About The Farm Stays
It started with one important gathering.
The Farm Stays did not begin with a business plan to create another property-listing platform.
It began with a request.
In 2018, while working in the hospitality industry in Hyderabad, our founder, Shiva Kuumar Dandu, was approached by a client who wanted help finding the right place for a very special occasion.
A group of classmates were meeting again after almost 15 years.
It was not simply about finding a venue. The gathering mattered to them, and the experience needed to feel personal.
After spending time exploring different places and possibilities around Hyderabad, Shiva came across a privately built farmhouse that was not being commercially operated. He approached the owners, explained the occasion and convinced them to open the property for that gathering.
Then came the details.
From small printed cards carrying personal messages to coordinating food around the preferences of the group, the focus was on making sure the people attending remembered the occasion for the right reasons.
They did.
And something unexpected followed.
One gathering led to another
After the first event, six people from the group called together with another request.
This time, they wanted to bring their families to the same farmhouse.
When Shiva contacted the property owner again, the conversation took an unexpected turn. The owners were travelling abroad for three months and asked him to take responsibility for the property while their caretaker team remained on-site.
That opportunity became the beginning of The Farm Stays.
For roughly the first year and a half, the business revolved around that single farmhouse.
There was no rush to become a large marketplace.
The focus was simpler: understand what the guest needed, understand what the property could genuinely offer, and make the two work well together.
Over time, other property owners began approaching us.
The network grew naturally.
So did the relationships.
Hospitality became much more than bookings
Some of the people who first came to us as guests remained connected long after their stay.
Over the years, we have had the privilege of being part of family gatherings, birthdays, reunions, weddings, house-warming celebrations and many other important moments.
Some guests eventually became farmhouse owners themselves.
Some of the property owners who trusted us during the early years continue to work with us today.
Those relationships shaped how we think about this business.
A booking may begin with a date, a budget and a guest count.
But hospitality is ultimately about people trusting someone with their time, their property, their family, their money or an occasion that matters to them.
We take that responsibility seriously.
Why The Farm Stays exists
Finding a farmhouse or private stay can appear simple from the outside.
In reality, guests often have very specific requirements.
The right property for a family gathering may be completely different from the right property for a birthday, corporate outing, weekend stay or reunion.
Capacity matters.
Location matters.
Privacy matters.
Property rules matter.
The occasion itself matters.
Our role is not to push every guest towards whichever property happens to be available.
We first try to understand the requirement and then help identify options that genuinely make sense for it.
The journey typically starts with understanding the dates, number of guests, purpose of the stay, preferred location, budget and important requirements. From there, we can help shortlist suitable properties, coordinate availability and pricing, and assist with the booking process.
The objective is straightforward:
Help the guest get to the right place for the right requirement.
We understand the owner’s side too
Our experience has also taught us that owning a farmhouse or independent hospitality property involves much more than receiving bookings.
Property owners may be balancing their primary businesses, careers and families while also overseeing employees, caretakers, inventory, maintenance, pools, guest communication, pricing, marketing, local operating requirements and day-to-day property decisions.
That is why TFS has gradually developed beyond guest discovery and booking assistance.
Depending on the property and partnership model, our work with owners can extend across areas such as booking and revenue support, marketing, employee coordination and hiring assistance, inventory processes, property audits and operational support.
The idea is to give owners a dependable point of coordination rather than expecting them to personally manage every moving part.
Because we work with both sides of the business, we understand that a strong hospitality ecosystem has to work for both the guest and the property owner.
One cannot sustainably succeed at the expense of the other.
Growing carefully, not simply quickly
The Farm Stays began with one farmhouse in 2018.
Today, we work with 33 properties.
That growth has been deliberate.
We have always preferred learning the business deeply and strengthening the operating model before expanding simply for the sake of having a larger number.
As of today, TFS records show more than 9,100 bookings.
Using an average of approximately 15 guests per booking, that represents around 136,500 guest visits across the journey so far.
These numbers matter to us not because they make a good headline, but because behind every booking there has been a real guest requirement, a real property and a real operating responsibility.
And each one has taught us something.
Built through experience
TFS today is the result of many years of observing how this market actually works on the ground.
We have worked through different property types, guest expectations, owner requirements, team structures, operating models and changing market conditions.
We have experimented.
We have refined.
We have changed what needed to change and strengthened what continued to work.
That experience has become an important part of how we make decisions today.
It has also made us comfortable with one principle:
Growth should follow understanding—not the other way around.
Local by choice
There are large hospitality platforms operating across hundreds of cities.
We respect what those models have built.
Our approach is intentionally different.
TFS has chosen to understand Hyderabad and its surrounding private-stay market deeply.
That means understanding not only properties, but also how people in this region actually book them, what different groups look for, the occasions they celebrate, the questions they ask and the practical realities property owners face.
We believe there is real value in being close to the market we serve.
Our ambition is significant, but our foundation remains local.
We want to build Hyderabad exceptionally well before allowing geography alone to define growth.
Human understanding, supported by technology
We are enthusiastic about technology.
But we do not believe technology should replace judgement simply because it can.
The hospitality work we have done manually for years gives us a clear understanding of where technology can genuinely help.
Today, we are building systems around areas such as faster guest qualification, better property matching, availability intelligence, owner dashboards, marketing and revenue insights, and AI-assisted communication.
The goal is not automation for its own sake.
The goal is to use technology to make hospitality more responsive, organised and useful while preserving human judgement where it matters.
What guides us
Understand before recommending
Every property is different, and every guest requirement is different.
We would rather understand the requirement properly than recommend something simply because it is available.
Say what we can stand behind
Trust is easier to maintain when communication is clear.
Whether we are dealing with a guest or a property owner, we want our commitments to remain realistic and our information to remain dependable.
Think about both sides
Guests deserve thoughtful service.
Property owners deserve partners who understand what operating a property actually involves.
TFS is being built around both.
Relationships matter after the transaction
Some of our most meaningful relationships started with a single booking or property conversation.
We want people to feel comfortable calling us again—not because they have to, but because the previous experience gave them a reason to.
Technology should solve real problems
We will continue adopting technology aggressively where it improves response, information, operations and decision-making.
But usefulness will always matter more than novelty.
What we are building
The Farm Stays is evolving into more than a place to browse properties.
For guests, we want to make discovering and booking the right farmhouse, villa, stay or experience more informed and straightforward.
For owners, we want to build an increasingly capable platform around demand generation, bookings, operations, revenue intelligence and property management support.
And for TFS itself, we want to continue becoming a stronger hospitality company without losing the human understanding that created the business in the first place.
We started because one customer trusted us with an occasion that mattered deeply to him.
That remains a useful standard even today.
Behind every enquiry is someone planning something.
Behind every property is someone who has invested time, money and responsibility into building it.
Our job is to respect both.
That is The Farm Stays.
Looking for the right stay?
Explore properties and tell us what you are planning. We will help you identify options that suit your requirement.
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Own a hospitality property?
If you operate a farmhouse, villa, homestay, resort or independent hospitality property and believe TFS could add value to your business, we would be happy to understand your property first.
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