From Airbnb to Boutique Hotel in an Arizona Hidden Gem | Adam Walz & Micah Thomas

Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome back to Foundry Talks. I'm Rachel Stanofsky, and today we're so excited to be joined by Adam and Micah, who are the co founders of Comeback Hospitality. So, guys, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker B: Hey. Hey, how's it going?

Speaker C: Yeah, thanks for having us.

Speaker A: Um, so excited to have you with us and just share a little bit more about your story. We're also joined with my partner Derek. He'll be on with us today. And we've been following a little bit about your story, and I know Derek's had the chance to talk to you a little bit more. More. But why don't you just kick us off, tell us where you're from, what you're doing now, and a little bit about Comeback Hospitality.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I'll, I'll start off. Adam, please feel free to fill in when you can. But, uh, you know, we have very different but similar stories. Originally, I'm from inner city of Philadelphia. Kind of lived a little bit of everywhere throughout the United States. I'm an occupational therapist by trade, so I did not start in hospitality. Kind of started with short term rentals, did a little bit of house hacking, learned the power of real estate, uh, and wanted to scale. So that's what got me into a mastermind group called Boutique Hotel Secrets by Mike Children out of Boston started with Adam as an accountability partner. We would come and talk about our own boutique hotel deals. And, um, before you know it, we ended up partnering from the advice of one of our advisors. And here today we have a 50 key hotel that we're transitioning into the first boutique hotel in Page, Arizona. So try to keep it short and sweet. Adam, I'm sure you got a lot more to say, so I'll let you pick up where I left off.

Speaker C: Nice, man. Wow. That is incise intro I've ever heard from Micah. So well done, sir.

Speaker B: You.

Speaker C: He's been practicing the mirror.

Speaker B: Clearly it's my, my M element.

Speaker C: All right, so time on. So I'm originally from a very small town in, uh, South Dakota called Custer. So 1800 people. My dad owned the Ace Hardware in town. So it's kind of interesting, at 14, I was, you know, uh, restocking caulk and mixing paint and helping customers kind of in the built world. Little did I know, like years later I would work for, for Autodesk. Uh, my career was really in like hr, consulting, leadership development, executive coaching. So I'm very interested in the leadership and culture side of things. Strategy, finances, uh, et cetera. Too. But yeah, you know, my wife And I, uh, so she's from Vietnam. We, we're in the Bay Area, had a son, and then we started doing Airbnbs, kind of like on the side, right? And then what's m. Crazy about? Our story is about 18 months ago, within, uh, six days of each other, we were both laid off.

Speaker A: So.

Speaker C: So we went from two tech salaries in the Bay Area in a high cost living area to no jobs. But we had this life raft that was short term rentals. We actually had a portfolio of eight Airbnbs, so four that we owned and four that we did with others. And so I started kind of thinking, like, what would it look like to do this full time? You know, could a guy retire himself through Airbnbs? So, you know, rather than getting 50 Airbnbs, it was very clear that where the puck was moving was commercial. And, and so I maybe saw the same exact Instagram ad, you know, that Micah saw from Mike Sjogren. I was like, dude, this looks interesting. I don't want 50 keys and 50 roofs and 50 cleaners. But what if you could have one property with staff, with dedicated people to start scaling up? So, so anyways, I'll maybe like pause there. I'm actually recording this in Playa del Carmen. I love travel. I love. You know, as a consultant, I used to spend 200 days a year on the road. So I feel like I've got pretty decent sensibilities, you know, all the way from $3 Hostels in Guatemala to, you know, Ritz Carlton's in Asia. So that kind of, I don't know, gave me a little bit of courage to say, yeah, I think we can do this. I think the things that are working in Airbnb, if you've got taste and a, uh, strong connection to the location, you can win.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And so, and so that's why we're here.

Speaker A: I love it. So, like, at what point when you guys are in this group? Because I think for us, because we talk about this, you know, in our future scaling to do something like this, but it feels daunting. So at what point when you guys are in this mastermind group and your accountability partners, did it click where you're like, no, no, I think we can do this. Let's go all in. What was that like?

Speaker B: Well, it's scary to start with. And then you, you know, you talk about mindset and self limiting beliefs, and you just surround yourself around others who are doing exactly what you want to do. And at some point you say, well, well, the only next logical step is to actually do it, like, take the steps to do it. Um, and what started as just like light education. What's commercial real estate? What's the cap rate? What's noi? Very quickly turned into realistic conversations, uh, with sellers and brokers, just learning more about the industry and locations. But I would say probably for me, and I'm interested to hear yours as well, Adam. But for me, I, I think once we started calling banks and he started asking for this thing called a personal financial statement, and when, if you've never done it before, it's, it's a little daunting to do the first time, but once you have it, you should be good more or less for like the next few months. But once we started submitting that personal financial statement, I was like, oh, this is, this is pretty serious. Like, we're like, Adam, I felt like, you know, we're partners, but we're kind of getting in bed on this. Like, we're sharing financials where we're really committed to, like, the long term goal. So I'm interested to hear what you have to say, Adam, but say that's when I really knew this is more than just a bright idea or, uh, a, uh, hope in a dream.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And. And I think it's, you know, what's scary about going bigger is, is the money, quite frankly.

Speaker D: Right?

Speaker C: Like going out in South Dakota and buying, you know, our last Airbnb was $250,000, right. And like in the Midwest, in the heartland, cash flow, great. But it's probably worth 275, like five years, ten years from now. Like, not great appreciation. California is the exact opposite. If you can buy a house, I mean, it's not going to cash flow as a rental. Like, you know, own a $2 million house. Like, you just. You can't get enough rent to cover the mortgage payment.

Speaker A: I'm in California. Uh, so I hear you.

Speaker C: Okay.

Speaker D: Oh, yeah.

Speaker C: You get it then. Yeah, exactly. So I think what was interesting is sizing up a property. And, you know, originally I think Maika was looking at properties around maybe 1, 5, maybe 2 kind of all in. And my wife were kind of thinking maybe like three all in.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: Or maybe maybe four. Again, I thought we were going to buy in Sonoma, Napa, Tahoe, something in my backyard, kind of in the Bay Area. There's beautiful country, lots of old kind of hotels, you know, that are run down or unloved or just, you know, mom and pop want to retire. They've been doing this for 30, 40 years. Their kids want to be DJs, they don't want to be hoteliers. And so. Or YouTubers, I guess, would be the more accurate thing. And what I found is everything in California was just small and expensive.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And. And actually, one of the first big, big moments in the Mastermind is when Mike Shogren himself, along with other coaches, kept looking at my deal. I was super persistent on this $3 million deal in Nevada City. Just trying to figure it out, just trying to think if I'm persistent enough, creative enough, like, I can solve this. But for 3 million bucks, I was getting eight keys, eight doors, and then all of a sudden, Micah stumbles on to this deal that, you know, maybe we can talk about. Uh, the Wesley Hotel, off market for three. Three fifty keys.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So, I mean, just, you know, it doesn't take a genius to understand leverage that way just to go, whoa. But. But the big insight was most people go for a small hotel, and the biggest risk is you buy something too small and you become the innkeeper. Because if you buy something that, you know, I don't know, gross revenue is $500,000 or something, you can't afford staff.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And then all of a sudden it's you. Right. Or if you get a surprise expense, like Mike and I on this deal, we. We didn't realize that, uh, to upgrade our Internet to kind of, you know, standard modern traveler expectations or standards cost an extra 50 grand.

Speaker A: Yeah, that would never come. I would never think that.

Speaker B: Me either. Me either.

Speaker C: Have you ever heard that in an Airbnb like, no. If you have $50,000 to upgrade, you're thinking hot tub, uh, you're thinking sauna, you're thinking fun wallpaper, you're thinking, like, things to amenitize your property that are super fun. And Micah and I are over here spending, you know, $500,000 on like, plumbing and electrical and roofing and just.

Speaker B: That's exactly right.

Speaker C: Non glamorous stuff that no one will ever know that we did it.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: But they absolutely would know if we didn't do it.

Speaker D: So.

Speaker C: Yeah, you got to build it.

Speaker A: Right. I love that. Well, this perfect segue into my next question was why page Arizona? So, like, how did you find that maika? Were you combing through Craigslist ads or a friend of a friend? Like, how did that happen? How'd you find an unlisted or I guess off market property?

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So started with the buy box. If you asked me this probably a year and a half ago, I was looking all over the country. I wanted The. The first hotel I could get my hands on, didn't matter where. Uh, and then quickly, my coaches were like the mentors. They're like, you need to rein it in very, very quickly. Like, there's just too many options. You need to get specific on what you want. So kind of got specific in, uh, two specific areas. Southern Texas, northern Arizona. Because I was very familiar with the regions to begin with. And I just made a personal goal and nobody told me to do it. I just. I was like, I want to get. I'm more comfortable with the lingo and, like, talk to brokers, let them know what I'm looking for. That way, if something comes across the table that fits my description, they can keep me in mind. So called five brokers a week. One. One day I got on the phone with a broker. He's like, I have this property, you know, you might be interested in. Let me get you on the phone with the seller. And we had a, like, 30, 45 minute conversation just talking about, like, financing and what was going on with the property. And one thing led to the next. I went and visited, and, uh, we kind of got the property unlisted with about a, uh, $600,000 discount from the most recent listing price. So started at 6, went down to 5, then 4, then 3.9. And by the time it was all said and done, we got it for 3,3 million. So about 67,000 per key in an area where hotels sell for about 115,000 per key on average. So we. We struck. We. I want to say we struck gold. But like Adam said the first time he walked in the hotel, it smells like opportunity. So there was. There was quite a bit of improvement to be done, uh, to the property. Like you said, at 500 grand of just infrastructure to make sure the place was habitable to guests. So it's a. It's a pretty big lift. But when it's all said and done, I think we are really transitioning the oldest and worst hotel in town to the best hotel in town. So very excited about that.

Speaker D: Can you guys tell us more about the area? Like, what. What's it like for someone who's never been there before?

Speaker C: What's the draw? I. I hadn't even heard of Paige, like, two years ago, and my wife had been there. My wife's from Vietnam originally. What's interesting is the demographic mix of who comes to paige. It's almost 65% of travelers are international. But you think about, okay, you're a couple in Germany or Tokyo or whatever. You've made a decision, you're coming to the United States for, you know, three weeks, six weeks, whatever. You're going to see America. Maybe you want to go see the Statue of Liberty. A lot of people come in through LA or San Francisco, for example.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And you just don't realize, like, how many good, cool things you can see specifically in the Southwest and. And even more specifically, like northern Arizona, Southern Utah. So 25 million people every year come see the Grand Canyon, something called the Grand Circle. That basically takes about 14, 15 hours. And people will kind of, you know, if you head north or head south, you know, some people will chop it up and do part of it. Well, I've only got three days. I've got five days. I've got 75 days. Right. There's all sorts of kind of different Personas and travelers out there. But I think that's kind of like the big thing, right, Is probably the Grand Canyon, and then there's runoff. But if you've heard names like Zion, Moab, uh, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Arches, like, all of these things are, you know, for context, pages. Two hours. If you drew a circle around it, two hours to seven national parks and monuments. Wow. And right next to us, most importantly, is Antelope Canyon in Horseshoe Bend. And the most famous thing of all, and actually what our hotel was originally built to do, was to house government workers building the Glen Canyon Dam. So just like the Hoover Dam gives us, uh, Lake Mead. Well, the Glen Canyon Dam gives you Lake Powell.

Speaker B: Lake Powell, yeah.

Speaker C: What's interesting is all the nooks and crannies actually add up to more coastline than the entire western coast of the United States. So. So, you know, millions of people, typically 4 to 5 million people, come specifically to Page to enjoy Lake Powell, Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bend. So it's just, it's. It's a magical, magical space.

Speaker A: Yeah. And so are people driving through, or is there a, like, a airport hub kind of close by? Or is it mostly they're driving through?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, very ironic. There is an airport that services Phoenix, uh, right now, and come July 1st, they're going to restart the flight to Vegas. So you'll be able to get Page from Phoenix and Vegas starting July 1st. And most people, I would say the average length of stay is 1.9 nights. So most people stay for about a night and they continue on to the next destination. But there's a big conversation about why that is. I mean, we go across the street and talk to the officials at City hall and the Director of, um, economic development. And a big reason is there's nothing to keep the travelers in Page for yet another day. So one of our big initiatives is what can we do to keep them here another day? Can they rest? Can they relax? Can they slow down and just enjoy the sweeping red rock views? I say it all the time. Just enjoy the scenery. Don't rush off to the next location. What does the nightlife look like? How can we provide them with something that makes them want to stay here versus going to Zion or Grand Canyon or name that next town? So, yeah, the big goal is to Getting them from 1.9 nights average to at least 2 nights on average per guest.

Speaker A: So close. So close to that.

Speaker B: Yeah, I know we got to get over the hump, and I think we'll do it. I mean, just with the. The little additions we're doing at the hotel in particular, I think will very much so be there, because after a long day of hiking and being out on the water, what better way to relax and unwind than to get in the hot tub or get in our sauna or get a massage on property? So we're finding creative ways, uh, boutique ways to cater to these travelers that don't just want another beige box. They want something that's unique to learn about the town and the place they're in. So many people come to Page and don't even know who John Wesley Powell is. We named the entire, entire hotel after the man. He's the one who mapped out the the south, the Colorado river in the southwest. He's the one who mapped out the Grand Canyon. So what if you could stay an extra day, learn about him, learn about why we're so fascinated with this man. There would be no city of Page without John Wesley Powell and what his team did. So we're. We're excited to share the story and just offer guests just a totally different experience. 25 hotels in town and not, uh, one boutique hotel. So we're very excited to. To present this to guests.

Speaker A: So. Awesome. Well, and just to take time, to slow down a little bit, because you're right. After a day of hiking or a day out on the water, the last thing you want to do is be rushed in the morning for that checkout, be hurrying off to the next place. So to be able to stay a little bit longer in somewhere that's refreshed, really comfortable, like, who's not going to want to do that? I. You're going to get to 2.5 easily.

Speaker C: And, Rachel, you know, you think about Our feeder markets, we've got Vegas and ah, Phoenix. But it's a four, four and a half hour drive and it's beautiful. But every time I'm coming from the Bay Area, I take that little 35 minute charter flight for like 100 bucks. Fly over the Grand Canyon, see the red rocks, there's one gate. It's an airport with literally one gate. So it feels like you're flying private for like 100 bucks. So it's, it's incredible when people actually get there. But, uh, part of our thesis is like, could we create an oasis where. Cool. You want to check out five to seven different things. What if you did day trips from the Wesley, as opposed to go from Hampton Inn to Hampton Inn to Hampton Inn. Um, and recognize that in these kind of compression moments, like Memorial Day, July 4th, you know, Labor Day, the entire town sells out. Right? So for example, we sold an old room on memorial day for $389.

Speaker A: My God.

Speaker C: GM, um, told us she is embarrassed to sell a room for over $100 today. But because town sells out and you're an hour and a half away from the next town who also might be sold out. Kids are tired. You've been on the road for a long time. You're, you know, you're, you're taking it. So. So that's part of what I think makes this place so special. It's pretty remote, but lots of people want to go check it out. And I think we can be a base camp for folks.

Speaker A: I love that. I love that mindset. My parents live about 20 minutes from Capitol Reef national park in kind of like the southern east Utah. And it's the same when we're there visiting, you know, their town's like 200 people. I'm like, who? There's. I don't even see a soul. During COVID we spent like a month there because we're like, there's no people, so we're good, you know. But the travelers, the visitors that they get through Capitol Reef is insane. Every year it's like 3 million or something, you know, nuts for this tiny town that feels like it's empty otherwise. And they come from all over. I think you're. I think it's very similar to like Powell and Paige, that it's a lot of international travelers who want to check off those national parks, who want to see all that stuff. It's kind of like a bucket list destination for a lot of people. So. Yeah, that's. That's so awesome. What? Oh, Derek, sorry. Do you have something you want to.

Speaker D: And I was just going to say it's, it's so interesting just hearing you guys talk about this. Like, maybe the initial intent with Paige was like, oh, this is the, this is the hotel. It's so cool hearing you guys talk about all, like, what the area has to offer. And there's, there's so much. I mean, you guys have clearly done your homework. There's so many hidden gems, things people may not just be on their mind, but there's a lot the area has to offer. It's just, it's super exciting to hear kind of what, what you're pulling out and what's going to draw people in. It's got to be exciting, kind of discovering those things, right?

Speaker B: Absolutely. And I, uh, think that's what drew Adam and I to this area because again, it first started as an idea, like, do we have the money to do this? Can we get $3.3 million to buy a hotel? But then it just became, as we learned more and we talked to investors, it just became so easy to tell the story in the hidden. And like, it's a hidden gem. It's on the main street. We're so central. We're across from City hall, so you can't miss us. Uh, we've made a welcome to Page mural on our hotel. So we get constant traffic to the hotel. So, like, as we, as we built out our plan and our business plan, it's just like this.

Speaker C: It will work.

Speaker B: We know it will work. We see the traffic, we see the demand, and we see the lack of a product like this to Airbnb, be guys who want to deliver that same experience to hotel guests. And the market currently just was not serving that, that clientele. So we're very excited. We clearly are passionate about it. We've been head first in it. But just like, there's good things, there's bad things too. And we could talk about the GPLP responsibilities and, uh, construction and the whole nine, but yeah, we, we are, we are so in love with this project and excited to share it with the world.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker C: And one, one more thing maybe just to pick up on is, you know, another signal that we very clearly saw was luxury travel, actually. So 20 minutes outside of Page, like Paige, out of the 25 hotels, like the Hyatt place and the Marriott Courtyard, set the tone. That's your five star equivalent. Right. And they're actually, you know, what is that? Upper mid scale? Something like that.

Speaker A: They're like three or four star.

Speaker C: Yeah, you know, 20 years old. They're dated as well. They're in a cool place. Some have nice views. You know, just for context, the Hyatt place sold was selling rooms for 700 do dollars a night, uh, during Memorial Day. And it looks exactly how you think it looks like every. Probably everyone listening to this podcast has stayed in those properties, but it could be in Kentucky or New York or wherever. There's no sense of place. And. And I think what's really cool about when you check out, for example, like, the Imangiri. Right. That's a three Michelin key place that Micah, uh, and I have actually dined at and walked around and talked with managers, and they're charging $3,500 to $6,500 per night.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So this is, uh, this is where billionaires and celebrities are kind of hanging out and, you know, doing their thing. We'll never. Well, maybe not throw the never stamp on it, but, like, the Wesley can't be that. It's an old roadside motel. But we're picking up all these clues about if you can build something great. And really, um, you know, kind of focused on creating great memories, Instagrammable moments, something unique. You know, I think 30 years ago, if we were talking about luxury, we'd be talking about, you know, flown in marble from Italy. You know, that.

Speaker B: That's chandelier.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker C: That used to be luxury. But today, I think what millennials or even retired boomers are craving is unique experiences.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And God, if. If someone's willing to pay $6,000 a night, you know, Mike and I, you know, very impressed by the Mongiri, but we're looking at each other going, would. Would you pay $6,000 to have your squeeze next to you? Like, the answer probably was no. I'd probably stay at the Wesley and invest the rest in an S and P index fund, you know, so well.

Speaker A: And I love that you bring that up, because so much of, you know, and, uh, especially what Derek focuses on is strategy and research. And what we're seeing in today's consumer is they are craving this connection to people and connection to place. And so to pick up on that and then just really capitalize on ways to infuse that for every guest to have that experience. I think you guys are right on the money. I mean, that's what we're seeing people want. And it's funny, we even had a client who defined luxury differently for what she was doing. And so I think that. That it doesn't mean what it used to mean, like, oh, uh, marble and it has this type of flatware and this. You know what I mean? It has a very different meaning, and I think it's. People are craving unique experiences, those Instagramable moments, like you said. And I'm sure your mural gets. Gets tagged and photobombed so much. Such a smart idea.

Speaker B: It's a, uh, it's like a self viral moment. People walk by it.

Speaker C: It.

Speaker B: It creates a problem sometimes too. Sometimes when you're on property, you'll hear like, tires screech in the middle of the street. They're like, oh, there's a mural. Let me just stop and take a picture in front of it. But I guess you get the good and the bad traffic as well. But I mean, it's just so excited to have that mural and the other murals on the build on the building. And the community has been nothing but supportive of everything we're doing. They love the vision. They've wanted someone to come into the community and do just this and interact and give back to the community. So we couldn't have any more, I think, any better support than, uh, we're already getting from them as well.

Speaker A: That's awesome. So let's switch gears a little bit, and I want to talk more about, like, the logistics. What have you guys done? What was hard, what was like, you know, we, we talked to another, uh, guest, and he's like, I wish I would have invested more in the bathroom vanities. And I know that's really specific, but, like, like, we've had some problems and they haven't held up. And so now we're ripping them all out and doing them again. So, like, wow, lessons learned, things you would go back, things you're glad you did. We want to hear it all.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I'll start. Adam, I'm sure you got plenty, plenty more to add, I'd say, for transparency and this. I talked about this a little bit earlier. GP and lp, the gps. These are the people who get their hands dirty. Adam and I, we both invested in this deal, our time and our money. For most of the year, I've been living in infamous room number seven. That's a hotel room on site. So I've been living in an old hotel room just overseeing renovations, making, uh, sure things are going the way they need to be, making sure things are in order. But there's a. There's a lot that you don't see that needs to happen. Like we mentioned the roofs. We decided to. I think it was like a $80,000 upgrade or maybe $40,000 upgrade. I'm losing track of numbers. Just to get rid of, Just to get rid of the. Thank you, Adam. 80. Just to get rid of the wall units that blow in your face when you stay in the hotel and transition to mini splits that you can control the actual climate. And they don't make much, if any noise at all. So we are consciously thinking about what the guest experience is while they're in the room, while they're sleeping. We know that we have a roadside motel, but there's a lot of small touches we can do on the front end to make for a better experience. So we, we've, we've had to deal with galvanized pipe and these are just things that, you know, once you open up the walls, you don't know until you do it. But our old 350 pound cast iron tubs, when they get pulled out, the plumbing just disintegrates underneath of it because it's the original piping. So we're trying our best to rectify and fix all of these things now so they won't be a headache later on. But, yeah, there's plenty of surprises. We're in no shortage of those. I tell Adam all the time we'll be professional firefighters when we get done with this because we're constantly putting out fires day in and day out to the point where it just be. It's not even a surprise. It's like, oh, I kind of expected something go wrong. It's been quiet for eight hours, so it was about time. So. But Adam interested to hear kind of what, what you think about all of that?

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, that's, that's spot on my head. Immediately goes to, uh, FF and E. So, uh, furniture, fixture and equipment. Just staging. Okay. You got 50 rooms. Like if you're, if you're, you know, designing or curating or furnishing a home. Just one Airbnb. Okay. What do you have? Four bedrooms, a couple spaces. Like, you work with a designer, you ship it all there in Amazon boxes or whatever. Like you rip through it a week later. Done.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: 50 rooms. Like, for example, like, we had to make some decisions because we, uh, were facing stockouts. Like when you're trying to get, for example, 100 pendant lights that would sit right next to your 50 beds. You know, uh, whoever you're ordering them through might only have 62. So you have to be thinking about is it better to stage in sequence all of your stuff? And by the way, there's a whole list of like 150 things that go into every hotel room.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So where are you buying it? Are you value engineering it? Are you kind of going mainstream? Is it okay to bring in some residential or is only commercial junk? Custom stuff that's going to come from China and be really good, you know, bespoke for hospitality products, but it's going to take 16 weeks to get there. Right. Like, these are all the things that you face. And so, you know, I think about when we looked at a room with our designers said, okay, what are the like moments or actual products or things that we have to have? Like, we have a cool retro fridge, you know, a little mini fridge that we want to have in there. Well, we didn't want that to stock out, so we bought all of them in advance. Well, now you, where do you put them? Yeah, uh, your 50 rooms. Yeah, your 50 rooms are being demoed right now. So where would you like to put these? Right, so we literally had to buy a shipping container. We already had two on property by our GC Micah, and I bought a third just to help stage and sequence furniture. So anyways, that's one of those things that you're just like, like, like I would have never thought it would be this hard. But you know, it's, it clearly has ramifications.

Speaker A: And yeah, do you order extra for when one of inevitably malfunctions and you gotta replace it or. Yeah, so it's like. Or where are we keeping all of that?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right.

Speaker C: You know, one, one other, you know, I bet you Derek will like this because this is kind of back to the strategy side is, okay, you got 50 rooms. We had a mix of. We had some double fulls, double queens, single kings, a queen with kitchenettes, and we had no lux suites and we had a two bed, two bath manager suite. So you're looking at the property and you're going, okay. It can be a lot of things, but what makes the most sense for travelers that are coming here? And for example, one, one of the ones that was kind of hard to think about. Like, you always try and design almost for like yourself, right? Like, what would I like? My wife and I, my son were going there. What would I build? But the data actually was suggesting that families are coming with, with older kids, not 7 year olds. And so when you think about outfitting a game room, when you think about keeping a bathtub right in, in the double queen rooms, because maybe those would be more family oriented. Like, it was just interesting to have all of those conversations with our designers. Mike and I Batting things around, talking with marketing folks, et cetera, and then just seeing where we landed. But one of the ones where, honestly it kind of surprised me is like, we went shower only, you know, and we're really sharpening who this hotel is for. We have more wellness amenities, and so it's for, you know, older couples, you know, maybe families with older kids, et cetera. But we're trying to think about what's the feeling that we want to invoke when travelers step onto our property. What are those guest moments, those guest experiences? What's the chain that's, you know, what's the thing that everyone's going to take back and tell their friends, and who's this property really for? While my wife and son and I can stay there, we're actually like a secondary Persona. So I think that's really interesting. When you just move from, like a single family house to a hotel. You have this huge canvas and, okay, does it make sense to knock down a wall and have a Lux suite or not? Like, these are math problems as much as they are marketing problems.

Speaker D: Right? Yeah, I love that. I mean, it's so cool to hear you guys just think so deeply about the guest experience. That's what Rachel and I love doing, just on the marketing side is just how can we make sure that this experience is seamless, that it's delivering on their expect. And honestly, the properties that think about it that way are the ones that are getting repeat guests and standing up from the competition. So it's super cool hearing you guys, uh, just talk through that and see how important it is to you guys. I was going to ask, are there any other properties or places that you're drawing inspiration from? Like, hey, this place is like kind of the bar. We want to deliver on that level or there. I don't just. I'm curious to know where you guys pulling inspiration, what's fueling kind of design choices and things like that?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I don't think I can point to any specific property. We always joke. I think Adam said it first. If you take the Wesley and you put it in Nashville, it won't work. You put it in Vegas, it won't work. It's very specific to Page Arizona because of what we're doing, who we're trying to build this experience for. So I don't think there's any one thing now. Of course, there's creative ways. Like, we had to get very minimalistic when it came to, like a closet system. So we start looking at other small room hotels. See what they do for hanging, uh, solutions and closet systems. Uh, but me in particular, I wouldn't say there's any one hotel. We love looking at boutique hotels. Adam and I probably send each other boutique hotels across the world almost every week, just conversing like, maybe we can take hints of this, maybe we could take hints of that. He's literally on vacation right now, and he sent me a picture of, like, a collapsible, uh, daybed that can be put up and taken down the same day. So we're always drawing inspiration. I think that's just the natural mindset of somebody who's in the space. I'm sure you guys probably do it with short term rentals as well. You just start thinking like, oh, maybe I can incorporate this as well. So I wouldn't say any particular hotel, but, Adam, I'm wondering if you have a hotel in mind. You just secretly haven't told me for months now.

Speaker C: No, I think that's right. I think it's eclectic. You know, you're trying to pull inspiration from. Oh, you know, I think Asia does luxury travel better than any other continent. So my wife and I go over there every other year. I lived in Hong Kong for five years, so. So I love picking up cues and influences, but. And then, you know, I was kind of worried that we're going to go to cowboy, right, uh, with something in the Southwest and pull on all these tropes of horse troughs and, you know, rope and I don't know. So we worked with our designers, right, to talk about, like, if the Wesley was a person and it doesn't need to be John Wesley Powell himself.

Speaker D: Right.

Speaker C: We can draw inspiration, but, like, what, again, what's the feeling here? And, uh, are there some models that we pulled from. I can't remember off the top of my head. Micah. Uh, I mean, Courtney and Olivia definitely had some. There are designers. They definitely pulled, you know, three or four model hotels to try and kind of mix, infuse some things. The one I find myself citing is the Campfire Hotel in Bent, Oregon, because they, they just. They heat an outdoor pool year round. And I think, uh, that's. That's pretty dope because right now our pool really gets used in July, August, September, and that's it. And that just kind of sits empty. And so it's like, what would it mean to heat the outdoor, outdoor pool? Like, in a responsible way. I don't want to be throwing away money or being unsustainable, but there's something about the lifestyle photography of you know, these people in Oregon are wearing like beanies and it's snowing and they're keeping their pool at like 95 degrees. And I'm like, that's like, I would drive out of my way to go to a place. I can't tell you how many times we booked a place because there was a pool and then my wife dips her toe in it and she goes, nope. Right? Because it's just not, it's, it's not to the level where she needs it. She's not a cold plunger. Right. So anyways, like I, you know, that's one of the, you know, kind of on your little, uh, virtual, uh, you know, uh, what, uh, do you call inspiration board or, you know, mural of like, big ideas? Like, I think we are taking a couple different cues and things from different hotels. Micah, we were just talking about the, the June Motel the other day. Right, the, the Netflix show that was out a couple years ago. So, so anyways, I, I, I think it's going to be its own thing. I think we're always hunting for, for great ideas, but maybe that, you know, if, if a listener is tuning in going, what's the vibe? You know, it might be something like the campfire hotel.

Speaker A: I love that. So I also just. You guys both have experience with short term rentals, but before that you didn't come up in your careers in the hospitality space. Do you find that you just have the, this innate love for travel and like, you're both clearly people people, but was there anything else that you did to help you shift gears and thinking, what does a traveler want? Or were you really just thinking, okay, me as a traveler, what do I want? Or did you have to kind of hone that skill?

Speaker B: I definitely think honing the skill, we both probably have learned so much from Airbnbs. We've been in Airbnbs for several years now and it's exactly that. You probably build your first Airbnb or furnish your first Airbnb for like the type of place you want. But very quickly you real realize that you need to be catering to the type of traveler that's coming to the market. Maybe you get people who come for business, people, maybe people for pleasure, but there is an ideal avatar that you need to cater to because, uh, I forget the name of the book, but it's like you need to be like laser focused versus like a buckshot where you just try to catch all because you don't really get very far. You can capture a lot very quickly. But you don't get far, but when you're laser focused, you can get very far if you can really dial in what that avatar is. So I want to say that that Airbnb is probably what started, at least for me. And then we let the data tell us what to do. So a lot of it was like, we want to do this, we want to do that. But what does the data say? The data says there's a specific type of traveler that comes here that's underserved. The solo and the couple travelers, a lot of older adults, a lot of international travelers. They need a certain product that's currently not in the market. And if you use the wonderful tool of AI and you just scrape reviews from other hotels in town, you can very quickly see there's nobody that's catering to this specific audience. So how can we be different? A boutique hotel is naturally different than everything else around. How can we be different and cater to this crowd that has been underserved for kind of a long time in this market? So I would say that's probably what I was thinking about when it came to designing, uh, this hotel.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah. And maybe just just to build on that. I think it's kind of interesting that, you know, my first job was in retail. Micah spent, you know, a couple decades in healthcare. I was in professional services. What do these things have in common? Common? They're other focused. They're service based businesses. They say, we have a customer, we have a client. We're trying to create an outcome. How do we get there, man? So I don't know. If I were an investment banker and just trying to pile cash into my bank account, then maybe, maybe this doesn't happen this way.

Speaker D: Right, right.

Speaker C: I think there is a through line here about people that care about other people we give a shit about. Uh, I mean, literally, I'm on vacation and I'm still checking my Airbnb messages, much to Micah's chagrin, because he uses host buddy and gives me crap about it all the time. But I like, you know, hearing that, you know, Sandy just, you know, uh, checked out this morning. She had a phenomenal stay right in the Black Hills. And they sell Mount Rushmore and they saw all these great things. And so I think there's just. I don't, I don't think it's people pleasing, but it's just like, there's a real victory, like a quiet victory for people that, that are in hospitality or in health care.

Speaker A: Yeah, right.

Speaker C: Who just care about the other person. I think that's A little bit of our X factor here is we just. We're gonna care more than the next guy. You, uh, can't tell me that Best Western cares more than the Wesley Hotel. We will out care them.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. Well, I think that just makes the experience for the guest so much stronger because you can feel that. And it's the thoughtful approach that you take into the amenities that you offer or the experiences that you curate. The game room for the older teens that is full of things that are perfect for that age. You know, it's very different than just last week. I was staying at a Comfort Inn and Suites by the beach because we booked last minute and it was the only thing close by. And it literally could have been. I could have been anywhere, but I was in Oceanside, San Diego, and I literally could have been anywhere. There was nothing distinctive about the. The destination and the property. And that air conditioner that blows on your face all night.

Speaker B: I'm glad that you've all had nightmares.

Speaker A: It is such a pain. So, yeah, I think even just. Even the. Just the thoughtful approach that you both have taken to infuse the destination, I mean, that's going to be leaps and bounds above what the competition is doing in that area. So it's just awesome. Love it. All right, well, lastly, I just wanted to hear from you guys if there's any trends you're seeing in hospitality right now that are exciting to you, that you're hoping to implement, or maybe any trends that you're like, that needs to stop, get rid of that.

Speaker B: Well, I don't know if you heard of this thing called AI before, but AI is making its way all throughout hospitality, and I think it's great. Uh, but we talked about it before redefining what luxury is, uh, and really just curating an experience that you can't get anywhere else. We want to continue to be different. We want to be exclusive. So when people come to the Wesley or any other of our hotels, again, we said our goal is three hotels in five years. If they come to any hotel from Adam and I, we want them to be able to talk about it to a guest or someone else and say, we can't get this experience anywhere else. So how do you do that? With AI this is where your employees become even more important, because AI is helping you do all of the nonsensical, mundane tasks. But now you can really allow your employees to work on the guest facing experiences that really can set you apart from inserts said hotel in. In Page Arizona. So I I think that AI is going to continue to make its way through hospitality, but we really want to focus on how we can leverage those people interactions, those in person interactions to create an even better experience for our guests.

Speaker C: Yeah, you want to react to that or do you want me to hop in with my.

Speaker A: I, I just, I love it because we have had this conversation where people almost across are like, yeah, you have keyless check or like faceless check in. You just mobile check in, you go to your door.

Speaker D: You don't try to remove the people, remove the people.

Speaker A: And we feel like that is sucking the soul out of hospitality and what the experience was made for. So I think uh, we completely agree there is such a benefit for working more efficiently and how to use AI for even things like we were talking to uh, another guest and he is using AI to be a training database base for his staff so that if they have a question about something they can pull and it's what, how he would train them almost. So instead of having those binders of SOPs that no one ever pulls out, you know, it's in, it's in this AI model. And so there's ways to, yeah. For your staff to use it and not be afraid of it, but to not let that take the place of the guest to guest interaction.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I love that. I think the, the other thing that I'm thinking about in terms of, um, maybe not trend might be the wrong thing, but I keep coming back maika, to this world of affordable luxury.

Speaker D: Right.

Speaker C: So we kind of heard this from a couple of guys that own some hotels in primarily Texas, uh, called the French Cowboys, uh, two Parisian guys that started doing hospitality and I think they've got eight hotels now. So I had a great chat with them. They said they've done luxury, they've done budget, they've done mid scale and they're kind of in love with this 175 to $200 a night average daily rate across the year. And it's because it's not so expensive where people walk in expecting a ton, but it's not so cheap that you're competing on price.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And so I think this segment of affordable luxury is very interesting to us. And I think Micah, uh, you know when, when we first met like a year ago in Nashville, we got to go to the Bobby Hotel now called the Nash and we actually ran into the guy at a coffee show shop. We were, it's fascinating is like we overheard a conversation. We're like, I think this dude owns a hotel and like, we were supposed to go to, like, the conference room to, like, listen to slide presentation. We had our badges on and all this. And we're like, we ran after him. Like, I'm sorry. Like, hi. Hi. I'm, um, Adam. Hi, I'm Micah. Like, what's your name? What do you do? He's like, oh, I'm Jeff Crable. And, you know, I run the Westin here and actually run the Bobby and took us up and, like, showed us around and, like, and my gosh, if you check out the Nash in Nashville, they have a. A, uh, bus that they airlifted on the rooftop. They have a pickleball court downtown. They were the first boutique hotel in Nashville. And I think it's when people have an edge, when people have a vision, when people try and do something kind of cool and different, you can just tell when there's, like, hard work there. Now, look, they ended up selling, I think it was to private equity or a different group. And it's like a $75 million project. So this is not like, uh, low stakes, but I think you can. You can see what they did, right? They started small and then laddered up. And this was just a glorious, beautiful hotel. I mean, almost like Chef's Kiss. No notes. Well done. How do we copy all of this? But coming back to our little, you know, project in Page, Arizona, it's like, okay, we can't airlift a bus onto a rooftop. You know, like, you have to. You have to. Right size some of this inspiration that other properties that are interesting are doing. And I feel like, I don't know, this is this trend that I'm certainly tracking too, because who knows, maybe. Maybe someday I'm willing to spend thousands of dollars every single night. I'm not there yet, but I do feel myself that we're drifting away from budget economy now that, you know, in your 40s, you've got kids like all that. Right. So it's like there's this sweet spot. Like, I'm not expecting the world, but if you can be thoughtful, if you've designed it, if maybe put in a few basic wellness amenities. Ah. You know, uh, like you. You thought about, about us, like, we're. We're partnering with a coffee truck company. So Navajo owned women owned coffee truck that's going to be able to do your $12 lattes right on site. Right. We partnered with a. A gym that's less than a mile away. So rather than turning one of our tiny rooms into a gym that just smells like rubber and has four weights and no one uses like, we partnered with them. So you can go do your zumba or your CrossFit or whatever. So I think what's cool about affordable luxury is you don't have to carry all the overhead yourself. You can build partnerships and a stronger kind of ecosystem that allows you to be kind of cool, differentiated, and still deliver a great experience. At the end of the day, that's what we're trying to do, right? Create that five star or six star experience where people go, that was worth it, man. That was worth it. I'm glad we stayed there. Why aren't we staying there again, honey? Why are we moving on? Why are we, we. Why did you book the Hampton Inn and Kanab? Like, I want to stay here.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, and I think that that price point also, I mean, because that's very different than, uh, your, like the 3, 500 a night where money is kind of no object. But that price point I think lends itself to having, uh, more flexibility too for extra ancillary spend while they're with you. So maybe because they're not paying 5, 6, 700 a night, they can enjoy the spa and they book you book a wellness treatment, or they can go get a 12 latte, or they can take you up some extra experiences or offerings that you have, which really like, of course that adds to the bottom line, but it makes their experience so much more memorable and enjoyable that then you're so much more likely to have them come back or them tell their friends and it's just exactly, yeah, exactly kind of the same.

Speaker B: We definitely, we, we agree, I mean, wholeheartedly with that. Like, you gotta keep an eye on the bottom line, of course. But yeah, we don't want to be in like the budget option where it's like, this is the lowest rate in town. We're gonna be very skimpy on everything we give. You believe in like, the abundance mindset, so we don't need to get the marble floors, but in the same time we can spend a little bit extra or take a little bit less if we're able to offer that five star, six star experience and get the guest to tell someone else or even return for another day. So I think ultimately that's the, the long term goal.

Speaker C: Yeah. And remember this last week we were talking about premium bottles, uh, that we might have in our room, so still and sparkling and, and for example, like we, we, you know, we got to figure out wholesale, wholesale pricing. You know, my favorite, like, can we get Topo Chico in there? Mike is like yeah, can't get Topo Chico, man. Like, uh, so anyways, you know, you're arguing over like these small details, but you get. You find yourself passionate about these crazy topics like bottled water. But we don't want to be the place like I was recently, I think I was transiting in maybe Denver in the airport and, you know, a glass of bottled water on the table, just Evian or something like that. It was like 10 bucks.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: It's like, okay, that makes sense in a $3,000 a night hotel. But, you know, we're thinking it's gonna be five bucks. We want this to be accessible and reachable and kind of take, you know, we need to make money. But at the same time, we don't want to just gouge people for, uh, the fun of it. I think we can create better experiences and build our overall kind of brand where people are talking about us, right. They're sharing it with other families going, oh, man, we had a great trip. You know, we saw the Grand Canyon, we did Moab. We did all these things. But there was this one little cute hotel in Page, you know, which is. It's not a ton going on in Page right now, but if we curate it right and tell the story right and only sell $5 water right. Hey, more. More families. More families have a chance to stay there.

Speaker D: Yeah. It's so funny. Rachel and I do a ton of like, consumer research and we both worked in luxury before. And selfishly, I think that this, the price point you guys are at and the audience you're trying to attract is, is like the most fun. And I, I say that like with a grain of salt, but you get to this like ultra luxury and there's just these like, kind of crazy guests expectations, like, why is this not here? Why is this not ready? Like, yeah, where you guys are at, people are very intentional. It's more experienced. They're just. There's. There's a little more thoughtful in some ways and just, I don't know, it's a, It's a more enjoyable audience, a more enjoyable guest, I think, to cater to than the higher end ones. I don't know if you have thoughts on that, Rach, but.

Speaker A: No, I hear you. I worked in house four or four seasons for 10 years, and so the guest expectation was so high, uber high, which was great. You know, it was a. It was great to have that understanding, but to see where you can have more fun and be more playful and especially like Derek and I love the independent boutique hotel hotel side of things. Because you're so restricted with a big international brand like that. There's so much red tape to go. You could never airlift a bus on top of a. A property, you know, so the. The creativity that you guys get to have and what you get to do and really make it your own is just. I'm sure you guys are having a blast. Like, hard work, but so fun.

Speaker B: Yes. Uh, I mean, that's exactly right. Almost to the point. We always make decisions. When we first started, we were probably making like, 100 decisions a day. And I think because we have so much autonomy, everything becomes a decision. Like, is this another opportunity to make this a, uh, curated stay? Like, like, what grade toilet paper do we want? Do we want the cheapest toilet paper, Most expensive? And it becomes that, which is great. We love it. But everything is now a decision that you have the ability to make that directly impacts your guest day. There's nobody telling you what ply toilet paper. There's nobody telling you how often or what type of mattress you need to get. That's solely your decision with the interest of the guests. So, uh, it's very fun, very exciting, but we are constantly keeping the guests at the front of mind to make the best possible stay at the Wesley Hotel.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: And who knows, maybe a couple years from now, we will own that Marriott courtyard outside of dfw. That. There you go. Uh, non descript, and people just stay there and it prints cash and it kind of has no soul, but it's just like, dude, this thing bangs. So who knows? But for now, like, we're all in on boutique hotels, you know, So I don't think there's anything wrong with flagged or franchise, but, man, yeah, you. It is paint by numbers. You're. You're giving up a lot of upside. You give up that autonomy and freedom. So this is certainly a fun space. Let's see how this evolves. I think we're gonna make a bunch of mistakes. We're gonna get a lot of things right. Who knows? Maybe our first hotel is our best hotel that we ever do. I hope not. But, like, we're trying to take notes and part of why, you know, Mike and I even decided to do, like, a podcast or kind of build in public. Like, Mike is doing daily renovation posts, you know, from the property. That's a lot of work.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Some of this is a love letter to ourselves, quite frankly, just to go, you know, 10 years from now, I want to be able to back and see what we were thinking, see what we were dealing with. See, like, I hope it all just looks so cute, you know, like, because it's very stressful in, in the moment, you know, for your first big jump. Uh, it does not feel obvious. It does not feel inevitable. Like, there is a mix of excitement and terror, uh, in your, in your first deal. Yeah. So, uh, who knows, you know, down the road where, where this goes, but we're, we're just having a ball with boutique hotels and, and, uh, and who knows if we stick in the Southwest or if we had.

Speaker D: Right.

Speaker C: So I, I, I, I think you've got a lot of chances to tell this kind of story throughout the world.

Speaker A: Yeah. All right, well, just to wrap it up, any hints or a, uh, preview on where the next two out of the three and the five years are going to be anywhere you guys are looking at.

Speaker B: Oh, my gosh, the pressure.

Speaker A: Or maybe I'll just say dream, like your dream spot or where, like, has piqued your interest.

Speaker B: We'll go with dreams. I, I'll say one dream location. Costa Rica is great.

Speaker C: Great.

Speaker B: The weather's always nice year round.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And then the one thing we are looking at is just the cost of labor. So your margins can be significantly larger when you just can cut down your overhead. I think that's just business 101. The lower your, your overhead, the higher revenue you bring home. So I would love to be in Costa Rica or some type of tropical market where practically I don't ever have to leave because I like the warm weather. Adam, would you, would you like to intervene?

Speaker C: Well, I'm, I mean, I'm kind of the counterpoint of. I think it would be super fun to do something up in, like, Vancouver island or, you know, head, head north. But, but Hotel One. Yeah, exactly. I'm trying to kill this man. Uh, but, but, but Mike is exactly right. You can get elite operators. The further away from the equator you are, you kind of have some occupancy headwinds. So somebody crushing in Canada might be doing 60% occupancy.

Speaker B: 65.

Speaker C: Something like that. Right, right. But there's almost like this ceiling.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Down south, like a bad operator can get 65% occupancy. So it made so much sense for us to kind of start there.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: But, uh, yeah, you know, I could absolutely see kind of, you know, in the Southwest. So it could be western Colorado, it could be Utah, it could be Arizona, it could be New Mexico. I think those are kind of obvious choices. And we'll probably keep fishing there. And I suspect one of our next hotels Is there. But I do think there's kind of this fun, like, international element, so. Oh, could. Could we go to Canada? Could we go to Costa Rica? Like, and then eventually, like, could. Could we post up in Vietnam, Micah? Yeah, I'm retiring there, so might as well just have a. A dope hotel to. To Right.

Speaker D: Check in on, relax at.

Speaker B: Yeah, I love it. Business trip to Vietnam, you know, no big deal.

Speaker D: Check in.

Speaker A: Well, thank you so both so much for being on today and sharing your story. It's been so fascinating. If people want to follow along or check out the Wesley, where can they do that, man?

Speaker B: We have a lot of channels, but just type in our names. Micah Invest, Adam Walls Invest. We're on Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, you name it. Follow the Wesley, uh, hotel on Instagram. Our direct booking website is the WesleyAZ.com. if you type in the Wesley, chances are you'll come across us. And we are open books. We're very transparent. We're building in public. You can scroll all the way back to the first day I was on site, and I literally post daily reels of updates and decisions we're making. Like, do we go with door hangers or door magnets for our do not disturb sign? So feel free to jump in, tag along, and follow the journey.

Speaker C: Yeah. Well, well said. And then my. My last challenge to you, you all, is when. When you all get in a hotel, man, like, we gotta get you on our podcast and talk about your aspirations and dreams.

Speaker A: Let's do it. We've got. We got a lot of them. Um, I think our. Our problem right now is narrowing down what we're gonna start with. With.

Speaker D: I know our mind's all over the place. We have more. More questions than answers at this point. But, yeah, it's all exciting.

Speaker C: Wow. And just. And just remember, you know, just don't get caught up in analysis. Paralysis. There's never a perfect moment. It will always feel a little bit scary.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Probably just like becoming like a dad or something like that. Happy Father's Day to anyone out there listening.

Speaker D: Right.

Speaker C: You're not ready for this job. Like, you just aren't. And you can't know all of the things, but sitting back, relying on YouTube University, or only listening to podcasts will take you so far. It's. It's great education.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: But putting yourself in the ring, what's the old. The old quote, right?

Speaker A: The.

Speaker C: The. Yeah, the man in the ring. There's just so much that you learn when you're in it and, and you'll find that you've got so many wonderful advisors, mentors, colleagues. This. This industry is rich with generous people that want to see you succeed. So when, not if, when you guys jump into the game, we. We can't wait to help you out.

Speaker A: Uh, we so appreciate that. And yeah, we're right there with you. We have found I've been in hospitality for. Feels like my whole adult life, and the people are what make it so special and so great. And everyone is so kind and generous, and we have just loved getting to dive deeper into meeting people through this network. And I feel like. I don't know if you guys feel like this, but we often feel like the pool kind of gets smaller the longer we're in it, so we're all.

Speaker B: You make so many connections.

Speaker A: Totally a couple degrees of separation.

Speaker D: Uh, yeah.

Speaker A: We're so happy to be connected to you both. And if you want to check out more Foundry talks, you can find us on Spotify and Apple podcasts.