Stephen Petasky - Founder of The Luxus Group | Merging Innovation and Luxury in Real Estate

The only way to become a leader at something, only ways to be obsessed, times infinite, you can dedicate as much time as you want to something you love if you really love it. If you don't really love it, you're going to find ways to get out of it. If you're talking about disrupting the space or being a superstar within your own space, you just have to be. Today, my guest is Steven Potaski, CEO and founder of the Luxus Group. He has owned and managed over 50 luxury properties and hospitality assets with a value of over $100 million in six different countries. There are only about five people on earth that operate in the luxury real estate space at this level and Steven is one of them. Raising $100 million is already an incredible feat. How do you raise $100 million in six years? Whatever your business is, whether you're cutting hair or taking on garbage or raising $100 million, I'll get to how I think someone could do it now. You have to love it and people can see passion, feel passion. To scale this particular business model is very, very hard and I don't mean to discourage, but there's only like five of us in the world that ever got to this size. There was about 50 of us. The problem with scale is most people, the biggest challenge was welcome to success story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. They've been supporting this show for over two years now and when it comes to running an incredible business, HubSpots got your back. Now, if you're an entrepreneur, you know that nothing matters more than generating revenue, but sales people aren't just closing deals. They're tracking down leads. They're forecasting growth. They're whipping up reports, managing contacts, creating content, crunching numbers. The list of tasks goes on and on. With Q4 around the corner, there's a better way to win. It all starts with the new HubSpot sales hub. Now, with the HubSpot sales hub, your data, tools and teams are fully linked inside a smart and highly customizable platform that feels good to use. It's easy. Turn prospects into pipeline and close your deals all in one place. Plus, sequences and smooth workflows help reps, streamline tasks and spend more time on what they do best connecting with customers. With sales hub, closing big deals is simple. Try it for yourself at HubSpot.com slash sales. So the biggest, I think, event in my life. They kind of put me on a path of entrepreneurship was my family, my parents. So I feel like in life, people use luck, I think, quite loosely. I feel like there's not a lot of luck in the world. It's kind of what you create of it. The more you more opportunities you put yourself in, the more luck that comes your way. But the lucky thing on my life was that my parents were entrepreneurs. Now, they weren't always. My parents had me at a very young age. They were high school sweethearts, you know, 18, 17 years old. So it was a very young age. And they, of course, they say I was planned except just three or four years early. And so clearly not exactly plan for that age. You know, they as a result of having me, they stayed together. They have a super strong marriage. It would be very inspiring. But the most inspiring part was not only having me. They had my sister two and a half years later, three years later. And then they were working. They couldn't go to college. They couldn't really achieve their dreams of education and post-secondary things they had in mind. So they just blend and put their head down and worked. And as a as a child, you're kind of blissfully unaware. You just watch this hard work in action. But you just assume that everyone does. You don't realize that most people don't work 80 hours a week for a job, let alone when they become an entrepreneur and you live and breathe that for every hour you're awake and when you're asleep. And the most impactful one for me, and I shared this story only a couple times before. But I was eight years old. It would be 1988. And it was, I can't remember if it was fall or something like that. And there's this man in our living room and our kitchen table, rather. And they were signing documents. All these papers were on the table and signing documents. And I was eight-year-old kid playing and doing whatever. And then when he left, I asked my folks, I said, you know, mom and dad, what was he here? So he's the banker. So, okay, what's a banker? And they explained that. And I said, what was he doing? They're like, oh, we were taking a second mortgage on our house. I'm like, okay, what's a mortgage? And they explained a way to free of capital. And there's the house my parents built themselves, general contract themselves, everything else. Well, what's the money for? We're buying a business. And that was like the trigger, okay, what's buying a business? And then they started to explain. They bought a business that year in 89. And then they built up to become a really successful business. It was retail grocery stores. And it was amazing watching front row seat to entrepreneurship and action. And people risk taking the good years, the bad years, the ups and downs. And I think that was just completely ingrained in my mindset that I've never wanted to do anything but become an entrepreneur. And now for me, that was like my career choice when I was nine years old. And as a result, what's that normal at all? That's not normal, not no one thinks that way at nine. No, no, no, no. And I just, so I mean, you start with selling marbles when you're a teenager and like you just you just start doing things because you start to follow along. And my parents were always great. They let us know what was going on the business. And they worked hard, but they explained why they weren't around. And I just felt there was a great upbringing. And as a result, we started, you know, first businesses kind of in late teens and and and then it's no ball to where we'll get to wear today. But never had a job and never got a real like paycheck from like a company ever before. It's always been from our own business endeavors. And and that for me was the most formative event in my life for sure at a young age, which kind of put us on the path to entrepreneurship. Wow. So never had a job. Never ever had a job. Not one. Not one. So okay. So what's the first version of entrepreneurship? What's the first thing you did that was like substantial. We're not talking about like Pokemon card arbitrage or something like that. Like, like, like, that's a big deal. It did the big, especially now it's a big deal. Anyway, yeah. Um, first one for me, which I'd say was meaningful enough. It wasn't like make like a living off of it. But in the summers and college to help pay, create some extra cash and paste some bills. I went on a golf scholarship in the US as we discussed with both Canadians. So going to the US and play NCAA was like a super cool experience. And a scholarship helped fund the majority of it, but there's always good, create some extra cash. So started a pub crawl business. And basically just rented yellow school buses in the summer sold all my friends tickets to go in the school bus and then we just drive it around the pubs, you know, pubs, flash bars, nightclubs, and did that every summer for three summers. And it wasn't like again tens of thousands of dollars. It was for me, it's thousands of dollars, but that was a huge chunk of money at that time. And we ended up, you know, when college was wrapped up and started the next chapter, which is where he got significant quickly, it was like the greatest learning because you're in charge of everything. No, the logistics, the sales, the accounting, one of my, you know, best buds. He got really drunk one night and he had all the money's pocket and he passed out and the bus and someone stole the money. So we lost all of our money one time. So it's like, okay, it's a little safe for a place to protect your asset. And it was just a really cool experience to do that was completely me. And again, we're not talking millions of dollars, we're talking thousands of dollars, but it was, I think, feel like it was all encompassing. Like it was fully the full vertical of a learning in business. It was a lot of fun. Like it was a good experience to kind of take you to the next chapter. So, okay. So you had a taste of entrepreneurship. You had some success with that, but what's next? So when did you decide? Did you go into real estate very young or did you have like other like more traditional like businesses where you're selling a product, you're selling a widget, you're selling a service? No, a good, very good question. My first real business was actually exiting when I left college and there's a long story with a very abbreviated version is my parents were in the retail grocery business and had an opportunity to participate in that business and it wasn't, it was actually a buy-in structure. We had to get approval from the franchise or that ultimately was the brand behind it and had the ability to buy 25% of the company at 21 years old. Fully finance, of course, I didn't have $10 to my name, but finance that reasonable interest rate and that was my first business and it was actually like trial by fire. I was at 21 years old, had this business myself. So I had partners, my family partners, but they weren't involved in the day-to-day, amazing mentors, but it was kind of like, go get them. And it was, it was an awesome journey. It was 250 employees out of the gate to 20 million dollar of your business. You know, complex logistics and it was just the best experience and for me, by going to that level that quickly, you'll learn a lot very fast and because you're the youngest within kind of that career and you didn't want the brand that just being like the boss's kid coming to take over the business. I've been working there for, you know, 10 years, 12 years in advance and this was a whole new operation. That was like the immediate big jump into a business that I really loved. Now, when we, we'll shift to real estate six years later when we got into that side, but this was an amazing experience to completely operate independently under a franchise brand and learn a high volume business with hundreds of employees and and try to actually make it work. Because the first year we got like crush, like I thought I like single handlers bankrupted his family. Like how many, how many mistakes did you make? What was the, walking through the worst mistakes you made after financing like a 100 plus employee business with no business experience? Like I'm, I'll give you two good lessons on this journey. The first one was that I first year and I lost over a million dollars. I mean, as I said, out loud, it was like it's hard for me to like fathom in a business and I, and for our family, I was like material. I was very, very, very significant and it was a, and I say I lost, I lost. I was the person leading and I thought we were actually, in my mind, I thought we're going to make a million dollars the first year. How can you not? And we realized, all of a sudden you see the first quarterly statement and it's like $350,000 in the red and I'm like, oh my god. And then you kind of slowly start chipping away, like it starts a little less and less and less and it was $1.1 million the first year. And I was like, oh, like I, it wasn't like a panic attack, but you're 1.1 in debt. In debt? Well, no, I was already way in debt and then I lost, or I'm really lost in a million year one. Okay, got you exactly a million year one. And it was a, it was scary because I, you know, I'm like, okay, well, I just totally screwed up my chance. I had so many people relying on me and helping me and supporting me and mentoring me, financing me and then I literally cropped the bed. And unfortunately, those people rallied around me and the biggest, the best advice I got was from my dad and also the president of the company. Similar lines of advice is, you know, Steve, I think you're doing a good job running the store, but you're not doing a good job running the business. And for me, that was a big formative event in my mind. It's like, well, what is the difference? Well, running the operations of a company is different than running the business of a company. And I realized at that time that I can't be every employee's best friend and be on the floor doing all the things just to build the credibility. And that was a very important part of that first year and leave the business. The business itself is coming out of the weeds looking down upon it holistically and saying, okay, where are we losing money? Where are we making money? How do we just margins? How do we protect the costs? Understanding those aspects. So for me, that was like this huge epiphany in my life. And I still talked to my team. We just finished a meeting on right now. I said, I feel like we're, we're running the day-to-day, but we're not running the business right now. And we all have to come up together and be like, where are we missing? Why are we not as successful as we think we are? And then immediately from that point, and I need a lot to help with that, as you always do, you know, in life. And I have no problem asking for help. I've been asked, you know, like, who can help me learn to run a business better than I'm doing? And we all of a sudden broke even a quarter, and you made a bit of money, and then made a bit more money, and then it started snowball. It took, you know, a year and a half to kind of get over the hole. And then we started to make good income for a number of years. But that was my biggest, probably, learning that early in my career is like there was a big difference in running the operations of your company versus running the business of your company. And it's, you can do both symbiotically is when the people are most successful. So you were, so first business, you were more or less profitable at the, by two years, you were profitable. You figured out how to become profitable. Two years. Now, I don't like to jump around, but I think it's also important. You just mentioned to your team, we got to figure out how to do this. I think that it's already tough enough for the CEO to do this. So lessons that you learn at that point in your life, how do you bring up a whole team? I just don't want to forget about because I don't going to forget about this point later on. So how did you bring up a whole team? How can you bring up a whole team so that everybody is not so, they understand the importance of the day to day, but they have a holistic view of the business and you get everybody on board with that. You know, it's a great question. I have to think back to gosh, 20 years ago now when that those those early years were, but it was a, probably being the biggest things, probably a bit more transparent about where we actually were at. I think as a leader, we quite often work so hard to shield our key team members from the bad news in order to keep like a positive vibe and a positive substance. And there is certain bad news that should be shielded and it's your job to carry as the entrepreneur, not the, the manager's job to carry. But I think when we shared it to say, here's the reality of where we're at. I want to be open and honest and vulnerable with the key, not everyone on the team, I call it your key or intercircle leadership. And then say collectively, how do we help each other get from this point A to where we want to get, you know, point BZD knowing the actual reality. And I think when people see lots of volume and sales and success and it seems like they're success, but they don't actually know behind the scenes. So I've never been good. I had to be perfectly honest. I still struggle with it sometimes is sharing the bad news and with my team because I feel like it's my job to protect them as leader of the business, but I sometimes find through that protection, I'm actually hurting them because I'm not giving them the actual real truths and transparency to make help them make them also inform decisions to move on. And then they have a different level of transparency for their team and down below as it kind of works its way through a larger organization. And so that for me, that was a really big, big deal. It was hard at the time. You feel like you're kind of a failure, right? Hey, I didn't tell how much money we lost, but it was like, we lost money. So they didn't run for the hills. This chip is sinking. I'm jumping off, but it was how do I help get out and how do I rally around our team or my leader together because they showed vulnerability, but they also showed, you know, a desire to work towards a positive outcome. So I think that for me, that was the I lifted everyone up and I do believe at that point, we really rallied together and we corrected some things very, very quickly. I got within a quarter that we just kind of had a heads buried in the sand for the first four quarters of the business and that helped for sure. So after, it's okay. So business profitable. How far did you grow that? What was the, what was the story with that business? You bet. We ended up having two stores is like about a $50 million a year business. We peaked at like 450 employees, but it was a franchise business in the franchise or I'm called mid 2005, six, seven, eight, somewhere in there. They started to buy out franchisees and make their stores corporate, corporate-owned kind of under one, we're under the same brand, instead of having franchisees, they would have all corporate-owned stores. So we had a successful operation at that time and it was going quite well, but we saw the writing in the wall that this franchise or had a desire to have everything consolidated. So we assumed we didn't know for sure, but at some point, they would come knocking looking to buy out our business because they'd start doing that in the East, like Eastern Canada, and making their way across the business across the country. Soby's, you know, I'm seeing Soby's insurance when everything helps out. Soby's family. Very ambitious, great Canadian success story for sure, but it's they had a vision that wasn't aligned with franchisees at the time. So I don't fault them for it. We just wanted to make sure our business was successful in a good position to sell when our time came. And what I didn't want as my family, my parents would be retiring is I was still paying off my, my financing, like my bill, I wasn't going to leave with a lot of money. I leave with enough to be able to make some decisions on the next chapter in my life, but nothing that's like even close, nor would I retire in my mid-20s, but it was like a fraction. So what I started 2006 is a new business, 2007. We're technically celebrating our 15th anniversary this quarter, and it was this real estate business. And I'll get to the story which kind of kicked it off, but that's what started the next chapter, and it was really great because four years later, 2011, Soby's or the grocery chain came knocking and bought out our business. So it's really good. You have to sell? Basically, yes. You know, they control the leases, and it wasn't a forced sale. I was very amicable and good, you know, good, good dialogue to come with a fair offer, but because they control the leases, you know, leases are expiring, they can effectively remove you, and you know, we didn't want any type of fight. It's like just pay something that's fair, but what made it easy for me to exit was that I had another business operating. The business I really, really loved and had a really bright future with, and I didn't want to wait until it sold and then try to start and be a few years. So it was kind of like four years. I got married, had my first child, and I'll talk about that, you know, what kind of brought us into Luxus. It was a crazy time. Like it was the hundred, it was every waking minute of your life was dedicated to the businesses and the family and kind of like survival but when we sold the business and they rolled in in the other company, we could like kind of supersize it much quicker. It really created this accelerated growth plan that is, you know, brought us to where we are today and it's been a pretty, pretty fun ride. Okay, so how did you, okay, so as you're exiting Sylvie, talk to me about the other business you're starting. So, so for me, this is, I guess, the storyline that comes with this one is that I think like all entrepreneurial endeavors and the majority, they come from a problem you're just trying to solve and for us, in particular as a family, we're just trying to solve our own problem and our problem at the time was that my wife and I, we love travel and we had our first child and where she was preyed in and we loved hotels. You know, hotels was kind of our, you know, we loved just traveling around and doing things was awesome but a baby in a hotel is not fun. It's not enjoyable. It's not, it's expensive. It's uncomfortable. It's congested. It takes the joy, it takes the romance out of it. Like it's just not the, it's not the same experience and so we said, well, what else could we do? Because we said one thing we're making a vow like before having that child is like we are still going to travel. A lot of our friends like literally shut down travel for 18 years of their, their kids' life, any type of reasonable experiences because they're raising their children. I said, I think that it's important for us to see us travel as a family and mum and dad collectively because that's how this whole thing got started. It was a strong bond with mum and dad. And so we said, okay, we're going to keep doing this but the question is how and we thought, well, what if we bought our own second home? Well, we didn't have any money yet. We hadn't sold the grocery stores. That was four years down the road. So we had no money without renting. But renting was creating this inconsistent experience. You'd rent a vacation home. This is like 15 years ago when VRBL like the pictures you saw online did not meet up to the experience when you arrived at the property. It was just, it was different, you know. The rental model's got a lot more sophisticated. I'll talk a bit about that later. It's part of our business now. So it wouldn't be amazing if we had a collection of personal vacation homes like we had our own. And that's like the fantasy land is that, okay, we've we had 10 homes and we had beach homes and Florida homes and Hawaii homes and Tuscany homes and we could use them as an equity owner of those homes, but also a chance to get that consistent hospitality experience every time. So this was like the fantasy and this was late 2006. And then this is like, you know what? But this is like the the concept of Airbnb before Airbnb. Like you own the house and then you're renting it out to somebody, but you want an experience that you're offering and delivering. Very similar. We actually Airbnb started in 2008. So we've technically started a year before them. And the concept was around shared assets. So where we ultimately landed is instead of a renting. And again, Airbnb didn't even exist. It was like, what if we brought together a group of owners? And this is nothing new. People have bought homes together and they share them and they find a way to syndicate their time. But no one's done it well at scale. So for us, we said, okay, we went to 18 friends and family. I think we went to like 25, but 18 friends said yes and said, I got this really cool idea. We're going to raise 200 grand a person roughly. We're going to raise three and a half million bucks. We're going to buy three homes. We're going to buy a lake home, a beach home, and a desert home. And then us 18 people are going to share those homes. You get two months, you get two months, I get two months, blah, blah, blah. We'll manage it as a kind of corner of our desk. We had a different business operating at the time. And people are like, that sounds awesome. That's kind of what I want. I want to have variety and familiarity and consistency. And I want to equity above all else. People wanted to have skin in the game, not just renting homes and just watching disposable cash kind of be burnt away. And we raised this money. And my big commitment to the time was we're going to have a concierge and an asset management team in this office that we had like zero, not like one Iota of it. And people are literally giving me checks to my personal name. We didn't have a bank account set up yet. And so I found this, other people had the same problem we did in life. They wanted to travel differently. And so we under, we said it banked out and sent it up a business that made least an office. And we hired our first couple employees. And they were from Fairmont hotels and resorts, which you know well. And it's a, you know, to bring on like a really strong hospitality experience behind it. And we launched Luxus vacation properties, which is now a brand under the Luxus group. And just for clarity, Luxus is Latin for luxuries. So that was where the name came from, like luxury vacation properties. And then it, we entered the, you know, subprime issue with the great recession. But in Alberta, in particular, the economy is still pretty strong. We raised, and it raised like a hundred million dollars in the next six years. And we've got 50 properties around the world, mostly North America. And then we went on this really incredible growth spurt, which is we'd have like people every week buying in, buying in more capital, more capital, we buy properties and just continue to scale and scale and scale. To the point where we did have a 25 person, you know, team and beautiful office and great people. And it's just been an awesome. And that's, that was kind of iteration one. We'll get into some of the bigger stuff we're doing now. But that's what got it all going. Just like a seat of an idea, our own personal problem, sharing with passion with friends and family. And then people jumped on the bandwidth and then figured out as you go, like just figure it out as you go. I love it, man. And I think that, you know, it's, first of all, raising a hundred million dollars is, is already an incredible feat. We'll talk about bigger stuff as well. But say somebody wants to go into real estate, right? And they do want to do something similar to you. It's a very, it seems like a replicable business model. I don't know if there's a lot of stress and nuance and things you have to figure out. I mean, you figured them out with, uh, so bees background, you know what I mean? Like, it's not like you had like 20 years real estate. But, um, if somebody would ever want to do this, okay, the friends and family makes sense. You raise 3.5 from friends and friends and family. But say you do want to scale up a business of this sort. How do you raise a hundred million in six years? What credentials? What is it just a sales pitch? Is it a sales pitch plus a deck? Is it having a real estate agent on your staff? Is it what is it that convinces people that you're the right person to give a hundred million to? Yeah, you know, I, I have no, I have any of my original founders listen to this. I want to say thank you because I have no idea why they gave me the money. Like literally I did not deserve the ability to have those proceeds in my hand. I had no experience related to buying real estate, managing real estate. Um, but I think what they found and aside from being extremely passionate about it and this wasn't a business to be profitable, like it took us six, seven years to figure out how the business should make money and what the right margins are because it was really about just an idea of doing something really cool and fun and, uh, something we can all be excited about. Um, and so that was like, I think that people bought into that is like the passion. I think that whatever your business is, whether you're cutting hair or taking out garbage or raising a hundred million dollars, and I'll get to how I think someone could do it now in my space is that you have to love it and people can see passion, be they feel passion. They can see, you know, they can see if you're happy and excited, but they can feel passion. And for me, you know, it doesn't come through today. Like I was, I was very, very excited about that because this would change how my family would travel and how my kids would be raised and we'd grow up. And I only had to put a 200 grand. I put in my 200 grand, same with other 15, uh, eight or 17 people. And my parents put in 200 grand, so there's 16 additional shares, and that's why we got to that point. So I think to scale it though, it is very, and now I'm going to give you two, two angles here. And this is, they're very tactical in terms of like if someone was going down this road, to scale this particular business model is very, very hard. And I don't mean to discourage, but there's only like five of us in the world that ever got to this size. There was about 50 of us pre-great recession. The problem with scale is most people use lever, like, you know, obviously debt financing to scale something. And then when there is a crisis in the world, which we obviously experienced in 2008 to 10, you don't have wiggle room. We did the entire 100 million on cash. So we actually levered it, but we never levered any of it. We could have $200 million in real estate. We took a extremely conservative approach, which gave people a lot of comfort that you can't lose all their money and get blood away through mortgage costs and interest costs. So I think it's like creating a safe environment for people to part capital if you're, if you're new to the space. I think there'll be number one lesson. So okay, I want to go buy a home and syndicate with five friends. Okay, how am I going to make sure I'm going to get some money out of it? Are you buying right? Is it appropriate? I'm going to enjoy. Can you bleed the money away? Like, is it sustainable? So we built them all. It was very sustainable. So that was kind of number one. Number two, you need to have the energy to hustle. And I think that a lot of people are good hustlers, but a lot of people think they are, but they don't really realize it literally is a live, breed, eat, sleep thing, two get hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of clients through the old way. Now it's, I would say it's easier. It's just different where we talked about using social and different channels. For me, none of that existed in 2007, 2008. It was like literally coffee shops. Coffee shop, coffee shop, coffee shop. And I would make a phone call to not cold call. It would just be like a network of a network and you just, you know, you'd share your passion dream. And 50% of the time they would do it and 50% they wouldn't. So that amount of energy, I think a lot of people are, um, sometimes don't have like the, the staying power. Like I really entered for the long game. They look for the quick win. And people see through quick wins, especially when you're immature in early in your career. And I was immature in early my career at that time. And I didn't want to make it look like I'm trying to make a quick buck. I was in it for the long game. And so if you people see that, I do think it builds a lot of credibility for someone that's actually, okay, this person's here to stay. They're shoulder to shoulder with me. I know they're not making a ton of money, but they're making some money so they're sustainable. I'll, I'll stake this person. I'll jump in with them. And so that's how I think if someone's certainly any business obviously helps of using social and better channels these days can help accelerate that growth. The best way I think of real estate perspective isn't necessarily the model we started originally. I think the best angle to make money in real estate right now in vacation are single property or multi property, um, STR or short term rental funds or rental properties. Short term rentals and not to go down this, I'll take as far as you want to go down this one, but from a real estate perspective, short term rentals have been so disrupted the last decade all due to Airbnb. So you go pre Airbnb, so pre-2008 and really 2010-11 before it became a thing, they were unregulated. Everyone had vacation rentals or they could rent them out and there was no issues. Airbnb came in the space. They completely disrupted the space. They went from zero rooms to six million rooms in a decade. That's five, four times the size of the largest hotel shade in the world, Marriott. And now governments were forced to react to them and they started regulating. So what happened is, is that people would regulate, so whether it's Florida or Toronto, you probably saw when you were there, they regulated Airbnb and Airbnb hosts were kicked out across the board, Vancouver. Every major market effectively in the world has gone through it or is going through it. But we're at this unique tipping point where people want to stay in these homes, these vacation rentals, but they want to stay in them, but they were unfamiliar with the quality of the brand because VRBO kind of beat that up for so many years having these inconsistency. Airbnb has made it not totally consistent, but a lot better. So I think a great way with regulation in place now, there's clarity and where you can buy, you don't have to worry about being kicked out of your property, like you're not being able to short term rent it, and finding an asset that's in your, like, Fort Lauderdale or in, I mean, a lifestyle destination, Southern California, the desert, you know, Mexico, whatever it is, you can like totally DIY it and do it yourself. And that's super fun. You can make multiple five figures, if not six figures, offer property by owning a singular asset and you can syndicate it with your friends. So you get your buddies that throw a capital in, you're debt free or you have a very little lever and you can go immediately start making tens of thousands of dollars. Like, what business can you do that? And all the platforms are there. Airbnb platform, management platforms, they're all exist. And I, people are getting into the space, heavy, and we're going to hear a lot about it. Those that are early stage will do better simply because putting a foothold in certain markets will help people grow and you can start to accelerate and scale. So it's very, long with the answer to that. Sorry about that. No, it's, it's awesome. Don't, don't apologize, go deep. It's smart. A smart group of people listen to this. So go deep as you want to go. Like, okay, so if I'm thinking about this, I just, I just ask questions like if I want to get into this, I always like, yeah, okay, if I start this business, what would I do or how do I think through this? So, and I want to clarify something, when you think about short term rentals, you can do on Airbnb, but I'm sure you can also do private as well. You don't have to use Airbnb if you can mark on yourself. So if we look at the opportunity, so say we look at, but we buy one piece of property, we raise money, we buy one piece of property, I want property, and you can kind of have three options. You can either do, you can rent it out, like regular rent it out on a, on an annual lease, you can do Airbnb or you can do like a private short term rental. Give me a value on that property, and then include the breakdown of the management fees and all the other, uh, in salary things and then walk me through what somebody, you can like walk me through the math to what somebody could make on this kind of investment. If they, and then they can sort of multiply that at scale to understand the potential if they did this as a, as a living. Yeah, and thanks for clarifying, I, I use Airbnb too loosely. It really is STR renting, so short term rentals, because you might, when you have a property, you can list it on any platform you want, plus privately rent it, so you can Airbnb, home away via Airbnb, and Steve Pataski rentals. There's no, they don't have, um, unless you get to the ultra luxury and usually they don't even have exclusivity, most have no exclusivity, so you can list it on every platform around Airbnb, or most familiar with it, but it really should be short term rentals. So from a math perspective, I'll just use like a round number to say a million dollar property. Let's say you put in 500 grand and you, and you get a mortgage for 500 grand, you know, like I'm not going to get into like the debt financing side. That's a different story. We can talk about it later if you want, but let's say a million bucks is your investment. Your operating costs are usually around depending upon your market, five to nine percent, kind of somewhere in that range. So let's just say for rough number $60,000, and that would be property taxes, insurance, you know, replacement power utilities, everything else. Add another couple percent for management fees, assuming you don't self-manage, you'll pay someone on the ground to manage for you, so you need a house checker and someone to check the guests in and, you know, fix the TV in 10 and what's not working or whatever might be. So you're under 10 percent overall operating costs and probably closer if you buy in a low cost market that doesn't have like, like California is very expensive. High cost of power, high property taxes, but you can generally get a higher rate, higher cap rate out of it, but it doesn't, sometimes necessarily there's an imbalance between like what you can get from a cap rate or a rental rate versus cost, but let's just say 68 percent. If you can create, let's say, $200,000 in revenue on that property, so that would be hustling, so let's just say you're going to rent that million dollar property out, you're going to rent at $259 at $800 a night, somewhere in that range, you get you $200,000 in revenue, net out your $70,000 in cost, you've got $130,000 in net revenue, it's a 13 percent cap rate. Like that's, and not including appreciation on the asset, which is obviously part of your long-term play, is you're really, your goal is to build that do not actually sell the properties, and ideally you build that we have a portfolio of several of these and they appreciate over time as well. So that would be like, I would say a low teens would be like a good solid cap rate within the short-term rental space. Certain safer markets, like Hawaii and stuff, your cap rate's going to be probably more like 5 to 7 percent, but the real estate market is so safe and so stable, people will take a lower cap rate in those markets, your operating costs are going to be higher, and just the kind of the delta between revenue and that, or your NOI or net operating income will be smaller, but it's safe. Hawaii has a year-round market and you're generally not going to have a big reset like 4 to 12 years ago or something else. So pretty good money, and if you're really good at it and if you want to take a little bit more risk, and then if you lever it, that obviously juice your returns further, you don't take a bit more risk, you can get mid-high teens. I mean, what business can you immediately for, I mean, still, you need capital, like you need some money out of the gate to get a going, it's not like it's, but you're not getting it. Would you put 500 down on a million-dollar property? Would that be something that you'd feel safe? Because you were talking about before, I've could have gotten twice as much, I could have gotten twice as much value at the property, but I don't want to expose myself that much risk. So that's why you do, okay? Yeah, and our first model wasn't built, it was all built on a cash basis, but in a rental model, I definitely recommend some lever. I think that 50% is really conservative. 60-70, you could do, and that just juices it, and a lot of people do that, like some people push 80-90, but I feel like, as soon as there's a 10-15% mark of reset, you're really close to the line, I personally think that being relatively conservative isn't a bad thing, so 50-60% lever, that means it gives you, you know, double your buying power when you're buying an asset, maybe you can buy two assets for a million bucks instead of just one, and that will, because your income spreads so high, now your NOIs a little less, because you're going to have, let's say, whatever interest rate, 25,000, I was in interest that year, whatever it could be, then you, you know, you still have a still good NOI, maybe it's 8-9% now after that, but you're getting a higher return because you have less capital in. So that's a good number, and banks generally will lever you up pretty comfortably, 50-60-70%, if you've got some income from another job, that they can, you know, they just shows, or that your property's already renting, it's got, like, kind of, proven income flow, so talk to your own banker to see what they would lever it up, but definitely, I think, it's worth it in the rental space, because it just juices your returns, and it's still pretty conservative, and also, yeah, I feel like, talking a lot, so, oh, I love it, that's all good, yeah, yeah, yeah, go ahead, let's get water, like, I don't want you to pass out on me, I'm good, I'll keep jogging, I'll drink as we go, we're good, thank you, good, good, no, I was going to say, and then, what about, what about, like, vacancy rates, what's a good industry average to look for? Yeah, I would say that from an occupancy rate, I look at it just the flip side, the inverse, but 65% is a good overall occupancy rate for a short-term rental, and that's a wee-base offer underwriting on when we are looking at the actual rental model, we're in the process of underwriting, like, a really significant size fund, where we could do this major scale, and we're underwriting a 65%, which means there's 35% of bonus money, like, 100% pure profit that basically sits in there to grab, we have operated properties in excess of 80%, it's hard to get 85, 90 plus, because there's always gaps between short-term rentals, like, you lose three days here and four days here, and you need a two-week maintenance block, and so getting a 100% rent to rate is not really realistic, but getting 80% is, but I think if you underwrite your first year at 50%, and then you're second to third years between 1670, is a good number, and if you can hustle that out more, every dollar beyond that just goes right to your bottom line, because your costs are fixed, I mean, maybe your power bill is a little higher, but overall, your costs are fixed, and it's just a pure gravy, and that's where the hustling comes in, and that's to the point you mentioned earlier, if you choose to do the multiple rental platforms, it's more work for, let's say it's a DIY, I like do it yourself version, you and your wife, whatever managing it, but if you manage VRBO, Airbnb, home away in a private rental site, you have multiple channels to get people into your property, and as a result, you have a greater likelihood of filling that thing up, and so that's when I see people get their, like, the 20 plus returns, they're getting 80% plus occupancy, and they're killing it. If it's really passive, don't expect it to kill, because there is competition, like, there's definitely another 100 properties that looks just like yours, probably, on the site, so the second, maybe, best lesson around it is if you're going to choose to get in this business, you want to repeat business, and you preferably repeat business directly to your side of direct booking, to save the booking fees that come along with their various platforms, but if you, this is where your in-residence experience is so powerful, if you do a better job than the next guy, which doesn't take much, and most hosts are lazy to be perfectly honest, like Airbnb hosts, or called landlords, they don't go the extra mile, they don't leave bottles of water in the fridge, or they don't leave, maybe I like a little welcome card upon arrival, or their linens are kind of worn, it doesn't cost anything more to good, you know, like, anything material more to make a really nice in-residence experience, but people are just lazy, so if you can do that in yours, when Joe Smith books your properties, like, this was awesome, I'm going to call Sally and tell her to book it, and I'm going to re-book it again for next year, like, anything else, client referrals, it's no different in this business than anything else, so you rely on the platforms out of the gate to get you started, and you rely on return bookings to really make your life easier, because now you're not chasing business, and then you do another property, and you do another one, and they will follow you around because they know you're maintaining a consistent standard. As you all know, the success story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network, which has incredible podcasts for entrepreneurs, business leaders, people just wanting to upskill themselves, one of my favorites, that you need to go check out is my first million hosted by Sam Parr and Sean Perri. They have incredible guests, Alex Ramosi, Sophia Amaruso, Hassan Minhash, all sharing their secrets, how they made their first million, and how to apply their learnings to capitalize on today's business trends and opportunity. Go listen to my first million wherever you get your podcast. So how did you build up this business? So you understand the model, you raise some money, and you are trying to, you in particular have tried to go for the, I want to own the rental experience, I want people to come to my website to rent, I don't want them going to Airbnb, so you made a, I'm correct in saying that, right, I want to make sure that I'm going. Yeah, there's two elements, that's a great point, and this is where a lot of people, it gets a little bit confusing, so I'll try to break it down. Phase one was all kind of like a closed investor group, so we had 400 investors, 100 million real estate, 50 properties, we did not rent out any excess time to the outsiders, it was almost like a private club environment to equity owners. Yeah, so that's where people look at us, I love to rent your places, they're actually owned exclusively by this co-ownership group, and they effectively rented to this, like the members of this group, the co-owners of this group. Since then, so second iteration of locks is the next seven years, we did launch some luxury rentals, and they would be in the really ultra high-end space, Tuscany, Rancher Mirage, Hawaii, and this is where we applied them all I've been talking about, and the idea of like, you know, you list them privately publicly, and we would do a blend, but we would always, it works better in the luxury space to be perfectly honest, and I would say luxury, mid-luxurying up, so 1 million and up, or you have your own private booking site. It takes time to build a brand and maintain that brand, like on social media, and through the website, to keeping things up to date, but if you're in for the long game, it can pay for itself significantly because those bookings come directly to you, and you save five to 30 percent, dependent upon what platform you're renting on, or distribution channel, and that's money in your genes for the time that you're spent in. So that's how we've applied that model, and I'll talk later, because I think this, maybe the most important part is around this rental space. We're also in the development space, but it's a different story, so maybe at the end of the podcast, we'll come back to that, but the rental space, and walk through like how you think through how you build your business, so I want to understand why you went from one version to another to another, and that's important. Oh, thank you for asking. You know what, it's, I've reflect on that loss the past couple of years, because people have asked us that, because when we actually look at our business holistically, maybe just for the benefit of the listeners, we have three primary divisions, so we have Luxus Canada, Luxus US, and Luxus Italy, and within those divisions, we have subdivisions, in Canada, we have the ownership model, and we have a fishing lodge, which is a whole separate thing. I'll talk about that later. It's like a passion project, and it's very cool. You have a lot of the gap to write down notes. This one's going to get, this one, when you hear it, it takes me a long time to explain, I'll do it in the two minute version. You're going to be like, what? The app. No, it's, it is kind of wild, so it's, even when I say I kind of laugh at myself, I'm like, how do we get this? Maybe I'll preface it by saying that I get distracted. I'm not a shiny object chasing butterflies type of guy, but if I see something I like, and I see that there's a problem to be solved and a need to be had that no one's doing, I don't, I'm very comfortable with the risk involved of jumping into a very high-barry to entry market, and a high-barry to entry product, and I'm not sure why, just, you know, everyone has different risk tolerances in their life as entrepreneurs, and for me, I feel like we've, because whenever playing the Quickbox, we've always played a long game, is I believe that we could do a service in these particular markets. So what happened after iteration number one, the $100 million 50 properties, we got into the developments, and we started to develop projects, and we did something, and I'll jump around a bit, but it'll get to the kind of the end of the thing, is that we developed something in three-home community, in Roundtrum, Orange, California, Coachella Valley, the state homes, we started a 17-home community on the big island of Hawaii, and then we started a restorations business in Tuscany, Italy, and so, and the restorations business was buying ancient farmhouses, and restoring them become luxury estates for families, and luxury rentals, and other things. So this was like the first, like, people say, why don't you just do one of those, but we did all three in the same two-month time period, and I definitely went like gray, you know, like, of during that time. I bid off more than I could choose. I'll be perfectly honest in hindsight, but I love them all, and they all taught us great lessons in life, and I'll get into one big lesson later on the Hawaii project, but that then snowballed into the fishing lodge developments, we're building a Marriott hotel on beachfront in Playa del Carmen, Mexico, and then we have a very significant project in Las Vegas right now that's kind of been in the news down there that's not on strip, it's an off-strip residential tower development, and it's stunning, like it really is kind of a game changer, we're very, very excited about it, and, but the common thread amongst all of them, people say, okay, well, like, Italian restorations, and luxury rentals, and like, Hawaii, Mexico, like, what ties us together? So we actually went through this into this exercise the last couple of years with my teams, and the different offices is we have a few boxes we have to check. Number one, it has to be something we love first off, like, if we don't love it, we're never going to be in for the long game, so just don't do it. So we turn down 1949 projects for everyone that we take, like, we do have a good pipeline of opportunities, we pick the ones we really love and feel like we can make a difference. Number two, hybrid entry, we don't do anything that can create significant competition, or there is existing competition to any certain degree, so every project we've done is either been something that brand new, like literally no one's doing it before, as a no one is like a very, very, very small amount of people, or created a differentiated product within the new market. So I don't know if you've read either Blue Ocean Strategy before, the book Blue Ocean Strategy? Yeah, yeah, definitely, yeah, I mean, it's like, but that's always difficult, because that means that there's no, there's no process, there's no playbook, nobody knows what to do, so you got to figure it out. Exactly right. So if everyone for the listeners, maybe you've mentioned before, Blue Ocean Strategy, like, changed my life like 10 years ago, we were already in it, but Blue Ocean Strategy for me defined it. It's like no playbook, no process, no SLPs, no going online to Google to figure out how to start a Tuscany Restoration's business, or how to build a this in Mexico, or whatever it is, so you, but I was okay with it because we've done it so many times, we have a playbook to build a playbook, I guess. And so that was number two, is like, okay, all of our projects don't have competition, which creates huge stress up front, but once it's built, you have, you effectively, like, a Blue Ocean, you know, you have no competition to grow. And then the third thing, it was always lifestyle-based, so we turned down potentially higher margin projects, or better financial deals that are in the retail, commercial, or residential, or multi-family space, because our, our element, like our stick, is like, is resort residential, like vacation space, want to bring people to a place of joy and experience in creating memories, because, when my legacy's left, whatever it might be down the road, I hope that people look back and say, he created fun in my life, you know, he created enjoy, and I had better memories because I bought this place, or stayed at this place, or whatever it is. The money's the money, it's whatever. But if you create joy for people, I feel like the money's going to come to you, so I've always been kind of the long shot. So if it checks those three main boxes, then we'll have a serious look at it, and then we'll make sure that it can be economically viable, and so on, and so forth. So long-winded answer to get to the Luxus Group as a whole. We got a lot of stuff on the go. We got a very good team, a very lucky independent managers for each of the divisions, and they've done a great job. But it came through a lot of stress, and, you know, you know, near the edge of failure many times in order to get to that point. And that's how you decide it. That's how everything you've taken on. That's the lens that you look at everything through. Correct. Correct. Yeah, exactly. It's not necessarily like right, my name means, but for us it works. And okay, so as you know, lessons learned as you're building this out as you're growing your team, and I know now how you find the investors to get on board, but the team growth and the fact that you're going to new markets and you're asking people to do things and find out things and figure out things that have literally never been done. What are lessons that you've learned hiring the people that can actually do this? You know, I've, again, a really good question. You do this for a living, don't you? Ask great questions. I know, legitimately, it's a great question. And we actually have this part of our hiring protocol because we've made mistakes and hires where particularly in our business because it has this unique romance around it, like, oh, I could travel the world, they're doing, they're in Italy and all these different places, but it's not for everyone. I would say the faint of heart is in the right word. You need people to have like an entrepreneurial bug that want to be in an entrepreneurial business, but don't want to be an entrepreneur. So all of our team members, whether it's accounting or concierge or asset management or leadership, now we select and we actually profile people before they come in around, do they have like ability to change hats to operate with without all the facts? And when the ability to be like, I trust the business model or the, maybe not the business model, the visionary behind it and the leadership team and the idea to be like, I don't know what they're going to do next, but it's probably going to be pretty cool. And I'm comfortable changing this hat to this hat to this hat to get there. And every time I've hired someone because I liked them and I think was kind of caught up in the, they were caught up in the romance of it and maybe with me with them in terms of being a really good like to bring in like military style structure, our business isn't built for it. In the sense that we do have incredible structure and really great discipline, but not to the point that we can run like an apple or something. Maybe apples are on example, because they've done lots of things, but the idea that like we're we're doing the same thing completely repetitive every single time's or not. We create new products. Like the assembly line, the assembly line business model, it's not that exactly right exactly. So I'd say that for anyone listening that it's like, you know, is an entrepreneur and is looking for to build team members around business that's maybe like ours in the sense that your future isn't perfectly clear. You just know you're going to continue to build products and divisions online. They're going to add value to your client base. I like to try to pick people that be like that find that are have this entrepreneurial mindset themselves, but don't want to be an entrepreneur. They don't want the risk, but they like the feeling of the change. They like the feeling of the uncertainty that comes a little bit when you are starting something new, and I only give them 20% of what they need out of the gate because they just take this idea that me or my team, my partner might have, and then as their job to run with it from 20% to 100%. Most people are get it at 80 or 90% and they got to take it to 100%. So I've team members have come out that need 80 to 100% have not been successful here and I haven't done them a service. But so now we try to hire people that are comfortable taking things like the best people we have. I say the best of the wrong word. The people who find the quickest success are the ones that can literally just hear the conversation, take notes, come back and encircle back what the questions they get clarity as they go along, and that and they found the most successful organization because they're comfortable without the certain degree of uncertainty. Is there a question that you ask in the interview process like what's the, so now makes sense like the people make sense, but how do you actually, like how do you find that out before you've worked with them for six months? It's hard. It's not a perfect science. We do a combination of Colby Profile, if you're used Colby, and we have something called that print which is basically a version of the, oh I can't remember, the number is the four numbers. You can run the name of what's actually called now. Like a disc profile or is it like a disc? It's not disc, it's got the long word. What's it called now? The, anyway, out there. It's print for us. You can google print and then Colby. It tells you if you're a quick start or you're a fact finder. Colby's the best one we use because a fact finder, someone that needs all the facts before they can go in a quick start is someone that is like shoot from the hip kind of like me. So I would have, I'd be a low fact finder very high quick start. So we try to find people that aren't exactly like me. We don't want all that. It's not successful either, but someone that has a mix, if they're 100% fact finder for example, in this profiling. They, they may have a place here, but probably for more mature business units where they can add a level of sophistication to something that's already existing for many years. But for people that are on like the special projects and new stuff, they need to have a strong degree of quick start and be comfortable only having partial facts. So you could do Colby's KLBE is that profiling. And then the second thing we do is we just, we do lots of interviews. My team interviews, they have different teams to do a coffee interview, casual environment, strict environment. We do some profile testing like part of a situational testing and really taking through, you know, for their own benefit. And we explain there's a reason why we have this process. We want you to be successful. That's our number one goal. And the first couple of meetings are always so fun. Of course, it would be great. It all works so hard. It's going to be so easy. And I would love to do that. And then they realize quickly that they they're not finding the success or traction because we haven't set them up for success. That's on us as a person. It's higher than them. So we do a lot more of those conversations. And then finally, of course, reference checks. I used to look at reference checks as like a, as just like a check the box. We use that now as like a tool. And we ask them the same questions. What would happen if there was change in the environment or what happens if there was uncertainty in quarter to quarter, how they reacted in the previous role? So then the person you're asking them doesn't feel bad about giving them a bad or good reference. They're actually getting quality, quality information among their experience that we can you to assess to determine the fit. So I never did a good job for a first decade on reference checks. Now it's it's like a critical tool to determine whether or not that person's going to be successful in our company. That's so interesting because everybody who I've ever spoken to says reference checks are outdated. And of course, they're going to be good because they're going to give you the people that are going to sing the highest phrases of this person. So you still double down on them. You still and you still talk to the people that they give you. We do because it's the thing we we know that they put someone on there. They're going to give a good one. But what usually most people have is not a conversation like we're having. Hey, I'm calling up Joe, he was in higher. What do you think? Oh, Joe was great. You know, well, why do you leave? Oh, you know, I just wasn't a fit at the time. It's always like that. Instead, we asked them probing questions like, Hey, like was there a time like when we did or we're doing this in our company? Like, did you do something similar in your company? Then they go, yeah, we did. And then it's like, well, how Joe reacting that? Oh, well, you would be honest. Actually, Joe kind of struggled a bit. Like, you really have to knock down the barrier of the HR department or hopefully you get the actual direct leader of that person. And then they're not actually throwing the person out of the bus. You're actually getting really good honest information. Sometimes it's pure cheerleader. There's nothing you can get out of them that's going to be valuable. In fact, probably the majority of the time, but then you'll get some really great nuggets from someone that you open them up and not the standard 10 questions everyone asks, would you rehire Joe? You know, everyone asks those things. You have to get into like a conversation with that reference to try to get them to open up on like situational examples around that specific to your business. That's where we found value in the reference checks. And we usually always asked for one or two more because the first three are always the low hanging fruit. Can you know what? I don't want to talk to your uncle. Can you talk to I want like your 50 year reference? And sometimes they're hesitant to give that, but we tell them like, we're not looking for reason not to hire you. We're looking for a reason to find out if you're going to be successful in this role. And usually the hiring that we're interviewing is a little more open when they hear it through that lens. Most of them are just want to get the jobs. They're putting their best foot forward. When they hear it, we want you to be successful. And this is a tool to help us understand your level of success. They're like, oh, you know what? How can I, how can I disagree with that? And it helps the person, especially a more mature individual that's maybe not like their first or second job. Someone's more of a career person's like, well, you know what? I don't want to go down a road. I'm not going to be successful in any way. So it may as well as give them honest references and honest feedback so that I get put in the best position within this company. As you, as you grew multiple businesses, I want to, I want to focus in a second, specifically on, on travel real estate and luxury real estate globally. Interesting. But just a general habit question, when you, when you start something new, because you've, you've sort of, you've shown this repeatedly over your career, you start something new. How do you, how do you go into something? How do you learn something new? How do you operate and excel at something? Is it a process that you have? Is it a mindset? Is it a habit? Is it something that you've learned on how to start something that's never been done before and still be successful at that thing? I don't know, but it's a process so much as it is a obsession. Like I think that the only way to become like a leader at something, like there's leaders and there's people that like really kick ass at what they do, is the only way to be obsessed. And so that's why I always circle back to the passion and things. So let's just say you, you know, you hear something today and you're like, I really want to give vacation real estate a try. Well, if you don't really like it, you're not going to really use it, you're not used to traveling, you're probably not going to be good at it. There's probably someone's going to do a better job than you. Doesn't mean you won't make money and maybe be moderately successful. But if you're talking about like disrupting the space or being a superstar within your own space, you just have to be more passionate than the next guy. And I believe, like truly, everyone says, well, the ultimate equalizer is 24 hours in a day. I believe you're passionate about something like times infinite. You can dedicate as much time as you want to something you love if you really love it. And if you don't really love it, you're going to find ways to get out of it. So because your brain's always working, right? Your brain's researching. It's thinking. It's searching. Are you drawn to, you know, social media to see what your body's doing in Mexico? Are you drawn to like real estate statistics or like learning about a market? So when I pick up my phone or I pick up my computer opens up or my books beside my bedside table, it's all stuff that I love. And so that that's, I think, for someone starting it, if you're not going to be obsessed with it, that's okay. Just expect moderate success to good success. Don't expect to kill it. And killing it, I do believe you got to be like hyper, hyper focus and excited about what you're doing. That's a good, good advice. Okay, let's talk about, let's talk about vacation real estate. So what's the project? Like why, why would you do this? Why would you go into this? This seems like understanding different markets, different laws, different ways of finance, different banks, different rules, regulations. It seems like an absolute pain in the ass. So, yeah. So why would you go into this? What was, you were obviously obsessed with it? Obviously. But yeah, you know what, I think the best thing for someone to do is unless you don't like travel, the reason why I think that I would say everyone, but everyone that has a little bit of money should do one is because if you, and you do it in a place, there's like really important caveat to that. You do want, but you do it in a place you want to travel at a property you want to travel to. Because at the bare minimum, you're going to have some amazing experiences with your family. You're going to go to the property and if COVID shuts down, you can go, you know, like when it did for us, we got to go to different properties, they were there empty. And it's like it was a, it was a chance to like do something that was really, really quite cool. So the reason why I like us, who take the investment totally out of it, is you're going to immediately get an extra bonus. Like if you buy exon gas or Amazon, it's not fun watching your stock market go up and down. There's no like passion around that. But if you're on a piece of vacation real estate, one, just going back to one, you get a chance to use it. Hey, I need to get away for the weekend. Our place in Fort Lauderdale or Verra Beach or Miami, or the Keys is open. Let's go down there for the weekend. Like that has an immediate, not just emotional benefit, which I think is the most powerful thing because you're creating memories with your family. That has a financial benefit because you don't have to go rent something else now to go rent a hotel or a VRBO or somewhere else. So immediately when I think I tell people it's by one, then you'll know, then there is the hassle of the renting. You have to determine if you're up for the challenge and how much money you want to make. You want to hustle your tail off and make 15 to 20% or you just want to pass an income stream enough to cover costs, totally up to you on what's kind of right for you and the time you have to commit to it. But even if you put the money in, broke even on costs and you got a whole bunch of free vacations, that's pretty damn good reason to buy one. And then maybe you find that you kind of like it, so you buy two. Now if you're sophisticated investor looking to buy dozens, like I do a whole separate podcast on that where in the process of that, that's a much bigger conversation, but you buy 100 places, you're not going to 100 places a year. It's a specific financial play that I personally believe and I think we have data to support. It's going to have a remarkable run the next decade. So we're going heavily into that space, like more so than we are now. But most people are just like, okay, let's just buy one. One million dollar property that just don't buy something because your buddy likes it or your dad likes it or your dog likes it does because you and your children and your wife love it. Because then you at worst case scenario, you're going to have a ton of fun. And that's pretty awesome an investment to my mind. No, it's a good, it's okay. So I love, yeah, there's no excuse as to why not get started at least like realistically, if you know, you have your primary residence, but it makes sense. But when you're doing it, it's stressful for people that have never done it before because of all the things that like I'm going through it right now, like all the things that you think about, okay, if I'm going to buy a home in even the US or Canada, it's not that stressful. I'm sure I can figure it out. But if I'm trying to buy a home overseas or if I'm trying to buy a home in any country that I'm not familiar with, what's your process for understanding, navigating, making sure you don't get screwed with local laws? You know what, that was a total unintentional tee up before me on something. So thanks, thanks for being there on that. You little have no idea, this is not even totally unintentional. But one thing we are doing now is actually an advisory part to our business. And we haven't marketed at all. Like these are literally the first conversations we've had. And what we've found over the last 15 years is people come to us naturally looking to say, hey Steve, I'm looking to buy in Italy. I'm looking to buy in Mexico. Like can you give me that quick rundown of what I should be looking for? So my first foray to social media has come via YouTube channel. And I will do a shameless self plug here to everyone listening. I would really, really, really appreciate it because I only have like six followers right now. Like seven made my mom her best friends is maybe a couple more than that. But it's a followers. Yeah, give me some followers. I need to subscribe to it. And all it is a channel of education. So I'm basically taking the 15 years of education we had and everything we learn every day, 15 to 30 minutes, you know, clips about education on different tools, how to run an Airbnb, how to buy in a certain market, how to dip tips to buy when selling, when buying everything else. So I would say honestly, if anything, and not that I'm the best at it, there's probably lots of really good people, that's what we haven't found a lot of people that are sharing the vacation space education. But go to that first. If you find that it gives you a tidbit of information, what our advisory arm is, is a direct connection to our team here. And they, let's say, okay, I want to buy in Mexico. I'm looking at the minor Vierre or Cabo or whatever it might be. We'll get you started on a path of your checklist of things to ensure you do so you don't miss. Like take our 15 years of successes and failures and mistakes. Combine it into this package. And it's, and now here's the thing, as of right now, it's free, which sounds kind of crazy. But we're doing it is that I'm, we get a referral fee if you end up buying a property. So we get a standard thing that exists to cause all realtors do it around the world. If I refer someone as I'm a realtor, we don't actually represent people on deals. We just refer them. I would refer you to the top person on Cabo, the top person in Cut Around from Raj. People we've worked with for years that we trust. You're going to get a way better experience than calling some out of the blue. And in the event you buy, we would get a referral fee. So it's this composition vehicle where you basically get this information for free. So I'd say the versus going down the road of explaining everything, go to the YouTube channel, check it out. It would mean a lot to me. It'd be like the best thing someone could do for me is check it out, subscribe, share. And then of course if you're like, hey, I actually want to do buy a piece of real estate, you'll see all the information on their advice at Luxus Group, ping us. And we'll help get you in the right direction via process that we've literally just created the last eight, 10 weeks. And it's been a lot of fun. We helped probably, a couple dozen people on their path to buying real estate on different places around the world. And I'm helping someone in Italy right now by in Tuscany. And he did no idea where to start. He just know that he wanted to be in Tuscany Italy. And in like literally two weeks, he's totally set up, he's got an offer and a property, he's got banks, he's talking to. I would have taken him hundreds, hundreds of hours and probably never want to got a dime that took us three or four hours because we've done it so many times. So any event we'd be honored to help people on their journey. It's part of our mission is to help people be more educated and informed in the space. And that's how we're doing it. Good. No, I love it. Okay. So I'll leave people to check out the YouTube for that because I'm assuming finding the property, finding the talent that's actually going to help you sell it by it, the management of it. Like that's all a massive, we should probably, probably chat after the call and I'm sure I'm going to probably tap into this, not yet launched advisory service. You'll see it on there. We just, all those things we talk about, I just am trying to do weekly content. That's kind of my way to, I don't know, give back a little bit. And hopefully, I don't expect to make any money on it. I just wanted to be, we have like three people in the payroll that are specifically dedicated to this. I was wanting to break even, I'd be super happy. And hopefully just help more people. So it'd be my honor to help you or anyone in the group. And it's the Luxus group. I know you'll put it probably in the show notes or whatever, but the YouTube channels, the Luxus group and Luxus is L-U-X-U-S group group. So please check it out. That would mean the world to me. And it's fun helping people on their path. Amazing. Okay. So the last, I guess the last question, I want to do some rapid fire. But the last question that I really have for this is things that you wish you knew about real estate when you started, that if somebody's starting now, what are like the top three to five things that you should say, this is what you should worry about first? Good question. I think if I was, I'll bring in the two sections. If I'm looking at like real estate in general and vacation property real estate, I would have a better understanding of financing. I was very immature in understanding financing earlier in the career. And we are still getting to a point of sophistication now, but how are you going to finance it? Bank, capital partners, legal structure. There's so many different ways to do that. And it's actually, it's not horribly complicated, but one little mistake along the way can cost you substantial and cost you your entire first year's profit by making a mistake. So I think that would be probably number one in the sense of just understanding what your structure and options are. And again, we put some videos on some of that. Number two, though, actually maybe number two should be number one is finding the right agent. And I am so deeply passionate about this because every agent in the world says they're the best agent in the world. And listen, I don't want to knock it. Agents are their own entrepreneurs. Like everyone has a dream and passion for it. But the reality is, especially when you're getting to the mid-luxury upper space, is there only a select few in the markets that are really the best. Particularly in a hot market today, you're buying stuff against multiple offers or in the same days being released. So if you want to actually compete in a bid or beat it to market, you need the agent who's already sold 50% of the inventory in that particular market because they can door knock, they can match make. So I'm really passionate about it. It doesn't mean it's always experienced broker. Sometimes they're new to the space, but they're hustlers and they're a part of a firm that has access to the clientele. I'm a big fan. And that's where we probably are number one thing that we get at the most value, which is like literally like five seconds of work for us. I want to go to Fort Lauderdale. I want to go to the keys. I want to go here. Here's the top three people, top two people, top one person in these markets when we make a connection. If you try to yellow page it or Google best agent, these guys are all good at managing algorithms and the Google clicks. You're probably not going to get the best person. And in today's market, it's so hot that most agents are in returning phone calls. And so that's where I think we could probably do the most important aspect is finding. I wish I knew that earlier. We had unfortunately a lot of bad agents. And that's not the right word. They didn't mean ill will. But they're hunters. It's a neat, which you kill a space. And so they're more about making the deal happen than necessarily really, really understanding my needs and the needs of our business. And we as a result took several multi-six figure hits because of not having the right information on hand. So that's why I want people to have my back, my true best interest, they take the time to understand them. So that would be it. And then development space is very similar. Understanding if you're building your own home or your own community or something, that's a bigger conversation. But it's really understanding the capital stack, like the whole financial structure of equity, mezzanine debt, if you have it, conventional debt. Because that's what makes and breaks a project overall. And again, we were very immature early on in that. And we thought we knew it all. We didn't. And we learned hard. And we took a lot of stress. And we've now are a lot smarter at it. But don't make those mistakes. Become educated in that space before you start. That's no, it's great advice. I don't know much about the development side, but just I have friends and everybody's trying to buy right now. And I've only ever lived in hot markets and Toronto and now South Florida. And you see it in New York and LA where I have family that's lived. And it's like the cash offers coming in and the amount over appraisals coming in. So you're not even getting finance, even if you wanted to, like it's just insane. So it's like, you know who you need? You need people that have too much deal flow that don't need to close stuff. And those are the people that are going to be helping you the most. Because if they if they need to close up, they need to literally close a deal to pay rent or to pay their mortgage. Like they're not going to be giving you the best advice. You need to have too much. It's exactly right because there's I don't blame them like I mean, we all been in tight financial positions. I close this deal with $10,000. It pays the mortgage a month. So you're just trying to get the deal across the finish line. All of our agents that we use that say generally are financially independent. Like they don't need your deal or anything. They're doing it for the reason of providing the best value. They're in it for the long game. And as a result, like you said, so much deal flow, they're like, you know what Steve, don't take that deal. There's like six other bids on it. You're going to overpay. It's not worth it. We'll wait three or four or five more months for that deal to come up. Like perfect. Thanks for the honest advice because I've relying on you to give me good advice. If you said go for it, I would just want to overpay it. And I think that's a huge difference for someone that's just trying to get their own deal flow going. And really, I've used an overused long game, but I look at everyone. Employees, our partners, our realtors, they have to be enough for the long game. If they're in it for you know, in it to win it on day one, then I think there's just I don't know. I think they could set you up for failure. No, very good. Okay. I'm going to ask a couple of rapid fire closing closing thoughts. Like anything that we didn't go into that you wanted to bring up. So go into that. But then also, where do people connect with you? So all the social, anything you didn't mention, website, all that. Sure. I think final thoughts. No, I think that was a great cover. Thank you. It was awesome. I mean, I was happily talk of like at a, you know, that the bigger deal flow stuff and you get to bigger. I think it's such a smaller threshold, but it's it's fun talking about building a big hotel on a big community. And there's some unique things, but I think covered very, very well. There's a lot of fun today. As far as remember, I think maybe one piece of advice, you know, or maybe not advice experienced for anyone is like, and I have people telling me this, everyone tells you this, but I'm telling you as well, don't be afraid of failing. Like it is so a part of the process of life and building a business. And I was so afraid of failing. And I would felt like it was such a horrible thing that I never really learned until I started to fail more often. And I don't take it lightly. It's every time it's a heavy weight to carry, especially if you're managing investors' money or whatever it could be. But be prepared to die in that mountain along with them, like in the sense of like getting the deal down whatever it could be. But don't let a fear of failure prevent you from falling your dreams. I just, people told me that. It's on every Instagram. I mean, but like it's it's still so important and hearing it like all this gray hair here is from like family and along the way. But that's created this environment that we live in now that's least special and we're very excited and blessed and excited about the future. So just wanted to share that. As far as following me, the YouTube channel, so the Luxus group, search that on, think of Lexus, but with a you. I am on Instagram. Don't expect much like major revelations on Instagram. For me, it's kind of family photos. You'll go. You'll go there eventually. I'll wait for it. I'll wait for it. I probably will. I'm getting I'm getting applied pressure. And that's just my name. So Stephen Pataski. And then I do do a little bit more active on LinkedIn. I say a little bit like a tidbit a week. And then but the big thing, I just like I said, I'm not very good at it. I have it. I have to get better at it. So you're inspiring me. It's got today to do better at social social part of the brand awareness. The Luxus group goes our website. Go to our go to our website. You can learn more about that. It's all being rebranded right now. So the next couple of months that you're going to see some improvements, but it does give you a bit of sense of what we do. Amazing. And if you ever want to if you ever want to talk shop about social, you know, I'm I'm here, man. I'm here. Let's treat services because I would love to. I'd so appreciate it because it's 100%. I'm amateur hour over here. No, I'll get you up to speed. It's not that hard. It's just consistency. And you have to build process to create stuff every single day. And once you have that process down, it's like, it's it's very simple. Okay. You make it sound simple. I find it hard, but I trust you. We'll do it. We'll do it. Okay. A couple of rapid fire things. Rappfire questions. So you've had an incredible career, not traditional career, but you've had you built incredible businesses. But what keeps you up at night now? You're no problem. Probably the biggest thing now for me is I would maybe I was recent as the last few months as regulation. Like the whole, they just been the chain, like COVID's changed some with regulation in the business in terms of like air re and bees and like when the law government, because we do things that are very unique, they're not necessarily laws built around them. And the but laws are formed around these big disruptions, like that Airbnb is done with the business. So for me, for so long, I was like, what's the government going to do today? You know, are they going to change the laws and how we run our portfolio or how they tax our things? So for me, that was a big chunk of my, I guess, it's sort of your control. You can't influence what a government is going to do to like the extent that you're going to make a meaningful change. But it's for me, that was, that was hard for a lot of years, especially the last five years and then COVID in the last two years. So that would probably be the biggest one. And then, you know, number two, just making sure that we're doing the best by our investors. Every day, if you bring outside capital in, it's even though I think we do well or good stewards of that capital, I think about it every day. Like every single day, how do you do better by your investors? And if you take money from someone else, you should the same. And I think it's really something you really got to think hard about doing. And if you're going to do it, be prepared to think about it night and day and lose sleep over it because you want to do best by them as they put their trust in you. So that's something still keeps me up in the night. If you had to pick one challenge, the biggest challenge you've overcome in your life, it could be personal, professional. What was it? Had you overcome it? What you learned from it? The project and why it was the biggest business challenge we ever have, which did affect family, kids, wife, like it was such a monumental like issue. And the biggest challenge was the model itself was already struggling and then a volcano erupted in the middle of this whole project. So that's not normal by any means. So it definitely put some serious strain in the project. And what I learned from that, though, is that you need to have not just plan B, but plan CDE. And we only had plan A and plan A plus. Like we didn't have enough backups. So my learnings from that with all going on that rabbit hole was that don't rely on just the best outcome. You got to rely on outcome. 1.2.3 to make sure you have multiple paths. Because again, a lot of people think blind spots don't happen in two years. I had a volcano erupt in two years that are COVID hit. Two things are completely unpredictable. And we didn't have really good backup plans. And you can't have an eventual plan for every eventuality, but you can have backup capital, backup partnerships, backup strategies to manage blind spots. And I think now our team is way, I'm personally way better at managing blind spots. Because we're just better prepared and better resource to manage them. And I think that when you start a business, some of you just don't know what you don't know and you've got to feel the pain in order to understand it. But as you feel it, you don't want to feel it again. So you start to get a little smarter out of managing. If you had to choose one person, obviously there's been many. But pick one person who's had an incredible impact on your life. Who was that person? What do they teach you? I would say, you know, I wanted to be obvious first, my dad. He's like, you know, just so good having an entrepreneur in your life. My mom and dad, they're just amazing people. And there's always there for you, like with huge support on everything. And just just taught so many good life lessons. It's been very, very, very, yeah, just very powerful and influential. And we'll always be the rest of my life. And I've had another mentor that helped me out at a time of dark, difficult times in our business. And one of the nights was human means I know. And he obviously saved me. It was kind of a white night scenario in terms of how they helped. He did very well in the deal and like everything else. But it was amazing having a mentor like that that could lean on. And I feel like everyone should have a mentor in their life or a couple. Because it's amazing when you're in a time of need, how someone can really step up and help you emotionally or financially or spiritually or whatever it might be. And so build a mentor network and I'm fortunate to have several. But those two would be the biggest impact on my life. If you had to pick a book or a podcast or some resource that you'd recommend people go check out that's had an impact on your life. Your podcast now, for sure, obviously, everyone should follow it away. They already all do listen. So okay, another one. Blue Ocean Strategy I mentioned earlier. It's the simplest read ever. But I've read it several times. I still always pull nuggets. And podcast for me actually, I probably go with I like you know what I like. I love health podcasts. The Huberman lab, Andrew Huberman, or Sean Stevenson, the model health show. I'm like obsessed with consuming health-related stuff. I feel like the ultimate success in life comes from energy. And if you have good energy as in like physical mental energy, you can do a lot more in your life. And I found like I love geeking out on sleep and geeking out on nutrition and fitness. And so those ones have provided like science-based stuff. So those podcasts I've been Dr. David Sinclair. It's like anti-aging. I kind of like those health nerds. I'm like I want to be health nerd. That's good. Man, you're in good shape. You're doing fine. But I've listened to some of those two as well. They're good. Health is like always like a passion of mine even if it's not the main business thing. I love you. I think listen, when you have a great family and you have a great life and things are going well, I think health is more top of mine than when things aren't going well because you don't want that to end. So I think with COVID and whatnot, I think you're I think people are very cognizant of their own health and well-being and they're and they're very aware of their own mortality as well. I think that yeah. I could go down that rabbit hole some other time. We can do and I can have a banter about the health stuff and I'm just obsessed with that stuff. I just find it so interesting. You just get so much out of it. Dude, I know we could do a lot of shows. Well, I tell you, come down to Florida if you grab a beer. We'll do some more. I have a studio in Miami so we could do another one in Miami. Perfect. That sounds amazing. I will be down in this fall I think. So that would be a fun little face to face. Yeah, you let me know. I'll set it up. Love it. Love it. Okay. If you could tell your 20-year-old self one thing, what would it be? Don't sweat the small stuff. Sounds like such a cliché, but it literally has consumed so many good moments in my life by sweating the small stuff. And I think we spent the we sweat the small stuff as entrepreneurs, which is make us successful. So it's kind of like conflicting. It's because we sweat those things we've actually created success, but not to the point of consuming your mental energy and everything else. It's it's so hard, but I still personally drive myself into honestly dark places, but harder places because it's of things that I would look back 20 years later and be like, why? Why are you worried about that? And I'm getting better. I'm working through it all the time. It's probably helped create my success in life, but I'm excited to move on from sweating some of those immaterial small things in life. So hopefully people could take that for some good value. And then last question, what does success mean to you? Success is I'd freedom. I think it's for me it's it's never been about the money and we've had lots of good years and lots of really bad years and so it's if I was really about the money and it's it's like the freedom to do what we want to do to create a greater impact in the world in our life and my family's life, my kids' lives, my wife, myself. So without freedom, whether it comes through financial resources or good health or good circle of people or a good community, I just I feel like I just hard to achieve what ambition is in life. So for me, it is creating freedom to do more, not just the golf more or other moments, I really just do do more in life. So I do want to golf a bit more as I get older, but it's a get back at it, but I think that would be the success to me.