Season 3 Premiere: Scaling Smarter

Trusha Patel, founder and CEO of Platinum Holdings Corporation, joins Bryan for the Season 3 premiere and a wide-ranging conversation about scaling smarter in hotel investment. With nearly three decades in hospitality and more than $5 billion in facilitated transactions behind her, Trusha built her career from an unlikely start — helping her father construct his first hotel at 17, swearing she'd never touch hotels again, then finding her way back through psychology, an MBA, and a stint building the platform that became Auction.com, then Ten-X, then CoStar.

Much of the conversation centers on discipline — the due diligence so many owners skip. Trusha and Bryan trade stories about buyers who spend tens of millions on a hotel without ever ordering a mechanical or environmental inspection, then get blindsided by a failing elevator or a leaking roof. They dig into why a brand's PIP is not a substitute for an independent building inspection, and why bringing in owner advisory services early can save millions later.

They close on where the industry is headed — Trusha's belief that investors moving now, while capital is tight, will be a year and a half ahead of the pack once the next wave of product comes online, and her vision for Platinum Holdings filling the gap between small independent owners and institutional-scale funds. She also talks about the next generation of Asian American hotel owners inheriting portfolios their parents built, and what it will take to keep that legacy growing.