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Entrepreneurs are wired to look for silver linings and even in the midst of a devastating pandemic, Merilee Kerr was looking for new opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOvernight our industry shut down,\u201d recalls the founder of luxury home accommodation business Under the Doormat<\/em> and chair of the UK Short Term Accommodation Association. \u201cNot only as an entrepreneur, but as chair of an industry body, I realised we had a big problem and lots of businesses were going to struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But instead of just focusing on their own problems, the industry rallied together to help frontline workers fighting the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe came together as an industry and everyone who was a professional operator who had properties sitting empty offered to provide them to healthcare workers for free,\u201d explains Kerr. \u201cWe turned it into a charitable opportunity and that built goodwill with government because they could see our sector was doing something to help in a crisis, despite the fact we were going through a tough time. It also helped educate government around the fact that there are professional operators in our sector; it\u2019s not just peer to peer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over 10,000 nights were hosted for free, saving over \u00a320million for the Uk\u2019s National Health Service and NHS Trusts. From this challenging position, she was able to launch Trusted Stays, an industry platform that offers quality short term home rentals for government staff, key workers and professionals who need to relocate for work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Such actions typically reflect Kerilee\u2019s agile mindset. Coming from a corporate background, she readily admits she had always wanted to be an entrepreneur but needed the right idea to make the leap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n What distinguishes Karr\u2019s business model from others is her focus on address the market demand for high levels of professionalism and assurance around standards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s all about trust,\u201d she admits. \u201cIn order for the market to reach its full potential, my belief is it has to be professionalised. We want to get the quality of a hotel combined with the comfort of a home. Nowadays there\u2019s a lot of talk about Airbnb anxiety\u2026you never know if the owner has cleaned the property properly, will you just get a lockbox, is anyone going to be there to greet you? Having a company that professionally manages it provides a level of assurance for both the owners and guests.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n She acknowledges that one of the challenges facing her industry is that there are lots of new people entering the market and having clear standards is key to maintaining consumer confidence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is about the credibility of the whole industry,\u201d she argues. \u201cSome people have not always had the best experiences and they automatically think that this is just a problem with our industry. And then it takes a little while to convince them that if you have the right processes and structures in place, all of this stuff can be well managed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is what I\u2019m really passionate about\u2026having clear standards and helping new entrants into the market. There are lots of great things about our industry and I don\u2019t want them overshadowed when things go wrong because we don\u2019t have good enough standards.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Established since 2014, Karr now has three parts to her business, Under the Doormat, Trusted Stays and Hospira, a global-first service and technology product that has been designed specifically for property owners, portfolio managers and independent holiday lets owners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While she acknowledges the pandemic has been a major low, she freely admits there have been plenty of highs on her entrepreneurial journey so far. Winning a government RFP, getting investment and winning last year\u2019s Travolution Best for Staying award are some of her highlights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And with huge growth predicted for the short stay market in the post-pandemic world (the sharing economy is predicted to increase to $335billion by 2025), she\u2019s positive there will be many more to come. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But what advice would she give to someone else like her former self who\u2019s thinking of giving up their job to set up a business?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDo it!\u201d she says. \u201cThe hardest step to becoming an entrepreneur is the first one. It\u2019s not easy, I gave up a really cushy job in a great company. But If you don\u2019t try and find your first customers and get your product up and running, you\u2019ll never know. My advice would be not to look back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n With Karr\u2019s sights permanently trained on future opportunities, there\u2019s no danger of that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The sharing economy was one of the worst casualties of the pandemic. But\u00a0 Merilee Karr…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":1324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klickerdev.com\/enshored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klickerdev.com\/enshored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klickerdev.com\/enshored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klickerdev.com\/enshored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klickerdev.com\/enshored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klickerdev.com\/enshored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klickerdev.com\/enshored\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klickerdev.com\/enshored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klickerdev.com\/enshored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klickerdev.com\/enshored\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\n\n\n\u201cI probably never fit into the corporate world, it\u2019s a miracle I managed to stay there for 13-years,\u201d she laughs. \u201cI was always given the entrepreneurial projects and was always doing things that were disruptive. For me, what this business brought together was my love of travel and the experiences you get.\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nModel built on trust<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
New opportunities<\/h3>\n\n\n\n