Meet Minoan, the start-up platform transforming how you'll furnish your STR

The Offer Sheet readers —

This Sunday we’re thrilled to tell you about Minoan, the company that’s truly a one stop shop for furnishing your short term rental — and is, wait for it, totally free. As a cherry on top, you get to take advantage of unbelievable discounts you wouldn’t otherwise have access to.

We discuss how it all works for you as an STR host, why it makes so much sense to use Minoan to furnish, how they differentiate themselves, how they came about, what’s next, and the feedback they get from customers.

Let’s dive in!

Today, we’re excited to be talking with the Minoan team, to learn more about what the Minoan experience really means! As a short term rental owner or short term rental designer, how can I take advantage of Minoan to save money furnishing my space and increase my revenue?

Minoan is a completely free (yes, you read that right) all-in-one furnishing platform for short-term rental hosts and short-term rental designers. We’ve negotiated steep discounts on 150+ top brands to help hosts and designers get high quality, durable products for their rental properties at incredibly affordable prices.

Guests want to stay in a space that’s aspirational; it’s no longer a Facebook marketplace era for furnishing. Now more than ever, properties need to stand out and ‘stop the scroll.’ This means taking furnishing and design seriously. We’ve seen how properties with nicer design and more intentional furnishing perform better by generating stronger reviews and therefore being able to demand a higher nightly rate. By utilizing Minoan to furnish your property, you can save money on the upfront cost of furnishing and increase the ROI of your rental.

What’s the benefit of using Minoan to source furniture versus trying to do it myself retailer by retailer?

First and foremost, by using Minoan you’re going to save a TON of money. We work with 150+ brands like Wayfair, Crate & Barrel, West Elm, Polywood, Samsung, Article and more and have secured steep discounts with every partner. We’re talking on average between 30-50% off retail. We know furnishing can be expensive and some of the brands we mentioned initially may seem out of budget, but when you factor in the Minoan discounts you’d be surprised how many of the aspirational brands are now within your budget.

On top of the great discounts we offer Minoan members, we take a lot of pride in the product we’ve built. It is A LOT of work going to each brand’s website, paying for each order individually, and keeping track of receipts, tracking information, delivery dates, etc. If you only have one property, you can probably get by. You may drive yourself crazy, but it’s doable. If you want to scale your portfolio, and create a true short-term rental business, you need to build systems. Minoan allows you to buy from all of our brand partners in one cart. That means you can checkout with items from Wayfair, West Elm, Crate & Barrel, etc. all with one payment. We consolidate all of the important information for you including estimated delivery dates, shipping costs, and inventory availability before you pay, so we can help you make the best decision based on your timelines.

It gets better! Instead of updating a spreadsheet with tracking, or incessantly checking your inbox, all of the tracking information gets automatically populated back into your Minoan account as items start to ship. This way, you can come back into your Minoan account and check on the status of your orders across all of your properties in one place. If something comes damaged, or you need to return something – not a problem! You can send our support team a message, and we’ll work with the respective brand(s) to get it resolved. Pretty cool, huh?

Are there any minimum spend commitments? Could I take part if I only own one STR? Or what if it’s an investment property, but say, a long term rental?

Nope! There’s no minimum spend or property threshold. We have members who use us to furnish their entire home and those who are simply refreshing their property and only need a handful of items. No matter what stage you’re at in your STR journey, we can work together. Whether you have 1 property, or 100 properties, we’d love to work with you!

On a personal level, I look at properties all day every day, I love finding incredibly designed properties and saving them, but in truth find it extremely daunting to replicate that myself. Could I give Minoan an idea of what I want and have that all taken care of?

We understand. This can be incredibly daunting! We don’t have full time designers on staff, so we wouldn’t be able to help with a full service design package where we source every item for you. That said, if you’re looking for a recommendation on which brand in our portfolio sells mid-century modern coffee tables, for example, we could help point you in the right direction. If you're looking for something a bit more full service, we have a Designer Directory where you can browse a curated list of Minoan approved designers across the US to potentially partner with.

Are there discounts available if I used Minoan to buy all my furniture for my STR?

Heck yeah there are! We have special discounts with every brand we work with. Typically these discounts are better than a traditional trade or wholesale discount, so you know they’re good! We’d love it if you bought all of your furniture through Minoan 😀, but even if you only need a lamp, side table, etc. you can still take advantage of our steep discounts on our 150+ brand partners.

How do you differentiate yourself from STR design / furnish type of companies?

One of our biggest differentiators is that we’re completely free. Yes, that’s F-R-E-E! There are other companies out there doing similar things, but with a monthly membership fee. We also have a large assortment of brands that cover all categories including linens, cookware, furniture, mattresses, decor, electronics, appliances, etc. We pride ourselves on our breadth of assortment, and price points.We work with members with varying budgets, and it was important for us to accommodate that.

Another thing that sets us apart is our customer service. We take a lot of pride in helping resolve any issues, damages, delays, etc. that our members have. We’ve staffed up our support team to make sure we are ready to jump in and help when needed.

I always ask this - what is the Minoan story and how / why did this business come about?

The idea for Minoan was born after our founder, Marc, stayed at a short-term rental in upstate NY with his wife. At the time, Marc was working in retail at Jet.com, which was acquired by Walmart (WMT) in 2016 for $3.3 billion. During his time at Jet and WMT, he spent a lot of time optimizing product experiences for both Walmart stores and their eCommerce site.

Marc had the most incredible experience at this property. He and his wife woke up saying “Wow, we never sleep like that. What is this mattress?” They ripped off the sheets trying to figure out which mattress it was and checked the tags of the linens. It didn’t stop there. The sleep experience was incredible, but so were the knives in the kitchen, the cookware, the outdoor furniture, and more. Marc and his wife were so blown away with the property, they wanted to buy these products.

The retail geek in Marc had a lightbulb moment when he realized THAT is the best way to experience a product. When you’re using it for what it’s designed for (ie. mattress to sleep, knives to chop vegetables, etc). It’s not looking at products on a computer screen, or looking at them packed up in a box on a shelf. When he found out the host had paid full price for everything in the space, it all clicked. He became passionate about the value that short-term rental hosts have. He believed hosts should never be paying full price and that they deserve a system to manage all of the purchasing and ordering that comes along with buying a short-term rental. Brands should be begging short-term rental hosts to put their products in their properties and treating these spaces like showrooms for potential customers.

Marc knew there were all sorts of systems out there in the STR industry, but the only “system” that seemed to exist for furnishing was an Excel spreadsheet. Minoan was created to help hosts get steep discounts on everything they need for their properties and help brands find a better way to connect to people by having their products in these “showrooms” without having a lease, salespeople, etc.

What’s in store for Minoan in the future? Are there other aspects that you would like to expand into?

There’s so much we want to do. There are other industries we want to expand into, but for now our main focus is to continue making our product better.

As a start-up, the list of “to-do’s” and ideas is never ending, but that’s what makes being in this business so fun. There’s always a ton to do, and a billion different ways to do them. We’re laser focused right now on short-term rentals, but this is just step 1 for us 😎.

What type of feedback have you gotten from customers?

We’ve gotten a ton of great feedback from our members! We appreciate hearing what people love, and what they’d like to see more of. The feedback we received from our members is what helps us figure out what changes to make to our product, what brands to onboard, what features to add, etc.

You don’t have to take our word for it though, take a peek through some of our customer testimonials below.

“I have tried several purchasing sites and Minoan does an excellent job compared to the others. Amazing vendors, solid customer service and everything you would want in a purchasing site… They are engaged, friendly and looking to provide solutions.”

“Your platform has been so incredibly helpful — like it feels illegal it’s so good!”

“My company and I have just recently started placing orders through Minoan, and it has been nothing but a positive experience. It’s only been a few weeks working with the Minoan team and it’s been amazing!! 12/10 – completely recommend utilizing their services!”