How I Went From Broke to $7 Million With An Airbnb Business

0:00:05 Alright, so Sean, I wanted to have Isaac on because we talk a lot about making money on this podcast
0:00:10 But I’ve been with Isaac at his home a bunch. I’ve got to know him and he’s inspired me that
0:00:15 To believe that like money isn’t the only reason for business. It’s about like kind of craftsmanship
0:00:19 It’s about like creating like your little like corner of the universe and into your vision
0:00:23 And I wanted to have him on the pod because I think he’s different than a lot of the guests that we’ve had on here
0:00:25 But let me explain how I met Isaac
0:00:31 I saw that he had this amazing website for his Airbnb and it said Isaac French owns this place
0:00:39 He’s a former accountant turned real estate mogul, but he’s really most passionate about painting and being an artist and I was like
0:00:41 This kid’s the most interesting person I’ve ever read about
0:00:47 What the hell and so I just called him and we became friends on the phone and then eventually met up in real life
0:00:50 And he’s kind of blow my mind as I’ve got to know
0:00:52 I
0:01:01 So when I met Isaac I met him in a business context
0:01:07 He had this vibe where he was like, oh like no the right way to do this business is doing this this admits
0:01:11 When you say you met him in a business context, what context did you meet him in the same?
0:01:16 Can I tell a tiny story here about that? Yeah? Yeah, so shout out Zach. He’s cool
0:01:20 He introduced us he introduced me to Sam at least I had no idea who Sam was but
0:01:24 Basically, I started texting this guy named Sam and I was like I couldn’t really give a rip
0:01:28 I had just built Live Oak Lake which I’ll get to in just a second and like here’s this guy Sam
0:01:33 Who’s some business moguls what Zach told me and so I started texting him and he’s like, oh, this is super cool
0:01:37 You know whatever I told him all my numbers and then he was the next morning
0:01:41 He was like, hey, I’m about to make a post on Twitter. You should join so I’ll shout you out
0:01:46 I was like, I don’t have Twitter. That’s a total waste of time. Good luck basically and he’s like, no
0:01:48 You should really make a post that you should make an account and it’s like no whatever
0:01:53 So he made this post that kind of blew up. It got like millions of views so halfway through that process
0:01:58 I was like, oh, maybe I should go ahead and join this and the rest is history because like I actually and I’d love to
0:02:04 Talk about that but I absolutely love the ability to connect with other people online and share what I’m all about
0:02:08 But that was my introduction to Sam. It was not as a fanboy
0:02:11 It was just like this random dude on the internet who started texting me about business
0:02:14 and his numbers Sean
0:02:20 They’ll blow you away. I’m ready to be blown away. Go ahead. What is it? Can you can you say the numbers?
0:02:25 Yeah, yeah, so let me just tell you a quick story live oak lake if that’s alright because it’s it’s pretty cool
0:02:30 So I was a bookkeeper and I had this dream. I was 24 years old just got married
0:02:33 I had this dream to create this like immersive
0:02:36 cohesively designed
0:02:40 Village of tiny homes in Texas. I didn’t really have terminology for it
0:02:45 I just had it’s really hard to articulate because I just had this vision for what it would feel like and I put
0:02:48 an emphasis on feel because that’s it was like a vibe I wanted to create and
0:02:53 People started laughing at me like you’re crazy and I started looking for land for like three months one morning
0:02:56 I wake up open up Zillow and there’s this five acre like
0:03:01 Jungle down the road for me that I driven past probably a hundred times but never thought anything of
0:03:04 But it had this little cow pond in the middle
0:03:05 So I was like hmm
0:03:09 I should check that out drove over and when I walked on the property. I literally got goosebumps
0:03:12 I was like this is the place to create to realize this dream
0:03:19 Met the realtor got it under contract. I had nineteen thousand dollars of savings to my name again 24
0:03:26 Was not bankable by any standards had experience in construction. So my dad was a plumber general contractor
0:03:30 I grew up with that experience. I’ve always been an artist. I’ve always loved design
0:03:33 So how did you get under contract? Would you if you didn’t have any money?
0:03:35 What would you pay to put it under contract?
0:03:37 I paid like two thousand dollars of earnest money
0:03:41 But to close with cash in 30 days because it was a super competitive market
0:03:46 This was 2021 in Texas people were flocking here and I knew this property
0:03:50 I mean, I was there within hours of when it was listed and I knew it would have been gone by the end of that day
0:03:54 So I was like, I’m gonna get under contract with the due diligence period and then I’ll figure this out
0:04:00 All right, let’s take a quick break because I want to talk to you about some new stuff that HubSpot has now
0:04:04 They let me freestyle this ad here. So I’m gonna actually tell you what I think is interesting
0:04:09 So they have this thing called the false spotlight showing all the new features that they released in the last few months
0:04:12 And the ones that stood out to me were breeze intelligence
0:04:16 I don’t know if you’ve seen this but if you’re in HubSpot and you have let’s say a customer there
0:04:18 You can just basically add
0:04:24 Intelligence to that customer the estimated revenue for that company how many employees it has maybe their email address or their location
0:04:26 If they’ve ever visited your page or not
0:04:32 And so you can enrich all of your data automatically with one click using this thing called breeze intelligence
0:04:37 They actually acquired a really cool company called clear bit and it’s become breeze, which is great because now it’s built in
0:04:40 I always hated using two different tools to try to do this now
0:04:45 It’s all in one place and so all the data you had about your customers now just got smarter
0:04:46 So check it out
0:04:49 You can actually see all the stuff they released through the cool website go to hubspot.com
0:04:54 Slash spotlight to see them all and get the demos yourself back to this episode
0:04:58 How much would you need at the end of that period to have come up with?
0:05:03 $133,000 was the price of the property which was a really good deal to it for five acres
0:05:09 So you just make this clear you have $19,000 you put $2,000 down to lock this up
0:05:14 You now have I forgot how many you said days you said 30 69 30 days like that 30 days where you’re like
0:05:18 I am I have faith that I will come up with another hundred thirty thousand dollars
0:05:23 That I’ve never seen before in the next 30 days. Of course. Why would I not?
0:05:27 Well, you got to have conviction you got to believe in yourself if you expect anybody else to believe in you
0:05:32 And I did have a list of people that are like, yeah, these people are I’m gonna find somebody to make this dream work
0:05:38 So I started calling people. Well, my brothers and my dad who have this small general contracting company
0:05:41 Which is what I’d grown up working. They didn’t have the cash either
0:05:43 But they had access to a line of credit
0:05:48 So my hope was that I could get a hard money loan from them to buy the land to get the
0:05:53 20% of whatever the bank wouldn’t loan me and then pay it back once I could refinance the property
0:06:00 So I was already, you know, really banking a little overconfident really banking on my abilities to deliver this just crazy property
0:06:04 That would appraise at really high values. So, okay, I called them up and they’re like, no
0:06:05 We don’t want to give you a hard money loan
0:06:09 We want equity in that because we like the idea and we’ll loan you the money through our line of credit
0:06:16 So great. I gave them just handshake deal that day 40% equity and they were gonna help me with the difference of whatever
0:06:21 But then of course, I was gonna have to find a loan and you know, go through all the rigor moral of that
0:06:25 So we get under contract and literally I hit the ground running. So
0:06:29 The next day well the first three days
0:06:34 I spent on the phone with banks like hitting up every local bank
0:06:39 I possibly could and then also walking the property all by myself with no phones or anything
0:06:44 just sort of like letting the land speak to me about how to build this this little micro resort and
0:06:52 Figuring out like how each cabin would be positioned and like being a little maniacal about the details of that because I’m a little little bit
0:06:54 OCD as a perfectionist. So
0:06:56 Finally, I got a bank that’s like they were like, no, no
0:07:00 I mean literally you could imagine 24 year old kid rolling their eyes
0:07:04 But I found the local bank who said we’ll give you a loan because you know, you have your dad and brothers on board
0:07:06 We want them to co-guarantee it
0:07:11 But they were like 80% of the appraised value is what will loan you so great
0:07:16 You know box is checked then they send an appraiser out and the appraiser and I gotta give it to them
0:07:19 I didn’t know what I was doing. I drafted up this
0:07:26 Really primitive pro forma. I didn’t know what a pro forma was just like this Apple numbers spreadsheet thing. It was like my
0:07:30 Guestument on how much the property was gonna cost how much it was gonna bring in
0:07:35 sensitivity analysis for like occupancy and they probably laughed their heads off
0:07:41 But anyway, they gave that along with like some napkin sketches of what these cabins were gonna look like my drone photos like marked up
0:07:46 Of the site plan and the appraiser came back at like, okay
0:07:50 This is gonna cost 1.8 million so the bank was like won’t loan you 80% of that
0:07:53 So bank was like we’ll give you a million and a half
0:08:01 Loan if your dad and brothers will co-guarantee this and my estimate was that the project was gonna cost like 2 million
0:08:08 So we had like $500,000 shortfall. She wasn’t great long story short. It actually cost us 2.3 million
0:08:13 So here’s the deal. I the spec home market was booming in Texas at that time
0:08:17 And so I was like, okay. We’re going all in. I got to make this work
0:08:20 I bought another five acres down the road built a
0:08:24 $750,000 spec home in four months and sold it and profited
0:08:30 200 grand from that home was able to roll all of those profits directly into this project
0:08:35 Of course maxed out every credit card put in my 19,000 my dad and brothers brought their line of credit
0:08:42 We got the project done nine and a half months start to finish which was absolutely wild as you can imagine too
0:08:45 I mean, this is post-covid supply chain issues are crazy
0:08:49 I was designing it as we went it was the wildest year of my life on top of that
0:08:55 I broke my pelvis like seven months into the project. So we open in January of 2022
0:09:00 Two weeks later my whole business as I knew it ended. I woke up one morning
0:09:03 Open the Airbnb app
0:09:09 Everything’s grayed out were suspended on Airbnb worst feeling probably I’ve top ten worst feelings
0:09:14 I’ve ever had in my life and I called their customer support couldn’t get a hold of anybody. There was no warning
0:09:15 There was no explanation
0:09:20 So I felt like I was totally kicked in the gut and was like, oh like all right
0:09:27 we got to figure out direct bookings and so long story short found this travel influencer who lived like an hour away and
0:09:33 I didn’t even know what this was but just by digging I stumbled upon them. They said pay us
0:09:37 $950 will make a post a giveaway post about your property
0:09:40 So I sent them photos two days later. They made the post
0:09:48 Seven days later. We had $40,000 of direct bookings through our website. So I whipped up a website overnight and
0:09:53 40,000 of direct bookings and 5,000 followers on Instagram from scratch
0:10:00 So as you can imagine that was my sort of eureka moment on direct bookings and Instagram six days later
0:10:03 We got restored on Airbnb. So the timing was like perfect
0:10:07 It was a glitch in their system, but the direct bookings game was on fire
0:10:14 So then that first year was a whirlwind 95 percent occupancy overall with these seven cabins
0:10:19 Just just crazy starting from zero 80 percent of all the bookings were direct
0:10:24 So here’s the deal about direct bookings the OTA, which is like online travel agency
0:10:27 So Airbnb their fees are like roughly 15 percent
0:10:33 So if you can capture the customer direct you make 15 percent of margin you get the customer’s email
0:10:38 So you can retarget them you can’t ever be D platformed and you’re reaching a more aspirational
0:10:44 Guest because they’re booking from Instagram not Airbnb. So they’re not price shopping
0:10:46 They see these immersive videos and like oh we got to come stay here
0:10:54 We had guests come back three or four times in one year because we were able to retarget them and because the experience was just and wow
0:11:02 You you sold this what four years in for how much to two and a half years and we sold for seven million
0:11:07 So last October two and a half years in yeah, all right guys. So listen up. We’re doing something a little bit different here
0:11:12 So we had this guy named mr. Ballin. Mr. Ballin is one of my favorite people on earth
0:11:16 If you have been on YouTube or tiktok, you probably know who mr. Ballin is
0:11:20 So he’s has tens of millions of followers and he’s built this massive business on it
0:11:23 He’s probably the best storyteller I’ve ever heard of my life to be honest
0:11:26 And he did this amazing podcast with us that we’re gonna release soon
0:11:29 We’re not releasing the episode right away
0:11:33 But we are gonna give it to our true fans and if you are one of those true fans and you do want this interview
0:11:35 We have a link below so check it out
0:11:40 Click the link in the description below and you can listen to it right away now back to the show
0:11:48 So you let’s just recap here you go by land land is you said what 130k or that was just the down payment
0:11:50 That was the land
0:11:56 That was the whole land okay the land you never did you never had built things like this you had done some construction some plumbing
0:12:02 Projects, but I assume you had never like had you ever built a cabin before no and you built these yourself
0:12:06 Are you subcontracted out to a company? I subcontracted but it like I said
0:12:09 I mean I was in there on ladders doing stuff myself. That’s how I broke my pelvis
0:12:14 Okay, so you you build seven cabins on top and the whole project build out
0:12:18 You thought was gonna cost you two million bucks ended up costing you two point three
0:12:20 But did you say you were selling?
0:12:25 The spec market was booming you just sold a separate property just to help fund it
0:12:28 You didn’t sell you didn’t pre-sell anything on this property correct
0:12:33 Okay, so you you do this it took you nine months to get live with the seven with all seven cabins
0:12:36 Is that right or one at a time all at the same time nine and a half months?
0:12:44 Nine and a half months. Okay, that’s amazing and this is like, you know post post COVID and you start renting these out
0:12:48 How much does a cabin rent for what was the average kind of nightly rate like 600 bucks a night?
0:12:51 Yeah, he said he was doing one point one million a year in revenue
0:12:58 So you do a million a year a million a year in revenue 500k of profit and you sold this thing for seven million bucks
0:12:58 Yep
0:13:05 So a million dollars a key two and a half years after starting construction on the whole thing and you sold it to who a
0:13:10 Small private equity group and how did that come about they approach you you approach them. What happens?
0:13:16 So we actually listed it my philosophy is that every material thing should have a price tag
0:13:20 This was super controversial a lot of people that saw the success were like you should never sell this
0:13:21 This is lightning in a bottle
0:13:27 but I was like no I’ve learned so much from this process that I could theoretically redo everything way better and
0:13:32 Plus if I ever want to raise money, I want to be able to show like the full life cycle of a deal
0:13:35 so we went ahead and listed it with a broker and we got approached by
0:13:42 Multiple private equity groups. They see the writing on the wall for commoditized short-term rentals
0:13:44 and they want these one of one of a kind properties and
0:13:47 But most of them need to operate like at a much bigger scale
0:13:51 This group was small enough that they were willing to take a one-off property
0:13:57 So here’s the crazy thing in the hotel industry. You typically have three parties. You’ve got the real estate
0:14:02 You’ve got the managing company and you’ve got the brand sometimes the operator and the brand are the same
0:14:07 well with this property we built a hundred and fifty thousand followers on
0:14:11 Instagram plus like thirty or forty thousand people on the email list
0:14:17 So we essentially were selling the brand and the real estate together, which is part of the reason we got such a crazy high price
0:14:21 You know for a seven cabins in the woods in Texas
0:14:24 But basically they came along offered seven seven million
0:14:28 we negotiated some of the terms because they wanted to sell or finance some of it and
0:14:32 The deal fell through like three times as could be expected
0:14:35 They ended up having to get a bunch more debt than they thought
0:14:38 But they came through eventually and we closed last October
0:14:43 So yeah, the look that you have Sean, that’s how I had when I first met him
0:14:47 So when I first met him, I was just in the phone with him and I go
0:14:50 Hey, like I’m got to go to this conference in Idaho
0:14:53 I think you said your parents or something like you have a connections there
0:14:57 You want to meet me up there and like you want to become friends because when I met this kid
0:14:58 I was like
0:15:03 You’re you’re amazing and I said when I share you on Twitter
0:15:09 You’re gonna get popular and just promise me that you’re gonna let me always invest in anything you ever do from now on
0:15:15 because I think you’re gonna be a very popular person because his passion and the way that he’s principled and like he like
0:15:19 Outlines what he’s gonna do. I found to be intoxicating. Do you get that vibe Sean? You know what I mean?
0:15:26 Yeah, well, I think the hustle that you showed there’s great. I mean, that’s like what successful entrepreneurship looks like right?
0:15:28 You start with a vision
0:15:33 Then you don’t count yourself out. I think that was the next most important step. You didn’t count yourself out
0:15:37 You could have said I don’t have the money. I don’t have the experience. I don’t have the the time
0:15:41 I don’t have anyone who believes in me. You don’t have the network. What whatever you didn’t say any of those things
0:15:43 You said, how do I get the time? How do I get the money? How do I get the network?
0:15:44 How do I get the cash?
0:15:48 What do I need to do to get this right and you did it and I think you had a unique insight which is that?
0:15:50 a
0:15:54 that people would want to stay in kind of a more unique experience and
0:16:01 B once you realize once you turned your disadvantage into advantage you turned your Airbnb disaster into a
0:16:05 Wait, I got to find another way to promote this and you found a better way to promote it, right?
0:16:09 because let’s say you had never done let’s say Airbnb had never knocked you off the platform and
0:16:13 You had never realized that I should be using Instagram
0:16:20 Content through influencers or through my own to do direct bookings. What do you think this property would have been worth?
0:16:22 Had that not happened?
0:16:26 Maybe three or four million is my guess
0:16:30 Right, maybe and that’s and maybe not even be a sellable asset
0:16:34 Right, maybe maybe not like definitely not a private equity sellable asset
0:16:38 But maybe just to another real estate owner who’s looking for rental properties. Yeah, totally
0:16:43 I think the brand that moment with Instagram which felt like it with Airbnb originally which felt like a
0:16:52 Complete defeat like literally you can’t imagine. I mean it was 24 recently married had just spent two over two million dollars of other people’s money
0:16:59 Had been a little bit laughed at by even some of my friends like why are you spending because that was even a lot of money when we built it a
0:17:02 Lot of my friends in Waco in the short-term rental market said you’re crazy
0:17:08 We already have this glut of short-term rentals here, but my whole thing was we’re building a new lane of traffic
0:17:12 We’re creating a destination build it and they’ll come but when that
0:17:14 Airbnb
0:17:19 Debacle hit it ended up being the biggest blessing in disguise. I could have ever engineered
0:17:24 I got extremely lucky and just overall was obviously extremely blessed with the project
0:17:30 But it’s become my conviction that if you have an inspiring vision, you have the ability to communicate it and you have
0:17:38 The conviction to bring that vision to life you become a magnet for everything you need and that applies to capital to guests on and on
0:17:43 The universe conspires for those with a mission. There’s a bunch of stories of people winning
0:17:45 massively
0:17:53 By having the idea of build it they will come but there’s a whole lot more stories of people having that attitude who lose big
0:17:59 And I like it doesn’t matter what what business you’re in this idea build it
0:18:03 When they come build it and they’ll come that kind of separates. I think a
0:18:06 visionary from someone who’s
0:18:13 Tapping in and building a great business. I like people who point and say this is where we’re gonna go and
0:18:18 A lot of times those people a lot of times those people fail more often than not they fail
0:18:22 But I think it’s dope when they do it when they when they succeed
0:18:26 Do you know what I mean? I find that to be different than how I look at life and I find it to be
0:18:28 inspirational
0:18:30 Yeah, okay, that makes sense
0:18:32 Isaac, you’re gonna say something on that. Well, I was just gonna say
0:18:38 you know people now come to me asking all the time like how do we recreate that same success and
0:18:44 What I really do believe I just said this but is that you have to have a vision and then you have to story tell
0:18:48 I think storytelling is the most valuable skill not just in marketing
0:18:55 But in building something including building something like construction and here’s why I’ve got a friend Devon
0:18:58 So Devon is also 24 years old for now
0:19:02 I’m 27 but I was 24 when I built Live Oak Lake and he was he was an engineer
0:19:05 so he’s a smart kid and he had this dream to create this
0:19:08 Shipping container home that was just super wild
0:19:16 it’s like five containers stacked on top of each other and he has an incredible amount of resilience and passion he went out and
0:19:20 Built the whole thing with his two hands like 95% of it
0:19:23 He built with his two hands and he documented the whole process
0:19:31 With an iPhone and a $20 tripod on Instagram and tiktok and he grew 1.5 million followers from scratch
0:19:35 Look it up. It’s called the Pacific Ben. That’s B. I n it took him a year to build this thing
0:19:39 And when he launched he had so many emails that when he opened up the calendar
0:19:44 He he pre sold the first year in like two weeks and now again
0:19:46 He’s become this magnet where people are like hey come build
0:19:51 You know get they’re trying to give him money and I understand a little bit about what that feels because people have done
0:19:54 The same thing to me but again like he understood storytelling
0:19:59 he did it very authentically and he had a vision and you just have to believe in it now
0:20:03 It’s a little bit more art than science in terms of like is the vision a good one
0:20:08 I think some people have that and some people don’t I credit my childhood some of the stuff
0:20:12 I already described and the character that my parents put in me as
0:20:17 Like fully responsible for the success that I’ve had and let me just tell you like if you’re a
0:20:21 Super confident person like I tend to be you’re going to have some hard knocks
0:20:25 I have fallen flat on my face more times and you want to hear including
0:20:30 During and even after the sale of live oak lake. So you have to learn humility and you got to learn it the hard way
0:20:35 But that doesn’t that’s not mutually exclusive from having that kind of just
0:20:39 Intuition and sense that like I think it’s a sense of taste too
0:20:42 It’s like this is going to work and here’s why and even if I can’t convince you
0:20:47 I still believe in it ends a conviction and then people rally around that and then of course
0:20:50 Your track record is a lot when you’re starting from zero you don’t have that
0:20:55 But as you go you got to be very careful with the projects you take on because obviously you don’t want to compromise that record
0:21:01 So I think this idea of creating these unique spaces and places
0:21:06 And having people fall in love with them online and then that turns into a business that makes you millions of dollars
0:21:07 I think that is a
0:21:11 Awesome romantic vision. I know several people my life that would like
0:21:17 Have the urge when they hear about these to be like could I do that could we do that where we live in this area?
0:21:20 Whatever what are the opportunities you see? So what do you think?
0:21:28 Somebody out there could go do and break that down like a blueprint like okay. You’re not talking not to me and sam
0:21:30 You’re talking to this person who’s listening
0:21:35 Who is inspired by this and says could I do that? How would I do that? What would you tell them?
0:21:37 What’s the the two-minute blueprint you would give them?
0:21:43 Yeah, love it huge opportunity again, arabian bees have been commoditized. They’re just
0:21:48 You know unrecognizable from each other. There’s no differentiation
0:21:55 So whether this is a an old summer camp that could be totally transformed into like this micro resort or say
0:22:00 It’s a roadside motel a lot of people are doing these or it’s seven cabins around the lake
0:22:06 I got a friend named brian who had this idea to rethink what houseboats meant and so he
0:22:12 Built for $200,000 built this houseboat. You can look it up. It’s flow home. That’s f l o h o m
0:22:17 It means like totally different than what you think of it’s like a mini yacht almost and then
0:22:24 He started renting it out. Absolutely when berserk now. He’s raised a bunch of money. He’s buying marinas
0:22:29 So the cool thing about houseboats is you don’t fall typically into the same regulations as st
0:22:31 R as short-term rentals because you’re on the water
0:22:37 So he gets to be in like these prime locations in like, you know, baltimore harbour or in aplis or
0:22:46 Wash place wherever and you get 360 degree harbour views. You’re you’re sometimes in hotels sometimes not even in any zoning at all
0:22:52 And there’s zero competition. So again, that’s completely unique. There’s such a spectrum of what these could be
0:22:59 I’ve got another friend who’s doing tree houses. So he bought a piece of property and here’s here’s the blueprint that I go after
0:23:03 number one choose red states over blue generally speaking because
0:23:09 Get speed to market is everything and you want to be in a place that’s super easy to build
0:23:12 So rural texas, which is where I am
0:23:17 There’s essentially like no zoning and I didn’t have to go through some long permitting process
0:23:21 Like I would if I was on the big sir coast or that’s a radical example. So find
0:23:25 Go off the beaten path. It’s okay to get away from places
0:23:32 But you want to be within two hours from a major metro area of like let’s say a million plus people because that’s your drive to
0:23:38 Distance it it’s like a staycation distance. So you’re going to get a lot of two three night staycations
0:23:41 You need to be within two hours from a major metro area
0:23:47 You need to be within 15 to 20 minutes of like a town that has a a coffee shop. Maybe a good restaurant
0:23:53 Maybe there’s ways around that like you could do a meal kit where you could partner with a local chef or local farmers and like
0:23:56 Make that part of the experience that you’re offering the guests
0:24:00 But it’s okay to get off the beaten path. You want to find that two hour goldilocks zone
0:24:04 Then find land that’s super cheap that has some natural potential
0:24:09 Let’s say trees are kind of a must because you can’t grow a tree overnight
0:24:12 And that’s what live oak lake had
0:24:17 Maybe it has some topography people love water. Perhaps you can create a water feature
0:24:20 So i’ve got this other crazy story and i’m about to make a twitter thread on this
0:24:23 But some friends named kimball and christine had a dream
0:24:25 They’re in rural ohio
0:24:29 They buy this piece of property with zero money that the guy was a pastor
0:24:30 He had no money
0:24:34 He bought this piece of property and then he noticed it had like this old dilapidated lodge on it
0:24:38 But he noticed like down below the lodge. There’s this little cliff
0:24:42 And there’s a seasonal stream that only flows like a few weeks out of the year
0:24:47 And they had this idea so they actually dug out and dammed up this little pool
0:24:54 And then they put in a pump recirculated the water so that it’s flowing year-round and there’s essentially a waterfall swimming pool
0:25:00 Look it up. It’s called the cliffs at hawking hills. It’s absolutely wild. This place has gone mega viral
0:25:07 They’ve got 600 000 followers on instagram. They’re booking out every single night two years in advance
0:25:09 And that water feature probably cost them
0:25:14 20 to 30 thousand dollars and has literally created millions of dollars
0:25:18 of value both in the brand and in the property that they have so
0:25:20 Like find a property that’s mediocre
0:25:25 but that has the potential with your vision to create something totally one of a kind and then
0:25:34 Architecturally make a beautiful infuse unreasonable hospitality into it. So you don’t need an on-site concierge. You don’t need
0:25:39 People holding your hand, you know at every like five-star luxury would be what you need is
0:25:43 Touch points that people care about so when I opened live oak lake
0:25:47 I I quickly just had this idea people love to see their name handwritten
0:25:52 So I perfected this process where we would hand write a card to each guest
0:25:59 And then I partnered with a local bakery that was like five minutes down the road to fresh bake our own recipe of chocolate chip
0:26:05 Cookies every single morning and then on the back end with my software because I pretty much automated the whole property
0:26:09 So it was running with like two part-time employees the whole thing on its own
0:26:15 I gave access to those bakers and they could see every morning like how many reservations were that day
0:26:20 They would make the cookies the cleaners who also had access to the property management software would pick them up
0:26:24 Would deliver them they would write the card so I didn’t have to do any work
0:26:29 For less than ten dollars some fresh baked cookies a handwritten card and a couple topochikos in the fridge
0:26:33 Made a massive impact and an emotional connection with the guest
0:26:36 Not only was it a beautiful architectural and natural experience
0:26:40 But they felt like me as the owner as Isaac like my story which
0:26:42 We could go we could go down so many rabbit holes
0:26:46 But like I wrote out our story in this booklet that we gave them like we turned
0:26:51 What would have been a boring house manual into like this fun to read coffee table book?
0:26:54 But then on top of that there’s this handwritten note and they all felt like
0:26:59 Oh, Isaac just now left this for me this morning and so and then like in the messaging
0:27:05 We did all these automated messages, but we wrote them in such a way that was extremely careful and extremely intentional
0:27:09 So it felt very fresh and spontaneous. It’s a little ways like this
0:27:14 I love this Sam has this phrase and I’ve taken his copyrighting course copy that two times now
0:27:20 It’s absolutely gold in my opinion, but he has this little thing about these forgotten areas of copy
0:27:25 So whether that’s like the 404 landing page on a on a website or like the terms and conditions
0:27:31 Whatever you find these little places that are overlooked and then you just spice them up and you make them feel
0:27:35 Careful and that’s what we did with live oak lake and the guests absolutely loved it
0:27:39 So there’s a bunch there. I could go on and on about this, but basically
0:27:42 Here’s the play anyone can do this
0:27:49 Anyone can go out and and spend a hundred thousand dollars if you find the people buy this piece of land
0:27:51 Yeah, you’re gonna have to get a bank loan. I know tons of people doing this
0:27:56 I’ve got a community of about 50 people building these properties right now around the country
0:28:01 And the value creation in such a short amount of time if you execute this well is just off the charts
0:28:06 Did you like one of these toys that we just wound up we just kind of let go and just like
0:28:09 Holy shit
0:28:14 Sorry, I love it. I know don’t apologize. I love it. I
0:28:19 Whenever I get done hanging out with you. I I feel more energy you
0:28:21 You know, I think there’s like two types of people
0:28:24 There’s people who are you feel like worn out when you get done hanging out with them
0:28:27 And then you feel like there’s people where you you feel inspired
0:28:31 What are some ways that a smart person could get this wrong? So
0:28:37 Not not every you know any blueprint if I say hey, I’ve had all the success in e-commerce
0:28:39 Well, I know a bunch of people who have failed in e-commerce and I could tell you
0:28:43 Where they go wrong, you know, some of the common traps that a smart person could fall into
0:28:45 I mean, I I I feel that it
0:28:51 Uh, or at least I didn’t say I’ll take this one. Yeah, I mean like I I bought one of the I bought
0:28:55 A property wanted to turn into this and I actually didn’t I broke even I mean
0:28:58 I probably made a little bit of money, but I didn’t it wasn’t like a screaming success
0:29:03 So here’s like a list. Uh, the first thing is uh, there is no such thing as set it and forget it
0:29:05 passive income when it comes to real estate
0:29:11 If you own the thing that that that ain’t true. It’s still like a business that you have to run. There is no set it and forget it
0:29:13 Would you agree with that Isaac?
0:29:18 99% of the time unless you are just an extreme exception. But yes, the illusion of total
0:29:21 Automation is absolutely just that an illusion
0:29:26 I think another thing is you really actually have to give a shit and care about it like
0:29:29 In order to like make outsize returns
0:29:34 You do really it needs to be really really different and special as opposed to just like in my case
0:29:40 I was like, oh, well, there’s not a lot in this part of the the country like this picture looks good. I’ll stand out done
0:29:44 That’s why my returns were only okay that that was not an exceptional plan
0:29:51 Yeah, I think that design is the number one lever that you can pull as my friend Hans who’s awesome. By the way, Hans Loreight
0:29:54 Um, absolutely blown up on instagram recently
0:29:59 He’s got like 550,000 followers and he’s like breaking down interior design in these little short form videos
0:30:06 The design is the biggest lever you can pull in controlling how people feel and going back to that vibe and that feeling that you’re creating
0:30:13 Hospitality is all about emotional connections with people with your guests and you’re in a business that’s notoriously difficult to operate
0:30:15 So you live or die
0:30:20 Based off of every single guest interaction and going back to raising all the money
0:30:22 This is what I feel like a lot of startups
0:30:27 Inevitably fail at they try to scale too fast. They invest all that money
0:30:29 They see the opportunity. They see the live oakley case study
0:30:37 They invest all that money and like hiring these designers and hiring, you know, spending a ton on ads and doing all these things that are
0:30:40 Like the priorities are wrong. You need a story
0:30:46 So like if you want to do this, you probably chances are like you shouldn’t just dump a bunch of money into somebody else’s
0:30:48 Well, you can do that if it’s the right person
0:30:55 But ideally you need to be or you need to be partnered neck and neck with someone who is extremely passionate and wants to tell that story
0:31:00 But hospitality is all about like how do you serve these people?
0:31:06 And so this is where even though I I did automate most of the property like I’m telling you it was awesome
0:31:10 We had zap here. We had like six softwares. We had smart home technology. The place was
0:31:15 Just running like a machine, but I was still reading every single review
0:31:21 I was still at least seeing every single message from every single guest and that’s a 24/7 thing
0:31:24 I mean that is that’s intense any way you cut it and
0:31:30 When you don’t have somebody who cares about that or you don’t have the right employees that have even once you’ve built it
0:31:33 Who can operate it with that owner’s mentality?
0:31:40 You’re just you’re going to suffer and there’s this great quote by tem ferris. You’ve probably heard it, but he says
0:31:45 There’s a glut of mediocrity in the world. Please don’t contribute to it
0:31:51 And I would say that applies to the design aspect that applies to the operations and like hospitality aspect
0:31:56 That applies across the board. So if you come with the right mindset of I’m here to serve
0:32:06 I’m here to like again build out this incredible vision. Tell that story authentically chances are you’re absolutely going to succeed because people gravitate towards that naturally
0:32:11 You know Sean, um, you and I make money on the internet and when you make money in the internet
0:32:17 That means the barrier to entry is really low. So it’s really easy to have an idea and turn it into something
0:32:23 Very quickly because of that. I think I’ve gotten into a habit of creating things that were
0:32:26 To use a funny pun
0:32:28 subpar
0:32:32 Like there was very little passion involved in them or there’s very little excellence
0:32:35 Have you ever like felt like that when you’re making stuff online?
0:32:39 Sean like where you’re like looking back and you’re like, this is just not
0:32:42 A very high quality thing even though it’s making money
0:32:49 Honestly, I disagree like I think the barrier to entry is low. Yes, it’s easy to play but it’s not easy to win
0:32:51 um
0:32:54 And so anytime I’ve tried to do something that works online
0:32:59 I don’t know. I threw my all into it. Uh, I wasn’t necessarily very good
0:33:02 So even if I got a mediocre result, it wasn’t due to lack of effort
0:33:08 It was due to lack of skill or or I’d make something really good that nobody cared about nobody wanted
0:33:10 It was just the wrong problem to solve
0:33:15 Um, so I I think that yes, it’s easy to try something online. I don’t think it’s easy to
0:33:19 Win at something online. I don’t think you can get away with something. How do you define winning?
0:33:25 Uh, you know, whatever hitting my goals for it, right? So having something that actually grows that is sticky that is, you know
0:33:29 Very profitable, you know the the things I look for when I do a project online is
0:33:33 I’m trying to have it be successful. I don’t think any of these are easy
0:33:38 They’re definitely easier than going out into a plot of land and being like I’m going to build
0:33:43 A luxury, you know, a luxury stay here and I’m going to serve customers essentially by hand
0:33:46 Uh, it’s definitely easier than that, but I wouldn’t say it’s like
0:33:50 I don’t think you can get away with sucking online and be successful because the barriers entry is so low
0:33:52 Because the barrier entry is so low
0:33:56 There’s so many people playing because there’s so many people playing to actually do something that’s
0:33:59 That works and captures people’s finite attention. It’s still hard
0:34:03 Well, you we have so many friends that are popular on the internet and they make crappy stuff
0:34:07 Like it’s crappy by our standard. This is not crappy by the customer standards, right? Like
0:34:10 I was thinking about this the other day so
0:34:14 Jimmy mr. Beast who you know is is friendly with us and and
0:34:21 Is obviously super successful youtube. He just released a guy. I guess I got leaked his uh production document
0:34:25 Do you guys see this I read the whole thing? So I actually want to do like a whole bigger thing on it
0:34:26 So I don’t want to go too much into it
0:34:32 But one amazing thing is you know, you get to see inside of his mind and his mind works in a really unique way
0:34:35 And I think you could see from that document why he’s so successful
0:34:40 But if you read the document or you hear the stories about him, you would think that he is making
0:34:45 The greatest videos the world has ever seen that he is the whatever
0:34:51 I don’t know who the famous directors and and artists of our time are but you would think he’s doing that when in actuality
0:34:53 It’s it’s sort of like saying
0:34:55 Who makes the best burgers?
0:35:00 Is it mcdonald’s who has the most popular burgers? They sell the most volume of burgers
0:35:06 Is it someone in the middle is it five guys because they they’re pretty popular, but maybe their taste is a bit better
0:35:08 or is it
0:35:09 the chef in
0:35:16 You know new york who makes this one unbelievable burger that’s 36 dollars and if you ever put a mcdonald’s burger next to that
0:35:19 You could you would laugh at the mcdonald’s burger, right? Which one is the best burger?
0:35:25 And mr. Beast has made his success because he’s decided to be mcdonald’s on the internet, right? He is creating the videos
0:35:30 That are mass market that are going to get the most number of views even if they’re not the most
0:35:38 Life-changing introspective emotional or beautifully told stories. There are other people who do those and so I think there’s just like
0:35:41 It’s hard to say what is what is the best, right?
0:35:45 Like the people the friends of ours and we think make this like pretty crap content that works
0:35:48 It’s because they’re doing the mcdonald’s thing, right?
0:35:53 They’re giving people fast food content and then there’s other people that are giving them artisanal content and you know
0:35:56 Who’s to say what’s better? What’s better than the others depends on your goals?
0:35:58 Can I tell you a crazy story about?
0:36:02 Uh twitter and going viral. Yeah, what do you got?
0:36:09 So actually sean, I need to publicly thank you because your episode on how I write with david about
0:36:15 Storytelling was I mean golden and you don’t know how many people I’ve referred to that episode
0:36:18 But like I don’t know four or five months ago
0:36:21 Alex Lieberman made a post about he was like
0:36:25 I just watched this interview with erin sorkin about stories and I I’m in
0:36:28 Transpired I want to go down that rabbit hole and
0:36:35 So anyway when I saw that it resonated with something. I was already feeling I wouldn’t consider myself naturally a great storyteller
0:36:38 Actually, but I was like I feel like I can learn this skill and I’m gonna figure it out
0:36:46 So I went down the rabbit hole and I listened to podcasts and I read books and I took courses and and copywriting and writing in general
0:36:51 and then I was like, okay, I’m gonna figure this out and I’m gonna I’m gonna try it and so
0:36:58 Well, first of all, I take it an eight month break from twitter. So last fall I stopped posting at all and I took an eight month break
0:37:00 But I would sort of describe it for various reasons
0:37:06 But one was I was just recharging as a creator. You can’t just constantly go. You’ve got it. You’re like a battery
0:37:10 You’ve got to recharge and but I came back kind of guns a blazing in june
0:37:12 with all of this like
0:37:15 Knowledge that I had been accumulating from all of these different sources
0:37:19 And right out the gate. I had like a six million view
0:37:26 Thread and people were like threads are dead and you know twitter is dead the algorithms trash whatever whatever and literally one after another
0:37:29 And I’m knocking on wood
0:37:34 But at the end of the day like I’ve never had so much sustained success like the last 10 threads
0:37:37 I’ve written in a row without exception have gone an average of like a million views apiece
0:37:42 And then one of them went totally crazy. So I wrote this thread
0:37:47 Um about this train car that my dad it’s pinned to the top of my profile if you want to look at it
0:37:52 But yeah, I’ve seen that one. So I wrote this thread. I stayed up like all night. I spent eight hours writing it
0:37:58 I just finished copy that the second time and so like it was fresh on my mind and I I wrote this thread
0:37:59 and
0:38:05 Uh, I didn’t know you know, I put 60 percent going off of your advice going off of a lot of people’s advice
0:38:07 Like 60 percent of my effort of those eight hours were spent
0:38:12 Writing that hook like both writing it and also curating those images
0:38:19 So it’s got this great visual hook where you see like side-by-side train car before after and then like hours writing
0:38:25 Four or five sentences. I know that sounds crazy, but writing and rewriting it just trying to make it a science
0:38:28 But I had this sentence in there
0:38:35 Let me read it. So I said my dad bought this 120 year old train car for $2,000. It was a rotting cat infested wreck
0:38:42 So I knew that I was probably being a little controversial when I said that I had no idea just how controversial this would be
0:38:47 I said but after investing 147k and five months of work. We redeemed it today
0:38:50 It’s one of the most profitable and exclusive stays in the country. Here’s what happened
0:38:52 So here’s here is what happened
0:38:58 There is like 30 of the population. I’ve come to believe are these cat-loving
0:39:00 I mean
0:39:06 Karens and I loved guess what spoiler alert. I love cats too. I was not meaning disrespect to the cats when I said this
0:39:13 But these people read that whole thread and then just absolutely murdered me in the comments
0:39:17 What happened to the cats the cats were the landlords they should have kicked you out
0:39:22 Blah blah blah blah blah blah like machine gun fire. I mean it was crazy and so
0:39:26 On top of what was a pretty good hook and a good story
0:39:32 We had just jet fuel poured on the fire by these cat lovers and me haters
0:39:35 So that was kind of crazy and I’ve learned
0:39:41 I’ve been like Brian Chesky comment on the or Brian Chesky reposted it twice in one day Joe Gabby
0:39:47 I reposted it Paul Graham repote quote tweeted it and then like you know 20 million views total in the first day
0:39:49 But here’s here’s another crazy thing
0:39:54 So there’s all these journalists that lurk on x you don’t know about them because they probably have like 300 followers
0:39:58 So within like two days. I got invitations for
0:40:04 Coverage so in in the two or three weeks since I wrote that post we’ve been now the story has been featured in
0:40:06 the new york post vice
0:40:12 uh business insider fast company the daily mail kody sanchez is coming to do a youtube video like
0:40:15 Tens and tens of millions of views
0:40:22 So you’re just really creating like this surface area of for luck when when you post on twitter because it’s basically proof of concept
0:40:25 They’re like, oh this story is resonating. We should go ahead and post it too. So it’s crazy
0:40:30 All right, if you’re listening to this pod, I already know something about you
0:40:36 You my friend are nosy you want to know the numbers behind all of these things that we’re talking about
0:40:43 How much money people make how much money people spend how much money businesses make you want to know all of this people’s net worth all of it
0:40:48 Well, I’ve got good news for you. So my company hampton. We’re a private community for CEOs
0:40:52 We do this thing where we survey our members and we ask them all types of information
0:40:54 Like how much money they’re paying themselves
0:41:00 How much money they’re paying a lot of their employees what their team my bonuses are what their net worth is what their portfolio looks like
0:41:03 We ask all these questions, but we do it anonymously
0:41:06 And so people are willing to reveal all types of amazing information stuff
0:41:13 You really cannot google you can’t find anywhere else and you could check it out at joinhampton.com click the report section on the menu
0:41:19 Click the salary and compensation report. It’s going to blow your mind. You’re going to love this stuff. Check it out now back to the pod
0:41:26 I love that story. Yeah, I checked out this this thread. It’s it’s great. But I think that the
0:41:31 The real lesson here. What’s the right takeaway? I think there’s a few one is
0:41:33 Yeah, there were some nice
0:41:40 Copywriting techniques in here and yes, it’s cool that you decided like hey, this is all a skill. I can learn I can learn storytelling
0:41:43 I can learn writing I can learn how to how to be better at content creation
0:41:46 And you just decided to like obsess and devour that stuff
0:41:51 But the real thing is the story went viral because of what you guys did you did something amazing you took this
0:41:56 You know basically like beating up rotten rotten train car and you turned it into something cool
0:42:01 And it’s like without that you could obsess of all the tendencies you want that car that story is going nowhere
0:42:05 And so the best content creation is go do amazing things in your life
0:42:10 And then learn some best practices about how to talk about them is a much better approach than
0:42:14 Learn the amazing skill of writing hooks and never do something amazing in your life
0:42:18 And I hope that more people do the amazing thing in life instead of of the opposite
0:42:21 But dude, why are you on twitter? Because
0:42:24 You need to be doing this on tiktok
0:42:27 Uh, you you’re on the wrong platform my friend man
0:42:30 It’s I want to start doing short form video, but I love writing
0:42:33 And twitter helps me think better like at number one
0:42:36 I get to connect with much smarter people than those other platforms
0:42:40 And it’s not just about some vanity metric of having a big audience for me
0:42:44 I genuinely enjoy the process of having to write concisely and again
0:42:48 It’s like a skill I just wanted to attack in copywriting and writing in general
0:42:54 And so that process of like clarifying your thoughts by writing tweets and like every single word counts
0:42:57 And building a slippery slope that sam talks about that people will fall down
0:43:00 I just absolutely love that process and not just for
0:43:06 Production value of the story but for what it does in my own thinking. But yeah, the iteration will probably be
0:43:09 I prove these these story concepts
0:43:12 And and sort of write a script in my twitter thread
0:43:16 And I’ve had like 10 of these that have like I said gone like pretty viral
0:43:20 And then I basically have all my heavy lifting done for me
0:43:25 And I just like throw together a nice green screen maybe video of me talking about it and telling that story
0:43:27 like really snappy on
0:43:31 Instagram on instagram and tiktok and then eventually
0:43:37 I want to do youtube because of course as you guys know, there’s an insane loyalty
0:43:39 And of course you can monetize and whatnot through that as well
0:43:40 But i’m also
0:43:46 A perfectionist and like the short form thing like people what really is working right now is really raw and authentic
0:43:51 And that’s cool. But again, I care so much about the production value that’s hard for me to sort of fit into that
0:43:52 slot
0:43:56 Originally when I told shon about you he was like, oh, it sounds like an amish guy who likes money
0:44:00 And I was like, yeah, I guess that’s a that’s an interesting description
0:44:04 Um, but if that is yeah, I was like, I’m the next two words were i’m in
0:44:10 Yeah, um, and if that and let’s just say uh, it’s just someone who’s not like entrenched in this isaac
0:44:12 Your community is similar ish to amish
0:44:17 What do they think about you like being this popular internet guy or did they even know?
0:44:19 Do they even know like who you what you’re doing?
0:44:23 Are you sinning by being on this podcast right now? Like what’s going on? What’s the reaction back at the farm?
0:44:25 All right
0:44:27 We’re gonna go way back, but i’ll try to be brief here
0:44:33 So my wife’s grandparents actually founded this community 51 years ago and it started as an inner city mission in
0:44:35 the slums of manhattan
0:44:39 And they had actually been atheists but had these radical
0:44:45 Life-changing experiences with god became christians and then felt called to start this mission there
0:44:48 And it was super unlikely beginnings
0:44:55 But basically a motley crew of folks from all backgrounds a lot of people that were sort of like disaffected with life
0:44:58 Sort of came together and a core group
0:45:00 started coalescing and
0:45:03 Basically a church was founded but then a few years into it
0:45:08 They they were like, you know, they were all young parents and they realized we need to have a culture where we can raise our kids that
0:45:13 Is going to sustain the values that we care about like family and our faith and whatnot
0:45:16 So they started looking for land outside the city
0:45:18 Long story short
0:45:22 They all moved about 200 people to colorado western colorado
0:45:27 Which was like the middle of nowhere for people that had spent their whole lives virtually in new york city
0:45:29 And that’s where my parents
0:45:36 Recently graduated high school western slope of colorado encountered these group of like weird people being called a cult by all the locals
0:45:39 but again had these
0:45:41 transformational experiences
0:45:43 Came to god and joined this group and then
0:45:49 In colorado, they sort of learned all these skills like how to live off the land how to grow your own food
0:45:56 How to work with your hands and you know relearn all these traditional skills like woodworking and pottery and blacksmithing and
0:46:00 Then fast forward they picked up and moved to texas in the early 90s
0:46:07 And so we have a piece of property around 450 acres just outside of uh weiko where
0:46:12 First the group was in austin some was in weiko it consolidated here
0:46:14 and basically
0:46:21 What makes us different is we take our faith very seriously and we want to make that faith come alive in every aspect of life
0:46:26 So instead of just like church being a program that you attend a few times a week
0:46:30 We we truly try to live out community. So we’re uh working playing
0:46:33 Doing doing life together and there’s about 1200 people
0:46:39 A part of this texas branch about a third of those actually live on that piece of property that 400 acre piece of property
0:46:43 The rest live on their own places nearby. We’re not common purse
0:46:48 We put a huge emphasis on like individual responsibility, but basically we strive for simplicity
0:46:50 so well just explain it like this if i
0:46:52 I live in a
0:46:55 What a you know a cookie cutter suburb
0:47:02 Of america so just like general emin california if i went and visited where you guys live what would seem
0:47:06 Most different to me. Well, what is it that you guys do that would be most different?
0:47:11 Yeah, uh, we don’t have tv’s in our homes. We don’t really have internet in our homes
0:47:15 We again like 95 of the community
0:47:20 Either is self-employed or works for each other. So we live this agrarian lifestyle. We grow gardens
0:47:24 We do use technology and this is where we’re one of the ways we’re different from amish
0:47:28 We just our whole philosophy is we want to control it versus being controlled by it
0:47:34 And so basically I grew up on a farm taking care of animals. I was homeschool. So we homeschool our kids
0:47:37 I I have nine siblings. There’s a lot of big families not everybody has a big family
0:47:42 But I I went by the way shawna and I stayed in the community and I would joke with isaac. I’m like isaac
0:47:45 I’m an atheist don’t try to convert me any of this stuff
0:47:49 But I would love to explore and learn about your community and when I went there
0:47:55 They believe i’m gonna kind of summarize isaac and they believe that in order to like show they’re close to god and everything
0:47:59 That they were they’re craftsmen in like everything they do
0:48:04 So they have this like restaurant and like they make all of their own food there
0:48:09 Or they have a church where they built it, you know, and it’s like beautiful. It’s a beautiful church
0:48:14 Dude, they had this easter thing that I went to and there was these women singing. I swear to god
0:48:21 I’m like this sounds like a black choir in like in harlow. Like this is the most like stylish like best singers
0:48:25 I’ve ever heard of my life because they like studied it and they like perfect these things
0:48:31 And so he had this vibe where he was like, oh like no the right way to do this business is doing this to submit
0:48:34 So in order to learn instagram, I have to study it and i’m going to execute
0:48:38 Uh, perfectly. No, like I said, we use technology
0:48:43 We we use media too like we we haven’t really used social media and i’m kind of one of the first that’s pioneering that
0:48:46 But we want to tell our story. We just we don’t want to
0:48:54 substitute for the substance of the community that we’ve created so intentionally over decades by using like social media
0:48:56 Which innately is just a virtual world
0:49:03 So we’re trying to find ways to the story teller because I feel like we just like I feel like sam got you hooked on sugar
0:49:06 And you hadn’t had sugar you were like, yeah, no, I love vegetables
0:49:11 And I just love all these earthy flavors and then sam was like here have some sugar and now you’ve had sugar
0:49:18 You’ve had the viral sugar the feeling of going viral on making millions of dollars and everybody loving your story
0:49:22 And some people hating your story and then you want to respond to them. You’ve now tasted that
0:49:28 How is that f with your brain? Yeah, it’s like, hey, I think just just a little crack. You just want a little crack
0:49:34 Just a little you’ve had that social media crack. What’s what’s your honest feeling of where you where you are right now with that
0:49:40 Man, it’s it’s tough. That’s one of the reasons I took the eight month break because personally I felt like it was becoming
0:49:41 I love attention
0:49:47 I’ll just be honest about it and I I felt like it was becoming a distraction for what really is like
0:49:53 A lived life and for one I have a family. We have we have a little boy. We have another on the way
0:49:56 I have this amazing community life, which I’m starting to be more public about
0:50:00 I made a thread about the community in a couple months ago and people are really intrigued with that
0:50:02 but again like
0:50:07 Work life to use the term everybody’s familiar with work life balance is is a very very real thing
0:50:16 I just feel like if there’s a way if there’s an overarching guiding principle that work and life and family and play and everything can fit into
0:50:19 They don’t need to constantly feel like they’re in conflict with each other
0:50:22 But in order to make that happen
0:50:28 I need people in my life that hold me accountable and like are going to be real with me and I’ve had plenty of that just to be
0:50:30 Honest like some of my friends that know me very well
0:50:38 Um have been like very honest with me and at times critical and I totally love them and respect them for that
0:50:41 What’d they say?
0:50:44 Oh like, you know the way you’re the way you came across here was
0:50:47 bragging or the way you said that
0:50:48 um
0:50:49 was
0:50:55 Maybe not completely what or not telling me it was more like asking questions because again like nobody tells you what to do here
0:51:00 We’re very very much like we we open ourselves up voluntarily, but they’re like, you know
0:51:02 Is that consistent with?
0:51:08 You know the way that you would talk so and so and basically we want to be very careful that we and I want to be very careful that I don’t put
0:51:13 That the version of me that you see on the internet is exactly what you’re going to get in person
0:51:15 And and as you guys know there’s just like that inevitable conflict
0:51:20 But I feel like I’ve learned a ton through it and it’s a constant struggle for me where I
0:51:24 I probably need to delete the app from my phone and just use it on desktop
0:51:26 I have a lot of friends that do that but
0:51:31 Twitter is that thing for me. I mean, it’s it’s highly addicting. It’s just such a great format to connect with interesting people
0:51:37 Sean I think that every man once he has children and becomes a family man
0:51:39 I think they have two urges
0:51:44 The first one is to be in some type of situation where they can exert force and be like
0:51:47 Use a little bit of violence to be a hero. You know what I mean?
0:51:52 Like a man robs a man robs a bake and you like suddenly stop it and you’re the hero
0:51:56 That’s one of them patrolling main street. Yeah, something goes down and I might be needed
0:51:59 Yeah, just like to be the tough guy that protects everyone once
0:52:05 Then the second thing is to like live in a farm with your family and your community as like
0:52:09 Everyone’s like lives like a little socialist hippy life and I’ve went to his
0:52:13 I hung out in his area and Isaac was like hey check this out
0:52:18 I just planted a hundred apple trees and a bunch of like fruit trees and about three years
0:52:19 These are gonna be ready to bloom and I’m like
0:52:24 Oh nice, that’s kind of a lot of fruit like you’re gonna eat all that fruit. He’s like no, it’s for everyone
0:52:26 I’m like, well, you’re gonna have to take care of this
0:52:27 He’s like no
0:52:32 I just told everyone in the community that I planted these trees and we’re probably gonna make like a schedule
0:52:36 But we’ll we’ll all chip in and like tend to the trees to make sure like it’s gonna bear the most fruit
0:52:39 And then we’ll just like we’ll just spread it out evenly
0:52:43 Just being there for that 24 or 48 hours that one particular time
0:52:47 I was like I’m fulfilling that need of like seeing this like hippy lifestyle
0:52:50 You saw that David Beckham post Sam. Oh where he’s growing
0:52:54 He’s like growing a fruit now or growing vegetables friends of them
0:52:57 Yeah, he went viral because he posts this video on his instagram
0:52:59 But it’s him in a flannel shirt and the like old time
0:53:04 Me like Irish hat and the caption is my kale is doing well and it basically it’s him on his farm
0:53:07 He like now lives a farm life. He’s him on his farm. He’s gardening
0:53:12 He’s beekeeping and this is what he’s doing and people people just went nuts and
0:53:18 About this about this trend Isaac. I feel like you you’ve influenced him or maybe you should influence him
0:53:21 I think he he might slide into your DM soon to learn a little bit
0:53:24 Do you not feel this urge showing every once in a while?
0:53:28 We are like I wish I would just sort of farm with my family and friends and we all like did this together
0:53:32 No, dude, it’s way too much work. No, I don’t have that urge Sean. You got to come visit at least
0:53:39 I have my versions of of these but they’re like, you know, like for example, I like writing and I’m like cool
0:53:43 I just don’t want to work. I just want to like, you know, I don’t I don’t know how to paint. I’m not skilled enough to paint
0:53:47 I don’t know how to build. I’m not skilled enough to build. I don’t really want to go develop those
0:53:50 But I’m like, I want to write a movie or I want to spend my day
0:53:54 You know playing playing soccer with my kids or whatever it is things like that
0:53:58 But I’m not as I don’t have the same like Roman Empire urges that most guys have meaning like
0:54:01 I don’t care about history as much as get most of my friends do
0:54:08 I don’t care about living off the grid and like providing, you know, like pumping my own water and like irrigating something
0:54:11 I don’t want to irrigate nothing. Okay. So like I don’t have that urge
0:54:16 For me personally, I got I guess my own versions of them, but they’re a lot more mild
0:54:18 Well
0:54:20 That’s
0:54:26 Okay, dork, let me go play house in the woods without you
0:54:29 I still want to have wi-fi like
0:54:36 This is like the man version of playing house and dress up like, uh, you know what I mean
0:54:40 Isaac, can we do rapid fire to end this? So, uh, how old are you?
0:54:42 27
0:54:46 What’s one thing I can learn from you about hospitality even though I’m not going to have my own
0:54:50 You know mini hotels and all that but if I just have a guest coming over to my house
0:54:54 I got an old friend from college coming over. What’s one hospitality thing I can learn from you
0:55:02 It’s the single most valuable skill to have in life and you have to be selfless you have to
0:55:05 Want to serve other people. So I don’t think it’s something that you can affect
0:55:11 but if you I think everybody has that urge inside of them, I think we’re born to serve other people and
0:55:18 Read unreasonable hospitality if you haven’t already but basically look for those little ways like I described with the handwritten note
0:55:21 That are surprising. They’re small but they delight people and
0:55:27 Sometimes the smallest acts of kindness and generosity show the biggest parts and so I don’t think that
0:55:30 Uh, I don’t think it needs to be some grandiose thing
0:55:33 I think you just have to want to serve them and people are going to feel it
0:55:35 Isaac, I think what you did with uh
0:55:41 The live oak lake and what you’re showing other people doing with floating homes and shipping containers and stuff like that is
0:55:46 Amazing it’s an amazing trend people should go follow you on twitter to kind of like see more of these
0:55:49 I think it is amazing because it is so hard
0:55:51 and so for the few people who are
0:55:57 Capable of putting in the like, you know the creativity the passion the care the hospitality that takes to make these successful
0:56:01 That’s amazing and send me your links so that I can go stay at your places and for me
0:56:04 It’s a it’s a reminder of like
0:56:10 If if you want an unreasonable result you sort of have to do an unreasonable thing
0:56:13 In certain in certain areas and this is definitely one of those areas
0:56:16 And so for me, you know, I would never be able to pull one of these off
0:56:20 So props to you because I hear your story and part of me is like oh, I would love to do that
0:56:25 But the bigger part of me who knows me better is like this is not for you
0:56:29 You have to be exceptional to make this work. You have to be exceptional on the real estate development side
0:56:34 You have to be exceptional on the content marketing to go viral so that you can get booked
0:56:35 You know for two years out
0:56:39 You have to be exceptional on the hospitality because you have to re-earn the business
0:56:43 You know with every guest stay and I think it’s I think you are exceptional
0:56:46 You’ve done that and I think also it’s a it’s a good thing to know about yourself
0:56:51 Whether that’s for you or if it’s not for you and I think it’s a very small subset of the population who who it’s for them
0:56:55 Well, I appreciate that can I close with two quotes that mean a lot to me
0:56:56 one
0:56:59 The way you do one thing is the way you do everything
0:57:01 So sweat the details care
0:57:06 Put your heart into whatever you’re going to do do it with hospitality do it with excellence and number two
0:57:10 There’s this quote by this English pastor actually named John Wesley
0:57:11 He was like a few hundred years ago
0:57:12 But he said
0:57:17 Light yourself on fire with passion and people will come from miles to watch you burn
0:57:20 And that’s kind of my my hope in life. I want people to
0:57:23 Say well, that’s a life well lived and I want to say that at the end of my own life
0:57:26 That is an amazing quote
0:57:33 Dude, thank you so much for the band. Um, we appreciate you and we’ll wrap up there. That’s the pot
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