Bianca Brasdorp
And being a female-only hostel, we really want to have that community of female travelers that are just communicating with each other, doing nice things with each other. We are doing a lot of effort to create a community and to do events. So you see that people are really searching for connection right now.
Sebastien Leitner
Welcome to the Turndown. I can’t wait for you to meet Bianca. Bianca is one of the most energetic, most fun, most spirited hosteliers, entrepreneurs, developers, if you will, of hostel inventory. She started at zero and has developed a very unique portfolio of properties spanning across Europe. She has fantastic stories. She has fantastic examples of things that worked well and things that maybe caused her to have sleepless nights. So with that, I really don’t wanna get between you discovering Bianca, her life, her product, her portfolio, her accomplishments, but also some of the best practices that she would like to share with fellow entrepreneurs on what to avoid and what she’s learned from her journey as a developer of hostels around the world.
With that, let’s get right into it. Bianca, welcome to The Turndown. It’s a pleasure to welcome you. Thank you so much for lending me your time and lending us your insights, your experience. Let’s start by kicking it off. I’d love for the audience to discover your product, your solution, your accommodation in Amsterdam if I’m not mistaken?
Bianca Brasdorp
Yes, among others. So just introducing myself. My name is Bianca Brasdorp. I’m the founder and CEO of Hostelle. Hostelle is a female-only hostel, and I have branches in Amsterdam, where I started in 2012. And last year, I opened in Barcelona. And this year, I opened in London.
Sebastien Leitner
Congratulations.
Bianca Brasdorp
Thank you so much. And thank you for having me, by the way.
Sebastien Leitner
Absolutely. Absolutely. So having recently opened two additional branches, let’s go to the typical question. What is keeping you up at night? I’m sure you must have some answers.
Bianca Brasdorp
Yes. Yes. I have a lot. So what’s been keeping me up lately is that I had to find a new manager in Amsterdam. And it’s really hard in Amsterdam to find good staff. I think you have it in the bigger cities that staff is one of the things that is really hard to find after COVID. You saw that a lot of people started doing other things. So it’s really hard to get people into hospitality again.
And so I was looking for a really long time, and that meant that I had to put my other projects on hold because I was also busy with branching out into other European cities. So that meant I had to go back into the field. And that was in the beginning kind of hard as you’re not used to it anymore as a CEO, being a manager on the floor again. But I quite enjoyed it. It was nice to have interaction with staff and with guests again and really to be on the floor, see how it goes and what’s needed. So I really enjoyed my time back on the floor again.
Sebastien Leitner
That’s amazing. That’s amazing.
Bianca Brasdorp
Yeah. So that was one of the things. And the other one is more of my role as a CEO. Now that I’m branching out, I have three hostels now, and there comes a point where I’m wondering, am I still the right one to be the CEO? And do I have enough time and attention to give to all the branches? So that is what I’m wrestling with at this moment.
Sebastien Leitner
Okay. Super interesting. And I wanna double click on that. But before we do, I’d love to sort of rewind the clock a little bit and start with how did you get started? How did you, you said in twenty twelve, you opened your first hostel? How did you come up with the idea? And what got you to become a hostel owner, operator, CEO to begin with?
Bianca Brasdorp
Well, like they say on TikTok, delusion. It’s delusion. Because I was working in marketing and I was kind of a job hopper. I never had the feeling that I wanted to stay in a job for a long time. I was quickly bored with the work, and also with the people, it was like the setting in a really small setting that I didn’t really enjoy.
And at one moment, a friend of mine had a bed and breakfast. And it was kind of a high class bed and breakfast. And I was like, oh, this is great. This is with people, and it was creative. And I said, I wanna do something in hospitality. And then my then husband said, a bed and breakfast is pretty small, it’s only two rooms in Amsterdam. So why don’t you do a hostel? And then I was like, okay, we could do a hostel, but I want a good concept because I was in marketing and I love really original and good concepts.
So I just went Googling and looking for all kinds of different hostel type concepts. And then I think I stumbled in Asia on female-only hostels. And I thought, well, that’s not here yet. So I started developing it. I started talking to a lot of people, talking to the municipality of Amsterdam about how to start a hostel and also did my research online with all the permits that I needed. So I just, and I stopped my job and I went freelancing just to have more time to see what I need to start a hostel, and it just went from there.
Sebastien Leitner
And then you opened in 2012. How big was the hostel that you opened?
Bianca Brasdorp
The first one was 84 beds. And it was in an old office building and they wanted to do something different. They wanted to have all kinds of little businesses in. And I just went to them. I was like, I have a great concept, and I wanna do it here. And I even got a great price. I was looking at my old contract. I paid like five thousand, four and a half thousand euros for the whole property for the rent. I was negotiating really well.
And I did everything on budget. I had everything thrifted, second hand furniture, except for the beds. And I was my own contractor. I just hired an electrician and a plumber, and I was coordinating everything. And it was just pure, I could do this, delusion. You’re just going to do your research.
Sebastien Leitner
So you have a business plan. Right? You have a location, which is great. You hire a team, right, including yourself? How long did that then take for you to welcome the first guest?
Bianca Brasdorp
Three months. And I totally stripped it. If you have it in your own hand, I know what I can do, and I’m a really good project manager. So if I can coordinate everybody, it is not that long. My later projects like London and Barcelona took way much longer because I had a contractor. And a contractor, it’s not his first priority to finish fast.
Sebastien Leitner
Spend as much money as possible or stay as long as you can on the project.
Bianca Brasdorp
And if it takes like a year, that’s what it takes.
Sebastien Leitner
Well, you must have had fun stories from the opening days. I mean, is there anything that comes to mind where chaos broke out or the reverse, that you were welcoming the first guest and you just were in complete awe that you’re on the right track? Help me understand what was the sentiment in that first six months of opening.
Bianca Brasdorp
For the first one, well, I just remember because I was in a building with other entrepreneurs, and one of them came up and he said, you’re open. I said, yeah. And I didn’t, so we didn’t have Cloudbeds yet. So that’s a little hook. So it was just like by hand, and my husband was like a business analyst. So he had like an Excel sheet that we worked on. So it was kind of like filling things out and seeing how it went.
And my husband and I, we did, I think the first two weeks, we did all the shifts like by ourselves, and we had a daughter as well. So it was just like seeing how it was, figuring out. And he came up, like, I think after being really long without a system, he was like, yeah, we need a system. We need a PMS system. So then it went from there. And it was even this challenging because Booking.com didn’t even accept me because I was female-only hostel, and they don’t discriminate. So they said, we’re not gonna accept you. So we only had Hostel World.
Sebastien Leitner
Are you now on Booking.com? Have they changed their mind?
Bianca Brasdorp
Yeah. I just called them again. I said, you have to accept me. And then a really nice account manager came, and she was like, yeah, this is cool. But I had to fight for the basic things because everything was so new, and they didn’t know what a female hostel was.
Sebastien Leitner
Help me understand how you made the decision on design. Did you just do what you liked? Because you’re starting with a white canvas. It’s an office building. You could paint whatever you want. What inspired you?
Bianca Brasdorp
So I love thrifting. So I love mixing old and new. I love furniture with a story. And basically I’m always on a small budget because I’m my own financer. So money is always tight. I don’t have budgets to go like, give me that one chair that was 800 euros. So I’m also looking for creative ways to fix furniture or paint them or have a cheap solution. So it’s just mix and match.
And the thing is, because in the beginning, you’re so busy with the construction, and that always takes longer than you think. And then in the end, it’s just like, just throw some chairs there, let’s open because we have to open. But now I’ve really hired a designer because I want a more cohesive design for all the hostels. So now I have more time and focus for design, but in the beginning, it was just like, oh, you want a free couch? Here’s a free couch. These are a couple of chairs I got from the thrift shop. It was more like that. But still mix and match with my idea.
Sebastien Leitner
Yeah. Now you seem to be creating a brand. Right?
Bianca Brasdorp
Yeah. And it wasn’t even a plan. It was a plan to do one hostel. I just wanted to be a hostel owner. And then after that, I thought I wanna do other concepts. So I had a coffee shop where I sold stroopwafels and coffee. But quickly, I noticed, oh, this is not for me. I don’t wanna be in a shop all day or having to deal with shop problems. I just wanna set it up, put everything in place and then be at a distance as a CEO, just as a counselor.
So at one moment, I decided to branch out into Europe. And I was like, I want London, Paris, Barcelona, Berlin. I wanted five big cities in Europe. And I’ve added New York as well. I really wanna do New York. And I’m busy with Paris, so let’s wait and see.
Sebastien Leitner
Paris is gonna be exciting. And it’s just like in the beginning, delusion. It’s just like, this is what I want, and I’m just gonna figure out what it takes to get there. That’s fantastic. That’s fantastic. And you alluded to the fact that you opened properties during and right after the pandemic. Is that true?
Bianca Brasdorp
Yeah. Oh, yeah. You could say I picked the crazy time to experiment. I didn’t do it on purpose. So Barcelona had a really long time to get permits. Everything in Spain, everything takes really long. So I finally started construction in January 2020. And then, busy with the construction, it was big construction, and then COVID hit. And I did have money for Barcelona, but when COVID hit, everything dried up. So I didn’t have money anymore to finish. I was definitely looking for finance and investors, but nobody wants to do a hostel. So I just stopped for a year. I just closed it off. It was 80% finished.
Sebastien Leitner
Oh, that must have been heartbreaking.
Bianca Brasdorp
It was because I was trying to sell it. I was trying to finish it. I didn’t have money to finish it. I had a lot of money already put into it, so I couldn’t leave it. I couldn’t sell it. I just remembered waking up one day in June and thinking, I am so screwed.
Sebastien Leitner
How do you come out of that hole? You realize you’re in trouble. How do you get out of that hole? So what happened?
Bianca Brasdorp
So I kept myself busy. I was always looking for solutions. I was talking to everybody on LinkedIn that was in the hostel business, looking for advice, talking to real estate people. And at one point, I was already closed for a year. And at one point, I visited a hostel, thinking of Barcelona, and it was done IKEA style. Because everybody knows IKEA is not meant for, it’s good, but if you have heavy use as a hostel, it is not really durable. You could replace it in three months.
But I was looking at the hostel, IKEA style, but it’s done. And I could do that too. I can finish it IKEA style because the contractor and I had a designer in Barcelona, they didn’t wanna finish IKEA style. They did not. And I remember I was listening to a podcast about positivity and that you should manifest. And I was like, yes, I’m gonna do it. I’ve gotta finish it. And I just woke up and I had energy. And we already in Holland got some compensation, and I used that compensation as well. And I was just liquidating everything I could.
Sebastien Leitner
You rented a truck, you went to IKEA, you loaded it up. And then you opened when? Help me understand the timeline.
Bianca Brasdorp
Went to IKEA, had some second hand furniture. And then I opened Barcelona in April last year. April of 2023.
Sebastien Leitner
So it almost took you three years to open this place.
Bianca Brasdorp
Yes. Yes. And with preparation, it took me four years. And it’s quite small. I’m gonna tell you, just like a revelation, Barcelona is 78 beds. But I just wanted to get it done. It’s really hard to open a hostel in Barcelona because they had new rules that they didn’t want new hotels or hostels in Barcelona. So they were making it extremely hard to open. And I was like, I’m gonna get it done. In hindsight, it wasn’t the best motivation.
Sebastien Leitner
What’s not the best motivation?
Bianca Brasdorp
If you look at money wise. But it was like a challenge for me. It’s my pretty project. It’s beautiful. It has a gym in it. And a rooftop. It’s gorgeous. And it’s a great location.
Sebastien Leitner
It’s a great location. It’s in Barcelona. So, I’m happy you finished it. And then for London, similar heartaches or less so?
Bianca Brasdorp
Oh, yeah. Oh, yes. So what happened in London? Oh, I have so many stories. So I was busy for about a year in London when COVID hit. I was basically getting my permits. COVID hit, and I was dealing with Barcelona. And when I was asking for money for Barcelona, I was like, hey, I have my permits for London as well. And I still to this day don’t understand why you have investors that are given the opportunity to invest in a hostel in Barcelona or London, and they say no.
So when I was finishing Barcelona, I did not have money to start London. And I really wanted to do London. And then I was recently divorced. I had my house. I lived in my house for 18 years in Amsterdam. And my daughter said, mom, why don’t you sell the house? And I was like, because I was divorced and I was attached to it. She’s like, I’m not attached to the house. So I sold my house, I think within a day, for a great amount of money. Paid all my debts. And I was looking for a new house and I got my new house within four days. So I had everything, the house that I was living in for 18 years, packed it up, moved to a smaller house, and I got the money to start London.
Sebastien Leitner
Wow. And that took how long to open?
Bianca Brasdorp
I think from April 2022 to February 2023. So like nine months or something. It could be way faster.
Sebastien Leitner
But it was relatively fast compared to the Barcelona effort. Right?
Bianca Brasdorp
Yes. But COVID was in between Barcelona. So yeah.
Sebastien Leitner
Yeah. Now you have more destinations that you’re thinking of. One is Paris and one is New York.
Bianca Brasdorp
I don’t think I’d wanna do Berlin anymore. The age thing is also a thing. I’m 52. I had a lot of energy. You have to have energy. And I did everything alone. And now I don’t have a team. So I’m doing everything alone and also having to oversee the other managers. So I didn’t have a mentor as well. When I have a project, I really have to close everything off.
So that’s why I said, I’m thinking about my role as a CEO, but also all the hardships and all the battles that you are facing. I don’t know if I would do that that many times again. Because you’re getting older and at one point you go like, where am I gonna enjoy the fruits of my labor if I’m constantly in a battle? I mean, I’m really enjoying this. But Paris is coming next year, probably.
Sebastien Leitner
Alright. Paris is coming. I love Paris. And New York?
Bianca Brasdorp
New York is a big project. So before COVID ended, I was in New York February 2020. And I figured everything out. And I was talking to a lawyer there, and he said, you are spot on, you are ready to go. And then COVID hit. And I was like, okay, I’m gonna leave New York. New York’s gonna require a lot of energy for me as well. And then when you are approaching 60, you’re gonna go like, well, we’ll see. We’ll see how it goes.
Sebastien Leitner
So maybe it is that you have a passion for opening new properties. Right?
Bianca Brasdorp
It is. The funny thing is I started like, oh, I want to have a hostel, but now I’m more the developer. I strip buildings completely and then build them exactly how I want. And I really love construction. I’m one of the few women that really love construction. I’m always in dust and dirt with pipes and electricity and plumbing. So I’m more in that phase and not in the managing or the running.
Sebastien Leitner
Yeah. The managing, you’d love to let other people do that.
Bianca Brasdorp
They can do that. There are people who are better at that than I am. So maybe in the future, I know I need a CEO that runs the business versus a general manager.
Sebastien Leitner
Not just for Amsterdam, but for the whole group?
Bianca Brasdorp
Yeah. For the whole group. So I’m looking at solutions. But one of the advantages of what I do is that I’m like a mentor for my managers. They’re all young women around 25, 26, and they’re doing an awesome job. My youngest manager is in London. She was 23 when I hired her, and she’s doing London. And in London, I have 132 beds.
Sebastien Leitner
That’s fantastic. Fresh out of school, and she’s rocking it.
Bianca Brasdorp
For real. That’s awesome. And the one in Barcelona, she just sent me a message, like, oh, I love working for you. They truly value being mentored, and I love the opportunity. And she came from school too. So I love that part of my job as well, but I do realize that I have to make choices at one point.
Sebastien Leitner
Yeah. And you wanna enjoy the fruits of your labor at some point.
Bianca Brasdorp
Of course. I wanna be on a yacht.
Sebastien Leitner
Now we know. Where is the yacht located? That’s the next question. Where is that yacht going to be anchored?
Bianca Brasdorp
That is a good one. What I miss now is that because I’m always traveling to Barcelona and London, and I am in Amsterdam, and I have a daughter here as well. So I don’t get a lot of opportunity to travel outside of these cities. And I really wanna do that more. Be it without feeling guilty because every time I talk to a manager, they’re like, when are you coming back to London? And I wanna see them as well, but I really have to juggle everything. It’s quite a challenge.
Sebastien Leitner
Okay. Yeah. Look. What I’m very interested in talking to you about, you are a hostel owner before the pandemic, and of course have now expanded your portfolio since the pandemic finished. I’m very curious on your opinion whether travel has changed. And if so, what has changed? Before and after. Has there been lots of changes from your perspective?
Bianca Brasdorp
The change that I really noticed is we are doing far more to create a community. We’re doing a lot of events. You see that people really miss being with each other. That’s why they choose a hostel. They wanna be with other people. They wanna meet other people. And especially being a female-only hostel, we really want to have that community of female travelers that are just communicating with each other, doing nice things with each other. So we are doing a lot of effort to create a community and to do events. So you see that people are really searching for connection right now.
Sebastien Leitner
More so than before?
Bianca Brasdorp
Yes. Yes. Absolutely. So they’re starved for social contact. They’ve been stuck at home for some time and they’re traveling to connect with other people. Absolutely. Absolutely. And you see the hybrid as well. I think you guys see it as well. You see a lot of hybrid hotel-hostels. Because the hotels, they realize that they are missing that community part. And they are missing a lot of young travelers because they don’t have that community part. And they don’t have that young vibe or, you know, we were talking about interior design, something that attracts young people when they are traveling. And they are looking for not only a bed or a room, but also more like a connection, but also inspiration or extra things that you just wanna be outside of your own living space and be in a beautiful and different environment with other people.
Sebastien Leitner
So maybe 10 years ago, the sense of community was maybe a co-working space. It was maybe a coffee shop where there was free wifi. You would have 10, 15 people sitting across their mobile devices and laptops and pretend to be social, but they’re not. They’re not interacting with each other. They’re just sitting together. How do you create today a community? What type of events are you doing that allows people to connect, not through a phone, but in real life?
Bianca Brasdorp
We are doing a lot. We have in each of the branches volunteers that stay and they do events for us. And it could vary from movie nights, we have bike rides in Amsterdam. I just said to the managers, I want each of you guys to have a special week of your country where you’re in. So we had Spanish week. We had Dutch week. Now we have British week. And Spanish week, we had tapas, we had a Spanish movie of Pedro Almodovar, we had I think some flamenco dancing going on. In Amsterdam, we had a Dutch breakfast, we had a bike ride, we had a Dutch meal as well. And in London, we had high tea, we had fish and chips.
So I said to the managers, you were in the city, people traveled to you to get some of the local flavor. So offer that in a setting with other people. Those kind of things, it’s really connecting. And I was in London, and they had a girls’ dinner. Do you know girl dinner?
Sebastien Leitner
No. What’s that?
Bianca Brasdorp
Oh, girl dinner. So basically, when you have girls that can eat whatever they like at that moment. If you wanna eat three peanuts, one banana, three cookies, one potato, that’s girl dinner. So what we do is we put everything on the table, you can just mix and match. So we had that. And they were sitting, I think from seven o’clock until midnight. Just a group of girls chatting and talking about all kinds of different things. It looked like a podcast for real.
Sebastien Leitner
That’s hilarious. And we had Thanksgiving. There was a really long table, and we had chicken and all kinds of Thanksgiving things, and everybody had to say what they were thankful for. And we have a Christmas dinner coming on. We had a big Halloween celebration, and girls love to decorate. So every time it’s decoration time, they go all out.
Bianca Brasdorp
Absolutely. With Halloween as well. I usually, because I have a management meeting every Monday, I said, guys, Halloween is coming, I want everybody to have decoration and everybody to have a schedule on that day or that week, what you’re gonna do. So it was a scary movie, it was drinks and beer pong with eyeballs, and they had painting, and one of the volunteers was reading tarot cards. So it’s just, and I leave it also up to the imagination of the manager and the volunteers to come up with original things in the branch.
Sebastien Leitner
That’s so fantastic. I was talking to a couple of other hostel owners who were telling me that their guests have become older. And it’s driving their average age up. They see fewer very young travelers or younger travelers. But they see the average age increase. True or false? Is that an observation that you’re seeing as well?
Bianca Brasdorp
Generally, no. I do have a couple of older women, and especially what you get is when it gets cheaper, the price gets cheaper, you get more local people that are looking for houses, that are maybe homeless, or they have a difficult situation, and they tend to be a little bit older. So I did have a couple, but it’s not increasing. I don’t have the feeling that it’s increasing.
Sebastien Leitner
You know, we talked about Booking.com earlier, an OTA for instance, and that’s also in a way technology. If you think of technology that you use today, also that is in use by travelers, what changes in technology are you noticing? From distribution, from how your guests are traveling or what they’re expecting potentially. What changes do you see happening?
Bianca Brasdorp
I do not see a lot of change. The only change I really see, and I’m really implementing as one of the few hostels because we’re really big on social media as well, we are doing a lot of TikTok. We are doing a lot of TikTok. I mean, check our TikTok account.
Sebastien Leitner
And TikTok requires knowledge. What do you mean by knowledge? Like, what do I need to know as a content creator?
Bianca Brasdorp
It’s like mini movies. You have to have actors. You have to have a script. You have to have sound. You have to have editing. You have to have a sense of viral sounds and viral concepts. And you have to be right on time.
Sebastien Leitner
So who creates your content?
Bianca Brasdorp
My staff does. So all of my managers are young. And the volunteers are also young. So the volunteers, they get to do all the events that we do, and they do the social media as well. We do reels, but we also do TikToks. And we had a TikTok that went viral. And that had 1.1 million views.
Sebastien Leitner
That’s amazing. Now I have to go look for your TikTok and find it. So what does it do for your business? Is it just buzz or do you see a noticeable impact? You create all this content, and as a potential new hostel owner or somebody starting in the industry, what does it do for me? Does it change your business performance? Does it actually create more guests?
Bianca Brasdorp
You know what it is, and that’s the hardest thing about social media. Normally, you don’t see a one-on-one kind of effect. And with us as well. I mean, I’m a female-only hostel. I’m the only one in Barcelona. I’m the only one in Amsterdam or in Holland. I’m not the only one in London, but I’m the biggest one in London. But still, the concept is not really known.
So the first step of your marketing is they have to know you first. They have to know you. And then they have to have a good feeling about you, and then they can book with you. And what a lot of companies think is, oh, I did a TikTok and now they have to book me. Like, no. I don’t even know who you are. If I see one TikTok, I’m like, oh, that’s interesting, a female hostel. Let me see what they have. Let me see how expensive it is or where it is exactly. Because you can go, oh, this is a nice TikTok, but it’s not in a location where I wanna be. So it is more factors than only the TikTok, but the TikTok is a start. It’s like Tinder. You really have to have a profile photo first. And then you go and talk.
Sebastien Leitner
Yeah. That’s awesome. Your social media is super important. Fast forward. Do you think virtual reality and all of these things will be relevant for future guests? Do you care for AI at this point?
Bianca Brasdorp
AI is only interesting if, let’s say, we use templates to ask questions or to answer some kinds of questions. That’s a form of AI. What I thought was gonna happen was that the self check-in, I mean, we were talking about that for years. Self check-in, it’s gonna be hot. It never happened.
Sebastien Leitner
Why not?
Bianca Brasdorp
Because you have a lot of forms of payments. So not everybody is paying up front. So if not everybody’s doing that, you still have people that have to pay on arrival. So you can do the self check-in, but you still have to pay with somebody.
And a lot of people, especially with hostels, they come, they have questions, or they don’t understand something or something goes wrong. Or what we get a lot at the hostel is that people wanna know where can I go or where can I get some food. So you can’t eliminate the human element. People talk to us. You forget that people want to have contact. Not all. I mean, I can imagine if you’re on a business trip, you’re just going for a conference and you’re like, I don’t wanna see anybody. You just wanna get into your bed and go to the conference in the morning. That is fine. But if you’re traveling with a little backpack and you’re doing a week of Amsterdam and you wanna connect with other people, a self check-in has no point.
And it has no point if one half does self check-in and the other half doesn’t. You still have to have a person there. So that’s why a lot of hotels will go like, I still have to have that person at the front desk. You can have both, but if something goes wrong and you are at a self check-in and you come there and your key doesn’t work, what are you gonna do?
Sebastien Leitner
Yeah. And how many times have you been in a hotel and your key doesn’t work and you have to go downstairs, the key doesn’t work. And they type it in again and you have to go upstairs. And the next day, the key still doesn’t work.
Bianca Brasdorp
So many times. Or something in the bathroom doesn’t work. Or you don’t have shampoo or anything. You have to ask somebody.
Sebastien Leitner
Yep. Look, before we close, I wanna dive into your experience, and I wanna sort of tackle three things. I’m thinking of all the hostel owners and aspiring hostel owners that want to open their own hostel anywhere in the world. And I’d love for you to share one or two things that you recommend they should do and one or two things they should avoid doing. Because you’re a serial entrepreneur. You’re a serial developer, if you will. You know what you’re doing. And so I wanna share both the best practices and the things to avoid. So for us to end on a positive note, let’s start with the things you should avoid when getting into hostels.
Bianca Brasdorp
You should avoid listening to a lot of people that say that it’s not possible. That is, it can be a killer. Because people don’t understand. They go like, oh, it’s not possible. Yes, it is. And I think what you should avoid is a negative mindset. If you have a positive mindset and you do your due diligence, then you can get really, really far. But you should really avoid people that bring you down and are negative, because they’re gonna say it’s not possible or it’s not possible for that.
Sebastien Leitner
Interesting. Yeah. What are the things you should do?
Bianca Brasdorp
Research, research. I’m really good at due diligence. You should know everything about the hostel business. You should Google everything. You should know what permits you need, what kind of business structure you need, how much money you need. And if you don’t have the knowledge, you should find it somewhere. So if you’re not good at numbers, find somebody that can do the numbers with you. If you’re not good at permits, get somebody from the city and talk to them about what you need exactly. But you should really know what you need to do to make it happen.
And you should just follow all the steps. Because if you look at the end of the road, it looks like a lot. But if you just look at the first step and do that, and then you do the next step. Because you forget how many hard steps there were. I forgot about it in Barcelona, but there were a lot. Because if you see the end, you’re not gonna do it. Just go like, yeah, you can do it. The first step is easy. And if you can, I would advise you not to get an investor.
Sebastien Leitner
Okay. So do it yourself. Spend your own money.
Bianca Brasdorp
Yes.
Sebastien Leitner
Last question I have for you is, if you could take out your magic wand and change anything on your hostel group right now, what would it be?
Bianca Brasdorp
Things went the way they’re supposed to be going. I have the most amazing female crew, like, for real. I love these women. They are amazing and they have so much talent. And for women, it’s really harder to get the talent out because we are not in general that confident in what we can do. So if you just give them the opportunity, they will go. So I really enjoy that. And at this moment, it’s good.
Sebastien Leitner
That’s your mic drop. That’s it. That’s perfectly fine. Thank you so much for joining us on the Turndown. It was a pleasure talking to you. Thank you for sharing your stories, your experience. It was a pleasure. Good luck in Paris. And we’ll be checking in with you in due course.
Bianca Brasdorp
We will be calling Cloudbeds Paris to connect us.
Sebastien Leitner
Thank you for listening to the turn down. Don’t forget to subscribe and tune in next week as we discover new exciting guests.
