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How Bo Abrams Turned a Pandemic Insight into Kommu, the Future of Home-Sharing - ep. 105

• BO ABRAMS, LAUREL FARRER, KALEEM CLARKSON • Season 1 • Episode 105

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In this episode, our host Kaleem Clarkson, joined by guest co-host Laurel Farrer, dives into the compelling journey of entrepreneur Bo Abrams, co-founder of Kommu, a revolutionary home-sharing platform. Bo's evolution—from a spirited youth navigating diverse environments to an innovative leader tackling inefficiencies in the home-sharing industry—is both impressive and full of insightful turns.

Bo’s unique upbringing as part of a nationally ranked basketball team alongside hip-hop legend Master P exposed him to diverse experiences from a young age. These experiences helped build his confidence, adaptability, and knack for navigating challenges—a foundation that has served him well in his entrepreneurial pursuits. This drive undoubtedly motivated him to earn an MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School of Business, all while continuing to pursue his musical endeavors!

Bo’s professional journey began in finance, where he took an entry-level position at a hedge fund, likening the experience to starting in the mailroom. Although the job involved humbling tasks like fetching coffee, it introduced him to ambitious colleagues who inspired his career aspirations. Realizing that the hedge fund path wasn’t his true calling, Bo pivoted to operations roles in startups, including a stint at Steelhouse (now Mountain).

The inspiration for Kommu struck during a trip to Whitefish, Montana, when Bo encountered the inefficiencies and high costs of home-sharing platforms like Airbnb. He wondered why homeowners couldn’t monetize their properties as easily as car owners using platforms like Turo. This lightbulb moment led to the creation of Kommu—a social marketplace designed to offer young people trusted, affordable home-sharing options while fostering a sense of community. Bo envisioned Kommu as a disruptor in the space, providing a more equitable and user-friendly alternative to traditional rental platforms.

Bo’s partnership with co-founder Gus marked another milestone in Kommu’s journey. The two met at UCLA, and their shared vision for transforming the home-sharing market solidified their collaboration. However, the road to success wasn’t without sacrifices. Bo candidly shared how his laser focus on career and academic goals led to personal challenges, including the end of a significant relationship. Despite these setbacks, he found strength in his achievements and the unwavering support of family and friends.

Take a moment to delve deeper into Kommu’s ethos and mission with Laurel and Kaleem’s sharp and delightful guidance! Bo’s experiences and journey are a testament to the transformative power of resilience, adaptability, and innovation. From a trumpet-playing teenager in Beverly Hills to the co-founder of a disruptive startup, his story underscores the importance of perseverance in overcoming obstacles.

Learn more about navigating the startup world, cultivating a growth mindset, and balancing ambition with personal sacrifices! Bo’s story—filled with relatable anecdotes and actionable takeaways—serves as a beacon of inspiration for aspiring entrepreneurs and remote professionals alike.

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Bo-Abrams:

I was in the marching symphonic bands as a trumpet player, pretty serious trumpet player.

Kaleem:

So were you in the white band or the black bands? Let's just be, let's just ask. Cause like, were you just going, Oh, you're

Bo-Abrams:

oh, let me tell you something. White bands for sure. I was Beverly Hills High School and then we would go play. We played Inglewood High School in our league. And they had their band at the fucking basketball games and they would be playing the most modern, like the newest song that just came out and I swear to God, I'd be in the court in the heat of battle. And I'd be like, no way are they playing like the little John right now. And it was so

Kaleem:

Yeah. It's

Bo-Abrams:

And I'm like, why don't we get to play those songs? We're playing It's a Small World the football game.

Kaleem:

world after all. And you're like,

Laurel:

Hello and welcome back to Remotely One. You already know the one and only Kaleem Clarkson, and I am your guest host, Laurel Farr. Kaleem, thank you so much for inviting me to be here today. I am crazy excited.

Kaleem:

Thank you so much. I mean, you want to talk about. out to friends. I call early this morning at eight in the morning like, yo, I need a And what did you say? Laurel?

Laurel:

I said, let me move a meeting, and I'm there, because nobody says no to Kaleem. Come on, it's a party. Always it's a party.

Kaleem:

Thank you so much.

Laurel:

It's going to be a blast and thank you to everyone listening and watching for you to be here as well. You already know how to find us because, obviously, you're here. So, what we would appreciate as long as you're here is to please do us a great big favor and go to RateThisPodcast. com slash Remotely Run and leave us a review. Again, that's RateThisPodcast slash Remotely Run and we would be so grateful for that. Especially this episode because Yours truly is here, so I would really like the upvotes, and then Kaleem invites me again, like, Wow, this episode performed really well. I wonder what the X Factor

Kaleem:

I mean, or it could be our guests. We'll see what happens. We'll

Laurel:

We'll see.

Kaleem:

is our guest has a great mustache. We'll see. We'll see

Bo-Abrams:

I was gonna say, like you, I might be the reason, Laurel, that you actually don't get, uh, voted up. There'd be like, there's a creepy guy with a mustache on the, the podcast.

Laurel:

It's on. So, yes, please go cast that vote really quickly. We'd really, really appreciate it, and RemotelyOne is definitely earning that vote. This is one of the largest communities of remote work professionals in the world, and it's been established since 2015. So, OGs, my friends, we have over 3, 000 members. 3, 000 Slack members, 5, 000 email subscribers, and you are an important part of that, so please make your voice heard, share that rate and review, and any comments, and come and network, and have fun in the community. So, remotelyone. com if you want to learn more, and then now all that housekeeping is out of the way. Kaleem tell us about who we are going to be dazzled by today.

Kaleem:

okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So Laurel, you may not know this, but I get so nervous, I start sweating and shit. And I have this thing. Special shirt that I wear that has like these maxi pads in it so that I don't sweat through my shirt and you see sweat stains and you know what, this guest today makes me just as nervous. Let me tell you about our guests. This guest makes me crazy nervous. Not only do they have, you know, the mustache that, you know, usually accompanies a van, but. Okay. Our guest is also from LA. Okay. Grew up in LA and lives between New York and LA. So what do you think about that? Well,

Laurel:

They're bougie like that. I mean, obviously, like, fly over.

Kaleem:

unfortunately, he's a Clippers fan, but that's okay. We're not going to talk about that. Um oh, our guess they know some shit. They have some intellects. Okay. They graduated from UCLA's Anderson school of business with their MBA. Damn it.

Laurel:

We've just got flex after flex here. I, come on.

Kaleem:

oh, oh,

Laurel:

bring some humility to the table

Kaleem:

oh, oh, yes. Let's see. Let's see. They got their start in finance. On the marketing team of a hedge fund. Okay. Coffee's for closers. Coffee's for closers. Let's see. What else do

Laurel:

Please let some stories come from that hedge fund. I cannot wait to hear the bloodbath that happened.

Kaleem:

Yeah, we'll definitely start. You can start with that. We can

Laurel:

Yeah, yeah, I'm noting that, putting a pin in that.

Kaleem:

Something most people don't know about our guests today is that he was in a marching band and a symphonic band. I can't even say symphonic, right? Okay. So he knows how to play the trumpet, but then also in addition to that, don't trip, don't trip because this dude has hops. He has hops and he can ball. He was the token white guy. He was the token white guy on his team. They were nationally ranked and guess who his teammate was. Laurel guess who his teammate was.

Laurel:

I get, Julie Andrews. Love

Kaleem:

Master P, Master P, you know about Master P.

Laurel:

this. I love

Kaleem:

my gosh. Little

Laurel:

Good thing that the, um, marching band was in there because We would all be like hearts of flutter at this point. So thank you both for bringing some a slice of humility and that little humble pie to the table because we needed that addition to the buffet.

Bo-Abrams:

I that is exact. I wanted to make sure you guys knew that I was a human being and not this perfect God from L. A. This bi coastal king, um, that built a home sharing and sharing network to help him actually afford things.

Kaleem:

Our guest today, Laurel, right? Our guest today, they are currently the co founder Komu, which is a social marketplace for young people. For trusted, okay. And affordable home sharing listeners and viewers. Please give a warm welcome to Bo hey, let's go. Let's go.

Bo-Abrams:

Never once. Never once did they cheer for me like that in basketball.

Laurel:

I was gonna say, takes you back to the court.

Kaleem:

settled down. Studio artists. Sorry about that. Both. Our studio audience is crazy. They can't help it. So sorry about that.

Laurel:

especially with though. I mean, they just get all a

Kaleem:

Oh, thank you for coming. Thank you for joining, sir. Thank you for joining.

Bo-Abrams:

Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to be here.

Kaleem:

That's awesome, man.

Bo-Abrams:

And little thanks for showing up with my, if I called my friends and said, Hey, I need you as an emergency guest on my podcast, then I did have a podcast. By the way, they would have said, well, you need to not have a podcast. You would literally, nope. Nobody cares about what your opinion is.

Laurel:

That is not the case with Colleen.

Kaleem:

not the case here. That is not the case. People care! They want to hear from you!

Bo-Abrams:

Hey, the stats don't lie. I've been a listener. I'm a fan,

Laurel:

Yeah,

Kaleem:

I appreciate that. I appreciate that.

Laurel:

I'm so excited. Like, can we just jump in? Because I'm so excited.

Kaleem:

let's do it. Let's

Laurel:

Okay, B I'm hearing SaaS platform. I'm hearing basketball. I'm hearing hedge fund. Like, what is happening? Take us to the very beginning. Where did your career start? What is your origin story? And

Bo-Abrams:

I was, I was an athlete. I was a musician. I was doing all the right things. I thought to try to go to, you know, great schools. My dad, you know, went to junior college, graduated from university of Maryland, put himself through school. My mom didn't graduate college and. This was all new, I think, to me and my sisters, and so I applied to schools. I had, I thought, good grades, did all the right things, and I got absolutely wrecked and didn't get into, like, any of the colleges I wanted, and I lost to all of the rich kids, you know, poor me, but the rich kids that had the consultants and the tutors and the whole shebang, and I was like, bummer. That being said, I bounced around a little bit. It's a longer story. I ended up finding this liberal arts college, Haverford in Philly, played basketball there, met some of my closest friends. And I remember they were interviewing, I transferred as a junior, they were interviewing on campus. Somebody comes to campus and they're interviewing for a hedge fund. And I'm like, what's a hedge fund? And they offered me the job and it was for an analyst position, but I actually didn't get that position. They were like, listen, if you want to come and be an assistant to start, you know, you can earn your way up in the, you know, and then make it happen. So I did that. I was serving coffee. I was doing all the, you know, kind of like being in the mail room. Met the guy that did get the analyst, Jeff. Exactly. I, I wasn't the closer I was serving the clo I'm serving the closers.

Kaleem:

Sorry. I couldn't help it.

Bo-Abrams:

But yeah, no, that was a, it was a very intense competitive place, which I, you know, I did love as an athlete, but it was also my first exposure into like, just the work world. And I was like, these people are the smartest, most ambitious people, ever. And you know. I'm very interested in it, but I also felt like I was gonna it was a long haul for me to actually be a contributor in such a big industry. So I ended up then going to a startup that was called Steelhouse at the time. Now it's called Mountain.

Laurel:

you're still doing finance, or are you doing something different?

Bo-Abrams:

so this is now me pivoting away from finance more into an operational role because I wanted to get some exposure to being in a startup. And I think I had a little bit of an inclination towards you know, being just in a smaller company, like I wanted to be a little bit more hands on and early stage. And so I did that. And at this moment in time, there's a separate longer story that really is that, you know, it has to do with a friend. She had a disease and we were raising a nonprofit for, and it kind of exposed me to venture healthcare. I then was realized. Yeah, there's a lot of really, I will say this really is a fascinating story, but it is to say, I really thought I want to go into that world because I think I could make a difference and I'm gonna apply to business school as a place to kind of pivot into that. And so this go around. I'm like, I'm not losing to the rich kids. I took all the money I had and I took the GMAT seven times. Which is the exam that you take

Kaleem:

whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's let's just stop. Let's stop on that.

Bo-Abrams:

That's right.

Laurel:

That is perseverance.

Bo-Abrams:

and I'm still mad. I'm still mad.

Kaleem:

a round of applause for seven times, bro. Seven times. Now, I mean, basically you get a ton of points for putting your name on it. We've heard. So, I mean, it's good that you took it seven times, but you know, I'm sure your friends crack on you all the time.

Bo-Abrams:

I mean, oh, first let me just lay the paint a picture again for you, right? This is me in 2019 being like, hey guys, I can't. I can't go out with you right now. I can't go have fun because I am applying to business school and I need to do this to get to Harvard or Stanford and everybody that doesn't know about business school, it is amazing. You do meet great people. It's also just an opportunity to travel and like, you know, like it's a little bit more fun. It's not law school. And so I'm, so I'm setting myself, I'm like, yeah, you know what, grind right now. And then you're going to get into a great school and now your career will take off and everything's going to be great. And I ended up getting the consultant and everything too. And I did not end up getting into Harvard or Stanford or Warden or the schools I wanted to and COVID hits. And then I'm like, why did I spend the last year of my life isolated in my apartment studying only to, you know, then

Laurel:

Be isolated for

Bo-Abrams:

Exactly. I was like, had I known, had I known that was going to happen, I think I would have made different life choices.

Kaleem:

Right. Right. So at this point in your life, you're like, look,

Laurel:

You're lonely is what you are.

Kaleem:

Yeah, definitely lonely, definitely lonely, But at this point you've tried the hedge fund thing, you know, he's like, yeah, it was cool. It was great experience, but I'm like, yeah, this probably isn't for me long term, you know what I mean? So I go into this venture health space and you're like, damn, I can help people. I can save the world. But I feel like in order for me to do that, I need to go back. To school so that I can maybe, you know, catch up with some organization or some nonprofit or start some company and then COVID hits and just crushes your dreams.

Bo-Abrams:

Yeah, and it was, I was slated to go to another school back east. And I remember I was in a relationship at the time too, and I did not want to get up and leave my family and that relationship and everything in the middle of COVID because it was kind of weird being like, all right, everybody, we're on lockdown. Don't move. And then I was like, peace, I'll see you later. I'm going back east. And so I applied to UCLA and the same story with my co founder, we both applied to UCLA like round three, which is typically nobody gets in round three because. There's just no spots. There's fewer spots available. And we both got pretty much scholarships. I got half. You got a full ride. But I think it was because UCLA was freaking out about getting students into campus, like getting them from across the country. And they're like those down the street and he's going to go to a different business school if we don't. You know, Sweden, the deal a

Laurel:

a butt and a seat.

Bo-Abrams:

So we both ended up like the whole story of Cone. We really actually started right, right around there. We're like, we both, if it weren't for that, you know, tragic obviously, uh, you know, pandemic, if it weren't for that, we would have never met. We would have both gone to different business schools and had completely different lives.

Kaleem:

Wow.

Laurel:

Okay, so you gave us a little teaser there of like, well, that was the spark of starting Komu, right? Tell us that origin story. So,

Bo-Abrams:

Yes. And you're, seeing the, you are, I think also ultimately seeing the through line here, which is like, again, I am the luckiest person. I know I have a great family, a great community of friends, and I think I've given myself the most self imposed, you know, hurdles just by the choices I make of, like, try to be a collegiate athlete, try to go to another, the top careers, like go to business school, like take the GMAT seven times. And then of course, instead of going and getting a nice high paying job, go be a founder and the word startup downturn in the last 20 years. Yeah,

Laurel:

ambitious.

Bo-Abrams:

You see the gray hair I'm 42 going on 50, but I'm having a good time.

Kaleem:

so something had to have happened when you're in, when you're in college, when you're hanging out, what, what was that specific event or spark?

Bo-Abrams:

So what ended up happening for me was it was right before school and I because I worked so hard on those GMAT. I and got in school. I decided I needed some time off. I needed a vacation. So I'm looking around and like things are just starting to open up and people trying to travel again. The pandemic. And Whitefish Montana just like really caught my eye and me and my girlfriend at the time decided let's go to Whitefish and

Laurel:

Because Montana is dope, man. Montana's the best,

Bo-Abrams:

and Komu hits, I'm going right to Whitefish Montana. That's where I'm, it's the villain origin story all the way through of like the, it's where it started, it's where it ends.

Laurel:

Full

Bo-Abrams:

Um, Montana is amazing and it was just so beautiful. And so I go and I book an Airbnb. And four nights at this kind of crappy Airbnb in Montana was half my rent for the month in Los Angeles. And as a renter and most of us in these major cities, right, that it is our most expensive expense and asset. And it, And I'm like, I remember like we were struggling to find a rental car and Turo was just emerging and we use Turo. And I remember thinking, you know, if people are doing this with their cars, like, why can't I do this with my home? And the argument would be that's Airbnb, but really that's where we discovered something was off. And I started really thinking about it and percolating on it. And then all of a sudden. She dumps me because she realizes I'm broke. I go to business school. But I did, you know, I did have a great trip, but I, but

Kaleem:

at me now, bitch. Look at me now. Sorry.

Bo-Abrams:

look at me now, I am clearly successful just because I, I'm Wildly. successful still based on potential. Um,

Kaleem:

That's called valuation, sir. That's called valuation.

Bo-Abrams:

I've got a lot of upside and you could still buy low. Um, but, but I do go to school and I remember, meeting my co founder Gus, and I remember there's, I will say like that GMAT story at, at UCLA. They say, if you get over a seven, a seven 10, which is like 90th percentile, you've got to put it on the top of your resume, like you've earned it. And like, it's, you know, you're supposed to ship this off and we're in this five, six person zoom class. And I'm like about to present and I'm thinking like, they don't know that I took this test seven times. Like, you know, I'm about to, I'm about to impress my classmates here and show them like, I'm a smart guy. And I swear to God, a guy gets on before me with a mustache and I see he's got a red shirt on and it just looks like the white letters on top. I could barely see him like that looks like Stanford. Oh no. Shares his resume on the zoom screen, 780, like basically a perfect score. Stanford undergrad and a killer mustache, which again, Bill and origin story. That's why I have the mustache now. I gotta let him know. But we ended up becoming friends. I was humiliated about having to present after him. My GMAT score that was not in the 7 80. But we were talking and we were both like, why are we even in business school? Like, like we were trying to network over zoom, which is stupid. Like this is all awful when you're trying to do this for business school. And we realized we were both remote capable workers at those last jobs that we had before business school, and we were both making pretty decent money. And yet we both could not afford to travel. And that problem we're like, what are the chances that that's just us? And now all of a sudden the pandemic has changed everything. We're not the only people that are remote capable. It's not just startups or tech. It's a lot of jobs. A hundred million people are now able to do what we did, but could they afford to do it? And the answer we believed was no. And so initially we heard of this website called home exchange, and I don't know if you guys have seen the movie, the holiday.

Laurel:

Of course. Okay, you guys have your little sports analogies. This is my zone of genius. We want to talk chick flicks. That's why I'm here.

Bo-Abrams:

so this Gus and I are like, we are, we're looking into this, like, we're like, because we're like looking at this website, we had never heard of it. And we, you know, find out later in that movie, they booked the home swap on home exchange dot com. And we're looking at this website and we're looking into it. And, you know, mind you, we're working other jobs at this point. We're in school, like we're doing a lot of things. They are doing estimated, you know, estimated 30 million in annual recurring revenue. And we're like, this platform isn't that impressive, no offense, you know, but we're like, we're not really impressed with the product. And if you logged in, everybody on there was like a 45 to 64 year old homeowner. And I was getting a lot of inbound from that. And I was just thinking, I'm like, they don't really have the problem. Like they actually have all the wealth. In the country, you know? But if you look at the people that are traveling the most, those people that are going into massive levels of debt just to have experiences and to live their lives, it's millennials and Gen Zs and they cannot list on an Airbnb. And so initially we built. A home swapping platform, and it was called swapped S. W. A. P. T.

Kaleem:

yeah, probably not a great domain name and probably,

Laurel:

I mean,

Kaleem:

I mean, Hey,

Bo-Abrams:

well, I will say the irony being that there is a competitor now in Europe called swapped. And I'm like, you know, I'm like, you know, I'm an O. G. That's what I'm saying. I'm just saying we're O.

Laurel:

We

Kaleem:

Yes. Yes.

Bo-Abrams:

But yes, we were. That was the beta. That was like the whole thing. We're like, can we make a young person swapping platform? There's competitors in the market that do it now. Like there's a movement happening, but that's all to say. We realized we couldn't for a lot of reasons. We've thought it wasn't going to scale for very, you know, it's really hard to match people, whatever might be. But what really happened was we won the largest pitch competition at U. C. L. A. between the business schools and the law schools.

Kaleem:

Why are we even in law? Why are we even in business school anyway?

Bo-Abrams:

Well, because because this was for some cash each. This is for this is for 30, 000. And when you're in debt in business school, you're going to enter into some competitions and like try to make it happen. Or as my basketball coach, you'd say millions.

Kaleem:

Shout out UCLA. Shout out UCLA.

Bo-Abrams:

No, no, no. This is, this is, I went to junior college for a bit and my coach would be like, Hey, Beau, are you making millions playing basketball? And I'm like, no, he's like, well then shut the fuck up until you make millions.

Kaleem:

No, I was saying shout out to UCLA for giving you guys the funding. Yeah.

Bo-Abrams:

thank you. Yes. They went to the end of the, yes, exactly. And it was, we won and really looked into these rules and these ordinances. Cause like, we were like, Hey, city of LA, city of New York, like just a heads up, like we're starting a home swapping platform. No, there's no money being exchanged. We're just, people are swapping, but like, we're going to, we take a small fee for facilitating that, for insuring it, whatever. And the city of LA was like, yeah, we're going to regulate you. Like absolutely. You've completely fallen under these ordinances. And you will be regulated. And we're like, Oh, that's weird. Um, you know, like fine, but I, you know, that, that, that, that's good news. And it helped us win the competition because we dug in there and really did the work, but then we're thinking, how come when you look at all these platforms, like we're seeing people post on Instagram every day about sublets, we're seeing people in Facebook marketplace on Craigslist, turning to all these really inefficient tools and networks to do this. How come they're not getting regulated? And it's because they're networks. Yeah. And there's this like light bulb moment where we're like, wait a second. This is what people prefer. When we talk about trust, it wasn't going to be this high end membership vetted community that doesn't scale. And that's very like elitist in a lot of ways. Right. It's really that you trust who, you know, and through who, you know, when we were doing these swaps, people were like, how do I trust this person? Oh, Kaleem's a mutual friend. Like, let me ask him. And we were like, wait a second. If you put a marketplace out there where people can swap, they can sublet, they can gift, they can pet sit. They can do it. You know, it's this idea that we're all moving more than ever before. If you put that out there and you centralize your network, you have thousands of homes available to you at any moment in time. And, you know, I can't tell you how many times I was going to New York and I come back and a friend would be like, Oh, dude, I was, my place is empty. Like, why didn't you know? Why didn't you stay there? I'm like, because you didn't text me out of your way in L. A. That your place was going to be available because we were taking a trip to San Francisco at the same time. And so we were like, that's it. So we built KOMU to allow you to share your home with, and through the people you trust on your terms, you can control who sees your home, what you charge, if you charge at all, what you need. And it's all based on relationships and we take no transaction fees. And that is KOMU in a nutshell.

We'll be right back after these words. 2020 was no joke. It changed the game for everyone. Workplace flexibility is no longer a perk, but an expectation. In fact, a recent study showed that a flexible schedule is more important than salary. Yeah, you heard that right? Employees want choices over cash. If you're a startup or a small business that doesn't have a remote work strategy, stop what you're doing right now and complete our free tree assessment at blendmeinc. com. Since 2013, BlendMe Inc. Has been helping small businesses improve the remote employee experience. Let's stay local, but compete global. Visit us at blendmeinc. com. That's blendmeinc. com. Ever wonder how certain ads catch your attention or get stuck in your head? It's because the person voicing it knows how to tell the story. Maybe they're telling you to stumble over to Sullivan St. Patrick's day for green beers, Irish car bombs, and corned beef. Oh. Freakin day. Or maybe Don't miss the deal of a lifetime this President's Day at Callahan Ford. Savings like these should be unconstitutional. Or maybe Come wash away your troubles here at Cooter's Car Wash. We ain't no soap opery, but you'll be singing high praises. Hoo wee, Cooter's! Or Here at Brooks Brothers Mortuary, we put the fun in funeral. Everyone is just dying to join us. Alright, well that's a bit much, but for you, I'll do it. I'm Rick Haney, and if you're a business owner looking for a creative voice in your marketing, look no further. I'll tell your story the way you want it told. Follow along at Remotely We Are One, or visit my website at rickhaney. me for more information. And now, back to the show.

Kaleem:

No transaction fees. How do you make money?

Bo-Abrams:

First off, money is a, money's a made up concept. Um, no, I, it.

Kaleem:

I love it. I love it. I love it. So we can so we necessarily don't have just to clarify because I heard you just throw that in there. Like, we actually don't have to, have a financial transaction. I can say, Hey, you know what? You know, I'm going to LA, you're in New York. We can literally just swap houses and no, no

Bo-Abrams:

Exactly. Like, we have groups on Komu. So, like, we, for instance, have a home swappers group, and people can list their swap on the platform, but the point being Ultimately, like it's at your jurisdiction for whatever trip you have. So for me, for instance, like when I'm gone for a weekend, I typically would just list that to just my 10 closest friends and I'd never charge them and they would do the same when I'm gone for a month. I really need that rental money, but I'm not charging a premium. And that, this is, this kind of speaks to how we make money and are, you know, we're about to turn all these features on. But the idea is. Um, and the utility beyond just coordinating when the place is available, who you trust to share your home with is also that you can use it as find my friends at the city level. So you could be like, who do I know that lives in New York? Who's traveling in New York at the same time? Like, how do we make sure that we connect On that trip. But when you want to get to friends of friends or to groups or to people listening to all of Komu, you then pay a subscription fee and basically for one night at an Airbnb per year, you break even if you do just one booking of one or two nights, literally as a host or guest. And people are listing their homes for cost. And that's like the big kicker away from these ordinances. We're saying you cannot list your home for a premium. If you do, we are going to get regulated. We have to enforce that you were listing your home just to recoup your rent. And you have a right to do that. And that creates a lot of value for people that are looking for affordable places. And it's really targeting hosts. It's hosts like me that can't list on Airbnb, but allow it right now. I'm in New York and I'm pet sitting. I mean, technically it's my girlfriend's place and, you know, but

Laurel:

But she's in your network.

Bo-Abrams:

Yeah, it counts. But I have, I have a friend of a friend staying in my place in L. A. and paying my rent right now and it's totally kosher and it's been, it's saved me financially at a very

Laurel:

Yeah.'cause then you don't have to get the pet sitter and the house sitter. And the, and the and, yeah.

Kaleem:

So you're replacing your costs. When I heard you just kind of throw that in there, it's like, because you're only recouping the costs that you would have for your normal mortgage, you got around the regulation.

Bo-Abrams:

Yeah, I mean, like we really, we agree with the regulation. I mean, I look, people are greedy. I'm greedy. Like if I can make more money, I would, I wouldn't, you know, but I'm just, but like if I'm on Airbnb, I don't want to know that Laurel is a friend of a friend because, you

Kaleem:

don't care.

Bo-Abrams:

to, I'm trying to make as much money.

Kaleem:

that money. South by Southwest is in town. I'm gonna jack up, I'm gonna jack up the rates to like 3, 000 a night,

Bo-Abrams:

but look at what, look at what happened. This is New York, you know, and there's a longer story here, but I will not go on a rant about this, but like in this accelerator program that we went to is right when the regulations were pushing an Airbnb out of New York. And that was really the hotel lobby doing that. But we agree, like you shouldn't have people buying second and third homes, listing them for profit. Like it hurts the community. It's, it should be regulated, but look what happened. If you get rid of Airbnb's in New York, hotel prices have skyrocketed. It is just pure supply and demand. And so we're saying to regulators, we're consumer protection. People have no other options. They are going to continue to turn to the Facebooks and the WhatsApps and everything else. And if you regulate us, you have to regulate them. And good luck. So you can either work with us and help us help consumers or you can, you can fight us and it's a, it's going to be a dogfight

Laurel:

And awesome properties too, right? Because what happened with the rise of remote work? Everyone was like, Oh, wait, I don't have to live in a fish box. I'm going to go live in whatever kickass property I can afford way out in Big Sky, Montana. And that's where they went to. And so remote workers, on average, have really unusual and cool properties because they can, they don't have to commute to an urban center. And so if you can get it. Like those connections of remote workers. So like, is that the tie to remote work or is there like a different spin or perspective or a connection that you feel with the remote work movement?

Bo-Abrams:

Yeah, well, I will say that there would be no Komu without the remote work movement, right? It was that unlocking of demand because, like, before Komu, COVID, excuse me, at that hedge fund, for instance, like, I would work with you. All year, my most of my life would be spent in that cubicle and then I would have 14 days of paid vacation and you better believe I'm dropping the money I've made on a hotel and I'm rest, you know, like done deal, but then all of a sudden now I can't really work and live anywhere. So can so many people. And if we can't afford hotels, we can't afford Airbnbs, which, by the way, for singles or couples that are traveling are more expensive than hotels.

Laurel:

Uh, yeah. Try having a family, man. Like I have to rent out like a small house. Suburb. It's

Bo-Abrams:

nuts. So we're like, that is the tie to remote work for us is saying, this is the, this is a movement of people moving more than ever before. And you're totally right. They have beautiful homes. The thing is digital nomadism was there before COVID. And I think the problem was that was people bouncing around to different places without really feeling like tethered in some way to their home, their most intimate asset. And so. These remote workers now, they're like, yeah, no, I have a great house. It is in Whitefish, Montana. But if I want to go to New York for a month, I want somebody I trust in there. And I want a way to be able to have the sunk rent problem.

Laurel:

Yes.

Bo-Abrams:

New York for what I need to do.

Laurel:

The network is such an interesting spin and so valuable too, because yeah, like if somebody is sleeping in my bed and feeding my dog, like I want to make sure that I trust them. And even if I don't know them directly, I want to make sure that somebody that I trust, trust them. Like that. That's amazing. I love that epiphany.

Bo-Abrams:

It's so funny too. They say a little, because we've tested this and like, women by far in a way, care much more about trust and safety. And so investors and advisors in KOMU that were like, Hey, we really want a women in travel network that they run completely, like Gus and I are not in it. And like we built, you know, whatever features they want for it. But when we marketed and tested, like that was the primary concern of women traveling. And lodging men were much more financially motivated. They were much more about like recouping money, which sounds about about right.

Kaleem:

So I, I got a question as far as like, where do you kind of see this thing heading moving forward? Right? So you've been doing this. What year did you guys actually launch and start, start placing people? Was it 22, 2022?

Bo-Abrams:

I mean, technically speaking, 2021 was when we really started facilitating swaps and doing it all basically manually, like doing a lot of the things that you're supposed to do as a startup, just to learn, but we launched the mobile app technically in August of 2023 with a public data, I would say we really launched. Full fledged August of 2023.

Kaleem:

So we're reading a lot of all of these return to office mandates is lots of companies requiring people to return to office, commercial real estate's putting a big. A big pressure on what, you know, what we need to do. You starting to see a lot of empty buildings still, where are you kind of seeing things trending? I mean, you've been up and running for about a year now. Are you seeing a decline in bookings? Are you still seeing an uptick? And do you think workplace flexibility and remote work is going to continue moving forward?

Bo-Abrams:

Great. It's a great question, and I think obviously, like I can only speculate with what I, I, I see, and I'm also incredibly biased at this point in time, um, as I'm, as your listeners know, but as really believe that this is a paradigm that has fundamentally shifted how we work and live forever. And, you know, I, for all that Gus and I have done as founders. We really honestly have this really unique privilege of just basically being able to listen to the Airbnb management team that we think is amazing. Like Brian Chesky, the CEO, write the script on what to do and why and where things are going. The opportunity of Komu essentially being a regulatory mode, this idea that Airbnb can't build, but we're building without basically putting at risk this massive short term rental business that they've created. And so they, I think are totally right. That hybrid is here to stay. It is that these millennials and Gen Zers, particularly the Gen Zers, they do not want to be told that they have to sit in a cubicle all day long. They will literally go into debt. They will form, you know, they will proliferate on the consumer economy. Like, it doesn't matter. It's the commercial real estate property managers that are doing everything they can to try to get people back to office. On top of that, though, young parents and pet owners. Also don't wanna go back to the office.

Laurel:

Yeah, everyone got their pandemic puppy. Everyone did.

Bo-Abrams:

and so

Kaleem:

Either puppy or human puppy. Either way, something happened.

Laurel:

both.

Bo-Abrams:

I, yeah, I just isolated myself in my, in, you know, in, in my apartment trying to build coma faster. But that again was the sacrifice

Laurel:

now that you can take care of other people's pandemic puppies.

Bo-Abrams:

Exactly. It's working out.

Laurel:

Mm

Bo-Abrams:

is working out.

Kaleem:

So you feel people got a taste, right?

Bo-Abrams:

but yes, I will say everything is going in our book up into the right because we're just, you know, a startup that's growing as more people hear about us, they are booking up with us. They're building their networks. And that's been great. Obviously, like, you know, it takes a lot of time and learning to find that proper thing. That's going to just really make come with that massive outcome that we think can go head to head with an Airbnb. And I say that as crazy as it sounds to say, like, I really believe. If you look around any city, look around anywhere, primary homes are offline. It's either because renters like me can't list, but we really have a financial need, or it's people with really nice homes that would never want a stranger sleeping in their bed and would never list on a short term rental platform, but they still share homes amongst other people that they're friends with and through those people they trust. We are going to create an asset class of primary homes. Short term rentals will remain second and third homes that people are just trying to make profit on and turn into investment vehicles. And then hotels will be there, of course, for those great those great, more luxurious days. Short term rentals, I think will be more of a group travel. That's all to say we are all going to continue to travel more than ever, like bar none. And then remote work will be here with plenty of remote jobs proliferating over the next, you know, 30 to 40 years

Laurel:

preach. I love it. I mean, obviously, we all agree. All three of us are really banking.

Kaleem:

Yeah. Yeah. We're on the remotely one podcast. So we also agree with you, but I just really love the concept and, you know, just the idea we're seeing a lot more companies out there, including yours, looking at your rental. As equity because, or let's not even say equity, what you're paying to live, whether that's a mortgage, whether that is rent as equity, cause it's a lot,

Laurel:

yeah,

Kaleem:

in the cities that you're talking about. So, you know, what I also find fascinating is, is, you know, if you've ever purchased a home in an HOA and they say no Airbnb, right? Like, well, Hey. I'm not Airbnb ing. I'm just letting a friend of mine stay

Laurel:

yeah,

Kaleem:

well done. Really well done.

Laurel:

loops. I love

Bo-Abrams:

Even though I'm more afraid of HOAs than anything because they seem to just be run by like moms that have nothing better to do than to just try to ruin my life, you know, and like everybody that I know that's dealing with an HOA.

Kaleem:

You're, listen, I was on the HOA, man. I was on the hOA.

Bo-Abrams:

look, I would be on the HOA too, and I know, but I'm just saying like, there's a lot, they're basically pseudo government bodies that like,

Kaleem:

Yeah. Yeah. You got to get, Hey, listen, you have to, if, listen, if you're here, if you listen to the show, if you have an HOA, you have to get involved because a lot of times people that are running the HOA,

Laurel:

take

Bo-Abrams:

you

Kaleem:

a reason.

Bo-Abrams:

you gotta get that

Kaleem:

involved

Bo-Abrams:

secure the bag.

Kaleem:

just like, our own, you know, politics, politics and stuff. You got to get involved, got to get involved. So,

Bo-Abrams:

But Kalim, I think you made a great point, by the way, about, I will say just, The asset part of this whole equation, right? Which is just to say, it's not just that things are expensive. It's that we're not getting paid quite enough to afford the things that we want to do. Like I, again, I said it earlier, I really believe it. I'm the luckiest guy. I know I have worked incredibly hard. I've done the schools, I've done the jobs. And I am as broke as ever before. Um, and I think a lot of people feel that way. My generation and Gen Z of like, maybe not Gen Z as much, but a little bit more of like, I did what I was supposed to do and I don't have retirement. I am in consumer credit card debt and I cannot afford to live the life I want to live unless I commit to a corporate job that I don't feel fulfilled in. So

Kaleem:

But I'm paying a 3000 a month studio in New York. That's worth something. Hey, that's my only be, you know, uh, a 400 place in Montana. So maybe I can go to Montana and enjoy

Bo-Abrams:

And, and you have, I think it's really that it's your right. And almost your obligation as a human being to travel, like we are in a globalized world and people, I feel like we're all better because of it. Like I truly did not travel a lot growing up partly it was financial, but partly it was also sports. Like we're all my sisters and I were like, we're in a, you like, whatever, like there's no time. And so as soon as I started traveling, I'm like, wow, I'm actually a better person when I get to meet people all over the world from different cultures, from different walks of life. And I'm like, there's a whole big world to see. I've got one life to live. I hope I have enough time to see it. And so I think remote work is the only way that we're going to actually ever be able to get some, you know,

Laurel:

Yeah.

Kaleem:

it. Yeah.

Laurel:

I love it. I love it. Well, I genuinely like you convinced me. I am actually going to list my property on Komu today. Like this is actually a solution that I have been looking for several years So I like this was all very fortuitous that I came to this episode. So thank you. I'm super stoked about it However, before we wrap up, I know that we're all here to hear about how bougie you are Beau. However You're so bougie But why I listen to the Remotely One podcast Is the best part in my opinion is is when everybody shares their best comical or, I mean, comical or inspiring moment, right? But inspiring is in air quotes because don't give me that crap. I want to hear your most comical moment that you had while working remotely. Come Bo.

Bo-Abrams:

And does, do you have to be like necessarily working remotely? Are these just like comical moments that could just happened in the remote work

Kaleem:

yeah, but you know what? It's your show, Bo. It's yours. Hey, Bo knows. Bo knows.

Bo-Abrams:

Uh, I mean, I look, I will say, and I think it's funny because I had another comical moment prepared, but I, this is actually true and funnier. Uh,

Kaleem:

time. You got time.

Bo-Abrams:

It is just that you guys were right. Like earlier before the podcast, I got up to go make sure that my backdrop wasn't so bad and then Colleen's like, good thing you're wearing pants and you're right, it is a good thing I'm wearing pants because I have made, I have had the misfortune of like being on a Microsoft teams meeting where, you know, you didn't close the browser and it's still running. And I, of course it's a recorded meeting that like,

Kaleem:

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, Okay. Let's we need, we need, we need to sit the, the listeners and the viewers, they need to understand the situation. So, okay. What was going on? Set it up, set us up. Where are we? What year is it?

Laurel:

How much of you are we seeing, Bo? what We want to know. We need a vivid mental picture here.

Bo-Abrams:

it's like, it's like 20, this is 2021, maybe, maybe early 2022. We're getting ready to, we're, we're getting ready to graduate business school or really thinking like there's an opportunity here, but like, look, again, it's like, you're like, I want to get paid to work hard. You know, and then I did the opposite. I've never worked harder in my life and made so little money. But we're starting to talk to potential investors. You know, I've worked in BC during business school and like, we're scouting the market. And

Kaleem:

all the time doing

Bo-Abrams:

the whole whole shebang and like, you know, it's a lot of good pitches. It's just back to back to back to back zooms. You're playing a game. It's a sales process. And so this, you know, this one, I forget the exact fund, but I will say they were using teams for their meeting. And I thought, you know, we were kind of in a zoom environment, but fine. And, you know, I did the pitch. I thought it went fine. Um, and then I'm like, I take a break and I like, I had a little bit of a window. I definitely am like, it's time to shower. It's time to kind of like, you know,

Kaleem:

You need to air out. You

Laurel:

Yeah.

Kaleem:

out, bro. You need to air out.

Bo-Abrams:

Exactly. And then I'm like, and my, my, my workstation is in my living room area. And so like, I just shower and then I'm literally like in a robe. Because, because I didn't like it, but I'm like, I'm not ready to get dressed. I need to dry off a little bit.

Kaleem:

Is it a fluffy robe? Is it fluffy with the big fluffles around the neck? I mean

Bo-Abrams:

it's so much, it's no, it's so much worse than that, which is

Laurel:

It's low. It's Patrick Swayze, isn't it? We're

Bo-Abrams:

it's no, well, well, hang on. Well, I'll say this, this, the robe is the worst part of the story. The best part is the, somehow the least embarrassing part is that I actually, I don't know if somebody saw me, but I did see that somehow. I'm like, why is my zoom not like, why is my zoom not basically loading in the way that I would prepare for the next meeting and it was because teams was still on and I'm like, Oh no. Like if that person was still there, like if that were, if it was the same way. You know, like this. That's it. Like I'm I'm humiliated for life. So that was that. But the problem was the robe, which is it was a Komu robe. I have a Komu robe. We, Gus and I thought

Laurel:

That's the most L. A. thing that I've heard in a while.

Kaleem:

So LA.

Bo-Abrams:

Gus and I thought that we could sort of kickstart kmu by selling robes because the Airbnb founders famously kickstarted Airbnb and getting into yc the accelerator by selling serial. They like, they took like regular. Yeah. So it was like the re Republican and Democratic conventions of with, McCain and Obama. And they would like take regular cereal and they would design it way cooler and call it like Obama oats.

Kaleem:

a great idea, bro. What are you

Bo-Abrams:

Oh, so Gus and I, this, imagine me and Gus on a zoom, just like, we're going to sell Robes, and like slippers and like you know, it's, this is our Obama oats. And so I literally make one robe. I take a photo of myself, this embarrassing annual Christmas photo that literally. You can buy a calendar for my girlfriend has it right here. It was on the website, only fans. org again, horrible. This is all horrible. Just there's so much context here. That's to say, I,

Kaleem:

just slip in? It was on sale on only fans.

Bo-Abrams:

I made a website called bonely fans. org for the calendar, which included a photo of me. And now that I have 12 photos, including one

Laurel:

So we have swapped then bonely sales.

Kaleem:

Please send us the photos so we

Bo-Abrams:

can see, you can see, that you can see the VCs knocking down the door for trying to get into our deal right, right now.

Kaleem:

Is

Laurel:

this is amazing.

Bo-Abrams:

So that robe is a co and so we're, we post it and we're like, you know, we're like, Hey, pre order the robe here. People like, I love this. This robes awesome. Like I'm going to pre order guess how many people pre ordered that robe?

Laurel:

It's either like five or 5,

Bo-Abrams:

It you're right. It is either like five or 5, 000 or it's like zero. It's zero people ordered the robe. Nobody. Nobody. Yeah, not even my poor, well, not even nobody. And so Gus, I think that was the first time Gus and I had doubts about our instincts as entrepreneurs

Kaleem:

I actually thought it was a great idea, bro. I thought the robe was great,

Bo-Abrams:

Well, either way, so that's why Koma's gotta, Koma's gotta succeed. I will send you, look, check it, we got cooler

Laurel:

Yeah, okay, Beau, tell us where to get, where to find you in general, but where, if, if everybody's falling in love with the Komu, robe and or hat right now, where do they come

Bo-Abrams:

you know, the,

Laurel:

and your swag?

Bo-Abrams:

the worst part about being an LA founder is like, you come out and you're going to build some massive tech company and then you end up being an apparel lifestyle brand that sells like, and that's like, that's my life in a nutshell. So the merch is actually, you know, it's for our, our best hosts that are posting about coma right now. Everything's still free. So we're giving away merch to people that are sharing coma with their friends. Laurel, if you list and you post to your Instagram and, you know, share with your friends, I got so many, we got dad hats, we got sweaters, we got the whole shebang.

Kaleem:

Robes,

Laurel:

I've got an eight acre farmhouse in Connecticut, man. That better get a robe. That's worth a robe.

Bo-Abrams:

I will get you a robe. But basically, go on GoKomu and invite your friends. And if you do anything at all to help us scale and grow this authentically, I will personally mail you a robe, a hat, a sweater, all of it. Anything you want. Because it's all free and we're just here to help. And we want to make sure that,, you know, we achieve what we can.

Kaleem:

That's

Laurel:

for anybody that's listening only, can you please say,

Bo-Abrams:

Yes. It's K O M M U. It is live in the app store right now in iOS. We're working on Android. We're so apologize. But if you want to go to gocomu. com, you can see his code to scan to get to the app store. You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter and Tik TOK. Our founder Tik TOK is Bo and Gus, but everything else is at gocomu, for our handles. And please don't judge my Tik TOKs to try to get people to download.

Kaleem:

Thank you. That's awesome. Bo, thank you so much for coming by man. It was a great episode. We had a great time chatting with you. Laurel, thank you for being such a wonderful co host. You're awesome. I promise to call you even closer to the timeline next time. And laurel

Laurel:

you in 45 minutes stat.

Kaleem:

and Laurel, where can our listeners and viewers find you in the worlds of the interwebs?

Laurel:

LinkedIn is always the easiest. I'm the only Laurel Farr, so you can just find me on LinkedIn or distributeconsulting. com.

Kaleem:

Awesome. Well, thank you both so much. Can't wait to go out there in LA, man. Can't wait to check it out. So thank you so much. Cool.

Bo-Abrams:

guys always have a place to stay in L.

Laurel:

Oh, there we go.

Kaleem:

Awesome, man. All right. I'll talk to you all later. Peace.

Laurel:

you.

Bo-Abrams:

See ya, thanks.

People on this episode

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Kaleem Clarkson

Co-host
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Rick Haney

Co-host