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Everybody Else is a podcast about the invisible people who make life happen. What began as conversations with behind-the-scenes builders in the music industry has grown into a broader exploration of how people think, work, and carry responsibility across industries and across disciplines. Hosted by Wes Luttrell, the show centers on thoughtful dialogue with creatives, leaders, and operators whose work often goes unseen but shapes the world we live in. New episodes streaming every Tuesday.
speaker-0 (00:01.292)
This is the Everybody Else Podcast.
speaker-1 (00:10.39)
Most of the authors of the human story are unnamed. Invisible contributors to the greatest story ever written. So who are the invisible people writing our chapter today? Because behind every great city, industry, movement, and way of thinking are people who dedicate their entire lives to work that'll go virtually unnoticed. Work that builds on where we've been, shapes where we are, and points us towards where we're going.
There are those in the spotlight, and then there's everybody else.
speaker-0 (00:54.606)
And so I haven't told you this, or maybe I told you this around December, but I can't remember. But we're going through a big rebrand at the business, kind like what my wife did at her spin studio this past year. And the reason for that is this year I fully stepped out of my family business, fully stepped out of everything I was doing last year, which last year was crazy. It was MBA, was family business, it was helping at the spin studio, and it was running Driftwood.
And this year, I you had a baby. And we had a baby. And this year, I just decided I wanted to stop pulling my hair out and quit everything except being a dad and except focusing on Driftwood. And so I've stepped out of the spin studio a little bit. My wife's fully running that and she's back in and she's happy and loving to do that.
And this year I've just stayed focused on the business. And with that, you know, we've talked a lot about growth and last year we went from eight properties to about 28. So we had about 20 properties grow in our portfolio from roughly May to the end of the year. Right now we're sitting right around 30. And our goal this year is to double that. And so get closer to 60. And I think it's absolutely achievable.
but with that growth, we started talking about, okay, is this just a, a Santa Barbara based business or does this have the opportunity to expand nationally and globally, et cetera. And I wanted to take it nationally and potentially globally one day. And so we started looking at the name and I partnered with a marketing agency to help refine the brand to fit more of like my vision and my goals, which was.
incorporating luxury and wellness into the vacation rental space. And we'll talk more about this. But with all those changes and initiatives and the vision for the business, when we started diving deeper, we found a conflict in the name with a company out of Florida. And so we decided to pivot the name, which is going to be launching in the next 30 to 90 days. We have a brand new official launch of the business on May 1st.
speaker-0 (03:14.382)
But in the next 30 to like 60 days, we're going to be informing our homeowners and our vendors. But we've landed on a new name and it's chosen.
speaker-1 (03:23.406)
chosen.
speaker-0 (03:24.608)
Yeah, and the story behind that was, is, you know, every detail, every amenity, every standardization and every home that we have is chosen to deliver a five star luxury experience. And I can talk a lot more about that.
speaker-1 (03:42.904)
Do you think that I read something the other day, I was just looking up you and just reading about your business. Is vacation rental management particularly a fruitful ground in your location because of people traveling there for vacation while also real estate being what it is, just the quality of real estate?
Do you see that when you think about it going, let's just say national first, is that who you're targeting areas like that across the country?
speaker-0 (04:22.306)
Great question. It's very fruitful ground for the time being. The thing about vacation rentals in this space is it gets very political. And there's a lot of zoning restrictions depending on where you're at. And every city, every municipality has their own set of laws. So the hierarchy, the way it kind of goes is the county has their set of laws wherever you're operating. From there, the city, they may...
then have their own set of laws within the county that supersede the county laws. And then even further, if you're in an HOA, the HOA and their laws supersede the city's. And so you have to know all layers in order to operate legally. And here in Santa Barbara County, if you're in the coastal zone, there's a lot of flexibility. But then when you get down to the city level, it gets a lot more...
strict and granular in terms of the processes to operate legally. So within Santa Barbara County, like my wife and I, we live in Goleta. In the city of Goleta, you can operate a vacation rental anywhere in the city of Goleta, mountainside of the freeway or the ocean side, and you have to have certain permits and application fees, et cetera. In the city of Santa Barbara, it's an extremely hot topic right now. And you can operate...
with some gray area in the coastal zone and up and down State Street in certain zones. And they're working on a whole new proposal right now to eliminate certain zones and add certain zones. If you're in county land, it's just the coastal zone. And as you get closer to Carpinteria, which is the south side of our county, then it's just four blocks. And so it's a very fruitful ground if you know where to operate in the city.
and in the county. And there's a lot of opportunity here. You know, there's other vacation rental companies like myself, but it's an area that is highly sought after and desirable for a variety of reasons, right? I mean, we're not a large city, so it's not LA. It's a place where people can escape and find mountains and the beach all in one city. It's a city that has very temperate weather, moderate weather all throughout the year, hovering right around 70 degrees.
speaker-0 (06:42.938)
and because of that, see, you know, 60 to 70 plus percent occupancy on a year round basis. And there's not many cities that operate that way. you know, places like park city or mammoth lakes or veil or Aspen, those places have really strong winters, okay summers, but then spring and fall dies down quite a bit. Right. Places like Miami.
Have incredible winters, but as starts to get really hot in Florida You know the summer times go down and so there's not many places that have that kind of occupancy And we are targeting and considering those other places. So San Diego is another one that Anywhere really along the California coast has a lot of opportunity Destined Florida has a lot of opportunity
And other cities like Park City, Aspen, those mountain towns we are also looking at. Santa Barbara and this area and where our brand is going is tailoring towards a luxury clientele. The operational processes we have and the direction we're heading is all tailoring towards luxury homes and luxury clientele from a guest perspective. And so we're targeting more luxury areas.
because of who we are in our brand and our direction.
speaker-1 (08:07.166)
It's interesting too, because as you're talking about, thinking my brother-in-law builds custom homes in Florida. He told me, I said, what do you really think makes you different from the others in town? And he's like, what makes custom homes difficult to build is understanding restrictions. So he said, just the fact of how hard it is to build a house and to know all of the requirements necessary and to be able to push things through to the finish line.
is actually the hardest part of building a house. So therefore there's only a few people who do it. And then we get, and he builds custom luxury homes. So he gets a client who says, I want you to make this easier for me. Therefore I'm willing to pay a premium because I know you can get the job done. And it's interesting that that sounds like you face the exact same scenario in your own way. Just knowing all of the requirements
all of the requirements to even make it happen feels like a huge value add to somebody who wants this but has a lot of other things going on or busy or multiple properties. I could see that being a total value add.
speaker-0 (09:20.044)
Absolutely. Yeah, a lot of our homeowners, know, are second homeowners or they live in town and inherited a property. And the thing about California is it's expensive in a lot of different ways. And when you inherit a property, it often gets reassessed for property taxes, which drives the number up. And, you know, if people want to keep the home, they have to find a solution. And a lot of people don't know what that solution is. And so you see homeowners look to rent their property long term.
Okay, let's find a renter who can get in here for 12 months. And we can do it furnished or unfurnished. A lot of times when you see unfurnished properties in longer term, you're seeing a lower price point. And so that's where we come in. I mean, we have the answer to how you can operate from like a legality perspective, the challenges or the ease of operating. I talked to a guy yesterday and literally two minutes from our house out here in the city of Goleta.
beautiful second home. And he had no idea how to get a vacation rental permit. And he thought that it was actually really challenging and that he couldn't do it. His property is beautiful and he could probably make three to $4,000 more per month taking home in his pocket than he could listing it long-term like what he was doing, but he just didn't know how. He didn't know how to operate it. He didn't know how to make it successful, but he also didn't have the time. He lives in a different city. This is his second home.
So, you know, that's where we come in and we can solve that problem.
speaker-1 (10:54.966)
You're having a layer of advising in the beginning as well. So I don't know anything about this. if I'm this guy, I own a second property, it's in my imagination, I call you, where do you begin? What is the process like? You start asking me, what?
speaker-0 (11:13.176)
Yeah, great question. So if he was to call me, yesterday was the other way around. you know, one aspect of my job is business development and I'm always reaching out to homeowners or real estate agents in town for referrals on properties that are in areas that we either operate now or want to operate. And so yesterday I reached out to him seeing that the property was listed online to rent. It was listed under
what we currently bring home for our four bedroom homeowners. It was a four bed, bath, had a beautiful pool and a lot of space for amenities. And he had it listed under than what we currently bring home for our homeowners. And so I simply reached out, told him what I do and the company that I own and operate and told him I'd be fairly confident that we could bring him home a higher value per month. And if he'd like to have coffee or chat, I'd be happy anytime. And he said to come over immediately.
So, you know, and so, and we'll get into that, but like, know, cause one of the things you were curious about was like what homeowners care about. And every homeowner cares a little differently about a lot of different things. But one of them is financial performance. And this guy, you could tell that was one of his biggest wants and biggest cares for him being having this be a second home, having this be an investment was it needs to financially perform well.
So the higher the return on investment, the higher ROI, the better for him. And so he didn't care whether it was long-term or short-term. you know, a lot of people, when they have these second homes, they're looking for professional management. They could do it themselves, right? And I'm always happy to guide and coach people on how to do it themselves, because in the process you learn how much work it is. And,
speaker-1 (13:06.904)
That's good.
speaker-0 (13:07.894)
A professional management company also gives a lot of peace to those around you. naturally vacation rentals, think, have a negative connotation sometimes. Airbnb house, it's just going to party, it's going to get thrashed, all those things that you hear in no matter what city you're in. And I think professional management companies, I don't think, I know professional management companies reduce that liability.
by having protocols in place, by having teams in place, by having rental agreements in place, et cetera, to minimize that risk.
speaker-1 (13:42.85)
Where did this start? How did you get into the first one? Where did it begin? You know a shit ton about this. This is great. Where did it begin?
speaker-0 (13:55.278)
Yeah, so it started three and a half years ago. I've always wanted to do my own thing. Always wanted to have my own company. I think sports gave me a drive to want to succeed. And so, you I was always looking for something. When I graduated college, I had that initial corporate job, was still looking for something and saw...
you know, online, some other people being successful in the Airbnb route. My grandfather also has a few short-term rentals in town, with a different manager, myself. And so it piqued my interest. so I took a short course, on how to manage Airbnbs. and it was a little different than what I do now, but, you know, I took that short course. It was like $6,000. I was 21 years old. I remember looking at my wife and saying, what the hell did I just do? You know?
just blew like months of savings at that point in time, right? Yeah. And I didn't really know what to do with it. So after I finished the course, I was like, okay, well, we need to, you know, need to work to make that money back somehow. So I took what I learned in the course and applied it to a property in town, reached out to 50 people and got probably one yes. that was called...
speaker-1 (15:13.614)
Is that you already knew or was this cold call? Nice.
speaker-0 (15:15.534)
Cold calls. Yeah, and the concept was called Airbnb arbitrage. And the idea is I partner with homeowners who are renting out their property. And then we have a sublease agreement that allows me to operate it as an Airbnb. And so if you're a homeowner, Wes, and you're saying, you know, I'm going to rent out my three bedroom house for $5,000, I come in, I'll say, I'll pay you $6,000 if you let me operate it as an Airbnb with a sublease.
Some homeowners say yes, some homeowners say no, right? It depends what they care about. And so one homeowner said yes. I fully furnished that property, dropped another $20,000 on first month rent, deposit, all the furniture and everything. My wife and I were there till midnight for five days straight, setting up this Airbnb before we go to Iceland on this trip together. And it was the craziest thing in the world. And...
We take off, the place is up and running. I have a cleaner in place to handle it, have keypads, all the communication. And we start getting bookings. And after six months of doing that, you know, I had made all my money back. The home was performing well. Things were going really smooth. That was a crazy time in my life though, because I was trying to save as much money as possible. And the home was about 20 minutes away.
And so I would clean myself. I haven't told many people this. I would run out there after reservations and I'd go clean the property myself to save 200 bucks per reservation. And I'll never do that again. Like that job in itself is so challenging and so much work, but I would get out there and do it.
speaker-1 (17:02.734)
Thank God you did though, dude. It was like serving in the business before you managed it or whatever.
speaker-0 (17:09.966)
it's in the trenches. Like I'd go out there on my lunch break, because had a full-time job. So I go out there on my lunch break, clean, try to get everything done, then rush back to like my family business. It was crazy. But I did that for six months and then the laws changed and I wasn't able to operate that anymore legally. And so I found a longer term tenant, which was a polo player. It lined up with polo season out here, which now we're a huge affiliate in the polo group.
Um, as in, yes, as in Driftwood is we're housing about 15 players every year. We're looking to be a sponsor. Uh, we're very, very affiliated with the program here. Um, and it always runs from May to September 1st. So it's really cool. We're becoming a bigger presence in that community, which is our target clientele. Um, so how's the polo player? Um, then I found another tenant for more of like a long-term. These were 30 plus days, which was legal.
speaker-1 (17:40.942)
Driftwood is
speaker-0 (18:10.208)
And eventually I just didn't want to do that anymore. It got a little, I was running out there for different reasons. and it was also far away. It was about 20 minutes away. and which, which isn't that far in the grand scheme of things, but I wanted to get back into the vacation rental space where there was more, of a higher return on investment for me. And so I left the homeowner. I said, Hey, you know, I found a new tenant for you.
at a higher price than what I was paying and we left on great terms. And so, and we still have a great relationship. So after that, now I'm getting into the, to answer your question, Wes, is after that, sat on things for a few months. didn't really know what to do. I'd made all my money back. and I was just trying to figure out like next steps and I found a property, in a, in a town called Summerland, which is about 20 minutes away as well. not far from where I was operating before.
And I, through that process, six months, I had really learned how to operate an Airbnb from all aspects, right? And I'd also learned numbers. So I had a two bedroom, one bath, two bedroom, one and a half bath condo that I was doing for six months. And we were bringing in around six to 6,500 a month. I was taking that home. I saw a three bedroom home in a town called Summerlin that I you could operate legally. And they had it listed for 4,800.
And I approached the homeowner, it was a cold call. And I just said, you know, hey, my name's Aidan. operate and manage Airbnbs in town. And I'd love to manage your property. I think can bring you home more money on a monthly basis than what you're asking. And she called me and I showed up and I got a little tour of the place. And she said, you know, we just fired our previous manager. We weren't even bringing in 4,800 a month. So...
you know, what makes you different? Why do you think you can do this? And I just kind of bullshitted my way in. I didn't really know at that point in time, but I said, you know, I'm going to work really hard and we'll make it happen. And at that point, after those six months, and this is a key point, when I had operated my own Airbnb, my account had achieved super host status. And in Airbnb, there's super host, in VRBO, there's premier host. Those are really the two.
speaker-0 (20:31.986)
and it takes three months of time to achieve that status. have to certain amount of five star reviews, you have to have a certain response rate.
speaker-1 (20:43.094)
And like I'm assuming like just the consistency of that in a short period of time.
speaker-0 (20:50.21)
Yeah, and you have to have a certain amount of bookings during that timeframe. So if you achieve that status, you then get super host status and it gives you search engine optimization. So when Wes goes to look at Airbnbs in Santa Barbara, ours are going to pop up higher up than others because we have that status. So I leveraged that. I said, you we have this status. If you onboard into our account, you'll immediately get a higher return on investment.
The first two months, I made the homeowner $6,000 instead of the $4,800 that they had listed. And he said, you know what? We're going to give you all seven of our properties. went from one to seven.
speaker-1 (21:30.68)
Did you know they had seven? No idea. Additional ones? Okay.
speaker-0 (21:32.386)
I had no idea. So from what went from one to seven in a very short timeframe and sat on those and did those for about a year and a half. And it was not a huge chunk of my time really. And it was more of a side hustle at that point at the end of the year and a half, which was the end of 2024. did the same thing, cold called, reached out to somebody, got property number eight.
And then in 2025, it's scaled from eight to 28. And word of mouth referrals, reaching out to a few people, but really word of mouth referrals for that entire year.
speaker-1 (22:13.834)
It's still the most powerful marketing. I was at a conference yesterday and that's what one of the speakers said, no matter what we're talking about word of mouth is still the most powerful marketing. When you went from one to seven, did you already have systems in place that allowed you to scale immediately to seven properties or did you have to then set up the systems that would scale in terms of cleaning and
your routine of answering messages and all these things that, you know, that went seven times. How did you meet that with your systems?
speaker-0 (22:53.982)
Yeah, great question. That forced a change immediately. Like when you have one property, it's pretty easy, right? You can list it on different channels separately. Airbnb, VRBO, Google Vacation Rounds, whatever you want to do. You can list them separately. You can link the calendars. It's pretty simple. When you have seven, you need a new system. You need new way to link all these calendars into one to make changes in one platform and then post it and publish it on all of them.
And so we invested at that point into HostAway, which was our first property management system. And that helped us see all the calendars in one app on one website, helped us make changes internally on one app, one website that will publish to all of them. And in the process, the homeowner made us better. He required certain things like insurances and liability. And so we got all those things, which we still have today, security blankets, more or less.
So that helped us operate a little bit more efficiently. already had my cleaner in place, which was a big help and which is a huge aspect of the job. and your team. And so that was a big one, just the property management system alone, which now that we're at 30 homes, we're about to change. And May 1st is the, is the launch of our new business and our new website and our new company name and everything. And it's also the launch of our new property management system.
And now that I've gotten bigger, I've learned that I need more in that system and the complexity of it has changed. And one of the biggest hurdles with having around 30 properties is accounting. In a short-term rental business, you know, we charge a little higher than long-term rental managers. But in a given week, we might have 40 reservations that are checking in and checking out. And a long-term property manager,
When they set leases or write leases, you might deal with a tenant in the beginning and you might deal with them if there are problems during the duration of their lease. Hopefully you don't, but then you might just deal with them at the end. So if it's a 12 month lease, you may not be doing that much in those 12 months. On the short-term rental side, we're dealing with 40 different reservations in a given week, usually at minimum. And with that,
speaker-0 (25:17.186)
You know, we handle all the restocking, we handle all the licensing and permitting, we handle the tax remittance, we handle the property maintenance and inspections, we handle coordination of cleaning teams and handymen, all of that for every reservation every week. And our team is in there doing home inspections after every reservation, our cleaners are in there, we're talking after every reservation, analyzing all of their inspections that they're sending me with photos.
So it's a big feat. It's a big job. And now with the accounting portion, since we purchase pretty much everything for all of our properties in terms of restocking, we found a new property management system that has a better system for that.
speaker-1 (26:02.446)
When you talk about, so you're a solo entrepreneur and you talk about we, are you saying the handyman and then the cleaning personnel, these are all the people that you're currently working with, but when it comes to you and Chosen, we'll just go ahead and skip ahead. When it comes to the next phase of your own internal business development,
What does that look like as the business grows? Is that you adding like people on, know, coordinators, partners? How does that look in terms of scaling your business?
speaker-0 (26:42.798)
It's a great question. So I have three people on my team, including me. So internally, chosen, we employ two other people. One of them is a home inspector who does property inspections, basic repairs and maintenance, and helps with some back end operations like ordering things, procurement, ordering toilet paper, paper towels, ziplocs, aluminum foil, olive oil, all the things that we provide.
and have to restock after every reservation. So I have one guy, he's a fresh college grad, and he works part-time, but it's becoming pretty close to full-time. And then I have one other assistant. She's my market, well, she's my marketing manager. She's a senior in college here at UCSB, and she just accepted a full-time offer to come on this summer. so building out the team. Last year, I was doing it all alone, didn't have either of them.
I did have Callie, who's my marketing manager, but I didn't have Connor. And it was really clear that I needed a home inspector. A lot of issues that were happening, you know, and in truth, a lot of reservations are on the weekend. People check in at 4 PM, they check out at 10 AM. And so there was a lot of fires having to be put out on the weekends, especially on Friday nights. Someone checks into a property and something's wrong. And
Those fires were happening because I wasn't taking the proactive step of doing these home inspections to make sure that all the light bulbs are working, that the TVs are working, that the hot water is running in every part of the home, that the washer and dryer are working. All of these things that we now check. And when I brought him on, the reviews went up and the problems went down. And
It's made me realize that we always need somebody like him and as we grow, we're going to need more of him. So the team itself is grown a little bit since just December. We now have the home inspector and our marketing manager is going to come on full time and she is going to be more or less second in command for the property management side of things and learning everything that I do. In addition to doing a lot of marketing for us, which we're ramping up.
speaker-0 (29:05.038)
I mean, immensely given the new brand and direction.
speaker-1 (29:08.622)
It's a real side note. I want to highlight like when you talk about inspecting, setting up proactive steps to increase quality, basically quality of service at the level of prior to any fires coming up. This is, it's so interesting because this is something I've been thinking a lot about. I was at a conference yesterday and I'm talking to a local manufacturing company that
We were discussing at the table what is one thing that has changed recently in recent time that has improved the quality of, or like improved the business. And one person said baking quality into the process. And they talked about, never used to do that. would always be something would be sent back and we'd have to fix it. Now we all inspect things before it ever leaves the door. And I said, that's so interesting. I was just reading about Toyota, the car manufacturer, how
in the very beginning, the philosophy was baked in that the reason that Toyota's looms, their automatic looms that made fabric before they made cars, the reason they were so quality is because the manufacturing steps, the quality was checked all throughout the process, not at the end. They didn't visit at the end and quality control and go back. was every step had a quality control component.
And that's still how the manufacturer works up here in Southern Indiana with the assembly line up here. At any point, any team member on the assembly line can stop the assembly line and to address a problem. It doesn't skip that phase. So I think that you incorporating that factor into your operations, I can see how impactful that is and how that alone is a key ingredient for growing.
speaker-0 (31:00.054)
Absolutely. Yeah, mean quality built in everything makes such a difference. mean one of our I'd say it's one of our differentiators, you know, I mean We've we've acquired eight or nine of our homes from previous management companies who have failed to adhere to quality and That's an aspect of a job. That's something that the homeowners look for that's one of the things that they care about outside of financial performance is Quality in their home
and it being taken care of. And in return, that leads to higher financial performance. If you're taking care of the property, if you're doing all the right things, you're going to achieve higher reviews. You're going to be able to increase your prices based on those higher reviews and demand, and in turn, have a higher ROI. But if you're not doing those things, you're getting poor reviews, your listing's going down, and the homeowner's not happy.
speaker-1 (31:51.05)
And I would think to myself too, if you guys do a good job on my first experience and I am prone to come back to that place or if I see another spot managed by Chosen, I immediately associate it with my quality of experience. Because if you think about just going on vacation to a new place, anything that, well not always, but I think for myself, we like to go to places where we are.
reassured that we know we're gonna get a good experience because we've also been to places where we're like we walk in like what the hell is this? Yeah, this is not what we thought we were getting or this is behind someone's Fucking garage and their dog is won't leave us alone or you know something like that. I can see this the quality of the brand goes up
speaker-0 (32:32.366)
I
Yeah, and it's a double-edged sword, you know? If you make a mistake, at the same time, somebody could say, I'm never standing at a chosen property again, right? And that's the last thing you want. So if you're put your name on something, you better stand behind it. And I think that that's something that has become increasingly important to me. Like I mentioned in the beginning, the name chosen, right? Every detail, every inventive, everything about it is chosen. And we're taking that to the most extreme level, down to why do we have these linens?
Why is this the hand soap that we choose? Why are these the towels that we choose? And we're going to market and brand that. And so right now we're in the process of deciding all of those things, right? Why are all these things in our home? It's going to have a reason, right? And it's all tied to the differentiator in our business, which is wellness. And I can talk a lot more about that, but that is, that is our biggest differentiator in the market right now.
speaker-1 (33:30.114)
That is a through line of the people who I know you and your family to be, your small family, that you guys radiate wellness and coming to your house to visit. What are we doing? We're getting in the ice bath. We're getting in the sauna. We're going to spin classes. We're eating at nice places. It's not just a branding.
stance, is your actual way of life. And I think that is such a strong, just position to hold in your life. And the name chosen to me, like when you say it, I think intention, intention and all those different layers, builds such a strong, just strong thing.
speaker-0 (34:18.722)
Yeah, and we want to bring that to all aspects of what we do and where we operate and our goal is to grow. So the wellness portion, we live and breathe it, but that's, mainly from my wife. She opened a spin studio here in town and she became a health coach. And so a lot of our back end in our life changed. We work out.
with the business several times a week. We eat extremely healthy because of what you learned at being a health coach. And the things that I love and that we do at the SPIN Studio, I wanted to incorporate into my business if there was an opportunity. And when you join a boutique fitness studio, you join for a lot of reasons, but one of them is community and being part of a group that will be there for you in the ups and the downs.
that will always show up and that will always help push you to your limits from a physical fitness standpoint. And community is something that I really wanted to bring to our homeowners. And so we had an amazing Christmas party for the first time in December. This year, we're gonna be hosting several dinners with clients, potential clients, and other agents in town where we can bring everybody together that other companies aren't doing. So communists...
Community was a big one, but so was wellness, right? And when you look up luxury vacation rental companies, it's probably a hundred of them, Wes. I mean, and there's several here in Santa Barbara. And what does luxury like vacation rental mean? A lot of what other people promote is bringing five-star hospitality to vacation rentals in terms of how you do your beds, in terms of the linens, the towels.
maybe robes, other little amenities that five-star hotels have. Yeah. Luxury vacation rental companies take that and bring them to vacation rentals. Yes. I'm not different in doing that. Now, what does that do? That puts you into the luxury category. So if you're doing those things, if you're holding your team to those standards for how we make our beds, how we present our towels, how we go down and roll the paper towels and how they look on arrival.
speaker-0 (36:35.456)
All of those things put you into that luxury category. But for me, the differentiator in our business in chosen is wellness. And so what does that mean? Right. That for us, and we're still working through this, you know, we're actually, we're in the heat of it right now. but, you're getting me at an interesting time, but may 1st we'll have it all dialed in. but for us has come down to four pillars and we've identified like those four wellness.
pillars that are differentiators and one of them is the welcome gift. So right now at any of our Airbnbs when someone walks in they get a bottle of wine, they get two for one wine tasting vouchers and they get this little black card that we call the Driftwood Club black card. That card they can take to numerous places around town and get a discount or free items at shops. So
There's a coffee shop near Summerlin. They give all of our guests 10 % off whenever somebody presents that card. There's a bikini factory if people want to go shopping, 10 % off there. Any of them can ride for free at our spin studio when they present that card, cetera. That's kind of bringing the community and the local partnerships out in what we do also. But pillar number one is like our wellness gift. And so we're adding on to that. They will get the bottle of wine, but now they're going to get a branded tote bag.
They may get a face roller, organic nuts or juices on arrival. We're still figuring that out. The differentiator number two for our pillars is our wellness amenities. And so these are items that us has chosen as the property management company will own and install at all of our properties. And that will include things like red light lamps, yoga mats, a little gym corner, massage guns, robes.
Wellness amenities that we're going to add into every single one of our properties that guests can expect to every single one of our properties. The third one are wellness standardizations, which is very similar to the luxury five-star experience from hospitality. We want to make sure that all of our linens are high thread count, that our pillows are a certain brand, that our towels are a certain brand, that our soaps are organic and come from a certain brand.
speaker-0 (38:53.858)
hypoallergenic, unscented laundry detergents, things like that. Those are all things that will be at all of our properties. And we call those like wellness standardizations. And then the fourth one, our wellness partners. so, you know, in the hospitality space, everything's trending wellness. And when you go to hotel, they're now offering, you know, they have gyms, they have spas. Some of them offer saunas and cold plunges and things like that.
All of our guests are going to get access to our wife's, my wife's spin studio. So free gym access. And then we've partnered with a local company in town that has saunas and cold plunges. And any of our guests can go visit those as well. So those are the four like pillars is the gift, the amenities, the standardizations and the partnerships. And then we have add-ons. And so those add-ons are massage therapists, personal trainers, in-home facials.
And we're still building that out. But right now, any guest can book a massage therapist to come to the Airbnb, come to the vacation rental and get a two hour massage. They can do the same thing for a personal trainer, same thing for a facial. So we call those add-on services that guests can purchase at the time of booking or before their stay. But nobody in the vacation rental space is leaning into wellness and
All of it is trending across all hospitality right now except vacation rentals. And so we're trying to be the first brand that does that.
speaker-1 (40:28.29)
Why do you think that is? Why do you think other people aren't either aware of it the way that you are or aren't? Do you think it's hard and it takes maybe an enthusiasm and a passion for wellness to be able to bake it into the ingredients? Or do you think it's a lack of awareness generally that this isn't happening in the vacation rental spot?
speaker-0 (40:52.11)
think it's a little bit of both. I think that property management companies at times fail to look for improvements across the board in their properties. I think that a lot of property managers, a lot of vacation rental managers are looking to take care of the home, but not necessarily improve aspects of the home. And I see that pretty often. And I get that feedback often is that, know, property management companies are doing the bare minimum. They're in it for the money. They just want the place to be a shell.
that can operate. And we're taking that to the next level, right? And we feel that the upfront capital we're putting in, in terms of time, in terms of marketing, in terms of purchasing these amenities, owning and installing them, will yield a higher return on investment for our homeowners and attract more homeowners into a space that there's really not, doesn't exist currently. So I would say that there's a lack of knowledge in
wanting to bring that into the vacation rental space, a lack of commitment from certain companies. And I think, you know, at the end of the day, I think a lot of management companies too, lean into homeowners to jump on this for their own property. Whereas we're supplying the idea, the concept and the strategy from the beginning. And what I mean by that is if a homeowner wants to go buy a jacuzzi for their property, a lot of management companies will put that on them.
And we supply homeowners with the data to support that and the option to support that. So part of our wellness program, you know, on, on average, Jacuzzi is alone since they have the most data and saunas are cold and cold plunges are pretty new to the market. Jacuzzi is on average add 30 % to your nightly rate. And when we were running the data here this past month to build one of our marketing flyers, it was a, it was double.
The nightly rate was double when the home had a jacuzzi in the Santa Barbara market. And so if your home was $500 per night, if you had a jacuzzi, you were seeing a thousand dollars per night. And average RevPAR, they call it revenue per available reservation. It's a big term in this industry. It was double as well. And so what that means is that's the, that's just the take home for every homeowner. So if you're seeing double the take home, double your nightly rates by having this amenity.
speaker-0 (43:20.706)
Why would you not consider it? Right. And, and the pushback is the upfront costs. All right. It's five to seven grand to put a jacuzzi in a new one. And so we have an offer at our business where we'll, we'll do that. We'll actually buy the homeowner a jacuzzi, a sauna or a cold plunge. And in return, we asked for a longer commitment. So, you know, our property management agreement says it's six months with a 60 day cancellation policy. So it's more or less eight months.
If homeowners opt into this program, we ask for two years and it's a big commitment, but every homeowner is different, right? So if you're in it for the long term and it's an investment property, we've had homeowners consider it. We haven't had homeowners jump on it yet, but we're still also building it out. But we provide that opportunity for our team and for our homeowners in our community. this year, as I built out our team,
You know, one thing we want to do is just provide more tell of our homeowners, more data, more newsletters on what's going on, more marketing, more opportunities for their home. And we've slowly been able to do that. About two weeks ago, we got approved by Marriott Home and Villas. And so it's another distribution channel like Airbnb where we can market and put our homes on different platforms. So we're onboarding and almost done there.
And so, yeah, it's just a lot of, we're giving our homeowners that opportunity to have their homes succeed, to incorporate wellness into their home, to incorporate community. And in return, all of our homeowners get access to those things. Right. So a lot of the reason people choose vacation rentals, the man, the guy I was talking to last night literally said it was that they want the flexibility to see their home or visit their home. So Santa Barbara is beautiful. Right. And, and,
People love it and they have a home here for a reason. It's not to never use it. Yeah. And some people it is, but a lot of people, they do want to come for a couple of times a year or send their family members for a couple of times a year. When you're locked into a long-term lease with a tenant, you can't do that. You can't pop down for the weekend or have your brother come visit for the weekend. And that flexibility is what we can offer and it's attractive in the short-term market.
speaker-0 (45:45.228)
If you can make more money going short term, if you can have your property taken care of, if you can benefit from all these wellness amenities and you have that flexibility, a lot of people consider it. And there's no saturation here in the market. There's opportunities for several companies to operate like we are now. We have 30 homes. Some of our competitors have a hundred, some have 80, some have 50.
I think the biggest risk overall is that zoning restriction. And that's why we were open to expanding and want to expand. know, if the, if the bourbon trail over in your neck of the woods, like becomes, I mean, it is a hot market. and one that I've looked at, you know, last year, not one I'm really looking at now, but it is like an, and growing market. you know, if that, that's always an area of opportunity too. So.
We're looking to expand to reduce our risk overall. Other cities, other counties don't have these zoning restrictions that California has. And, know, that's California in a nutshell.
speaker-1 (46:53.838)
Yeah. So switching directions, I want to ask you, you're a very busy person. You've also are, you are a father, you're a husband. Your wife owns a, run, you guys own and your wife runs a entire studio, spin studio. And so tell me how has your life changed having those
having those additional responsibilities and commitments as a man and then adding this business, how do you think about time? How do you think about your, you know, the trajectory of your life, just how things are unfolding? What has really changed this last year if you zoomed out and saw yourself?
speaker-0 (47:44.694)
Yeah, that's a great question. And one, think that I've been thinking about a lot, right? Last year, I was doing so many different things. And now that I'm doing one thing, you know, it makes you think, how am I going to spend my time? I entered into a phase of life where I'm now like now fully an entrepreneur, no family business, no schooling, anything like that. And being an entrepreneur, as you know,
has its pros and cons, right? Hard to turn off the off switch. You're always thinking about work. Your success comes down to the work that you put in. At the same time, you have your own schedule, your own flexibility. You could say, I'm not working anymore at noon, and you could take the whole day off. And so it's become like a balance of that. And right now, right now that I'm in this growth phase and building this new brand and company, I've been working more than I ever have.
12 plus hour days. But having a baby's changed that, you know, and for, for if there's a week where I have my head down and I'm working nonstop, having a baby has really slowed my life down. And where it's slowed my life down is in the mornings and the evenings the most. I'm not as rushed to go off to work right now. And I love every aspect of that. I can, I can go into work whenever I want.
But the mornings with Indy, our daughter, are the best. She's in a great mood. She's happy and it's such a special time. So I try to be here for that. And I usually go to work at eight o'clock if she wakes up at 6 37. I get a really good hour of time with her. And then in the evenings, I always make sure I'm home by five. And it's, you know, it's really not that much time if you think about it, because right now she's actually going down at seven. And so.
One hour in the morning, two hours at night. That's three hours of my day that I get with her during the week. it's really not much time at the end of the day. but right now I feel it's most important to be present as much as I can, but build this business up as big as I can. So that 10 years from now, we're not worrying about any finance financial, crisis in our lives. And then I can be there for.
speaker-0 (50:10.976)
all the soccer games, all the horseback riding, everything we have ahead in our lives, I feel like the time to put in is right now. And so I've been working long days, but I try to be here as much as I possibly can, especially in the mornings and the evenings.
speaker-1 (50:29.31)
I think even, I mean, the fact that you carry with you the awareness of how little time you do have, I can only assume that that calls you to be more present when you do have the time together. Because, you know, I think it's the duality that any person who's ambitious and then also sees opportunity and also has already experiencing success, but then has a young family, it's so easy to just
tip it, tip the scale and say, we're going for this. And then just totally just dismiss this. Like I'll get back to this, but this is, you don't get another chance at this one with the kids. You know, this is it at one time. And then I'll, I mean, this is where so many people, you know, have historically traded off that for this. And then this is hugely successful. And then they have to figure out how the hell they're going to be a parent and the kids older. So I think that,
You know, it is a challenge, but when you accept the challenge responsibly and with full commitment, I think that's the best that a person can do.
speaker-0 (51:37.858)
Yeah. And that's, love that you just said that the best you could do because you and your wife are in a similar position to me and my wife, where we both have like independent careers and businesses that we're running and you, you, you do the best you could do. And I've, Hunter and I, my wife, we talk about that all the time, right? Because she runs a business on her own, just like I am, but at the same time, she's also being a mom and being
present more than I am with our daughter. And so she has more time here than I have here currently. And I see her struggle with it, right? And we talk about that. It's always, you just got to do the best you can. And you know, we have some help throughout the week, which is really helpful for her to be able to focus on her business and step out. But for me, I've just felt that now is the time more than ever.
to try to build this business as much as I can so that 10 years from now, I'm even more present than I am now. But it's such a balance and it's challenging all the time. And when I have longer days, you feel so bad for not being home longer. it's something you think about every day. Ideally, those three hours, more or less, I get with my daughter currently.
eats at you every day, because it's only three hours, right? And it's really not that much time. So it's something I'm always thinking about. And it's a, it's a, it's a struggle of balance.
speaker-1 (53:09.568)
It is, but at the same time, three hours of eye contact is more valuable than six hours of you unfulfilled sitting on the damn couch and the kids trying to get your attention. You're like, just leave me alone. It's too much stress for you to be loud right now. mean, there's, you know what I mean? I think that that trade off is, and me and Chloe have talked about this so much in our lives that
We would rather have the smaller quality moments and sort of the unconventional life where we are in pursuit of that which we desire and sometimes, you know, that comes with sacrifices. At the same time, we would rather our kids see parents who pursue things that, you know,
pursue their dreams, that pursue their callings. We would rather have kids who grow up to see that than parents, even if we're not around as much or days are long, or sometimes it's like, you know, like last night I had a meeting, I get home at seven, Chloe's like, I got a call and she closes the door and hops on a call. I immediately get the kids out of the bath and then I haven't talked to Chloe yet and I'm trying to eat and then the kids want a snack. And then, you know, it's like,
Sometimes those nights are crazy and they're like two hours long, but I would rather that than an additional life of seeking comfort, especially because we're you know, late 20s, early 30s.
speaker-0 (54:48.446)
Absolutely, Yeah, it's constant balance. And I think having a strong relationship with your partner is really key. It's key. know, it's key to be there for each other, to understand that every each person has long days in different ways. And just being there for support, I think that that's like one of most important things. Having a good partner changes everything.