Introducing StakeholdersVR: Built by Operators and Backed by Vision, with Lino Maldonado and Brady Stump

Alex Husner  3:29  
Welcome to Alex & Annie: the real women of vacation rentals. I'm Alex and I'm Annie, and we are joined today by two gentlemen. We have Lino Maldonado and Brady stump, who are two of the founders of the very interesting business. Everybody wants to know more about the StakeholdersVR. We are, guys, it's so good to see you. You as

Brady Stump  3:46  
well. No, really appreciate having us on the podcast. Excited about

Annie Holcombe  3:50  
it. Yeah. So it feels like, Brady, we've wanted to have you on for a long time, and we haven't. So 1000 apologies that we haven't had you on sooner. Leno is a repeat offender. I don't know he's been, he's, he's been, he's been with us quite a number of times. I feel like he I joked that he could run the show if we ever stepped aside. But just in case some of our audience doesn't know who you two gentlemen are, why don't you start with Brady, introduce yourself, and then we'll go over to Lena.

Brady Stump  4:16  
No. Thank you guys so much. Long time entrepreneur. Been in the VR space for quite some time. You know, live down here in Pauline's Island, South Carolina. Great vacation rental market started in property management. A lot of people don't know that we were a Christie's Auction House. They had a real estate division, and we had a rental and real estate company. And that's when I discovered, you know, travel insurance and rental guardian and all that good stuff that led to inhabit and an incredible journey there and now getting into stakeholders and being able to create this with Leno and some other gentlemen and ladies, really, really excited to talk more about it today.

Lino Maldonado  4:57  
Absolutely, and of course, been in. Myself, been in the business vacation rentals for over 30 years now. Any what you said about repeat offender that's truer than you then you know, love the business and have been in the tech side now for about six years with be home, co founder of okay to charge and now one of the founding partners of stakeholder VR, that we're excited to talk to you about today.

Alex Husner  5:24  
And one interesting fact that I feel like this always happens, Lena, when you're involved, but Brady, I think the first time you and I met was also at optma, which that's where I met. I think Lena, that's probably where I met you for the first time too. But I remember meeting you and at the Miami summit years ago, and you said you were just down the road in Pawleys Island. I thought, gosh, I can't believe that there's somebody that close that's all the way down here too. But that was the that association brought a lot of good minds and friends together.

Unknown Speaker  5:52  
It really Paul

Lino Maldonado  5:53  
Wolford, great friend to this day. In fact, with our scenic stays business, we actually do business with Paul in his his reservations, uh, outsourced company,

Alex Husner  6:02  
yeah, yeah, yeah, everybody that we've got here. But so the million dollar question, you guys, you've just formed the stakeholders, VR, and we've got a lot of questions, but before we get started, why don't you just kind of tell us about what what it is. We've got a pretty good idea, but would like to hear directly from you. We've read the LinkedIn post, but give us kind of the elevator pitch of what you've got going on.

Brady Stump  6:27  
Yeah, absolutely. So stakeholders. VR, you know, at a really high level, we're bringing together this kind of collection of these blue chip a plus property management companies, really bringing them together for a couple of different reasons. We're really focused on creating these great local brands, bringing these great local brands together. And, you know, creating something really, really special, where, you know, we've seen what's worked and what hasn't worked in the industry, where you amalgamate all the brands, and, you know, you ship the call center to the West Coast, and people kind of lose connection with their owners and with with their guests. And I think that you know, what Leno and I saw in the industry is that there was this unique opportunity to create something, to bring some of these great, legendary local brands together to create something really, really special, where they could both create something for the long term, but also be able to take a little bit of capital off the table. A lot of these property managers that we've talked to, it's really interesting that they have 80, 90% of their personal net worth tied up in these companies. And so many times we see private equity get involved, and they'll do a deal, and then they'll cash out 80 90% and then they'll roll forward a small piece, and maybe they get some big upside on that, what they call second bite of the apple. But we were really looking for folks that still had the fire in their belly. They still wanted to go and execute. They still wanted to go and build something really legendary. But also maybe, you know, is there a way to take some of the services off of their plate? Right? There's a lot of folks that they just really, really get tons of energy from meeting with the owners at the HOA or the Chamber of Commerce meetings or creating really awesome guest experiences, you know, but there's certain things that kind of suck energy out of them, like finance and HR and so really, really thinking through that, is that we really felt that there was a way and kind of a path that I think Lena you explained really well, a unique path that we could build something that just quite hadn't been done yet, and that's what we're really, really heavy into now, yeah,

Lino Maldonado  8:47  
yeah. And the only thing I'd add to that, Brady, because it has very good description, is that we really want to focus on centralizing the headaches, but keeping the businesses very local, developing more time for them to do the things that really matter in their day, and not the distractions that take away from a great guest owner or brand building experience. So that's really our mission. I like to describe the lanes. You know, rolling up great companies isn't a new concept. It's been around. I was involved, you know, many years ago as an employee in the IPO roll up of resort quest that had its ups and downs, and then, you know, we bought it back, you know, seven we created, you know, some good value in it. Sold it to Windham to create window so roll ups aren't aren't new. What makes us very different is what I'd like to describe as the lanes, right? So you've got a couple of industry in this industry, a couple of lanes that are pretty clear. You've got the standard PE roll ups right, and there's been a number of those done, some more successful than others, but those that's certainly one path. Now you've got a newer path that is the franchise model, which I personally think is a fantastic model for this industry, because it does some similar things. Things to what we're doing. Where you're you're centralized functions that that create distractions, so that your owner operators in the field can focus on, you know, the things that matter most, day to day. So I think that's a great, great plan. What we're doing is kind of cutting right down the middle. The folks that we're attracting today are the brands who are strong locally. They would never sell to a PE firm because they don't want a, you know, 100% of PE firm because they don't want their brands to be dismantled, their technology, their processes, their their people. Those are risky challenges when you start rolling together, you know, large companies. And these are also brands that typically wouldn't join a franchise model, because their models well on its own within these markets. And so what we're saying is, let's take that group and generate additional synergies between all of the brands that we collectively roll up and learn from one another best practices, where we can take some of the challenges away from the day to day, that'll be our focus. So it's just another option for great brands that exist today, as you're

Annie Holcombe  11:10  
talking through this. Is this similar to, like, what away day is doing, or is it still kind of in between what they're doing and versus, like, the franchise model?

Brady Stump  11:19  
Very similar to that. I think that you know a lot of the groups, and I don't want to speak for those guys, and clearly, they just recently had a great transaction and done a really good job. But the uniqueness about the group that we're pulling together is, like I said, and Lena said it best, is these are some fantastic local brands that are executing at a high level, and that, you know, they still really have a very long term vision for what they want to build, and they still have that fire in their belly, and they still want to go and continue to execute, and they have multiple generations of families that are still involved in the company, or some of the other groups. They've taken a lot of chips off the table. Some of our group, yeah, they want to take some chips off the table at a higher multiple that we're gonna be able to achieve. But they still have a lot that they want to execute, and they want to do it, you know, with a group of other A plus operators. It's, you know, the analogy that people have been using is kind of like this Avengers. I remember taking my boys to the to the superheroes movies or the Knights of the Round Table, and you have a group of gals and guys sitting around the table, and if you've got 25 property managers sitting at this table, one person at that table, especially if it's a bunch of great operators, one person's like, kick butt, fantastic at one or two specific things. And then, like Lena was saying, you elevate those different best practices to the whole group. There's some really cool synergies that can happen. Yeah,

Alex Husner  12:45  
that makes a lot of sense. And, you know, just if somebody was, I don't know, maybe 20 years down the line from now, and someday, hopefully, we'll all be and looking back on all this and just seeing how the models have evolved. And really, you know, they've all really paved the way for each one that has come right? And it's like, yeah, I know, in my year, selling franchises with Costa go, you know, a lot of people kind of like you described Lena, they they don't want to necessarily change their brand, right, like, but they also did not want to sell their company. So it's like, there's different, like, levels of what people what are going to be the things that they do or don't like about these different situations, but for you guys and who you're going after, is it mostly like legacy companies that have been around for a long time, or is it newer people that are getting into this and want to join

Lino Maldonado  13:32  
it's, quite honestly, it's been a mix of both. You know, our target, we're diversifying the portfolio across the United States so that we've got a good balance within the, you know, the parent company, for obvious reasons, but this is one of our first podcasts that is getting the word out in a big way. We have been flying under the radar for a couple of weeks. I

more coming calls than we are doing even outreach, which is which shows us that there is some validity to the model, because most of these guys and gals that we're talking to today, they are, they are approached on a regular basis from some of the other roll up opportunities, and they're just not, haven't shown interest with us. It's, it's a different ball game and and so that that actually invigorates us. Get very excited about what we're building based on the imbalance

Alex Husner  14:36  
as to right? I mean, the people that are involved in this, that's part of why I think there's so much interest, because it's not people from the outside of the industry that are coming in and just put a fund together, it's you guys and the other people that are are involved. Are you able to say who the others are involved?

Brady Stump  14:51  
Yeah. So so you know myself, Brandon Ezra, who was previously with grand welcome. And, you know, I know that was more of a franchise model. This is definitely not that he's involved. Travis Wilburn from the Wonder collection is an advisor, and in the coming days, this was kind of me, and Lena is the coming out party for the group. And then we have, we have a bunch of big announcements, but, but to your point, Alex Annie, is that people, they want to be big part of something bigger than themselves, right? It's like this, this kind of like universal calling that, you know, you're out building. And so much of an entrepreneur's journey is so many times like this solo journey. And you know, when we bring this group of people together, this original term is not me. It was the previous CEO of inhabit Lisa Stinnett, used to say, bringing together a group of unhireables. And so with people like you guys and myself and Leno, if something happens with a company, you know, a lot of times, we're not out looking for another job. We're just like, all right, where are we going to start now? What are we going to do now? So when you bring this unique group of people together that have never had, you know, another group of just really innovative people. You know, a lot of unique things that can happen. And Lena made a great point, too, about how there are some smaller groups, there's some larger groups. It's almost like a like a mindset, right? Like the groups that we're talking to, there's just, there's just something special with these groups, and they really have that kind of growth mindset. And I think that's what really separates some of the groups that are that are wanting to be a part of what what we're building, versus some of the other stuff that's out there.

Lino Maldonado  16:36  
And the thing I would add, you know, we mentioned, I think you guys did away day a little while ago, and there are certainly some similarities. I think they've done a really good job, you know, in many areas, what they've done, it took them about five years ish to get rolling and started and to where they were with their most recent transaction. We've actually done that in about 10 weeks. And so

Alex Husner  16:59  
Wow, oh my gosh. The philosophy

Lino Maldonado  17:03  
is insane. And I think one of the main differentiators with us in this roll up is that this is a VR led roll up group that is that is going to be owned and operated in a substantial way by folks that are from within the industry. So I've been through it personally myself a few times where you spend a lot of time training your owners on what it is you do every day. The owners that join our group will not have to do that. And another, I think, big differentiator with us is that there are no egos on this team. The C suite that we are building is a support mechanism to the field. You're not going to see 100 people in the parent you know organization. It's actually going to be a very small but highly motivated group of of doers that are that know that their job is to support the owners in the field, the operators in the field, not dictate process, procedure, technology, all of those things. And that is a major difference.

Annie Holcombe  18:09  
Are you buying these companies or investing it? So maybe that's where I don't understand the full dynamic of it. But I was going to ask you, like, kind of where you, where you stood in that and then kind of off, what you just your comment about the the team, maybe you can touch on is, you know, I picture some of the people that you mentioned. That's a lot of personalities, it's a lot of knowledge. It's a lot of different it's a lot of different market opinions. And I think that, you know, I mean, Lionel, you and I have talked about it multiple times. I mean, what works in the Panhandle doesn't necessarily work in Hawaii. And by any no more, like, there's, there's some markets that are similar, but you have a lot of different dynamics at play here. So how do you get all these stakeholders at the table to not advocate for their way of doing something over somebody else?

Lino Maldonado  18:48  
Yeah, oh, that's such a great question. So, and the reality is very that is that is a very distinct reality in this industry, in fact, even locally. So forget the diversity across the map, right? Because there are certainly differences in every single market that are unique to that market. But I can take companies, and we've got a few markets, Brady's, where he operates, and even in the panhandle, where I do that, we are. We've got multiple brands in the discussions locally. They're in the same business, they have the same portfolio of properties, and there are nuances to how they run their businesses that has to be respected and celebrated, not challenged or changed. And so there will certainly be cross synergistic opportunities, but we're going to tread lightly because our goals, our founding goals, are to a not screw any of them up. We're not going into these markets trying to look for the crummiest brands there and bolt them together to hopefully sell them down the road. It's actually just the opposite. We're going in saying who's the best brand in this market that actually fits with our model, and they will not be for everybody, but it did have to fit in the model and the vision, and that is very simply to celebrate. The the brands to support the owner operators and to pull whatever off of their plates that don't add value to their owners, their guests, or their or their, you know, company culture, pull those things centrally, so that buys them more time to do the things that move the needle of the business forward faster. That's really what our mission is. So

Alex Husner  20:23  
for the services that you're going to offer or take off their plates, I know you've mentioned, you know, accounting and HR and those types of things, what about the economies of scale? Like I'm sure at some point you're gonna be able to get better, better pricing on software and different platforms and stuff like that. Are you trying to let the goal be to move everybody onto the same operating stack.

Brady Stump  20:43  
The people that we're working with, they're already just kick butt operators in their markets, right? And so I think one of the most traumatic things that you can do if you immediately come in and say, you know, where, I think some of the other groups, where they've made the decision, where, you know, the spreadsheet. Lawyers come in and say, change this. Do that? Change this. We've never been boots on the ground like all of us on this call in property management, you know, checking out houses and and cleaning and doing revenue management, and be like, Oh crap. How do I price this? July 4 weekend? They haven't done those things. So we do not want to, you know, force change, PMS and things like that. But I think there are opportunities for procurement. When you've got 2500 units using this software and 3000 using that software, there's probably discounts that we can get right through buying for, for linens and things like that, that you can do if you're if you're buying for, you know, when we go live with the group and the whole group and do our initial transaction this fall, it's going to be between four and 5000 units. So that's a lot of buying power, right, that we're going to be able to do with the group. You know, there's some things that, HR, payroll benefits, different things that like that, that, you know, the whole thing about what gives people energy working with guests and owners, but what sucks energy is, like, I don't want to do HR, payroll, finance, stuff like that, so we can take those type of things off of them. We have, you know, one of the interesting things for Lena and I going down this journey is there are a lot of folks that are like, you know, I do spend a lot of time doing revenue management. So I think that we'll have, probably, in addition to the top notch finance team, we'll have some additional revenue management resources to help the boots on the ground and the operators in the different local markets as well. But there's a ton of opportunities there. So I had a

Annie Holcombe  22:38  
question. I wanted to go back the show is all about aha moments. And so what was the aha moment for you guys? Was it just, I mean, the people that you've talked about are involved in them, and you guys all kind of hang out together. You bounce ideas off each other. So it's not that you're not interacting with each other on a regular basis, most likely. But was there just one thing that you just said, Oh my gosh, this is exactly what we

Brady Stump  22:58  
need to be doing. For me. Lena, it's interesting, right? Because I think a lot of us, and a lot of other people that that will soon be, uh, hopefully there's like a follow up podcast. So some of the other people that are, that are that are teaming up with with linod that we want to strategically announce as we go along, we'll

Annie Holcombe  23:17  
do breaking news episodes. We've got a whole individual I

Lino Maldonado  23:23  
might have one for you tomorrow.

Brady Stump  23:27  
Yeah, yeah, no. It's like, like, we actually talked about this, right? We're gonna start pitching you guys. But you know, it for me, my journey right to get here is that, you know, started rental guardian, you know, was kind of a founding member of vacation brands, which turned into inhabit. Did the, you know, the Goldman Sachs recap? Did the Blackstone had all this incredible success and and all the great things that that inhabit did big company now delivering great solutions, but, but at the end of the day, even though I got this kind of crash course in private equity and institutional investors for the last six years, I really saw myself as this kind of bootstrapped entrepreneur. And I'll just really, really, just get so much energy out of the whole startup phase of things. And you know, my original roots were in property management, too. And, you know, was there a way to create this group that would be led by the property managers? And, you know, just like you guys, we go to these trade shows and you meet some of the most interesting, awesome, you know, we're in the centric group of people in this industry, right? And but thinking about bringing some of these folks together, I just really thought that there could be something really, really special about bringing these personalities and just these, just incredible humans, right? If you bring all these incredible humans together, I think great things happen. And then, and then, you know, started having these conversations. And Leno had been, it's been percolating his head. He'd been thinking about the same thing and having conversations with other folks. And then it just kind of crazy how just all of those like minded individuals, we start connecting and talking to each other, and then it's really, in the last, you know, six to eight to 10 weeks, it's just taken on a life of its own. Yeah, very

Lino Maldonado  25:20  
similar to Brady. I mean, we've seen things done wrong, which is a strength of ours. I think because we know what not to do, I think that that, for me, it was, what are the things that ruin great companies that have been built? And that is exactly the founding premises of this opportunity is, if you care about your legacy, you care about your brand, you care about staying in the business and actually continuing to grow the business, you're probably for us, you're probably someone that that would be a great partner in this group. The other thing that's really important that I don't think has ever really been done like we are moving it is the diversification of your investment. You, you know, I've got a business here in the panhandle, scenic stays, and we're a young company. We're just shy of 500 units and and if we were to be hit by a storm in May, that would be in lead disruptive for business, but if there's an opportunity for me to join forces and diversify my investment pool over a large area, now, I've actually de risked my company because I own a smaller piece of a bigger entity, versus 100% of my chips being in one brand In a local market. And that has tremendous value to me and to my associates in the field as well. That

Brady Stump  29:13  
close? So you're asking, the right direction, love it. Love it. So the way that this works is there will be one holding company, right? There'll be one entity, instead of everybody looking at, like, their own little collection, or, you know, I've got my little business over here, over here, it truly is everybody on the same cap table, everybody having ownership in the same group. And the way that comes together really, really exciting is that, like I said, kind of the old model, and we can't talk about specifics on valuations, because every every business is different, but, but, but on average, the groups that are coming to us were able to achieve a valuation that's anywhere from 30 to 60% higher than kind of the range that's out there in the marketplace. Yes, and the only reason we're able to do that is that the groups that are out there, they're buying these companies. They're doing deals with these companies as an individual company, right where our initial transaction for the first 30 companies, approximately that will be a part of the initial deal when it closes, when our initial transaction closes this fall, we're going to be treated as as one group. So if we have, say, $35 million in EBITDA or net profits, that level is treated much differently than if you're a standalone company with six or $700,000 in net profits, because the institutional investors, the people in Palo Alto or in Wall Street, they treat you have made something investable for them because they write, you know, really big checks. So it creates this unique opportunity for property managers. And what happens is, the individual property management companies, you come up with a valuation for property manager A, B and C, and let's say property manager a, they're valued at $10 million and what happens is, rather than their own individual company, let's say they want, you know, you know, like, wow, Brady, or they know you're giving a valuation that's much higher of the Market. So I'm just going to take 40% off the table. So they have a $4 million liquidity event where they get 4 million in cash, and then if they wanted to roll 60% afford then they would have 6 million in stock, in stakeholders. VR, and so that that's kind of works at a hop. So

Annie Holcombe  31:26  
does that ultimately, also kind of to your point. Lena, does that, like, make the risk lower for an individual, because now they're part of the group instead of So, like, they can, they can do more with what they have, because they're not seen as in one market risk, very risk heavy, because, again, the coastal hurricanes, those type of things. So this kind of dilutes that that risk, it

Lino Maldonado  31:46  
does. So it's you think about how you invest in a business and what you can control and what you cannot control. 100% of eggs in a single basket has more risk than diversifying into multiple areas of opportunity. And so that certainly is part of the puzzle. The other piece is that as the business continues to grow, the PE partner that we actually choose we're going to be interviewing, we actually going to start that process here in under 30 days. Is that we've got a lot of people that are interested in the market but didn't get an opportunity to close on some of the recent transactions. So with a large number of bidders, only one got it, and there is a number of people that wanted it. And so we think that the industry is very frothy, from a timing perspective, to have a package deal, versus buying one company at a time and rolling them up. We're coming at E groups as a looking for the right partner for us with a large rolled up group already, so it's just a little different path for us.

Alex Husner  32:56  
Yeah. And so what would be the goal in three to five years? Like are the companies do foresee most of them staying in it and always keeping this ownership and their company in the larger company, or is the goal eventually to roll all of this up and continue to keep selling it off.

Lino Maldonado  33:11  
It's a great point. We think that there's multiple opportunities for continued growth within the business. And again, another differentiator is every one of our, of our sellers that are there, you know, we're buying, will have different career paths. We've got some that are maybe three to five years left in their tank, that they really, you know, are nearing the end or close to retirement. We've got others that are just getting started, like, look, I want to be involved, and I want to be part of the larger group in some capacity. So we've got an advisory committee structure that we will be populating with our owner operators. And then underneath the advisory structure is a committee structure that we will also be populating. And so we're going to be leaning very heavily on the knowledge and experience and talents and passion of the people that we are actually in business with, which I think is also very different than than what you typically see.

Annie Holcombe  34:09  
Yeah, the amount of knowledge that you can put together in one room just on any topic is is pretty astounding, just from the group that you've got so far, and what you can add to it moving forward. I mean, it's, it's, a smart play. I'm curious, from a like, a perspective, a year from now, is this something where the VR stakeholders is a brand that is marketing these other entities underneath it, or does every brand completely stand on its own and do its own thing? Or is it a combination?

Brady Stump  34:37  
I think there's, there's multiple opportunities there. At the core, though, we're 100% committed to these local brands, right? We were really investing and partnering with and CO founding all of these other property managers. They're co founding members, right? And they have really good local embedded brands that people in that market or people from around the. Country love and trust. So those are the type of folks that are coming on and joining the group. And so we're investing in those local brands long term. I think there's opportunities. When you look at, hey, we've got these 30 groups together, every one of them have databases, and they have travelers, 1020, 30,000 travelers that have visited those destinations, and then you understand that, you know, they always don't just go to Kiowa, or they always don't just go to Aspen. They take a summer and they take a winter vacation. So I think long term is that there's opportunities where, you know, maybe there's like a an internal OTA to where we show them all of the properties, but very much rather than, you know, consolidating all the brands that is, that is not our model and property managers that want that they're just not a fit for us, like we want to keep these individual local brands, because there's just so much value there, but, but there's certainly some cross marketing opportunities.

Annie Holcombe  36:00  
Yeah, I think that's smart. I know when I was a property management that was always the thing, kind of, Lena has been in this market. You know, it's just one hurricane can really set you back. And we were always trying to find partnerships with complimentary markets, so mountain markets, urban markets, and like, just having relationships kind of around the southeast, because you knew that. Well, gosh, if people weren't going to come this year, they might go to the mountains next year. And if you could share that database with each other and do some cross promotion, but it also gives you power with OTAs too. I mean, like, because OTAs will do promotions, and Windham did a really great job of it. I know when I worked with Delaney a long time ago, we used to do promotions for, like, the ski markets, and then do the beach markets, and then they would do these cross things. So, like, the channels will help out and give you money to do some things there, when you have that kind of, that kind of reach, and you're covering a lot of markets. So, I mean, I think this is a really, really smart play all the way around. And

Brady Stump  36:50  
you make a great point too, in that the a lot of the groups that Lena and I are talking to, and I think it's, I mean, we, but we like to take credit like it was by design, but so many of these groups that we're connecting with is that they do really high percentages of direct bookings, right? Like that they have, they're really good at marketing their brands, so that tracks the travelers directly to them, rather than the OTA, and that creates strength, right? Because that means you have that direct relationship with that traveler,

Alex Husner  37:20  
right? Yeah, yeah. And I think, you know, when you got this group together where everybody has skin in the game, that it's beneficial that if I'm in Myrtle Beach and somebody wants to go to Gatlinburg, that I also have ownership, that I'm benefiting if that my guest does go to Gatlinburg, you know, there's not that competition there. I think back to, you know, the days I was at condo world, and our approach was, was different, that we were trying to do something similar. We went into other markets, but we weren't going to buy companies. We built an OTA to market those companies through partnerships. But it worked great within the Myrtle Beach area, but it really was a challenge. We went down to the Panhandle and some other areas, because, you know, when we would say, you know, not all your guests want to come here every year, and same with ours. So, I mean, there's, there's value in being able to, you know, cross market, but there's no benefit to those people if they don't have ownership, or they don't get anything, if their guests come to Myrtle Beach now all of a sudden. So makes, makes a lot of sense what you're doing there. And the other point I wanted to make, too, you know, we talked about legacy before we hit record. And when both of you, you're, you both own rental companies, and your companies are part of this, right? And I think that kind of says it all right there, that you believe in this that much, that you know you're, you're really putting your own skin in the game for it.

Lino Maldonado  38:37  
And our kids skin, by the way.

Annie Holcombe  38:40  
Are they willing accomplices here,

Lino Maldonado  38:43  
my daughter runs circles around what I did back in the day. In fact, one of the my proudest moments is that her first big promotion was really just recently this year, and she sits in the office that I started in 31 years ago. She's called the crescent, which is just phenomenal. And she text the other day and said, Hey, Dad, picked up three units today. I'm like, did I ever get three units in a single day? I don't believe so, wow. We're very excited about legacy and the roll forward value to all of the people that we support. We've got legacy employees, you know, we've got people that have worked with us for 2030, years, that we also consider family. And so that's a that is a premise for us that we want to make sure stays intact always. I was

Brady Stump  39:35  
just going to echo that. I mean, my oldest, Jonah, graduated from Clemson about 18 months ago, he joined the scene out vacations, our local property management company, and it was like such a surreal moment. I took them to their first trade show. You know, I saw you guys down there at the Verma executive Summit. Was just all nervous about how people were going to treat them, my newbie sons. And, you know, Joe knows. Like, Dad, you know, you know, it would be so cool to talk to one of the sales reps with with lmpm. And I was like, well, you want to meet the co founder. Here's Clint, and he's answering all his questions. And then he's talking about, you know, revenue management, dynamic pricing. And he's like, man. He's like, I need to also connect with, like, an account manager for price labs. And I was like, Would you like to meet the guy that started it? Richie. Richie, literally, at like, the first night mixer stands there for 45 minutes and answers all his questions. Treats Jonah like He's like, he's been a 20 year. OG in the industry, it just has, like, a parent, like, it was awesome. And like, like, for me and for Leno, those are like, these affirmational moments. Like, this is the right thing to do. You know what I mean? Like, like, so when we say we're building something for the long term, and our kids want to be a part of this, like, there's no BS there. I mean, this is what we are absolutely in the groups that we're talking with, they have, you know, sometimes it's two or three generations that are involved in these companies and and we're looking for those type of partners that have those same belief

Annie Holcombe  41:14  
I love that. As a parent, it's always nice to have your child see that kind of full circle and be like, Okay, you're pretty cool. You know, like, you did, you did, like, they've been wondering what you do all this time, or all the stories they've you've been telling him for all these years. Like, okay, fine, you know, stuff, you

Brady Stump  41:28  
know, we rolled in Annie, like, Clint comes over and daps me up and gives me a hug. I'm like, Yeah, see, Dad's kind of cool, you know, yeah, up

Annie Holcombe  41:37  
until then, he just thought, yeah. I mean, my son's like that all the time, until there's those moments where he's like, going, Okay, fine, you were right.

Lino Maldonado  41:43  
You know, three daughters, the one Maddie that works with us is the only one that really understands what it is that I do and did. And so that's, that's really cool to really cool to see.

Alex Husner  41:55  
Yeah, what about, I mean, are you going to be forming, I assume, some sort of a community around these people too, right? So like how they're going to be able to engage together? What are you? What are you for seeing of what that'll look like?

Lino Maldonado  42:09  
Well, certainly the advisory committees and committees will be all part of that process. I do see, in the very short term, a an annual gathering of some sort, whether we call it a complex or a marketplace or whatever, I think that's a that's a no brainer, because getting people together on paper is different than getting them together in a room. Oh, for sure, yeah, that's important.

Brady Stump  42:33  
It's like a 10x mastermind, right? Because masterminds are great and they're awesome, and so much goodness comes out of these, these ones that have been hosted by Matt randau or Steve Schwab, all kinds of great stuff there. The cool thing about what this is is that we're all going to be true business partners, right? So, like we talk about all the curtains coming down and people really sharing. Because if I give Leno an idea, or he gives me an idea, and we implement it, we both win, not just for, you know, helping a brother or sister out in the industry, but like our hope, you know, the net profits or the revenue increases for the whole business. It just takes that, that partnership to a whole next level. Yeah,

Alex Husner  43:16  
that's what I was just thinking. I mean, from like a mastermind, or even just, you know, the semi annual, whether it's in person, or just, you know, the community zoom calls, or something like, yeah, you mentioned, like, people want to be part of something bigger than themselves. And I think that's so true that there's going to be, it's just a brain, brain power collective, there of information that could be beneficial. I feel like

Annie Holcombe  43:38  
you guys are putting together, like, what the superhero? What is there? The solitude, fortress of justice or whatever? Yeah, like all that brain power in one room.

Lino Maldonado  43:51  
It's pretty crazy. You know, we talked just a little bit about technology, but that's actually a major input, you know, that we have in this deal is that technology has changed dramatically, but we are not looking at ourselves as a tech enabled company. We're a company that uses technology and leverages it and actually can help us avoid some of the pitfalls in previous roll ups. As an example, I think Brady mentioned this, the biggest self inflicted wound you'll ever create for yourselves is changing a PMS and so technology that we already have access to today, we are able to basically tap into many different PMS tools and extract the KPIs needed to run the parent company without having to disrupt what process or tech that that the local operating company currently uses, which is, I don't think that it's ever been done before. So we're very excited about that. One of the next announcements we'll be making, in short order, is the hiring of our CTO, which is an absolute rock star. And I will tell you that our conversations together have been. Very specific and direct about the role of this CTO, and it's not to dictate a thing. It's to be knowledgeable about what we currently have across all the markets, what tools are currently being used, how best to leverage those tools for other operating companies. The second piece is when somebody does have to make a change, because people, in fact, scenic is in the process right now of evaluating RFPs for a new PMS we've just outgrown where we currently sit. And so his second component will be to know what is on the market across our company that is being leveraged well, and be able to communicate that transition. And then the third piece is going to be forwarding a forward focus on what is next and upcoming in the industry, from a technology perspective, all the AI stuff, I mean, I don't even propose to know what AI is, is all about. I don't think many of us do. It's like a buzzword for most of us, but there are real big opportunities in the use of automation tools that, again, can help simplify operations, to buy you that time, to give better service to your owners, guests and employees. So we are going to be focused with this role in those three areas. Primarily,

Annie Holcombe  46:17  
you guys have a lot going on here. I can't feel like there's a million more questions. We could have a part two of all of this. What

Alex Husner  46:24  
we're going to, because we're going to, we're

Annie Holcombe  46:28  
going to chronicle this. You talked about some stuff would happen in the fall. You're going to be interviewing. You said some PE folks, like, what's, what's next on, I mean, obviously announcements with staff. But I mean, like, what do you where do you guys see yourself at the just at the end of this, when we get to Verma, are you guys going to have a big booth? Like, what does that look like?

Brady Stump  46:44  
I mean, from a timeline perspective, you know, we're looking at right now, you know, going going through internal diligence with about 18 groups. We want to get this to about 30 to 35 groups. We have about 40 active conversations. There's a few folks, if you're listening, that we would love to connect with but yeah, so having those conversations. So we'll have the group, the initial group of this Justice League, Avengers group. We're going to have them identified by the end of probably July, early August, sometime, and then between early August to early September, we're going to be putting the package together. We're going to be talking to the different private equity groups alongside our investment banker. And then this fall, we'll be doing diligence, the external diligence, with the ultimate investor, within stakeholders, VR, and then we're looking at a transaction closing end of October, early November, and then that's when kind of the initial group will kick off. So yeah, it really, really exciting time. It's going to be a fast paced 2025, and we're here for it. Wow.

Alex Husner  47:53  
What a year. A lot of big things changing and moving around. I feel like, you know, things have moved very quickly over the last probably five years, but just even in the last year, it's like now the speed is just going so much quicker and so many more different creative things that are coming to the industry, and makes sense that you guys are at the forefront of it. So we're going to be really excited to continue tracking this, for sure. But if anybody wants to reach out to you, if they're interested in hearing more and maybe considering joining this group. What's the best way for them to get in touch?

Brady Stump  48:23  
I think the best way is to go to stakeholders, vr.com stakeholders vr.com and there's a way to get connected with the team right there.

Alex Husner  48:32  
Awesome. Well, 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.