12 - Week One Woes: The $50K Surprise We Didn't See Coming with Micah & Adam

In this episode, Adam and Micah share raw, unfiltered lessons from their first week as boutique hotel owners—including a shocking $50,000 WiFi infrastructure surprise they didn't see coming and the reality of keeping a business running while renovating. They pull back the curtain on payroll complications, donating furniture to the Navajo Nation community, and why buying a hotel means buying an active business, not just a property.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You raised a hundred thousand dollars in the hotel in about thirty minutes. Somehow we we needed to come up with a hundred grand because our equity injection went up. And in a matter of 30 minutes, right before you boarded the flight, you managed to round up a hundred grand.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Hey everybody, I'm Adam Walls, and I'm here with my co-host Micah Thomas. We're short-term rental operators who made the jump into boutique hotels. And we're in it right now, raising capital, renovating a 50-room property. We're figuring it out as we go.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

This is the Boutique Hotel Secrets Podcast, and these are secrets.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Welcome in, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of the unofficial Boutique Hotel Secrets Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Walls, in my Sajib Boys K-pop demon hunter outfit. It is Christmas Eve. I'm coming to you from sunny Gulf Shores, Alabama with family. It's great to be down here. Love just a slower pace of life, good food, hanging out, telling jokes, all the things. We closed. Let me not bury the lead and let me not leave this man on the hook. Let me bring in my mister from another sister, Micah Thomas. How are you doing? We closed.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Man, this let me tell you, I'm so excited and I'm so happy to be done with this phase of purchasing and acquiring a hotel. Yesterday, I'm literally walking with a different purpose. I'm like head hell high. There's nothing you can tell me. I'm like strolling through the restaurant, like just in such a great mood. I'm just to get to this point, I really don't think I can like express enough how much we had to go through to get to where we are today and to finally get this across the finish line, to finally go from zero to one. It seemed like a distant dream for the longest time. And to actually do it. And not only that, I'm staying in the hotel that I own. And I just never in my wildest dreams. So excited, very happy. And I would love to dig deep and talk about some of the things we we had to go through just to get it done. But how are you feeling? What do you think about being a hotel owner?

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Um it was it's interesting because I signed papers last Wednesday and then with a mobile notary at my house. A month ago, I was kind of had this romantic idea that we're all gonna be there in Page. We're gonna be having like, I don't know, steak dinner with glasses of wine or champagne with the owner's in Australia, like he's not there. You were West Virginia. I'm in California. It's like this, no, like the real world happens a bit differently. So, anyways, I signed Wednesday, the notary overnighted those to you to sign the next day, and then they got to title by Friday. We were waiting on basically one fifty thousand dollar check. So, again, the bank needed a little over 1.1, almost 1.15, something like that, that we needed to wire to them. We also needed to make a payment to our general contractor to get him off the starting blocks as well because he didn't want to wait for SBA loan, right? Work for a month and then get paid. He's got to pay his guys like today and to mobilize. So we figured that out. But, anyways, there was like one check that was tripping us up. And I don't know, do you want to tell a little bit? This was through one of our financial advisor friend. We've never even met this person, so this is wild. She went into Chase Bank and she couldn't verify her identity. Like she's standing there with her thumbs and her credit card, and she's been a Chase bank member for 20 plus years, high net worth individual. She had to cancel a meeting to go down because she couldn't wire online. They said there was some sort of like glitch with her two-factor authentication or something was wrong there. So basically sent her home and then she tried again the next day. This was like Thursday originally, she went to the bank. Then I think on Friday, maybe like she went to the bank again. They're like, yeah, it didn't work. We came up with the idea of a cashier's check. And so she literally cut a cashier's check and then stuck it in the overnight mail to get to us on Monday. But in the meantime, we're banking with Relay.fi, their branchless kind of fintech company on top of Thread Bank, like baseline and some others. So again, love the simplicity, the convenience factor. There's so many great things about relay. But it's not like I can walk into a bank with a cashier's check. So, anyways, we have to wait until Monday. We get her check, it's pretty dramatic. We deposit it, we're expecting it to instantly be available. It's not. They're like, yo, it's gonna be a seven-day hold. I don't know. Do you want to pick up the story from there? This was like, why? Because all the paperwork's done. We're just literally waiting for her check to get in. We deposit, we think we're ready to go, but we're not.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

Yeah, that's exactly right. And we had to call. I probably have talked to Relay Bank at least seven times in the last like three days, but literally just trying to get that check to clear. Originally it said seven days, and we went through the process of getting that cleared. It got cleared a lot faster, thank, thankfully. And then it came time to wire money to the actual lender as our equity injection or down payment, and they froze our funds. So they took over a million dollars out of our bank account, and they pretty much held it in an escrow or something. The lender didn't have it, we didn't have it, and it wasn't until I called the first time they're like, actually, we need to verify more inner information from you. So thanks for telling me we're supposed to close on a hotel today. So we ended up reaching out several times. Some compliance office got back to us. They wanted us to both individually verify our ID, send documents. Why is this money being sent to this person? Can you provide documentation that this is the amount that you're supposed to send? What type of business does your company partake in? So a ton of questions. And even after that, this was Monday, even after that, they still didn't send the wire. It wasn't until Adam, with the great idea from his wife, reached out to the CEO of Relay Bank on LinkedIn and let him know our specific situation. And at this point, it was Tuesday. So we had already lost the ability to close on Monday because the funds never got wired. And this is Tuesday. And mind you, this is the week of Christmas. And now, since President Trump made Christmas Eve a federal holiday, none of the federal banks are open on Christmas Eve. So when we talk to the lender, if this didn't close on Tuesday, we will be looking at a Monday close, all because of the holiday. So it was very important to get this wire that we sent out on Monday, at least over the finish or over to the lender on Tuesday. So I don't know if you wanted to pick it up from there, but yeah, you reached out to the CEO of Re Relay, and we somehow managed to make it happen.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Yeah, he was great, man. Shout out to you and your team in. Thank you. And this was, yeah, my wife apparently she I don't know, she knows somebody or went to school with somebody who sits on Relay's board. And so she had given me she as her MBA, it was marketing and sales and customer success. She built customer success teams for multiple companies. And so she's maybe you can find I don't know, the VP of sales, VP of customer success. But if it's a small enough company, maybe just reach out to the CEO. And so that's exactly what I did on Tuesday because we were kind of in this compliance jail. And look, I'm glad, you know, that you know, we're taking good care of a million dollars because the last thing we would want to do is come onto this podcast right now with our tail between our legs, not own a podcast, and we sent this million dollars somewhere where it was supposed to go. So I am actually like the amount of relief that number one, this money is out of our account. Someday I'll have a million, that's in my own account and it's my money, but this is other people's money. And so again, we're fiduciaries. It is our responsibility to take care of that. So again, we called five times to verify that all the information was accurate. And again, there's no wire fraud or anything crazy going there. So I was expecting again someone to call us, someone to reach out, someone to verify. What I was not expecting was again three levels of verification and gonna be over 24 hours. And somebody could have just kicked this off or put this under the pile, and like you said, move into Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day. And then a lot of banks just take that Friday off. So it's next Monday. Um, so, anyways, my my wife had said, Hey, why don't you just you got nothing to lose? Reach out to this guy. He's a person, it's less than 500 people on the firm. You like his product, you've been using it for a while, just explain your situation. Lo and behold, again, he said, Hey, let me. He got back to me within an hour, maybe 30 minutes, and then just put things into motion. We stayed in contact. He gave us a verbal confirmation, this will go out today. We'll make it happen. And then it did happen. And then we were nervous, right? That okay, we got the money out of our account, but it went to the lawyer or escrow's account. Then it needed to get over to title. So it was like a two-step journey. Now, the good news is because they do this all the time. There is kind of like a known trade route, less kind of scrutiny, worn path. Whereas again, we're a brand new account saying to a brand new vendor. So again, I'm glad they checked on us, but it was stressful. And then again, just at I think it was like 3:35 p.m. here central time. I'm in the park with my dad, my wife, and my son playing before the nice dinner, and uh yeah, get the text from Micah like, yo, we closed.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

Yeah, this is such a good feeling, such a good feeling to have. And what I want to say, I there's no way I could have done this without you, but we both have just been through so much. And to again, to finally get this across the finish line and go from zero to one feels like a relief. But I will follow up rather quickly with although this is a relief, this is just the beginning. This is just the beginning. We are stepping into a yeah, I hope you're not tired because round two ding, like we are moving into the next phase of this project. And while I'm excited, I know that there's going to be a ton of work. We can talk a little bit about some things we've heard from the general manager, just being on site and learning about the history of ownership and how this property was taken care of or not taken care of tells us that we have our hands full. The good news is we've planned for it, we've underwrote for this exact scenario, but we definitely need to be diligent and stay true to our plan to make sure we can do this transformation and create the number one hotel and page. So anything you want to share on just some new insights that we've came across just since owning the property?

SPEAKER_01 10:47

Look, it's still got that new sneaker smell. Like for us, like it's all new, it's all exciting. Like, I feel like this is the honeymoon period. And at the same time, it's like you're there at the property. Like, we also, by the way, I can't remember if we talked about this last time, but we thought we were pushing for a Friday close last week. And Thursday is the very first time we see our environmental phase one study come back and they go, You've got significant asbestos. So we have to do some kind of last-minute negotiating with the seller. We have to come up with money and raise over a hundred grand in the airport while I'm transiting my family from Denver to Nashville. So, anyways, it but then look, we got to Nashville, got to see old friends. It was great. Took my son to it's a wonderful life at the Tennessee Performing Arts Center. And man, it's just you push hard, you do all these things, but you do it for your family, you do it for yourself, you do it to become a better version of yourself. This is what I said I wanted was to jump in the ring and do something that most people will only dream about doing something like this, right? They'll sit on the sidelines, they're not necessarily taking action. And I think this was a bet on myself. This was a you betting on yourself. So again, taking it seriously, but realizing that we're separating ourselves every day from just who I used to be, or like most average kind of Americans who just have a W-2, maybe have a dream or an idea, but don't necessarily act on it because it is hard. So I feel like we went through the gauntlet, we went through the dip, but in some ways I'm glad it was hard because if it was easy, everyone would be doing this.

SPEAKER_00 12:23

That's exactly right. Everybody will own a hotel.

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Yeah, the harder and longer that dip is gonna knock out so many people that were want wannabepreneurs. So I feel like we've, I don't know, passed this like first crucible, this first test. Like we walked on hot coals and we survived. A lot of people bailed, we made it. That's amazing. We're part of a new brotherhood and sisterhood of hotel owners, which is crazy to say out loud and think about. But look, it's not because we're racket scientists, it's not because we have some extraordinary unique gifts. It's we just because we got clear on what we wanted and our why was strong enough that pulled us forward. So, anyways, right back at you with gratitude. Literally could not do this without you. I can't imagine trying to do this solo. So I'm so glad that we met up through the boutique hotel secrets mastermind. Joel was thoughtful enough to put us together and look now, Ma, like we're doing it. We own a hotel.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Yeah, yeah. This it's you're exactly right. And I like how you breathed over the fact that you raised $100,000 in the hotel in about 30 minutes. Somehow we we needed to come up with 100 grand because our equity injection went up. And in a matter of 30 minutes, right before you boarded the flight, you managed to round up a hundred grand so we could still close on time or schedule and have a plan for the asbestos, which it sounds like a very scary and like grueling part of this property. But the reality is this property was built before asbestos was outlawed. So it's very normal for older buildings to have asbestos in them, and it's not necessarily an issue unless you go digging around and opening things up, and then people are exposed to hazardous material. So because we're doing the full renovation, it just means we need to plan for the correct removal or asbestos abatement as we do this to make sure everybody involved remains safe and it's good for the environment as well. So, yeah, that's wanted to highlight that, but also just being here. I've got a chance to talk to the GM who's been here for 11 years. So she's been here even longer than the recent owners that we just purchased the property from. And just some quick highlights that we've gotten from her. She told me that all the mattresses are 10 and a half years old, which blew my mind. She put me in a room since I'm staying here. She put me in a room that had the only new mattress. So I'm literally sleeping, like, oh, these mattresses aren't too bad. We might be able to salvage some of them. She's like, No, that's the only good mattress. The other mattresses haven't been changed since I started. That's probably the highlight that I've gotten from her. But just I'm so happy to take over this property and give the employees better ownership. They've talked about how they've made suggestions, they've wanted changes, and literally nothing has been done. And a lot of their suggestions aren't things that are like they're gonna break the bank or they're not in line with the vision of the hotel. They're things to truly create a better guest experience and truly preserve this property. This is the oldest and the number one hotel that was built in Page, Arizona. And there's the level of preservation you have to have, but it was very apparent that the previous owners did not care about any of that. They didn't really make any updates since they've owned it. They've done little to no maintenance, and the repairs that they made have pretty much been patched together for the lowest bidder. So very happy to take this. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Real quick, sorry, sorry to interrupt you, but I was under the impression that our hotel was from 1965, that after government camp and the damn building and all of that, that again we came online. I thought the travel lodge predated us, but are you actually telling us that we own the oldest and arguably the worst hotel in town? Why does this make me excited?

SPEAKER_00 16:16

That is correct. We own not only the oldest, but also the worst hotel in town. And this hotel has got a ton of history. This hotel started not for guests traveling to look at Horse You've Been or Antelope Canyon or traveled through Lake Powell. This hotel was created for government employees that were staying in the town of Page to build the Glen Canyon Dam. When this hotel was first created, there wasn't even a road that went by the hotel. It was a dirt road. It wasn't asphalt or anything else that brought you in and out of Page. And this hotel is also centrally located. So this is pretty much the hub, the center of Page, so central that City Hall is across the street. So yeah, there's something that's it does make me excited to know that right now this property is in terrible condition, but we have a very historic, a very great product that we can tell a story about and we can transform into the number one hotel. Very excited about that.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

I love it. And what else before we move on to some other topics and like ticky talk and social media? All right, you gotta talk about that. Well, what else have we learned from chatting with Roberta, with the cleaners, with Jay or maintenance man? Man, it seems like there's a lot of like personal love, but like no systems in this place currently.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Yeah. Oh my god. So how many things break my heart? I'll get to systems here in a second, but the other thing I want to say is for the life of the previous owners, them for the time that they owned this hotel, they were pretty much putting the cheapest stuff in here. So when we talk about like the quality of soap and shampoo and towels and pillows, the general manager told me she was only allowed to purchase the cheapest soap, the cheapest towels. She wasn't allowed to get better quality things. If a guest had an issue and they were asking for, she said just a $10 refund, the owners wouldn't even allow her to give a $10 refund because they were so worried about the bottom line. So what ended up happening was these guests would leave bad reviews where if all they got was $10 back from their stay, their experience would have changed drastically. So it's just heartbreaking to hear the type of ownership that the general manager had to deal with. And even with all of that, she's still so passionate about this place, she doesn't want to leave it. She loves this building or this hotel and she wants to stay. And especially since she hears what we're doing with the property, she wants to be along for the journey. And with that being said, I'll transition to SOPs or standard operating procedures. These are things that pretty much lay out the process. So no matter if you're on your first day of work or your 12th year of work, you can reference some standard documentation that tells you how to do the same exact thing every single time.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

If you're getting value from this, follow the show and share it with one person who's ready to move beyond short-term rentals.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

And if you want to learn more about the boutique hotel secrets community, the link is in the show notes. Currently, the general manager has all those SOPs in her brain. They're not on any physical document for anybody else to reference. She actually didn't even know what an SOP was, which I don't mind that, but I told her a lot of the SOPs that we're going to create, you already have in your brain, but only you know. So what that means is if you're unavailable, there's nobody else that can step in and take care of what needs to be taken care of. So it's just going to be a process of creating those systems and putting them down on a piece of paper or in our system so people can reference. And when she's not available, we could take a load off of her. And when she's not available, we can still get the job done with other staff members. So there's a ton to learn, and we're moving quite well. But I'll bounce it back to you. We had to change over a lot of things from over older previous ownership. One of those things being payroll. People don't stop getting paid because there's a new owner. Even though it's the holiday, people still want to get paid. So maybe you can talk a little bit about what the process has been like changing things over to our name, our company's name, and some things that are more urgent than others.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Yeah, that's right. And so look, just last week we onboarded our CPA accountant. We'd already made some decisions about we wanted to use Kick.co to manage our finances, track expenses, et cetera. We chose Gusto because it vertically inner, they've got nice APIs and integrations, like all part of the same friendly network. So relay.phi is the banking end. Kick.co kind of like tracks everything, can kick out PLs, balance sheets, et cetera. That's our accounting software. New age QuickBooks or Zero, leveraging some AI, which I think is pretty cool. They were backed by OpenAI's, I think one of their like original research funds. So, anyways, that was kind of the stack there. And then Gusto, we're just getting onboarded now. And while we don't need to move immediately to things like 401ks or employer matches or like stronger benefits, most of the people working on this hotel are just 1099 and hourly. But I think this is part of our thesis, right? If you can take care of your people, they'll take care of the guests. So I've always anchored on that mentality, being a talent development or leadership development guy internally for lots of companies. Again, we're just like you say, we got to the hygiene factory, you got to keep payroll trucking. So they got paid on the 19th, they need to get paid again on the second. So we're figuring out all the details with the owner. But it's interesting. Okay, some people already get it booked for Christmas. The owner's out, like how you just need to think through all of these things. So again, And if he already took money, then he needs to cut us a check. Or if we're getting the money, like just making sure that everything's squared away, everything's above board, everything's transparent. But we're trying to set up some of these systems. And one of the things that I'm really excited again, news is like our PMS, IKEA with text-based guest communications. Then we're still talking about some different marketing plays, et cetera. Like you said, some of this stuff's like payroll, it's got to happen like on day one. We got to make sure we're taking care of our people. But we want to start having visibility into three, six, nine months from now, as we grow our team from maybe just one to two W-2 employees. Maybe we could build something really special here and continue to, again, I don't think we're not trying to pretend that we're the four seasons or Ritz Carlton. I don't imagine we'll ever have 24-7 front desk, 365. Like we want to elevate the experience or elevate what's possible as a limited service motel. So use technology and texting and AI, like whenever possible, to get answers. They can help remove friction, but to have real warm human beings delivering great hospitality as well. And you'd mentioned real real quick, one of the books I'm reading right now is by a chip and Dan Heath. It's called The Power of Moments. And I'd heard the reference of the Magic Castle in LA, and they consistently show up as like a top five motel. And it was an old apartment complex and it's crappy, actually. And everything online, if you just scroll through pictures of the Magic Castle, you're like, what? Like how, huh? You just don't get it. But they found ways to elevate the experience through surprise and delight. And this is a bit what the book they'd use it as one example, but talking about how you can create kind of moments of surprise, insight, connection, but you can elevate an experience. And that, like you said, somebody not getting a $10 refund is going to lead to a one-star review. Where oftentimes in hospitality and service-based businesses, these are your best moments to come in and what they call service recovery, right? How can you take something that was wobbling and going off track and then surprise and delight with your recovery or your ability to make it real? Not unlike what just happened with relay. And with one text from me to the CEO, one text from him to someone else, again, things can happen and things can move forward. One of the special things at the Magic Castle, like, why is this place special? Occasionally for breakfast, they'll bring in magicians. So the kids obviously love that. They also have at the pool a cherry red phone that at any point in time you can pick up the phone and they'll answer it saying, This is the popsicle hotline. How may I help you? And you basically just say, Yeah, I don't want popsicles. And they come out in like a tuxedo with a silver platter with three different colors or flavors of popsicles and serve it to guests. And it's so over the top and it's so ridiculous that people end up commenting on it. They're like, Yeah, oh yeah, we went to Disney World and we ate at this great restaurant. And then we stayed at this pool where they brought the kids red popsicles and they loved it. So, anyways, I'm just trying to get myself in the mindset of obviously it's our frontline staff, our GM, our maintenance man, our cleaners, like these people, we need to they need to be loved on, they need to be cared for, they need to be trained up, we need to give them systems and tools. But I'm excited about building like a culture around hospitality where maybe we can figure out what our secret sauce is. Do we do people's laundry for free? Do we do something else? We'll have to think on it. It like we're gonna have this ready at our fingertips. But again, it's very it's getting clearer and clearer every day that we not we can be the best hotel in Page, Arizona, like we will be the best hotel in Page, Arizona because we care and we're being thoughtful, and we're gonna listen to our people and we're gonna listen to our guests and try and deliver as as all star of an experience as we can.

SPEAKER_00 26:00

Absolutely. I love it, and I think you're exactly right. Like, it's very easy for us to stand out and set ourselves apart just by going above and beyond. And it's not really any other hotel of the 25 hotels in Page, nobody else is doing that. So it's very easy for us to set ourselves apart, and that's what I'm most excited about. But yeah, we can transition to social media. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Yeah, we gotta talk about TikTok. Come on now. I mean, we're we're do you know how many views you got, like on your first one, man. This is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

You've got yeah, so this let me tell you how this started. It's a little bit crazy. I created a TikTok. The only reason I started to create a TikTok is because of their video editing software. I was already under the impression that they had good video editing. You can pretty much do it from the palm of your hand. You can add captions, you can add music, so on and so forth. I started a TikTok. I didn't follow anybody, nobody followed me, and I'm just documented our journey. I showed people the hotel, showed people what we're stepping into. But again, I don't follow anybody, nobody follows me. So I go to post the video just so I can save it and have it when I am ready to start following people and stuff like that. And I don't think anything of it. This is this has to be like maybe Monday night. And then our GM Roberta, she calls the next day and she's what's your tag on TikTok? What are you tagging? People in Page are seeing your TikTok and they're asking if everything at the hotel is okay. And I'm like, What are you talking about? So I go and check on my TikTok. I've got 9,000 views at the town. I've got like a hundred people following me. I don't I didn't even know what was happening. Apparently, I tagged Page, Arizona as the location, and I went viral without even following anybody. And what started with 9,000 views, I think we're at what?

SPEAKER_01 27:57

Adam, like 30, 200 on your third first phone. Here we go. She posted three times in three days. And again, mind you, a Monday we didn't own the hotel. So this was just a little bit of a test case. I remember talk side about hey, do we put this on Instagram or whatever? Yo, look, like we gotta wait until we owned it. We claw where we just start pitching there, but yeah, that's exactly right. 33,000 views now. Again, I understand TikToks, maybe an average view is somebody thumbed over it for one second, so not all views are counted equal. And I think, anyways, I've been surprised just by the reach. But then, do you want to talk about like people are DMing you? People are commenting on the post, people are like it's not just a bunch of people just scanning past it, people are engaging on TikTok.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Yeah, that's exactly right. I've got over like a hundred messages, but the more important messages I would say are from general contractors or contractors asking if we need help with the renovation. And I've had about 10 individuals ask me if we're actually hiring, knowing the current state, and those videos are pretty vivid, they can see how badly in shape this property is currently, and they're still asking me if we're hiring. I didn't know that 2025 was the year that you could get a job on TikTok, but people are literally asking if this hotel is hiring. So I just I found that so surprising. I never expected, but it also just makes me even more excited because other people want to work, they're excited for the vision and they haven't even seen renders or mock-ups, they don't even know what we intend to do with this property. They just see a young guy coming in, recording videos, and they want to be a part of the journey. So that that really made me happy. But yeah, so now that we've closed, I've officially started posting on not only TikTok, but also on Instagram. Micah Invest is very easy to find me. And I'm going to document this entire journey. Every day I'm recording content. I want to show the good, the bad, the ugly. I'll probably end up in a hazmat suit at some point when the asbestos people come over. But I really just want to show the transformation, show how the worst hotel in Page, Arizona, can become the best hotel in Page, Arizona. Very excited. I didn't expect to be mini famous on TikTok or viral or whatever it's called, but I'm happy. I'm in I'm enjoying it. It's interesting to log on every now and then and see, oh, I'm at 30,000. I'm at 31,000. So very crazy.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Well, and look, had a special hat tip to Mark Simpson, so the CEO of Boostly, who we had on the pod a few weeks back. An incredible font of information, education. Again, he's runs a small and mighty team. His presence is outsized on the internet because of his passion and just education in the space. But I can't remember if it was on the pod or right after the pod, he had mentioned a couple people that he thought were really doing this well using social media to drive direct bookings. And one of the guys was Rajan Cheetah. And then again, I think I found Yanni in Chicago who's renovating like a bowling alley. And there's a guy in Chicago who bought. So, anyways, it feels like now, without realizing it, we just tripped into one account that led to another, that led to another. And now it almost feels like there's this community out there, people like us that are doing adaptive reuse. They're buying old stuff and they're rejuvenating it rather than going 50 miles outside of town and just starting with a blank canvas. That's cool too. But I think it's in some ways, I don't know, it's more interesting to take something that already has a story, already has a sense of place, and then reimagine it in its current footprint, but bring it back in maybe a different or unique way and use social media to document and tell that story. And I think didn't Joel again, I don't want to spill too much tea here, but it seems like maybe he even had a connection to one of these creators.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

Yeah, yeah. And that came as a surprise as well. So I'll just say, rah, Rajhan, like he knows Rajan personally. I can connect you guys if you want, but already so I had reached out to Rajan on Instagram and he was nice enough to respond back. I was just interested in like how he created his content, if he had somebody editing his videos, or if he did it himself, and like what his focus was. Are you focused on going viral or are you focused on engagement with your followers or conversion? Do you want to convert some of these followers into actual guests that stay at your property or for any other tool or software you may be selling? He was nice enough to reach out, and there's no surprise, I told you already, Adam, and I think you agreed. I would love to host him at our property once it's renovated or even during renovations, and not just him, but the other accounts of a few guys that we follow that are doing the same type of transformation on an older building and making it something really nice, new, and something that people can get excited about because people do love a great transition story. And I think that's exactly what we have. We have a very tired and old property, and the transition is going to be amazing. So excited to document, so happy to share this journey with the public.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

Yeah, absolutely. And look, this podcast, I think, is directed more towards short-term rental operators thinking about jumping into the commercial space. So, again, we're gonna go a little bit more, a little deeper into systems and a little bit more inside baseball onto that our transformation story. Again, we both started as Airbnb operators having a portfolio, being able to build systems and teams and do this remotely. But to jump, go from zero to one in the hotel space, it's a different game. And so I think again, social media can help us build awareness, tell the story. And for the first avatar, it feels like push them to the property. If you like these transformation stories, you want to participate. We're thinking about when and where we can engage the audience. Like we're picking paint colors right now. That might be an awesome thing to put out there to the audience just to see if people have points of view and build something with the community. So I can see that kind of avatar or that person out there engaging, listening to the story, and then maybe someday getting to visit the property. The same way I would love to go to Virginia to visit Rajin's property or Chicago to go to Spoling Valley. But I think this other avatar, the other person, and it's probably you listen listening to this right now. My guess is you're probably already in the Airbnb game or in the short-term rental space. You're thinking about could I make the leap into the commercial boutique hospitality space? And I'll just say the water's fine, come on in. There's so much space and opportunity in this new world. I think we're just getting started. This is like the first inning of the baseball game. So if you think, oh, it's too, I'm too late, or I got too many other things going on. Again, we're going all in on hotels. So it does require time and intensity, but I think the upside is just massive. So I think this is the first step on a staircase of personal growth, personal development, professional development. And hopefully we build something that matters, put a little dent in the universe, build something beautiful for Paige. And I don't know, will Hotel 2 be in Page? Probably not. I don't know. Again, we're just staying open to the universe at this point, staying open to opportunities, listening to our investors, seeing where, again, there might exist an opportunity for us to come in and reimagine. But I don't think this is some Adam and Mike are special characters, or this is not some secret playbook. There is a group of people actively doing this. We literally had a call today, Christmas Eve, where we got to show up and ask questions to Joel and other operators to get better. So, anyways, I we could talk about another five hours of stuff. But I would say if you're listening to this, you like this story, you're paying attention, you've thought about making a move into the commercial hospitality space, reach out, join us, set up at least a discovery call to find out what BHS Boutique Hotel Secrets is all about. Because we would not be here without that community, and we're not planning to leave that community. So again, you get front row seats to not only our transformation, but our mentors and other students doing the same exact play.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Yep. Couldn't agree more. This none of this could be possible without our community. And that's exactly right. We just keep it's like iron sharpens iron or yeah, iron sharpens iron. I think I said that. But anyway, there's operators in the community that just help each other out, and everybody's got a different approach. So you kind of fine-tune what you're doing based off of what other people have had success with, and they answer pretty much any and every question. If they don't have the answer, they can get you to the person who doesn't have the answer. So grateful for the community. And if this is something you're interested in doing, boutique hotel secrets is definitely a place where you want to look into.

SPEAKER_01 37:00

Yep. Amazing. Okay, I think that's a good cut point for us today. Uh but thank you again for tuning in to our story. Hopefully, this is educational, maybe even a little inspiring. Maybe again, rather than being a spectator or just viewing other people, other people's content. Look at Micah here. He's a content creator, he's doing it. Like, dare I say, You're God, you're a bloody influencer, young man. Oh my God. We're doing it. But look, we're not taking ourselves too seriously. Like, we're having fun out here, we're building something that matters. And if this is attractive, is this interesting? If you've always felt like you could be part of something bigger, maybe maybe this is your chance. 2026 is right around the corner, and we'd love to chat with you. Or again, hit us up on content you want to see, topics you want us to cover, guests that you'd like us to interview. So we're trying to educate and learn ourselves, but we'd love for you to be part of the ride. So, with that, thank you so much for tuning in. Micah, we're hotel owners. We closed.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

That's right. That's right. Couldn't be happier.

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Big smiles all the way around. All right, that's the pod. We'll catch you on the next one.