Vacation Rental Founder Sold 64 Homes After Burning Out
Paul Burke, 42, built a 64-home vacation rental portfolio in Colorado and sold it in 2026 after two years. He now says that hospitality was not for him. "I think what I've learned about myself is that I am better suited for business operations than I am for hospitality operations," he told Business Insider.
Burke is the CEO and cofounder of Vantory, an AI startup that streamlines rental operations for property managers.
How it started
The venture began in Winter Park, Colorado. Burke was visiting a sister who is a real estate agent. Her boss, who owns the brokerage, said it had wanted a property management company for five years and had not found the right partner. He told Burke he was that person.
Burke had just sold a previous tech company. Convincing owners to leave established managers for a new firm run by someone without experience was hard, he says. He took them to lunch and promised to maximize their income.
His method was to win a handful of customers, deliver for them and use the results as case studies. In some cases, he says, homes his company managed earned double what a neighbor's identical home made. One owner averaged $500 a night while the house next door averaged $1,100.
Pricing by the numbers
Burke spent a decade as a derivatives trader in Chicago. Early on, he noticed that short-term rental pricing was standard and based on bedroom count. A four-bedroom, $1 million home charged the same as a four-bedroom, $4 million one. He took a more institutional approach, he says, like airlines and hotels.
He also recalls a furnace failure on the Sunday after Christmas. He could not reach anyone in the small town, so he sat in the furnace room for an hour watching YouTube videos. He says the CEO showing up to listen to a frustrated client went a long way.
Why he left
"You're basically running a hotel that's scattered around a 10-mile radius," Burke says. "It was intense, and it was draining." The company had 64 homes live and 74 signed.
He cites several reasons for exiting. Private equity is rolling up the short-term rental market, and buyers were phoning him about once a week. He also was not feeling challenged.
Last winter, he says, there were moments when he thought, "I don't want to do this anymore. I don't like people anymore."
He says he gave up a lot to start Vantory, since most of his money was going to come from an earnout. Private equity firms offered to make him an operating partner, but he turned them down because he does not want to work for someone else. At Vantory, he says, he has automated his pricing playbook.
Source: Business Insider