From First Hire to Head of Ops Across 7 Markets
Building the operational infrastructure for a fast-scaling short-term rental marketplace from the ground up — supplier network, communications, scheduling, quality systems, and onboarding, across Australia and New Zealand.
The situation
Houst (then Airsorted) had just opened an Auckland office. It was two months old, had less than 20 properties, no infrastructure, and no processes yet established. I was the first hire.
The company was in aggressive expansion mode — onboarding properties as fast as possible, opening new markets, building geographic coverage to become the dominant player in short-term rental management. The goal was scale, and it was moving fast. It was up to the team to build the operational infrastructure that could keep up with it.
The challenge
Running a short-term rental marketplace means managing two things at once: the property side and the people side. Hosts need their properties cleaned, turned over, and restocked between guests — on very tight timescales, across different suburbs and at unpredictable volumes. That means building an extensive supplier network that's reliable, trained to a high standard, and fast enough to respond quickly. Not just cleaners, but linen providers, maintenance contractors, and callout support too.
I came in as the supplier lead for the Auckland market — later, Australia and New Zealand. That meant owning every external relationship the operation depended on. At the time, contractor communication was running through individual staff WhatsApp accounts. Scheduling happened informally and mostly manually. If a cleaner had a question, they messaged whoever they had a number for — whether that person was working or not.
Underneath that was a simpler problem: the business didn't yet have the systems to scale. And it was scaling anyway.
What I did
I started by doing the work myself — the only real way to understand what actually needs to happen. I managed the cleans, dealt with the contractors, handled the guest turnarounds. From there, I built what was missing.
Built the supplier network from scratch
Hired and onboarded up to 100 individual cleaning contractors, plus linen providers across Australia and New Zealand, maintenance contractors, and callout support. Wrote the SLAs, negotiated supplier contracts, managed budgets, and handled payments with direct bank account access. Every external relationship the operation ran on, I owned — while managing a small team across 5 time zones.
Moved communications off personal accounts
Moved all contractor communications from personal WhatsApp accounts to a Telegram business account. Any staff member, in any location — including HQ in London — could now pick up a conversation without needing to track down a colleague. It removed a dependency on individuals that no growing business should carry. The company later rolled this out across the whole business.
Built scheduling and quality reporting in SQL
Built reports that matched cleaners to properties by geographic proximity and experience — reducing the time and friction involved in acceptance, which meant cleans were more reliably covered. Tracked quality at the property level too, not just the cleaner level. That revealed something important: sometimes the issue wasn't the cleaner but the property itself. That data gave me a basis to go back to owners with proposals for improvements or deep cleans, turning a quality problem into a commercial conversation.
Redesigned onboarding for scale
When individual onboarding sessions stopped being viable at rapid growth, I redesigned the whole process: an automated screening survey to filter applicants before any staff time was spent, an online training module replacing in-person group sessions, and a peer supervisor system where experienced cleaners shadowed new ones on their first clean — with a bonus structure tied to the new cleaner hitting quality targets. Staff could focus on scheduling and quality control.
Set OKRs and ran the regional operation
As the role grew, so did the scope. I set and tracked OKRs for the ANZ region, ran weekly team sessions, and managed a distributed team across Auckland, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Perth, and Malaysia. Translated regional growth targets into operational plans — specific contractor ratios, onboarding throughput, and quality thresholds.
Pitched and negotiated the Ecostore supply deal
Every cleaner was buying toiletries at a local shop before each clean and getting reimbursed. At the hourly rate we were paying, that shopping trip cost around 30 minutes per clean — and the products were inconsistent. I proposed a bulk supply deal with Ecostore: negotiate the contract, store product at each property, have cleaners top up from supply rather than shop. I built the case, got approval, and negotiated the contract directly with Ecostore. Less cleaner time, lower cost, consistent premium product. A better outcome for less money.
The result
Auckland became the first market globally across all Houst locations to reach 80% 5-star cleans — the quality benchmark the business tracked across its entire network.
The operation scaled from 20 to 300+ properties across ANZ in under four years — a 15x increase. The role grew with it: from first hire in a single market to Head of Operations across 7 ANZ markets.
The automated onboarding process was rolled out across the business. The Telegram communications infrastructure was adopted company-wide. The things built here outlasted the time spent building them — which is the standard I hold myself to on every contract.
Recognise something in this?
Building from scratch, scaling faster than the systems can keep up — feel free to reach out.