I would try an evaluate the tasks you have to do as an investor and assign the cost to outsource it and see where you want to focus and where you want to hire out. 

I have either seen people self manage with a maintenance guy or completely outsource with a property manager and pay fees.

or do they outsource to 3rd party?

. - Management time: The time allotted for managing your STR property(s) can also vary greatly based on whether you have outsourced each task required.

Most note investors outsource the work including having a licensed 3rd party servicer.

I have a mainly STR portfolio but we started a management company that has a half dozen full or close to full time workers because we felt that at the time the 3 STR’s we had was so much work we needed to either go bigger and outsource or stop because it was driving us crazy we also have basically 90+ percent occupancy year round and have check in’s and outs basically every day.

Meaning they don't answer, they hang up in the middle of the call, or they don't say whether we can call them or not.Also, I want to take a hands-on approach for my first tenants to get a better understanding of the process rather than immediately outsourcing it.

Thanks for the offer but we self manage our properties we just outsource maintenance & cleaning

We wasted many weeks taking on the backyard landscaping on our own to save a buck rather than outsource it all to professionals who would have costed slightly more, but saved us literal months of reno time.

Thus better outsource on Day 1 and optimize your time to keep that income and increase to buy more doors.You use leverage in real estate via finance, why not do it on then operations / Mgmt side?