[00:00:00] Liam: Welcome to the Boostly podcast. This is a podcast that gives hosts, the tools, the tactics, the training, and most importantly, the confidence. So you can go out there and get yourself direct bookends today. We've got a spotlight series on the Boostly podcast, where we look at businesses, we look at other hospitality things that you as a host should know about, and we're going to shine the Boostly spotlight on Molly Cooper from Curated Spaces.
[00:00:27] Liam: She's the co-founder and this is an awesome podcast and a place that you can go to basically to really understand boutique spaces, style and putting the joy back into traveling in general. So this is good for you if you're thinking, hey, how can I make my places stand out and just. Good for you is a host.
[00:00:47] Liam: If you want to find more information about really making your places, um, you know, give them the wow factor. So let's dive in. Welcome along, Molly. Thank you for joining me.
[00:00:56] Molly: Thank you for having me. Thank you for the nice intro as well. Always helps.
[00:00:59] Liam: No worries. I should just quickly mention because if not, Mark will shoot me that.
[00:01:05] Liam: We're sponsored. This podcast is sponsored by Hostfully, which is a property management system. And that's actually the one that I use to get my guests. If anybody is looking for a property management software, then go and check out Hostfully. There will be a link somewhere around the podcast. So Molly, let's dive in, shall we?
[00:01:24] Molly: Yeah, let's do it.
[00:01:25] Liam: Okay. So first question is what is Curated Spaces? What's the elevator pitch?
What is Curated Spaces
[00:01:30] Molly: The million dollar question. Well, it all started as a podcast, um, sharing the stories behind boutique spaces around the UK, and it's all snowballed in the best possible way into a platform we're launching in the next couple of months to try and put the joy back into travel booking.
[00:01:44] Molly: So we've got an amazing collection of boutique spaces and we're bringing them to life through creator and tastemaker content.
[00:01:50] Liam: Nice. And what inspired you to start it? It sounds like there's a story there.
[00:01:55] Molly: Well, I was always that person growing up who's, you know, favorite program was that amazing hotel show with, uh, Monica Galetti and anything to do with travel and spaces.
[00:02:05] Molly: That was just me. And I actually ended up working in startups for sort of six years, actually. And I was always that person interviews. He was like, there's someone who'd like to start their own company one day. Um, and I just finished my last job. Tour of duty as a chief of staff at a series, a startup within data engineering, which admittedly was not my, not my cup of tea.
[00:02:26] Molly: But it finally felt like the time had come to put my money where my mouth was and actually go and build that company. So I didn't really know what I wanted to build. But I knew I wanted it to be within travel, hospitality. It's just a sphere that I really love. Um, so that's why I started the podcast, like many other people.
[00:02:42] Molly: I just thought maybe something will come of these conversations with interesting people doing interesting things in a sphere that I love. And yeah, I guess some things did come of it.
[00:02:51] Liam: Yeah, it's good to hear. Hey, the hospitality bug does bite people. Doesn't it? Nobody I speak to go, do you know what I set out to get into hospitality?
[00:03:00] Liam: A lot of the time they go, do you know what that. I really just loved what it was all about. At the end of day traveling is full of joy a lot of the time and they make people make memories when they come and travel, which last a lifetime. So this is what gives me the passion for it. I think you always think what the best memories and often their holidays or time away with loved ones and stuff like that.
[00:03:20] Liam: So ultimately, it's quite a nice place to kind of live in and to be in that space, isn't it? So that's very cool. I'm glad you mentioned social media because it brings us on to the next question that the mantra that I've read about on your website is to scroll less and live more. What does that mean to you?
[00:03:37] Liam: And how did it help to shape Curated Spaces in general?
The Meaning Behind Scroll Less, Live More
[00:03:41] Molly: Yeah, so it's, I mean, it's been a real journey for me this. I think before I quit the job to actually go and do something, I was a little bit, you know, had a good job, which I enjoyed, worked with great people. I was no, You know, I wasn't stuck in a horrible situation, but I remember just feeling a little bit sort of, I wasn't quite on the right track, and I felt like I was spending too much time watching telly, and like, you know, going around London in a concrete box.
[00:04:05] Molly: I just felt a little bit out of sync, I think, with, you know, the world and all the, all the natural cycles and rhythms. So I actually, for a period, went, like, really tapped into eating seasonally and, you know, living with the seasons, which actually, when I then started speaking to chefs and these founders of restaurants with rooms.
[00:04:23] Molly: You know, the best thing was going down to the kitchen garden and getting back to nature. And I found that whole experience of getting offline just so refreshing and so grounding and just amazing. Someone, and I think anyone living in London has spent too much time on the sofa or on online. Um, so for me, it's how can we spend less time?
[00:04:43] Molly: Doom Scrolling through Instagram and TikTok and actually going for that spontaneous midweek supper or going for a cuppa with your friend and actually just enjoying the real, the real world a bit. Um, but I do now acknowledge we have gone full cycle and we are releasing a tech platform. So it's something we're trying to balance and I think we really want the new platform to be somewhere that you can do that.
[00:05:03] Molly: Go to find that perfect space we're looking for without having to doom scroll 20 pages on booking.com and actually you can get out there and, you know, just start enjoying a good time sooner
[00:05:13] Liam: Before we move on to how the platforms change from podcasting into, the platform that is, what do you think?
[00:05:22] Liam: Most boutique owners listen to this struggle the most. How does this idea for the new platform really help that?
Challenges Boutique Hosts Face
[00:05:31] Molly: Yeah, so I think we're facing this massive shift at the moment. You've got Millennials everywhere. We've got Gen Z up and coming, and they consume and purchase really differently to previous generations.
[00:05:44] Molly: We're super visual. We're really into authentic. Flashy things no longer appeal to us. We're all about experiences, getting off grid, creating our own stories and memories and actually traditional marketing, especially for hotels, which would be, you know, those landscape, empty shops of a perfect looking room.
[00:06:02] Molly: They actually don't work on like, uh, I wouldn't book a hotel that, if those were the only pictures I'd seen, everyone I know, and we did a lot of, a lot of user interviews around this, when we say, how do you find somewhere to stay, they'll, you know, crawl, trawl through their Instagram save sections, all those posts they've saved over the past year, they'll then find that hotel and click on tag to see who they know who's been there, and look at their pictures.
[00:06:24] Molly: So people really want that sort of authentic glimpse behind the perfect, uh, pictures that you see on websites. But I think sort of navigating this influence the marketing landscape is something that I think just the nature of the name is a little bit off putting for a lot of people. I think influence has got a lot of connotations and you do see a lot of stuff at the moment about the death of the influence, which I kind of agree with.
[00:06:47] Molly: But I think it's a really interesting, um, marketing channel, especially hospitality, which is such a sort of. personal lifestyle, um, led decision, you're much less likely to, I mean, you can easily spend 20 quid on a t shirt because you saw someone wear it and you could wear it once and forget about it. But actually your holiday, like you said earlier, that's so important.
[00:07:09] Molly: Could be, maybe you're going to propose. Maybe Your child's first trip to the sea. I don't know. These are massive life milestones. They're really precious. And actually you want to know you're booking somewhere that really aligns with what you want to go out of that trip. So I think you find people are really following very niche creators these days, which is why I think actually micro creators and there's like nano influencers are really good places to start for a lot of people, but actually.
[00:07:32] Molly: They're often doing it part time alongside a full time job. They don't really know what they're doing. The spaces don't know what they're doing. So it's this huge, like, minefield of how do you even start a proper, like, creator marketing campaign or initiative? So actually we try to just like really simplify it.
How Curated Spaces Connects Hosts and Creators
[00:07:47] Molly: We've got a group of incredible spaces, a group of brilliant creators, and we just made it really easy for them to access each other and tap into this, like, visual storytelling to help. Bring those spaces to life for Gen Z and millennial bookers and actually rewarding the creators for, for doing so.
[00:08:03] Liam: I mean, it sounds really good.
[00:08:04] Liam: And how does Created Spaces, um, make that high quality kind of marketing accessible? So, so what, um, I guess what, what would a host need to do to be considered, um, for, um, Created Spaces, you know, as one of those places that the, um, uh, the creators would come and come and look at?
[00:08:25] Molly: Yeah, so we've done a big old mapping and we've got about four or five hundred spaces on our radar that we'd love to have.
[00:08:31] Molly: And we've started at more of a sort of hotel, pubs and rooms, guest houses, so sort of hosted stays. Um, but we've already had so many cabins and exclusive hires reaching out to us saying, I love what you're doing. Um, so we're definitely going to look at an offering, um, for those kinds of spaces too. But for us, it's not about being like, The super fanciest flashiest is spaces which have a real sense of soul and spirit and who are doing just brilliant things, whether it's, I mean, I always used to say this podcast, I never thought I'd have so many conversations about soil health, but everywhere I went, they're like, Oh, well, it's not a kitchen garden, what we're doing for regenerative rewilding, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[00:09:08] Molly: Um, so we really don't We don't have a specific criteria, but we do look for spaces that do something really special and bringing that soul and charm and story on. I think what's really neat, actually, is we're going to start with this sort of group that we've mapped out and want to have on board. But from there on, as we.
[00:09:26] Molly: Bring on spaces, they can tag creators they've worked with. We can then go out to those creators and get them on the platform. And when they join, they can tag other spaces they've worked with. So it should start to become a bit of a self fulfilling cycle. And actually we don't have to curate or go out and find those spaces.
[00:09:42] Molly: We can get brilliant, you know, tastemakers who have been to way more lovely places than I have, and they can bring on spaces they've worked with. And so it should become a really lovely growing community. Um, but yeah.
What Makes a Space Stand Out
[00:09:55] Liam: Is there anything else you'd like to share in terms of Curated Spaces and, uh, how would you like people to remember, uh, yourself, Molly and Curated Spaces from this podcast?
[00:10:07] Molly: Oh, really good question. I don't know about me. Nice. Would have a slice of Victoria sponge with her. Curated, I'm so excited, honestly, just to start sharing it with the world. We've been building out the past eight months. I've been like a little hermit in my flat, just head down building this platform.
[00:10:24] Molly: So actually I'm just so excited to start sharing it and yeah, seeing people use it. Terrifying though, putting a baby out in the world to be.
[00:10:32] Liam: Yeah,
[00:10:32] Molly: shot down, but no, it's going to be great. So yeah, we'll be showing much more over the coming weeks and months. Um, but I think we're just really excited to help people make the most of 2025 and take more little breaks and not wait for big, flatty trips, but just start building, travel into their sort of.
[00:10:48] Molly: more regular cadence and see more that this amazing country of ours has to offer.
[00:10:53] Liam: And where would they go? What's the link for people to go and find out more about this?
Where to Find Curated Spaces
[00:10:59] Molly: It will be app.curatedspaces.club I'll also send you a link to pop in the show notes.
[00:11:06] Liam: Awesome. And if you're listening to this while driving when it's safe to do so, you'll see them in the show notes.
[00:11:11] Liam: And if you're watching this on YouTube, it'll be somewhere around the video for you to be able to click and go straight through to that. So Molly, thank you so much for coming on and sharing the story about Curated Spaces. And just for the awesome. Having faith in yourself and going off and doing what you're doing.
[00:11:26] Liam: This is great to hear. Um, I've certainly learned things and, and the feeling that I'm left from this is really focus on telling stories and building emotions with your audience. And, um, yeah, I'm looking forward to hopefully having you back on the Boostly podcast as things take off with. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:11:45] Molly: It's been such a pleasure. Such a pleasure. Thank you for having me and I'll come back anytime. I'll bring the cake.
[00:11:50] Liam: Awesome. I'm looking forward to the Victoria sponge. Thank you so much. Um, so thank you for listening to this on the Boostly podcast. If you've enjoyed this podcast, you know, somebody else who would like to listen to this, go and share it with a friend or family, whoever.
[00:12:04] Liam: Whoever you'd like to, if you'd like some more advice on direct bookings, don't forget you can go on to, uh, any book selling platform or on audible and you can search Mark Simpson's book, which is the book direct playbook. It's a bestseller and it will show you how to get more direct bookings from start to finish and, um, it's as cheap as, as they will let Mark sell it for, um, he doesn't make money on it.
[00:12:26] Liam: It just really does help a lot of people. So thank you for listening to this. We'll see you on the next podcast and thanks again for Molly for joining us.
