We're going to be open to really any, any hospitality opportunity. We've got our, obviously our, our parameters that we need to hit, but we're going to be purchasing 15 million at a minimum of, of acquisitions per year. And our three year goal will be to be valued at 75 million. All right, welcome back to the Art of Connecting podcast. This is your host here, Hayden Fike. Back with another guest and today I also have a co host with me so this is gonna be the first podcast ever that I've had a co host with me on it and no one better to do it with than Nathan St. Cyr. What's going on, man? How are you? I'm doing killer, man Look if I woke up on Maui And looked out at this beautiful day and had something to complain about, I'd be in trouble. So yeah, I'm doing well, man. How are you? Good. It's I can't say the same thing about Chattanooga, unfortunately, today. I had to figure out which sweater I was going to wear because We can, I think every call you're ever on, everyone's just a little bit jealous that you're in Maui. Yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't suck. It's awesome. So why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself, Nathan, and tell us about who you are. Yeah, well, look, if, if we're really looking at who I am, I am a husband, I am a father of two daughters. So I'm a girl dad and I am a passionate leader that's in the midst of Being out here in the Hawaiian islands and, and taking a hospitality brand that we've started and, and really taking a 400, 000 down payment and turning it into a 400 million hospitality company. I love it. I love it. So keeping in the true art of connecting fashion, let's get started talking about. What some of the relationships were that got you into hospitality, like how did, how did you get started down this path? Yeah, well, I think that if we look at connections, you know, it's hard to even describe the, where, where I'm currently at without Talking about the relationship and you know, I feel like the power of partnerships is that, you know, in, in partnerships. 1 plus 1 does not equal 2. It's like 1 plus 1 equals 3 or 1 plus 1 equals 10. The power of 2 together is, you know, has an amplifier effect that's. That's massive. So if we talk about connections, I'd say one of the most important connections in this hospitality journey was really noticing that I would had been growing a, the highest performing sales based team in a 20 billion industry. I built it, led it for over a decade. And I recruited people. I learned very early that if I recruited who's that had massive wise that ultimately that was going to lead to the highest level of success. But what it also did is connected me to unbelievable, talented individuals. And that's where I met my business partner. So I had recruited Mike Russell from San Diego to come out here to Maui. And over the course of five years, him working with me we really recognized that we had complimentary strengths. He was an unbelievable executor. He was a top sales rep, but more than that, I could really see the way that he worked, the way that he processed things, that he was incredibly detail oriented really rare for, for a sales person. He had some unique skill sets. He'd built businesses prior to this. He had a passion for real estate, just like me. He wanted to do big things in life. So in building this team and, and, and having these unbelievable people I worked with, I had the opportunity to recognize. This is somebody that I could in the longterm do something massive with. And so that connection came out of building a sales team here in Hawaii. What were you guys selling? We were selling timeshare. Timeshares. Okay. So that's kind of a brutal industry to be in, right? Like that's, that's not an easy thing to do is to sell a timeshare. I would say the skills that we developed in number one I was a sales leader. I started as a sales person, but I really, my passion is in leadership. So yes, I leading. A sales team in an industry that's incredibly challenging and difficult has those skills that were developed, they transfer over into the entrepreneurial world, I'd say more than any skill that exists. So yeah, it's not, that was a, what we did was no easy feat to say the least. Got it. Got it. So what did the transition look like going into hospitality from sales? Like, cause it's seems, I mean, that one is you're going and grabbing customers and others you're operating. Right. So what did that transition look like getting into hospitality? Well, first of all, if we look at what timeshare is, timeshare really is, it's a commitment to travel and vacation. And so to represent, if I'm going to sell something, I'm going to sell something that I believe deeply in. And really what timeshare was, it was, it was a plan that created a commitment for people to, to travel. So hospitality, although, you know, very different in selling timeshare. And then, you know, building a hospitality company. There's some real common threads here. Recognizing human behavior and what fulfills people is, is key. We used it every single day in communicating with people about the, the impact and the benefits that, you know, having timeshare resort ownership had in their lives. That really, it all comes down to six human emotional needs, but those six human emotional needs that we recognized in people and we would deliver and fulfill through our product, those same six human emotional needs. If you go to our website right now on howzathostels. com, you'll go see that we revolve our entire business of hospitality really involves everything. Executing and creating and providing fulfilling those same human emotional needs that drives somebody to want to own a product. So there's a ton of parallel. Very interesting. Gabe, what questions do you have for Nathan right now? So transferring from, like you said service into hospitality. Was there any certain lessons that you had to, you know, teach yourself and teach your, you know, your partner? Any big differences that were, you know, in the different market change that you had to experience and learn? Well, I would say that having the courage to do something that was unknown that's, that's, that's a big piece, you know, to, to take action when you have no experience in something that's, you know, that's a, that's a tough feat. And we knew nothing about hostels, what hostels? I mean, Mike, my business partner had stayed in a few hostels, you know, 15, 20 years prior after after college. But other than that, I've lived here on Maui since I've been 19. I really didn't even know what a hostel was. So to have no experience, but to recognize that there was a market need to recognize that if we looked at something and what we're able to create our own standards and deliver a feeling for people you know, to execute at a high level that we were onto something really special. I think that that, that skill and that piece and learning that, hey, if you believe in something, if you really can see it and you believe it, and you then take action to go accomplish it, that the rewards can be, can be massive. Sure. So what did the creation of this business look like? How did, how did this conspire? How did you create, how's it? Yeah, well, that really comes back to we wanted to do something as partners. We wanted to do something. Big, like we had two goals. Our first goal was to create financial and time freedom. And then our second goal was to create generational wealth. And so when we came upon this opportunity, it was. It was actually by accident. We didn't go looking to purchase hostels. We were actually going to go and and scale apartment buildings. We just had kind of graduated from a multi family educational course and we were the first property, the first apartment we wanted to start here in Hawaii and the first apartment that we went to look at or went to make an appointment to look at. It went under contract that day so we never even saw it but in the comments it said Previously operated as a hostel and we were like, what previously operated as a hostel. So even though it went under contract, we asked the agent, what is, what, what was this? Like, what does this mean? It was previously operated as a hostel. Because Mike, my business partner had been doing unbelievably well in short term rentals. And so we had a little bit of a light bulb moment. We're like, wait a minute. There's no way the two of us could afford to purchase a hotel on Maui hotels on Maui. There hasn't been a hotel sold under 25 million in the past decade. So that was just not approachable. But when we looked at this and we're like, well, wait a minute, this is an apart previously run as a hostel. It's being sold at the cost of an apartment building. Is there a way that we could actually purchase an approachable piece of real estate and then use a hospitality business model to go with it. And the light bulb went off, the agent started sending us, he's like, Oh, these guys are interested in this. He started sending us everything that was happening in Europe and everything that was happening in In Asia and how the hostel industry in the U S was just really a market that was significantly depressed. And we looked at that as a, as a real opportunity. Did you end up getting that building that went under contract that was previously operated as a hostel or was that a different one? We did not. And in fact, I think that, that the lesson, one of the biggest lessons learned is we had this vision and I know that most people would have given up on it. We actually purchased a different building here on Maui and we were going to convert it into a hostel. So that gave us the idea. We went in, we did all the research. We're like, we're doing this. That was in 2018, the end of 2018, we closed on a commercial property that was zoned correctly. Well, we ran into a bunch of challenges as we were going through the process and then COVID hit. And we decided during COVID when that, they changed the zoning. So unless you were already grandfathered in, you could no longer operate hospitality in that zone. So we pivoted during COVID. And I, I think that this is a, a huge takeaway. I believe in our journey for people, most people would have given up on this idea. And in the middle of COVID, if you go back, Hawaii was like a ghost town. It was complete. People couldn't fly in. It was an absolute, there was no one here. I went to beaches where I was the only one on the beach. And if you really kind of consider how it felt where there was so much uncertainty at that time, and then our business model was shared dormitory accommodations, probably not the business model. As everything was shut down that people thought now there's a good idea. You should really double down on that. But we did, we, we just felt like, look, the world's going to solve this issue, and this is going to provide us the opportunity to go in and purchase an existing hostel because everything was locked down. And we could really go in and be like, look, this is the time. This is the time for us to score. And, and we did, we, we were able to we took massive action. We went knocking on doors all over Hawaii. And we, we found a hostel owner that was, you know, hadn't made any money for. quite a while and was looking at the future going, this is not how I want to spend my life thinking that the industry was coming to an end. And we were, we really were able to capitalize by purchasing a property for, you know, pennies on the dollar. So how did you build rapport with that owner? Did you just go walk up and knock on their door and say, Hey, we want to buy our hostel or what, what did that process look like to get an off market property? Yeah, that's a great question. In fact, both of our hostels have come the same way. We just believe that the relationships and we go into it to develop a relationship. And so we'll go and look at an area, a region, we'll identify properties that, that fit our you know, fit our buy box that we say that that could work for us. And then we literally go and Narrow it down and then we do exactly what you just said. We go and knock on doors and we knocked on all of the doors for everything on this island and another island. And each one of them resulted in a relationship that started to be built. And with this owner here on Maui, it was just first of all, it was It was making the, making the connection through his manager that was, you know, sitting there at a closed down hostel and saying, hey this is what we're looking to do. And we'd love to chat if, if the owner wants to have a conversation, have them reach out to us. And we did that at three different, three different hostels here on Maui. And one of them called us back. And that process though, took nine months. So from the time we knocked on that door to the time that we actually closed, it was a nine month process. And in the beginning, it was really about having a conversation that we looked at is how can we present a win for you? And how can we present a win for us? And out of that coming from that place, let's find a win win in this. He was able to walk away. We still finance through him. So we were able to get seller financing, but he's still earning income traveling around the world. So we really did go and position and negotiate. We did the exact same thing with the owner on the big islands. We seller financed that as well. So we building a relationship to start, I really believe and building a relationship with the staff, cause we didn't have direct contact to the owners directly. In our first door knock, it was developing a relationship and being just being good people and cool and being forthright about who we were and what we were doing and knocking on doors and saying, Hey, you know, nice to meet you. This is our thought. This is what we're doing. We love the, we love the building. This is wow. You guys have done a great job and man, hey, is there any way we could get in contact with the owner? We'd love to have a conversation. And we did that at both of our properties and both of them resulted in the relationship we built with the manager for them to trust us enough to say, yeah, you know what? I'm gonna do that. I'm gonna pass your information on because I think a manager They're going to look at you as if you come in and you're, you don't take the time to really connect. If you don't take the time to really have that human experience, then they're going to look at you as well. If you bought this, I'm answering to you like, no, I'm not passing this information on, but they actually looked at us as. I mean, I remember walking around in the big island and, and the employee, all of a sudden there were a couple of them that were following us around. And they're like, yeah, you know, we need this and, and we need that, man. It would be so cool if somebody took this over and brought it back to life. And, and so, so they, the staff bought into us before. We even had a conversation with the owner, which I think is a really important, we get so focused in acquisitions on what's in it for us that I think sometimes we forget to be like, look, if we focus, first of all, on human connection and how can we find a win in this for everybody here, if you start with that mindset, the results are going to work out in, in everyone's favor. I think that's the perfect example too, of like how you treat one person is how you treat everyone. You know, if you, if you treat the managers, well, they're, they're going to automatically put a, such a better word in with the owner for you than anyone else, because it's like, as someone who's managed, you know, restaurant before a lot of times people, the only time you get called in is because there's a problem, right? Like, like the manager gets called in when something's going wrong. And so when the desk person goes with the manager says, Hey, there's someone here that wants to see you. And it's something that's exciting for the manager. That's something they can get behind. That's something that they can. Really be proud to share with the owner of like, Hey, you know, there's this guy that came in and he may actually want to buy this thing from you. And I think that's such an amazing example of how. Being a good human to other people, no matter what position they're in, creates a position for success for you. Yeah. I appreciate that. I also think that when we look at our business model and when we look at hospitality, it's the same thing that look in two and a half years of us having no experience, we became the best small hostel in North America and all of North America. Like, and we did that because we valued what our guests What they had to say. So we looked at reviews. If you go and read reviews on like Google and you look at the people that respond and you're like, they like, they try to crush the person that left the bad review and it just comes across as so defensive. And so like, dude, like this person had this experience and yes, difficult people are difficult, but we looked at it very differently. We were so grateful for reviews and we were. Everybody wants a five star review. Yes, we do. We want to grow our brand, but we really valued the poor reviews because we didn't know anything about what we were doing So if we could listen to them and really say, okay, here's how they experience their time with us How can we go and create processes? And how can we go and and coach our team? How can all of us together go and go recognize that? Wow, this is how we left someone feeling. How can we make sure to put in place a system that that really doesn't allow that to happen again? And slowly but surely, we started knocking out all of those challenges, creating processes, finding the right people to lead our organization that would be able to look at, because it's, it's tough when you get tough reviews, you want, you know, your first thing is, oh, well, they were this, but we've now created a culture where it's like, no, thank you for that review. Now let's go and look at what we did and how we could go and get better. And it's had a major impact. Major impact on it. So whether, whether you're going into a situation where you're in acquisitions and you're looking to purchase a property and you're speaking with a manager or whether you're the business owner, that's looking at the guests that are coming in, I think really being willing to, to listen and to care what somebody else's perspective is, is we all live in our own worlds and our own minds, and if we're willing to step outside of it and. Dig in and be like, okay, I can leave my mind for a second and put myself in that person's position and we come from that position You know really good things happen. That's great. Why don't you rip another one? What do you got? I find it very inspiring that you take that criticism and, you know, use it for good. So a lot of businesses and like you said especially small businesses take criticism as a, as almost like a shot at them and they're in there what they've built. But I think it's very important very crucial that you've taken that and you and your partner y'all take the reviews and you, you learn from them, and then you figure out how you can you know, hopefully the next time they come back, if they do come back turn that review into a five star. So that's great. Yeah, I appreciate that. And I think that that comes from the, you know, if we really look at connections and the impact that, you know, people have had in our life and I go back early in my life and, and look at like my athletic career, look, it was an athletic career that ended in high school, but man, leadership impacted me and, and being coachable impacted me and seeing how listening to other's feedback and where they're coming for when, especially when talking about me is like, okay, that's not an easy thing to accept, but when you can and you accept it and then you take ownership and accountability for it seeing the rewards that come from that, seeing the rewards from being coachable, I mean, It's unbelievable. So if I'm just resistant to everything that comes my way, that, that may hurt a little bit, if I spin that into, let me be open to that, take accountability for that, that's where the growth happens. And that's where I become better. Right and so I learned that very, very early in life. And then it taught me a lot about leadership to look in building a team. That's a big component to building a champion level team. is having people that are willing to be coachable and that will take a hundred percent accountability and will look at themselves first before they point the fingers at others. That's a huge part of our culture building. So something that I wanted to ask you about in We'll shift out of hostels after this question as I want to talk about what you guys are building in the portfolio. But in your hostel specifically, we, while we were in Cabo together on a rooftop smoking a cigar, we had a brief conversation about this. But I want, I would love for you to talk about How you find good managers that you trust? How do you, how do you connect with those people? Where did you find your management team? Because I know now at this point in your business, even just a few short years after starting it. I know that you have been able to create a system where the company is not necessarily running itself, but where you have great managers in place where you don't have to be on site every day. So how did you create that? And what are some connections that led to that? Okay. This is maybe my favorite story. You just asked of all time. And I never get to talk about it. So I'm so fricking pumped that you just asked me that question. Like, dude, I'm so pumped that you asked that question. Okay, number one, I believe that it's really about people versus I'll go people and culture building first before just skill and so the area general manager, cause we, I spend three hours a week on the operational side of running. You know, 2. 5 billion worth of hospitality revenue. And so three hours a week, and it's just leading. I lead three meetings. That's it. And the reason that we're able to do that is because we do have the right people in place. But I'll share with you the story of our area general manager. that oversees both of our properties. He's the leader. When we were hiring our first general manager, three years ago, we were getting ready to open. We knew nothing about the hostel industry. We had a consultant that was helping us hire. We were going through these interviews and the hostel consultant created a spreadsheet and then it was divided into, are they worth having an interview with? Yes. Not worth having an interview with, no, maybe worth having an interview with check with Nathan and Mike So I would look at that because I'd always look at the maybes and then he would set everything up okay, we get down to the final interviews. We're going between the final three. One of them, his name was Zach, and this guy Zach was working for, he was leading a team in like UPS or or something like that. He had this, or FedEx, he had this huge team. He was very buttoned up every time we talked to him through the interview process. He had like a buttoned shirt on and he was had, was bald and he had like an office setting. And so we were getting on to have a final interview with him. And then there were two others. And in this final interview. It was through Zoom, it was during COVID. Zoom comes on and all of a sudden this, there's this guy bouncing around. He's like got big hoop earrings in he's fricking got tattoos. He's out in this, there's like a fence with with big evergreen trees and he's just so this dude is so happy and he's like, thank you guys so much for for having this with me. I didn't think you were going to and both my business partner and the consultant dropped from the call. They're like, what is going on? Who is this dude? Well, I looked down in the corner and it said Zach. Zach Cranor. And I was like, Zach Cranor. And I'm like, Oh my gosh, I remember reading the spreadsheet. I've got a pretty good memory. And I'm like, I remember reading the spreadsheet. And there was a Zach from Oregon that we said no to. We didn't even want to have an interview with them at the very beginning of the process. The hostel consultant sent out the wrong, the invitation to the wrong person. We'd already declined this guy. Right. But here he is bouncing around. And I'm like, you know what? Okay. This guy showed up to this interview. I remember in his comments, he said, this is my dream job. So I said, you know what? I'm just, I'm going to carry on with the interview. And I started by saying, Hey, Zach, I did want to let you know that we're really close to filling the general manager position, but I saw some of your comments and I just wanted to get to know you a little bit better and see if there might be a fit for us. Well, long story short, he agreed to come over for 30 days. And just, just work with us. Did he started by, he said, I'll just, I'll take a bed in a closet. We didn't have any space for him. He literally, we cleaned out a storage shed. He had a bed in the storage shed for 30 days. And he said, you know what? I'll start up your activities. I'll just start going around Maui, finding out what people want to do best. And I'll create a, an act and cause that's something that we wanted to do. And he created, he was first person that created our actual free guided tours. And within 30 days, we're like, we're hiring you. So we hired him. He became a guest experience supervisor. Then we had a, we were growing and we needed an assistant manager and boom, he moved in the assistant manager. Then our general manager had a family issue that occurred and had to go back to the mainland. So. Who did we promote? The wrong Zach. So he got labeled the wrong Zach. And now this guy leads our entire fricking hostel company. He's unbelievable. But that's one of those, you know, that's one of those moments where you just recognize in somebody that they're They're a good, they're a good person and that their human spirit, it just, you can feel it, it transfers. And I trusted in my intuition and that connection that we made was, has had a massive impact. You know, he went out and won the best small hostel in North America. So we always, we will always joke about the wrong Zach. So that story is amazing. I, we didn't get to talk about that when we, when we met and something that I want to ask you about is, as an organization owner, how do you avoid those situations, right? Like, I mean, obviously that was like, perfect kind of like, serendipity there of like, the wrong link being clicked, but what changes did you make to make sure that you have more people like Zach coming through your funnel of the people that you are interviewing? What did you learn from that, where it's like, we would have missed out on this guy if someone hadn't made a clerical error? What we realized very early that the hostel industry is unique and that that's where we, that's where our employees come from. Our employees come from being hostel goers and we've created a culture where we, we pay up to, Paid vacation up to six weeks because we know that hostel goers are transient. And so if we can let them be transient and align with what their values are and what their culture is, they love being involved in community. So we went out and set the, you know, the standards in the very beginning to say, Hey, we're going to be, we're going to be the employee of choice for the hostel industry, and we're going to be the volunteer of choice for, for volunteers, because we'll have people that. Come and volunteer and they'll do a work trade where they're like, Hey, we'll do housekeeping. If we can have a free bed on Maui. And they become what we call our farm league. So we find people that are a lot of times they're so talented and educated, but they're maybe they're taking a year off and taking a a gap year and we'll connect with them. And then they fall in love with our business and they become someone that says, I would like to work for you. And then we put them in the, you know, we, have a whole process that we go through where we keep all of these people that have potential in the waiting, we reach out to them consistently, check in with how they're doing. And then if we have an opening, boom, we bring them on the team. We already know who they are. We've already seen them. We've already witnessed kind of who they are as a person. And we've been able to then create our culture out of people that have already stayed with us and know that they want to be a part of our team. So it's one of the ways where we gain our competitive advantage. So you're keeping a talent pipeline, essentially. Yeah. And we're extremely well positioned because of that. We're extremely well positioned to grow. So we have identified that's one of the things that we talked about. How did, you know, how did what you did in a sales career transfer over into building your own company? And, you know, that was, one of the things that I learned very early is, you know, salespeople move on. And so you're always looking, I was always looking for who would be the next leader. If my existing leader left, who would be able to fill in? And so constant that transferred over. We teach that with our existing leaders in the hostel company is we need to recognize constantly talent and then let's build a pipeline around it. So it's a, it's a huge part of who we are as an organization being prepared to, by recognizing and then building that pipeline, being prepared to, to scale and grow. We've got a lot of people on the bench waiting. So speaking of growth, let's let's talk about what your big vision is. Like what, what's coming next for you and your partners and your brand? Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. So what we've learned is that essentially hospitality is delivering a feeling. That's it. Hospitality is about delivering a feeling and we're passionate about real estate and we're passionate about delivering and fulfilling that feeling that people want. But look, different people are looking for different feelings, right? So not everybody is looking for the hostel experience. Somebody may be looking for that experience to go to a little lakeside beach micro resort. Somebody may be looking for, I get so inspired when I'm walking in the middle of an urban city and I look up and I see a, just a marquee property. And I'm like, man, if I could be in that fricking penthouse suite looking out over this city, that would be like, that's like, that's my dream. I want to own a marquee property with a marquee fricking penthouse and a marquee view. So, hospitality delivers different things to different people. And that's really always been our vision. We've had great success in the hostel industry. But now we're really branching out and we're in the acquisition phase of additional hostels, boutique hotels, and experiential lodging properties. Very cool. So you mentioned a little, I'm going to backtrack just a tad here. I wanted to ask this a little bit earlier, but you said that you went around once you started getting into the business, you asked around to, you know, to previous hostel owners when you were trying to learn the business and, you know, they're in Maui. But I have a question. Did you ever look into why most of the hostel owners there didn't work out or it didn't, you know, grow as the way that it should have, or maybe, you know, The way you, you made yours grow. We recognized very quickly that we think very differently than many of the hostel owners. Many of the hostel owners in the U S they traveled as hostel goers and then they came back to the U S and they're like, they had, they got the hostel bug, right? They'd been traveling that way for 10 years. And they're like, you know what? Here's a property, let's start a hostel. And then they really become, like the business is completely reliant on them. They are a part of the hostel and that becomes their life. They're like they're managing running. And we never, we, that was never a part of our vision. Our vision was to really follow kind of the footprints of some of the big success that's coming that's occurred through, you know, some real significant players like Generator out of Europe and some of these, these big boys that were designed forward and that we're really marketing to, to Gen Z and earlier the, you know, the, the youngest millennials and then Gen Z that came along that have grown up in a very different world that look at, you know, they've been used to co living and uber and shared spaces and they're constantly living on their phones and technology. So when they do take a moment, when they want separation, they don't want to be on their own with their phone. They want to actually have real live, genuine human connection. And so we started seeing that that's where the entire industry had gone in everywhere but the US. And so although we were talking to a lot of owners, we sat, we found this like common theme. Wow. This person's really working in their business, not on their business. And they're just really running what they experienced 25 years ago as an old backpacker resort. And that's, that's not, that's not what we're after. We're out there to create a design forward community that provides, you know, connection. And then also we take people out into the area that we are into the culture. They get to experience it. We know how to set them up for the Instagrammable moments. So they still get to show what they're doing and feel good about it and feel like they're having a great time. But so we just came into it having a very different mindset. And so some of what we learned in our early connections that we made with the, the hostel owners here in the U S is that, that we were different. And we felt like we were going to be able to bring our own our own view to the marketplace here and that that view would be appreciated. And, and it has been. So on the path forward, you utilizing the systems that you've built, what does that path forward look like? Like what is the next one to two years look like for Nathan and team? Yeah. So we have a, you know, we have a goal of, of acquiring a minimum of 15 million per year over the next three years of hospitality assets were a little bit uniquely positioned in that, you know, we look at what is the, what is the actual asset saying it wants to become so very, very different than, than just looking at, okay, this is what we need. We have to fit everything in a box. We're not, we're very open. And because we've learned the fundamentals of hospitality and the fundamentals of running a full team and a full hotel team, but just in a hostel experience, we're really well positioned to be able to to really grow and, and, and any of these different genres of hospitality. So that's really what we're going to look at. We're going to be open to really any, any hospitality opportunity. We've got our, obviously our, our parameters that we need to hit, but we're going to be purchasing 15 million at a minimum of, of acquisitions per year. And our three year goal will be to be valued at 75 million. So what does your buy box look like right now? How do you, how do you decide what properties you're looking for? I guess you're growing. We look for first thing we look for is revenue. So a lot of people look at doors or they look at you know, they're there, they look at purchase price and, Oh, it needs to be at this purchase price or under what we look at first of all is What is the revenue that, you know, we, we develop our investment thesis based on what we know about hospitality and what we see this asset, what would the revenue be? And then we take that revenue and we reverse engineer it into, all right, we know that our business model on a full staff model needs to fit this revenue profile. This at a staff light or remote management needs to fit this revenue level. So we kind of have tiers, 500, 000 to a million dollars worth of revenue, staff light, remote. A million dollars and up. We can put our full team in and create a full team of hospitality. Amazing. Well, I'm super excited to get to watch as you build this out. It's a very exciting. I want to talk about one more thing, one more connection. And that's because we're both in the same group, both in the action Academy. And you actually made a hire within Action Academy. Can you tell us a little bit about that and what made you make the decision to bring Brandon on your team? Yeah, absolutely. Well, I went into, I went into Tulum where we all, you know, gather together in our mastermind as a you know, an in person international event. And I just had one, I had one thing I wanted to accomplish. I wrote it down before I went Find the who's. That was it. Find the who's because really as a leader and as a company, you can only grow as much as your team can execute. And so having the right people in the right places is a key to growth. And so I went in open to whatever the experience in Tulum was going to be, but searching, knowing that ultimately I was looking to connect and find the right, find the right who, and I'd had this conversation. And. I had one or two calls with this guy that was in Chicago. And it was like, he was so excited that we had, that we owned hostels. And he was like, Oh, I did YouTube videos for us. So, and so whatever, you know, the, the early intro calls and In, in action academy, sometimes they're just sad. They're just a get to know someone intro. So I knew this guy had a you know, a passion for traveling in hostels, but in Tulum, I really started to see how much talent he had and I kind of watched his circle, who he was connecting with. And we started having some deeper conversations and it just seemed like everywhere we went, we ended up just making sure that we were kind of next to each other and taking the conversation further and further and further. And I'm like, damn, dude, you could be the CEO of our company. Like at some point this, this guy could like. Own and grow the whole fricking division of our, of our hostel company. Like I just, I just felt it. I'm an, kind of an intuitive leader and I'm like, just like the wrong Zach. Right. And anyway, we started, we started talking more. He kind of was like, Oh, and You know, one thing led to another and he left his left his W two and he has signed on full time to to work with us. And I was, I was on, on a call with him up until three minutes before we jumped on to connect here. So can you talk about the power of being in the right groups? Cause I know if anyone's listened to this podcast for any episodes before this, you've probably heard me mention some of the mastermind groups that I'm in, but like, what's your experience been with the mastermind groups and like kind of, I guess, paying to get into the, into the group. What's, what's your experience been in that? Well, I think I've spent about a hundred grand on mastermind groups this past year. So whether it's you know, hiring, you know, joining a mastermind for our, you know, the hotel investor playbook podcast. I was like, okay, well, we're not getting where we want. So we better put ourselves in the room with people that know a heck of a lot more than us and get a coach. And so that's one example, right? Action Academy. My goodness, I want to be involved with, even though I'd already left my w two, I wanted to be involved with people that are just absolutely aligned with, I'm going to take as much action as I can in my life to go and move the needle and to, you know, compress time. And for me, that comment of positioning of compressing time, writing, meeting the right people and being in the right groups, it allows you to expedite everything, your learning and your connections. It is the biggest amplifier or compression of time that exists. That's, that's the reality. So the impact that, that masterminds have had on me personally, my growth, if I look at where I was let's just, 2024 was the first time that, that I joined a mastermind at the very beginning of the year, we joined a boutique hotel mastermind. And when I look at the impact that that's had the being in the room with everybody else that's doing the same thing the resources that came from the connections of here's the resource catalog and all of a sudden it's this call that call. Now we have SEC attorneys now we have the whole stack. Here's how we raise capital. We'd never done anything on social media before. I'd never even been on social media before. Now we have an Instagram account. We have a podcast. We have all of these things because we went and put ourself in the room with people that have done what we want to do. And we're just copying the blueprint, right? Success leaves clues. And so making that investment, although it may be substantial, there, there will have been no. Better investment that I've personally made this year than the investments that I've made into community and to masterminds. I love it, man. That's a, it's like I paid you to say it, but I don't even have anything to sell. I have the same experience. It's, it's been absolutely incredible. All the, every dollar I've spent on getting in the right room, like going to conferences, masterminds and events, it's every time I walk away, just feeling like, wow. I just met some of the most amazing people. Like you, you, when you intentionally put yourself around other people that are like you, it's, it feels weird as an entrepreneur. Cause I don't know about you, but like as a business owner, there's not very many people that can get, I don't want to say on my level, but like, like, I don't know, most people just don't see things the way that we do as entrepreneurs and business owners. And so when you can be in a whole room of people, like when I was at the Aspire tour Marcus Limones goes, who here's a business owner? And like 75 percent of the room raises their hand. It's like, wow, that is really cool. Yeah. Yeah. And it, and for me, like being in a room of people that have either done what I've won or that are further ahead. So there's two things, there's two sides to this. My, the thing that I get the most passion in life about is. Is leadership and then helping others become their best self. That's it. That's like, that's my, that's the thing that gives me life. So when I can find the right community where there's people that I can be mentored by that are further along and better at things than me, and I can also contribute to others and other people's journeys. And that's why Action Academy has been so impactful for me is that I've got. People have done so much, you know, I learn every single day from people within the group and I might be a little bit further along than other people in the group that then I get to contribute to and, and pay that forward. And so just the reciprocity that occurs in the communities and the masterminds is the connections, all of it. It's, it's. Very fulfilling. Amazing. So we're coming up on our time here. And so I'll ask the last question that I asked pretty much, will I ask everybody, and that is what is a connection to a person or maybe a group of people that changed the trajectory of your life or business? Yeah, that's a, that is a, a great question. And. This might be a little bit unique of an answer because it's not, it wasn't a per specific person necessarily, but it was trusting in something that I felt and then being involved with that community and the timing. When I went to 20 years ago, I went to Unleash the Power Within from Tony Robbins. And it felt like I was being, it was like, God was speaking to me through the hands of Tony Robbins. And then the community that was there and the people that were there and the relationships that were there and seeing what was occurring and the change that could happen in somebody was that moment in life changed me forever. It changed the trajectory of my entire life. And so I think that although that might, you know, I'm not personally connected to Tony Robbins and I don't even really listen to him anymore, but, but the, the fact it's the reality, but the fact that what that taught me and having that, having that connection in that moment in time, it, it, it changed me. That's awesome. So Tony Robbins would be your connection, I would say. Is that, I mean, is that, does it count even though he would have absolutely zero idea who I am? Absolutely. Well, you'd be surprised. I can't remember who it was. I think I was talking to Joey, Joey Joey Long. He's an Action Academy too, but he, it may, it may have not been him, but he was like at an event and it was, it was in Florida. So I'm pretty sure it was Joey. And it was like a paper course with Pete Fortunato. It was like a creative finance guy, but Tony Robbins does his conferences in Florida at the same time that Pete does his conferences. And so joey goes out into this hotel and he sees the big, giant Tony Robbins. And he walks up to him. He's like, you aren't usually at these things, are you? He's like, what are you doing here? And Tony just busted out laughing. Cause it was like one of the smaller, like Tony Robbins courses. It wasn't like the big, like massive thing. And he just laughed and he's like, well, sometimes I get around to my own events. And so he got to meet Tony and like gave him some, gave him some crap for the fact that like, usually you're not going to see Tony Robbins at a Tony Robbins event. So but I mean, this is what I tell people all the time is even though you don't think people know you, they, they very well might. So it's you never know when you're going to meet Tony Robbins or, you know, whoever you think doesn't know you or care about you. You just absolutely put a new goal in my life to meet Tony Robbins, dude. I don't care. I'll spend a million dollars on the coaching. Let's go. I mean, like, I feel like it's not that hard. Like we have people in our circles that are friends with them. So just text them and be like, Hey, how do I meet Tony? Let's do it, baby. All right. Here we go. There we go. so much for coming on. The art of connecting podcasts has been such a pleasure. And where can people find you on the socials if they want to keep up with what you're doing with your hospitality brand? Yeah. The hotel investor playbook. It's, it's all of them. So it's our podcast. It's our Instagram. Yeah. Website, the hotel investor playbook. Awesome. And so if you're listening to this podcast, you got some value out of it and you want to get connected to Nathan, go DM him on all of the social medias, blow them up. Actually don't do that. Please just DM him once cause he's a very busy man. But it also, if you got value from this podcast, if you can please leave us a review, a five star review makes such a big difference in the podcasting world. I had one person, one time they left me a one star view and I almost cried. So please leave a five star review. You can at Spotify, you can tip at the top. If you're on Apple podcasts, it's down at the bottom where you see my podcast. And then if you share with a friend. That's how we grow the podcast. So we'll see you guys on the next episode.