Hunter Harrelson is the owner and CEO of Beachball Properties, a fast-growing family-owned vacation rental company serving the Alabama Gulf Coast with more than 350 properties. Before founding Beachball Properties in 2016, Hunter spent over two decades in financial services at Merrill Lynch and Regions Bank, and he and his wife Ginger bootstrapped the business from scratch by selling their home, their boat, and cashing in their retirement plans. In this episode, Hunter shares the operational systems and people frameworks behind the company's growth, including how he built a custom AI tool using Google's Gemini platform and his own SOPs to transform customer service, why his processes break at every 50 properties and what he does about it, and how Culture Index drives every hiring decision at Beachball Properties. He also reflects on the 2022 VRMA tech buying frenzy, the consolidation that followed, and why staying focused on core strengths is what separates operators who scale from those who stall. This episode is sponsored by Streamline.