Sometimes you don't have to choose between building one cabin or ten cabins at once.

But other times, if you have a constraint in budget (or you perceive your budget as a constraint, which might not be a lack of budget but a lack of knowledge on how to get the funds needed), you'll be battling between choices:

Should I create 1-3 cabins that are exceptional, or 10 that are average? A bit better than a Home Depot ADU, but still pretty basic.

You might be able to bring your 10 cabins to a reasonably decent look with smart staging and a couple of wow amenities. But will it stand the test of time as glamping and micro-resorts become more and more popular?

I don't think so.

The wrong question

There will be more and more people who want to get into the space, and they will. But the question most of them will ask (and it's the wrong question, in my opinion) is: how can we make the cabins/domes as cheap as possible and get as much revenue as possible?

I am all for one thoughtful cabin that is naturally so unique and inspiring it gets picked up by news outlets on its own. People want to talk about it. They want to share what kind of treasure they found.

And if it's that unique, you can create IP around it and monetize more on that one cabin than on any 10 average cabins.

Why one cabin makes sense

One cabin naturally creates a lower barrier to entry, both financially and time-wise. And you can pay full attention to one thing and build a world-class space instead of spreading yourself thin across many.

You can practice storytelling on just one cabin and learn how to get traction, building a brand before you get into bigger development.

Here are great examples:

Rajan and Renzo built just one cabin and got so much traction, partners, and business opportunities from that single build. Their recipe is here, if you haven't read it.
Devon from Pacific Bin gained over 500k subscribers as he was building just one shipping container home and documenting the process.

In both cases, they bought parcels of land large enough to build more on later.

When ten cabins makes sense

This one-cabin approach works great for small operators. For bigger ones, depending on your goals and ambitions, you might want to get all the cabins up at once: higher revenue from the start, no major disturbance for current guests from ongoing construction work.

You could also assemble cabins through your own manufacturing and bring ready-to-install ones to your site to avoid prolonged disturbance, so you don't damage the guest experience and your reviews.

With the large development comes greater risk if you don't know what you are doing.

It all depends on where you are, what you have, and your risk tolerance.

How to actually design a unique stay

Now, what does it take to create a one-of-a-kind stay?

You have two main paths:

Option 1: Partner with custom treehouse or cabin builders. You will come up with the design together. More expensive, but more controlled.

Option 2: Sketch your own cabin. Draw your cabin idea on a paper. Hire a freelancer on Upwork or Fiverr to draw up the plans and renderings, then get a builder to make it happen. Doable.

If you are not an architect.

Neither am I.

But if you can draw a line and a circle, you can draw a basic cabin from several sides.

Lay out something that works for you, then give it to someone who has done schematic drawings 1000 times before.

Is that hard?

It's not.

My favorite example

But back to one cabin.

My favorite example of an exceptional, inspiring cabin is Cabin ANNA by the Dutch designer Caspar Schols. Look at this beauty.

He originally created it for his mother, and worked on it for about 10 months. The idea was a home that lives with the elements rather than against them: two sliding shells, one wooden and one of glass, that you can move by hand to open the cabin up to nature or close it back in, depending on the weather, the season, or your mood.

And now Cabin ANNA resides in different parts of the world, inspiring others like me, and hopefully you.

Cabin ANNA came from his deep desire to reconnect people with nature, and he found unconventional architectural solutions to do it.

The founder's story is the amenity

And you, again: the best properties are deeply rooted in the founder's story. They have to be.

The founder's story is the best amenity. It is the best feature. Just like with Cabin ANNA.

You don't need another cowboy pool or cornhole game. You need to unfold your personal story and create your unique stays derived from it, not the other way around.

I will die on this hill.

So what is YOUR Cabin ANNA? Think about it.

That's all for today.

Till next week, dear readers.

What's YOUR cabin ANNA?