Scaling a Global Vacation Rental Brand with Casago Partner Ryan Dame

Alex Husner  00:06
Welcome to Alex nanny, the real women of vacation rentals. I'm Alex. 

Annie Holcombe  00:10
And I'm Annie. 

Alex Husner  00:11
And we are joined today with Ryan Dame who is the partner and costs ago and more recently, my partner in crime, driving around and go and meeting and conferences. But welcome, Ryan, we're excited to have you on the show today. 

Ryan Dame  00:26
Yeah, glad to be here, guys.

Annie Holcombe  00:28
So for those of us well, I say I just recently met you, I think I had a conversation with you at the spring vrma That you were always kind of this intimidating figure to me. But now that I've got to know you still a little intimidated, but really, really enjoyed our time together. But I think there's a lot of people that don't necessarily know who Ryan is and what your background is. So can you tell us a little bit about you? 

Ryan Dame  00:49
Yeah, for sure. So yeah, I I've been in a vacationer world now for almost 21 years go on 21 years. So I'm like an OG in the vacation rental space. I mean, I used to be the probably one of the younger guys in this space. Now. I'm definitely getting out flanked by a lot of the young up and coming managers and occasional people here in the industry. So you know, I guess backstory, my my entree into vacation rentals, coincidentally was in 2000. In the year 2000. In, I guess it was 98. My family, we went to the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, where we ended up sleeping in a basement of a house of a friend of a friend of my mom's at church. We lived in Idaho at the time. And she had a friend of a friend that was in, in in a church that had a basement, we rented it, my dad got tickets to the Olympics. And we ended up sleeping in his basement. I was I was a freshman in college at the time, I guess, sophomore in college at the time. And I remember thinking, Man, this is just wild sleeping in these people's basement and I we paid them some amount of money. And they cooked us breakfast. It was like a pseudo Bed and Breakfast it was the experience was my mom, my dad and my four brothers. So the seven of us went to the Olympics had a really cool experience. And very quickly right after that, the olympics got announced to come to Salt Lake City for the Winter Olympics, the 2002 Olympics, I should say. And so I thought, man, there's gonna be a really cool opportunity to provide housing for people in Utah and I was going to school at BYU at the time.  So I quickly decided on some three by five cards, this is how we did things back then to this is 99, I guess to put some three by five cards, the IT department at BYU and say, Hey, I'm looking for some partners, like helped me build this website. I have this idea. I want to market people's homes for the 2002 Winter Olympics. At the time, they said it was going to be the one Olympics that had for capital, the least amount of housing available, you know, for the people coming out to attend the Olympics. So I quickly met two guys, Eric, and Ryan, another Ryan, Ryan Gi, who decided they would write this I would write this for me, they would be able to write this code, create this website. And back then I created I bought what was called an auto dialer. This is like the old school boss computer where I put a disc in with everybody's phone number in Salt Lake. And it had a script that went something like this. Are you interested in renting your house for hundreds, if not 1000s of dollars a night for the upcoming, you know, 2002 Winter Olympic Games, if so, press one, if not to be deleted off the list, press two. And at the time I was in Provo, Utah, which is about 45 minutes from Salt Lake, which was a long distance phone call. So that was gonna get really expensive. I ended up getting a $200 a month box of an office in downtown Salt Lake, right plugged in these two hardwired cables for two phone lines. And this thing would just fire off calling people all over salt lake. So every day after school, I'd drive up to Salt Lake I would get on this computer, I get all the names of people that said they were interested. And I began selling this service. And at the time, we had a website called housing 2000 two.com signing up hundreds of people for like 100 bucks to come and get their house listed send us pictures, we built this website. And then we quickly realized that was working pretty well. So we decided that it would be better to do a monthly service instead of a one time fee. So we started selling it for like $40 a month. And we kept continuing to get hundreds of people signing up for this for this product. And we ended up creating a website to do all this. Ultimately, we ended up getting sued by that housing Olympic Housing Committee. Romney took over the Olympics, who was also a former BYU grad. And, you know, we had to come to some terms on how to make all this work. Coldwell Banker became the official housing provider of the Olympics. They said you can't use these rings. You can't use the word 2002. We ended up getting all sorts of exposure for it, which was pretty fun. And ultimately, it didn't end up getting sued, which was great. But that was actually my first entree into how to rent houses for people at a time where there was a shortage of housing. And then yeah, your later years later ended up getting into the vacation rental world and started a vacation company in Scottsdale, Arizona. And then, you know, through the years expanded that to Park City, Utah, Palm Springs, locations. And yeah, so that's kind of my my origin story of how I started in this wacky world that we live in here in the vacation or world. 

Annie Holcombe  05:24
That's the best story I've heard today. I've had

Alex Husner  05:28
a really good no one has a story quite like that. But 2002 was VRBO even out at that point. 

Ryan Dame  05:35
Yeah. VRBO. And just so VRBO actually started in the late 90s, late 90s. So it was super early. To put in perspective, my first house in Scottsdale, where I started doing vacation rentals. And of course, it's like the typical origin story of renting my own place. I was the 100 and third vacation rental in Scottsdale, Arizona on VRBO. At the time, you know, cut to Scottsdale has over 5000 vacation. You know, as of this year, yeah. Oh my gosh. 

Annie Holcombe  06:04
So it's funny you bring up the Olympics, because I always talk about like, I got in the vacation rental space in the 90s and paper like, there's like that's, that's so long ago, like how is that even possible. But it wasn't the Atlanta Olympics because I live in Panama City. And so people in Atlanta and Columbus because they held like some of the softball and the whitewater rafting and everything clubs were rented, they rented their houses out, and they were looking for like month long rentals and Panama City Beach. And we were like, who rents a house in the month. But they're like who can do that we could get anything we wanted at the time because people wanted places to stay for a month. So we had people like moved into our home hotels into the condos that were there. There weren't a lot of condos at that time. But I remember that was about the time that our market really kind of took off from the Olympics moving forward. So I hadn't had anybody, like kind of prod that in my memory before. But it's interesting that that's where you got kind of your, like, first taste of it. And that's what made you kind of jump into it. 

Ryan Dame  06:52
Yeah, yeah, that was that's where I got got my first taste. And it was it was pretty addictive. So I thought I'd want my own first car is through that through that website. So then once you figure out that as a young kid, it becomes like, Okay, well, what can I do next to figure out how to, you know, buy these things in life that are at the time super important. 

Alex Husner  07:12
Right, right. Yeah. That's always one of our favorite questions to ask people is what was your first job? And that probably wasn't your first job. But that's when your first jobs within the industry that you didn't even know you were in an industry at that point. But yeah, so So what happened at that point, you were growing the company out in Scottsdale, and then I think you expanded to Park City and some other areas. How did that come about? 

Ryan Dame  07:36
Yeah. So started in, started in Scottsdale, you know, built out a business there. At the time, I thought I kind of had at LinkedIn, I was like, Man, this is I got got this thing figured out. And I've got software, I've got people and we're doing building this great business. And then soon after, that had an opportunity with a friend of mine, actually, that was, you know, interested in being the vacation rental world said, Hey, we should would you want to do this with me in Park City, and I said, Hey, this is kind of a localized business, I don't know, if would really work out unless you wanted to like be the boots on the ground in the face, can do some of the back office, I think I've got a team and we've got the software. And here's how it all works. We quickly decided that that model would would work well. So we opened up an office in Berkeley, we started buying a small book of contract from a local realtor that had five contracts, I believe. So we bought the five contracts, that was kind of our initial inventory in the space. And yeah, we grew that out to you know, about 3540 properties there in Park City. And that worked pretty well. And having having a partner there actually worked extremely well, because he was the one you know, meeting with homeowners and being that local person in the community, he was born and raised in Utah, and worked really well and then decided to, to buy a company in Palm Springs, with 110 units in Palm Springs. And that's when things got really fun. So, you know, my life became like leaving on Monday morning from Scottsdale, driving to Palm Springs for four hours, getting into that office around nine, working, you know, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and then I typically fly back up to Park City from Palm Springs work up there for a couple days, do a day in the office, you know, if I couldn't in Scottsdale, then I'd fly back to Salt Lake kind of do this whole rotation and that really became life, unfortunately for men over a year, and quickly realizing that scaling businesses is not as easy as just buying them and hoping that they're just going to be business as usual. But, and also, I think, really showing me that I had a lack of systems and a lack of scalability without Ryan, you know, showing up and being a part of that. So that that then you know, yielded to actually you know, by have further conversations with Steve, my partner now with cost ago, is I known Steve for 10 years. We We're all we would, you know, we were always buddies, we met at conferences, we learned that we're kind of in the same markets, he had started kind of his vacational journey down in Mexico and Rocky Point, which is about four hours drive. We actually had condos on the beach, you know, two buildings away from each other. I always had a great affinity for Steve and a great admiration for what he was building and, you know, got to spend some time down at the cost to go facility in Rocky Point and became, you know, friendly with, you know, his staff in Scottsdale, as he had bought a company up in Scottsdale during this time as well. So we were kind of like friendly competitors, frenemies. There's really no enemy involved, but we were, we were competitors. But you know, always get together talk, shop, talk business, and talk, you know, about the industry as a whole. And, you know, that was when I started realizing that Steven put together a pretty amazing company with a lot of good SOPs, a lot of good processes. And a lot of, you know, really people first and building a company that revolved around you know, educating these people in very specific processes the way to do things, which was certainly something that I was not doing in my business, because I was running ragged. And going Mach Five with my, well, I don't have any hair, but my hair on realizing Stephen put together something really cool. And, you know, that led into conversations, you know, starting back to, you know, three or four years ago, you know, we're Steve and I, you know, started talking about the business and saying, you know, at one point, we're like, you know, we should just go buy a business together be fine, like, let's just find a market outside of any markets that we're in. At the time, we were both in Park City at that time, both in Scottsdale, so I said, I would just, you know, I'd love to do business with you, I think it'd be a ton of fun, I just had a great affinity for Steve and thought he was just such a great human, and a sweetheart of a guy, just, every time I met with him, I was always inspired. And so we ended up right before right at COVID, actually, deciding that we were going to buy business down and are actually out in West Virginia, about as far away from home as you could get. That became a really fun process is as we did that, we really, you know, went from having a lot of friendly conversations and thought, you know, thought, ideas and sharing to being in business together and being business partners. And at that point, you know, we're really lifted up the hood of both of our businesses and saying, here's how we did things, here's how I do things, understanding cost structures, understanding general Ledger's understanding, staffing, and really kind of taking and pulling, you know, best practices together, you know, and putting, you know, we ended up buying, not just one company in that town ended up buying two companies and merging those together. And that quickly became a huge success for us. And with that, I think it quickly became apparent, you know, one plus one equals three, and you know, that our, our ability to work together and to, you know, to systematize things, and then buying this business, you know, all the way across the country about as far away from home as you could get, which, you know, compared to what I was doing, you know, which is going to every office every week that this could work and it can scale and that the systems that were in place with Costco, were amazing. And truthfully, I learned a huge lesson, you know, through that process of understanding that there is a lot of merit and a lot of value to taking something like that and scaling it. And being able to do it repetitiously, both on the people side and the process side of the business. So that was a huge takeaway for me. And like I said, Steve and I have now been business partners for you know, two and a half years. And shoot, I'm having more fun than I've ever had in this wall. 

Annie Holcombe  13:45
So if you have fun at work, you never work a day in your life. Right?

Alex Husner  13:50
True. Yeah. That's

Ryan Dame  13:53
true. Yeah. And it makes it even better when your business partner is a, you know, we were friends first, you know, spending time with Steve's, like, spend time with my brothers. It's, you know, it flows. So naturally, and we talk, we talk business a lot, but we're both passionate about that. But we've also managed to have a lot of fun along the way doing a lot of fun things and, and traveling together. And you know, that's been a big piece of our partnership as well. I love that. I love that. So those businesses that you bought, were they automatically costs ago or did they did you how did you decide if it was going to be your company's name or hit or casa? Yeah. So, you know, I should regret by that time that we actually closed these business we'd actually rolled up. Okay, okay. So yeah, they were Yeah. Perfectly cost ago. But all of the those processes in place, and yeah, we branded the the offices as Kosovo. Yeah. 

Alex Husner  14:45
Gotcha, gotcha. No, Annie, you have to ask your obligatory question that everybody asks about the pronunciation. I can't ask it because clearly,

Annie Holcombe  14:55
I have I think I think we have Steve on on actual video I asked him and Kosovo or cassava? And he said, Yes.

Ryan Dame  15:03
Yeah. What is your answer?

Annie Holcombe  15:06
What is your answer?

Ryan Dame  15:08
You know, all I can say is, I will say, I feel like Cassandra a lot of people in the state sake Isago. And then, you know, are constantly go, I should say, so like, you know, I think we've got to list two words in the US was costs cost ago, and then I will say, our Utah or our Utah, our Mexico offices, you know, it's like a Salgo. And so I think that they, you know, I think it really kind of depends on the market. You're in. Yeah, in our own internal teams even. But as deep says, you know, doesn't really matter as long as people are saying her name.

Annie Holcombe  15:39
No. And that was what he said to me. I was like, that's a very valid point. But I just love his answer, and he just will never answer me and he'll just go yes.

Alex Husner  15:46
Yeah. Be on his gravestone. That's what Yeah, he did say he

Annie Holcombe  15:51
would give the secret away on the gravestone, so yeah, yeah.

Ryan Dame  15:54
Yeah. The dictionary, so there's really no wrong. There's really no,

Annie Holcombe  15:58
exactly. You can say what you want. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, perfect.

Alex Husner  16:02
That was interesting to me. When I went to Costco University, hearing that the team in Mexico that they do call it casado, I thought it would be the opposite. They would call it Casa since CASA is a Spanish word. But yeah, it's up to interpretation. But however anybody wants to say it, we're happy with it, you're never wrong, as long as you're saying. Now, Ryan, I love also have been the depth of your experience within this industry. And I know just in conversations, many, many conversations we've had with new operators, existing operators over the last few months. And, you know, the desire to be multimarket is a real thing. And I think, you know, obviously, a lot of companies see a lot of value in that being able to offset if there's a hurricane, or if there's a disaster in one area, that you still have a company in another. But it's not something that's easily done. And the worry that we have in the industry is that with Airbnb, and a lot of the newer people that are coming into this, that are thinking that they can just have the systems and the processes, and they don't need to have any boots on the ground that that's, that's really going to be I think, could lead to a deterrent for the industry, because I don't think from a service standpoint, that technology can completely do everything for them. But I appreciate you telling your stories on that, because I think you have really lived through the trenches of it and seeing, you know, how much it really takes to to excel in a multi market situation?

Ryan Dame  17:25
You Yeah, 100%? I think, you know, listen, i i Are there people? Are there homeowners that successfully manage, you know, a rental, you know, three, four hours from home successfully? I think the answer is yes. You know, certainly I think that there's, you know, a hammer, I think if there's a lot of people as a percentage that do that really well, when it gets into really wanting to create a brand, really wanting to have an established local business, you know, it really does take boots on the ground, it takes people that are with operational excellence, I really believe that that's a big piece of this business, you know, with us, you know, we have our orange creed, these are things that, you know, values and principles that we live by, as a company, that's very hard to scale, certainly hard to scale with a part time co host in a market and then having someone else that's in a different market, wanting to really speak that same language, wanting to understand the same language of business, same language of hospitality, you know, that's those are the things that are hardest to scale, right? I mean, I think, you know, finding somebody that in a local market that can fix an air conditioner, or unplug a toilet, I think those are doable things, really creating a brand experience, and being able to instill the principles and values of a mission driven company at scale is a whole different story. And I think, you know, while there are, you know, I think there are some people that have this, this idea that, that, that that works, I can also tell you on the financial side, I think that it's, you know, been proven time and time again, that, you know, in our business, there are scalable back office, you know, type activities that happen. And when you get to scale and when you have, you know, mass and you get those in consolidated geographic areas, there's definitely profit to be reaped, in my opinion, from having some consolidation of geographic territories. So, you know, I, you know, I can't imagine having done this 20 years, I can't imagine wanting to be in six markets and having three or four houses in each one or being in 20 markets and having one or two in each market. You know, this is a this is a complicated business as it is and I think, to me, that seems like it'd be even more complicated. And then certainly, you know, as you look at people that are wanting to exit this business, I think that those types of businesses are going to be less desirable on a you know, on an acquisition standpoint, I think you know, typically, you're going to do better off you know, going deep and not wide in this business and having you know, a real brand and a real brand presence and having scale also as you grow in this business. I think that, you know, the hardest things is we, you know, talk with franchisees and people that are coming into our program. You know, the most important thing is, you know, those first 10 properties, right? There's, there's this social proof thing that goes into this business. And it's almost like a skate. It's like a tipping scale. Like you get those first 10 or 12. In your market, you now have, you know, social proof, you have testimonials, when you're sending out mailers and marketing, that homeowners going to your website, they're looking, how many properties does this company manage? If you've got two in this city and two in that city and four over here, it doesn't look local, it doesn't look like you are the local, you know, hero, the local ambassador of that vacation rental brand, it looks like you're confused. In my opinion, I think it looks like you're uncommitted, that you're still trying to figure it out. Those first 10 properties are the hardest to get those next 10 In that same market are twice as easy to get in my opinion. So I think, you know, going deep, rather than wide in this industry is something that's been proven to work the best.

Annie Holcombe  21:03
Yeah, absolutely. And so your role with castigo Isago? Is you do a lot of the going out to getting getting the new franchises, right. Yep. Yeah. So what does that what does that look like? I'm really intrigued by how, what does an ideal partner look like for you guys? Is it somebody that's new annually, I've seen some other franchise models where like, they typically will bring in people that are just like, they maybe think they want to get into it. And they buy into it. They give them all the, you know, all the education and tools to do it. But are you guys looking for people that are maybe at that 10 point, and they want to scale up and they need assistance?

Ryan Dame  21:38
That's a great question. I'll preface it all with saying, you know, we're really focused on you know, Costco being partner first, it's, you know, it's finding the right partner is more important than, truthfully how much inventory they may have, or what market they may want to be in. It's finding, you know, making sure we have the right partner first and foremost, I think, secondly, to answer your question, there's markets, we're definitely you know, putting Greenfield like icon, Greenfield operators, people with no inventory, typically, those are going to be, you know, some of these mid mid sized to smaller markets, you know, we're making sure that that person that's looking at a large market has the ability to go into that market, and, and be a force in that market. As we all know, like, we really look at a couple of things, I think these days, you know, almost every market now has a national competitor in it. And then we have a lot of these companies that are regional, we also have a lot of, you know, private equity companies that are in these markets that are, you know, that are rolling up, you know, larger groups in specific markets, we've got great legacy brands in this industry that are, you know, third and fourth generation, you know, vacation rental companies. So we really look at the market as a whole understand, you know, what that competitive landscape looks like, and then, you know, try to identify the right partner for, you know, for those markets, I would say that probably over half of the markets we've signed up thus far are existing operators. And, you know, the other half are, you know, new to the, you know, new to the vacation rental world, but have, I would say a lot of them have real estate experience, mortgage company experience, long term rental management companies that they've started and sold, I think some of them, you know, most of them will have some kind of a vein into that real estate, or, you know, a former business acumen or company that they've owned, would be pretty typical profile, our existing operators, I would say, our operators, you know, that are, you know, starting off at that, you know, million to a million and a half dollars of gross rent, all the way up to we have partners that are doing up into the $10 million of rent, which I think is a real testimony to what we're doing here at Costco because while to your point, you know, a lot of organizations that are doing franchising, are getting these people that are the Airbnb printers that want to get into the business in the ropes, you know, and have their financial model, our financial model has proven to bring value to operators of all sizes, it's we have people that are second generation vacation rental managers who are bringing in you know, their you know, organizations into the costs ago community and finding great economies of scale, they're finding that their operating costs are going down their operational profit is doing up. And I think that's you know, for us is like if this can work for the existing operator that has already scaled a lot of that inventory piece, which is the jet fuel that runs this business, it's definitely going to work for these you know, people that are coming into this industry and starting you know, maybe with just a handful of properties and that that model and that business model and the financial model scales really well. Yeah,

Alex Husner  24:43
and I think the interesting thing and why people sometimes when we first say vacation or franchise they kind of look at you like what what exactly does that mean? It's this is not a franchise where it's like Chick fil A that you're gonna have to make the sandwich exactly the same no matter if you're in Myrtle Beach or Panama City Beach. vacation rentals are A very nuanced industry, depending on the market that you're in, and a lot of different variables there. And I think what's unique about Casa gos model is that we don't tell you how to run your business, we provide you with the tools and the economies of scale that allow those local operators to have access to those, but they still run their business the way that makes sense for their market. So that's it's not a it's not a one and done one size fits all solution. And I think that's probably why franchise hasn't really caught on to this industry, because nobody's really known how to do that. But it's cool. I love meeting the different people that we're talking to. And like Brian said, they're they're across the board or in from New to existing. And it's just it's really interesting hearing where people's pain points are and differences and similarities, really. So I feel like it's an opportunity

Annie Holcombe  25:46
to interview you both. About how many how many franchises

Alex Husner  25:51
Do you have?

Ryan Dame  25:54
So we've got some finalists as well, I think it's 42. We've actually just recently had

Annie Holcombe  26:02
4344. So yeah, yeah. And what's your growth? What's your growth plan? Is it like, you know, five a year 10? A year? As many as you can get any year? Yeah, no. So yeah, we did last year, it was an awesome year, we had a we had 20, new partners sign up, and,

Ryan Dame  26:18
you know, we're on track to, you know, and have a goal of doing over 30 this year. So, you know, that's that's kind of where we're headed. You know, we have eyes on, you know, 100 markets, you know, by the end of 2024.

Annie Holcombe  26:30
Good to see that's a that's a lot of work. Alex, you're going to be busy,

Alex Husner  26:34
Yeah. So Ryan, I mean, you obviously have your eye on technology within this space, too. And I think you've, you've done some really cool business ventures in your past outside of this industry. But you've also kind of parlayed your experience into the digital lock, keyless lock industry as well. Can you tell us a little bit about that business venture? 

Ryan Dame  26:55
Yeah, for sure. So we have, you know, this, the truth is the impetus for a lot of the the tech and things that we invest heavily into, really come to, you know, how do we benefit our partners, you know, inside of the Costco ecosystem, with that, we do have an involvement, we've acquired a company called Good Neighbor tech. So Good Neighbor Tech is a smart home automation company that integrates, you know, through our PMS, which is streamline, and provides, you know, lock data, you know, or lock, you know, Smart Home Lock information system through the software to the front door, giving people a digital entry code. And then we've kind of expanded on that with adding a partnership with noiseaware. So creating this dashboard, where we can, you know, run and manage homes, you know, in a unified platform through noiseaware, as well as the locks. We also have some cool digital cameras coming into play water sensors, and some other fun stuff. And then, you know, we've also created a QR code technology called QR for VR, which is something that Steve came up with, which has been really cool and extremely popular, which is a QR code system where you actually can go into your home, while you're there with these QR plaques. And they're branded, you know, for the property managers, you know, logos and names. And you can actually scan that QR code for anything that might be difficult in a house. So inside of your home, if you're getting a lot of repetition calls for Sonos, sound system, or the hot tub, or whatever these things may be, those can be recorded in your PMS, then your team can actually deploy these QR codes inside the home, where you're able to scan these and get an instructional video of how to operate that specific system. And also giving guests the ability to give feedback, thumbs up, thumbs down with comments. And then it also gives the manager some transparency on how many times people are actually looking at these videos, finding them useful, and then just kind of gives a full communication loop from Back to House reservations and customer service people saying, Hey, this is a continuous problem to having your field people kind of fix that problem. And then creating, you know, a digital feedback loop from guests whether or not that's being helpful. The whole idea in the competition is obviously to reduce the number of calls and you know, increased guest satisfaction making sure that when people get into a house, they have information readily available quickly. If it's after hours, they don't have to wait for a phone call back that they can get immediate, you know, feedback loop on things that might be confusing or frustrating to better guest experience. I can't remember the number of times I've stayed in a place I love that because I've been there and I'm like, I can't call somebody and ask this is such a dumb question. So I just didn't use whatever it was that you know, I we stayed in a place in Orlando one time and we couldn't figure out how to use the hot tub like to turn turn it on to get it hot. So we're just like, forget it. We just won't use it. But you know, we paid for it. So I should have wanted to ask but I didn't want to be an idiot. So

Annie Holcombe  29:58
I love that you have that technology so, so with Good Neighbor Tex over the door lock? So does that, is that does that come like as a franchisee of, of Costco? Is that part of the technology that comes with it? Or is this something separate? 

Ryan Dame  30:12
Yeah. So it is, it's part of our technology stack inside of, you know, costs ago to Alice's point. You know, one thing that I love you know about our model is, we're, while we have things that we provide to our partners, that are, you know, very, you know, extremely cost effective, and help build a really, you know, big operational cost moat around their business, we're also very agnostic in the way that we have partners who prefer to use a different Lock technology or want to use a different digital guidebook. So they have the ability to do that, they have the ability to run that business, the way that they've been running it, if they have preferred vendors or relationships, we're certainly not telling them or dictating to the partner, you know, what they have to use. But we do offer this technology stack and, you know, things like Good Neighbor tech, you know, to our partners, you know, at a, you know, at a rate that, you know, is best in market, and definitely can be it can compete, not just compete, it's, you know, the cheapest solution that they would be able to find on the open market for these types of products and give them you know, lower operating cost. 

Annie Holcombe  31:21
Yeah. So Alex, I think to, to the point that you made earlier, it's not, it's not a Chick fil A scenario where everything has to be cookie cutter, and the same the way you're operating as the way you want to operate, but you're just giving them some ability to scale and be more efficient with some of the technology and then they can pick and choose based off the shelf as to what they want. I think that's that's a huge selling point for people. 

Alex Husner  31:42
, yeah. Because like I said, every market is different. I mean, guest Ranger, that's, that's another product that we offer to our franchisees. And, you know, that's ID screening for guests and to prevent chargebacks. But I was talking to an operator yesterday, he said, we had three chargebacks, and all of last year. So in some markets, it just doesn't happen quite as often as others, but, and just the issues that they have with security. And then in other markets, it's a massive problem. So it's been really interesting for me to see across the country, how different each market really operates. I'm so used to my Myrtle Beach bubble here. But there's a big world out there. I've gotten to see quite a bit of it this year. But, Ryan, I want to ask you, I mean, just looking at the industry as a whole and and what do you think is one thing that the industry is not talking about that we should be talking about more?

Ryan Dame  32:31
Man, that's a good one, that we should be talking about. More if I had to say, I've said this, you know, publicly a couple times, I think the industry one of the things that our industry is probably behind the eight ball on and I think, you know, I'm certainly a part of this problem. When I started my business is, you know, the finance side of our business, the understanding of, you know, understanding the financial metrics of these businesses, to the point earlier, you know, about how you build the business, the, you know, the business plan, but just being very, you know, I would say that our our industry as a whole is not as financially financially literate, as you know, a lot of other sophisticated businesses. The truth is, you know, we started off as this was a cottage industry business that now has became a Wall Street darling. And I think it is, it would be shocking to people to understand how on financially literate a lot of our operators in this space are. So you know, my thing, you know, my drum that I beat a lot is, you know, making sure I say this all the time, you know, accounting is the language of business, you have to understand accounting and bookkeeping, to really understand the business that you're running. So I think having, you know, the one thing that we need to be talking more about his financial controls, more consistency of our general Ledger's and being able to understand how to interpret those levers that we pull as operators in a way that, you know, we can make good business decisions. I think we are very reactionary, I think, you know, I there was a vrma meeting. I think there's one in Chicago last year where I don't remember who it was, I think it may have been sharing, Walker asked, you know, by raise of hands, who actually was operating off of a budget, and it was frightening. Managers said, Yeah, I'm operating off of a budget like I, I make decisions in this business, based on where I've been and where I'm going and I stay within these guardrails financially. I think that that's something we're not talking enough about, you know, I was, you know, in operations, you know, our last recession. And I can tell you, much like all industries, if you do not have financial literacy going into, you know, this type of a recessionary time you were watching Silicon Valley Bank, who is a financial Institute's having financial issues, I would caution you know, everyone in this industry to make sure that they understand their finances, they understand their trust accounts, that they operate in trust, even if they are not And the trust accounting state is just a good way to do business and keep you out of trouble. You know, so I think that would be the one thing that our industry needs to be more focused on. I know recently, Steve and Matt had hosted a a keystone event, strictly focusing on that financial, you know, cohort. And it was awesome to watch that that ended up being so highly attended, because I think that that's something that isn't spoken enough enough, you know, in our industry. So that would be my eating of the drum. 

Annie Holcombe  35:27
Yeah, I agree completely. And Simon Lehman always says that, like your, your financial health is the business that runs your, you know, the oxygen that runs your business. And I do to your point, I think there's so many people that should operate in that trust accounting space, even if they're not required to, because I think we saw a lot of companies that when COVID hit, because they were in not in that trust, accounting space or not operating that they had to go under, like, they just didn't have anything saved up for that rainy day. And I don't, I can only speak from my experience in the industry. I've been through hurricanes, oil spills down economy now. COVID, you know, I feel like I've seen it all. I mean, we come out better every time I feel like but there's just there's there's people that just they ride the wave, and then they forget to save for a rainy day. And I mean, I can say, personally, I'm probably guilty of that as well. But not I don't have a business that I'm trying to run on that level. But I just do feel like there's that. That's, that's a worry for me with the the growth that we've seen the last two years, the number of people that have gotten into it, and we see some of those conferences or events that are focused on like, the wealth aspect of it is like, well, you can, you know, tag 10 units and make a million dollars, and you're gonna be rich, but are they? Are they educating them on like, Okay, well, maybe those 10 units aren't gonna make you a million dollars this year, it might only make you 700,000. And so thinking forward when the times or times are rough. That's I think, as you're definitely spot on, outside of advocacy, I would think that's, that's probably the second biggest should be the first thing you will look at. 

Ryan Dame  36:51
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, and thank goodness, I think advocacy is getting more of a spotlight. You know, in our industry, certainly, it's getting a lot more this last year than it was two years ago, which is, you know, awesome to watch. But yeah, that I think the finance side, it's just not spoken enough about I think there's so many of these late, like, late in coming, if you've been in this business for four years or less, though you haven't seen a downturn in this industry, it probably feels like you can't lose, you know, when the fact is, you're putting all your metrics on some amazing occupancy numbers, amazing ATR numbers, the return the cap rates, the return on net assets, you know, all this stuff, all of those metrics, would tell you that this is an amazing business that's hard to lose at. And I can I've challenged that, you know, this business is not, you know, people don't understand that if you're a if your ADR and your gross rent as a property manager, you know, goes down 10%. And your costs up leading up to this last three years have increased with personnel, with software, with, you know, every piece of our business, the gasoline that we've been putting in our service trucks, you know, if your ADR and your gross rent goes down 10% And you're making 20 to 25% of that as a property manager. And your costs do not decrease with that. It is a it's a very fast, slippery slope that starts to turn on you quicker than you realize if you're not having a finger on the pulse of what's going on with your finances. 

Alex Husner  38:21
Yes, absolutely. I think one thing that I would add to it is that I think there's not enough ability or just information within the industry on how you actually track the return on your advertising. And, you know, that's one thing when I was at Condor world that I was just ingrained into me about how we really look at every single advertising source and every, every different property. Because if you have different areas are different, even within a portfolio, not all your homeowners are necessarily on the same commission. But if you're looking at one source and thinking that it's it's all based on just the total amount that's booked, that's not the case. And I think that's where advertising can just really get either out of hand for some companies, or they just don't really do much at all. And those rely on VRBO. And Airbnb, because they're not able to track it. But what I have learned in the last few months, just talking to other operators, there's just really not good software within our industry from especially from a phone call standpoint, that can tie both online bookings and the phone reservations. So I think there's a big opportunity there for all the software companies to really up the game. And I remember last year, or two years ago at the Women's Conference being on stage and somebody in the audience asking you know, how do you how do you track if it's a repeat booking or would the source of where it came from? And everybody that I was on the panel was said we don't we're not really able to do that. And I thought my gosh, like that's just unbelievable, but that's that's pretty common. When you talk to a lot operators, they actually don't know where a lot of the business is coming from unless it's coming from one of the OTAs so I think it the profitability kind of combining that with better tracking. There's that's a big opportunity within the space.

Ryan Dame  39:58
Yep. I love that. I I totally agree with your wizard that too.

Alex Husner  40:05
I have good good friends that are wizards that

Annie Holcombe  40:09
you underestimate yourself, Alex. Yeah. So, so what's next for you? Ryan? What do you got on the horizon this year? I mean, obviously, you're gonna grow past ago and good neighbor tech is going to be part of that. And you've just you've got a lot of irons in the fire. But what, what is it like professionally, personally, what do you look focused on this year?

Ryan Dame  40:28
Man? That's a, that's a great question. So I have a, you know, professionally, you know, we are just really laser focused. This, you know, on this mission of growing our community here at cost ago, like I said, it doesn't, but I like the word professional and not work because it doesn't feel like work. This has just been a really fun experience. And it has just made, you know, my life completely, you know, fulfilled and happy on a professional, you know, on a professional level, you know, personally, shoot, I've got to think about that, you know, I think I've got, I hurt my knee this this year. So I've got to put it on the list for next year. But I want to get we want to get a foreign ski trip. And you know, next year, my girlfriend, I've been talking about going over to Japan or doing another trip overseas. So I think that's a personal goal. I also have a I have a little bit of the jealousy piece of me right now because my my partner Steve is a pilot. And he's, he does, he does a really great job at it. I love flying with them. So I've had this personal itch to perhaps go out and explore getting my pilot's license to try it out. So that's, that's something that I've been spending a lot of time thinking about. Thinking about as well. So those are probably my two, you know, two big personal goals this year.

Annie Holcombe  41:47
Maybe you can go heliskiing when you're outside the country. I hear that's really big a thing. Right? I think Robin craigan recently said that he had just done that. So fascinated by that. Combine the flying and the skiing together.

Ryan Dame  41:58
Enough to do that. Yeah, heli skiing is a good way to ruin skiing for anybody that's got a chance to do it after a couple of days of Heli skiing. All skiing doesn't seem nearly as fun but yeah, oh, yeah. Yeah, I'd actually Robin gave me an invite to come out and ski with him this year. But what I right before I hurt my knee as well. So hopefully, Robin will extend another invite to me next year to get out to Colorado and get to ski with him.

Annie Holcombe  42:25
I have no doubt he would.

Alex Husner  42:26
Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Well, thank you, Ryan, so much for coming on today. If our audience wants to contact you, what's the easiest way to get in touch? Yeah,

Ryan Dame  42:35
my LinkedIn profile is easy. And then my email address is brian@costco.com. So super simple. I love hearing from anybody. I love talking shop with people and always available and always respond to anybody.

Alex Husner  42:50
Awesome. If anybody wants to contact me now you can go to Alex and Annie podcast.com. And until next time, thank you, everyone for tuning in. Thanks.

Ryan Dame  42:59
Thanks, ladies. It's been fun. Thanks, ladies. It's been fun.

Alex Husner  43:07
Welcome to Alex Nene, the real women of vacation rentals. I'm Alex. And I'm Annie. And we are joined today with Ryan Dame who is the partner and cost ago and more recently, my partner in crime driving around and go and meeting and conferences. But welcome, Ryan, we're excited to have you on the show today.

43:26
Yeah, glad to be here, guys.

Annie Holcombe  43:28
So for those of us well, I say I just recently met you. I think I had a conversation with you at the spring vrma That you were always kind of this intimidating figure to me. But now that I've got to know you still a little intimidated, but really, really enjoyed our time together. But I think there's a lot of people that don't necessarily know who Ryan is and what your background is. So can you tell us a little bit about you?

Ryan Dame  43:50
Yeah, for sure. So yeah, I I've been in a vacationer world now for almost 21 years going on 21 years. So I'm like an OG in the vacation rental space. I mean, I used to be the probably one of the younger guys in this space. Now. I'm definitely getting out flanked by a lot of the young up and coming managers and occasional people here in the industry. So you know, I guess backstory, my my entree into vacation rentals, coincidentally was in 2000. In the year 2000. In I guess it was 98. My family, we went to the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, where we ended up sleeping in a basement of a house of a friend of a friend of my mom's at church. We lived in Idaho at the time. And she had a friend of a friend that was in in in the church that had a basement. We rented it. My dad got tickets to the Olympics. And we ended up sleeping this basement. I was I was a freshman in college at the time, I guess sophomore in college at the time and I remember thinking man, this is just wild sleeping in these people's basement at night and we paid them some amount of money and they cooked us breakfast. It was like a pseudo Bed and Breakfast it was the experience was my mom, my dad and my four brothers. So the seven outside went to the Olympics had a really cool experience. And very quickly right after that, the olympics got announced to come to Salt Lake City for the Winter Olympics, the 2002 Olympics, I should say. And so I thought, man, there's gonna be a really cool opportunity to provide housing for people in Utah and I was going to school at BYU at the time. So I quickly decided on some three by five cards, this is how we did things back then to and this is 99, I guess to put some three by five cards, the IT department at BYU and say, Hey, I'm looking for some partners, like helped me build this website, I have this idea I want to market people's homes for the 2002 Winter Olympics. At the time, they said it was going to be the one Olympics that had for capital, the least amount of housing available, you know, for the people coming out to attend the Olympics. So I quickly met two guys, Eric, and Ryan, and another Ryan, Ryan Gi, who decided they would write this they would write this for me, they would be able to write this code, create this website. And back then I created I bought what was called an auto dialer. This is like the old school boss computer where I put a disc in with everybody's phone number in Salt Lake. And it had a script that went something like this. Are you interested in renting your house for hundreds, if not 1000s of dollars a night for the upcoming, you know, 2002 Winter Olympic Games, if so, press one, if not to be deleted off the list, press two. And at the time I was in Provo, Utah, which is about 45 minutes from Salt Lake, which was a long distance phone calls. So that was gonna get really expensive. I ended up getting a $200 a month box of an office in downtown Salt Lake, where I plugged in these two hardwired cables for two phone lines. And this thing would just fire off calling people all over salt lake. So every day after school, I'd drive up to Salt Lake, I would get on this computer, I get all the names of people that said they were interested. And I began selling the service. And at the time, we had a website called housing 2000 two.com signing up hundreds of people for like 100 bucks to come and get their house listed it send us pictures, we built this website. And then we quickly realized that was working pretty well. So we decided that it would be better to do a monthly service instead of a one time fee. So we started selling it for like $40 a month. And we kept continuing to get hundreds of people signing up for this for this product. And we ended up creating a website to do all this. Ultimately, we ended up getting sued by the housing Olympic Housing Committee. Mitt Romney took over the Olympics, who was also a former BYU grad. And, you know, we had to come to some terms of how to make all this work. Coldwell Banker became the official housing provider of the Olympics, they said, You can't use these rings, you can't use the word 2002. We ended up getting all sorts of exposure for it, which was pretty fun, and ultimately didn't end up getting sued, which was great. But that was actually my first entree into how to rent houses for people at a time where there was a shortage of housing. And then yeah, your later years later, ended up getting into the vacation rental world and started a vacation company in Scottsdale, Arizona. And then, you know, through the years expanded that to Park City, Utah, Palm Springs, locations and yeah, so that's kind of my my origin story of how I started in this wacky world that we live in here in the vacation world.

Annie Holcombe  48:25
That's the best story I've heard today. I've had a really good no one

Alex Husner  48:29
has a story quite like that. But 2002 was VRBO even out at that point.

Ryan Dame  48:36
Yeah. VRBO just so VRBO actually started in the late 90s, late 90s. So it was super early. To put in perspective, my first house in Scottsdale, where I started doing vacation rentals. And of course, it's like the typical origin story of renting my own place. I was the 100 and third vacation rental in Scottsdale, Arizona on VRBO. At the time, you know, cut to Scottsdale has over 5000 vacation. You know as of this year, yeah.

Annie Holcombe  49:04
Oh my god. So it's funny you bring up the Olympics because I was talking about like I got in the vacation rental space in the 90s and paper like there's like that's, that's so long ago, like how is it even possible, but it wasn't the Atlanta Olympics because I live in Panama City. And so people in Atlanta and Columbus because they held like some of the softball and the whitewater rafting and everything clubs were rented. They rented their houses out and they were looking for like month long rentals in Panama City Beach. And we were like, who rents a house in the month, like who can do that we could get anything we wanted at the time because people wanted places to stay for a month. So we had people like moved into her hotels into the condos that were there. There weren't a lot of condos at that time. But I remember that was about the time that our market really kind of took off from the Olympics moving forward. So I haven't had anybody like kind of prod that in my memory before but it's interesting that that's where you got kind of your like first taste of it. And that's what made you kind of jump into it.

Ryan Dame  49:52
Yeah, yeah, that was that's where I got got my first taste and it was it was pretty addictive. So I thought I'd want my And first car is through that through that website. So then once you figure out that as a young kid, it becomes like, Okay, well, what can I do next to figure out how to, you know, buy these things in life that are at the time super important.

Annie Holcombe  50:13
Right, right. Yeah,

Alex Husner  50:13
that's always one of our favorite questions to ask people is what was your first job? And that probably wasn't your first job. But that's one of your first jobs within the industry that you didn't even know you were in an industry at that point. But yeah, so So what happened at that point, you were growing the company out in Scottsdale, and then I think you expanded to Park City and some other areas. How did that come about?

Ryan Dame  50:36
Yeah. So started in, started in Scottsdale, you know, built out a business there at the time, thought I kind of had elected and I was like, Man, this is, I got got this thing figured out. And I've got software, I've got people and we're doing we are building this great business. And then soon after that, I had an opportunity with a friend of mine, actually, that was, you know, interested in being in the vacation rental world said, Hey, we should, would you want to do this with me in Park City, and I said, Hey, this is kind of a localized business, I don't know, if would really work unless you wanted to like be the boots on the ground in the face, could do some of the back office pick, I've got a team and we've got the software. And here's how it all works, we quickly decided that that model would would work well. So we opened up an office in Berkeley, we started buying a small book of contract from a local realtor that had five contracts, I believe. So we bought the five contracts, that was kind of our initial inventory in the space. And yeah, we grew that out to, you know, about 3540 properties there in Park City. And that worked pretty well. And having having a partner there actually worked extremely well, because he was the one, you know, meeting with homeowners and being that local person in the community, he was born and raised in Utah, and worked really well and then decided to, to buy a company in Palm Springs, with 110 units in Palm Springs. And that's when things got really fun. So, you know, my life became like leaving on Monday morning from Scottsdale, driving to Palm Springs for four hours, getting into that office around nine, working, you know, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and then I typically fly back up to Park City, from Palm Springs work up there for a couple of days, do a day in the office, you know, if I couldn't in Scottsdale, then I'd fly back in Salt Lake how to do this whole rotation. And that really became life, unfortunately for men over a year, and quickly realizing that scaling businesses is not as easy as just buying them and hoping that they're just going to be business as usual. But, and also, I think, really showing me that I had a lack of systems and a lack of scalability without Ryan, you know, showing up and being a part of that. So that, that then, you know, yielded to actually, you know, by have further conversations with Steve, my partner now with cost ago, is I known Steve for 10 years, we were all we were, you know, we were always buddies, we met at conferences, we learned that we're kind of in the same markets, he had started kind of his vacational journey down in Mexico and Rocky Point, which is about four hours drive. We actually had condos on the beach, you know, two buildings away from each other. I always had a great affinity for Steve and a great admiration for what he was building and you know, got to spend some time down at the cost to go facility in Rocky Point and became, you know, friendly with, you know, his staff in Scottsdale, as he had bought a company up in Scottsdale during this time as well. So we were kind of like friendly competitors, frenemies. There's really no enemy involved, but we were, we were competitors. But you know, always get together talk, shop, talk business, and talk, you know, about the industry as a whole. And, you know, that was when I started realizing that Steve had put together a pretty amazing company with a lot of good SOPs, a lot of good processes. And a lot of, you know, really people first and building a company that revolved around you know, educating these people in very specific processes the way to do things, which was certainly something that I was not doing in my business because I was running ragged and going Mach Five with my, well, I don't have any hair, but my hair on realizing Stephen put together something really cool. And, you know, that led into conversations, you know, starting back to, you know, three or four years ago, you know, where Steve and I, you know, started talking about the business and saying, you know, at one point were like, you know, we should just go buy a business together. It'd be fun, like, let's just find a market outside of any markets that we're in. At the time. We were both in Park City at that time, both in Scottsdale, so I said I would just, you know, I'd love to do business with you. I think it'd be a ton of fun. I just had a good a great affinity for Steven thought he was just such a great human and a sweetheart, the guy just every time I met with him, I was always inspired. And so we ended up right before right at COVID actually deciding that we were going to buy business down and are actually out in West Virginia about as far away from home as you could get. That became a really fun process is as we did that, we really, you know, went from having a lot of friendly conversations and thought, you know, thought, ideas and sharing to being in business together and being business partners. And at that point, you know, we're really lifting up the hood of both of our businesses and saying, here's how we did things, here's how I do things, understanding cost structures, understanding general Ledger's understanding, staffing, and really kind of taking and pulling, you know, best practices together, you know, in putting, you know, we ended up buying, not just one company in that town ended up buying two companies and merging those together. And that quickly became a huge success, you know, for us. And with that, I think it quickly became apparent, you know, one plus one equals three, and, you know, that our, our ability to work together and to, you know, to systematize things, and then buying this business, you know, all the way across the country by as far away from home as you could get, which, you know, compared to what I was doing, you know, the butcher is doing to every office every week that this could work and it can scale and that the systems that were in place with Costco, were amazing. And truthfully, I learned a huge lesson, you know, through that process of understanding that there is a lot of merit, and a lot of value to taking something like that and scaling it, and being able to do it repetitiously, both on the people side and the process side of the business. So that was a huge takeaway for me. And like I said, Steve and I have now been business partners for you know, two and a half years. And shoot, I'm having more fun than I've ever had in a while so

Annie Holcombe  56:47
it could have fun at work. You never work a day in your life. Right? True. Yeah.

Ryan Dame  56:54
Yeah. And that makes it even better when your business partner is a you know, we were friends first. You know, spending time with Steve is like, spend time with my brothers. It's, you know, it flows. So naturally, and we talk, we talk business a lot, but we're both passionate about that. But we've also managed to have a lot of fun along the way doing a lot of fun things and, and traveling together. And you know, that's been a big piece of our partnership as well.

Annie Holcombe  57:21
I love that. I love that. So those businesses that you bought, were they automatically cast ago or did they did you how did you decide if it was going to be your company's name or hit or casa? Yeah.

Ryan Dame  57:30
So, you know, I should regret by that time that we actually closed these business we'd actually rolled up. Okay, okay. So yeah, they were Yeah. Perfectly cost ago. But all the you know, those processes in place, and yeah, we branded the the offices as Casa go, Yeah. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Alex Husner  57:47
Now, Annie, you have to ask your obligatory question that everybody asks about the pronunciation. I can't ask it. Because clearly,

Annie Holcombe  57:55
I have, I think, I think we have Steve on on actual video, I asked him, Kosovo or Isago? And he said, Yes. Yeah.

Alex Husner  58:05
What is your answer?

Annie Holcombe  58:06
What is your answer?

Ryan Dame  58:08
You know, all I can say is, I will say, I feel like Cassandra a lot of people in the state Ceca saga, and then, you know, are constantly go, I should say, so like, you know, I think we've got it as two words in the US what's cost cost ago, and then I will say, our Utah or our Utah, our Mexico offices, you know, it's like a Salgo. And so I think that they, you know, I think it really kind of depends on the market. You're in? Yeah. In our own internal teams even. But as deep says, you know, doesn't really matter as long as people are saying her name.

Annie Holcombe  58:40
No. And that was what he said to me. I was like, that's a very valid point. But I just love his answer. He just will never answer me. And he'll just go yes.

Alex Husner  58:47
Yeah. Be on his gravestone.

Annie Holcombe  58:50
That's what Yeah, he did say he would give the secret away on the gravestone, so yeah,

Ryan Dame  58:54
yeah. The dictionary, so there's really no wrong. There's really no,

Annie Holcombe  58:58
exactly. You can say what you want. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Perfect.

Alex Husner  59:03
That was interesting to me. When I went to Costco University, hearing that the team in Mexico that they do call it cassava, I thought it would be the opposite. They would call it Casa since CASA is a Spanish word. But yeah, it's up to interpretation. But however anybody wants to say it, we're happy with it. You're never wrong, as long as you're saying. Now, Ryan, I love also have been the depth of your experience within this industry. And I know just in conversations, many, many conversations we've had with, you know, new operators, existing operators over the last few months. And, you know, the the desire to be multimarket is a real thing. And I think, you know, obviously, a lot of companies see a lot of value in that being able to offset if there's a hurricane or if there's a disaster in one area, that you still have a company in another, but it's not something that's easily done. And the worry that we have in the industry is that with Airbnb, and a lot of the newer people that are coming into this that are thinking that they can just have the systems in The processes, and they don't need to have any boots on the ground that that's, that's really going to be, I think, could lead to a deterrent for the industry because I don't think from a service standpoint, that technology can completely do everything for them. But I appreciate you telling your stories on that, because I think you have really lived through the trenches of it and saying, you know, how much it really takes to excel in a multi market situation?

Ryan Dame  1:00:26
Yeah, 100% I think, you know, Listen, I I, are there people? Are there homeowners that successfully manage, you know, a rental, you know, three, four hours from home? Successfully? I think the answer is yes. You know, certainly I think that there's, you know, a hammer, I think there's a lot of people as a percentage that do that really well, when it gets into really wanting to create a brand, really wanting to have an established local business, you know, it really does take boots on the ground, it takes people that are with operational excellence, I really believe that that's a big piece of this business, you know, with us, you know, we have our orange creed, these are things that, you know, values and principles that we live by, as a company, that's very hard to scale, certainly hard to scale with a part time co host in a market, and then having someone else that's in a different market, wanting to really speak that same language, wanting to understand the same language of business, same language of hospitality, you know, that's those are the things that are hardest to scale, right? I mean, I think, you know, finding somebody that in a local market that can fix an air conditioner, or unplug a toilet, I think those are doable things, really creating a brand experience, and being able to instill the principles and values of a mission driven company at scale is a whole different story. And I think, you know, while there are, you know, I think there are some people that have this, this idea that, that, that that works, I can also tell you on the financial side, I think that it's, you know, been proven time and time again, that, you know, in our business, there are scalable back office, you know, type activities that happen. And when you get to scale, and when you have, you know, mass and you get those in consolidated geographic areas, there's definitely profit to be reaped, in my opinion, from having some consolidation of geographic territories. So, you know, I, you know, I can't imagine having done this 20 years, I can't imagine wanting to be in six markets, and having three or four houses and each one or being in 20 markets and having one or two in each market. You know, this is a this is a complicated business as it is. And I think, to me, that seems like it'd be even more complicated. And then certainly, you know, as you look at people that are wanting to exit this business, I think that those types of businesses are going to be less desirable on a, you know, on an acquisition standpoint, I think, you know, typically, you're going to do better off, you know, going deep and not wide in this business, and having, you know, a real brand and a real brand presence, and having scale also, as you grow in this business. I think that, you know, the hardest thing is we, you know, talk with franchisees and people that are coming into our program, you know, the most important thing is, you know, those first 10 properties, right, there's, there's this social proof thing that goes into this business, and it's almost like a skate, it's like a tipping scale. Like you get those first 10 or 12. In your market. You now have, you know, social proof, you have testimonials, when you're sending out mailers and marketing, that homeowners going to your website, they're looking, how many properties does this company manage? If you've got two in this city and two in that city and four over here, it doesn't look local, it doesn't look like you are the local, you know, hero, the local ambassador of that vacation rental brand, it looks like you're confused. In my opinion. I think it looks like you're uncommitted, that you're still trying to figure it out. Those first 10 properties are the hardest to get those next 10 In that same market are twice as easy to get in my opinion. So I think, you know, going deep, rather than wide in this industry is something that's been proven to work the best.

Annie Holcombe  1:04:04
Yeah, absolutely. And so your role with castigo cusabo? Is you do a lot of the going out to getting getting the new franchises, right. Yep. Yeah. So what does that what does that look like? I'm really intrigued by how, like, what does an ideal partner look like for you guys? Is it somebody that's new annually, I've seen some other franchise models where like, they typically will bring in people that are just like, they maybe think they want to get into it. And they buy into it. They give them all the you know, all the education and tools to do it. But are you guys looking for people that are maybe at that 10 Point and they want to scale up and they need assistance?

Ryan Dame  1:04:39
That's a great question. I'll preface that all with saying, you know, we're really focused on you know, Costco being partner first. It's, you know, it's finding the right partner is more important than, truthfully how much inventory they may have or what market they may want to be in. It's finding, you know, making sure we have the right partner first and foremost, I think secondly, So to answer your question, there's markets were definitely, you know, putting Greenfield like icon, Greenfield operators, people with no inventory, typically, those are going to be, you know, some of these mid mid sized to smaller markets, you know, we're making sure that that person that's looking at a large market has the ability to go into that market and, and be a force in that market. As we all know, like, we really look at a couple of things, I think these days, you know, almost every market now has a national competitor in it. And then we have a lot of these companies that are regional, we also have a lot of, you know, private equity companies that are in these markets that are, you know, that are rolling up, you know, larger groups in specific markets, we've got great legacy brands in this industry that are, you know, third and fourth generation, you know, vacation rental companies. So we really look at the market as a whole understand, you know, what that competitive landscape looks like, and then, you know, try to identify the right partner for, you know, for those markets, I would say that probably over half of the markets we've signed up thus far are existing operators. And, you know, the other half are, you know, new to the, you know, new to the vacationer world that have, I would say a lot of them have real estate experience, mortgage company experience, long term rental management companies that they've started and sold, I think some of them, you know, most of them will have some kind of a vein into that real estate, or, you know, a former business acumen or company that they've owned, would be pretty typical profile, our existing operators, I would say, our operators, you know, that are, you know, starting off at that, you know, million to a million and a half dollars of gross rent, all the way up to we have partners that are doing up into the $10 million of rent, which I think is a real testimony to what we're doing here at Costco, because while to your point, you know, a lot of organizations that are doing franchising, are getting these people that are the Airbnb printers that want to get into the business, the ropes, you know, and, and have their financial model, our financial model has proven to bring value to operators of all sizes, it's it's we have people that are second generation vacation rental managers, who are bringing in, you know, their, you know, organizations into the cost to go community and finding great economies of scale, they're finding that their operating costs are going down, their operational profit is going up. And I think that's, you know, for us is like, if this can work for an existing operator, that has already scaled a lot of that inventory piece, which is the jet fuel that runs this business, it's definitely going to work for these, you know, people that are coming into this industry and starting, you know, maybe with just a handful of properties, and that that model and that business model, and the financial model scales really well.

Alex Husner  1:07:43
Yeah, and I think the interesting thing, and why people sometimes when we first say vocational franchise, they kind of look at you like, what exactly does that mean? It's this is not a franchise, where it's like Chick fil A, that you're gonna have to make the sandwich exactly the same no matter if you're in Myrtle Beach, or Panama City Beach. vacation rentals are a very nuanced industry, depending on the market that you're in, and a lot of different variables there. And I think what's unique about Casa goes model is that we don't tell you how to run your business, we provide you with the tools and the economies of scale that allow those local operators to have access to those but they still run their business the way that makes sense for their market. So that's it's not a it's not a one and done one size fits all solution. And I think that's probably why franchise hasn't really caught on to this industry, because nobody's really known how to do that. But it's cool. I love meeting the different people that we're talking to. And Like Ryan said, they're, they're across the board or in from New to existing. And it's just it's really interesting hearing where people's pain points are and differences and similarities, really. So I feel like it's an opportunity

Annie Holcombe  1:08:47
to interview you both, about how many how many franchises Do you have?

Ryan Dame  1:08:55
So we've got honestly probably noticed as well, I think it's 42, we've actually just recently had a 4344. So yeah, yeah.

Annie Holcombe  1:09:05
And what's your growth? What's your growth plan? Is it like, you know, five a year 10 A year? As many as you can get any?

Ryan Dame  1:09:11
Yeah, no, so yeah, we did last year, it was an awesome year, we had a we had 20 new partners sign up, and, you know, we're on track to, you know, and have a goal of doing over 30 this year. So, you know, that's, that's kind of where we're headed. You know, we have eyes on, you know, 100 markets, you know, by the end of 2024.

Annie Holcombe  1:09:31
Good to see that's a that's a lot of work. Alex, you're going to be busy, right?

Alex Husner  1:09:37
Yeah. So Ryan, I mean, you obviously have So, so what's next for you? Ryan? What do you got on the horizon this year? I mean, obviously, you're gonna grow past ago and good neighbor tech is going to be part of that. And you've just you've got a lot of irons in the fire. But what, what is it like professionally, personally, what do you look focused on this year? 

Ryan Dame  1:23:29
Man? That's a, that's a great question. So I have a, you know, professionally, you know, we are just really laser focused. This, you know, on this mission of growing our community here at cost ago, like I said, it doesn't, but I like the word professional and not work because it doesn't feel like work. This has just been a really fun experience. And it has just made, you know, my life completely, you know, fulfilled and happy on a professional, you know, on a professional level, you know, personally, shoot, I've got to think about that, you know, I think I've got, I hurt my knee this this year. So I've got to put it on the list for next year. But I want to get we want to get a foreign ski trip. And you know, next year, my girlfriend, I've been talking about going over to Japan or doing another trip overseas. So I think that's a personal goal. I also have a I have a little bit of the jealousy piece of me right now because my my partner Steve is a pilot. And he's, he does, he does a really great job at it. I love flying with them. So I've had this personal itch to perhaps go out and explore getting my pilot's license to try it out. So that's, that's something that I've been spending a lot of time thinking about. Thinking about as well. So those are probably my two, you know, two big personal goals this year. Maybe you can go heliskiing when you're outside the country. I hear that's really big a thing. Right? I think Robin craigan recently said that he had just done that. So fascinated by that. Combine the flying and the skiing together. Enough to do that. Yeah, heli skiing is a good way to ruin skiing for anybody that's got a chance to do it after a couple of days of Heli skiing. All skiing doesn't seem nearly as fun but yeah, oh, yeah.

1:25:12
Yeah, I'd actually Robin gave me an invite to come out and ski with him this year but I right before I hurt my knee as well. So hopefully rosin send another invite to me next year to get out to Colorado and get to stay with him.

Annie Holcombe  1:25:25
I have no doubt he would.

Alex Husner  1:25:27
Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Well, thank you, Ryan, so much for coming on today. If our audience wants to contact you, what's the easiest way to get in touch? Yeah,

Ryan Dame  1:25:35
my LinkedIn profile is easy. And then my email address is brian@costco.com. So super simple. I love hearing from anybody. I love talking shop with people and always available and always respond to anybody.

Alex Husner  1:25:51
Awesome. If anybody wants to contact me now you can go to Alex and Annie podcast.com. And until next time, thank you, everyone for tuning in. Thanks.