About Holdaspot

Holdaspot started in early 2023 when our co-founders, Brenda Kwon and Phil Detweiler, tried to rent a backyard for a friend's 40th birthday. They called 11 places, got ghosted by 6 of them, and ended up booking a space they never actually saw photos of. The party was fine, but the process was terrible.

So they built what they wished existed: a platform where you can see real photos, read real reviews, and book a space without playing phone tag. We launched in Chicago and that's still where most of our inventory is, though we've been slowly expanding to other Midwest cities.

We're a team of 7 people. Brenda handles the product and host relations side, Phil runs engineering and ops. Everyone else wears multiple hats, which is a polite way of saying we're understaffed but managing.