MI288: Experiencing Unique Stays w/ Ben Wolff

24:57Now I'm open to that and we've had her back and are happy to pay her because we know the value that's generated. But first time around, was not willing to do that. We just did a comp stay, right? She got to stay. She got loads of content. We did a giveaway with her via Instagram. And that's like right when I got the initial Instagram engine going. So got our Instagram page up. I was doing it myself. Didn't really know what I was doing, was just posting photos that we had. And we had good photos. We've since moved to really focusing on video because that has a way better chance of going viral. But at the time, just posting photos, she did a giveaway.

25:35We probably picked up, I don't know, 5 ,000 to 8 ,000 followers just from her giveaway. And in that first month, we did 10 ,000 indirect bookings with one of her posts. And then the following month, we did like, I think it was like 30 ,000 in direct bookings, also largely tied to another post that she did. So, I mean, the returns were just unbelievable, right? For giving up one comp night, which maybe the expected value on that night is, you know, 200 bucks or 250 bucks, some random weeknight in February, right? So at that point, it sounded like Instagram came first. You're now on Twitter. That's where you and I connected.

26:13Talk to us a little bit about just your social media strategy. We had mentioned Isaac French and he does a fantastic job in marketing. What's his place called? Live Oaks? Live Oak Lake. Live Oak Lake. Yeah. So talk to us a little bit more about just your strategy in general and how you're going about creating the content, creating the videos, creating Instagrammable moments that you can put out there. So we tried to outsource this stuff. Okay. We tried a number of agencies, both for my Twitter, for LinkedIn, for Onara's Instagram, Spirit of Sophia's Instagram. And we've just found that no one's going to do it like us, right?

26:50I mean, there's an element of that, which I wish there was an agency that I knew of that we could hire that would take it off our plate, but it has forced us to build this amazing internal team. So we have producers, editors, people that help with storyboarding, we have obviously copywriters and shooters. We have this whole team, some of which contract, some of which full-time. And how we're able to perform relative to when I was just goofing around myself and then even when we had the agency, it's remarkable the difference when we really focus on creating this highly engaging, well-thought-out, with strong hooks videos that you know, have subtlety and nuance to them and really like evoke emotion from our audience and inspire our audience to book.

27:39And you're getting these guests that are inspired. So they're willing to pay more, right? They're less price sensitive. And they're also, you know, we're cutting out the OTA fees. There's no booking platform fees. Say, explain what OTA fees are. Online travel agency. So that's Airbnb, booking.com, any of these, you know, we just call those OTA fees. So what Airbnb is charging 12 % to the guests and 3 % to the host. We're able to capture, let's say 80, 90 % of that margin. We try to create price parity on our website and Airbnb. We'll shave a percentage or two off on the website, but generally website bookings are getting driven from Instagram.

28:19And ironically enough, that audience is willing to pay more than Airbnb. Airbnb a lot of times is price shopping. Some of those guests are aspirational and just want the most unique, exciting stay, but they're comparing them against a bunch of other stays. Somebody goes to our Instagram page and then goes directly to our website. They're only comparing us to us. So talk to me about the staff at Onara. How are you guys managing all this? You mentioned a little bit about the online media, social media stuff, but talk to us more broadly in terms of the staff that you have there. Yeah, of course. So we have an onsite manager at Onara who's amazing.

28:56He actually, he worked at under canvas at one point. So he's got quite a bit of experience in this space. And yeah, he handles any like on the ground issues that we need. Then I have an offshore team in the Philippines. And I now have a dedicated team just for Onara. So there's a, I mean, that's not true. Onara, Spira, Sophia, and a few of our other like higher end homes. So more of the sort of higher end product line that we have. I have a dedicated team of five folks that are really just kind of cream of the crop. In the Philippines? In the Philippines. And we have a very robust hiring process to make sure that we're really getting the cream of the crop.

29:32And it's proven out. Are you using an agency to find overseas talent? Or how do you go about doing that? So I used to do it all myself through Upwork. And then I had my GM and other members of my team recruiting via Upwork as well. Upwork's gotten very crowded and competitive. It's harder and harder to attract talent and identify talent at decent rates. so went on a limb and saw I think Nick Huber posted about Support Shepherd his company that helps source folks from over there and we ended up working with them so our last hire we did through Support Shepherd the other members of the team were all through Upwork or referrals I've had a lot of luck with referrals so if I find one good person on Upwork they'll you know refer other people that they've worked with in other jobs or you know folks that they know are good but yeah our latest hire is from Support Shepherd and she's awesome she's she's really great.

30:24I will say, so they have a great policy where if you're not happy with your hire, they'll go out and find another one. And we had this scenario where we have this robust interviewing process, four interviews or something, did a bunch of tests. And this girl interviewed great. And we thought she was going to be fantastic. I was super excited about her. And on day one, it was just very clear that she wasn't a team player from the manager of that team was like, I'm sorry, she's not flexible with her schedule. She's basically just telling me how it's going to go. And I've learned over the years, hire slow, fire, fast.

31:01If we made a mistake and she interviewed well and it wasn't going to work out, just cut her loose right away. So that's what we did. We told Support Shepard, they got us another number of candidates. And within a month, we had another rock star who has proven out to be great. I think Nick is, I think he hired his first three people from Support Shepard and they were all fantastic. And I've got an episode with Nick coming out next week, actually. And he goes into all the different companies that he's up to lately. So he's got a lot going on. So I wanted to backtrack a little bit and talk about some of your career steps.

31:34You've had a really interesting career progression. And it seems like you're not afraid to make a 90-degree return, do something completely outside of the box. For somebody like that's early in their career, I just wanted to hear how you go about kind of pursuing a dream or pursuing what maybe could be called a calling. There's a lot of people that are probably just stuck in. I think I heard a stat yesterday that 80 % of people just don't like their careers, don't like their jobs. So can you talk a little bit about how you've gone about finding work that's right for you, pursuing and having the confidence to pursue the things that you've done?

32:09Yeah, happy to. I talk to my wife about this sometimes. It's like, I think I have this view, I'm willing to take risks clearly. And part of my philosophy is worst case scenario, I'll go get a job. I feel like I'm employable. I've been able to get jobs before. And I believe that if I fall flat on my face, I can go get a job. I think about worst case scenario and the worst case what'll happen is I'll get a job, I'll do well in it for a few years, and then I'll get the itch, and I'll try and start something else, right? That's just part of my makeup, right? I'm going to be restless if I'm working for somebody else for too long.

32:47And I think that having that perspective, and look, I've gotten my butt handed to me a few times. So I know what that's like. I know what it's like to fall flat on my face. And I've developed a bit of resilience, which I think helps to alleviate some of that fear that might be associated with getting stuck a job. And look, when it comes to a calling, if you would have asked me that three years ago, I would have said, I don't, I mean, I might not have been honest about it, but I didn't feel like what I was doing was my calling. I didn't think Airbnb management and building up this, you know, lease arbitrage company, like it wasn't my calling, but it made good money and I was scaling the operation and it was kind of interesting, interesting enough.

33:27And I thought that over the course, maybe I would find something that was more of my calling and that ended up happening, with Onara. I do certainly believe that unique stays, providing a one-of-a-kind experience, I have found something that I truly love. And I am so grateful for that because there was a long time I was like, I don't know if I'm ever going to find that, which I think most people feel. I definitely was there. And I also, there was a lot of time I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur and start my own thing, but I didn't think I was creative enough. I mean, this limiting belief, I'm a good executor.

33:59I'm really good at having a sense of urgency and pushing things forward. and kind of being responsible for a wide set of functions and whatnot and developing people and all that. But I didn't think I was creative enough. But I did think that I could stop talent and I could stop what is interesting and help refine it and make it even better. And that's kind of what I've done with Onara and future developments, right? I work with creatives. So I have architects and designers and all these folks that I collaborate with in order to create these amazing spaces. And then again, it's about not being afraid to ask a bank for millions of dollars to build tree houses or it's just, you really have to get past that idea and really that fear.

34:43Did you have any books or podcasts or mentors early on that have influenced you during this course of your entrepreneurial life? So my dad gave me and I read super early how to win friends and influence people. I don't remember like specific chapters or anything like that, but I do remember, and I was like a teenager, I think. I do think it started me on this quest of learning how to work well with others, right? And to persuade people and, you know, be likable, I think is important. And I think kind of parlayed into charisma and being also being genuine. I I think that's an element, like a genuineness and being able to establish trust is something that is a big part of who I am.

35:30And I'm able to leverage that. I mean, not even consciously, but just subconsciously. I'm able to leverage that into building relationships really quickly, getting a bank to trust me that I'm going to build this$5 million micro treehouse resort and it's going to do super well. So yeah, I think that book really helped get me on the path. In terms of people, I mean, certainly Jesse, my partner and co-founder now, I mean, I used to work for him. So he got me into the whole Airbnb game, right? He had an Airbnb short-term rental management company called Sense Day back in like, I think they started around maybe 2012, 2013, something like that.

36:05And I worked for him in 2014, helped do some business development, helped to launch a boutique hotel that they had purchased in San Francisco. he saw potential in me early. I mean, I was in my mid twenties, right? He was, you know, late thirties CEO, founder of, of this company. And we always stayed in touch and, and, you know, remained friends and did some trips together and stuff like that. And I always, first of all, he kind of got me into this Airbnb space in general. And then I think I mentioned he had this compound in Joshua tree that got my, my wheels kind of turning around unique stays and glamping and all the rest.

36:40But, you know, it's funny you talk to him, he'll tell you that like, I kind of took what he was doing and took it to the nth degree, right? He had a converted bus and a garage and all this stuff. And then I went and created Monarch, right? It was like 10 steps removed from what he was doing. But then he came to Onara and saw what I was doing and was just like, man, your biggest mistake was you didn't do more, right? You didn't build more. I was kind of joking, right? I mean, I was limited from a resource standpoint, but yeah. And then, I mean, he's the best that I know and the best that a lot of really credible folks in our space know for revenue management, pricing optimization.

37:15He's a math and expected value whiz. And I knew how much value that was going to bring to our business. So I paid a lot in equity and salary to get him on board. And he's one of the best I know at getting up to speed on something really quickly. So going zero to 85, 90, and then becoming the best at something. He's really good and process oriented when it comes to that. And he's actually the one driving and sort of leading a lot of the engine of our social team right now. And I know he's already gone from our best performing video reel without collaborators was probably like 10 ,000 views or something.

37:52And now we have multiple videos with 250 ,000 views and we've only been doing it for a couple months. So he's just, if I can let him kind of go off and figure stuff out and I handle everything else and help build the team and lead the vision, have this big vision that we're driving towards and allow him to innovate. It's a really good balanced setup we have. Let's take a quick break and hear from today's sponsors. Hey, it's Sean O'Malley, just popping in with a quick message. If you like this podcast, well, I've got great news for you. We've got a handful of other shows for you to explore, from learning about Bitcoin to embracing a richer, wiser, happier lifestyle.

38:35Just go into your podcast app and type in We Study Billionaires to find our collection of shows. We Study Billionaires is our flagship podcast, and we've made a name for ourselves over the years by interviewing the best investors in the world, including Ray Dalio, Howard Marks, Joel Greenblatt, and many, many more. My colleagues Stig Brodersen, Clay Fink, Kyle Grieve, Preston Pysh, and William Green each hosts their own We Study Billionaires episodes and bring their own unique perspectives. A whole new world of insights awaits you. Just go ahead and type in We Study Billionaires into your podcast app and see what you've been missing out on.

39:11Seriously, go ahead. I promise you'll like what you find. Bonus points if you show your support for our work by clicking follow. If something piques your interest, just start listening. No hard feelings. I'll be waiting for you back here. Just like everybody else, there was a time when I was a beginner investor. And I have to say, investing is particularly filled with jargon that can just make it so difficult for new investors to understand what is going on. But it's never too late to get smarter about stock investing from the ground up. At The Investors Podcast Network, we've made a habit of studying the world's best investors.

39:40And now I'm distilling those learnings into a simple course for you or for anyone in your life who you might want to share the gift of knowledge with. With my How to Get Started with Stocks course, you can master the principles of excellent lifelong investing with valuable insights for both beginners and pros. The course covers 10 different sections, beginning with the basics of what a stock actually is and how the stock markets work, to strategies to optimize your retirement savings, how to pick great companies for the long term, what to look for in ETFs, and how to monitor your investments, plus so much more.

40:11To begin getting smarter about investing, just visit theinvestorspodcast.com slash get started with stocks. That's theinvestorspodcast.com slash get started with stocks. And for a limited time, you can use code STOCKS15 for a 15 % discount at checkout. Not to be cliche, but building a market-beating portfolio really doesn't have to be a mystery, at least with the right tools. If you've listened to our podcast for a while, then you know we spend a lot of time learning from savvy investors. So why not use the same tools we do? With TIP Finance, you can. Screening for great companies, calculating intrinsic value, keeping up with legendary investors' portfolios, and more are all not just possible but easy to do.

40:58TIP Finance was created by investors for investors. It's quite literally the tools we wanted to use ourselves when researching investments in a simple-to-use interface. You can get started by creating an account for free. Who knows, maybe TIP Finance will help you find your next 100-to-1 investment. Between the screener and Legend Investment portfolios to reference, I've gotten a ton of ideas from TIP Finance. What are you waiting for? Take the next step in your investment journey today with the right tools at your fingertips. Grab your device and type into your browser, theinvestorspodcast.com slash TIP-finance to get started.

41:36That's theinvestorspodcast.com slash TIP-finance. All right, back to the show. I wanted to hear what part of all this you enjoy the most, like the visioning strategy part of it, the architectural part of creating the actual properties themselves, managing the staff, building the company. What part of it are you enjoying the most? So there is something about development that's really special to me. Seeing a piece of raw dirt, you know, land and being able to envision what that can become and then turning it into that thing is very exciting to me and empowering. And it's just super cool. And the various stages along the way, right?

42:19So like finding that perfect piece of land that I go and I'm like, this is it. I've seen 20 other places. I'm depressed that I'm not going to find the one and then I find the one. And I just know that's super exciting. And then the initial concepting, right? Like walking the site with architects and designers and figuring out what we're going to do, letting the land speak to us a little bit, like what makes sense where, and then iterating on the concept. So then it's like concept deck. Oh, wow. This is the site plan. These are the kind of units that we're actually going to do. They're going to blow people away.

42:53And then it's the like clearing, okay, this is where the units are going to go. This was just like a forest. Now I can start to see where they're going to go. And then it's, you know, ground up. The utilities and infrastructure isn't all that exciting to me, right? But once we're ground up and, you know, can actually see the unit where it's going and then the finished products, I mean, it's, there's not much like it. And then, so the development side, on the other side of things, I mean, look, I love building the organization that we have and really trying to only attract top tier talent. Because one thing that I've found is that the best way to piss off an A player is surround them with C players, right?

43:30So really trying to make sure we only have A players around us, which is really hard. It's super easy to get discouraged and be like, I'm not going to find the right person. Let's just fill the gap with whoever we need to. And it's just, you're doing yourself and your team a disservice. So trying to craft the organization, our mission values and really development of people internally. That's exciting to me too and continuing to improve that. You've got a project underway now. Can you talk about that? I think it's 28 units. It's kind of a mix. I wanted to hear more about your next project that you guys are up to.

44:04I can. Yeah. And this was really the property I was talking about when I said, this is it. When I saw the land, I mean, O 'Neara Fredericksburg, I loved. It's half a mile from Main Street. It's in this little forest that looks off the beaten path. It's on a creek that's really beautiful and nice and serene. But the Onero-Wimberley property is breathtaking. I mean, it's perched on top of a hill a couple miles from Wimberley Square, which is a really cool, vibey, kind of hippy-dippy nature-focused town in Central Texas. Really cool views. They have a lot of water features like Blue Hole, Jacob's Well.

44:40There's a number of these kind of water feature, natural water feature attractions. And Cypress Creek runs through the main town of Wimberley. You have all these restaurants and stuff on this creek with cypress trees that are massive and hundreds of years old. It's super cool and not something you would think would be in Texas, but it is and it's super cool. So found this piece of land that just has these views that go on for, I mean, I have to find out the exact number because I just throw stuff out there, but it's got to be 100 miles, right? They go on for a long time and there's a lot of topography change.

45:12So it just creates a lot of drama with the view as well. And they're west facing. So you get these incredible sunsets on top of it. So I mean, I saw this land. I was actually with my wife who was pregnant, my mother-in-law. Like I said, I got under contract the next day, got close with the owners, found out they were selling this five acre parcel up top and they own 14 acres down below and found out they were kind of interested in maybe selling that. and figured out a way to pull that away as well and get a better price per acre actually on the whole thing by buying the whole kit and caboodle and doing a much bigger project than I thought I was going to do.

45:50I thought we were going to do 10 units on that little five-acre parcel. And it turns out we're doing 28 units on a 20-acre parcel within a vent barn and this beautiful infinity edge pool and all facing these killer views. And the five-acre top parcel, with some of the best views. We're doing very similar units to Spyglass. They're a little bigger, bigger decks on the end, but still hot tip on the end, that kind of tubular shape and kind of poking out from the side of the hill with all these trees interspersed. So it's a really good unit for the land there because there's not a ton of land. So we needed narrow units and we also had to figure out how to create privacy with those kind of narrow shooted units.

46:33So the spyglass or similar unit made a lot of sense. And then down below, we have a new unit type that we're calling the greenhouse, which is kind of similar to Walnut. If you've seen that on the Onera site, it's kind of similar to a container home, but it's not a container home, a box. And it just has these floor to ceiling, massive windows in the front, tons of glass facing this amazing view, generous deck out that window and sliding doors with a hot tub, all facing this view. And then there's a vegetated rooftop deck on the top of the unit. So it kind of blends into the hillside is the goal, right?

47:08We're going to have this natural kind of prairie grass and various native Texas grasses that are going to grow on the roof. I think, who's the treehouse guy, Pete? Do you know the treehouse master? Do you know that show? I do know the show. I don't know the guy's name. I'm blanking on his name, but he had a project, a treehouse that he did with a live living roof that look pretty fun to do with the watering system up there and everything. We're going to, so water is a big issue in Central Texas. So we're really trying to be very conscious, doing native as much as possible and trying to minimize the irrigation requirements that we're going to need.

47:44Is artistry involved in this one? They are involved in this one. They helped a lot of the concepting and initial. And we have some other local architects. They're really more so in California these days. So we're working with some more local architects on the stage that we're at now, which is really like construction administration and more of the brass tacks of getting the thing built. And it's cool. I mean, foundations are poured. We're getting framed up. I mean, you can see what this thing's going to be. Are you posting this stuff on Twitter? Not yet, but we will be. We will be posting it on Twitter.

48:17I actually have our new lead producer, who's also a videographer, is coming to Central Texas next week. And we're going to do a few hours out there and we're going to shoot. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think there's so many people on real estate Twitter that would be fascinated by this and love to follow the progress. I had Antonia Botero on. Botero, she's out in Park City, Utah. I don't know if you follow her on Twitter. She's great. But she's building her dream house out in Park City and just documenting the whole thing on Twitter and it's just fun to follow her, like the stages of it. And I think something similar with this in Wimberley would be awesome too.

48:54Yeah, totally agree. I mean, we've been talking about it and it's just a matter of like getting out there, shooting and putting it out. So talk to me a little bit more. You've also got a place in Palm Springs called the Spirit of Sophia. Talk to us about that project, what that was like to do. Sure. So Spirit of Sophia is another asset in the real estate fund that I raised with John. And the whole idea around Spirit of Sophia is boutique hotel renovation. So we bought an existing boutique hotel that was kind of vanilla, right? I mean, everything was white. It was kind of Spanish revival, Mediterranean style.

49:33It had pretty good bones, but there wasn't a whole lot of pizzazz, right? And we basically just tried to go as vibey, Instagrammable, and fun as we possibly could with that property. And I will say too, I hired a great designer who actually works on our social team now as well. And Jesse was living out in Southern California. So he was helping a lot with that project as well. And thankfully, Onara, I was involved in every little step along the way. Thankfully with Spirit of Sophia, I was able to have my team really bring that to life and just be kind of a checkpoint along the way, which was really awesome thinking about how we scale this, like how we do more of these projects and really churn them out.

50:16So yeah, the idea with Spirit of Sophia was how do we bring it to life? And also it's a 23 bedroom, but there's two sides. So there's an 11 bedroom side and a 12 bedroom side. So you can rent it as like a big group. And then we also thought we could rent individual rooms as well. Came to find out that renting to the big groups was the more profitable and a higher margin and less operational headache than doing 11 individual check-ins and check-outs, different guests. So we leaned into that and we really targeted the amenity stack around that. We turned the lobby into more of a dining room kitchen.

50:53We turned what was the spa into a three-bedroom villa with a living room. we created these beautiful outdoor dining spaces and this big green turf area, which is super Instagrammable with like this cozy nook with a bunch of mirrors in the back and just tried to make it as attractive from a design standpoint and really like fun and as we could. We call it the Palm Springiest experience in all of Palm Springs, right? Then that's kind of like our running joke, right? We just tried to lean into the rainbows and the, you know, the turf and the twinkle lights and, you know, all this kind of stuff. And it has this beautiful backdrop of the mountains.

51:31So you get these amazing photos, but you're right in the heart of Palm Springs, which is part of the beauty of Palm Springs, right? It's that you have this beautiful mid-century architecture. You have these amazing mountains behind you. And you also have these like cool hip shops and restaurants and all this fun things to do right downtown. And golf courses all around. And golf courses. Right. Yes. So like an average day, is your most of your focus on Wimberley right now? Or are you thinking bigger picture? Like what's the next project? Where are we headed with this? Talk to us just about an average day for you.

52:03Yeah. So I'm definitely managing a lot of things, but I have really, really good people around me. I feel as well supported as I ever have in my career. And some of that comes down to, I'm not willing to skimp right on the people that I hire. I will pay more for better people. My GC today, I know he's a little more expensive. I mean, he's more expensive than the first GC that I hired, but the first GC that I hired came in 50 % over budget. And I know my guy now is going to give me a number that he's going to hit or come under. And I trust him to the nth degree. We have a weekly meeting out there.

52:36He brings stuff to me that he needs to, but I don't have to micromanage him at all. I know he's going to figure it out. So as much as I can trying to put people like that around me, my partner, Jesse, that I mentioned, he's sort of leading and helping build this social machine and checking in with me along the way. I mean, right now we're building this new department. So we're talking more than usual, hour, hour and a half a day, in a lot of cases, trying to figure out the best path forward and how we're going to roll this out. But sorry, when we're not building up a new department, we may only talk 20, 30 minutes a day.

53:10That new department is social media related? Exactly. Yeah. Social media. So content creation, working with influencers and collaborators. So continuing to build that network and recruit them and manage them and all that. And then just the social media management, right? Posting and captions and community engagement, all that kind of stuff. So yeah, we're doing that for ourselves, honing it for ourselves. We do have third-party clients already. And we are at the stage where we can really bring on additional third party clients and we think blow it out of the water for them, really perform. And that kind of gets into this full service revenue management approach that we're taking.

53:48So it's this like holistic revenue management approach and revenue growth approach. So it's pricing optimization, guest experience and customer service. And then you layer social on top of that. And the content creation, engaging videos that have the chance to go viral, and then social media influencers to help grow the audience. It's this perfect storm of, I mean, we can bump you from where you're at 10, 15, 20, 25%, sometimes more. And we try to only work with third-party clients that are willing to invest in their products, right? Like they want to be one of one in their market. They're willing to invest in that.

54:28We don't want to work with clients that are like skimping and trying to cut corners and offer like a value product because it doesn't serve us. It doesn't serve them. It's not best suited for social and it's not best suited for our model. So are you doing active outreach then for these third-party people or are they approaching you? Right now they're approaching us. It's all inbound. And we started it talks about, I have my hands full with Onera Wimberly, Onera Fredericksburg, kind of continuing to build out this team, work with my various departments and make sure the machine is sort of running the way it should be, building out systems and processes so we can scale.

55:03We've done a lot of that. So we're definitely able to bring on a number of quality targeted clients, but we're not quite at the point of like, I want to do a bunch of outbound. And I just believe in this strategy of pull a little more than push, right? If what I say resonates with people and the type of products we have resonates with people, I'm hoping that will attract, and so far it has, attract like-minded folks that want to deliver a higher-end, unique one-of-one experience. I'm not getting a lot of people that are like, oh, I'm throwing up tents in the backyard. Will you help me price them?

55:36It's not really the audience. I mean, I talk a lot about spend more to make more, not how to cost cut. So where do you see the unique stays market going in the next three to five, 10 years? So I definitely believe that there's still room in this kind of higher end piece of the market. I think there's some more inventory coming out there, but the space is kind of glutted with this mid-tier products, right? Most of the big brands are, in my opinion, mid-tier, AutoCamp, UnderCanvas, Getaway is even more of a value product. So I still think there's a lot of room on that top tier. And I think people are willing to pay.

56:14I mean, we've seen that, Our top performing units cost us more, but it's paying for itself in less than a year, the additional cost. So it just makes sense to spend more and do it higher end and better. I also think that, as I said earlier, if you're a traveler and you have the option to stay at a four-star, maybe even a five-star chain hotel or stay at this one-of-a-kind tree house at Oneira. Yeah, you have to go off property to eat dinner, but maybe you like that anyway. I just think that people are going to choose that option that's more experiential. You feel like you're getting so much more for your money in a different way than a traditional hotel.

56:56I love hearing about these stories. This is really great stuff that you're up to. And I really admire all that you've created so far and looking forward to seeing what's on your future horizon. Thank you, Patrick. Appreciate it. Loved chopping it up. Hopefully you got some good stuff. Yeah, this is great, Ben. So for our listeners that just wanted to learn more about you, learn more about Onera, get in contact with you, what's the best way for them to do that? Yeah. So you follow me on Twitter at UniqueStaysGuy. Feel free to follow me. You'll hear me talk on about a lot of the stuff that we started to touch on in this podcast.

57:28Welcome to DM me as well. You can find me on LinkedIn, just search Ben Wolf Onera. I should pop right up and you can reach out to me that way as well. And certainly follow us at StayOnera, at Spirit of Sophia on Instagram. I think we're pumping out some really cool stuff. And if you want to come stay with us here in the area, I think we offer a pretty one-of-a-kind experience. Absolutely. I'll put show notes to all the websites and everything so people can find that easily. Ben, thanks a lot for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay, folks, that's all I had for today's episode.

58:00I hope you enjoyed the show and I'll see you back here real soon. Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to subscribe to We Study Billionaires by the Investors Podcast Network. Every Wednesday, we teach you about Bitcoin. And every Saturday, we study billionaires and the financial markets. To access our show notes, transcripts or courses, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decision, consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by the Investors Podcast Network. Written permission must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.