2 | In medias res

When you have a bajillion ideas, it's hard to know where to start. But since I've been sitting on several ideas for the past 8+ years, seems the best place to start is literally anywhere!

So, here's one from January 2024.

Idea: Airbnb a bedroom in my house

There's a whole backstory about why I needed to do this, but the short version is the same reason anyone else does it: I needed the extra income.

I was apprehensive for all the reasons you'd imagine (sharing a bathroom with strangers, doing laundry after strangers, having to constantly talk with strangers, etc.).

I started in January 2024, and by April 2025, I decided that after my last booked guest in May, I'm no longer accepting new guests.

🙃 I didn't want to do this in the first place
Beyond the mostly ick-factor things, for ages, there's been the debate over whether or not short-term rentals like Airbnb are hurting communities.

It's one thing to clean up strangers' hair in my shower, but I certainly did NOT want to bring down the neighbourhood, too.

🤡 Department of Geez and Eesh
While I know the co-founder parted ways and no longer serves on the board, that news swayed my feelings on being affiliated with Airbnb.

There were calls to boycott, some hosts lost bookings, and others quit the platform in protest.

😌 I had a good run
Overall, this was a positive experience. Aside from a handful of cringe moments, many of my guests were extraordinary characters with fantastic stories.

Some shared their food with me, others offered to share their homes if I ever visited their towns. It reminded me of CouchSurfing before that platform devolved into a hookup site.

So after 29 bookings in 17 months, with 24 five-star reviews (🥹), and constantly hitting superhost status, I've decided to quit while I'm ahead.

Maybe I'll pivot to an adjacent idea I've been sitting on for most of my adult life: a writing retreat space for women of colour.

ABCD: Mythili Sampathkumar

(Anyone But Cis Dudes. And if you hate this section, examine why!)

Welcome to Export Quality

Your home for news by and about American and Canadian desis

Export QualityMythili Sampathkumar

Mythili's Substack, Export Quality, amplifies South Asian American and Canadian journalists and news about their communities, with sprinkles of other things too.

I promised myself I'd keep these under 500 words each. Toodles!

Lulu