Prior to renovating their first June Motel property in 2016, April Brown and Sarah Sklash hated their jobs. As Brown told Architectural Digest, she was working in public relations while Sklash was working for the government. The pair first met in college, where they both were majoring in business, and quickly formed a tight bond and friendship. At some point, though, Brown and Sklash admitted a fairly brave thing to one another — that they were unhappy in their careers and wanted to pursue a career doing something that would make them happy. Enter: The June Motel. By 2016, Brown and Sklash had become amateur interior decorators and renovators, completely redesigning their homes. "We wanted a better quality of life, and we wanted to do something that was connected to our personal values and interests," the pair said in a statement on The June Motel's Instagram account. "The June exists today because together we were brave enough to say 'What we're doing right now isn't working, let's take a leap and try something we've never done before.'"⁠

While they each knew a thing or two about curating aesthetically-pleasing environments, Brown and Sklash had to learn everything they now know about the logistics of renovating properties from trial and error, as they did not have the funds to hire a team to help them when they opened the first June Motel, per Architectural Digest. Now, after simply relying on one another, they have learned what it takes to make a splash in the travel industry.