Seth didn't grow up in hospitality. He spent 15 years in advertising, building brands and analyzing data — then did what a lot of people thought about during COVID but very few actually followed through on.
He bought a property in upstate New York and decided to build a hotel.
"My focus was: we have this old property, we want to build it, make it new, paint it, make it look nice," Seth says. "The operational side of things? That was a whole other problem."
That operational side nearly buried him — until he found Jurny, an AI-native boutique hotel management software that replaced the chaos with one clean platform.
The Problem: Too Many Platforms, Not Enough Hours
In the beginning, Seth did what most first-time operators do. He listed on Airbnb. Then Booking.com. Then Expedia. And then realized he'd need a channel manager just to keep track of it all. And then realized he'd created a management nightmare for himself.
"I was managing all these different platforms and using a spreadsheet to organize everything," he says. "It was really a pain. I wanted to spend time building something — not manually pushing data between tabs."
He tried a PMS early on, but it wasn't the right fit — outdated, clunky to navigate, still requiring too much manual input. When three or four reservations came in, it was manageable. As The Gate started to grow, the cracks became impossible to ignore.
So Seth did something most operators don't. He sat down and interviewed five different platforms before making a decision.
Why Seth Chose Jurny
After going through demos with five companies, Jurny stood out — not because it had the most features, but because it had the right ones, presented clearly.
"The look and feel just seemed simple. There wasn't a million things you can do. There was a very focused: if you're managing properties, here are the things you need."
But the bigger differentiator was AI — something Seth had been paying attention to before most people had heard the term.
"I know AI is a big buzzword now, but Jurny was focused on this a while ago before it became this huge phenomenon. And I think Jurny is actually using real artificial intelligence — machine learning, aggregating mass amounts of data — trying to figure out the best way that people like me can use the program."
There was also a business philosophy that resonated. Seth knew the difference between a startup that listens and an enterprise that doesn't.
"When you're a smaller company and you're growing, you're adaptive. As a customer, my voice is heard more. Jurny is more customer-centric."
What Changed After Onboarding
Seth was upfront: he didn't just need a PMS. He needed someone to help him understand how to run a hotel in the first place.
"Not only was Jurny helping me get set up to streamline the work — they were helping me just figure out how to run this thing."
The onboarding wasn't a handoff. It was a partnership. Regular check-ins. Proactive feature updates. A team that responded — even at odd hours when Seth, who spends his days on the property, finally sat down at his computer at night.
"They're always getting back to me with solutions."
With Jurny running in the background, The Gate went fully automated. Self check-in. Smart locks. Automated guest emails. All managed from one platform instead of the browser-tab chaos from before.
"When you have that little arrow on your tabs pointing to more — you have a problem. Now I just have one window. That's where I do all the work."
Seth's Favorite Feature: The Data
It shouldn't be surprising that a former advertising professional fell in love with Jurny's reporting tools.
"I love looking at: this is where we were last year compared to this year. Jurny's reporting and analytics dashboard makes that easy. Are we trending in the right direction? Do we need to adjust pricing? Update our listings?"
But what took his data habit to the next level was NIA — Jurny's Network of Intelligent Agents — which he uses weekly to query business performance without spending an hour buried in spreadsheet exports.
"I would spend like an hour looking at all this data. Then someone told me: you can just ask NIA. I started doing that and I was getting the information I wanted a lot faster."
NIA also handles something Seth didn't expect to rely on: guest messaging. Through Jurny's Unified AI Inbox, every guest message across every platform lands in one place — and NIA drafts the responses. When a guest asks something nuanced, NIA drafts the response.
"NIA responds and there's that paragraph — and I'm like, that's perfect. That's better than what I would have come up with."
The Result
Seth came in with no hospitality experience, a property to renovate, and a lot of questions. Now he's running a seven-unit boutique hotel — using vacation rental management software — with an eighth coming online — operating on autopilot while he focuses on building the business.
"Before Jurny, I really didn't know what was going on or how to do anything. After Jurny, I feel like I'm trending towards an expert at running a hotel — something I've never done before. And really, Jurny has helped make that happen for me."
What Seth Would Tell Other Operators
"Jurny is very nimble. If you're in a position where you're like, 'I wish they did it differently' — and you're working with a bigger operator — that change may take a long time. I feel like Jurny has a clear focus: these are the things we're working on right now, this is our roadmap. And I love that."
Ready to run your property the way Seth does?
See how Jurny's AI-native platform can replace the chaos of managing multiple tools — and give you back the time to actually build your business.
