HOW PLACEMAKR CAME TO BE
A bit about our founders.
What would one day blossom into a great friendship and successful business couldn’t have started from such different beginnings. While Jason grew up in a tight-knit neighborhood brimming with young families, Bao spent his formative years living in lower-income, diverse communities. And although Jason and Bao’s childhoods were vastly dissimilar, their upbringings greatly influenced their career choices.
As a child, Jason’s weekends were spent with neighbors and family alike, sharing stories over food and drinks, leading him toward a deep appreciation of community. On the other hand, Bao was inspired by his mom’s drive to own a home. Once her dream became a reality, Bao followed in her footsteps, purchasing his own properties, and personally remodeling them.
After earning advanced college degrees, Jason and Bao spent most of their careers in high-rise multifamily development. In their previous professional lives, Jason was an executive at Vornado Realty Trust, and Bao was an executive at Hoffman & Associates.
In 2011, their paths crossed, and the stars aligned when the two met while volunteering for the Urban Land Institute, a real estate development organization. Bao was the committee chair, and Jason was on Bao’s committee. They immediately bonded over a love for high-rise construction, a passion for solving complex problems, and a disdain for inefficiency.
Fast forward to 2017, both Jason and Bao left their corporate jobs to begin WhyHotel. Since then, they’ve rebranded their company to Placemakr, but their goal remains the same: to give people a smarter way to stay by blurring the lines between home and hospitality.
