DesignedVR & Casiola Announce a Game-Changing Partnership in STR

Alex Husner  0:00  
Welcome to Alex and Annie, the real women of vacation rentals. I'm Alex 

Annie Holcombe  0:03  
and I'm Annie, 

Alex Husner  0:04  
and we are joined today by two amazing guests. We have Dennis Goedheid and Shahar Goldboim. Guys, It's so good to see you.

Annie Holcombe  0:12  
Yeah, so and we haven't talked to you guys in a bit, but I feel like we talk to you guys all the time, so it's great to catch up, but you've been doing a lot of really exciting things together and forged a new partnership. But before we dig into that and get started, Shahar, why don't you introduce yourself and then, Dennis, you do the same.

Shahar Goldboim  0:29  
Okay, Dennis, you want to start?

Dennis Goedheid  0:31  
Go ahead.

Shahar Goldboim  0:35  
Shahar goldwamfield and founder of boom, which we build the first, the world's first AI PMS to revolutionize the vacation rental industry. And as well, build a design VR, a company that managing a big portfolio in southeast Florida and west side of Florida, which we just merged to casiola. And that's the reason why

Alex Husner  0:59  
we're here. Awesome. Dennis,

Dennis Goedheid  1:00  
yeah, recurring guest, but first time with Shahar on the podcast. So my name is Dennis. I'm the founder and CEO of casiola. We are a property management franchise system. We manage currently around 500 homes in thing, seven distinct destinations all the way from from here in Orlando to Aruba, and now also in Spain,

Alex Husner  1:28  
excellent and now many more in South Florida, with the design VR portfolio

Dennis Goedheid  1:34  
excited about that, yeah.

Alex Husner  1:37  
So tell us a little bit about how this even came to fruition. Shahar, maybe what was going on in the business and what made you reach out to Dennis to get this partnership going? Actually, it

Shahar Goldboim  1:48  
was funny like, so I was in Tampa because we had many projects. And my wife, she used to be the head of design, of design, design, VR, so we went to Tampa to take care of the of the properties and leaving them and see what basically needs to be done. We had like, four projects over there, and at the time, there was the Imn in Miami, which was weird to drive to Miami, to the Iron Man. And when I drove, it doesn't happen a lot. But when we drove to Tampa, we drove with one car with my wife. So I talked with with Michael the CFO of Casio LA. And I asked him, How do you going to go to the IMF so he told me, like we are going to drive over there. So I told him, Can I join so long story short, we drove to the Imn together, and while we are driving, I'm a guy that's sharing what's on my heart. It's like, I have no like, stop. So I shared my frustration of like, basically running two companies, and the fact that I'm focusing on boom, and the fact that I feel that in design VR, I don't get the leadership I want, and I don't have the time to actually go in and fixing the stuff, because from being a company that will, we were innovator, and we were like thinking outside of the box, we got to a situation where market change. So design VR was built for investor to make return on their investment. And this is what our focus. We also grew a big portfolio where we functioning as a GP as through a different entity. So we were buying the property, do the construction, do the design, but the point was to create returns. And the market have changed meaning, like, it's much harder to make returns on vacation rental currently. So the focus of the company of making returns, yeah, in the properties, in the purchase that we purchase them, you can make a return, but it's hard to create the growth that you had, and we didn't have the leadership actually to to lead and shift into a new direction, right? Like you have your portfolio, you have your stuff, and how you basically pushing to have a better message to your client. And in general, I felt that the team, I tried to change a CEO, and I tried to do all kind of stuff, but the spirit of the creation, the spirit of the care, the spirit of like coming to work and have like a smiling face, right? We didn't have it. It was more like, like people coming and working, but you lose the attitude of like being innovator. So I shared all of that with with Michael, and when we arrived to the to IMF, like Michael said, You know what? Let's let's talk with Dennis. Let's start creating conversation to see what we. Can do what kind of will make sense, because, and then when I'm Look, when I'm with, was thinking about it, I'm like, Castillo is like, what I'm imagining in my mind is good hospitality company, meaning, like you see people that are happy is their brand is really out. Meaning, when I'm looking at Casio line, I see the pink I know it's them. When I'm looking at the picture, I know it's them. When I see the people, they are happy and they focusing on one thing, it's hospitality. How can I make your guest experience the best they not like, I think that a lot of time when you're trying to do a lot of stuff, and I'm doing a lot of this kind of stuff, and at my later age, I understand that it's it's better to focus rather than be spread. So they focus on hospitality, and I think it's amazing. So we started, like, when I got to the Iron Man, me and Danny started, like, brainstorming, okay, like, I want them and, and it's, look good, but how do you create the structure that that will make that happen? And Dennis, I let you talk a little bit. They feel that I'm talking about,

Dennis Goedheid  6:21  
it's good. I think it's important, because there's many, probably many other business owners in a similar situation. And I've been where you have been many years ago. At one point in my career, I had seven different businesses, and I mean, like, really different from aerial photography to printing company and five other things going on. And yeah, I saw so many opportunities. I probably could have done more than those seven. But what I realized after a while is that every single business started to go down slowly, because there was no focus, and you cannot be the best in everything. And I'm never going to forget the quote that I got from a mentor of mine, and he said, like as the business owner or as the CEO, your most important job is to say no. It's very easy to say yes to everyone, but say no is a lot harder, and that always stuck with me. And when I moved to the US, I really told myself, I'm gonna focus, I'm gonna do one thing. And it has been really hard over the past 10 years to say no to certain things. You get so many, many opportunities, and the more people you get to know, and then the bigger your network becomes, the more opportunities that are offered to you. And it's it's sometimes really, really hard to say no, but I learned my lesson. I'm not going to make that mistake again. We focus 100% on management. We we don't do anything else. We're not even selling real estate. We're not doing long term rentals. We're only doing short term rentals, and we're trying to do it as good as possible, and we're expanding into different markets, different continents, different systems, but we only do one thing, and we want to be the best in doing that one thing, that's basically our premise. And I think that's also what Shahar felt and attracted to us. And, yeah, I think it's really a win win. We started talking. And what's great is that within, I think, a few weeks, if it even took that long, we basically reached a verbal agreement. So it was very simple. I still think up until today, it's a win, win for everyone. It's a win for Shahar, it's a win for the owners. It's a win for us being able to get into those markets, but also get an amazing portfolio of the top performing homes in those new markets. So those are the deals that I love. And from there on, it was just getting a contract together which which went pretty easy, because when you're really negotiating, sometimes everybody wants to get the most out of the deal for them, and I didn't have the feeling that that was the case here. And, yeah, we reached an agreement. I think within a month, everything was signed and ready to go. So

Annie Holcombe  9:32  
I have a question, Dennis, I can't even remember how long it's been now, so you kind of with Casio, you were taking that out into the franchise model, in the franchise world. So this is a little bit of a pivot from what you were focused on. So I think, like, maybe walk us through, like, for you, because, you know, you're talking about, kind of being more focused on specific areas, not having multiple things going on. This kind of pulls you off of that path. What was it about this relationship Bucha? I mean, obviously he's, he's a very. Very charismatic, passionate person that it's, it's hard not to get drawn into him, because he's just such a great person to be around. So I can see that synergy happening immediately. But what was it about kind of the business opportunity that you felt like, Okay, this is, right. This is, this is a good way for me to still do what I want to do, but do something a little different, and then also help out somebody who is equally passionate about the industry as I am, and maybe create a different type of business model. Yeah,

Dennis Goedheid  10:27  
it's a little bit of a different situation here. And I think you always have to be open for for new opportunities. I'm not saying all opportunities, but not get stuck in like, Oh, we're only going to do franchise. And if Shahar wants to get a franchise, that's fine. But if it doesn't, Yeah, goodbye and thank you. This was a slightly different opportunity. So we worked out a revenue share model so we're not like, purchasing Shahar business, where we're basically managing it for him now, something very similar than what you see in a lot of the in the hotel space, basically. So you have a building owner, you have a brand on the other side, and then you have a management company that manages a hotel under, let's say, Marriott plaque and follows those procedures. So that's a little bit the kind of deal that we have so to revenue share. So Shahar still gets money every month from from, from the management business. For us, the advantage is that we did not have to come up with a lot of money to purchase the whole entire business. So I really think it's a win win. And also, Shahar still stays involved. He has a lot of contacts and knows a lot of people in those areas that may want to buy homes or that can help us grow the business. So he also still has a stake in that the more he can grow the business, the bigger his revenue share will be, and the better for us. So I thought that was an interesting concept, and I strongly believe that there may be a lot of other similar business owners out there too that they have been working on their business for years and years and years. They may not be ready to sell it or no longer get involved completely anymore, but they also cannot do the 24/7 or come up with new software and staying on top of the trends. So they still want to be involved and be part of the business, but they don't want to do the day to day anymore. So I thought this was a very interesting concept, where I see more opportunity for other areas to expand on this.

Alex Husner  12:58  
Yeah, for sure. And I think it's interesting, when you look at the different models of how this has evolved between franchise in most cases, the company, the local owners, they stay in place, but they're able to access the franchisors services and take some of the heavy lift off, but they're still in the day to day. Then there's your model, which I would say is kind of like a step above that, that they still own the business, but you're running it. And then the third step above that is, you know, these big PE companies that are coming in, and they're either buying the company, some of them are still keeping some of the owners in place, whether for a limited amount of time or maybe indefinitely, but they have a smaller ownership in the business. I think that there's a lot of companies that fall into where you're at right now that they just, they don't, necessarily, they don't want to do franchise, because they want to get out of the day to day, but they don't want to sell the business. So it seems like this could be a really interesting thing, a model for you to prove with design VR, and then potentially take to other markets, absolutely,

Dennis Goedheid  13:55  
those local contacts and networks that are so important, right? We're very good in like, sales and marketing and operations, but having the local network is really key in growing your business. So if you have someone that, yeah, is very good at that part and still wants to be involved, I think this is a perfect solution, and now we can offer all three options. We have acquired companies. We offer the franchise model, and now this is a test of a third kind of model loss. So hopefully we'll be successful. I'm sure,

Shahar Goldboim  14:35  
if I may add one thing is that it was really important for us to also keep the people in design VR and keep the workers. And we were like when castiola came in, they actually also took the employees of design VR, basically to work under castiola. So. From that matter, we didn't hurt the living and it was important for us to maintain it. Obviously, everybody needs to prove themselves and to make them basically working into Casio way and all of that. But how do you maintain a business? It's amazing the experience so far, and I can say, when you're doing business, is the most important thing, at least for me, it's to have the same common sense with Cassio, I don't like we didn't get into any argument. Everything was with the flow, meaning, when something is coming, is like, how do we treat it, and what's the common sense to treat it, and this is why we move so quick with the contracts. This is why we're moving so quick with anything, because it's all about common sense and to be logic and stuff are coming. It's but what's you doing it with it when it comes? So you guys

Annie Holcombe  15:55  
got the partnership down on paper, and now the hard work begins integrating a different operation within the your existing your existing portfolio. I know it's going to operate somewhat separately, but why don't you tell us a little bit about Dennis, like, What is your thought on taking on? Because it's not like char. Char only had a couple of units. I mean, it's pretty sizable inventory, so you have to take keep that into consideration with the operation so it's fluid and it doesn't cause any hiccups with customers and obviously with with the staff. How did you look at that in terms of integrating it within cassiolas team? Well,

Dennis Goedheid  16:29  
it has been amazing learning experience, and it's still going on every time we discover something new. But even for Shahar, I think he learned a lot about his own business too in the last few months, because he gets all those questions from from the whole team and from Michael, like, Hey, why are you doing this? This is not rightly, like you should change it to this, or it can be more effective that way. And you're probably thinking like, Oh, I wish we would have done that years ago would have saved me so much time and energy. But also for us, it's a learning experience. They have a couple of interesting setups that we do not have, like experience with with, like, many hotels and multi unit buildings. So that's that's interesting to know. Also, in the areas that directive in, there's a lot of permitting and licensing issues. Of these local governments are not really short and rental friendly. So that poses a couple of challenges too, that we don't have in like Orlando or in Miami as much. So, yeah, it's always interesting, and that's something I really love doing, because we all are working in the same industry. We did the exact same thing. We're managing properties, and we're taking care of guests, but every company that I've visited, they have a completely different approach. There's like no standards, and I love just visiting other companies and see how they have set up their operations and learning what is really working for them and what we could maybe implement in our operations, but also sharing information with them how they can improve their operations based on our experiences. So that's that's something I really love doing, looking under the hood from other companies and see how they approach things.

Shahar Goldboim  18:36  
Yeah, that's another thing that was really interesting with Casio. So when they coming in, they don't do changes. They breathe, meaning, like they see how stuff are being done, like learning the activity, learning, like everybody, how they do and then they basically getting into the stuff and see how to how to improve the operation, which I think it's really smart in a way to dictate, because each territory have its own difficulties. It's have its own challenges itself, like so so learning breathing and keep your ears open. It's really, really important. And by the way, Mike can learn a lot of stuff from me as well.

Dennis Goedheid  19:22  
We've learned a lot from from you guys, so that's why it's so interesting doing this,

Shahar Goldboim  19:28  
yeah, but, but to be honest, like, I'm cleaning a lot of stuff, so I dive into the accounting and, like, it's something that I haven't done in a while. It may like, make my hands dirty, in a way. So so in that way, learning a lot of stuff

Alex Husner  19:47  
that's great now. And design VR, obviously, is on boom. It was built. Boom was built for design VR. So is that portfolio going to remain on boom? And if so, what has that been like to learn the new system?

Dennis Goedheid  19:59  
Oh. No, yeah, the goal is absolutely to keep it there. We have connected it with our own software tools and our website, so soon all properties should be together into one booking system and operational system and reporting system. But yeah, there are some, not some, but a lot of things specifically built for designed VR that owners and also the staff is used to and love doing. So the goal is to keep that and also help Shahar improving their software, things that we think that are missing or that could be improved, giving them feedback so that they can also make their software better.

Annie Holcombe  20:46  
I love that. So it's like just, it's not just a collaborative partnership for the rental management. It's also on the technology side, which is, which is great. I think Shahar, I mean, you boom is ever evolving. And I think that's the great thing about the place that you've you position boom is that it's always going to be evolving and continuing to grow and be better. So I guess moving forward, what do you guys see? Do you see this as an opportunity to create, again, another business model within the casiola family, and grow it into other markets, maybe something where someone is reticent to do a franchise, but they might be willing to do a collaborative partnership. Do you see this as a as another growth opportunity for you? Yeah, absolutely.

Dennis Goedheid  21:24  
We're gonna evaluate this, of course, in, let's say, a year or so when, when everything is really integrated. And I think it's just like with with franchise to the most important part in this equation is the people so doing deals like this, you you want to make sure that the people that you go in business with are aligned, and that they have the same vision, and that they have the same outcome in mind. But it's, I think it's definitely a great opportunity, especially for businesses that are already a little bit more established, that are larger may not always make sense for them to join a franchise, because they already have figured out a lot on their own, so they don't see enough value in just joining a franchise. But yeah, if we can take over and improve and streamline that operational part and maybe even the marketing, the revenue management, the growth, it may make a lot of sense. So we're definitely open to explore similar deals like this in the future. Yeah, because

Shahar Goldboim  22:31  
when you think about it, when a company get to scale your cost of operation going down. So that's giving you like the gap, basically to give enough to somebody that want to basically retire, doesn't have the power anymore, doesn't have the passion, more than anything, to where your passion is right, because your passion, as a leader in the end, will dictate your company if you want it or not. And when your passion is not there, your company will sink down if you want it or not. So how do you how do you create a change to it? And I think this model is amazing, because you still have the company, you really still love the product, but you don't have the passion that you used to have, and that will be fitting to somebody in this stage I feel, or the attention, I would say

Alex Husner  23:26  
so char, you're going to have a lot more time on your hands now that you don't have design VR, and of course, I know you're very focused on boom, but maybe tell us a little bit about where you're going next and where Your new focus has been with the property management system. So

Shahar Goldboim  23:42  
basically, right now, I'm still in the move. We're still clearing stuff, right? So it's not like, Okay, I'm totally out of design. VR, I am, but I'm not so. So clearing this one out in the next probably two to three weeks, like, basically be able, obviously, we'll do, like, a weekly call and, like, see where everything going and see where I can help, because I know a lot of developers, and I know a lot of people, and I was, I was the only lead machine to design the RF for people coming In and contracts and all of that, I think 95% of the property added by me. So I want to continue doing that for Dennis and the team and to help them basically grow. But main, main, main, main, main focus is to become like a world dominate power in the vacation rental world with boom and to take us to new destinations, new territories. Take partnership like the ones that we have with cayola, to understand how we can improve the product the best way. And we look at our customers, our partners. Is not just caola, how we can basically create the best products that we can in order to make their life better, in order to create a scaling to operation, in order to create the ability for them to sleep at night. And I think it's really, really important, because to running a vacation rental companies, it's not easy. Test. You need to be a master of so many actions. And how can you have like one system that doing it for you, that obviously the system won't do everything for you. You need to put your heart. You need to put your soul, but to make it in a way that it will make it much easier for you, from all level, from accounting level, from Operation level, from marketing levels, from sales level, from project management level, from finance level, from investment level. So how do we take everything and create like that system that allowing you to do that so and again, you know, like, it's like the system is amazing, right now, but there is always a room for improvement, right? Like, there is always a room like, to add more, to do more, to add more, AI agents that will be able to help you scale more and to create more ease of use for the people in the field, and improving UX, improving UI, and adding value. Because for me, a lot of times like companies are focusing on, how can they be the most profitable, which is super, super important as well for health of a business, but the value creation, that's where you will get your long term gain, and not the short term gain. So we always think like where we can create value, what we can do to be better, and what

Annie Holcombe  26:53  
about you? Dennis, what's next for you

Dennis Goedheid  26:58  
to work twice as hard? It's yeah, this integration is is going to take a while, of course, getting the whole team to be part of calceola and our values and our culture. It's going to take a while. Like I said, it's a whole new new market, new type of homes. So I have reserved my time at least half the next few months in focusing on this integration and getting it streamlined as soon as possible. And then in the meantime, yeah, we're expanding through through franchise. We next month we actually have our big opening event of new location in Spain, in the Marbella area. So we'll be traveling over there to be part of that, and hopefully, yeah, we can soon announce a few more new destinations. So very excited about that,

Annie Holcombe  27:55  
Alex. I don't know about you, but I feel like Alex and Annie might need to like be live on the scene in Marbella. I've heard it's absolutely spectacular. So we wanted to go to Spain. That's on our bucket list, too. That's That's incredible.

Dennis Goedheid  28:09  
Welcome, of course, live streaming from the new Casio opening event. I

Alex Husner  28:17  
love it. We love a good live opening party. So, oh, that's great. Well, super excited for you guys, and we're, you know, it's going to be fun to watch this journey as it evolves, both for design VR and for Casio and for boom, really. So thank you guys for coming on today, and we wish you both the best of luck if anybody wants to get in touch. Dennis, we'll start with you. What's the best way for them to reach out to

Dennis Goedheid  28:42  
you? Yeah, LinkedIn is a good place to start. Or my email address, which I'm sure you guys will share the comment or description below for

Speaker 1  28:51  
sure. And Shahar, what's best way for them to reach out to you? Same, same answer. Okay, great. Well, we will

Alex Husner  28:58  
include in the show notes. And if anybody wants to get in touch with Annie and I you can go to Alex and Annie podcast.com and until next time, thanks for tuning in, everybody.

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