Cold open

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Welcome to Live Let Thrive, a podcast about the Airbnb live, the share economy, and everything in between. Here are your hosts, Micah and Steve.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Hello, hello, hello.

SPEAKER_05 0:41

And welcome back to another exciting episode of Live Let Thrive.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

What is up, Micah Man?

SPEAKER_05 0:51

I am good. Good on this good Friday evening. How about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 0:55

I'm freaking worn out, dude. Uh yeah, I had to go across town to show one of our places to a potential long-term stayer, you know, long-term travel nurse wanted to check it out. And um, I happen to have to go buy that place because we're Airbnb in it currently. And and I picked up some bags of trash. So I took my truck. My truck don't have AC. So and it's like 110 degrees outside or whatever. So I'm oh yeah, freaking I was frying in there, dude. And um, but then my you know, my wife and the kids are at the mall. They wanted me to go over there tax-free freaking weekend right now. So that was just a chaotic. I'm worn out, dude, but I'm happy. It's Friday. We're gonna do a great podcast, and we have a special guest on this is episode 217, by the way, of your favorite Airbnb VRBO, uh booking.com. You talk about booking.com, um, furniture finders, all that fun stuff, midterm, short-term, long-term rentals in the world

Welcome Luca Zambello, co-founder and CEO of Jurny

SPEAKER_01 1:52

podcast. And we have a special guest, Micah.

SPEAKER_05 1:54

Who we got, Steve?

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Well, I am glad you asked. Uh, certain Luca Sambeyo. And you want to know about Luca? Yeah, okay. Welcome to the show, Luca, by the way. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_03 2:08

Thank you. Yeah, I'm great. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Yeah, yeah. I'm glad you're gonna bring it today. I know you are because I'm not gonna do no work today because I'm worn out. So you you you can do the whole thing, right? Is that cool? All right, Luca is uh Sambeo is the co-founder and CEO of Journey, the hospitality tech company powering operations and modern guest experiences for top independent hotel brands, vacation, and short-term rental properties. Wow, short and sweet, precise. Journey's a big deal, man. We hear about you all the time. We've seen your commercials, you know, following us everywhere we go on the internet. So, welcome to the show. And yeah, how did you get started in this short-term rental industry?

SPEAKER_03 2:52

Yeah, um, well, thank you again for having

A decade managing 200+ listings across Dallas, Nashville, Miami, and New York

SPEAKER_03 2:56

me. Um, I've uh been in the industry for a little bit over a decade. Uh starting managing luxury homes here in LA. Um, then from there I went more on the urban um management uh and um basically ran like a management company that managed over 200 listings. Uh we were Dallas, Nashville, Miami, New York, uh been very, very different, many different locations. Um, started scaling the business. Uh we were scaling it quite a bit. And uh while I was doing that, it kind of realized uh that there was uh some problems with the industry. I mean, I think there's many, but uh um I think the biggest uh problem for us was the lack of technology. Uh we are we realized you know, if you really want to scale something in hospitality, especially if you're scaling Airbnbs, the biggest challenge that you have is that you're gonna be spread out. Uh and it's really hard to um have centralized uh uh resources similarly to an hotel. And uh um so that was a big problem. So we knew that it could be fixed by technologies, but technologies were very hard to get, um, very hard to understand what is the right technology to use, and really hard to make them work well together. And uh um that's kind of what inspired journey, uh, you know, to really make uh technology more accessible for the everyday hosts, and at the same time uh um helping hosts uh tool fully automate their operation and the guest experience.

SPEAKER_05 4:41

Okay, so okay, so you've been in this game for how long you say?

SPEAKER_03 4:45

A little bit over a decade.

SPEAKER_05 4:47

Okay. Um can you can you explain what the to the listeners what journey is?

SPEAKER_04 4:52

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_03 4:53

So um journey helps basically aggregate in one single place all the tools that you need to run a real automated uh

The integration nightmare: 15 to 20 pricing tools, multiple lock vendors, none built to work together

SPEAKER_03 5:07

operation. What that means is um you know, today you get a PMS, right? Uh that's how the industry is being built. Uh, and this PMS needs to be able to work with multiple different providers. For instance, if you want to work with pricing, your PMS needs to be probably have the ability to integrate with like with a minimum of like 15 to 20 tools, and then you go into the lock access control system. If they integrate with somebody, they will probably integrate with multiple different vendors. Uh, you go into the um property care app, like uh like a breezeway of the situation, and they have to do the exact same thing. Um, so the problem is that that uh there's a couple problems there. Um, one is that there's more and more services that are focused on on specific verticals, so you have more of the service providers. And at the same time, the industry is becoming more and more complex. So, what we did is we said, hey, what if we were to build a

Jurny's one-platform solution - no integrations to build, no dashboards to juggle

SPEAKER_03 6:12

platform that is already built? You don't have to build any integrations, you don't have to do anything, everything is already built, so it all works flawlessly together, and every integration that we build is a vertical integration with a single vendor that we want to work with and partner with. So, as a user experience, now you have one platform, one dashboard, and your pricing tool is there, you don't have to worry about it. Your uh ability to connect your smart locks is already there, and you don't have to worry about it. Your ability to communicate with guests, uh, connect with different channels. Um, uh the uh the guest verification software is gonna be all there and integrated. Your guest mobile app is connected to our system, and then you have a guest mobile app that and everything works closely together as a single system, versus then now the environment is you having to go out there and build your own system that doesn't really work that well together because it's not meant to be working together. The best way I describe it is very early stage, go build your own PC, uh, versus buying a MacBook Pro.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Gotcha. Nice, nice. Now, who now who is who is Journey built for? Is it built for the small host with one property, medium host with like 10 or 15, or is the big host with like 500 properties?

SPEAKER_03 7:32

Yeah, it's it's a really good question because uh uh we think that although different people have different uh different skills, they have different problems. We one of the biggest challenges for us was to become going from being a small host of one unit to go over a couple hundred units. Uh and ideally, I wanted to build a system that can help you to do that. And I think um uh a big trend in the industry is that um many things are consolidating. So the system that you want to have needs to be capable of doing many things. So, one is you need to be able to do single families, but at the same time, you need to be able to do multi-families, and at the same time you need to be doing be able to do small boutique hotels or larger hotels. So I think uh because like you don't know what the host journey um is going to be, and you want to make sure that your system can adapt to to all of these things, and and the needs change completely. Like we see with the pandemic, so many people went from doing long-term ten short-term rentals on short-term stays to do having to do long-term tenants uh uh or corporate housing, right? So you have you need you want that flexibility as a host, you want to be able to have that flexibility. So our system, I want to say, is for professional hosts. Uh and I say if you have less than five properties, probably not completely necessary for us. Although we have people with one or two units that use our system, but our target is five plus units all the way

Pricing: $19 to $59 per unit per month, or revenue share with full services

SPEAKER_03 9:10

into the thousands because our system can scale to that.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Wow, that's cool. So so do you I mean, do you charge a percentage like 10% of the gross? Or how do you how do you make your money off of um helping hosts?

SPEAKER_03 9:25

Yeah, we have uh we have three different um three different pricing structure based on on how many things uh our host needs. Um so we because we are we're an oper uh a management company, uh um we kept a lot of the team that we had, like for example, customer support, people that were doing pricing and all of that. So um so if you need a pricing team, accounting, and all and all those services, we layered on top of the software. So if you buy just the software, you pay just for the software, it's and it's a small monthly fee uh on a per unit base. So it can go as little as uh uh you know $19 a unit per month to um $59 a unit per month, depending on how many services you get into the package, and then um if you want services and the full package, we can go on a Rev share with you, basically.

SPEAKER_05 10:20

Okay, and then like you said, services. So, like what services do you offer? Like, do you offer the cleaning, all of that? Is that all in one, or how does that work?

SPEAKER_03 10:29

Yeah, so it's only digital services. So, what it means is like for instance, you you know, smaller hosts have a harder time to do 24-7 inquiry support and 24-7

What Jurny doesn't do: on-ground management and cleaning

SPEAKER_03 10:39

uh guest support, right? So, we can offer you what we call virtual front desk. Uh, so you you have a team of people that do 24-7 coverage for you. Uh, we can offer you revenue management. Uh, so obviously we give you the pricing tool, but you know, a pricing tool is just 50% of the work. You need somebody who's actually going to do uh the pricing strategy using that pricing tool. So we have experts that we can give you for that. Um, and then we have things like uh as well as accounting, so being able to create uh reportings and uh and uh um reconciliation and and and giving you like details reports or so you minimize again the infrastructure that you have to have. Um okay.

SPEAKER_05 11:26

So let's just say I have a 15 properties, right? And I just want to be done with them. I just want to collect a check. Can I just hand those over to Journey and you guys will handle everything? Or I just want to make sure how does that work?

SPEAKER_03 11:39

Yeah, that's a great question. So we don't do the management side of things, so the on-ground management. So anything that is on ground, we help you automate as much as possible so that your main thing is gonna be probably like scheduling cleaning, right? Um, but we'll give you an app that does that, uh, so that automatically you you were gonna have out like an automatic schedule for all for all the cleaners. Um, and we will handle like guest supports and uh and customer uh customer service. Um, but at the same time, if there is an issue happening in the units, it's ultimately your responsibility. So we don't want to replace a management company in any way, shape, or form. Uh, we want to be a support of somebody who wants to be a manager.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

That's that's cool. You work with the management team. Um, it's funny. I texted, I texted uh my partner because me, me and my and my partner um in business, Federico. We we run a short-term rental management company. We have over 70 units now, right? That we manage. Nice. And yeah, thank you, thank you. And um, so anyways, he's some units that we're taking over. Um, is they're connected with Journey already. So I asked him, I said, Hey, um, I'm interviewing the the founder of Journey. You want me to ask him a question? And he had a question. He said, uh, how do how do y'all leverage owners' expectations in

Handling refunds and guest resolutions through the virtual front desk

SPEAKER_01 13:03

terms of refund and resolutions?

SPEAKER_04 13:06

Oh, interesting. Yeah, that's a that's a good that's a very insider question.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

Uh um uh yeah, so that's uh again, that's not if you're using just a software that's that that that wouldn't necessarily apply, right? But if somebody's using our services, when we provide customer support, it our goal is, and obviously we coordinate that with with the host uh and the management company, what what their goals are. Like we understand that if a host, if a guest is pissed, you want to make sure that you give some type of compensation, some type of refound to prevent that guest from giving you a negative review. So our go-to strategy will be to handle with some type of uh uh refound. But if the uh you know if the management company says that's not how I want to handle my refounds, then obviously we're happy to work with them uh on a different strategy. But we recommend what we think is the best strategies and what we found overall bringing in the best ROI. Um gotcha.

SPEAKER_05 14:17

Now, what what cities do you guys operate in? Because you said because I know Steve just said he's taken over some, so what what cities do you guys operate in?

SPEAKER_03 14:25

Yeah, so well we we're on all North America, we are many markets, like uh I think uh again we're market agnostic because we don't have it on on ground people, right? Um, and uh um that depends on the host. We have hosts in uh Mexico, we have hosts uh um all over actually Mexico, we're multiple destinations in Mexico and all over North America. We have a few in Europe, but um our main focus is all North America. We're a lot of major cities in US.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Okay, that's that's interesting, man. This is this is cool because uh so you you um you saw all these moving parts, man. And and I talked to when we we've been doing this podcast for over five years, and I talked to Micah back in the day, you know, and he helped me start my Airbnb journey. He's like he's like, Hey, yeah, you have to make the leap, man. Let rent your house out on Airbnb when you move out of it instead of long-term rental. I was like, screw it, okay, man. So I threw it on Airbnb, and I'm like, now what, Micah? It's like how do I do the pricing? Oh, you gotta get this um uh you know, price labs, or what was the other one? Beyond pricing was like the first one, right? Yeah, first one were you, and then we interviewed the price labs dude, and we're like, he blew us away. We're like, Oh shit, we'll do price labs then. And then uh that's that that's that's how we learned this game. We're like, well, we how are we gonna improve? Well, we'll just hide we'll just um get every founder of the top companies that help people out on our show, yeah, and just pick

The moving parts problem: pricing, PMS, calendars that don't sync in time

SPEAKER_01 15:53

their brains, you know, like you. And and so uh that helped us out uh on our own uh Airbnb and short-term rental journey. So, anyways, so I said, Okay, now what Micah is he said that you can need the pricing strategy. Okay, now what you need this, you need that, you know, and like you need a PMS. Now you need a PMS, and it's like man, there's so many different parts to this thing, right? And and then you must have seen that, noticed that, and like I got you, you I always said there needs to be something that puts all this together for somebody because it's just too many different moving parts, and then sometimes the calendar won't sink in time, and then we get a double booking and all this crazy stuff. So, you you saw the problem. How did you go about putting it all together? What do you do? You go talk to some programmers and stuff. Well, how does that work?

SPEAKER_03 16:38

First of all, I I'm so glad you said that because it's 100% the the issue that we're fixing. Um, that the fact that is if you want to be good at doing at being a uh a professional host, you have to do so much research and spend so much time on not on knowing what's good and how to put it together, and it's still maybe not work. So I think yeah, I think you just like um like hit the spot like there, like it's like it's exactly what what was the biggest uh most frustrating point from for me, and I think is anything is like getting more complicated and not more simple because there's more and more of everything um that you can do, and it's hard to really focus on what's what's what's to do or not. So uh it's a great question. So we were running a profitable company um as a management company, and what we did, we use our management company as the guinea pig to build the system first. Um, just our goal in the beginning was to become a sender. Uh that's how we started. A sender that was very much tech enable um and leverage technology to really scale. So that's the first thing that we did. But then when we realized what the how big the problem was, we said, hey, instead of just scaling a management company, why don't we create a tool for other people? Um good question because I how did I start with like the whole development side of things? Well, I had I'm originally from Europe, uh from Italy, uh, to be more precise, and I and I am lucky because I have a good network of people that are programmers and engineers, and I think uh um the market in Italy is not as competitive as uh as the US market, so I was able to put together a very strong team over there and we start working on this project. Once uh some investors seen the potential, we were able to raise quite a bit of capital and really double down on this project. Um, it was not easy, it took it took several years into the making, and uh, I think this is the first of its kind in our industry, but I for sure think it's not gonna be the last. Um, so we'll see. We'll see how things evolve.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Nice. Do you have any major competitors in this?

SPEAKER_03 18:57

So that's the thing, we don't. Um, like there's tons of competition on the PMS side of things. There's I don't know how many even how many PMSs there are. There are many companies that do individually some of the things that we do, like access control system, for instance. There's a few companies that do that. Um but no, there's no really what I call aggregators that put it all together and in and offer into a simple solution. Um, because nobody's thought of that yet, I guess. Um, and it's not easy either to do it. So um, yeah, so I think there's it's a combination of things.

SPEAKER_05 19:37

So let's let's just say because I because I'm I'm actually kind of interested because one thing that stood out to me is your 24-7 front desk, right? So with that 24-7 front desk, that that that's basically communication with the guests, right? Okay, so how much would someone pay you? Like how much, like, hey, they come to Journey, say, hey man, I just need somebody to communicate with these guests.

24/7 virtual front desk for $40 per unit per month

SPEAKER_05 19:58

I just want to be done with it. How much would somebody pay you for something like that?

SPEAKER_03 20:02

Yeah, so they will need to adopt use our software so there will be the software fee, and then we we charge about $40 a unit per month, depending on the size of the client. Um, and or we can be on a wrap share model, like I said, if we offering a lot of the services where we also manage revenue and accounting, then then we we go on a ref share with the clients. Um, and and um some clients prefer pay a flat fee per month, some some prefer um on a to be on a ref share.

SPEAKER_05 20:31

That's awesome. Because I was I actually went to view a unit, two units today where someone may want me to take over like the management side, but like when I'm talking to these people, they just don't want to talk to guests. So it's like I just don't want to talk to guests, I don't want to let them in and out, you know. So I'm like, okay, well, I could take that and then pass that over to someone else. Because right now, you know, the big thing with you know, like Steve knows this is hiring a VA to do it. But if you want to come with that package, because it sounds like you're more like a, you know, you guys are like a fine-tuned VA package. Is that you know I'm saying like you guys have, but it's all in tech instead of, you know, with people.

SPEAKER_03 21:09

Yeah. So we I be we believe we did two things. One, we changed the game on the software side of things, and that's one thing, but we layer on top really good quality services because we had them built already. We built a top class customer service, and we're like, why are we just gonna get rid of it? Well, we can offer it to other hosts, and they're gonna take great advantage of it. Because, like you said, yeah, you can have a VA, but it took me five years to build a really strong VA team uh between Philippines and Mexico. Yeah, you can go, but you need to understand the culture, you need to understand how to capture the right talent, you need to make sure that they are trained properly. It's not easy, especially to have a good quality service. So, so we it that's That was not the initial and and the final goal of the company, but we had it anyways because we said, hey, listen, we have it, and it's something that we can offer, and something that a lot of people are gonna find great value to. On top of that, what's amazing is that they're all already like um trained to work on our software. So what happened is that this VA uh team that you have at your disposal, they're also gonna help you like scheduling ticketing and scheduling cleaners, because they all know how the system works. So so that's uh that's really what's what's amazing because I think the single system, if you take a single service or or a single thing that we do is not special, but when you put it all combined to a one solution, that's what makes it really special and and takes it to the next level.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

So, what what made you um stop short of just being like um like a full management company instead for people, instead of just giving them all the tools where they can manage more efficiently?

SPEAKER_02 23:03

Um I think that people get into management for different reasons, and in the end of the day, you're gonna pick one thing and do it best.

SPEAKER_03 23:20

And we realized um we said, hey, we need to be either the best management company or best technology company. We can't do both. And we said, I'm sure we're gonna fix the same issue that a lot of people have where they get into property management and they don't want to have to do anything to the to do with technology and knowing technology. Why study technology? So I said, you know what, my passion is technology. I got into the management because I wanted to build an out automated management company, but in the end of the day, I said, I that's that's not where I see my passion being a manager. I see my passion in technology. So I I decided to focus on that and said, you know what? I think I can build something that actually can help other managers be better at doing what they're doing and maybe like enjoy more what they're doing. I think more importantly.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

I like that. I like that you made that decision. You didn't try to do everything, you know, you did exactly what what your strengths were, and and then um, so so what's cool also, you said you you even have like that version for was like all the way down to $19.99, right? And and if and if you think about it, like the most pricing apps that we just just the pricing apps cost around that much, but you come with so much more than that. Definitely, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:37

We we wanted to combine multiple different tools and make it at uh at an affordable price. Um, I think even the highest packets are something that they're still consider affordable. Obviously, there's like some real cheap products out there um where you can get a PMS for for very cheap, but what can you do with it, right? That's the the end goal. I think when you think about the business, you have to think overall um what's your true cost? That's something that a lot of people don't know. How much is your time worth? Uh, what if you can spend your time more doing other things, growing your business or doing more of what you like? What is that worth? So I think that there's when you when it comes down to deciding what's what's the right price, is uh there's there's a lot of things to think about.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Yeah, oh yeah, tons. And um so here's here's uh something that came up with us because uh and Micah too, you know. Excuse me, a guest on our show and a founder of uh of a company called Boostly. You ever heard of um Boostly before they build websites for short-term rental managers? Uh Mark Simpson, yeah, yeah. He's been he's been all the the circuits, you know, all the short-term rental play. You know, he's he's a cool dude. He came on our show and it blew us away. And and we got it, we we both ordered some custom websites to to be more of a direct booking company, right? And try to so we won't be beholden to to Airbnb and VRBO, you know, we could get a lot of people to to book direct. That's our whole goal. And and so one of the things was um he works his websites that he builds works with uh most of the PMSs, right? Some better than others. Now, now your company it's like uh it's the PMS is incorporated in your software.

SPEAKER_03 26:25

That is correct, yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

And would would Journey be able to plug in to someone else's like um uh direct booking website fairly easy?

SPEAKER_03 26:34

Yes, but the way we will work is if we choose a vendor, we only work with that vendor. So we will select the best and say, okay, if we decide to work with that vendor, it's going to be so seamlessly integrated that you don't even know almost that there's enough a third-party person out there. Like for instance, if I were to show you for our pricing, we choose wheelhouse. Uh, if I were to show you how you manage pricing on our software, you don't even see wheelhouse. I mean, we tell you that it's powered by wheelhouse, but you don't even see it. You have pricing suggestions for the for your units from wheelhouse, and you can make manual changes right there and there, and the pricing shoots out everywhere. So you don't have to do anything, you don't have to connect to anything, you don't have to create a login, you don't have to to to have another subscription, everything is into the same system. You see everything in one place, and I think that's what's powerful, right? So we don't we we we have our own website builder tool, but if we were to realize that you know, hey, what you know what, we're not the best at how to do website builder, so maybe we choose to work with with a vendor. That's what we did with pricing, that's what we did with the guest verification system. Uh, we we integrate with um I should remember my the name of who we integrate with autohost. Sorry, I uh I lack a second. So so for instance, we integrate with autohost, but this is what's so cool. You know what autohost says to me, like when when they start working with us, they said what's cool with journey

Jurny's smart lock system built in-house after existing tools fell short

SPEAKER_03 28:09

is that it makes the tools better. So autofost with journey is better. Why? Because we build an integration to only work with out host. We don't want to work with other people. We say, you know what, you guys are the best of the industry. We want you, so we want you to for guests to feel like that how to host is completely embedded into our system, and you will see it that is embedded. So guest gets verified, and all the information you would normally see on out host is onto the same system, but it's also connected to to your reservation that you see in your PMS, which is ours, and you can accept or deny that a specific reservation manually right there, or have an automated system that does it. Automated way of charging uh security deposits because your payment terminal is is connected to our system, everything is fully automated. Um, access control system that's another example, like remote control of doors, right? Um, having codes that automatically update every time there is a reservation. We looked at every system they're out there, none of them were good for us as a management company. So, guess what? We built our own. But we're not in the business of building those tools. We do them because we realize that to have the best system, you have to have the best of the best for each thing, and it needs to work flawlessly. So when it doesn't exist, we build it. But if it does exist, we integrate with them and we make sure that it's a this seamless integration. Our next partner is Breezeway, um, where we're working on a very uh strong integration with them again to make their tool better with journey than without.

SPEAKER_05 29:48

I I I I I I finally see the I see why your platform is for people with five plus. Because what you're doing is once you start getting, you know, five, 10, you're gonna need tech, right? And what's most people's biggest hang up right now? They don't know tech. So I love that you guys taking all the tech. Like, hey, I'm I'm we're gonna go get the best tech, and you guys are in the tech industry, so you know what the best tech is, and then you kind of simplify it and package it for them. That's now finally I'm like, oh, I see what you did. See, because I have a tech mind, so I'm like, oh, you're taking it from the end user who doesn't know what he's doing, and I'll just package it for you. I love that. I love that. That that yeah, that's really smart. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

You know what it reminds me of, right? So, so um a lot of a lot of people use the uh WordPress to make websites, right? And and and so uh and like uh you know, our website, you know, Livelett Thrive.com is a WordPress website, and um, I've been asking Micah for for a while, hey, give me the login, I'm gonna mess around, make try to make it better. And I'm not a tech guy, I'm not a freaking tech guy, right? And so I look at I, you know, I've done some GoDaddy stuff where it holds your hand, walks you through it, you know, boom, boom, boom, it's done. It looks pretty. And then I look, I opened that um that um uh uh WordPress, and I was like, what the heck is this, man? I could I it was like a different, it was a whole different language for you know, I couldn't my my brain didn't know what to do with all that stuff, you know, all this technical terms all the way on the left side of the screen. You do this, you do this, and buttons and this. But what what so that makes me think of of what your company is, you know, when when someone just gets started, because that's people at work ask me all the time, hey, you know, I want to get started, I want to get an arbitrage, I want to do this. How do I do this? How do I do this? I'm so wait, you need this pricing tool, you need this, uh, you need turnover BNB, you need all this other, you need all these different things, and I'm and they're just looking at me like uh a deer in the headlights, right? And so, what was cool about your company and taking it back to the website thing, um, just poking around on WordPress. I'm like, you know, it makes it makes me look like a deer in the headlights. But then I go to GoDaddy and it does it all for me. All that stuff's in the background, but in front, hey, put your name here, put your title here, put the boom, and it and it makes it beautiful for you. And that's what you're doing with with this, um, with your system. The and that that's pretty cool. It makes it simple for people that ain't that aren't tech people like me, and it makes it a nice, pretty package, and and then that's all you got to do. It's it's a plug and play. I love it.

SPEAKER_05 32:18

That's perfect, man. Steve's your customer, yeah. Perfect customer.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

I get it. Okay, I'm like, ah, guy you're targeting. If I if I was running my company, you know, by myself, F yeah, I'm his perfect customer, but I have a feta, and he's a guy, you know, he can do all this, but he is he does like working with Journey from the from the units we're taking over from somebody that's already connected with Journey. Um, I even asked him, I was like, So what I didn't I didn't understand what the heck Journey was, right? I was like, Well, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna just are you gonna dump Journey? He's like, No, no, no, we're gonna keep it, it's gonna work in conjunction. We're gonna still we're gonna be the managers of their properties, but we're gonna still use journey on top of their properties, it's gonna all work together. And I just how the how does that work to you know? To me, I couldn't get it until now until you explained it what what what you are, you know. To me, I was like, Why don't we just dump them and then we don't have to pay that percentage? But he said, No, no, I really like the tools that they offer, you know. He had some questions, but he's really enjoying he doesn't see it as a hindrance towards managing their property. He says it, you know, it's gonna make things uh a little simpler for us to take on their their 15 properties, whatever we're taking on.

SPEAKER_04 33:22

100. Yeah, that that's that's our goal.

SPEAKER_03 33:25

I mean, we but the problem is the same problem you have. I'm telling you, even people that are very tech savvy have the same exact problems because at the end of the day, I mean, you gotta pick your battles. And if you are gonna be good at being a property manager, there's so many other things that you have to take care of, right? Like how do your units look, how do your units feel, what's your guest experience? Like, how do you maximize your revenue inside of your units? Like, how do you maximize your exposure? How do I drive direct bookings? How do I grow my my inventory? How do I how do I manage all these different owners uh or master leases or whatever I want to do? Like that's more than a single business by itself. I know, because I did it for a long time, and and at the same time, you have to keep up with everything else that is happening. Um, you know, the dream solution is to have uh software that does it all and does it great, and that's what our mission is.

SPEAKER_05 34:32

And one thing, I'm happy you said even if you are tech savvy, you're still gonna have an issue. And I 100% agree because if you're trying to scale, you have to teach all these people all this tech stuff, and you still have to teach them how to troubleshoot. So I came from like a networking troubleshooting background. So, like when someone says, like a guest may say, hey, the TV doesn't work and the internet's down. A VA doesn't know to go in there and troubleshoot it. They'll just assume the internet's down. They're trying to get in touch with the them like, dude, just check the TV. If the TV's connected to the internet, it's a personal problem on them. The internet's up. So yeah, I love that you guys did that. I think this is gonna really grow into something huge because most people aren't text-avvy and they don't want to have to train it either, you know. So that that's I like that. I may have to uh I'll be speaking with Journey here in the future.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

Awesome. Yeah, and and what else is gonna make it grow huge is being on Live Let Thrive. So there you go.

SPEAKER_05 35:30

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

You're welcome, uh Luca. So you like we we have a famous Luca here in Dallas, uh Luca Doncic. You know him? Oh no, basketball player, extraordinary.

SPEAKER_03 35:46

Basketball, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I I am uh motorsport fan, uh Formula One and uh soccer. That's those are my sports. I'm I'm still like very Italian watching sports.

SPEAKER_05 36:00

Well, the basketball people are hopping into Formula One. Didn't Michael Jordan just buy a Formula One over there?

SPEAKER_03 36:06

Well, I I I see a lot of a lot of uh you know basketball people going where uh to watch Formula One, but I uh yeah, I'm I'm sure there is there's something happening. It became very popular now in the US, so it's cool. It's cool to see now growing that's part of growing here in US.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Yeah, there's a big Formula One race in Austin that that that's huge, man. So we gotta go check that out. I heard it's pretty awesome. Oh yeah, yeah. And Federico, he's Argentinian, right? So Argentinians think that they're Italian and and European, right? So yeah, so of course, his favorites is his favorites is soccer and and um and formula one, those are his favorite sports too. Nice. It's uh and he makes a pretty good espresso, pretty good, not as good as mine, but it's pretty good.

SPEAKER_05 36:54

So if you don't mind telling us, like um like uh who are the vendors that I mean, someone who's coming in, like who are the vendors that you guys work with? Like, I know you guys said you created your own lock system, which is absolutely cool, especially that, especially if you dedicate it to your own people. But like let's say, um, let's say someone's using turnover BNB and they want to come in or whatever. Who who have you partnered with? Like, do you guys are you have a list of hey, this is who we partnered with? And is that you know public information?

Vertical integrations with Wheelhouse, Autohost, Breezeway, Noise Aware, and Minute

SPEAKER_03 37:24

Yeah, yeah, they're public information to most of our partners. Um on the lock side, what we develop is the software. Like we but we integrate with uh specific lock brands like Yale, Salto, uh basically all the major ones um that that they're out there. Um when when it comes down to to tools specifically that we choose, wheelhouse, how to host, and breezeway are the three main partners that we have right now. Um everything else is kind of done internally, and then we obviously integrate directly with all the major OTAs, and then for what we don't integrate with, we create an integration uh with Rentals United. So um so we allow um integration, for instance, for somebody who wants to use uh um Alto Vita, although we're working with them to potentially create a direct integration, but for for uh corporate housing, right? Or you want to uh integrate with Google. A lot of people now asking for Google. Now we can do that uh through Rentals United. Um so yeah, so those those are the main tools that we that we work with and we integrate with. Um we also uh we also integrate with uh um thermos smart thermostats. So we have a few different brands of thermostats that we integrate with. Um but yeah.

SPEAKER_05 38:44

You you hit the biggest one on the head because I I made a bold prediction the other day, and no one people

The Google vacation rental booking opportunity

SPEAKER_05 38:49

think I'm crazy. I said Google is about to be a powerhouse in the short-term rentals, and I said I told people, I said, and they were like, nope, they just kind of wrote me off. They're like these Airbnb people. I'm like, okay, Google's about to take over short-term rentals, give it five years. So, how has that integration worked? Like with Rentals United, like I I still want to see one of one of the people because I know like hotels still dominate Google. Like, you can get on Google, type in a hotel, you can just book off Google. And I know Google's trying to make it so short-term rental people can do that. Like, how has that been successful for the people that are on journey? Like, hey, someone goes on the Google, they see a journey list and they just book it. And is that how it works?

SPEAKER_03 39:29

So it's it's definitely something that is trending up, and we found that some hosts have started uh finding uh finding a good source of revenue. So yeah, it's trending up, right? And people look at trends. Um, so it's uh it's something to definitely keep an eye on. Uh, but like everything, different properties perform different uh differently on different channels, right? You have a single-family home and it's a four-bedroom single-family home, it's you probably really want to be on VRBO. Right? Um but if you're like a maybe a one-bedroom apartment in downtown Dallas, you probably don't care about VRBO. Um so so yeah, so it's it it it really it really varies. I think we found it pretty successful in urban settings. Um smaller units, I think more similar to maybe a booking.com uh uh type of uh yeah, so so we'll see, but it's growing.

SPEAKER_05 40:37

Okay. I I I I I was one really wanted to talk to someone who had the, you know, who's really started to see what's happening because I've been waiting. What I did so far was I created my Google site, which bounces back to my direct booking website. So I just really want to see because I I really because I think I think they have an API that they they have out that's in development phase, and I really I'm very interested in it because it would be cool if someone could just, you know, uh short-term rentals in Dallas, and you can just book them directly off Google. You know, I'm not saying it'll put Airbnb out of the business, but that's some dangerous stuff for their business, you know, for their company.

SPEAKER_03 41:13

Oh, 100%, 100%. I think it's very early, so we don't know yet, but there's the potential is there, so 100%.

SPEAKER_05 41:21

Yeah, man. That's why I love this short-term rental stuff.

SPEAKER_01 41:25

Well, well, the um, I mean, Google's they're gonna they're gonna try to take over every market, right? They're gonna try to do everything because because um even they even tried to outdo Facebook, which that didn't work too well, work too good, right?

SPEAKER_03 41:38

Plus, yeah, yeah, that didn't work too well.

SPEAKER_01 41:40

That didn't work too well. Everybody was like, what the hell is this? I'm confused. Um, anyways, um, but I I have seen like like like Micah was saying, you type in, you know, I sometimes I type in I want to see a flight, you know. I just say uh DFW to Guadalajara, Mexico, or something, just to check the the flight, and then it comes up with prices like to buy a ticket. And I was like, Oh shit, Google's doing this now, you know. And then they'll have a hotel prices too. And I'm like, oh, okay, I don't have to type in kayak no more, it's all right here, but I still like kayak, I still go to kayak anyways. True getting there, but it's not a hundred percent there, but it's it's it's showing me some stuff.

SPEAKER_03 42:18

But I think you you you said it right, um, and that's exactly what's happening. I think people I think it's a it's a trend. Why? Because I think they're they created some tools that uh help you just to do that, but until it becomes the norm for people to book directly on Google, uh, and I think that's what's dangerous, right? If uh if people start being like, okay, this is the way to do it, why do I go anywhere else? I could just go on Google and book it, that's where it starts becoming more dangerous, and people need to you know keep an eye on that trend.

SPEAKER_01 42:54

Now, Micah, have you bought some, I mean, done something like directly through Google yet? Like, have you looked up a flight or looked up a and and just oh, Google's got one here for 79 or night? I'm gonna just click this one. Have you done that yet?

SPEAKER_05 43:07

I haven't, you know me, because I travel a little bit different. You know, I use points to travel. But think about it like this. You know how many people book hotels directly off Google? You can book them directly off Google. It's a whole bunch of people that do that, you know? So how I was looking at it is it's kind of like this, right? Um, and you know who really put me on the Google thing? It was Al Williamson. And we need to get Al back on the show. He goes, think about it. Where does everyone go to find out anything? Google. Even if you like a person types in right now, hey, I want to stay in a cabin in Mexico, they can Google it. It may send you to Airbnb, but now let's just say it no longer sends you to Airbnb. Google starts popping up all this stuff. You're like, whoa, whoa, I can just book this cabin in Mexico. That's that's that's kind of the danger in Google, right? Because you easily dominate a market.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

You know, now I've used it with shopping. Let's say I look up iPhone 11 and I was looking for one of those back in the, you know, I'll say iPhone 11, and then it'll pop up right across the screen. Here's the different places I have them for whatever, and then it has a shopping button, and you hit the shopping button, and I oh okay, I could just get it straight from Google. It might send me through a third-party store, but it's still they're still getting the cut of that, right?

SPEAKER_05 44:22

Pretty sure it's an ad cut, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

Yeah, the click-through, click through, or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 44:26

If it's like an odds pen, yeah, if it's an advertising, advertised odds, then they gotta it's cool that journeys, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:36

I'm happy that you guys said you're already ahead of that curve, you're already ready, you know, because that that that shows me you guys are, you know, you guys are truly tech. You know, you guys are ahead of that curve, you already see it. Hey, let's do you on Google. So that's pretty cool, man.

SPEAKER_01 44:49

So how would you step in? Let's say we got a lot of um uh fans, they've been growing with us, you know what I'm saying? So they've they've started out with just a handful of under five, but now we got a lot of fans or listeners that have around 20 or so units, right? And they kind of got their systems down a little bit, they kind of got some things plugged in, you know, a PMS, and um they got a VA or two, you know, helping them out. How do you uh how could you help someone like what can you do? Like if you if you had set sat down and had a chat with them and said, Okay, I see how you're doing your business, but this is how Journey can help you do it better. I mean, how how would you have that conversation with them?

SPEAKER_03 45:27

Yeah, I mean, I would ask a few

How Jurny helps hosts at the 20-unit plateau

SPEAKER_03 45:30

questions and I would ask, you know, how they're currently structured and organized. Um, but you know, I especially when you start scaling, small things become very big things. Um just something as simple as like changing the dark, like the door code, uh it starts adding up when you have more and more guests, and then you have more and more units. Uh just making sure that that all your channels are properly connected into a single system and into a single chat. Uh just making sure that your pricing uh is structured correctly and and and it's being spit out everywhere um uh properly, making sure that you that you're running some type of guest verifications. If you aren't, you're running some risks. You know, um what's your cost per year of not running any type of guest verifications, right? Like uh how many parties do you have? Like having a party being thrown into inside of your units, it may cost you a lot more than maybe the damage itself, but maybe you get kicked out as uh as a tenant in that unit, right? Or on the whole building you can't rent any more units. So there's so many things um that become massive issues as you start scaling and you start growing. You just started feeling the pain at 20 units. Um, and and I think we we fix a lot of these things. Um, and um and again, we just take the issue of trying to figure things out when and I promise you, when you think you have a hangle on things, you actually don't because you just started and you think you started understanding, but it's just like it gets that much more worse, and and it just it just it's a never it never stops. It's this uphill battle uh that you constantly have to fight, and we constantly fight for you, you know. So we want to be your partners basically. Uh you have your own VAs, your VAs can use our system, and we have we're happy to show them how our system works, and they can run things on their own. And you know, you you save some money that way if you already have enough economy of skill to do that, or if you don't want to have uh VAs, or VAs are not good enough, then I recommend trying out ours. Um, but yeah, that's uh that that's how we look at things. The really the the main our main goal was how can you automate everything from receiving the reservation, not having to communicate anything, all the messaging, everything is automated. They get the checking information with the updated DR code, with all the information that they need, stay at the unit. If they have any question, obviously there's VA, but hopefully they don't, and they check out and cleaners get an automated notification. So, how do you do all of that in a safety environment and have it all connected into a single system so you don't you minimize the amount of work you have to do? We really reduce the bottom line, is we reduce the amount of time that you have to spend to do what you do.

SPEAKER_01 48:35

No, that's great, man. That's um, that's what you find out when you get to I you know, I think a lot of owners get to like around uh 20 or hosts

The scaling plateaus: 5, 20, 50, 100, and 200 units

SPEAKER_01 48:43

get to around 20 and it hits a plateau. Like, holy crap, you know, it's too it's it's too much, there's too much stuff going on. I'm juggling too many things. Even if someone comes, hey man, I got 10 more units for you. There's no you tell them there's no way I could take on two more. I can't, I can't. You have to turn people away, you know. They hit this plateau until you figure it all out, which might take you a month or two to figure it out. So in the meantime, you're losing business.

SPEAKER_03 49:05

So, so I as a manager, I I know exactly all the plateaus, and I tell you, and somehow it's random now, uh round numbers, but you have your plateau at 20, 100. You have like the first is like five, right? But when you're like getting to to do something, the smallest plateau, then you have 20, then you have the 50, then you have the 100 units plateau, which is like a massive one, and then when you pass the hundred, you can go into a few hundreds, but you get like a couple hundred to three hundred, and then that's another plateau. So all of those are steps that you have to take, and each time I tell you what you need to do, you need to rebuild your system because the system you build is just good enough to get you to where you are, and so that's the reason why we thought about it. It's like you need to have a system that holds your hand throughout your whole journey.

SPEAKER_01 49:58

I like that. You dropped journey right there, that's pretty smooth. Yeah, good.

SPEAKER_06 50:04

I like that.

SPEAKER_01 50:05

Okay, and CDO also um integrate with like um like let's say noise aware or the other uh you know software. Oh, cool, and it sends alerts automatically.

SPEAKER_03 50:15

Yeah, exactly. Uh not our sorry, I forgot I should have mentioned them. Noise aware and minute uh are our two strong partners that we have. Uh they're fully integrated with us.

SPEAKER_05 50:26

Okay, yeah, I'm a huge Minute fan. Love them.

SPEAKER_03 50:29

Yeah, I I love Minute too.

SPEAKER_01 50:32

I don't want to compare them, but never uh they're like his kids, he loves them both the same, right? Yeah, yeah. But one a little more than the other. Um so um you mentioned VAs, y'all got your own VAs, you have your own VAs.

SPEAKER_03 50:50

Yes, yes. We have we go ahead. We we have a whole team that we we can provide um if somebody needs. That's correct.

SPEAKER_01 50:58

You so you provide so they work for they they work for journey, but you can have them work for uh a host like me. Correct.

SPEAKER_03 51:07

So the thing is let's say you have so you want to provide 24-7 customer support, you need six people because they have to provide 24-7, they have to work during weekends. You need six people. Will those six people work all the time if they work for let's even say 30 listings? They won't. So what if you can leverage those six people now and they buy them for a couple hundred units? Now you they're working full-time, getting paid the same, but then you distribute the cost across maybe like six, seven hosts versus all being all being in one host. Hey, you manage over a hundred units, you probably want to have your full-time uh V18. Your sub 100, I don't think you need it.

SPEAKER_01 51:56

Oh, that's interesting. That's cool. And and and where do your VAs uh usually come from? What area of the world?

SPEAKER_03 52:03

Mainly Mexico and Philippines. Um, that's that's uh where where we build our teams.

SPEAKER_01 52:09

That's interesting. Mexico, I don't hear that one too often. How why do y'all why do y'all have uh Philip? Why do you have VAs from

Paying VAs in Mexico and the Philippines double or triple market rate

SPEAKER_01 52:17

Mexico? How how does that work out? Good.

SPEAKER_03 52:19

Uh we actually found uh um the rate is a bit higher, but the quality is higher as well. Um and what another thing that we do, which is um what most people do wrong, in my opinion, when they hire outside of US, is they try to say, okay, what's the cheapest rate? And they get that. You're gonna that's a big problem. You're gonna get the worst if you do that. Because it happens in US, but happens the exact same thing if you just think that way outside of US. So you get a VA and it sounds cheap, $600 a month or maybe less, but you're not getting that good quality. How much is it costing you in your business? And you're doing that because again, you don't have economy of scale. So, what we do, we actually pay double, sometimes three times what the what the uh entry rate is, but we hire the best. Uh you know, we we we really pay above what the market is. We offer healthcare, um, we offer benefits, um, and and we get the best people and the most dedicated people. Um, so that's that's how we're doing.

SPEAKER_01 53:31

And the main thing, because yeah, we've we've done all the all the pitfalls of hiring VAs, we we tried the cheap route, and that really just made more work for everybody. And then we went to the higher paid, you know, higher skilled route, and not all of them are you know pan out, but the ones that really really kick some ass, um, they end up leaving a lot of the time. So that's uh I like how you you you kind of pay them enough to where they'll stick around because that's the main thing is is losing them because I'm they would say, Oh, I gotta leave, I gotta, you know, burning out, whatever. I'm sure they got another job for a lot more money. I'm thinking, I'm just thinking, you know. So I like how you pay them well in the beginning so they'll stick around.

SPEAKER_04 54:09

Is that an also like make them part of something bigger, right?

SPEAKER_03 54:14

Um, everybody in our team doesn't matter what job they do, they are part of journey and they feel like they're part of something special, and we're building something special together. And I think that's something that's that uh, and I don't say all property managers, but some property managers they see just see as like, okay, just here you do my dirty work. Um, I don't want to do it. Uh, and uh, and I don't really give you a purpose on why you're doing it. Um, so for us, they're yes, they're working for multiple different owners, but at the same time, they know they're working for something that is greater, um, and and uh for uh a mission that we have together.

SPEAKER_01 54:58

That's nice, that's beautiful. Um, go ahead, Michael.

SPEAKER_05 55:01

Yeah, that's what I was kind of thinking too, because you got me thinking about my VA. Because what I want to do is I'm trying to structure it so he's the manager, and then he has people that report to him because he's really good, right? So and I'm thinking, like, what's the cost of that? So making them feel like they're a part of something bigger is huge. Because I think Steve touched on it. He said, We'll get a good one and then uh they'll leave, you know, because maybe they found a higher paying job. Uh what have you found to make a VA stick around? Say, hey, I'm gonna stay here.

SPEAKER_03 55:34

Well, uh, number one, like I said, make them feel part of something bigger, and uh that they're big contributor, contributors of that something that we're building together, and and and um give a sense of growth and uh career in inside of the company because we do. We have VAs, the starter has VAs, and now they're managers inside of our company. Um so you know, I I think that shows that with senior managers, actually, some of them. So um because at the end of the day, we look for talent, doesn't matter what where it's from, doesn't matter how much they're paying, we look for talent. And uh um, and people know that if you work a journey, doesn't matter where you are, you might grow into a really high paid role. Um, and that's uh that's what we found

Making VAs feel part of something bigger and promoting from within

SPEAKER_03 56:31

very successful. It's not easy. Um, it took us a lot, it took us a lot of VA leaving uh as well, and a lot of retraining. And then once you get that critical mass of a few people that are really core to you and love the company, then they're the one, and this is for a company that is scaling into into a much larger management company, they're the ones that actually do the hiring, and the ones that are gonna be doing the training is not gonna be you anymore. So it becomes the self-feeding machine, and they're gonna share the same mission uh that you have uh given them to the new people.

SPEAKER_01 57:06

I like what you mentioned about about you know, you still you're always looking for talent, right? And and so many people, you know, they they they talk about let's say Steve Jobs, the genius, right? He he built Apple, and we all know the story of Steve Jobs and all that stuff. But what he spent like a big chunk of his time doing, I mean, if you read it read it, read about him and stuff, he'd he'd go and um he'd steal the best talent from other companies. That's what he was doing. He was taking all the best talent from every single competitor and putting them on his team, even though he had to pay him a shitload of money. But I mean, look what it did to Apple.

SPEAKER_03 57:41

Yeah, finding good people is uh definitely key, especially when you're in uh people's business, uh, which is hospitality.

SPEAKER_01 57:50

Yeah. So so do you have uh like a TV commercial yet? No, you don't can I can I make one for you?

SPEAKER_03 57:58

Well, we have uh uh I don't know if you saw the if you go our website on the cycle page, we have a video that kind of shows what our ultimate vision was of uh a guest staying in an automated Airbnb.

SPEAKER_01 58:12

Hmm, nice, but you need a TV commercial, and here's here's a here's your TV commercial right now, right now. Journey.

SPEAKER_04 58:18

Don't stop believing there.

SPEAKER_01 58:22

That's it. You can use that, you know what I'm referring to, of course, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay, so I think if we were for a couple million bucks, you can use their song in your commercial. Exactly, it's worth it, right?

SPEAKER_03 58:37

Definitely at the next round of investment.

SPEAKER_01 58:44

Nice, man. Wow, this is cool, man. I didn't know anything, hardly anything about journey, except for you know, my partner's been been you know going behind the scenes of what y'all do, liking it, you know, and that's that's a compliment from someone that's like you know, he's he's a real techie. He's look, he's looked at all these different ones. We've hopped in and out of different PMSs and stuff like that. And um, he really likes your product, and that's that's a high compliment, man. And and so uh another question I was gonna ask was um, because you mentioned you you because we we have we have those um direct booking sites that we built, you know, we spent a nice penny on them and um and plugged it into their current PMS, you know. And but so let's say we're gonna we're gonna go with you guys and and you so you would sit down with their creators and then just figure out the best way to make your system work inside the that website.

SPEAKER_03 59:34

Yeah, that's that shouldn't be an issue as long as they're they're open to the partnership. We we're always open to new good partners.

SPEAKER_05 59:43

Yeah, I think that's that that that that's what makes your product so good. I was actually, I'm gonna be making a reel about this soon, you know. I because I'm gonna be talking about like how to choose the best PMS. And it's with anything, you have to be willing to work with people that are willing to help you grow while they're also growing as well. So I love that you guys are willing. Hey, we'll partner with them. They're they're willing to play ball. We both can play ball and we both help each other grow. Because when I first got into this business, uh, I don't want to say any names, but I was partnered with this PMS when I first got in. But they would promise you stuff, and this is about five years ago. They would promise you stuff that they wouldn't quite deliver. But now I'm looking back, I'm like, they probably didn't have the resources at the time to grow and deliver what they want to deliver. But it's about just being honest. Hey, we we really don't have that right now. We're gonna work to get it, you know. And the PMS I'm partnering with now, you know, they'll straight tell me, hey, we're working on that right now, we don't have it. But that's what makes it so good to be a part of them because they're being honest and they're helping you grow. And then when they do release a feature that you've asked about, they'll tell you, you know, they've like, I'll say the PMS that I'm working with now is hopefully. And they I said, hey, I had all these listings inside of my one account. And they were like, hey, if you import, you can't just pick which listings to import. Then a week later, they had that feature. I was like, oh man, so they're willing to work with me. And I'm happy your your company's willing to do that. So I good luck to you guys in the future.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:08

Yeah, thank you. And uh, I want to say something because you mentioned something very interesting, which is something that I have a big pretty good expertise on, is selecting the right partners. Whether you is Journey or whoever you want to work with, you said something really good right now, um, which is look, don't look necessarily who they say is the best today, but look who's working to become the best and who's making the most progress. Because you know what? Who's best today is not gonna be best very soon. Um, and you want to work with the people that are willing to work with you, they're willing to do the changes, and you see that they're working towards becoming the best. That's one of the things of the key things we found and we chose to select our partners because you want partners for a long time, you can't have a partner, and then after a month or two, you have to change that partner because it costs you so much resources and time. So you need to find that strong partner that is willing to grow with you. So well said, I I wanted to expand on that because I agree.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:11

Yeah, man, this is not a good one.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:14

Yeah, man, great episode. Uh, real quick before I forget, like if uh if some of our listeners want to try out Journey, uh, you got any special any special um live let thrive promo code for them?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:26

Uh we well, well, how about they mention your podcast? We'll we'll give that we'll give them a discount.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:34

Okay, yeah, mention live that thrive and they'll hook you up. Awesome. And Journey will hook us up.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:41

We'll do so.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:43

We don't have an official sponsor yet, but you know, we're always listening. We're always listening. I'm like, we gotta we gotta we just started looking into all this. We'll talk to you after the show, man. Awesome. Uh well well, so what what is your um I don't know what is your what is your end game with all this, man? What is your what is your future with all this?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:04

Uh it's uh it's a long uh end game. I don't I mean I think there's the game never ends, right? Like you always have to improve and always become the best and better. Uh but we want to definitely become uh the go-to platform for uh not just uh Airbnbs and uh short-term rentals, but also for hotels. And and I think that's uh that's our ultimate goal.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:30

I think that I like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:32

So you you obviously you love what you're doing, you're passionate about it. Oh, I see it. I see it. Yeah, definitely. So it's not like it's it's kind of like I don't know, you just you can't and I know how the feeling because I'm starting to feel that too, you know, with my company, but you you look forward to waking up every morning, right?

Ideas are 1%, execution is 99% - don't be scared to fail

SPEAKER_03 1:03:51

Yeah, of course. I mean, that's uh I mean that that's that's why I'm doing this, and I don't think you can do anything long long term for a long time if you don't love what you're doing every day. Uh, because it's hard, whatever you do and you want to be successful, uh it's gonna be really hard. And uh and if you don't have something that moti motivates you every day, it's hard to continue. And uh success doesn't come easy. I believe in 10 years overnight success, which is sometimes more like 15 or 20.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:22

Now now now a lot of our a lot of our listeners uh they're in the industry, right? And so they um they come up with ideas that that kind of would help in some way or another. I come up with some ideas that'll help, not not exactly tech ideas, but ideas that'll that'll help the you know help a manager get something accomplished, right? You know what I'm saying? And we have people that come on the show that have ideas too. Now, what would you suggest to someone that has a really good idea or great idea that they really they really want to you know figure out how to make it work? And and it that's the hardest part. How do you make this thing work? Come from your head to get on the you know on the computer and start helping people out. How do you do that?

SPEAKER_03 1:05:04

Yeah, I mean, a lot of a lot of investors I met uh along my personal journey, and they always said the ideas are like five percent or one percent execution is uh 99. Um and really is like uh you know, ideas many people have ideas, but really what makes the difference is executing, and the difference of X uh on executing comes from trying, trying and not being not be scared of failing because nobody knows how to do it. Uh I've I've always been an entrepreneur my whole life, but I failed at many, many things, and even this idea failed in in the past in different ways, right? Not failing as a business, but you know, like you try things and they don't work, and that's okay because guess what? Nobody knows knew. Even Steve Job didn't know everything at the beginning, right? He became Steve Job after working on becoming Steve Jobs, right? Right. Um, use him because you used before him before as an example, but it that's how it is. Of course, there's people that are more talented at executing, and then they can learn things quicker. But in the end of the day, it's all about learning how to do it, and it's about constantly pivoting until that idea works. So executing, executing, not be scared of failing, and just going for it. That's uh that's the best advice I have.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:28

You heard it from Luca, folks. Get out there and don't be scared to fail and keep at it. Man, well, thank you for hopping on the show. This has been great. Um, where can people find you? Luca?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:39

Yeah, they can find us. Um, you know, we're very active on LinkedIn. Um uh, but uh also on our, you know, you can find us on our website, jurny.com. And uh uh we still becoming kind of active on uh on uh Instagram as well, so you can find us there uh too.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:57

Is LinkedIn the new hangout, man? Because I I tell you what, I'm not really into LinkedIn too much. I have a profile on there and stuff. I just never by the time I got to LinkedIn, I was already like, Oh man, you know, I got the the I go way back. I got the My Spaces, then I got the Facebooks, then everybody's like, You gotta get on this Twitter thing, you gotta get on this IG thing and this TikTok. I'm like, by the time LinkedIn got there, I'm like, another another social networking thing, you know. But it's I don't know, I guess it's useful. You like it.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:26

By the way, uh Steve's partner Federico calls him grandpa because of this.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:33

I I hate social media, man. I can't help it, but LinkedIn's different, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:38

Yeah, I I'm I I'm not a big social media fan person either, but you know, it's important to get out there. Um and and I think LinkedIn is great for business. Um for sure, great way of to network as well.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:51

Yeah, for sure, it really is. It's no, I you started a podcast, but hate social media, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:56

You have no mix.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:57

It's like I love podcasting. Uh now, um, um, I did I did um uh get a tenant because and what pushed them over to the top was they had a LinkedIn profile, you know, had the suit and tie on, stuff like that. And I was like, oh, okay. And they had decent credit, but uh there's other people with the problem the same credit. But I was like, No, I like that person. You know, they got their their job thing, they got their whole thing. That's like no other tenant I've ever ever interviewed had a LinkedIn profile, so that did push it over for me.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:27

Oh, nice! That's that's good to know. That's good advice, especially now that it's hard to get any type of rentals uh long term from not finding uh anything to buy to not being able to find anything to rent now, here in LA at least.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:43

Exactly, man. But in my LinkedIn profile, I'm I have a wife beater on, and you know, whatever. I'm just kidding. Well, thanks, Luca, for putting up with my my stupid sense of humor. And thanks for hopping on the show and telling us about Journey. It's it's uh sounds like a wonderful company, man. I'm so proud. I'm proud of you. I love I love it when people come on and they're excited about the thing that they're um they're talking about, and I can see it, man. And you're successful at it. With we a lot of people are using it and and they're looking and they're loving it. So I'm not trying to be a commercial for you, but uh yeah, I I like I like what you're doing and congratulations.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:15

I like the promotion.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:18

Don't stop believing, Luca. Don't stop believing.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:24

I love it. Well, cool. Well, thank you so much for having me. Yeah, thank you for having me on the show, and uh, it was a true pleasure. I really enjoyed the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:34

Yes, sir. We'll we'll be reaching out to you after the show.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:36

Yeah, and uh definitely be reaching out to you, and yeah, thanks for coming on and good luck to you.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:41

Thank you. Arrivederci, arrived, man, that was a good episode, man.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:52

I I'm really I really like that product. I really like that product. I really want to know more about it because I'm I'm getting to the point where I'm I'm gonna take on a few management properties, but uh I really rather like pass them off because like you know, I just passed off 10 units over to uh Hello Landing, and they just got me booked on like three of them. So I love them. They just basically take it off your hands and take eight percent and then but you get to tell them what you want to make, and they take their eight percent and give you the rest and your hands off.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:24

So then and that's for long-term booking, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:27

They're long term.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:28

Yeah, I just signed up with them. You told me on the last podcast.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:30

I just signed up with them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They gotta, yeah, that that one was a pretty good plug, especially on apartments. So, and then that lets me focus on the houses and grow the housing business. And like while we were talking, I'm actually just reached out to my VA because I'm about to see if he wants to, like, you know, see about him moving up in the company. Uh, but yeah, man, I'm uh that was a really good episode. Uh, I'm really liking the journey thing, so yeah, I'm definitely hopping into that management space a little bit just to have a few because I'm about to knock off like five arbitrages in our October. So gotta be prepared.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:03

Yeah, one interesting thing he said is speaking of houses. He said that you know, houses do better on VRBO, and then um one bedrooms do better on Airbnb, which that's you know, there's tons of one bedrooms on Airbnb, but I yeah, I didn't know that. I mean, I didn't know that too, I didn't know that too well that that houses do better on VRBO. I just didn't know.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:22

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:24

Oh no, if you really want to get all the way down into it, what bet does the best, what gets and I learned this from Mark Simpson? Booking.com really gets the most track traffic, like as far as like people coming in. The only thing is you have to worry about damn scammers. I just had one book my place, but I only suggest using booking.com if you're using the PMS. So like it was a $1,500 reservation. But if you're using a PMS and they don't pay, it comes through the PMS. So then Dow, you just go into Booking.com, say that they don't the car doesn't work, cancel it off, go to the next one. But you get a whole lot of traction on them. The the way to get the traction on there, you have to update all the little check boxes, get your content score up, and then people will start looking. But that new property I just launched, it fits right into Airbnb's algorithm because it has a pool and a volleyball court and a tennis court, and so you know, not all people are able to offer that, and now it boosts it. Same with my timeshares, it boosts it because of the amenities that it offers. So if you're gonna do houses and stuff, I would try to get closer to direct bookings because you're not catering to an algorithm, you're catering to your brand.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:32

Right, right. Good stuff, man. Good stuff. Another great episode 217 in the books. Where can people find us? Micah.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:39

Find us on IG at Live Let Thrive. Find us on, oh yeah, join our email list. Definitely join the email list. Subscribe below. We need some subscribers, subscribe below, rate us on iTunes, and our masterclass is coming up August 20th. You might want to go ahead and grab your tickets, it's in the link tree below. Uh, and yeah, we hope to see y'all there. And we have a big ass meetup coming up on August 23rd. Um, some guy called it the short-term rental route, Mount Rushmore. We're gonna have we're gonna have uh Julie George, Sean Rekovich, Sean Rakizic, um, Will Slickers, uh Noble, a bunch of people. We're all gonna be in Dallas August 23rd. We're gonna be in Sean's penthouse. He opened it up for us. Shout out to him for that. And uh, y'all definitely gotta make it out to that one because that's gonna be a really, really good night of just talking some shop. Really good meetup.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:31

So uh we've got you buy tickets to our masterclass, you get in free to this just Sean's penthouse for that big event. How about that? We'll have to see about that. Just go with it, just go with it, Micah.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:42

Yeah, about that. But yeah, sure. I'm gonna I ain't about to invite you in no man's house for free.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:51

We give him a cut, man. We get him a cut of the door. Come on, man.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:54

Yeah, yeah, we'll we'll talk to him about it. But yeah, man, it's it's been fun, fun ride. Y'all continue to listen to us, and uh by the way, uh, someone did get 50% off the masterclass by coming to our uh clubhouse calls 7:30. You gotta be on those clubhouse calls. Think someone got a 50% off. Two people, I think, got 50% off to the masterclass that we have. So uh definitely hop on those clubhouses at 7:30 Central Time every Wednesday. And uh we are out. Peace later.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:23

Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of Live Let Thrive. Be sure to tune in next week for all the latest in the world of Airbnb and all that entails. Bye-bye.