187. This Social Media Strategy Drove $800,000 in the first year

0:00At 23 years old, Isaac French was managing a 6 million construction project. He had the title, the paycheck, the path laid out, but something was missing. He'd stare at blueprints designed by someone else and think, what if we did it differently? The creativity, the design, the experience, none of it was his, so he made a bold move. During the quiet stillness of COVID, he found a plot of land near Lake in Waco, Texas and saw something no one else did, the start of a hospitality business built around moments, not just money. One year later, over$1 million in revenue, half a million in profit in a brand with 260 ,000 followers.

0:35What started as a$20 ,000 investment, we hit a million bucks in revenue in just year one. And that's because it was not about scale, it was about strategy. We net$550 ,000 in profit in that first 12 months and I didn't even hire an architect. You don't need a massive budget to win in hospitality. The moment I stopped trying to compete on price and started focusing on the experience, our revenue tripled. This is Ryan Atkinson, and you're listening to the Upflip Podcast, where we uncover the secrets of building and running successful businesses. I am so excited to welcome Isaac French to the show today.

1:10He has built such an incredible business and excited to talk about doing the same and hospitality in general. So Isaac, thank you so, so much for being here. Ryan, it's a pleasure to be. It's going to be great. And let's really wind back the clock just to lay the foundation for all the listeners here. Take us back to the moment when you saw Empty Land and Waco during COVID. What did you see that made you think, this is it? Yeah. So just a little bit of context, I had grown up working in construction. And as you mentioned, when I was 22, 23, was running multimillion dollar projects, very industrious family.

1:40And we were always building stuff from the time we were six and seven on. So I had that experience. But when the Live Oak Lake opportunity came along, I was actually self-employed as a bookkeeper earning about 40 grand a year. and you know I really felt like I had all these passions and I was very artistic at heart and wanted yeah as you mentioned to build a project that I could kind of control the outcome in the design the creative aspects as well and so I had this idea to create this village of cabins and I really didn't see anything else like this in the country really anywhere that I'd ever seen and so I just started looking for land diligently really just nothing super complicated on Zillow really And one morning happened to stumble across this five and a half acre parcel that was just a briar infested jungle that I had driven by a hundred plus times and never thought anything of.

2:30But one of the thumbnail photos showed this little muddy cow pond in the middle. It wasn't even a lake. And I was like, wow, I didn't know that was there. And so I drove over. So six hours after the property had been listed, I was on site with the listing agent and just had chills from that first moment. when I stepped on, I saw these two or three massive legacy live oak trees. And I just felt like this is a hidden gem and we could really polish this into something that's remarkable. And so got under contract that day and we were off to the races. Oh my gosh, that is incredible. Let's talk about going off to the races here.

3:01You get the contract to sign it. You're like, okay, let's actually move forward with this. What was like those first investments or those first steps you took to like really bring this to life? So first call I made was to my dad and my brothers to tell him, and they knew I was kind of searching out this idea. But at 24 years old, self-employed with$40 ,000 of income coming in, I didn't think I knew I wouldn't be very bankable. So I was going to try to find somebody to at least co-sign on a loan for me. And we negotiated, but they agreed. And my next call was banks. And I got told no. I got laughed at.

3:31I mean, it was one thing after another, as you can imagine. Finally, I found this local community bank here in Waco that agreed to take a risk. And my dad was a personal guarantor and I got a construction loan for 80 % of the value. That whole process ended up taking about four months. So in the meantime, I didn't let any grass grow under my feet. Day two and three, I was on site at Live Oak Lake, just walking every square inch of that place to try to understand the topography, the lay of the land and let the land speak to me as far as what we should build there and how many cabins and what type and how they should be oriented.

4:03And so I was really like building a site plan from the ground up. And And thankfully, we're outside of the city limits. So there wasn't a lot of regulation. And so I didn't even really need engineers for any of it. I just kind of, with my construction experience, started designing and literally scribbling on an iPad with a drone shot. Came up with a plan. We ended up closing on that land 30 days after that first day. We were 30-day cash close. And so we were rocking and rolling. And I was able to get some temporary investment for, I also had about$20 ,000 saved up, but basically poured every penny I had into kind of that initial horizontal phase where we were clearing the day after we closed.

4:41I was on site with a chainsaw in hand and burning brush and mulching. We started digging trenches, laying utilities and really just, I mean, bet the farm because again, the loan process took four months. So we were working that entire time. We ended up spending about$300 ,000 without any guarantee of a loan. But I was like, we're going to get a loan one way or another. And I just had that confidence and it ended up coming through. I want to ask, was this fearful at all? I mean, you're 24 years old, you're getting loans, you're getting family involved in this process at all. I mean, talk to us about 24-year-old Isaac.

5:11Were you scared at all during this? No, I don't think fear ever really entered my radar. I was just too busy and too high on adrenaline, to be honest. I'd been really, in some ways, preparing my whole life for that moment because all of my experiences previously had really equipped me with all of the skills that I needed, not to be the expert at it, but to get the answers I needed and to execute. And so I didn't have time to be scared. I mean, I was working 80 hours a week. And I should also mention, within a few weeks of that, I bought a five-acre piece of property 10 minutes down the road with another loan from a different bank I was able to find.

5:45This loan was easier to get because it was for a spec house that they could understand better and built a$500 ,000 spec home in four and a half months and sold that for$700 ,000 in five months. So I was able to roll all of that profit into Liboclake. But between those two projects, the workload was excruciating. And yet it was a blast because I was doing what I loved. And so then it's not really work. So I didn't really have time to be scared. Yeah, no, that's so, so good. Listener, stay tuned because we are going to dive into like how you can build a hospitality business. Before we do that, Isaac, I think it would help to like really paint the picture for our listeners about what Live Oak was and like what was there.

6:19So talk to us more about like the cabins you had there. Talk to us about this lake, the experiences you provided, and then we're going to dive into how someone can replicate that. So stay tuned listeners. But Isaac, take us from there. Yeah. So to make the construction story a long story short, it took us nine and a half months start to finish. What we ended up with was seven very beautifully designed Nordic inspired cabins, about 500 square feet a piece nestled around the lake in the trees. The lake is about two acres, so it's not really a lake, but the shape of it, we ended up digging out that pond and adding aerators, making it all beautiful, landscaping the entire property just spectacularly.

6:54There's walking trails. There's kayaking and fishing. It created a commons area with a pergola and a shipping container turned into a swimming pool with a 10 foot window cut in the side that's on the edge of the lake. It's really, really beautiful. Everything from when you pull up the first impressions, the gate, the lighting, the plants, the winding pathways, the signage, it's all been thought through. And it's just a million little details that have all been executed and they come together and create this magical experience. And so when guests would come on site, they would tell me all the time, it felt like we were going to a different world.

7:26Like it just felt transportive, like it was magical. And so that was the best compliment ever. And so it was this whole European kind of Nordic vibe that we just kind of transplanted into this little oasis in Texas. And then of course we had some hospitality layered into that as well. So I was very averse to the idea of like building out a huge team and having to run that. And I'm more of a builder at heart, more of a visionary, but I wanted to automate the place as much as I could. So we ended up running the entire place with two part-time employees for everything, plus a small team for cleaning, which is piecework and some landscape contractors.

8:02But through a pretty robust stack of software and smart home hardware, we were able to automate check-in, temperatures, lighting, messaging, and have very, very minimal human touch, and yet still have these very thoughtful touch points. So the welcome gift and the personalized messages and the guest book. I spent, you know, 30 hours crafting a guest book that would give instructions for the home and tell our story in it and just took these like forgotten areas that would be even friction points sometimes like checking instructions and made him fun, made him design beautifully and interesting and, you know, fresh baked cookies on arrival for the guests and just these little incredible pieces that came together to create that emotional connection with the guess.

8:45So it wasn't just the hardware, but you had the software component as well. Oh, that is so, so good. That paints like a beautiful picture right there to talk about like how in depth like this truly was. Most people spend months, sometimes years, just thinking about starting a business. But what if you could do it in just 10 days? That's exactly what the 10 day business launch plan is designed for. It's a step-by-step roadmap that takes you from idea to real operational business in just 10 days. Click the link in the description below and get ready with your business. I want to zoom in now and like talk about how someone else gets started with something similar, maybe not to that scale.

9:19So we could really like zoom down to maybe like one or two Airbnb properties or experiential properties, however you want to call it. Let's say someone's okay. I'm interested in doing something similar to here. How should they identify potential properties that would do well, like something like this where they see the potential? Yeah. So to start with, I always give this piece of advice to everyone, no matter how big your budget is or your appetite, build less units, build fewer units, but spend more money on them. And so I love this idea of starting with like one, two, three, you don't need to build something super expansive.

9:50And just through that, you're already creating this scarcity and this exclusivity. And you know, you're setting yourself up to just totally over deliver because then you can just focus and concentrate your efforts both in the building and in the operations on a few premium experiences. So there's a whole range of things people can do Go out and find two to five acres, say within two hours of a major metro area, call that a million plus people. So you're two hours outside, the land's a lot cheaper. There's probably a lot less red tape. Look for red states over blue states, generally speaking. Bonus points for like the deep south or places like Texas, because if you're in unincorporated parts of the county, you just have so much leeway as far as building.

10:31The downside is, of course, you don't have the high barrier to entry for competitors. but I've never been worried about that because if you are a doer and you can execute and you have a vision, then getting to market and then building a brand around that gives you the biggest moat you'll ever need and telling your story well. So go out and find two to five acres and ideally trees are the number one thing because I said invest in landscaping, but you can't just buy one of those massive live oaks I was describing. You can buy a little one, but it takes a long time for that to grow. And so if it has like mature trees, that's fantastic.

11:01That way you can create some privacy, some seclusion. And then yeah, spend all of your budget. If you want to build five cabins, shrink that down and build two cabins and spend that entire budget on those two to make them just exceptional experiences that are unlike anything else, whether that's a tree house or an A-frame or a modern cabin like Live Oak Lake. If you want something even more budget, you could go a prefab route. There's a lot of great prefabs out there that are designed forward, or maybe even depending on your climate and your seasonality, you could do like a tent. Those are very low barrier to entry.

11:33And maybe that's like a minimum viable product or experience that you can create, test the concept, start getting two, 300 bucks a night. And then with some of that cash flow, then you can invest in a more extensive unit and an experience. And then final point is as you expand. So if you start with two or three cabins and you end up getting to five or 10, even at two or three, you want to have a space ideally where people could have like a micro wedding or a small event, especially if you're going to have five plus units. I cannot tell you how high the demand is for those right now. And if you're already investing in creating the setting and the vibe, then this is the easy part.

12:10Just have that space, be intentional about it and set up those Instagrammable moments, regardless of the space where people are just going to want to come for their event. Now you've all of a sudden layered in an entirely new demand driver and that you can charge a premium for as an experience. So those are my biggest tips. So talk to us, like, how did you price Live Oaks, like a room? I know you had a VIP package. And then what were your revenues first year and second year? Yeah. So, I mean, we use dynamic pricing. So our nights ranged from$300 a night on the low end to over$1 ,500 a night for some of the most expensive.

12:45And then we had an extra about 100 grand per year, in addition to lodging on the experience packages, simple romance, birthday experiences, extras that we would add. And there's a whole science to dynamic pricing and doing it well, but you definitely want to employ that if you want to squeeze all the juice out of this. And, you know, again, people are so willing to pay a premium. They're not price shopping. Also, when you're distributing through Instagram versus an OTA like Airbnb, it's much less transactional and comparison based. And so they're not scrolling past, you know, five or 10 or 20 other properties and then trying to like basically price shop.

13:20They're finding you through immersive, compelling content, video content. And so it's very aspirational. It's a very kind of instantaneous, like FOMO feeling. I want to be there and I want to experience that. And so price is really not usually the first factor in a lot of these guests purchasing behavior. And so yeah, you can charge that premium. Our average was about$550 per night if you equaled everything out. And that went up over time too. So we probably started at around an average of around 375 and we ended up to about a 550 average. Nice. So, so good. And thank you for that transparency there.

13:50I really want to hand the design piece of that because obviously that's what you're like, like a master. I mean, mastering at all, but like a master in the design portion, because I do think you have taken a very thoughtful approach to like designing these experiences. So what are like two or three design principles you have for designing an experiential event? What are like two or three design principles? Well, I mentioned the one about landscapes, and that really applies inside and out. So more windows to see those landscapes, more real plants inside the units, not fake stuff. It makes a huge difference.

14:21People can feel it, they're going to feel more alive, I promise you it works. I would also say, be careful. This one's maybe a little contrarian, but don't go overboard when it comes to amenities. A lot of people see kind of will agree with me on the experience thing, but they don't necessarily have the taste to know how to put the pieces together. And so they'll just shotgun approach amenities and they'll have, you know, every imaginable game and, you know, flashy wellness product or experience, whatever. They'll just start layering things in and basically, you know, mini golf and this, that, the other thing, And in my opinion, those experiences just, they kind of, if you're trying to please everyone, if you're trying to design for everyone, you're really designing for no one.

14:57I guess that's the way to say this. And so be very specific on who your avatar is. In my case, you know, we did have a spectrum of guests, but our number one was romantic couples getaways here in Texas. And we even had, you know, an income bracket and we certainly had a location. They were in that Texas triangle area. These were people that were willing to spend a premium and wanted a beautiful Instagrammable destination. And so the amenities that we added were subtle, but very thought through. And so the container pool was one of them that just made perfect sense given our climate, also given the aesthetic of the cabins.

15:30We added hot tubs, which I was actually surprised, but here in Texas, we tested it with one or two of the cabins and they crushed. We got about a$50 premium ADR. So we added those to all of them. Saunas are a big thing right now. And like, especially like wood barrel saunas and especially in Northern climates, but yeah, avoid the amenity salad is what I'll call it, of just throwing everything you can. And again, apply that philosophy of build fewer things and spend more money to the amenities themselves and just invest, especially in interiors. You want to have fantastic textures, tons of glass, furnishings.

16:03You got to balance durability with design, but they're both going to cost a premium for your furniture and furnishings, but, and like appliances, it's so worth it. Custom cabinetry. We had micro kitchens in each of the cabins. And again, nothing was modular. It was all custom. And guests appreciate those little details. Really, really good. So listeners, we've talked so far about like getting started hospitality as well. But Isaac, a super important part of your story, as you said, is like making something Instagrammable. So let's dive into like the marketing piece with them. We're gonna dive into operations.

16:32But speaking to marketing, you grew your Instagram to 100 ,000 plus in a year, which is amazing. What was your approach to that? Did you use ads, influencers, something else? Was it just that Instagrammable? Talk to us about the marketing piece of that on social media? Yeah. So the funny part is that it actually started because we got kicked off of Airbnb two weeks after we launched. So we had this, you know, exhausting construction process and$2.3 million launch, have a fantastic launch in Airbnb. And two weeks later, I wake up and the entire account is suspended. Actually, it was a really, really rotten feeling.

17:02I couldn't do anything about it. Customer service was like, sorry, that's a different department. It's out of our control. And so I had to get creative. And so I ended up calling a travel influencer. Someone tipped me off to this idea, but I called a travel influencer in our area. And this was really kind of a new concept at the time, especially paid her$950. And she ran a two night giveaway collaboration with me with a brand new account, whipped up a direct booking site, you know, so we could funnel that attention to our own platform. And in seven days, we got 40 grand of direct bookings and about 5 ,000 followers from scratch on a$950 giveaway.

17:36So I just was like, this is insane. What was potentially like the end of our business, quite literally, became the biggest catalyst for growth that we could have ever engineered. It was incredible. And as fate would have it, like four days after that giveaway concluded, Airbnb restored our account. So had that window not come, I would never have invested like I did in Instagram. And so from that moment on, Airbnb took a backseat. We went all out with these influencer collabs. And in the first six months, we spent about 50 grand and learned so much about who to partner with, who not to partner with, and how to structure these collabs.

18:10But that 50 grand got us our first 50-ish thousand followers and took us to about 70 % direct bookings. And then at that point, we really started investing into our own content and understanding storytelling and virality, what the algorithm wanted. And then we just kind of created a machine around that and started pumping out content, you know, one reel every other day and grew organically to now over 200 ,000 followers just on Instagram and drove 80 plus percent of all bookings direct. So you mentioned a million bucks of revenue in year one, and that's right. 80 % of that's direct. $800 ,000 of that came through our channel and you save 15 % of commission that goes pure to your bottom line.

18:50So, you know, 130 grand of extra profit, plus we had their email, so now we can retarget them with campaigns. We had guests come back three, if not four times in that first year, which is also because we had an incredible experience and they wanted to bring their friends and family back. But here's the key. Word of mouth is the most valuable marketing channel that's ever existed in the history of humanity. And social media is just a megaphone for word of mouth. And so, you know, whether that's your own content or ideally you're partnering with some influencers to jumpstart that process. You're just leveraging trust, people's trust, and you're building that trust at scale.

19:26And you can build systems around that just like you do around the actual operations while still showing up personally. Final tip on this is founder-led content is just like every other domain crushing right now in the hospitality space. So this is probably my biggest regret with Flyvo because I didn't document the process and actually build it in public. Thankfully, I at least took some pictures, but it was after the fact that not only we started the Instagram channel for the property, but I personally started showing up and sharing the journey. I've got a friend, Devin, with The Pacific Ben. It's probably the most Instagramable, famous Airbnb in the world.

20:01And he built this shipping container home in Washington State. He's a 24-year-old kid with an iPhone and a$20 tripod just creating reels throughout that process. And he built one and a half million followers in 12 months. When he launched, he was entirely booked up within like a week and a half. Now has built two more units and is just, yeah, the world is his playground because opportunities flood to you. And he was using himself and his story and just showing up authentically to drive that following. So massive goldmine opportunity here for storytelling. Yeah, I want to hit on the social media piece as well.

20:33You alluded to like partnerships, doing it right, doing it wrong, storytelling, all that stuff. I want to hit specific on the influencer because someone could have a$900 marketing budget starting listeners. I'm thinking of you here and I drove$40 ,000 or whatnot for you. what you know now about partnering with influencers, what should people look for and what should they avoid? Let's start with what they should avoid first and then what they should look for. Yeah. Avoid the temptation that higher follower counts automatically mean it's a go that has really very little correlation with who you should partner with.

21:03So there's pretty big science to this and we don't have time to break it down. My simplest piece of advice is number one, try to find other properties in your region. So that could be within a three or four hour radius of you that you admire, because now this is a pretty common marketing channel. Try to network with those owners, get some buy-in, and they're usually very happy to share. So that's the cheat code to get kind of the local list of who works and who doesn't. What you're going to learn is there is a breed of travel influencers that I've kind of seen in every single market that focuses on restaurants and experiences and now hospitality and cool places to stay, hotels, Airbnbs.

21:40That's your ideal influencer to partner with. And the best ones are worth their weight, are 100X what they charge. They're worth their weight in gold. So we spent about three to 5 ,000 bucks per collaboration on two or three of those collaborations in the first six months that drove 80 % of those results. So the first one was a great example, but whether it's 1 ,000 bucks or 5 ,000 bucks, I haven't really seen anybody charging more than that. If you vet out that perfect one, so in our case, there's a girl named Amanda Spencer, and she has an account called Texas.explorer. She's got over, I think, a million followers now.

22:13At the time, she had like 100 ,000, but it was just a killer following because it was the perfect avatar in our Texas Triangle market and the types of properties that people wanted and experiences. And she and the first one we did and a couple others were just by far and away the best ones. So I'd almost, if I had to do it all over again, and if I could just cherry pick those two or three or maybe five best influencers in your market and just do those and maybe bring them back every six months, allocate all of your budget to that, fantastic results. That is a really nice breakdown. I feel like just for listeners here, like find someone in your region that fits that avatar and throw money their way here.