Why Homes Are Replacing Hotels in India with Ankit Goenka, Founder of Jade Caps | EP 5

Justin Sun (: 00:33

My guest today sits at a really interesting intersection of finance, real estate and hospitality. For more than 15 years, Ankit Goenka worked in global banking, managing FX rates and derivative flows across India, South East Asia and the Middle

and started again from a single apartment in Bangalore. Today, he is the founder and CEO of Jade Caps, which operates more than 200 premium homes across India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Dubai through brands like Stay Jade, Red Olive, and Jade PMS. His team manages more than 500 homeowners and an asset base of roughly $100 million.

special is that it is not just a property manager. It is trying to become the operating system for second homes in Asia

tech, and a full stack service model to professionalize what has been a very fragmented market.

We are going to talk about how you build that kind of company in a country as complex as India. What he has learned from writing villas and apartments at scale, how he thinks about owners, regulations, returns, and where he believes the short-term rental market in Asia is actually heading.

Justin Sun (: 01:45

Ankit, welcome to the Curious Concierge.

Ankit Goenka (: 01:47

Thank you. Thank you, Justin.

Justin Sun (: 01:50

Well, I want to start

with the personal story because your career arc is rather unusual. Most people try to get into global banking, but you chose to walk away from it. You you spent also years flying between India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East in your banking role. When you look back at those years on the road, can you remember a specific trip or moment where you thought, I don't want just another hotel room. I just want a real home.

and realize this could potentially be a business idea rather than just a personal preference.

Ankit Goenka (: 02:22

Yeah, I mean that feeling that that whole observation that I need a home rather than a hotel has been there since the last five years of my career with HSBC. But one particular trip which was I was in Dubai and back to India I had to come for three months to set up a FX desk center in India for the global markets. I had a three month assignment and there was no apartment.

sort of available of the sorts for me to stay and I ended up staying in a sort of hotel room suite with my family and that was the trigger moment but before that I've had multiple trips to Singapore where you again get small hotel rooms with very little flexibility again travel to Hong Kong you know what kind of bed size you're gonna get so these

These hotel rooms are good as long as the trip is a one day or a couple of hours because you just need the room to freshen up or to just get a four or five hours sleep which is kind of a norm in investment banking. But the moment it's a longer trip where you're going to stay for four, three, four, five days and then you want to call your family and then you want to sort of spend time in the weekend in that particular city, hotels just don't work because there's no flexibility.

There is no sort of experience sort of customization available. And if the company is sending you for a slightly longer one, two months duration trip, then you have it. mean, food is a problem. Calling guest over is a problem. Hosting someone is a problem. So all of that, I mean, when I relocated from India to Dubai as well, that was a problem because I was put up in a hotel suite for 45 days. Again, you couldn't call over your colleagues. You're staying alone. You couldn't call over your colleagues, host them.

wine them, dine them, you couldn't do so many things that you could have, you end up eating outside food. And then when I travel back to India for an assignment, same issues. So my view is that largely this thing will get solved globally in five to 10 years. Different countries were at different stages of sort of democratizing the whole hospitality business. UAE was ahead of the curve with the government proactively doing a lot of steps.

Justin Sun (: 04:04

you

Ankit Goenka (: 04:24

in taking measures like that. India was far behind, but the interesting observation was that India, the digital consumption was sort of picking up 2019, 2020, food delivery was picking up, Uber had become mainstream. So the fact that consumers would want to sort of consume this kind of products digitally was coming to the main front. Supply was a challenge, which is what I felt as well. Plugging your inventory to the platform was a challenge because there was no full start.

platform which could do end to end sort of work. So all of this led to building up the thesis that this is something which should be done in Asia but India is the second largest country.

Justin Sun (: 05:03

you

Amazing. Well, it sounds like you were able to turn this frustration into perhaps the first version of Jade Caps. What was the very first concrete step you took? Was it one listing? Was it one owner? One city?

Ankit Goenka (: 05:11

Yeah.

So first step was to come out of the comfort zone. I mean to imagine yourself coming out of an FX trading, derivatives trading desk and doing something main street calls for a lot of shift in mindset, dealing with traders in Hong Kong, London, New York, traveling to those kinds of places all the time, dealing with a very different asset class to setting up something full stack from the scratch. The first step is always in the mind.

to prepare yourself for the journey ahead and then lay down into different sort of steps that you, okay, we're gonna take it slow for the first six months, we're gonna go live with one or two properties in first one or two months. So the first steps were always comes with a lot of uncertainty. mean, might, one might plan a lot of things in advance, but when the rubber hits the ground, the story is always different, especially in emerging market, moving from a.

developed market ecosystem to an emerging market ecosystem itself takes a lot of time. The trust systems are very different. The communication systems are very different. The way you speak as a trader, as a banker versus the way you address people as startup founder is again very different. So the first step was the hardest, I believe. Once that was taken, then of course you've cleared a lot of hurdle for yourself.

And then you just follow the process. You go after one apartment, you host it, you go through the grind, you make mistakes, learn. Do not repeat the same mistake again. So one to two to three apartments. A lot of people told me first five apartments are gonna be the toughest. And I believe that was the case. So after five, five to 25, 30 was easy. And then 35 to 100 took a bit of efforts. 100 to 200 seems more easier.

Now we are getting geared up for the next sort of thousand journey, which is a very different ballgame from the initial days because that needs a more strategic capital allocation, more branding efforts, more sort of team building, greater focus on

use of AI to reduce cost. So the whole business has changed in the past five years, but the first step is always in the mind that in five years time, you will be probably...

doing more exciting things than what you're doing now and it's a journey that you need to take to build on your own from the scratch. And there'll be ups and downs, but you're in the right market with the right product and the right strategy.

Justin Sun (: 07:35

And especially when you're passionate about it, those five years will fly by. And I'm sure it's been a very fun time, but just kind of wanted to backtrack just a tad bit, you know, especially on the emotional side, because you're leaving a very safe career path is one kind of stress. But then asking someone to hand you their home is also a different type of vulnerability. What did you personally find harder in the early days? Was it telling your family and colleagues that you were leaving?

Ankit Goenka (: 07:42

Yeah

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Justin Sun (: 08:02

your banking track or convincing the few first owners to let you manage their homes and trust a brand that just started to exist.

Ankit Goenka (: 08:11

So the first question is always with the self. I mean you need to answer yourself whether you are okay with leaving a structured job to go build something in an unstructured market. Convincing oneself or convincing myself was the toughest. It took me a year and a half or two years to convince myself that I'm ready for the journey and if I don't do it now it's not going to happen at a later stage because stakes are going to get higher. I'm going to get more comfortable, more senior.

So the first step is convincing oneself and once I convinced myself then there was no looking back because then there are people who are naysayers and there are people who are convincers. So you know whom you want to go to for what stage. Once you've convinced myself and I have left my job and I'm doing this, then convincing the owners wasn't that difficult initially because I was myself had so much of conviction that they could see through it.

that he's a guy who's come with a serious mandate and he will turn things around, he's there on the field, he has his own sort of way of doing things and initially giving the keys is something that was sort of a thing for people to ponder over but when you sit with them and explain them, what are the risks and what are the mitigants and what is the plan.

And once you put some money in their pocket in terms of rental income, then they get more confidence that the guy is not sort of... And when they see that, the confidence that the person brings on the table, the credibility, the whole thing that he knows what he's doing itself goes in a long way. And that carries to us even still today because somebody who is giving us his keys is not just his house, he's technically giving his name

because his name is attached to the house and anything goes wrong, he'll still be called upon along with us. So that is tough, especially more so in Asia because regulations are all over the place. The guest segments are also not super mature as in the West. It's a very, very new business. But the markets have evolved. People have realized it's a standard business practice. They use these kind of products when they travel abroad. So they always think, why not in India?

So we've come a long way since COVID actually with this becoming a mainstream activity, people realizing that, it's okay to give the keys as long as you are with the right operator. There are right control mechanism in place. They have the right sort of technology to take care of guests, to take care of the house. The maintenance is institutional level and they have right to use their house as well whenever they want to. Plus there's a lot of branding efforts that will go into building.

the profile of the property also. So as long as the risk reward ratio is sort of skewed in the favor of the owners, they would tend to give us the case.

Justin Sun (: 10:49

And I'm sure you guys have been doing a fantastic job with over an asset base of $100 million. There's no doubt that there's credibility in the trust that you've built.

Ankit Goenka (: 10:59

We want to give the right quality and comfort and right product to our end users, the consumers who book with us directly. So now we have specifications, SOPs, standards and we very confident on what we do on the ground.

Justin Sun (: 11:12

get into the machinery of Jade Caps, I want to anchor the feeling of the brand for listeners. How would you describe Jade Caps in a couple sentences? Now, not as a pitch to investors, but as a feeling you want your guests and owners to have. What would that line be?

Ankit Goenka (: 11:32

It's a

trusted home. Just feel like home when you're here. It's not a hotel, it's not a service apartment, it is not a standard cookie cutter Airbnb. It's just a home and any guest can micro configure it based on their comfort, whether they're staying for one day, one month or a year. And that's what JadeCaps stands for.

Justin Sun (: 11:49

I love that. You have described JadeCaps as a consumer play built on a very heavy supply side backbone. I believe I heard in a previous podcast and India is probably one of the hardest places to build that backbone, which is exactly why I think this story is very interesting. So let us zoom out and talk about why India needed something like JadeCaps and why is it so hard to execute there?

I think a lot of our listeners, and you mentioned this a little bit, sit in markets like Europe, the States, even other parts of Southeast Asia. And when they think of short-term rentals, they picture Spain, Dubai, Bali, or locations like Nashville and Joshua Tree in the States. And India is not usually the first market that comes to mind, even though the raw numbers are huge. If someone in New York or London asks you,

What is the short-term rental landscape in India right now? How would you explain that in simple terms? And what might be some misconceptions people outside of India usually have about this market?

Ankit Goenka (: 12:51

it's getting more streamlined

the fact that people travel to India is there. We have a huge amount of people coming to the country and to Southeast Asia for multiple reasons. Medical tourism is huge. It's one of the best places to get medical treatments done. So we host people from 20-plus countries who come every year for a short to long treatment.

Corporate relocations are huge now. We've seen a huge influx of people coming back to the country because there are a lot of opportunities around lot of areas and the whole GCC ecosystem has developed so well that it doesn't matter which part of the world you are. A Goldman Sachs, Bangalore person is equal to more or less in a Goldman Sachs New York doing the same kind of job. So it really doesn't matter which part of the world you are on.

listings in: 2019

that the trust networks are built super fast that people book with us to the extent of 20, $25,000 single swipe directly with us or through Airbnb or through some other channel which is becoming very, very common. it's the same like when you book a Marriott across the globe, you know that there are certain standards that you will follow. It's the same thing happening in this industry as well with us.

when you book a Jade Caps home, know that they are at par with global standards. And that can be made out from the listings and the communication. So the amenities that we have in our properties is at par with what you get in New York, whether it's a dryer, whether it's a microwave, whether it's a fitted oven. So you understand these people stand for quality. And then the responses, because you

Some people want to know what is the size of the pool in the property before they book the property. And they're right, because sometimes you book a property with pool and there is no pool. Sometimes you book an apartment and it's like it's not an apartment, it's some other house in some other building. then villas is the most sort of misused word. They sell apartment as villas because people like to villas. an organized player like us, these kind of risk is far.

beyond us. have thousands of reviews on Airbnb, Booking.com. We are super hosts across platforms, genius members in Booking.com. the booking experience is at par with any global booking system that you can think of. Post-booking guest communication is aligned with that. It's standardized like a hotel because we have our own PMS, booking terminology, guest verification system. So.

The guest journey till he reaches our place is at par with any other global hotel industry or a short-term rental operator you can think of. And after he moves in, of course, he gets the same experience that he's thought he'd booked. And there's also a thing where we sort of reconfirm with the guest about the things that they look for and they have booked it so that we have made them aware that look.

This is what you've booked and you can always shift if this doesn't meet your requirement. Location is a huge problem. Airbnb doesn't disclose location exactly. People find it difficult to navigate. Sometimes they book in an area and where they need to be is very different. So we cross-check with them, you? This is the location. And so there's a bit of engagement that happens after booking as well sometimes, especially for larger value. So these are the things that have happened which has built the trust systems

People don't see India very very differently I would say when it comes to short-term rentals now. There are people who want to book direct because you you book two nights through Airbnb and then you want to stay in the same property for 20 nights. The trust is developed you know it's a trusted operator after two nights you want to extend directly because you know they are the people who are solving all your needs and some people have customized needs some people need a wheelchair some people need whatever so

So we understand all of that for state product, whether it's a staycation or whether it's an urban stay. And being close to customer is what is very, important for us to deliver the end experience that the customer is looking for. So it's a hospitality tech business at the end of the day. So as long as my team is able to understand what the customer is looking for, preempt his requirement.

hey do you want us to order pre-order groceries for you since you'll be coming late in the night and you're coming with the infant you may need a bottle of milk and that's just an aha moment it doesn't take anything to deliver that and it's one of the best delivery systems in the world you can think of in terms of online delivery. making the guest comfortable in the first one two days is where you know the whole challenge is and you know that's where the trust.

gets developed and there are very few professional operators in the country even now who are going to that level of customization in detail in terms of product and in terms of service offering and the market is just endless because you know as I said medical is what gets a lot of people to the country so is wedding. Wedding is now become a global phenomenon lot of people want to come to India and do wedding so

They book a resort, that's not sufficient. They need more rooms. They need more vacation homes around the property. So there's a huge demand for that. Then assignments, I mean, the way the country is growing 8%, 9%, 10%, a lot of global people need to come and stay here for two, three months to set up their manufacturing shop or to set up their services shop. And they basically need customized food. They want to set up their own kitchen. So again, they need a home. They don't need a hotel. And that's where a lot of these hotels

brands are also entering our space and which is a welcome move because they are also validating this industry that look there is a need for that non-standard product which a customer wants for longer stay and you know it's just endless demand and post-COVID it's become more mainstream because people have a choice to book between a room and an apartment at the same price point through the same channel through the same distributor and

they are choosing whatever serves their requirement better. So, you know, then the whole question of, I'm booking an apartment and I don't know how the service is going to be, they're not coming here for service, they're coming here for space, they're coming here for comfort, and they can design the service to the extent they want to. So that's the whole sort of thesis which people are also using sometimes to book, and it's becoming a mainstream category, right?

Justin Sun (: 19:02

Well, I really appreciate the transparency that Jade Caps is providing and that customer journey that hand holding guest journeys are very important. And it's great to hear that you are taking a step and beyond to really provide that experience to them. And I agree. think the short-term rental market is very similar to other parts of the world, but it's fantastic to hear India's boom.

That said, if we look at the West, we have already seen the boom and some of the bust. know, oversupply in certain markets, race to the bottom pricing, poor guest experience because everyone tried to scale at any cost. Do you think India is at risk of repeating some of these mistakes or is the market still early and more controlled?

Ankit Goenka (: 19:48

It's a mix of both I would say. We are not at a risk of oversupply. Although there are a lot of homes that can be turned into fully functional vacation home, urban or vacation sites. So we see a lot of that supply coming to us. See, you need to look at the demand side of the story, which is very, very interesting. 2019, when I entered this industry, India time was around $2 billion, more or less.

billion TAM by: 2030

So, you know, still at the starting point, the state governments have started realizing the potential of this sector. It helps in dispersing the tourism. It helps in distribution of the real estate business across the state, especially like Goa, Karnataka, Maharashtra. There's a lot of captive microstication tourism demand. There lot of wealthy family offices and owners who own large parcels of real estate. They see this as a monetizing tool.

supply to add more supply to the market and the demand is just not captured well because you know it's there are four things that are happening in the market one is unorganized to organized category shift which is huge 90 percent of the market is unorganized and it's moving towards organized because people want that standardization in terms of service and product they want trust

They want a better price point sometimes and they want the whole experience to be delivered digitally in terms of booking and guest management. So a large part of category is getting shifting from an organized to organized. Then new consumers getting added. It's like a one European country like Spain that is getting added every year to the consumer side in terms of Gen Z is joining the workforce, having a lot of disposable income and wanting to spend.

time with their friends and family over the weekend without having to travel too much. So we have people booking the same property or different property almost every weekend because the cost of staying in a vacation home with a brand like us around the city limits is equal to the bill that they would pay in a restaurant for a dinner, more or less, right? But the experience is more immersive and they are able to enjoy the nature.

they are able to take a break on the weekend plus this whole walk from home phenomena flexible work is adding lot of urban millennials to the market because you between the husband and the wife one can work three days in a week from home and they choose to work from a vacation home sometimes or maybe both of them taking a walk from home for five days rather than traveling all over the place they just shift to a vacation home with their kid with their pet and that adds to the whole thing.

And then comes the fall of supply from the hotel industry. Now, you have to realize there's as much hotels that can be built in a country like India because interest rates are high, the cost of capital is high, the land prices have gone above the roof. So adding new supply, I mean if you look at the organized sector in a market like India, are roughly 400 or 500,000 hotel rooms in a country like India. In a country where even if you take 2 % of the population,

The per person hotel room supply is very, very less. Adding new supplies, tough. As I said, interest cost is high. A lot of budget operators have come and gone in the market. Scaling is difficult on the budget segment as well. There are very few people who've got it right in terms of scale and branding and all that. A lot of players, VC funded, have got diverted or they have lost interest in the budget hotel segment. So lot of that fallback supply is coming to apartment in the urban side.

billion by: 2030

Justin Sun (: 23:53

Well, you did mention that India's chaos and unorganized mess creates a lot of potential, I suppose, but you did not just create a brand to sit on top of this chaos. You built your own operating system to manage it from pricing and distribution to housekeeping and owner reporting. So let's get into Jade PMS and what AI first really means in your world.

Your tech is not a layer, it's the foundation, right? You did decide to build your own PMS instead of using off the shelf tools. What was the one feature you absolutely couldn't find in the market?

Ankit Goenka (: 24:30

Yes, top of the mind, can tell you unified inbox is very, very sort of cliched term. Every PMS company will have it. But these days, unified inbox does not mean you just put in all the OTA communication into a single inbox and say it's a inbox. There are lot more channels from which we communicate with our customers, which is WhatsApp, which is Insta.

And all of that need to flow into the unified inbox so that we can manage the lead system very, well. How many serious people are looking to book? How many are spam leads? All of that. that's just one micro configuration we've done where we have Instagram, WhatsApp, direct website queries, and all the 50 plus OTA channel queries on a single unified inbox, which is in a true sense a unified one because all your inbound communication with any customer.

is sort of flowing into a single dashboard. And then you can classify it as a lead, as a confirmed booking, as a post-booking communication, if that needs to be. So it's a very simple step. And unless you use the product, you don't realize that, OK, the world has moved beyond OTAs as well. The vacation rental operators are talking to customers on WhatsApp, taking bookings on WhatsApp. A lot of queries flowing into Instagram. What about them?

they're also channels. So lot of new channels coming into play and we have integrated all of them in a unified inbox. And then comes AI, which is okay, whatever query the AI can answer in terms of reading from the listing page and replying to the guest, the AI will do it. So the standard queries are what about food? All the properties description will have food arrangement mentioned, but still the guest want a reconfirmation because again,

Food is a very critical component. in the middle of a forest or middle of a farmland and then he doesn't know how the food will be served, what kind of food will be reconfirmed. So the AI will again reconfirm, reassure the customer that, okay, there is food available. You have three options. You can do this, you can do that. And all of that is mentioned in the listing description. Okay, and then what about housekeeping? What about check-in? Can we check in early? Can we check out late?

And these are very, very standard questions that every guest would ask because they want to maximize on the value. Can we bring in extra guests? So all of these questions are much smoothly answered by our AI-powered chatbot that we built in our PMS system. And then comes human interaction when it goes beyond what is mentioned in the listing. Like, I mean, anything else which is not mentioned in the listing or which the AI has not recorded in the previous country.

conversation. So that's why you are able to handle so many properties with a team of two to three people on the reservation side because a lot of the communication is automated. you know the whole cook the whole out-of-the-shelf PMS tools built for Western markets was they're not built for this part of the region which is Asia, Middle East, Southeast Asia, India. They do not have integrations with local payment channel providers because

Half of these countries have restricted currencies, which means that they will not easily allow foreign currency aggregators to operate in the market. And then there are multiple challenges around, you know, regulations, getting the home stay registration done. Each country, like India has this specific thing where you have to register a foreign guest with a foreign office. Now that is not something a foreign PM is going to solve for, but we've done it. So, you know.

quite a few things which was needed and it's more of a scalar product for any vacation rental operator as I keep saying because lot of things that you need to scale your business is not available but we built it for you.

Justin Sun (: 27:58

Such a dynamic product, congratulations. It's truly achievement. WhatsApp, local currency, payment systems, you're absolutely right. I think the West is not considering and building for that. What are some things that you are currently focused on? I recall hearing that you're often busier when there are no guests because when there's no guests, the system is doing the work and

At Jade PMS, you guys are all hands on deck and really focused on the numbers. So what does a no guest day look like inside Jade PMS?

Ankit Goenka (: 28:30

A no-guest day on a property means there has to be deep cleaning, there has to be maintenance work, has to be painting, patch-up work at a property level because those are the slots that we get when we can enhance the guest experience. So a no-guest day means last three feedbacks of the guest, AI reads and creates a task on our system that this needs to be done at the property. And if it can only be done on a no-guest day, that will get attended to.

and plus the entire scheduled maintenance that we have. our task manager has routine tasks, scheduled tasks, on-demand tasks, tasks created based on guest feedback. So all the things that needs to be done, whether it's a deep cleaning, whether it's a kitchen pest control, all of that happens on a no-guest day. And the on-site team, the property managers, the caretakers, it's all decided in advance, it's all pre-scheduled.

Sometimes the calendars are blocked to do that because you don't want a guest landing up in the midst of a deep cleaning happening. All the administrative work around the property. So a no guest day is something where the PMS is at work, the maintenance team are at work, the pricing team is at work as to what can we do to enhance, offer a better pricing to the customer, can we lower the cost. Experience team is at work, can we add more experience layer to the property.

Can we do some more content around the property showing the new experience layer that we've added? So there's a lot of work around that when we don't have guests. those days are getting rarer and rarer now. The demand has picked up heavily in the midst of season. And even in off season, see a lot of customers booking with us rather than hotels because it just makes more economic sense. And India is a very, very value conscious market.

So as long as we get the value metric right, we literally have to block calendars for no guest days because there's demand on weekdays, there's demand on weekends, and there's demand from multiple segments or multiple use cases.

Justin Sun (: 30:19

And if you imagine Jade PMS in 2028, 2030, perhaps the next four five years, what will it be able to tell an owner in one line on their dashboard that it can't today?

Ankit Goenka (: 30:33

So in 2030, any owner plugs a new property, it would be able to tell them how much will this property make, how much money the property will make for them in the next two to three years. We'll have so much of data and prediction analytics perfected by then that with any new property that owner wants to plug in, with a fair amount of accuracy, he would know what is the return on that particular property.

what segment of guests will come, how much will they pay, what is the property management cost, what is the maintenance cost and net what is the ROI they should expect from that property.

Justin Sun (: 31:10

What would you say is the most unsexy but powerful data point that actually moves revenue for you today?

Ankit Goenka (: 31:18

I mean, it's a very, very interesting question, but a lot of people tend to ignore the lead time of booking and that is a very powerful data point. So the lead times are getting shorter and shorter, especially with younger generation trying to book last moment. Even families book last moment. Some families book because their actual plan with some other vacation rental company is not gone all right, so they're last minute bookers. But we've also seen people just booking on a repeat basis, the same property again and again.

multiple times to have the same experience of a home because probably they are missing something somewhere else. So lead time is a very, very ignored sort of variable because that's when operator gets nervous that his average lead time is four days, five days and the calendar still looks empty, but the lead time is very, very dynamic. It needs to be segmented based on the property that which particular segment will look at this property. What is the lead time of that particular segment?

And is the property optimized on that particular lead date when the customer will book? Lead time and the time when the customer books. That is also very important because some properties are booked by travelers sitting across the globe. So they book in non-working hours for India. So the property needs to be appearing on the first page whenever they sort of look for that particular location. The staycation properties are booked by local city people.

they usually tend to book when post office hours or they start at the fag end of the day around 4, 5 p.m. They start sending queries and then the booking flows in by 7, 8, 9 p.m. So your reservation team need to be super active around that time. So quite a few important data points to track. And my days with HSBC in FX and in derivatives have really helped me putting together this whole algorithm and analytics together.

to make sure we are not losing out on any unsold inventory.

Justin Sun (: 33:07

Absolutely,

think lead time is definitely overlooked sometimes and lead time and the pricing strategy is so key, goes hand in hand and that's how you fill your calendars. Well, since we're talking about segmentation and different types of properties, a lot of operators choose one specific lane, villas or urban stays, but you chose both, which means you are seeing two different Indias at the same time. How do you explain the difference between

stage aid and red olive to someone who simply says, want something nicer than a hotel.

Ankit Goenka (: 33:39

So, I mean, we started as Jade Caps, which is what it is. We segmented two different consumer brands based on the customer demand that we want to put it in different, even the OTA channels like better that way. And we are able to target the customer who will book a particular property. I mean, from day one, I have bought the segments and that's because it's more of a supply side challenge that I started with.

still looking at that and the same owner has multiple types of properties so rather than diverting that owner to multiple companies for their real estate asset portfolio they want a single solution so a same owner sitting out of Dubai having two properties in Dubai having two properties in Bangalore one in Ooty and one in Thailand now they were dealing with five different local agencies no tech no visibility cannot decide which property to keep in portfolio which one to sell what to recycle

Now they use my dashboard and they are able to track occupancy income across their geographies, right? And they can take a more informed decision as to what is a real estate strategy, where they want to put in more dollars, where they want to lighten their portfolio. So it started with that and it's still the core of the business. Now, when it comes to Red Olive and Stage Aid, the segments are totally different. Stage Aid caters to local customers who come through Instagram, who come through

Google, SEO, marketing, who come through lot of word of mouth because they've stayed with us, they like our product, they come again and again. They want to talk to us direct, they want to understand the experience, they do not want to pay OTA commission sometimes, they do not want the layer of an OTA in between, they want to talk to the reservation person, they want to understand what are the skill set of the caretaker who is gonna serve them, so it's a very different business. we have a dedicated team managing that, we have a

We are very, very busy on the weekends, like most other hospitality companies. We have control rooms set up on the weekends to make sure we are monitoring guest activity. 24 by 7, we have rotation desks. We monitor the guest experience sitting in the office, because we have hundreds of guests, or probably thousands on a weekend across our villas. So we stay in the office, we have control rooms set up. People are constantly on calls with caretakers.

to deliver the experience that has been promised to them. So very different way of operating the business. Red Olive on the other hand is more meant for travelers. It's a travel product where people coming into the country want a home for a specific need, whether it's a medical treatment, whether it's a corporate relocation or whether they come in for just for an assignment or whether they came for a wedding and they want to call it a home in India for a month. So again, that is a segment that I have served.

very very well. I myself was part of the diaspora before starting this company and I connect with that audience super well. I know how to get them to book with us. Pricing honestly is not a problem there but the problem is delivering them an experience that they are looking for because most of them are either coming from US or London or let's say Southeast Asia. There is a bit of hangover on the timing that they are all like coming in a different time zone.

They're coming from developed world to a sort of emerging market. And they sort of take time to adjust to that reality that, know, Wi-Fi failures do happen in India, which is a very unheard thing of in a New York or a London kind of situation. Power failures do happen very often sometimes, and we need to have power back up in place. The housekeeping system is very different here in terms of the costing structure, in terms of the delivery process.

first two, three days, we just need to settle them to explain them how it works here. And then once they are settled, they're good to go. They stay for a month, month and a half. So it's very intense with them sometimes for the first one or two days because, you know, the expectation is very different. Otherwise they would have booked with a five-star hotel, but that five-star hotel is not able to serve their needs that way. That's why they're coming to us. And they expect the same service, same level of hospitality.

but the price point they're willing to pay is much lower because the stay is much longer. So, you know, different segments, we've mastered both on the consumer side. We have owners giving us properties on both the segments and we are able to play the India story much better because there's a huge captive domestic demand that we serve. There's a huge inbound demand for medical plus corporate and...

Even within the country there's a lot of relocations happening. People moving from Bangalore to Chennai, Chennai to Hyderabad, Hyderabad to Bombay, all of that they just book with us. we have lot of tie-ups with corporates who have these kind of relocations happening with them. The likes of Google, Dell, Microsoft, you name it, and people from these kind of companies have come and stayed with us for long. We have senior level executives, MDs of Goldman Sachs staying with us for two to three months when they relocate.

We have Bollywood personalities staying with us. have film stars like Rishabh Pant staying with us for three months when he was doing a recovery. Because you cannot just recover and stay in a hotel. You cannot just do a recovery from a very critical accident and stay in a hotel. You need a house. You need a good home cooked food. You need to be with your mother sometimes. You need to be with your friends sometimes. And hotel cannot allow you all that. So we've...

we've learned from those experiences and those specific needs and built our service offering around those brands. both the segments are doing equally well, growing very, very fast, and they have their own sort of demand and supply cycles.

Justin Sun (: 38:52

Fantastic and it sounds like you touch you host you speak to multiple types of guests. What would you say are one or two trends you're seeing with the Indian traveler today? Obviously villas homes are allowing Indians to continue to really hone in on this multi-generational travel style Doing festivals together doing large holiday parties together, etc. But what are you seeing on your end?

Ankit Goenka (: 39:19

See, I mean, if you look at the society, Asia in general and India in specific, it's moving from a joint family system to a more nuclear family. And then people still want to have sort of best of both worlds, I would say. They want to stay nuclear, but they want to be with their parents and probably their grandparents once or twice or thrice in a year. And that's how the homes are also getting built now, because, you know,

They don't want stay with their grandparents and their parents, but they want to spend quality time with them. So we see a lot of people booking homes during holiday time, during summer holidays, during winter holidays, for 15 days, 20 days with us, or with other companies maybe. I'm not aware of that. booking with us and then staying with their parents, staying with their in-laws, staying with their parents. So one set of guests are constant and then people keep rotating.

You know, the whole sense of belongingness is very, strong in the society. It is just that the jobs are spread far apart and the whole trend of going independent and all that people are staying nuclear. largely, if you look at the ecosystem, they still want to connect with their folks, with their cousins, with their acquaintances. So large group bookings are a great norm. Large group bookings.

with the same members across different, so one booking with their in-laws, one booking with their parent side, one with their friends, one with their college friends, one with their school friends, all of that is happening now. Group of five, 10 people coming every year to meet and in different, different groups taking one or two days microstication. So that is happening and that's where the villa businesses is doing really well because they can stay in a resort but still at the end of the day they are only meeting for lunch, dinner or probably in the shared pool.

Here they're staying together all throughout. They're probably cooking together or the pet is there with them. So it's a very much more immersive experience, which is what people look for when they book with us. And that is a good trend to welcome.

Justin Sun (: 41:16

Definitely. And if you had to imagine what India's short-term rental market will look like in 2026, what do you see? Do you think we'll see more villas, more urban long stays, maybe more branded communities?

Ankit Goenka (: 41:29

I would say combination. A lot of branded communities are coming. Villa developers are sort of building villas for short-term rentals and vacation homes. Mixed-use developments are coming where you have hotels, have residences, and you have villa communities. A lot of supply is hitting the market. I've said somewhere 20-25,000 supply is a very small number in the market like India. New supply, when I say that. So that kind of number is there.

It's a very diverse market and a very diverse country. So we will see demand across pockets, across segments. We will see supply channels emerging in the sense that a lot of real estate developers are realizing that there's a need for a mixed-use development. Large parts of mixed-use development with commercial, semi-commercial and residential sitting in the same place. we now operate apartments and villas in residential complexes.

where there's a zoning done or where there's a rule based system that, if it's a short term rental, they have to follow XYZ rules and they can stay for this tenor and they have to do all sort of regulatory checks, society checks to be at par with the tenant and it works well. That's happening in Goa, that's happening in some societies in Bangalore. So, you know, there is a lot of changes that you would see.

The market is expanding very fast. Globally, if you look at it, and India is no exception, one third of all OTA bookings is coming from alternate accommodations. And India, believe the number can be much higher because all the local travel operators are getting into this category big time. You call it make my trip, booking.com. Expedia has been super aggressive with us. Marriott is trying to expand the Bonvoy Homes portfolio in India.

w, it's a mainstream product,: 2026

or they want to avoid a harsh winter somewhere in the west and be here in the sunny beaches of the east. So, multiple people will have multiple reasons. The market is expanding very fast. And yeah, there will be segments, there will be price points driven segments, there will be experience driven segments. And each will have its, each will find its own customer with the right operator or without the operator as well.

Justin Sun (: 43:55

It's interesting to hear about built-to-suit models and communities in India. I think that's a very interesting play. Do you see yourself getting into that? Is that on the roadmap potentially? I know you guys have your tech layer. There's a management company. Are you thinking potentially a prop co anytime soon?

Ankit Goenka (: 44:13

Not in the near horizon. We are super busy with scaling the management business, which is growing very fast, strengthening the tech, is again helping the management business, plus getting lot more villas in the ecosystem and lot more owners and lot more operators as well. So right now we are very focused on that. For us, we want to be hitting a certain amount of profit, profitable operation at an

at a company level in the next one, one and a half years. And we have chalked ourselves to be firstly a thousand villa operator, full stack, thousand villa plus apartment operator, which is roughly getting us to a hundred crore revenue mark, which is 15. In today's terms, roughly 12 to 13 million dollars worth of top line with 20 % EBITDA.

So we want to stay focused on what we built, scale it to a level, and then we'll look at it when we get there.

Justin Sun (: 45:11

I mean, laser focus is always important. If could pick one thing that will help unlock and accelerate India's short-term rental sector, let's say in the next five years, what would that be?

Ankit Goenka (: 45:13

Yeah.

I would say a standardized regulatory framework. Right now we have state level regulations so we need to work with different state governments, tourism governments to apply it. A standard regulatory framework is something that will help us in converting more inventories into short-term lighter product at a much faster pace and that will also build the trust layer with the owners very very fast in terms of this being a well regulated and sort of acceptable.

norm in the country and the government promoting it in some shape and form is what will help the industry grow or rather industry get more organized very fast because growth is happening regardless of how the regulations pan out because it's a function of demand. Growth is always a function of demand. Organized growth is where government if there is a

initiative to streamline the entire country under a single umbrella licensing system or approval system, it just helps a lot more in organizing the supply.

Justin Sun (: 46:23

And I hopefully, hopefully this podcast also sheds more education and light into the sector to bring more conversations around the regulatory processes and jurisdictions around India. And I'm sure there's so much potential that we'll see some amazing things happening in India, not only with JadeCaps, but also in the vacation rental space. So perhaps let's end with something a little lighter.

Ankit Goenka (: 46:44

Yeah, of course.

Justin Sun (: 46:47

this round is called the rapid fire questions. So whatever comes to mind. So as we're kind of coming close to the end of 2025, what is one word for JadeCaps in 2025? How would you summarize the year for you and your team?

Ankit Goenka (: 47:00

massive growth.

Justin Sun (: 47:02

Great. Most underrated market in India.

Ankit Goenka (: 47:06

I would say Bangalore.

Justin Sun (: 47:07

Okay. One design detail that villas ignore or could focus on in the future.

Ankit Goenka (: 47:13

having a staff room attached to the villa for serving the guests.

Justin Sun (: 47:16

The worst short-term rental advice you have heard.

Ankit Goenka (: 47:20

A lot of them, the worst is it's a double digit return year on year on investment and all of that. lot of miss selling happening by lot of developers, a of operators are also miss selling. So coming from a background, miss selling is not something that I subscribe to. So a realistic return is what is needed to be tool to customers.

Justin Sun (: 47:41

Very true. The best founder advice you actually listen to.

Ankit Goenka (: 47:46

build to scale, remain in the business and expand fast.

Justin Sun (: 47:51

And what is your favorite hospitality villa or company outside of Jade Caps?

Ankit Goenka (: 47:58

Well, I haven't tried a lot of them, but I keep traveling to Dubai and it's more to do with the location and the place rather than the operator. And I like to stay in downtown and something that is attached to a hotel, a service apartment. It gives me the best of both the worlds and it's very comfortable and convenient.

Justin Sun (: 48:20

Right, okay. Now the curious question, if you had an unlimited capital to build a hundred home portfolio anywhere across India and or Southeast Asia, how would you allocate it? And what story would that portfolio tell about the future of travel and living or perhaps the perspective of travel in your eyes?

Ankit Goenka (: 48:28

and

I would allocate that capital in places which are easy to access, that is not too far from the airport, has a rare natural sort of spot like us facing a water body, a sea or something that is not irreplaceable or replicable. That would be a bit in Goa, bit in Bangalore, bit of it in the hills.

and I would keep it concentrated to two, three locations for easier management and make it available to all at price points which are very varied so that wide variety of consumers can come and use it. And again stick to the philosophy that it needs to be a home and not a service department or a hotel so that the owners can also come and stay for longer duration and enjoy their asset.

Justin Sun (: 49:24

Fantastic accessibility in terms of pricing accessibility in terms of location and accessibility because it just feels like home. I love that. Now Ankit before we wrap up, I'd love to look ahead a little bit. What is next for JadeCaps? Jade, Red Olive, the PMS in the next year and a half. What should the industry be watching from you?

Ankit Goenka (: 49:44

We're 200-home company now. We'll be a 2,000-home company in two to one-half years' time. We'll consolidate in the cities that we operate in. We'll expand our PMS business across India and Southeast Asia. So look out for more interesting news coming from us on that space.

Justin Sun (: 50:01

And for any owners listening right now, maybe they've been thinking about turning their villa, apartment, or second home into a short-term rental asset. What is the very first question they should ask themselves before they take that step?

Ankit Goenka (: 50:16

What is the investment required to convert it and by when they will recover the incremental money that they spend in that because they've already taken the larger decision of buying the asset. Now they need to make it ready for guests which is what we do all the time as well because most of the asset needs a bit of love and care and attention before we can host guests. So we do that end to end. So we can do the math for them.

tell them the investment needed, the recovery period, the returns, with a fair amount of certainty given how our models are built. And we can execute it for them as well, the end-to-end, the conversion, the transformation, and then operating it throughout the life cycle of the asset.

Justin Sun (: 50:53

the weighing of risks and returns, the true banker in you. And lastly, where can listeners follow you and the J-Cabs journey? I'll link all of them in the show notes below, but if there's somewhere specific that you're posting or sharing stories, how can listeners find you?

Ankit Goenka (: 50:55

Yeah.

So we are very active on LinkedIn JadeCaps page. We are very active on Instagram. We have Stajate page. have LinkedIn and Instagram are our main channels. We'll be sharing the links with you for listeners to follow us.

Justin Sun (: 51:21

Amazing. Well, Ankit, thank you for such an insightful, candid and genuinely energizing conversation. Your honesty about the complexities of India's short-term rental market, your vision for Asia, and the way you articulate the blend of tech, hospitality, and the second home psychology is really special. I know...

our listeners are going to get a lot out of this. So to everyone listening, thank you for joining us on this episode of the Curious Concierge. We have more incredible voices from across Asia's hospitality landscape coming up. So stay tuned and you won't want to miss the next episode. Until then, stay curious and thanks so much Ankit.

Ankit Goenka (: 52:01

Thank you.