Outdoors By Owner [OBO]
Welcome to Outdoors by Owner – a new way of planning your next outdoor adventure. OBO offers users a unique booking experience where guests can find places to stay near their favorite outdoor activities, such as biking, fishing, hiking, snorkeling and more! Not only are guests able to find accommodations centered around a desired activity, but their website offers additional information on the area guests will be visiting, as well as additional information and links for the activities themselves. We love how the company strives to highlight areas that are not well known or typical tourist attractions – giving families and adventurers the opportunity to truly seek out incredible sights. Outdoors by Owner not only caters to making outdoor activities more accessible, but the company also donates a portion of their profits to wildlife conservation organizations. We have had the pleasure of speaking with the CEO, Clement Cullens, to get an inside look at how the idea of Outdoors by Owner came together.
Tell our readers a little about yourself and your background.
Clement: Well, that’s a long story! I’ve been super involved in the outdoors my entire life, as I was raised in a family of hunters and fishers. During college, I spent my summers as a kayak, fishing, and camping guide along the Georgia Coast (shout out to my folks at Southeast Adventure Outfitters), which turned into a full-time gig after college. From there, I went on to become a lawyer where I did a ton of real estate law and spent most of my free time helping on non-profit and conservation boards. I’ve also always been entrepreneurial and hopped into start-up land in 2021, eventually quit practicing law full time, and then started OBO with my co-founder in February of 2022, although the site did not go live until late October of last year.
What inspired you to create Outdoors by Owner and what turned OBO from an idea into a reality?
Clement: After a particularly troublesome trip to Florida, my co-founder and I sat down and really dissected the Short-Term Rental market and saw that there was a problem– STR platforms typically focus on proximity to beaches, resorts, and cities. This left a large gap for those of us who specifically try to avoid popular beaches, resorts, and cities. From there it was an exercise in coming up with a user-friendly platform that provides information to guests and catalogs our properties by the outdoors pursuits available in the area. We spent 10 months developing the site, content, and search capabilities, and now every part of our website is designed to be informational and to support adventurers having awesome outdoors experiences. I can’t wait to see how much more we are able to develop in 2023!
We know you love to travel and are an outdoor enthusiast – of all the places you’ve been, which area is your favorite and what activity do you enjoy most?
Clement: Oh man. Loaded question. I enjoy it all, and so many of my adventures don’t fit into one category. I might go on a hiking trip–but I’ll definitely have my fly rod in tow! I try to cram it all in. If I had to pick a favorite area, I would probably say the Everglades. It’s beautiful and remote and has a ton to do on and off the water. But I could just be saying that because it’s the middle of winter and I am looking forward to some warm weather trips this summer!
Many people want to try new activities but are hesitant due to lack of experience – does OBO offer an insight to activities that are accessible to beginners? What about seasoned travelers?
Clement: This is a great question. We try to make every piece of the site informational, so there are resources that provide an overview of the places and things you can do in an area. We also have some tips and tricks that might help along the way. For the beginner, we give you a jumping off point to let you know about the activities in the area and some specific guidance on your activity of choice. And for the seasoned traveler, our goal is to open up new opportunities that you might not have heard of or thought about. So many people rely on word of mouth to find their next adventure, and we are trying to bring trip planning into the 21st century.
What advice do you have for anyone who’s looking to spend more time with nature but doesn’t know where to start?
Clement: Visit our site or give us a call! Seriously though– the outdoors can be intimidating. The best place to start is in your comfort zone and branch out from there, whether that’s geographically, activity-wise, or just something you think you would enjoy. Also, almost every town has an outfitter or similar store that can be extremely helpful for the novice. We love small businesses and outfitters and encourage everyone to utilize those information sources.
Walk our readers through the advantages of using OBO for booking stays opposed to sites like Airbnb and VRBO?
Clement: We’ve gone through the painstaking process of designing OBO to help you Find Your Pursuit. ™ We help the owners catalog their property by outdoor activities nearby and outdoors friendly amenities (from game cleaning stations to fire pits and hot tubs). We also encourage our owners to focus their listing descriptions in three areas: 1) The Lodging; 2) Amazing Amenities; and, 3) Outdoors Access. The latter two really highlight the advantages to using OBO by articulating exactly what you can do from the property.
Also, although I don’t know that this is technically an “advantage,” OBO is committed to making every vacation an act of conservation. We give 100% of profits from merchandise sales and 5% of the company’s net profits to our non-profit conservation partners who are dedicated to keeping our wild places beautiful. Our customers know that they are helping protect the places they visit, simply by booking through us.
How often is the website updated with new stays, activities, and links?
Clement: Every. Single. Day. We’re a new platform, so we’re just hitting our stride and adding new listings, blog posts, and locations. Our goal is to make OBO encyclopedic when it comes to the outdoors…a one-stop-shop for all of your trip planning.
How do you vet properties that are listed on the site? If someone is interested in listing with you, how can they go about that?
Clement: Great question. To date, we have spoken with every property owner that has listed with us to ensure that their listing meets our standards. We also help curate the listings, and during our proprietary information gathering process we verify that they are near outdoors pursuits and have amenities that cater to our market. Most of our owners are also listed on other platforms as well, so we can get a good feel from their previous experiences.
If you’d like to register your property with us, or just chat about it, you can reach out to us by email, phone, or text. We’re always happy to chat. You can also directly submit a listing by visiting the website and registering the property. It’s designed to be intuitive. Also, there’s no fee unless your property rents through OBO & we have the lowest owner fee in the industry and no transaction fees.
There are many travelers that are looking for “out of the norm” activities or hidden gems that won’t necessarily show up on a Google search, does your website cater to those individuals? How do you find these hidden gems?
Clement: That’s OBO in a nutshell! We’re trying to expand the STR market from the prototypical vacation locations and really highlight some of the unique places, properties, and activities that are hiding in plain sight. Our search allows our guests to search by activity/pursuit, so you can look at e.g., all the houses tagged with “Hiking” and those hidden gems really stand out. Seeing that functionality work when we were developing the site was kind of an “Ah-ha!” moment, when we knew we were onto something.
We love how your company gives back – tell us more about the conservation aspect of OBO.
Clement: Conservation has played a major part of all of our staff’s lives, and so when we were creating the platform it was a no brainer to keep that rolling. We give 100% of our profits from merchandise sales to conservation groups and 5% of our profits from rentals to conservation groups. We have a cool program for NGOs to participate in and receive a portion of those proceeds as well. We’re always looking for like-minded NGOs to partner with and would love to make some of those connections through the See, Seek, Sleep audience!
For anyone interested in conservation, what are some of the best organizations to donate time or money to?
Clement: Another loaded question! There are so many great organizations out there that we should all be supporting. But based on your preferences, I’d suggest starting with a group that is focused where your interests are. These groups also range from hyper-focused to international, and while there is a place for all of them, if you’re just getting started it may be most convenient to give your time and your resources to one that’s in your own backyard.
Any future plans for Outdoors by Owners that you’d like to share with our readers?
Clement: Stay tuned! We have big plans for 2023 and beyond, but I don’t want to put the cart before the horse. We’re just working every day to make sure that we are advancing our mission in a meaningful and impactful way. I’d like to say I know where that will take us, but we’ll just have to see. I will say that our entire team (all of whom are absolutely awesome) is committed to listening to and learning from anyone who interacts with the website. We welcome any feedback that can help steer OBO towards being the best STR platform in the market.
We hope you enjoyed our interview with Outdoors by Owner! If you’re interested in seeing some of their properties, check out our Top 12 properties listed on OBO! You can also check out their website at OBO – go-obo.com to start planning your next adventure! Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram where we share daily updates on sights to see, adventures to seek, and unique places to sleep. We will also keep our community up to date on any changes or updates with OBO.