Airbnb Gave Her $100,000 to Build a Unique Stay in Idaho — This is the Story of "The Flower Pot"

Meet Whitney Hansen, the creator of The Flower Pot, a truly spectacular, one-of-a-kind experiential stay in Burley, Idaho.

Whitney has always been entrepreneurial — she owns her own consulting business, she hosts a podcast on investing and financial freedom called The Money Nerds, and is now also a hospitality entrepreneur.

After building one of Idaho's only geodesic domes and seeing it perform remarkably well on Airbnb, Whitney began dreaming of what her next build might look like — would it be an A-Frame?  A Treehouse?  A Pirate Ship?

And then she had a crazy idea…her family owned some farm land in Burley and her mother nurtured a beautiful flower garden on the plot.  What if, she thought to herself, what if we created a giant flower pot that folks could stay in?

And while the idea sounded totally crazy at the time it didn’t sound that crazy to Airbnb. That’s right, Whitney wound up being a winner of Airbnb’s OMG fund and got $100,000 from the company to help her bring the project to life.

In this conversation Whitney and I discuss: 

• How she heard about and ultimately won Airbnb’s OMG contest
• What it cost to bring this unique stay to life
• Some of the hardest aspects of owning and operating unique stays that not enough people talk about
• How the Flower Pot has performed as an investment so far
• Ideas she’s cooking up for her next build
• And so much more

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This episode is brought to you by our friends at Turno. 

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About the Show

Behind the Stays is brought to you twice a week by Sponstayneous — a free, biweekly newsletter that brings subscribers the best last-minute deals and upcoming steals on Airbnb.  

You can subscribe, for free, at www.sponstayneous.com. 

Behind the Stays is hosted by Zach Busekrus, co-founder of Sponstayneous, you can connect with him on Twitter at @zboozee.