The Storage Investor Show
Learn how to turn your cash into cash flow with self-storage and small bay industrial. If it has a roll-up door, The Storage Investor Show covers it. Your host, Kris Bennett, will ask the right questions to help you find, fund, and close your next deal. New episodes every Tuesday.
The Storage Investor Show
Helping Storage Owners MAKE more and KEEP more with Matt Engfer
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IN THIS EPISODE
I sat down with Matt Engfer, CEO of Cubby, to discover how a side hustle turned into a full-blown startup aimed at solving inefficiencies in the self-storage rental process.
We discuss the complexities of building a modern self-storage platform and learn how Cubby simplifies growth for self-storage businesses with integrated pricing solutions, marketing tools, and advanced facility management software.
We also dive into the user experience, highlighting how Cubby addresses common challenges like abandoned carts and the importance of follow-up mechanisms.
Get an insider's look at how technology companies like Cubby support self-storage owners.
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CONNECT WITH MATT
https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewengfer/
https://www.cubbystorage.com/
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NEWSLETTER
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Hey everybody, welcome to the Storage Investor Show. My guest today is Matt Engfer. He is the CEO of Cubby at cubbystoragecom. Matt, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you so much for having me, Chris. Let's get into it, man. Let the folks know a little bit about your background, how you got to be at Cubby, and then let's just jump right in on Cubby and go from there.
Speaker 2:Sounds good. Yeah, I, you know, basically have been in tech my entire career Grew up in Florida, started my career in Miami, lived there for three years before I moved to New York City working for tech startups. First half of my career was focused on marketing technology for every kind of brand under the sun and then moved into commercial real estate. Career was focused on marketing technology for every kind of brand under the sun and then moved into commercial real estate helping owners of office, industrial and retail lease space with technology and software. Did that for seven and a half years. Started renting storage units for a little side hustle I was running was less than enthused with the experience that I was getting pre-COVID and kind of inspired me to get a little bit more curious about the industry. Started going to trade shows and somehow made the decision that it was a good idea to start a tech company for the storage industry the storage industry and that was January 1st 22 that we started. Since then we've been growing the business, helping operators run their business.
Speaker 1:That is excellent. So let's get back to the side hustle real quick, because people want to know all the time hey, how do I invest, how do I find deals, how do I do these things? So what was going on there in your life that made you these things? So what was going on there in your life that made you? Were you like, what were you doing?
Speaker 2:and what made you want to start getting into self-storage. Uh yeah, it's always an interesting story. How did you get into storage? Because nobody you know walks into their classroom in fifth grade and says I want to be an astronaut or a fireman or a self-storage operator and says I want to be an astronaut or a fireman or a self-storage operator.
Speaker 2:I was, you know, seven years into a pretty wild ride at a company called BTS doing leasing and asset management software for the commercial real estate industry and at that time, pre-covid, there was an amenity war breaking out in retail and multifamily and office where you needed yoga classes and a coffee bar and all this kind of stuff. And I just had an entrepreneurial itch and wanted to get started doing something. And I had a friend who's an art curator in Brooklyn. She had access to all this amazing art. So I asked the guy who was the asset manager for the office that I worked in every day if I could change the art on the walls and he said sure and he paid me a little bit of money and I split it with all the artists that were featured there. And we had another client come by and was super interested in the concept and said let's do it in Denver, and I was like really ready for that as a side hustle, but I said sure.
Speaker 2:So I started looking at how I was going to store all this gear that I needed to move around Denver and three different office buildings and a multifamily building to rotate art. You need dollies and a lot of gear and contractors need to be able to get in there and access it. Uh, turns out there's not a really great place for you know a side hustle guy to rent what you know official park warehouse space or that kind of thing in denver, colorado. So I started renting three and then four units all over denver to move this stuff around, and I was a tough customer. I needed unified billing. I needed online abilities to scale up and scale down from bigger and smaller units.
Speaker 2:As, uh, we moved. I need the contractors to be able to again get in really early in the morning. Um, and you know, at that time people, a lot of places, didn't even do online rentals. So, um, it was a tough situation for me and it kind of I knew what great tech looked like for real estate from my day job and I knew I wasn't getting it looked like for real estate for my day job and I knew I wasn't getting it.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of where that side hustle inspired at least a little spark to begin with. Okay, so let me jump in real quick. So you were I want to make sure I understand the business so you were working at a VTS, obviously working with owners of properties to help them lease, et cetera. Yeah, you had the idea that at these properties it'd be kind of cool to rotate some art in and out, because your friend obviously ran or had an run and ran an art museum of some sort. So you came up with the idea to be the middleman and rotate some pieces as an out, in and out, almost like a I don't know interior design, something like that design, but just like a person like that. And so you got paid a fee for doing that. And somebody found you said, hey, let's do this in some properties out in Denver, colorado, which is obviously far from New York City. And so you had to utilize self-storage in order to keep the pieces obviously safe for one thing and all that.
Speaker 1:But in the midst of needing the space, the process of renting the units it was not a um, it was not an easy process, it was not a customer friendly process, is what you're saying? Basically, yeah, that's exactly right. Okay, got it. Okay, so you weren't. It wasn't that you were, so you weren't buying facilities, cause that's what I thought at first. So you were utilizing the actual, you were a customer utilizing the space and you said, hey, this is all wonky. Basically, yeah, exactly, okay, got it. Okay, now I understand, because I immediately just thought, oh, side hustle, you're buying units. But no, that is not it, you're renting units. Okay, got it. That makes sense.
Speaker 1:And so, through that experience, you said, hey, this is subpar. That's funny because there's a lot of businesses I mean, we won't mention them, but there's a lot of companies out there that obviously do are the big, you know 600 pound gorillas and elephants in the room who have been doing this for a long time, and a lot of owners just don't like what the options are that they have with with some of these companies. So, okay, that makes sense. I didn't want to interrupt the story, but I wanted to catch up and kind of understand where you were coming from. So that makes a ton of sense. So continue on if there's anything else to the story beyond that.
Speaker 2:No, I mean that was kind of the precursor to Cubby. I started going to trade shows and I started meeting people and just picking their brains, kind of got to learn what everybody in the storage industry now knows and loves, which is that the people are awesome and like an open book, and people were super encouraging and I was like I'm kind of a software guy, tell me about the problems in the space. And we learned and we started the company with some conviction around what we wanted to do and then we got to work kind of like formally as Cubby and the first thing we did is we just went to these operators. We worked at their stores as site managers. We, you know, did overlocks and walkthroughs and shoveled snow and learned the ropes and, you know, went back to the office, looked at the reporting, tried to figure out what these people were trying to accomplish, and then just got to work every day Shipping features, writing software, getting feedback, shipping more features, getting more feedback and it kind of grew from there.
Speaker 1:Okay. So you did kind of like an undercover boss kind of thing.
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Speaker 2:What better way to get a sense for like what the job is really like and quickly get up to speed?
Speaker 1:then to actually do it.
Speaker 1:I'm going to jump ahead real quick because, as you're talking, it's funny because you did that and there's a lot of complaints from other about other software companies that they again, they're not flexible, they don't do this and that and the other which owners need.
Speaker 1:Why do you think it is that some larger software companies don't pivot quickly enough or try to solve some of those problems and I don't say it in a criticizing way because I can understand if you're a larger company. Try to put myself in their shoes. They're going to focus on the things that are really like the core of their business and try to grow their market share, et cetera, and maybe they aren't concerned with the feature that only 10% of their customers want or something like that. So I can understand from the big picture perspective why they may not, but in your opinion, why do you think that maybe they leave an opening where maybe it's easy for them to fix it? If they just spent a little bit of time doing this and they wouldn't, you know, fixing something that customers do't do want, the 10% it wouldn't make, it wouldn't give an opportunity like Cubby Cubby a chance to come in and take some of that market share.
Speaker 2:Well, I think, first of all, even Cubby, even if you're not a big operator, you still have to make these trade-offs every day, right?
Speaker 2:The reason why it's hard is because building software is not easy. Yes, because building software is not easy. Yes, any decent engineer worth their salt can build a feature if you decide that's what we should build. But there's a lot of things to build and you know it gets complex as you start to stack feature after feature after feature, and then you get to be a large company and you get to deal with some large overhead and operational decisions and it just it's not easy to build a modern software company, especially when the tech itself is often 20, 30, 10, even 10 years old. Changes are not so simple. Changes are not so simple and ultimately comes down to talent, just like there's great storage site managers and there's not so great site managers, and there's great storage brokers and not so great storage brokers. There's great software engineers and then there's mediocre software engineers and there's great product designers and there's mediocre product designers, and it comes down to the talent, just like any business.
Speaker 2:I think is, at the end of the day, what really makes the difference.
Speaker 1:Interesting, okay, so let's jump into the services and things that Cubby offers. Can you describe that for us for a quick second? Okay.
Speaker 2:We Cubby really is the self we call ourselves the self-storage platform. That makes growth simple. What does that mean? It means we help you price your units correctly with great revenue management technology, directly integrated with the ability to market your availability at to the best of your ability, with great online e-commerce experiences and phone lead follow-up experiences, and then manage your facilities with great facility management and customer service technology. So we help you price your units, market your availability and manage your storage operations day to day all in one place.
Speaker 1:That's really what we do. Okay, got it, so you're kind of like the all-in-one package for those tasks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we play nice and we have lots of great partners in the space and we have, you know, apis and we give our customers access to their data, but coming from outside storage, when we got to the space, we were a little confused as to how these different categories of software or vendors had cropped up.
Speaker 2:And we realized that, just like you know, one offering had come out, you know, for facility management software, for example, and then you know somebody needed, for instance, online rentals, and these owners had to go out and figure out how to cobble the solution together and over the course of 10 years, a couple of different people pop up and start offering that service.
Speaker 2:Now there's this category of marketing, for instance. That is, marketing technology that you don't really see when you look at other verticals. And we said why is that? And we thought critically about why that had happened and how it could be better, and we built a solution that we believe is a better marketing experience and a better facility management software, but the two of them together unlocks a level of value that you might not get choosing one or the other. We try to allow the operators that work with us a level of control, but, generally speaking, what do we do? It's help you price your units at the right rate, market them, convert the highest percentage of renters possible, and then manage your facilities and customers to the best of your ability.
Speaker 1:Okay, got it. And then talk us through. What does that customer experience look like? Obviously from the customer's perspective. And then what does it look like from the owner's perspective? So if someone is looking for a unit online, how does Cubby help them find a unit and then get moved in and have a good experience? And then how does it work from the owner's side of the dashboard?
Speaker 2:So when we work with an operator, we'll bring them onto Cubby and we'll often replace their facility management software, pretty much always. We'll often either plug into their existing website or replace their website completely. Um, so the renters can you know, and we give them world-class website that is well-tuned for SEO and um customers come to that website. They don't really know that Cubby has anything to do with it.
Speaker 2:It's totally white labeled and branded like the operators facility and um, they'll rent a unit online to unit online. One of the big differentiators for us thus far has been our ability to convert renters from just looking at a website to actually renting a unit. Our customers convert at higher rates than you see typically in the industry and the reason for that is just great talent at Cubby building modern e-commerce best practices into the software. You can rent a unit on a Cubby-powered website in 30 seconds. So that's been big. And then on the back end you have modern slick dashboards that allow you to operate your business understand your rates, understand where your customers are, process all your payments know, deliver you great reporting everything that you would expect from like a modern, world-class facility management software. You can get that directly through cubby okay.
Speaker 1:So then on the customer side, I think about I guess uh, let me back up for a quick second. So on the ownership side, uh, some of the problems that we've had in the past are like the abandoned cart kind of situation where they can either rent a reserve they have two options rent a reserve, they click the reserve and it goes to one thing. They click the rent and it goes to them picking their unit and the next page. And then sometimes they click off because something, whatever they decided not to or something happened, but we can't tell what actions they took after that and we can't follow up with them thereafter, whereas, like you said, modern e-commerce if I go to, or my wife goes to something and she tries to buy something and you abandon the cart, it'll send you a follow-up email or send you a message somehow and say, hey, you forgot something in your cart and we love that.
Speaker 1:That's what we want within storage and for whatever reason, I guess, up until recently from what I've heard, because I am personally not as involved we have third-party management that handles everything for us, but I still see the conversion funnel of inquiry to tenant that moves in, and so you're trying to troubleshoot that funnel and you can't. You know, to some respect and I understand, it's not not everything is like easy to troubleshoot. I'm not saying that whatsoever, but do you get what I'm saying? Like, do you guys solve some of that problem or make that a little bit easier for operators to understand their conversion funnel? And, if so, like how?
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. That's one of the big things that the reason that we've been able to win customers over is because that is a big strong suit at Cubby. On average in e-commerce generally across all industries, conversion rates hover around 30% online In storage. That should be a lot higher because it's a super intent-based and kind of like urgent purchase where people are focused mostly on price location. That should be higher. It's actually it hovers between 20% and 25% in storage and that is a reflection of the fact that the technology is just not up to the task, and part of that is due to the fact that some of these old facility management software platforms are kind of stuck in the mud and haven't incorporated this extension into the web experience for the online rentals.
Speaker 2:Extension into the web experience for the online rentals, making it super simple for somebody to rent a unit is 30 seconds is critical and that's where you get a lot of the lift in the conversion process. Then there's everything that you just mentioned the abandoned cart process. Cubby knows when that stuff happens that we can trigger all sorts of stuff. We can trigger follow-up emails or you can take that data and run you know some of the operators 30 seconds after you get an abandoned cart or a failed payment or something like that, to kind of convert those leads at a higher clip. That's 2024 e-commerce in a nutshell, and very few people have the ability to do it today. That's what we're trying to solve, for for sure, yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1:That makes a ton of sense to me as an owner. Again, trying to shoot that conversion funnel troubleshoot I'm sorry, shoot it. I wish I could shoot it. But trying to troubleshoot that conversion funnel and understanding what people are doing when they get to our website and what happens to rent a unit within 30 seconds is fantastic. With that timing on the 30 seconds, that tells me that maybe you're not collecting a ton of information on the front end, or what does that 30 second roughly 30 second process look like?
Speaker 2:I think you did some homework here. But yes, we collect every time you ask for a piece of information. You're losing a percentage of rangers in. If you go buy a pair of shoes on Allbirds or something like that or some modern e-commerce experience, you're in and out. They don't need to know your wife's made a name. They don't need you to go. They don't need to go. They don't need to know your wife's made a name. They don't need you to go. They don't need to go. They don't need to go. They don't need you to go scan a homeowner's insurance policy and upload it. They don't need you to do a lot of the stuff that storage owners require.
Speaker 2:And all of that stuff is there for a reason and we should get that very important compliance information the lease signature, insurance documentation. If you're opting out of a tenant protection plan or something like that compliance information, we can do that, but it doesn't have to be like applying to college or it doesn't have to. You don't have to write an essay to get a 10 by 10 storage unit in a tertiary market. We can automate some of this follow-up and make sure that everything is secure After we've captured that conversion event. Somebody's paid you for that storage unit and then trickle things in like executing the lease before they get a gain access code, for instance. Things like that are what allow us to improve that conversion rate and still deliver a really great customer experience that checks all the boxes for compliance that operators require and that what you discussed is exactly how we designed our product and just kind of iterated on it with operators as they're using it in the field.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes a ton of sense to me and I knew a little bit about what you guys do, but most of it's based upon my own experience and trying to troubleshoot again the lead funnel Like why are people not converting? How long is it? What does the customer journey look like? What does the rental process look like? And being frustrated with some of that along the way, because I agree with you that you know I just need to know some basic information to get you in the door as a customer. Of course there's compliance, intended insurance and all those things that I do want to address with that particular customer, but to get them to make a buying decision for me, and essentially, moving in quote unquote, I want to do that quickly.
Speaker 1:The website I was thinking of was Crocs, the shoes. You know the kids. So my wife was ordering some Crocs for the boys. I have three boys for school and I talked to her right about the problems we have in stores or renting units and whatever that's the website. She said, like I went to Crocs and something came up and I had to go do something else real quick and then they had already sent me an email saying hey, you forgot the Crocs in the cart, you know, do you want to purchase them? And like, with a little link to to do so, to complete the purchase. Um, so yeah, it's. That type of follow-up is super important, I think within our, you know, somewhat antiquated industry. It's just space. So if it's just space, it should be a little easier to rent and a little easier to uh, you know, do it, but I get it. There's some compliance things there. You know, you're signing a lease. So yeah, there's some technical things that are different than buying shoes, but that's where it comes from and I have a.
Speaker 1:I have a standing call every Thursday with Adam Gerald, who you guys, um, they're your customer and uh, I was sharing some of these problems with him, had him on the podcast, his episode released I think it was this week or last week or whatever Um and uh, so he told me about you guys and he said you guys do this and this and this and that you guys, at the time we were talking about it, we're switched. They were switching everything over, uh, to your platform. Um, so yeah, so yeah, that's kind of where the homework comes into play there.
Speaker 2:Cool, yeah, I mean, I think it's easy to say you should have a modern, simple e-commerce experience, but if you really think about what you just described, somebody comes to your website. First of all, is it clean and easy to understand For somebody who's never been to rented storage before? If you're presented with a list of 10,000 units and it's very difficult to discern what the difference is between these things, and then you see a bunch of different prices, so that can be a little intimidating. So how can we make it clean? That's step one. Step two what is the price of the unit? That's actually.
Speaker 2:There's an ocean of decisions and operational input that need to be considered when offering that price. Is it $100 for that 10 by 10? Or is it $90? Or is it $100 with a 10% discount? We're only just beginning to convert this customer now. So making those decisions, how can we enable you to understand? Should I put that 10% discount on? Should I put on a three months 50% discount? What is it happening in my market with these discounts and then getting to the right rate, getting to the right promotion, getting that person into a buying decision as quickly as possible, and then, once they've made that decision, I want to rent this unit doing renter experience. That's what we're focused on is making sure that that renter has a great experience and then making sure the person serving that renter has a really great experience delivering that service to know about the marketing a little bit, because I know that you guys handle some of that.
Speaker 1:What does that look like for owners? Because, truth be told, I can do marketing for the podcast and all that stuff, but as far as units and all that, I don't handle that stuff and I'm sure a lot of owners that's not going to be their forte. They may need a higher marketing person or whatever. How do you guys come along and help in that respect To be?
Speaker 2:very clear we're a technology company. We provide technology. We don't really provide marketing services. We'll stand up a website for you. If you need ongoing ad buying services and things like that, we have partners we can refer you to. What we do is put you in control. So if you want to improve your SEOo, you can do that with the data that cubby is providing you through our technology. If you want to run ad campaigns across google or meta or you know, we have people trying amazon ads and all sorts of crazy stuff you can do that because Cubby allows you control over your website, control over what you need to track all of these different Google ads or meta ads you name it. And if you need, if you can do that in-house awesome.
Speaker 2:I think more people should do more of this stuff in-house. Actually, it's that important and the ROI is there. If you can kind of muster the control over the experience and actually affect the change iteratively that you want to see in your marketing, in your advertising, in your SEO efforts, in your conversion efforts, we provide that control and you can make changes and iterate as you learn things as a marketer. If you have outside marketing help, we treat that partner as an extension of our client. That person is our client if they're serving our client and they have access and can do everything they need to do to accomplish their goals. That's how we think about it from like a marketing perspective, but the tech should not get in the way.
Speaker 1:Okay, understood, that makes a ton of sense. You mentioned earlier on that you guys do integrate with other platforms, software, et cetera. What are some of the common integrations that you see owners mixing, I guess, with?
Speaker 2:you guys there's a million of them, that there's so many partners that are in my inbox right now we're trying to do integrations with. One example is insurance and tenant protection providers. When you're in our checkout, you're probably choosing an insurance plan Most people do or a tenant protection plan. What's powering that under the hood? It looks and feels like cubby to our users, both renters and managers and operators, but under the hood, a lot of that is a third-party partner that we're tapping into and they're providing the plans. We're providing all the data they need to reconcile payments to those owners who are selling the plans on their websites, etc. That's one example.
Speaker 2:Call centers A lot of people outsource call centers. How do we get them the data they need to be able to effectively serve their customers, who are our customers as well? That's another example of a common integration request as well. That's another example of a common integration request. There's all sorts of these. You know different providers out there. Accounting is a big one. How do we get the revenue data out of Cubby and into a QuickBooks NetSuite, Sage, something like that? That's a common integration request that we'll have. And then there's all sorts of other ones. There's more like review sites and review apps popping up that we're starting to see. We have partners there, so a lot of integrations. Everything under the sun, if you name it, we've probably heard it.
Speaker 1:Okay, got it. So there are options if people need some of these integrations. Obviously, you guys are playing nice with probably the main providers out there. So, okay, that makes sense. Yeah, mostly all you. Or how did that initial beginning? I know you had conversations with people at trade shows to kind of feel out. You know what the sentiment was regarding software. But beyond that was it, how did you, how did the business plan and the team come together?
Speaker 2:So I'm a co-founder and CEO. I'm historically a business side of the company. My co-founder is a guy named Adam Fleming of the company. My co-founder is a guy named Adam Fleming. He's an engineer by trade. He's our CTO. He's really a software guy through and through and he had you know he's in New York City as well and had similar experiences to me in real estate technology at a company called Honest Buildings, which is now part of Procore, and he was in the asset management group at big banks and big fintech companies in New York and had a lot of experience managing tech organizations.
Speaker 2:So we started the company together just the two of us, and we had you know we're a venture funded company. So we went out and took venture funding and then we immediately went out. The first thing we did like before you know how did we go work at those facilities that we were talking about. We signed up two dozen operators and brokers and people who were like relevant um, to be advisors. Um, that was the person we did and I'm really grateful we made that decision because those folks taught us everything we needed to know, uh, and we were on calls with them all the time, uh, for the first year and a half really of the business, just learning from them. And, um, then we started signing customers and we started learning from those customers too, and just learning from them. And then we started signing customers and we started learning from those customers too, and we really grew from there.
Speaker 1:Okay, got it. So raise capital through some other venture firms and then obviously got in the weeds with actual customers and boots on the ground working in the facility. So that makes a ton of sense, man, that's great. I know another company right now kind of going through something very similar within the storage space. So it can be challenging, I think, sometimes to raise money for a you know almost like a SaaS type situation a company versus actually raising money for real estate, and that's really challenging, I think. So did you guys? How many people work at Kevin? What's the employment like? What's the account look like right now?
Speaker 2:we're over 30 employees today. Um, and uh, you know, we've, we, we, those have not come in blitzes. We've just added one at a time, slowly but surely, as we've grown, try to be responsible with our, our. We have big plans for the future. We're going to be around for many, many, many years and, um, you know, we have big ambitions for what we want to accomplish, so we want to do it the right way. Um, that's how many people work at cubby 33 today? Uh, we'll make you know a higher strategically, as we need to and as we grow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great man. I think it's fantastic. It's pretty cool to see somebody coming to the space, the storage space, to try and improve what's there and the options for owners who really want to have some options. It's been interesting for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can imagine. I can imagine it's's, I can imagine it's been tough and uh, you know it's probably been a little, a little pro and little con at times and uh, you know it's tough leading a company. What is what is on your mind, you know, like, do you ever lose sleep at night over what's going on at the company and how you guys need to grow and and all that, or is it? Has it been stressful, like? What's that been like?
Speaker 2:I mean, we started in the basement of a Brooklyn. Beds die like residential building building software literally in the basement, you know, and and maybe the not so nicest part of Brooklyn We've gone months without taking paychecks and stuff like that. So there's been challenging times. I'm super grateful, like my situation is fantastic and our team is awesome and we have a lot of fun doing what we do. But, um, yeah, it's when you're starting a business from scratch. It's not always easy, but you know, along with Cubby quit their jobs and now they're full-time entrepreneurs in the self-storage industry supporting their families on their business that they built the same way right alongside us as partners. So when stuff like that happens, it makes it worth it for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's pretty cool. How did you meet your business partner? Did you say his name is Andrew Adam? Adam, adam. How did you meet Adam? How did you guys figure out that it would work together?
Speaker 2:Well, I was at BTS with leasing software for Office Industrial and it was really a revenue platform. It was something that allowed you to see your pipeline no-transcript. Our offices were, you know, at certain points very close to one another, so we always kind of knew about each other. We had met each other at a couple of conferences and then got reintroduced through an investor that I had met when I was starting to think about starting the business. He was like actually, this guy is might be, he was in retirement at Facebook enjoying the free M&Ms, as he likes to say, building video infrastructure software. But he got the itch to get back into the game and start up world and we, you know we had, we had met, we hit it off again and he saw the opportunity that I saw in self world. And we, you know we had, we had met, we hit it off again and he saw the opportunity that I saw in self-storage and that's kind of how it started.
Speaker 1:That's interesting, man. How was it with with raising capital? How did you find the firms, the venture firms, to go? And I mean obviously New York, so they're kind of right there. But did you just cold call a few, or did you have a warm intro from somebody else through a mutual connection, or how did that work out?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was you know I've been in New York working in tech companies for 15 years, so how to have some connections up here? A friend of mine had started a company that built software for country clubs and golf courses and he introduced me to his investors. They were super excited about what they saw in self-storage they had actually been tracking it. So you know just talking about what I was thinking about to friends and family and people who I knew were well-connected in the space Just networking got me to a place where we found some investors who were interested. They gave us a little bit of money to start enough to get off the ground and then we took that. We went out to the market, we signed up. All those advisors who were craving some new, better technology in the space and saw an opportunity in two guys who were willing to get the job done and had some chops from prior experience in adjacent spaces took a chance on us. And then we signed a few customers and they weren't super small customers. They were pretty impressive contracts that we signed early on with partners who were willing to take a flyer on some new tech, and on the strength of some of those early contracts we were able to raise the money that we really needed to build the business and go hire more people, build a formal engineering team, hire some salespeople and do that.
Speaker 2:That took a year, that entire process that I just mentioned and since then we've been signing up customers and trying to grow the business the right way. And we'll continue to be a venture funded business, most likely given what we want to accomplish, but we've been able to survive on healthy growth among our customer base. I mean we have over 100 customers today, ranging from anywhere between one facility and 40 facilities, 60 facilities in some cases that are coming on now. So you know, that's kind of how we grew the business. Who knows what the future holds. We're going to be around for a long time. We'll adjust and finance the business as the market dictates. We were a little lucky. We timed the market before it really fell off a cliff when we raised that money. I know that it's a little bit tougher out there right now, so we gotta, we gotta really earn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, timing is uh, you can't really time the market, but timing is important. Um, yeah, so yeah, that's, that's, that's great man, it's a good story, I guess, before we wrap everything up here. I don't know what the market share looks like out there, but is there a certain goal every year that you guys want to sign up X number of facilities? What does it look like as far as growth into the near future?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean the classic, uh, if you can achieve the classic kind of SaaS tech startup parlance is triple, triple, double, double. If you can triple the number of customers you have in year one, great. If you can triple again in year two, great. If you can double after that, you're doing a great job. And if you can double again after that, you're doing a great job. And if you can double again after that, you're doing a great job. So we plan on having 200 customers. Our goal was to have 200 customers at the end of this year. We'll definitely pass that goal.
Speaker 3:We might need to set a more aggressive goal at some point.
Speaker 2:So let's say we finish this year at 200 customers. That means next year we need to have 600 customers, the year after that we need to have 1200 customers. And you can apply that same logic to the number of units or the number of facilities live on our platform. And we think about that stuff and we measure it every day and you know everyone in our company can see how many facilities or units are live on the platform at any given time and we measure all that kind of stuff. So that's the goal is triple, triple. I like to triple again after that instead of doubling.
Speaker 3:But to the point where I'm looking hey, you should aim for it. Yeah, why not Shoot from?
Speaker 2:the moon, land in the stars, oh yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so. I think that makes a ton of sense, man. That's awesome, the plan there. Gary Keller, keller Williams Real Estate, on the residential side, he talks about setting big goals. There's always a debate of whether you should set little goals or big goals achievable ones that you think you can do, or big ones that are like, wow, big goals achievable ones that you think you can do or big ones that are like wow, you know, and I settled on the big ones. I think that makes the most sense. So I think it's great, man. It's a great plan. I think you guys can do it.
Speaker 1:I know you guys are active at, like, ssa and the other trade shows around the country and being active, obviously, on podcasts and doing some workshops and other things, based upon some of the posts I've seen on LinkedIn. So I think it's pretty cool, man. I think you guys will get there. It's gonna take a lot of work, but you guys will get there and it's doable, so my hat's off to you, man. Let's wrap everything up here with the final four questions. Can you talk about a high point in your career and what you learned from that experience? A high?
Speaker 2:point in my career. A high point in my career first one that comes to mind is what I mentioned earlier, which is like empowering somebody. A high point in my career first one that comes to mind is what I mentioned earlier, which is like empowering somebody that's a Cubby customer to quit their job and go full time with a dream that they had. Our whole thing is, you know, allowing folks to hone their growth and actually seeing that. It was like you know, we were crying, we, you know we were laughing, we were crying high-fiving. There's nothing better than seeing that like driving real outcomes for our customers, not just winning contracts, but then, six months a year down the road, seeing those outcomes come to fruition. That's that's what it's all about. So that is the best. That's a great feeling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what it's all about, so that is the best. That's a great feeling. Yeah, that's a great feeling. Talk real quick about a low point in your career and what you learned from that experience.
Speaker 2:Gosh, you know, I think there's two things. One is related to customers and making sure that you're doing a good job. In my previous life, you know sometimes you lose customers. That's a tough pill to swallow, but the low points are always your team. And if you're letting your team down and you know, no matter how hard we try, there's going to be times where we fail right and, as a leader, letting my team down is the ultimate kind of gut punch for me, and there's been times where we've had you know, really really, really exciting deals where you
Speaker 2:know company changing trajectory where you know it's just not not the right time. Those moments are pretty low. I can point to a couple of them over my career, even before Cubby. But there's so much dependent on momentum in our business and keeping momentum going is really important for morale, for our customers' happiness, for a lot of different things. And anytime you kind of stumble in momentum you got to think really it hurts really bad. So you got to make sure that you're always focused on that. That's how I think about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's been a couple of points like that. Yeah, yeah, that's a good learning experience, I think, if I put myself in the shoes of a startup yeah you got to get those wins, even in acquisitions or whatever. Once you get a deal on a contract and get it closed, it's like yes, high five, and go out to steak dinners or whatever. Or sometimes just go home and relax, and then other times, if you lose a deal or something's about to fall apart, it can be a pretty low point.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, and then hiring. Hiring is really important too. Anytime you make a bad hire, that's a low point. It can really sit back years and it's painful and hard and it's nobody's fault. But as the leader, you have to take ownership over those moments and and parting ways with people is always really, really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, hopefully you can stay amicable. But yeah, you're right, like it's tough to see folks go or move on to something else that you were expecting maybe something big for them or you know and they ended up leaving or whatever.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that can be pretty tough to but, like you said, the momentum, I think, is pretty critical. Give us real quick either a business resource or a storage investing resource that folks can, an operator of self-storage and you don't know what cohort analysis is, google it. That's my tip of the day Google cohort analysis. This is a method that you can do in Excel really quick and easy, and it allows you to compare two groups against one another and it allows you to say, okay, for instance, if I offer a 50% off promotion to a customer or a renter in this cohort of groups and I don't offer it here, who stays longer? That's one example.
Speaker 2:If you can do cohort analysis in a recurring business like self-storage and you can bring that into the self-storage business and your competitors are not doing it. It's just another tool that allows you some competitive differentiation. I think more people should do it. Everyone in the software business, which is in many ways similar from a cash flow perspective, can do this and they do it often to measure every change they want to make. It's a very good way to A-B test Google cohort analysis and dig in on a Sunday evening, spend 20 minutes, go in the next day on Monday, download some data, get it in, see if you can do some cohort analysis or take a class or YouTube something. But just learn that skill. I think it's valuable.
Speaker 1:That's a great recommendation. I'll have to do that myself, so I appreciate that, ma'am. Yeah, matt, we've covered a lot of ground. Man, how can people get in touch with you if they want to learn more about Cubby or get a demo?
Speaker 2:You can go to our website and request a demo at cubbystoragecom, or you can shoot me an email at matt at cubbystoragecom. Either way, we're always available and ready to do demos and jump on a call, jump on a Zoom anytime, or come visit us at one of the many trade shows that we're now appearing at.
Speaker 1:Perfect, awesome. Matt, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you so much for having me. It was great.