Listen in as Nolan Mondrow, founder and CEO of LockState is interviewed by Debi Hertert of Hosting Your Home. LockState offers electronic locks for Airbnb hosts, and in a beautiful illustration of responding to hosts’ needs, the codes for the locks are produced automatically within the Airbnb platform. The host does not need to change the codes for each guest. The product is integrated with Airbnb (and VRBO) and is called “RemoteLock”. LockState also offers a lock that does not rely on having an internet connection at the house, yet still allows owners to remotely set unique codes for each guest stay using what Nolan calls an algorithmic method. That product is called “ResortLock”. It doesn’t have the direct integration with Airbnb but does have some different benefits. Nolan says he grew up in Denver, spent years in Japan and other places, and returned to Denver. He and his wife bought a house there and then bought a ski condo in Keystone. Without intending to rent it out, much less make a business of it, they eventually started renting it on VRBO and Airbnb and it is super busy. Nolan loves interacting with his guests, and the side benefit of giving him a personal connection with how well his lock products are working for hosts and guests. He shares a very funny story about how he ended up in the lock business, beginning with a shipping container full of safes from China that needed a home. He began LockState in Denver and now has over 20 employees and the company is growing rapidly, distributing their products worldwide. LockState not only attended the Host2Host conference that Debi and friends put on in Portland in April, 2017 but sponsored it. Nolan and his company are clearly aligned with the hosting community and they use that alignment to identify and solve problems that hosts need help with. Check out LockState’s website at www.lockstate.com
