July 2025 Hostel Update
We had a short whole house rental last month, which gave me a chance to take a 2-day retreat of sorts. I used an AirBnB credit I had from being a Superhost (humble brag) and rented a cozy A-Frame on a farm in Southern Virginia. I (mostly) turned my phone off and took the time to disconnect, decompress, and think at a higher level about the business.
We had a short whole house rental last month, which gave me a chance to take a 2-day retreat of sorts. I used an AirBnB credit I had from being a Superhost (humble brag) and rented a cozy A-Frame on a farm in Southern Virginia. I (mostly) turned my phone off and took the time to disconnect, decompress, and think at a higher level about the business. To be fair, I only turned my phone back on to ask the host for a corkscrew so I could actually drink the wine I brought…but maybe read a couple of emails, too.

While there, amongst other things, I finished a re-read of The E-Myth Revisited. It's an old-school business book but I like it because it really harps on working on the business and not in the business. That's certainly the goal for me, but it's always nice to be reminded. One of the parts that resonated with me this time around was the prompt: "What will your business look like when it's done? How will it act?" and suggesting that the business should start acting that way long before you're finished. I wrote down a few things:
- Deliver a custom-tailored experience for every guest
- Streamline operations so staff can focus on hospitality
- Run the business without much oversight
- Ensure the guest doesn't feel like any of it is automated
What has me excited for the next few months and what I'm working on is building out these automated systems whose benefits will compound over time. Systems that will allow me and my team to spend less time doing repetitive tasks and more time improving the guest experience. I'm working on replacing Zapier/Hubspot with a custom n8n solution that stores all booking and guest info in my own database. It will reduce costs slightly, but more importantly, it'll let me build exactly what I need and nothing more.
I've also been offering manual upsells of our private rooms to bunk room guests as the calendar allows. While it seems obvious, I'm not a natural salesman (and I'm allergic to aggressive ones). That said, I'm pushing past that. And once I have the upsell process dialed in, I'll automate that too. In the past, in terms of revenue, I've spent more time thinking about how to increase occupancy, but another lever to pull is increasing revenue per guest. Room upgrades, merch sales, and beer sales all fall into that. And it's all important.
Aside from using AI to code custom solutions for the business, I've found a new AI prompt that has been useful - serving as my CFO. I was able to have it analyze 2025H1 P&L and give feedback and recommendations. Part of the prompt was to shoot me straight and not sugarcoat anything. Which led to this fun exchange:
AI CFO: Marketing spend: I see $400 in Jan + $890 in Apr for "Accounting & Tax." Where are your ad dollars hitting? Hidden in "Subscriptions" or "Marketing & Advertising"?
Ryan: For marketing, it has its own account, did you just miss it? Please be sure to scan carefully. I'll attach a screenshot just in case.
AI CFO: Marketing spend: yes, I saw it—and it's tiny. You spent $760 total (2% of net revenue YTD). For a property that lives or dies on digital reach, that's sparrow-feed. Until the storm hangover passes you'll have to buy visibility
I don't even understand the insult 'sparrow-feed', and it still hurt. But the robot was right!
It also encouraged me to stop being lazy with my bookkeeping on a few accounts, which I knew but needed a little nudge. To give the story a happy ending, I took these recommendations, cleaned up the books, and got a nice pat on the head:
Stripe & OTA fees now showing properly
This is a big win for financial clarity—you now have Card Processing Fees ($267) and OTA Commissions ($234) showing explicitly instead of being buried. That alone makes your P&L 3× more usable.
Advertising is back up (and that's a good thing)
- $480 on general ads
- $84 on social media
You've been underspending in marketing for a while, so I like this trend
Tough love. But if you're a small business owner and aren't using AI models to augment your team, you're falling behind. And if you'd like to but aren't sure how, reach out.
July Stats
- Occupancy rate: 23.6% (+8.2% MoM, -22.5% YoY)
- Total Guests: 63 (-13.7% MoM, -18.1% YoY)
- Total Guest Nights: 164 (-30.5% MoM, -17.1% YoY)
- Revenue: $8,346 (-41.4% MoM, -19.6% YoY)
Occupancy was up from June but revenue and guest count were down, mostly due to timing of some down payments and the whole house rental being a smaller crowd. Either way, summer still feels so much better than spring. I continue to look at 2025 as a bit of a lost year, where we tread water and build a base for a strong 2026. August has started strong, and I'm hoping Labor Day Weekend closes the month well. And I do think this October should be quite busy for us (and Asheville in general).
July Marketing Overview
I bumped up my Google ad budget after getting scolded and it does seem to have helped. I'm getting close to having my conversion tracking be perfect, so it's still a bit manual, but definitely feeling more bookings coming from Google. Tossed a little money to boost a TikTok video that I spent too much time making without much impact. Continuing to try and crack paid social media but haven't figured out the secret yet.
Google Ads — Hostel Keywords
- Clickthrough Rate: 13.08%
- Cost Per Click: $1.59
- Daily Spend: $12.39
Google Ads — Generic Lodging Search Terms
- Clickthrough Rate: 7.39%
- Cost Per Click: $0.94
- Daily Spend: $2.36
TikTok - Video Promotion
- Watched full video: 0.41%
- Cost Per Click: $1.07
- Total Spend: $43