GAIN Momentum - Lessons from Leaders in Hospitality, Travel, Food Service, & Technology

​GAIN Momentum episode #75: Developing an Experiential Brand with Social Media Marketing | with Ben Wolff
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Adam Mogelonsky: Welcome to the GAIN Momentum Podcast, focusing on timeless lessons from senior leaders in hospitality, travel, food service, and technology. I'm joined today by Ben Wolff, co-founder of Onera and Co-founder of Oasis. Ben, how are you?
Ben Wolff: Doing well. Thanks for having me on. Adam. Excited to chat.
Adam Mogelonsky: So, I mean, we're both here and, you know, right before we started recording, you said you're up at two. Uh, I'm, I've been up at three. So for us it's almost like midday, even though it's just mid-morning, uh, here. And before we both, uh, we both crash. I'm wondering if you could give us a succinct and coherent elevator pitch on both companies that you've co-founded, O and Oasis.
Ben Wolff: I'll try for succinct and coherent, you know, maybe we'll get one, not the other. Um. So OA is a landscape hotel brand. Some might think of it as a Treehouse resort that we started in the Texas Hill country. We have two locations. We actually sold one of 'em to a public reit, which was an exciting institutional exit for the space.
Um, and OI is really the hospitality marketing and management company that was born out of my experience with own era and now has really expanded well beyond that. And our mission at Owas is reimagining. Travel for the modern traveler, um, and reimagining hospitality for the modern traveler so we can dig into more of what that means.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, let's dig into it right now. And the key term that I see emerging that is the global story, is this idea around an experiential hotel, which is to say. You're giving something that isn't just a stock room, and I, I say this all the time, is a lot of these big box hotels, I'm not gonna mention any names.
We know who they are. You get into a hotel room and if you were to wake up there with the blinds closed, what distinguishes that hotel room from Nashville, from New York City, from London, from from Abu Dhabi, from Shanghai, right? Yeah.
Ben Wolff: Hundred percent. Yep.
Adam Mogelonsky: So experiential hotels, you saw this trend and that was, I guess, the impetus for starting on, um, talk about how you chose what experience to cater to your guests.
Ben Wolff: So some of it was certainly like my own personal experience and some serendipity, um, when it comes to more of the nature immersive, outdoor hospitality bent that we went with o and I don't think experiential hospitality has. Has to be that. It just has to be a unique experience. You have to give your guests a story to walk away with.
Um, and at the end of the day, like we're trying to make them feel something. Um, and, and maybe feel something beyond just like comfort and, um, that I can count on the outlet being where I think it's gonna be, right. So, so some, some feeling emotions kind of, um, beyond that. I often say, um, you can't tell which room you're in, whether you're in Texas or Thailand.
I like that kind of, that kind of tagline. So very similar to, to what you were describing, um, when it comes to on, I was actually in the commodity short-term rental business, um, not the hotel business before on. So I had quite a bit of experience with. Um, trying to scale, you know, more traditional.
Basically you just have a room. You're basically just, you know, trading value with the guest for a number of rooms and space for money. Um, you're not really creating a unique differentiated experience, which is where, um, you know, guest willingness to pay kind of goes through the roof and their happiness and experience goes through the roof as well.
Um, and, and it was something that. I was onto, even before we started looking for land with on, I actually had a, a friend and business partner now who had a compound in Joshua Tree and he was already experimenting with the unique stays world before COVID even hit. So, um, you know, he had a, a, an airstream, a converted bus, a a garage.
He actually had a retired Cessna airplane on the property, which people love to take photos with. Um, and he was doing crazy numbers, right? He was, he was beating the market for similar sized units by 2 3, 4 x, right? Um, depending on the unit. So that was interesting. Um, me and my wife had just gotten off a six week road trip where we hit a dozen national parks and, um, just fell in love with the great outdoors.
I'd lived in New York City for over a decade, um, and just seeing what. America had to offer and, and the national parks and the Mesa and the Hoodoos and the incredible like sunrises and sunsets, all of it was inspiring and I think sort of pushed me in the direction of doing something more outdoor focused with on and nature immersive.
Um, but I wanted it to be higher end. I wanted it to be upscale. Um. I think that a lot at the time, all of the glamping and sort of outdoor hospitality products out there were pretty mid-tier, like a step above camping and RV life. You know, had all a bunch of gas that we went through, right. You know, a, a compartment breaking and my stuff getting littered on the side of the road.
You know, we had some, uh, diesel filter break and had to drive four hours to the nearest dealership to get it fixed. So there was all this friction. To this, uh, nature immersive experience. And so I wanna try to eliminate as much of that as possible. So, um, with, on from the beginning, we were shooting for upscale, if not, you know, even luxury in the, uh, nature immersive space.
And we wanted to create units, um, and experiences that were inspiring, one of a kind that you like, hadn't seen before that would, uh, you know, compel you to book, basically stand out on the page and, and ultimately when you got to go there, you'd have all the comforts of home and then some, right? A hot tub that was private to your room.
Kitchenette, um, generous size living and, and bedroom space. Um, a nice private deck. So all these things that, that elevated the experience and, um, removed the friction from those perfect moments of, you know, sipping your espresso and, and sort of watching nature, seeing wildlife walk by, things like that.
Adam Mogelonsky: Right. So you recognized this lifestyle premium early on. You saw that there was a huge untapped market for elevated or upscale or luxury stays that were experiential centered around the great outdoors and in the US or worldwide. There is a critical skill here in going from zero to one, and that is raising capital. Can you talk about the first. What your advice and your challenges, uh, in that process.
Ben Wolff: Yeah, so I've had a number of varied experiences with raising money and actually the first, so narrow raise was, was maybe the easiest raise I've ever. Done, which is surprising, I think, to some folks on the equity side, the debt was the hardest, probably. I mean, you could argue the debt crisis with on Wimberley was harder.
Um, but the debt was hard, right? Trying to convince a bank to gimme a construction loan for a Treehouse hotel, um, in peak COVID when hospitality was, was, uh, uh, at least seen as risky, if not like a no-go zone. So, um, getting a bank to say yes was the hard part. I. Over 20 banks got, you know, 19 or more nos and finally got a yes.
You know, got a, a loan officer that loved the concept, you know, I think could envision his wife there, wanted to be a part of this cool project and have the bank associated with it. And they believed in the market. They knew the market and they could see, you know, the vision. Um, so that loan officer went to bat for me and the project and loan committee and, and we were able to get the construction loan, uh, on the equity side.
We were raising, you know, sub a million dollars for this project. So it was, you know, one of the smaller raises I've done, and I had a successful short-term rental management company. So I had made a bunch of these people money and they, they respected me as an operator and there was trust built and I had never asked for money or to raise.
So when I went out to all of our clients, like most of them said yes and put in anywhere from 50 to a couple hundred grand. So we were able to raise the money pretty quick.
Adam Mogelonsky: Were you, did you structure that in terms of common stock preferred equity?
Ben Wolff: Yeah, so that first deal, um, they all came into, came into the real estate, the real property. They were true partners. So did. Subsequently, within a few months, we raised actually a real estate fund. So we raised a little bit more money. We saw that we could, um, this was when like rates were super low. It was actually easier to raise money, much easier than it's today.
Um, we raised about three and a half million dollars into a small fund that then got spread across three assets and we rolled. Fredericksburg Pro project into that fund, and we gave those original investors, um, you know, a, a healthy interest rate, like 20% or something like that. Um, so they got a, a bigger stake in the fund because they believed early and got in earlier than the other investors.
Adam Mogelonsky: Wow. Okay, so now we're gonna shift from the development that. You. You hit the ground running. You did it all right? And the trust you built with those, with those people to get that equity, which then of course probably helped with the debt even though it was hard. Now you have a live product and therein you find this gold mine that is social media marketing. Can you describe how you found that and what the results were?
Ben Wolff: I can, yeah. I mean, I started in. The commodity, Airbnb, short-term rental world. So like what we knew going in was OTAs, Airbnb, booking.com, vrbo. And that's actually what we started with. We launched and we didn't even have a direct booking site. We were just throwing up listing on listings on Airbnb and we were doing very well.
Uh, you know, they were getting their 15% or 18% commission all in between guest and host. Um, but we were getting 500 to $600 a night more than we thought we were gonna get. Um, and we were booked out right. Occupancy in the mid eighties, even some units over 90%. Um, we had COVID tailwinds helping us. We were in a market that had a lot of demand, I think for upscale experiences and stays and very little products.
Um, so we were doing great on the OTAs, but I love testing things. I'm always interested in like, how can we, you know, make it better? How can we boost revenue? How can we limit fees and. There was a, a local travel creator, text explorer that reached out to me on Airbnb and said, Hey, can I come out and do a collab post with you?
I think I can help drive direct bookings. Um, and I said, you know, why not? Let's, let's give it a try. So we spun up a direct booking site, um, spun up an Instagram and she drove about $30,000 in direct bookings over two posts. And this was a, Comp sort of trade deal. We didn't even pay her. Um, I, I subsequently have paid her every time she's come back because we know what she's worth.
Um, so we're, we're happy to, to, to take that 10 XROI on, on what we pay her and what she makes us. so that's what really turned me onto the whole thing. And, and in that first year. After testing things out with her and seeing the power of social, it was all influencer marketing. And I think that's actually great for somebody starting out, you know, the first year of a property, I think you can lean heavily into influencer marketing.
Um, and we grew our account. I think we grew it to about 15,000 followers. We were doing about 30% direct. Um, really in that first year. And in year two I was like, man, these, these Instagram guests are, that find us through Instagram and social media. They're actually paying more. Our ADRs were higher because they're less price sensitive.
We're not having to pay fees. How can we lean into this strategy And actually. Drive more of our bookings direct through social media. So we tried to hire an agency, um, and they had a bunch of pretty logos. They were working for a lot of the luxury hotels, uh, you know, Ritz Carlton, four Seasons, the Line.
Um, and I was shocked at a number of things. First, like our growth slowed to a halt. I mean, we went from 15,000 to 18,000 in like three or four months. Like I was growing faster doing it on the side on my own. Um, and content was really an afterthought in a lot of ways. They were managing the account and, um, you know, recruiting some influencers.
Um, but. They might send a lower level employee once a quarter with an iPhone to get content and otherwise they were just relying on what we had. And I just, I knew that wasn't gonna cut it. I'm like, we need better video. We need to be content first. Um, and that's what ultimately led to the creation of O Wasi.
We built out effectively a marketing team to service owner and some of our other assets and hired. Topnotch videographers, editors, um, creative associates, you know, influencer managers, and, and that team has grown. I mean, we have, you know, 15 plus people just on the marketing and social media side at O Wasi now.
Um, but, uh, yeah, it, it all was born out of just it not being able to find a third party that could meet our needs. Um, and that was really, you know, content first. And. What I think of Oasis as is a marketing agency for owners by owners, right? I'm a hotel owner. I know what I want as a hotel owner, which is ultimately direct bookings.
I want brand awareness. I want, you know, more visitors to the website. I don't just want an Instagram account to have one for credibility's sake. I mean, that's important as table stakes, but there's so much more that we can do with it. Um, and really in that. Second year of leaning into it, producing a bunch more of our own high-end content.
Uh, we got it to 80% direct bookings.
Adam Mogelonsky: 80%.
Wow.
You think about that flow through, right? I think every, every hotel you're listening to this would, would wish for 80% direct.
Ben Wolff: Yeah. And I think those hotels also need to realize though that like, you have to invest in the content, right? You're getting that flow through. It's, it's amazing. And there's, there's a number of benefits, right? That, that come from driving bookings direct. You control the guest journey from beginning to end.
You have all their information, you control it, you own it. It's not the flag that own it owns it. It's not the OTA. Um, so I think that that's very important. Um, of course you're saving on fees depending on the platform. It could be anywhere from 14 to 20% plus in fees. Um, but you're also reaching an aspirational guest that is less price sensitive at ero.
Wimberley our new property. Our A DR is 30% higher for direct bookings than it is for OTAs. Um, and we price the same. So it's not that we're pricing more on our website, right? We're trying to achieve price parody. We're just reaching a guest that's less price sensitive and booking higher demand days, farther out, longer stays.
Adam Mogelonsky: Right. There's a lot to unpack here. And let's shift gears in a little bit into the data side, because now you're talking about, uh, the channel mix. And not only hire a DR for direct bookers, I imagine that they're also more likely to choose your more expensive room types or, villa types, however you're segmenting that.
Ben Wolff: Yeah, you're, you're totally right. I think that's another factor as well. Oftentimes, the units that are going viral are the nicer, higher end, more unique units that are priced higher, and they're, they see Monarch Treehouse, which is one of our most Instagramable tree houses,
and they wanna book that, right?
And so that price alone may be 30% higher.
Adam Mogelonsky: And what about on the ancillary side to get that holistic picture about total revenue? We e every hotel here sort of knows that generally speaking, direct booking means that they're more likely to be comfortable paying a higher rate. They're more likely gonna choose an elevated room type, and they're more likely gonna spend on ancillaries. Have you seen that trend as well? And how do you quantify that using bi?
Ben Wolff: I would say that we've seen it to some extent. We have not fully optimized this and part of it's kind of the ethos and the product that is on, on by Nature has some of my short-term rental route. Right. It's pretty limited staff. We do have staff on site. I think we provide great service and hospitality, um, but we don't have an onsite restaurant.
We don't have an onsite, you know, wellness center or spa. I have future concepts that I wanna lean into these areas and try to capture that additional revenue and also just create this more holistic experience where guests feel like they don't have to leave. Um, but with o we do it through working with third party, uh, vendors and folks that are often local, right?
Private chef experience, uh, a cosmos party, you know, stargazing type. Type, guided, uh, experience, um, things like that. Yoga, um, uh, massage where, where we'll work with a local spa to send a masseuse to the room. And I will say that we, we certainly do see, um, more of those getting booked from guests who are coming direct.
Um, and, and we're constantly, you know, trying to grow that number. I mean, historically it's been sub 5% of our revenue is on ancillary. Um, with Wimberly, it, that number's growing. We're, we're getting it closer to 10. Um, but I think for some of the future projects and concepts that I'm rolling out, we're, we're gonna get it closer to, you know, 30, 40, maybe even, you know, half the revenue.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, that's, that's pretty standard at the full, full service, larger resort.
Uh, to have that split of 70 30 to 50 50 for rooms ancillary.
Ben Wolff: And, and one other thing I'll say too is I mean, we operate at incredibly high margins for hotels. Our NOI margins are over 50%, and a lot of that is, is because of. We are limited staff. We are working a lot through vendors, so it's like you kind of gotta give up one to get the other right. We're not gonna be able to maintain 50% plus margin and capture all that ancillary revenue.
But I do think it's important for the holistic experience. Um, overall, I think we do still make more, more money even though, uh, margins will get depressed a bit.
Adam Mogelonsky: I mean, it's, it sort of speaks to the niche you're in, in that there is a scaling factor whereby if you were to go up from under 10 units to over 50 units. Hypothetically, you would need those onsite services that would then drastically increase opex so you wouldn't be able to get that 50% NOI.
Ben Wolff: That's right, definitely based on key count. Um, I've always been told and have kind of feared putting a restaurant in for a, a hotel that has sub 35, 40 keys. Um, we are. We're doing a version of that in our South Florida project that I, I told you about. Um, but it's going to be, you know, very high margin, more like Cafe Bistro, coffee shop, like Juicery smoothie type vibe.
it's, you know, we can get away with one person working. We don't need a, an executive chef or anything like that. So, um, you know, the, it'll be. Sort of counter grab and go type type service. Um, so we are trying to experiment with ways of how can we provide some of that f and b, provide some of that holistic experience without having to provide five dining service.
And all of that requires with a subscale property.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, it's, it speaks to the niche you're in and there's so many niches in within experiential hospitality, the project that you're talking about. The great outdoors. Yeah, sure. You don't need to have a, a high CapEx, high opex restaurant operation because it doesn't fit the story you're trying to tell. Something like Relay and Chateau, those are tho, those are places that maybe are in the 10 to 40, 40, 50 key range where the whole raison dera, the whole reason why people go there in the first place is for that onsite elevated F and b, which also has high opex. So it's, it's tough to measure in that way because you're measuring the reason to visit. Four guests and for the story that you're telling, the great outdoors. The reason to visit isn't necessarily the access to an onsite spa or a Michelin style restaurant. It's, It's, to be alone. It's to experience these tree houses, these wonderful settings, to be immersed in nature and therefore you can drive value.
Ben Wolff: That's right. And, and there are things that you need to do, um, and we've been very strategic about with on. All of our ERO properties feel like you're in the middle of nowhere and, you know, beautifully tucked into nature. Uh, but they're actually within one to three miles of a, a bustling town with restaurants and, you know, places to go out, eat, et cetera.
We also have grills at, at those properties where we can do that based on fire code and, and the fire marshal. Um, so we are, and, and all of our units have little kitchenettes as well.
Adam Mogelonsky: That raises a very important point about proximity to local towns, and now we're talking about site selection. And the question there with any developer is how do you get the inside track on those, on those key sites?
Ben Wolff: It's changed, you know, I mean, I, early on in my career, um, with the Onera properties, I mean, it was through Zillow and other just online listing services. I had all my settings dialed in. I would get notified immediately and it's just about being fast, right? I mean. I would see a property, I'm like, this is it.
And, and I'm faster than anybody else to get out there, check it out, put a, put an offer in, right. And get it under contract. So I still think that that holds true. We're in a little more of a buyer's market now. I, I'd say like that was more sellers market. You had to be fast. Um, you just throw up a listing and you're gonna get maybe over asking right?
During like. 2020 2021 Especially during, during COVID and, being in Texas and in the Hill country. Um, now a bit more of a buyer's market to find properties and deals that make sense. It, we do rely more on network, on off market deals. Um, one of the big ones for us now. Having had a track track track record and an exit with Onera we have a lot of partners coming to us with deals and saying, Hey, would you participate in this with us?
Bring track, record, bring the experience, you know, help refine the concept so it fits with the modern traveler and what they want, um, and ultimately help us. Help us execute, operate and, and market it. Um, so we've had more of those opportunities, which is, is really exciting. And, you know, the Florida project, that's what happened with Steve Turk.
He kind of brought me in. He already had the land. It was largely entitled. I've wanted to do a tropical landscape resort for years. And so this was a great opportunity to do that with a, a great potential partner. Um, and we have another deal out in Arizona. Same, same deal in the sense that. We were kind of recruited and, and we, you know, we mutually kind of dated and, and, and saw if we were a good fit.
Um, but it was with one of the original developers of Agiri. It's this world class, one of a kind irreplaceable site, um, that is just this beautiful Red Rock formations, 40 to 80 foot high, perfectly rounded, um, feels like, you know, you're on Mars. But it's, it's very other otherworldly, very ethereal. Um, and I think we're gonna do something very special there, but it's, it's very cool for those opportunities.
To seek me out and our team out, now that we have, uh, a bit of a track record,
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, it becomes a bit of a travesty of riches, and then you have to have a whole development officer who just is doing litmus tests on all these deals that are brought forward to. To figure out which ones are actually worth your
allocation
of more capital.
Ben Wolff: Right now we're just being very selective. Right. And, and we're only taking on the couple that make a ton of sense. But to your point, now that we have these two that we're digging our teeth into and we're about to start raising and getting into pre-development, of course now there's more coming into the pipeline that are new, that are also very exciting and, um, you know, we're gonna have to build out the team or, or just, you know, say no to some projects.
That makes sense.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. And, and well that's, that's a scalability
question. And, um, you know, development officers don't come cheap because that's a very particular set of skills. And navigating the entitlement processes is, is another whole skill unto itself.
Ben Wolff: I will say that we're pretty well situated there. Um, and we can get into this like, you know, I, I know you are curious about sort of running multiple companies or having very different verticals that we're scaling, um, and a lot of that comes down to. How good are our partners and how good are the team members?
Right? How good are our hires? Um, on the development side, we have an extraordinary partner. Um, so we, so we have a, a gc but he's really a co-developer, um, in JB Chisholm. They're the ones that, that built and really handled all the en entitlements for Ro Wimberley. For our expansion to OnAir Fredericksburg, um, and I'm bringing those guys along and into every deal that I'm doing.
I don't know if I'll ever do another deal without them because they know how to budget, especially at the conceptual stage, which is very hard. And then they know how to hit those budgets and hit those timelines, which. If, you know GCs on hotel projects, especially like experiential and unique, it's like you find somebody that can do that and you hold on for dear life.
Um, thankfully we have a great, great relationship and so, um, yeah, I don't know that I need a chief development officer when I have an amazing partner like that to, um, to handle a lot of that scope.
Adam Mogelonsky: I think it speaks to the underlying lesson here about the trust and trust is a two-way street where they're bringing you deals because they know that you will deliver both on the development side and then on the post-launch on the operations side, and they wouldn't be bringing you those deals unless they knew you could act actually
execute.
Ben Wolff: Totally. And the same holds true for our construction and development partner, right? I bring them deals and, and I, I'm, I'm probably looked at the same way for some of these developers that are bringing us in as a partner. And it's like. You know, JB Chisholm is insurance for my project that it will be successful.
It will come in on time and on budget. I am insurance for these other developers. Um, you know that they're gonna be able to raise money, get bank debt, uh, you know, bring in a great construction and development partner that I have a great relationship with, and then ultimately, you know, run the asset effectively and market it effectively.
Um. And then it's just a matter of like, are we a good fit and is it gonna be fun to work together? And, and, uh, yeah. that's important too, right? I, I think that that is something, um, I've learned how important fit is, especially on a development project. Like you're gonna be in the trenches.
There's gonna be times where you think the whole thing's gonna blow up. And if you don't have a great trusting relationship and solution oriented kind of creative, solution oriented attitude and collaborative attitude across the team, it can be very hard.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah. Is there, uh, any story from the trenches that you'd like to share or can share?
Ben Wolff: Um, probably can't get in too, too many of the details, but I can definitely talk about, you know, landmines that I've stepped on and, and mistakes that I've made. Um, Yeah, during, I mean during COVID, like our first deal, right? Um, I had a different builder. Um, you know, this was some, this was a group that was more specialized in treehouse builds, not really a hotel builder, um, not a, not a commercial real estate, uh, construction outfit.
I would say more of a architect designer design build shop, but for these very aspirational custom tree houses. And they did a phenomenal job with Monarch, with Spyglass, you know, some of these super unique units that we have that have done really well. Um, but. They just didn't have the, the team and the resources and the experience and all the rest, I think to deliver, um, you know, on time, on budget and, uh, in the way that our, our commercial GC does now.
Um, and some of it was just like. COVID, right? We had supply Costco crazy. We had labor Costco, crazy. Um, we sourced a bunch of our, uh, units from China, which I would never do again and certainly would, certainly wouldn't do right now. But even before the
whole pair of craziness, um, still wouldn't, wouldn't do it like this was.
Four years ago, five years ago, I would never do it again. Um, you know, during COVID there was blockages in the Suez Canal. We were worried if we were even gonna get our shipments. Um, but even irrespective of all that, um, the delays that we experienced and then the quality, ultimately, like the units that we got, I mean, we had to retrofit, we had to gut them and redo them.
We came, we got all these parts that some of them didn't fit together and had to get retrofitted, and we had to spend tons of money on local. Sophisticated labor. So all of our savings from China got eaten up in those delays and that labor that we had to pay to kind of fix it, um, and the supplies to, to redo materials to, to redo a bunch of the interiors.
So, um, it was Pennywise pound foolish, a lesson learned like if I were ever to outsource again to a China or in Mexico or, you know, somewhere international. Um. You need boots on the ground, you know, meticulous inspection of the manufacturing facility. Very strong, trusting relationship. Like, I mean, we were just doing it through a broker and we, we got very burned.
Adam Mogelonsky: I mean, I was gonna ask you sort of the devil's advocate question, but I think it's a little bit leading, is in an imperfect world, if you had to choose between being on budget or on time, which would you choose?
Ben Wolff: Such a tough question. so, I think it's. It's really time, budget, and quality right there.
There's really Three, prongs there. Yeah.
Yeah. And um. And, and, and then the question all becomes like, how much? Right? If I'm gonna go over budget slightly, but, but get the project done on time. That's more important with how much revenue these assets are generating, getting them to stabilization, time kills you, right?
Those interest only debt payments, you know, it, it's, it's, if you're a little bit behind on the way out, you can dig yourself outta that hole if you're open in generating revenue, right? If you're not, then you can get yourself in a really tough spot. Um. When it comes to budget, I mean, again, group, JB Chisholm, like they've come in on time, they've come in on budget, they've actually found savings in projects that we've been able to reallocate to areas.
Um, even on the developer side of the budget, like FFF and E that we under budgeted, we've been able to reallocate some of the construction dollars there. Um, so, you know, knock on wood so far, um, so good with them. But yeah, if we're gonna go a little bit over but ensure we're gonna get, get open on time, I think that's probably the right call.
Adam Mogelonsky: I was gonna say, my answer is on time, particularly if you're dealing with a project that has a lot of seasonality. You gotta open in early Q2 in order to make that, make that summer work, right?
Ben Wolff: Yeah. Yeah, totally. And, and I think on the quality side of things, quality's a great vari, I think, I think a great one that you can play with a little bit in order to to, to meet that budget number. Right. Specifically. So, um, we really try to make sure we're not skimping. Anything really, but, but, but definitely investing in the things that the guest like touches and feels and all the rest, um, the things that are closest to the guests.
We want everything else to work well, but if there's ways that we can value engineer, you know, a foundation, but it's still safe or, you know, the, the, the onsite septic facility or you know, the water system, if there's ways that we can value engineer that stuff and it still works and it's not impacting the guest experience, then like that's where we're trying to find our savings.
Adam Mogelonsky: And that's really where being a developer comes in. The, the whole idea of creative solutions and knowing, trusting your partners to know where they can cut without compromising the experience.
Ben Wolff: Yeah, we, we had an amazing, uh, value engineering exercise for O Wimberley. Oh, it was crazy. We, we got, that one was designed. Ultimately the construction budget alone was like 21 million. We had to find 5 million to, to make it feasible, to be able to build it, how we wanted to build it. Um, and we value engineered $5 million outta that thing.
And, um, one of the big ones, one of the big ones and, and I think it still came out amazing, right? Phenomenal. Um, and one of the big value engineering ones was. In my mind, addition by subtraction. So we had these greenhouse units, which, which which we have at ERO Wimberley, they have green roofs. Originally they were supposed to have a rooftop decks as well, but you needed a staircase up to the rooftop deck.
You needed a railing around, you know, the top of the unit as well. Um, and they already had these nice, generous sized back decks with the private hot tub. So we ultimately decided like, let's do away with the roof, the um. The rooftop decks because we can do the whole thing. Green roof, you can get rid of the railing, you can get rid of the staircase.
So we've saved millions moving away from that. And ultimately, I think we got a better aesthetic and the guest still has a generous sized deck for, for viewing the hill country.
Adam Mogelonsky: And what stage did you find that solution? Had you already broken ground?
Ben Wolff: No, no, all of this was in pre-development, thankfully. Yeah, we, we had to get the budget wrangled. Like again, we're good at budgeting on the upfront. I mean, in design phase, like often we're gonna say, okay, we want all these things. This is what the budget looks like. Okay, that's not gonna work. Where can we trim?
Where can we value engineer and come up with creative solutions so that this project is financially. Economically viable, sellable to investors, things like that.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, I mean, but this is in the trenches talking about development, and that's what you gotta do, right? It is. It is painstaking, but it's also a highly creative and highly rewarding career.
Ben Wolff: For sure. I mean, it, it is a long game, you know, being a developer, I'm so thankful that we have OAS e this phenomenal services business that creates great operating cash flow. It's also helps ensure that our developments do well, right? Because we have the marketing expertise, we have the. Management expertise.
Um, but yeah, it's, it's a long game and there's, there's dark days as a developer, but I will say there is nothing that I've found to be more rewarding than having a, a piece of dirt with nothing on it. But you can see that potential in the vision. And then there's like a couple different steps where it's really, um, inspiring and kind of pushes forward.
Which one is when you start going vertical. So you have the dirt, you get through planning, obviously like raising the money is a big milestone, but like once you start seeing things going vertical and then towards the end of the project when the finishes are in, the furniture starts going in and you're like photo ready, remembering what you turn that piece of dirt into and sort of realizing that vision, I've, never experienced anything like it.
Adam Mogelonsky: Hey, you're, you're a painter. Your canvas is, is the ground right?
Ben Wolff: Yeah, that's right.
Adam Mogelonsky: Okay, so, uh, moving, shifting over to Oasis. This, the other company talked a lot about on the development Oasis and the one touch point I wanna bridge the two is we were talking a little bit about the data and that was more so the data you can glean from the core commercial systems, but there's also a lot of other data that is more the upper funnel. Before you get that guest into your system and first party and whatever you can keep. And the word that I wanna center, center this around is attribution. Where traditionally it's that last click attribution and it's gonna be, oh, you know, they found my website, uh, or they found me through the OTAs. They found me through Google paid search and. The whole word of aspirational sort of means that people are discovering you organically through social Instagram and TikTok. And then they look at you and then they, they say, oh yeah, Monarch, um, looks really cool. And then they come back three months later and they look again. Then they come back one month later, then they click through and they book,
Ben Wolff: Well, well, and then they, they, they know your name at that point, so they just Google you and
Adam Mogelonsky: yeah.
Ben Wolff: as branded search. Right.
Adam Mogelonsky: But you, you, you can't attribute that to social, and yet that is driven by social when you, when you boil it down.
Ben Wolff: And it's interesting, you, you can get better attribution than I think people typically are. And I push this all the time and I don't know why more people don't do it. We did it at ONA because we had this same issue. Um, we implemented a survey right after people book and asked them how they heard about us, and 60% of those people said they heard about us from Instagram.
You wanna guess how much Google Analytics was saying? The revenue is attributed to organic social,
Adam Mogelonsky: Five.
Ben Wolff: one to 2%. I mean, we're, we're talking about orders of magnitude, right? This isn't a little bit of a miss, and so to me that just spells a massive opportunity for operators that are willing to lean in to organic social and sort of capitalize on this undervalued attention, right?
And this undervalued customer acquisition model.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, I mean, the way I look at it here is that I think that intrinsically a lot of hoteliers who have experiential products understand the value of social. Aspirationally and they want to, like you did, allocate more budget towards getting those, those photos and those video assets to help drive that social. That social experience and that and that, that booking funnel, but they maybe are mired by the red tape of a larger organization where in order to get that photo shoot budget or that allocate that, that marketing person's time to do that, they sort of need to put a feasibility study together and then the feasibility, then they look at go Google Analytics and it shows that one to 2% at attribution. So what could you give? To these people that are, that need to show some ROI upfront to forecast in order to get the budget to develop those video assets in that process.
Ben Wolff: Yeah, so I think the survey is a great one. So like first and foremost, right, implement the survey, find out what your baseline is today of like self-reported. How many of your guests are actually hearing about you from social? It might be very low, but then you can say, okay, let's see if we can grow this number.
Let's say it actually is only one or 2% of of folks hear about you from social, because all you have is an Instagram page with a pretty grid, and it's like a branding exercise, right? You're not really trying to drive bookings. It's not engaging content. It's not viral content. So let's say it's, you know, 2%.
Let's see if we really invest in, in high quality content, top videographers, you know, creative storytelling, um, and really invest in this, putting out multiple reels per week that are really high quality. Working with oi, maybe doing it on your own, depending on your, your capabilities. Um, can we get that number to 10, 20, 30%?
North of 50% like we are for on and, and give it time. Like it's not gonna happen overnight. You wanna at least give it six, six months, even upwards of 12 months to see if you can move the needle and. Even if you can't, I look at it as a relatively low risk test because you have all that really high quality video that you're investing in and that you have those assets longer term that you can use for ads that you can use for, you know, there's this company called Hover that helps you integrate vertical and, and as well as landscape video on your website to make it more engaging and increased conversion.
The whole world is moving to video, so having those assets are, are extremely valuable. Um, so. That's kind of how I would pitch it. You're getting those assets. Um, and, and just to stay relevant in today's day and age, even if you're not driving a ton of bookings to have engaging content to have video, it's a great touch point for guests that maybe even find you somewhere else and wanna verify and like it's helping it confirm and validate that you're the right place, that they should be booking and staying.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, so, okay. Okay, so it makes total sense and, and you've, you've driven this point home. Okay. So we have o we have oi and you've talked about how you have great partners that help you guide both companies. That way you're not working till midnight seven days a week, but you also have a third job in that. You're a father, right? And you have a family to support. So how do you balance this three-legged? What are some tricks to the trade for getting it all done?
Ben Wolff: I mean, like anything else, I, I tested a number of different things and I do think I've found something now that's working, at least for now, who knows if it will continue to, but been in a good groove for. Six months or so, I mean, really since the birth of our, of our second child. and that is going to bed when my kids go to bed and getting up at the crack of dawn.
Um, so, you know, typically me and my wife, um, our second child's bottle fed. And so I'm, which is really amazing for me as a father to be able to, um, I feel like I have a closer relationship. Earlier with my second son, because he is only bottle fed, there's no breastfeeding. So I can feed him first thing in the morning, I can put him to bed, right?
Like there's, there's less of a, like mommy is everything sort of, you know, situation going on. Um, so that, that's really cool in and of itself. But, um, What I do is, is I put him to bed, he goes to bed around seven, spend some time with my three-year-old, about to turn four. I try to go lights out 8 30, 9 o'clock latest, and then I get up at 4:00 AM um, and that 4:00 AM to 8:00 AM period before anybody else is up is I can crush deep work, I can catch up in any urgent emails.
Anything that like is, is hypercritical or, and important I can knock out before the day starts for almost anybody else. So that's super important. Before I have any meetings, anything like that. Then typically I try to work out and I do a sauna cold plunge, uh, around that eight, 9:00 AM 10:00 AM period.
And it almost creates like the second day feeling. So I do that reset. Reset my nervous system and, and sort of jumpstart my energy. Um, and then I'm, I'm ready for sort of the meat of the workday with meetings, going out to site visits, things like that. Um, so that's kind of like my, you know, protocol routine, whatever that, that helps me, um, helps me do it.
And I try to get home by six. Spending those two, three hours, you know, with my kids, with the family and, and making sure I'm showing up in that way. Um, so yeah, that's kind of like how I, how I make it work schedule-wise. And then in order to attack the opportunities we're going after and the big vision stuff that, that we wanna, that we want to go after, we need phenomenal partners and phenomenal members of the Oasis team.
So I have a, Co-founder in oi that basically stood up the entire content team and marketing team. So that was an opportunity that he really identified and spent six months to a year doing r and d kind of per perfecting our content formula and helping build out that team. Um, and then on the development side, I have this phenomenal, you know, co-developer, um, who, who not only is so much more than a gc right, and, and allows me.
To get into multiple development projects at once, and he's got a great support system and staff on his side as well.
Adam Mogelonsky: Wow. I mean, I'm just astounded by how you've basically found, uh, the key, the key to the practice, uh, through this habit of just waking up early and then getting that deep work in. I think that it's it's really hard to do these days because everyone expects you to be readily available and, oh, let's just fit in a call here and there, and they don't understand about flow and how, you know, you can get. More done in the, in two hours uninterrupted than you can in four hours that are interrupted every half hour by a call.
Ben Wolff: Totally. I, I really try to, um, not schedule any calls even before like 11:00 AM so I have my deep work, then I have my break, might even hit the driving range, something like that. Have a reset and then my, then I can. Do meetings for the remainder of the day as needed. But I'm always thinking like, do I need to be in this meeting?
Can my chief of staff be in this meeting? can my co-developer GC be in this meeting and not me? we find more and more and, and it just speaks to how important social media is and really this like media revolution that we're in. The more that I'm. In front of the camera, whether it's short form content, podcasts like this, or you know, writing content to go on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Like the more I can be kind of out front and center pushing thought leadership, um, creating engagement and awareness, like the better for the business. So more and more that, you know, my whole team recognizes that and probably even pushes me to do that more than I would even naturally want to. They're like, this is the highest ROI on your time.
Adam Mogelonsky: Uh. Any, any, uh, any important points about either company you wanna touch on or major trends that you see coming that you think are important?
Ben Wolff: Yeah, so I mean, I really believe that social media is the future of, of consumer behavior. I mean, it's the now for a lot of things like direct to consumer, we're already there. Everybody knows that hotels is lagging a little bit behind, which often happens with hotels, right? Um, there's this, this like, I feel like in hotels.
Kind of how we've done things for a long time and sort of like, you know, what's industry standard carries more weight sometimes than like, where is actually the value and where are things going? Um, and I think people need to wake up to that fact. Um, social media platforms, Instagram in particular is a better experience for both the guest and the host, and I believe will overtake traditional OTAs.
Um, when it comes to. Travel or booking behavior, unless those OTAs find out a way to like lean into video, you know, create a more, um, experiential, uh, you know, user experience and user journey. Um, so I think that is coming. And another thing that I, I, I think that hotels and marketing agencies and all these folks need to wake up to, like, if your stuff's not getting high engagement, if it's not.
Going viral occasionally. If you're not getting views, if you're not getting link taps that go to your direct booking site, the content's just not good enough. Right? You're, you're not, you're not shadow banned. You're not, you know, it's not anything else. And like, even if your hotel isn't ONA and isn't that aesthetic, or you know, Instagrammable, if you will, there's so many things that you can still do from a storytelling perspective, whether that's the founder journey, the team behind the scenes footage.
I mean, think about all the things you can do at a restaurant like food content. Is incredibly viral, right? And, and you don't need tree houses 30 feet up in the air to to, to do really high quality food restaurant content. So I'll leave people with that. I think there's a massive opportunity there. We talked about attribution.
Let the attribution problem be your opportunity to get ahead.
Adam Mogelonsky: Great words send on Ben. Thanks for coming on the show.
Ben Wolff: Thanks Adam.