Intro
[00:00:00] Liam: Hello, and welcome to the new episode of the Boostly podcast. This is the podcast as you know, that gives, hosts the tools, the tactics, the training, and most importantly, the confidence to go out there and get direct bookings. My name's Liam Carolan. I'm Mark Simpson's co-host here on the Boostly Podcast, and today we're going behind the host with another successful and interesting host, uh, who we've been lucky enough to make contact with.
[00:00:24] So, um, today, uh, there are two hosts, I should say, are husband and wife. Um, Who is coming to us from a company called Hello Sunshine OC, Uh, w I'd like to introduce to you, we've got Casey and Angie Corum. So welcome along to you both. First of all, um, if you can give us an introduction to, uh, whereabouts in the world that you host.
[00:00:47] Um, Also, you know, your favourite thing about hosting and how many units and who you kind of host to. I'm throwing a bunch of questions at you there.
Casey’s and Angie’s Intro
[00:00:55] Casey: Uh, yeah, we're, we're on the very northwestern edge of Orange County, California. Uh, LA County's a. Stone's throw away. We are four and a half miles from Disneyland.
[00:01:06] We're 15 miles from, uh, the ocean. We're, uh, about 25 miles from Hollywood. And we're, we're like, we're in a, we're in a city that's just north of Anaheim called Fullerton, California, which is, if you look at a map of LA Orange County, it is dead centre. So, mm-hmm. Um, most of our guests, I would say 95% of our guests are families going to.
[00:01:29] Disneyland, that's, um, that's the simplest version. Of course, there's a lot to do in southern California, so, uh, but, you know, given our proximity to Disney, that's, that's almost always a piece of the puzzle. Um, we're empty nesters. We have four daughters, uh, grown daughters. We, we started very young and, uh, we bought a two-unit property, uh, with a back, it's a house with a back house.
[00:01:52] Our house is a, uh, mid-century, uh, ranch style house, kind of classic Southern California neighbourhood house. And that's, that's the house we rent. We live in a one bedroom, one bath, uh, 80 d u uh, back house, um, uh, 400 square feet. Yep. So it's, uh,
[00:02:08] Angie: I'm that crazy lady that's always wanted to live small.
[00:02:11] Casey: Yeah.
[00:02:11] It's, it's our, um, it's our empty nester adventure. This, um, hello of Sunshine oc.
[00:02:15] Liam: Whereabouts are you at the moment? Uh, that looks like a very professional setup.
[00:02:20] Casey: Well, um, I'm a professional musician, so, um, what that, what that means is I have lots of different jobs. Mm-hmm. And can attest, uh, so this is a, uh, I'm at a university called Biola University.
[00:02:33] So one of the things I do is I teach, uh, I teach songwriting and. Music stuff here, at Viola. So this is my, this is my viola day, so I'm in one of their studios. Uh, we, we, we, uh, fit this in and, and it, it, it let me, uh, borrow some of their tech too. So that's also helpful.
[00:02:52] Angie: It's very cool. Yeah, he's a busy guy.
[00:02:53] Um, he's so busy. I tend to like, adjust my life to like, wherever he's at for the day. So I, I came over here,
[00:02:59] Casey: so she came here. It's not far from our house.
What is your favourite thing about hosting?
[00:03:00] Liam: What is your favourite thing about hosting? And, it could be the same for both Xavier or both different. What, what are you enjoying about this hospitality journey that you've, that you've kind of set out on?
[00:03:10] Angie: Well, um, one thing is it's kind of given us a new fun thing to do together, right? Uh, as a team. But, um, I enjoy making people happy and I love providing a place where I know people could enjoy themselves and relax and have a great time together. Yeah.
[00:03:30] Casey: That's cool. That's cool. Yeah. This is, uh, I mean, we've done a lot, of creative work together.
[00:03:35] I mean, uh, Angie's we're both musicians. Mm-hmm. But she's also, she's, she's, uh, she's the design you design genius at, uh, at Hella Sunshine Sea. I, I, uh, I do generally handle the backend stuff, but, um, it's interesting, as much collaborative work as we've done together through the years in different, different lanes.
[00:03:54] This is strangely the most. Uh, kind of like hand in glove, you know, uh, side by side thing that we've done. Uh, and this has been, a fun adventure. We've been dreaming about kind of launching into, uh, short-term rentals for a while. But, um, this has given us a vision for the next chapter of our life.
[00:04:11] And, and, uh, you know, we plan to, obviously this is like an extrapolation of our own, our own, our own home. Mm-hmm. But, um, we plan to, to build and to scale and do this together, cuz I think this is as a couple, this is something we. We're very, we're very complimentary in the, the things we bring to the table.
How did you feel setting up your home as a short-term rental
[00:04:27] So
[00:04:28] Liam: how did you feel when you set up your home as, as a short-term rental? Was there any kind of emotional attachment? Cause one thing that I think of, of my loved ones, my appearance and things like that, if they was to let their home, they'd be very, very emotionally attached. So was this something that, that both of you struggled with when you'd done this house hack?
[00:04:49] Angie: No, um, it's not the house we raised our kids in, so we didn't have that attachment to it. Um, but um, it was a big change, um, to downsize to something that is small and the kids aren't gonna come back to. So there
[00:05:05] Casey: is a little bit of, yeah. The kids were out in the, in the process of, of doing what we're doing.
[00:05:09] Yes. We
[00:05:09] Angie: waited until they were established a bit before we kind of jumped into it all.
[00:05:15] Liam: What are the reasons that people come and stay with you?
[00:05:18] Angie: Well, um, one of the things when I. Put together the design for the house was to keep in mind that everything about three feet and below was gonna be touched by a child.
[00:05:28] Mm-hmm. And so, as a mother of four kids, I knew the stress of travelling somewhere with my kids and hoping the whole time that something is not gonna get broken. And so when I went to design the house like all the things that are three feet and below are things that cannot be broken. And they're, um, decorations that are encouraged to be played with, with by the children.
[00:05:52] Um, but they're retro toys. They're retro things. And therefore when the grownups come into the room, they're like, I played with that when I was a kid. And so there's some of that. So even in the pictures, every room looks adult. But there are aspects to every room that brings the kid out in the adult. And is it something for the kid?
[00:06:15] So our pictures show that we're not advertised as a kid place, but when you look at our pictures, the kids. Or, our scene in all, in all of our
[00:06:26] Casey: spaces. Yeah. And, it, we aren't particularly Disney-themed. Like I know a lot of places, like there's a place, uh, in our town that's 100% haunted mansion themed.
[00:06:36] I would suggest people go look at it as unbelievable sound effects and the whole thing. I think they help work at the parks at one point, but it's, it's incredible. That's not us. Um, that said, there are little echoes. California And Sunshine of course, but also Disneyland. So like, uh, there's, there's a, there's an Etch A Sketch, and there's a, you know, kind of a, like a, there's like a little toy phone, like a necklace of like toy story moments.
[00:07:02] We got
[00:07:02] Angie: Lego logs that
[00:07:03] Casey: like Bright. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's, you know, kind of like throwing back to the kind of, Like, it's almost like a re-imagining that kind of mid-century fifties, like when Disney was Yes. That era. It's not, again, it's not just Disney-focused, uh, little golden books. There's a bunch of little golden books that are about California.
[00:07:18] They're about Disneyland, like all these little, and that's, you know, that's almost all ang. She's got the, she's got the eyes to see and do, and to kind of speak to the child. But like she said, it also, You know, with these retro things, it speaks to the adults. I think one of the things that get played with a lot is a, is a retro game of rocket, so robot.
[00:07:38] That's right. Nice. So you can see that kind of,
[00:07:40] Liam: thank you so much to you both for uh, sort of spending your time with us and um, yeah, I'm sure people are gonna reach out to you and uh, it's just nice. You can now direct 'em here to share your story, on hospitality and I look forward to seeing what you guys do in the future.
[00:07:54] You know, that second one that you're talking about in the future, which is gonna be cool. So thank you so much for spending your time with us. Were there any questions or anything that I missed along the way? No,
[00:08:02] Casey: you asked every possible question.
[00:08:05] Liam: Good, good. That's what we like to hear. So Five stars. Five stars, five stars.
[00:08:09] I've got a good review. Thank you. Um, so thank you so much to you both and thank you too. If you're listening in on the Boosty podcast, we know there's a lot of places you can put your attention and we thank you for putting it here and uh, yeah, we'll see you on the next podcast. That's, uh, bye for now.
[00:08:24] Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Boostly podcast. Bruce Lee. Like Bruce Lee cuz it's so hard
[00:08:29] Casey: on the tees. Loose leaf making up. Those rhymes. Don't write it just to it loosely.
