spent over a decade inside the short-term rental industry — building City Relay, one of London's most established lettings management platforms, and Opago, a tech-enabled operations business now managing aroun

When Njål Elliasson co-founded his Norwegian-based short-term rental property management company, Heimby, in 2022, he was over the moon as it quickly grew in size and profit. But before he knew it, his company started crumbling, going from a $100k profit in year one to a $200k loss by the end of year two. By the end of 2023, Njål was forced to start over, prioritizing quality of product over profit and growth. He got rid of all of his team, downsized to just the 20 best homes, hired at CTO and

What does it take to build a hospitality brand that delivers genuine quality at a budget price point? Matt Bell is the Managing Director of Mollie's, a design-led motel and diner concept with properties in Oxford, Bristol, and Manchester. With nearly two decades in independent hospitality, Matt brings a rare mix of operational rigour and brand instinct to everything Mollie's does. In this episode, Matt breaks down the philosophy behind the brand — why budget doesn't have to mean boring, and ho