Husain Khatumdi in Conversation with Anisha Nayar Dhawan #GreenShoots

Husain Khatumdi is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Ekostay, a homestay venture, and has served in those positions since November 2017. Husain has over 5 years of experience in a broad range of leadership roles across the hospitality and real estate sectors. Through the course of his career, he has managed and developed scalable businesses, with a deep understanding of the global and national hospitality and real estate market.  Husain is a former Sales Manager at Appco Group, Australia and led its growth into a multi-million dollar revenue company after joining in 2014.  As the sales manager, he actively provided consulting expertise to all sales executives on a regular basis regarding strategic sales decisions and new technology. Husain also founded Seedy Beverages Pvt Ltd (a packaged smoothie brand, FMCG) that grew to contribute a revenue of over $500K under his leadership. Seedy also won the ‘Most Innovative Food Business Award by Equinox’ in 2017.  Husain co-founded Ekostay in 2018 with Sohail Mirchandani, Varun Arora and Zishan Khan, with a vision to tailor the needs of the travelers who want to experience the coziness of a private homestay away from home.  Husain owned a farmhouse in Lonavala, which was unkempt for many years. The rooms were musty, disheveled and untidy. In order to air out the property and ensure there was regular maintenance, Husain decided to rent out the farmhouse to tourists by listing the property online and sharing it with travel agents. He soon realized that most existing players in the market either had luxurious estates for hire or sub-standard properties operated by the unorganized sector. There were no legit organized homestay brands providing value for money accommodations. After identifying this gap of unorganized homestays in the Indian Hospitality and Real Estate sector, Husain decided to take a leap of faith and started working on this business full time. He was confident that this business model made sense with clear profitable margins and sustainable growth. Ekostay now has villas across cities like Lonavala/Khandala, Goa, Alibaug, Mahableshwar/Panchgani, Karjat, Nashik, Igatpuri, Ooty, Bangalore & Delhi. Ekostay now offers guests a selection of over 75+ villas spread across 10 cities. Husain has worked in Australia and India and holds a degree in Bsc Management from Cass Business School, London and a diploma in Marketing from Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Husain is a fitness enthusiast and loves to travel, watch documentaries, take up interior designing and capital allocation projects from time to time.