Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Jen Young on Outdoorsy and the Entrepreneur’s Journey

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Jen Young on Outdoorsy and the Entrepreneur’s Journey · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I am
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: your host, Scott Brady, and I am here with an
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: incredible guest today. This is Jen Young, who is the
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: co founder of Outdoorsy. Think of it like the Airbnb
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: of overlanding and travel and RV and vehicles. So and
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: of course you're a super well traveled individual yourself. So
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for being on the podcast with
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: me today.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: Thank you very much for having me. You're a little
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: bit of a celebrity yourself in our world.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Thank you. I appreciate that.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: And of course what's fun for me right off the
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: bat and getting the chance to interview you is a
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: good friend of mine, Mario from at Overland. He actually
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: had several vehicles that he rented on your site years ago,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: and he had such a positive experience with it at
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: the time. I just remember him sharing how it allowed
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: him to have a vehicle that would maybe be difficult
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: to afford, or to have as many different variations of
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: vehicles that he ended up with, and then he always
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: found that people were really thoughtful with his trucks when
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: they went out in the field. I mean people of
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: course made little mistakes, so there were little problems, but
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: people always came into it with a sense of like,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: this is someone else's camper, and I'm going to try
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: to treat it as my own. So I've actually got
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: direct experience with someone who for years rented on your
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: platform and had really good success with that. So someone
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: in our own industry used it and had really good luck.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: So it's really really an exciting thing.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: I love hearing about happy customers, that's for sure, particularly
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: people that have the combination of wanting to be able
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: to make like some good hit, some good financial outcomes,
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: but also you share their passions with others. And this
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: category like overlanding, is definitely a big passion Eric.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Well, and it's growing so quickly. And for me, I
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: always thought, like, what it's the ultimate hack, you know.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: I think about I've got a little historic home in
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: downtown Prescott, Arizona, and I airbnb that home for years
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  Speaker 1: while I was traveling in Africa and around the world.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: But if you had a camper that you also did
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: that with throughout doorsy imagine how cool it would be
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  Speaker 1: when you're traveling in the camper, your airbnb in the house,
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  Speaker 1: when you're living in the house, you're you know, you know,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: using Outdoorsy to rent your camper. Like, what an interesting concept.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, I mean it's it's one of we're a
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: marketplace that allows you to fund your dreams, right, you
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: can make those extra dollars to be able to plan
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: your next lag around the world. There's a couple of
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: really cool families and people out there that are doing
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: just that. There's this one family that I have been
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: following actually since the beginning years of founding the company.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: I think the family Instagram channel is called Melee Mish.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they're great, like.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Beautiful family, yep, married couple and I think they might
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: have four kids and maybe like two cats or something.
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  Speaker 4: I don't think they've dogs. I don't know.
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  Speaker 2: But they have done exactly that they have. I've got
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  Speaker 2: I think they just recently got a new truck camper,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: but they've done something like one hundred and twenty countries.
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  Speaker 4: They've educated their kids.
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  Speaker 2: All around the world, and I think they've come off
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: the road a little bit here and there. But they're
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: a little bit more full time than your friend or
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: the people you're talking about. But yeah, that's what you do, right, Like,
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  Speaker 2: if you have a dream to learn and experience the
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: whole world. Then start to plan how you can, you know,
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  Speaker 2: buy a unit, make some money, plan your next leg
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: of a trip, and then go out for like three
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: or four months.
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  Speaker 3: What a great example.
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  Speaker 1: And Molly Misch, they've been on the podcast, so for
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: those that are listening, you can listen to their story.
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  Speaker 1: And I think even you know, like about like my sailboat,
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  Speaker 1: I could be renting my saleboat when I'm not using it,
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  Speaker 1: I could be renting my camp or when I'm not
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: using it. I've already rented my home when I was traveling.
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  Speaker 1: So it's a really interesting idea. But before we get
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: too much into kind of like how the nuts of
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: bolts so that might work. I would love to hear
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  Speaker 1: a little bit more about your story because you began
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  Speaker 1: as a traveler and it seems like you identified a
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  Speaker 1: need in the marketplace. But let's talk about your airstream.
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  Speaker 1: I know you spent years on the road. Let's talk
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  Speaker 1: about what kicked off your passion for travel.
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  Speaker 2: My motivation was different in some ways to my co
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: founder's motivation, but for me personally, it was really a
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  Speaker 2: call to spend more time outdoors and in nature. I
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  Speaker 2: had been probably fifteen years at that point working in
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: some pretty high octane corporate environments. I worked in the
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: advertising industry for many years, actually on three continents, and
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: it was really intense fluorescent lights and boardroom working, and
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  Speaker 2: I loved it. It was great work and really great teams,
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: some of the best people that I've ever worked with.
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  Speaker 2: But I was hitting burnout for sure, and I needed
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  Speaker 2: a different path in life. And any time that I
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: spent closest to God's great design, the mountains, the lakes,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: the streams, the road and all of the communities and
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: people that you meet out there, like, the happier I
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  Speaker 2: felt and the clear things just became in my mind.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: So first it was just an overall interest to spend
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  Speaker 2: more time outdoors where I felt like my best version
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  Speaker 2: of myself. And as we tried to figure out, okay,
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: what could we do in that realm, we started to
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  Speaker 2: see that there was an opportunity for building a marketplace.
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  Speaker 2: I'm starting with recreational vehicle and camper vans, and that
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  Speaker 2: sort of like kicked us off on the path. And
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  Speaker 2: then we had to figure out, well, well, how do
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  Speaker 2: we learn enough to actually build something? And the only
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  Speaker 2: way you learn is by talking to customers so we
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: just sold the houses and got in the airstream and
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: started asking questions, what year.
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  Speaker 3: Was that when you were first kicking off?
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: That was twenty fourteen. Wow, a long time ago.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're coming up on, you know, twelve years
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  Speaker 1: now as an organization. You got the highs of COVID,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: which I'm sure for your experience had to have been insane.
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: Oh. I mean, we thought we were going to lose
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: the company. It was.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: It was that serious, because I remember, I'll never forget
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: that week. Do you remember that week when everybody sort
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: of like gathered around their TV and their living room
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: on the main news stations, and they were showing that
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  Speaker 2: big map and it was the first time you were
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  Speaker 2: seeing like all of the countries affected. Well for us,
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: we were like, oh no, this isn't a short term
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: or a small problem. This is a really big problem.
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  Speaker 2: And then I think it was probably about three days
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  Speaker 2: after that, all of the bookings just started like falling
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: off of our tableau reports and canceling, and so we
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: had absolutely no bookings and we had no revenue. But
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  Speaker 2: we had a lot of team members and staff to
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: support a marketplace at that point, so we called some
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: emergency meetings with our leadership team, and we started to
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  Speaker 2: figure out, like how do we keep the company afloat,
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: and then how do we start to figure out if
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: it will ever bounce back and in what ways. But
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: the first early weeks we're devastating for everybody in the
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: country and around the world, and then for us at
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: a company level, we didn't know that we would make it.
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  Speaker 2: And it turned out to end up being a really
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: awesome moment for us in the end, because what we
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: offered as a marketplace provided a really much needed reprieve
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: for everybody that had been cooped up inside for a
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  Speaker 2: long time.
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  Speaker 4: As the months rolled on, it was the.
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  Speaker 3: Same for us. We were terrified in the beginning.
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  Speaker 1: In fact was I was in Southern Africa and I
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: didn't know if I was going to make it home.
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  Speaker 1: The flights were all booked, and I didn't know if
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  Speaker 1: I was going to have to somehow get on a
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  Speaker 1: expatriot flight or something out of Johannesburg. I didn't know
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  Speaker 1: how I was going to get home, and I didn't
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  Speaker 1: know if I would have a business for very long
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: with everybody with the whole market changing the way that
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  Speaker 1: it was. But to your point, it ended up being
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  Speaker 1: a bellweather moment for overlanding in vehicle based travel because
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  Speaker 1: it allowed people to basically be in their own little camper,
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  Speaker 1: you know, didn't have to have a mask on your
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  Speaker 1: out and nation social distancing the great form of social
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: distancing you offered, which is very cool. So well, one
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  Speaker 1: of the things I would love to ask you about
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  Speaker 1: is in your time that you spent in the airstream,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: the time that you have spent traveling, how did that
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  Speaker 1: help inform how you wanted to set up the organization,
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  Speaker 1: how you wanted to empower your team. How did that
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  Speaker 1: experience out in nature doing the exploration and travel begin
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  Speaker 1: to inform how you behaved as a leader.
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  Speaker 2: I think that the most important learning that came from
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  Speaker 2: that experience was always having healthy respect for your customers
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: and learning from your customers. And that's been challenging to keep.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: While it's still our number one company value today, that's
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: been really challenging to keep top of mind across all
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: of our business leaders as the company gets larger, because
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  Speaker 2: you can get further away from your customer really fast.
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  Speaker 2: Right Like in the early days for us, it was
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  Speaker 2: pretty easy for us to spend all of our time
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  Speaker 2: building software and doing future releases in campgrounds and rbs
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  Speaker 2: and living full time. And we had we had a
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  Speaker 2: small group, and then the next wave of people that
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: we were bringing on, we asked the same thing because
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: they were building the software for a lot of our
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: professional operators. So we asked them to be in restaurants
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: or the towns where our best professional operators lived, or
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: go to their businesses and work out of their lobbies
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  Speaker 2: and like see firsthand what the guest experience is like.
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  Speaker 2: But as the company has gone larger, we have a
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: little over two hundred people now and we operate in Slack,
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: and we've launched a lot of new products and features,
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: and we have expanded into some bigger business divisions like insurance.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Getting close or staying close to your customer and the
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: customer insights is a lot more difficult to do that,
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  Speaker 2: And for me in particular, I think when I say
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: getting close to the customer, I mean you are listening
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  Speaker 2: firsthand ear what the customer is saying.
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  Speaker 4: So whether that is I mean it's a.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: Good second best to read every single customer review in
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: their words. That helps, but it's not okay to just
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  Speaker 2: assume what you think by looking at Tableau dashboards and
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: inferring based on booking trends or some insights.
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  Speaker 4: In my mind, that's like two steps too far removed.
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  Speaker 2: You need to sit in on the software reviews for
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: offer our SaaS product, or you need to sit in
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: on our customer service escalation calls or get a good
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: cross section of like hearing directly from the customer in
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: all of the ways that you can and your corporate job,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: and then try to get out in market or meet
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: customers as frequently as possible as well in real life.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: And there's a variety of ways you can do that.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that makes so much sense.
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  Speaker 1: And I think about how because I had my home
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: on Airbnb for years, I would have loved to have
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: had a more active feedback from the company of what
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: things are working, what doesn't work, especially within the context
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: of my home, which is a one hundred plus year
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: old historic home right downtown. So it's a very specific
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: kind of customer like what ways could I have improved
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: the home that we have made the experience better for customers,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: And you just don't get a lot of that. So
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: the fact that you guys are even thinking that way,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: particularly in such a dynamic rental like a vehicle.
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  Speaker 3: I think that's really wise.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we've over the years, we've tried different things, but
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: we always try to have a customer council where we
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: hear and we ask, or focus groups where we ask
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: customers in certain segments like you just mentioned, and allow
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: our product managers and our marketing managers to spend time
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: like hearing in customers' words what they want to seem
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: more or what they would describe as being the best
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: or the worst of the guest experience, and vice from
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: the host experience.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Well, one of the things I would love to hear
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: as with you being a co founder, is you're working
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: for these other companies, you're in the executive space, you're
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: traveling and working on three different continents. What inspired you
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: to say I'm going to step off on my own
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to start my own business, Like, what
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: was that turning point for you? What actually drove that
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: decision to take such a huge risk.
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: I think I've.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Always been an entrepreneur in spirit or at heart since
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: I was like a little girl. I like the idea
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: of building and creating things and running a business and
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: understanding like what is new and figuring that out from
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: zero to one instead of working within the confines of
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: somebody else's company or a team or department. So for me,
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: I loved the freedom of being able to see if
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: we could take a really big problem or opportunity and
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: make something of it. And then because I have the
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: grit and stamina to not quit when most people will quit. Sure,
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: you pair those two things together and iterate and you
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: can build a business, but you do have to have
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: certain variables locked in first, like is there a market
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: can we price this correctly? Is there a revenue model
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: that will scale? But if you can lock those Unfortunately
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: for us that existed because there wasn't a market at place,
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: So there wasn't a market leader for outdoor travel within
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: these vehicle assets when we first started building out Doorsy.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: So I had the perfect ingredients to get started.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, you had the right product market fit. You didn't
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: have any competition. I think back when we started Overland
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Journal and Expedition Portal in two thousand and five, which
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: is crazy to think it's been that long twenty years now,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: there wasn't any competition.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: The same thing for.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Me, the idea of having agency, which is why I
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: chose to be an entrepreneur. I wanted to control my
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: own day and my own destiny, even if it meant
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: a great deal of pain and risk in order to
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: have that. But doesn't that make us for great travelers?
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: I can see why you love to travel, because it's
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: all about risk. You're going to new places, You're trying
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: to not get lost, you're trying to keep the trailer
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: on the road and everything else. So I think travelers
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: make for great entrepreneur if you can keep them in
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: one place long enough.
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Absolutely.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: It's the perfect intersection of freedom, isn't it right? Freedom
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: to build something, freedom to figure it out, and freedom
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: to go like wherever where we need to. I've met
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: some of our most like favorite entrepreneurial minds as we
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: were building out different parts of the business, because we
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: started with the marketplace first. But I don't know if
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: you know this part of our story.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: I'm Scott. We post COVID.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: We decided to build out a destination network, or we
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: started to move into like physical assets and build out
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: some campgrounds and build a lamping retreat from scratch, and
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: again we got out on the road to do that too, right, Like,
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: we didn't know enough about the campground business, and like
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: what were the core metrics that make that successful? What
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: were some of those consideration sets around like the number
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: of sites, location, price points. So we spent a lot
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: of time surveying markets and meeting with campground owners and
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: business owners to make sure that we are making good
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: decisions around what markets to enter. And the number of
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: entrepreneurs that you meet when when you're in these states
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: and cities is pretty significant and inspiring.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: What's the name of the campground side of the business,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: so that way the listener can can know.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: Thank you for asking. So we've got three campgrounds. The
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: Outdoorsy Yosemite Campground is absolutely stunning. It's near Bass Lake.
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: It's about a five or seven minute walk down to
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: Bass Lake. Wow, and not too far out from the
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: entrance of Yosemite. And that's a beautiful natural rvy and
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: like camping tent park. And then we have a outdoorsy
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: campground in Bayfield, which is right next to Durango Nice,
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: which is perfect for mountain bikers and skiers. Durango, I
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: don't know if you're familiar with Durango, but it's just
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: like perfectly situated in southern Colorado.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, isn't Bayfield kind of on the way to Pegosa.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Springs it is, Yeah, it is. That's our second campground.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: And then we built a third property in Hill Country, Stonewall,
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: Texas Fun and that is right next to Fredericksburg, which
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: is I think Travel and Leisure might be reporting Fredericksburg
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: as the number one is it like one of the
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: like the number one travel destination to visit this year's
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: actually gorgeous.
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it was gorgeous.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: German heritage and it's just this fantastic restaurant. They call
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: it the Napa Valley of Texas. There's a lot of
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: vineyards in the area. And that's our third place, our
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: third property, so we call those the Outdoorsy Destination Network.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: That's amazing.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: And then is there a if I remember there was
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: a third arm to your business, So you have the
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: vehicle rental side you've got, and then is that the
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: insurance side or what kind of makes.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: Up your your current portfolio.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, insurance is a really big part of our business.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: The brand that most people know us for is Roamly.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: It's a adventure built insurance brand. So we have a
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: basket of insurance products that have specialty coverage and pricing
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: for the assets that our core customer and our veer
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: or a boat or a motorcycle or an ATV customer
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: is looking for. So that's the brand people knows for
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: when they buy their personal insurance, but that insure Tech
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: provides all of the episodic rental insurance for the marketplace
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: outdoordsy dot com. So when you're checking out a vehicle,
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: you're using our insurance products. Which going back to one
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: of your first questions, what did we learn when we
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: were out on the road building the marketplace. One of
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: the most breakthrough things that we learned for the company's
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: success as well as for what makes us special is
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: that safety and trust was like the most important currency
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: that we had to build in. And insurance obviously is
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: a big cost an ingredient both from the guest side,
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: right like what insurance coverages and how much is that
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: as a percentage of their over all trip? And then
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: for hosts, they've got to make sure that we've got
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: the right physical and liability coverage for their asset, whether
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: it's a work asset or they you know, they consider
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: it their personal baby. So yeah, we learned that by
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: that in the early days, and then we started tackling, Okay,
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: how are we going to offer these insurance products? And
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: then that fast became a how are we going to
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: become an insurance company?
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: H It's a big problem, particularly internationally. I mean I
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: just crossed West Africa a few months ago and we
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: could we could get liability insurance that would work for
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: all of West Africa, but we could not get affordable
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: asset coverage. Years ago, I was able to get some
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: coverage through it was basically underwritten by Lloyd's, but I
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: just can't find it anymore. It's so difficult when you
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: have a really expensive vehicle you think of like an
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: earth roamer or a really expensive expedition vehicle, Like how
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: do you ensure that when you're trying to cross Mongolia?
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: It's very difficult to do.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, so how did you end up doing that?
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: There was a there was a company called Thumb Insurance TM,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: and they worked with Lloyd's to underwrite the insurance of
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: I had a smaller earth Roamer and I was driving
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: it down to Panama and I was able to get insurance,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: but they don't offer it for those kind of more
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: austere environments anymore. So it's very difficult to get asset
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: insurance internationally, so it might be an opportunity for you guys.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely only as a business have. I think
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: at least fifteen percent of our professional operators are global,
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: mainly focused around Western Europe, and we are expanding our
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: insurance coverage and offering globally in twenty twenty six, twenty
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: twenty seven.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: Well, we'll watch these watch this space.
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: Then right by us.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: Oh that's amazing, that's amazing.
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: Going back to the comment about earth Roma, that is
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: that's actually the vehicle on the the top of our list.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: My husband is absolutely obsessed with Overlander vehicles, the large
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: ones in particular.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: We bought one a couple of years back.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: But I like things a much more smaller and compact
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: and more simple, and for me, the earth Roamers are
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: just like they're just like such quality design. Yeah, yeah,
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: quite expensive. I'm not gonna lie. I think they're a
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: little expensive but beautiful product. And I would love to
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: do an Overlander trip and an earth Romer.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's so many great ones now and it's a
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: reflection of the growth of the marketplace. I mean, I
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: was just looking the other day on expedition portal. And
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: because we have this huge classified section, you know, we've
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: listed fifty four thousand vehicles for sale.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: I mean it's just you.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Think about the transaction volume of campers and trailers and vehicles.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: It was something I never would have expected when we
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: started all this that the marketplace would be this size
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: where even companies like Toyota where they're marketing directors is
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: we're all in on overlanding.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: I mean, how cool is that?
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really cool. I mean I don't know if
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: you know, but it's a really large segment. It's one
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: of our fastest growing segments on outdoorsy dot com. So
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: it represents over ten percent of our listings today. And
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: I think one of the reasons why it's so popular
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: is because, in particular, young people just love that adventure
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: first way of spending their vacation time. I was surprised
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: actually at how fast that segment is growing within the marketplace.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: And what are some of the examples of Like, let's
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: take a typical overland traveler as an example, even someone
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: who lives in Europe, which many people in Europe listen
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: to the podcast and they want to fly to the
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: US and they want to pick a vehicle up in Denver.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: What are some of the kinds of overland vehicles you
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: tend to see available on Outdoorsy. How does that process work?
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: What should someone expect if they were to go on
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: to the website.
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: Really simple process. So they go into the website and
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: they can search for the type of vehicle. They can
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: also filter for important like requirements like can I run
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: from a SuperHost, which is what I would recommend if
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: somebody was interested in trying this for the first time,
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: because there's a lot to learn about overlanders and overlanding.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: Let's dig into it.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I think one of the one of the popular ones
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: is maybe a jeep Gladiator, isn't it?
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: Oh?
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely one of the easiest for sure to drive.
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: We've got a couple of most rented. The Toyota is
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: you know, a bit of a gold standard for sure,
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: So starting with that. But yes, the jeep Gladiator I
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: personally love because I love those like lightweight, little pop
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: up ones. I also, I don't know if we can
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: show some of the some of my favorites here, I'll lush.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: I especially love looking at them when they're in amazing
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: locations like MAUI.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Can you really rent a Gladiator or a Tacoma in
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Maui and go travel?
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: You really can't.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: And like, I mean, is this not like perfect for
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: those sort of like renters or people that want to
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: like actually get off the beaten path. Because these units
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: are so compact, they're perfect for like staying on beach,
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: like near a beach. They're perfect for getting into those
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: like smaller little areas. So the Jeep Gladiator is a
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: really big popular one, and I love that it still
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: has like a ton of bed storage space on top.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: I love that you can pack it down super light,
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: so you could still use all of that like back
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: area for packing up all of your gear bikes, each gear,
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: et cetera. But it's I don't know's I think it's
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: considered the number one rooftop content. So this is a
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: big standout for us. This gets, this gets a lot
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: of clicks, and I think it's pretty affordable. I mean,
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: you can get them for somewhere between like one a
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: and two ten a night to twenty a night.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: Which is way less than a hotel in Mali, way.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: Less than a hotel in Mali. And like, who goes
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: to Mali and wants to stay in a hotel. If
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: you're not figuring out some way to stay on a
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: beach or like a grassy field near a mountaintop or
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: a volcano that's about to erupt, I don't know that
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: you're doing Are.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: You really doing it right? Yeah?
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: Definitely.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: The most popular one is the Toyota Tacoma. So that
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: camper truck just seems to be like best known for reliability,
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: and it's definitely one of our most popular mid size rentals.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: I think Toyota is a brand name has always been
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: sort of a gold star anyway for like reliability and parts. Right,
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: don't we all know at least three or four friends
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: that still have a Toyota like vehicle that they've never
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: had to They've never had to go and buy another
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: one because it's still keeps running, and that Toyota.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Might need to actually recall the vehicle so someone could
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: buy a new car, because it's like you've had your
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: four Runner for thirty five five years, you know exactly.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: It's like it's the car that never it's the car
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: that never gives up that they call the Forerunner, that
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: the suv king I'm over landing, I.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Think right, No, absolutely, And you know, if you think
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: about it from a host perspective, you've got a vehicle
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: that's not going to require a lot of upkeep and
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: maintenance and repairs. And then for the person renting the vehicle,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: they're going like, Okay, I'm renting a Toyota. It's probably
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: going to be reliable, even if it's got some higher
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: mileage on it.
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: Yep, totally agree.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: And like, obviously thinking through breakdowns is really important because
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: if you're going off road and you've got a breakdown
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: and you don't have some way to like either call
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: in to figure out how to troubleshoot it or you're stranded,
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: like that's just that's just like not not one of
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: the environmental worries you want to have.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: So no, totally that makes a lot of sense.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: So lots of tacomas on there, that makes a lot
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: of sense.
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: And what are those ranging in that same kind of
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: price range one hundred and eighty to two hundred and
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: fifty nine, Those.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Ones are actually a little less expensive, Yeah, I mean
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: it depends, of course a little bit right on the market.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: And also what our hosts like provide is add ons.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: A lot of the hosts love to fully stock these
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: things so that because like you want to make sure
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: that your weights are correct, right, So a lot of
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: our hosts want to say this is the gear, these
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: are the battery packs, like this is what you should
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: pack for food and storage. And if they're putting in
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: a lot of that like extra super host type service,
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: then you're going to see the price go up. But
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: like I just looked at three or four while we're
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: going through this, and they're all around one hundred and
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: sixty bucks a night, Like so affordable, such.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: A great affordable, right, And like we talked about just
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: the idea of being able to try out a vehicle
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: before you spend all of that money on it. Even
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: to be able to go for a three day weekend
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: and say, hey, I want to try out the newest Tacoma.
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: Yep, I would do.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: I would definitely think this is an important segment for
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: try before you buy.
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: These guys.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: These units are just so easy it's hard to hell. Like,
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: do you do a day trip where you're just throwing
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: in the beach towels, the coolers and some headlamps and
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: like head out for you know, a day and one.
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: Night overstay, or do you pack it.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: Up and like do something longer, but these ones are
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: just like grab and go, just really easy.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: I really impressed to see that there were actually earth
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: roamers to rent on their Yeah. One of the examples
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: was a twenty twenty two earth Roamer for rent.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, because they're they're the elite of the elite, right,
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: and they're pretty expensive.
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: And yeah, I.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: Mean I bet you.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, if I remember, the price was, you know,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: comparable to a four seasons.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: But you want to talk about four seasons.
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: This is this is your you know, your four seasons outdoors, right,
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: this is your this is your outdoorsy four seasons. They're
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: definitely expensive, like I mean, they're expensive to buy, they're
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: expensive to rent, but you know for good reason, because
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: they they give you that like once in a lifetime
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: opportunity to well, first of all, to rent something that
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: that's expensive. Unless you're like fully into this lifestyle, Are
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: you really going to spend that much money like buying
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: an actual earth roumer that you have to keep and maintain.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: I don't know that's quite a serious commitment. So being
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: able to rent it on outdoorsz dot com just gives
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: you that experience. But you know, it's definitely an eight
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: hundred dollars a night decision.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: So, but it just really seems fair. I mean, if
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: you if you wanted to rent one for a week,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: you're in sixty five hundred seven thousand bucks yep, and
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: you're in a premium overland vehicle with all the water.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: You get to take a nice hot shower. Yeah, you
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: get a cool truck to drive around on your Instagram photos.
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: Are going to be amazing.
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: So I think I think it's kind of a fun.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: I think it's kind of a fun, a fun consideration,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: especially if you're looking at buying one.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: Oh what a great way to try it out, can you?
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: Like?
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: For me, what comes to mind for me is if
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: you're like a girlfriend or a f say that just
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: wants to like blow it out of the water for
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: your like one year anniversary or your five year anniversary,
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: you run something like that for you and your husband
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: or you and your fiance.
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: To go and he is just going to be so
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: happy with that as a dicasion.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: Sure, it's like the ultimate boys toy.
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: And as you say, it's like it's it's a built
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: in experience right too.
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: I Mean, these earth roamers are just so expensive to own,
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: and it's because they come with all of the you know,
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: the gourmet standards, right, gourmet kitchens, expensive solar panels, like
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: beautiful coffee makers.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know that's a really I really like what
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: you just brought up. I've always been a fan of
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: if you're going to give a gift, give a gift
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: of experience, like what a neat idea when someone's thinking
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: like like how can I what can I buy for
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: my partner when they've got everything, and you get to
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: go on to this site and find the kind of
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: truck that they would love to drive, or that maybe
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: is their dream vehicle, and you make that the gift,
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: and you know, you're four or five hundred bucks into
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: a weekend, which is what people normally spend on holiday gifts,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: And next thing you know, you've given someone memories that
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: will last for the rest of their life.
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I always I always talk about that because outdoors,
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: the experiences are our experiences that shape who you are, right,
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: those experience live within, live within your soul. And if
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: you're if you're out there with like a partner or kids,
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: or you know, a bigger family, like you, you have
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: them at your disposal for all the years to come.
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: And you can't say that about any T shirt or
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: any par of jeans, or any leather handbag. Maybe a
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: couple leather handbags, but not really right.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: No, that's true. There's not very many leather handbags I
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: still use. Maybe that's saddleback when I got made in
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Mexico fifteen years ago. I still have that one. But
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: you're right, all that stuff ends up in a landfill.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: So these are memories that last for a lifetime. Maybe
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: let's take another couple more minutes and let's talk about
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: the full spectrum of what's available to be rented. So,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: for example, you guys also rent trailers, and I know
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: that if someone's got a nice half ton pickup truck,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: they can rent a trailer. Let's make sure we've covered
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: the whole spectrum. So you've got everything from campers and
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: earth roamers, ta Coma's and gladiators and jeeps, and.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: Then you've also got trailers.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Have we covered kind of all of the different types
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: of vehicles that you tend to find people renting.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: How about motorcycles?
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: Well, you know what we actually do.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: A couple of motorcycles go on the marketplace which is
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: cool and I'm not sure if we talked about this
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: a lot, Scott, but like one of the things that
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: makes Outdoorsy as a marketplace like the best is we
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: we build our own insurance products and coverage it. And
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: so Roly is the name brand insurance that moves, and
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: we've got a lot of great insurance products for people
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: that own motors, cycles or rent motorcycles, people that own
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: or rent ATVs, trailers, RVs of course, and boats. So
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: you'll find a lot of that inventory on the site,
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: even though it doesn't dominate it. So sometimes you'll find
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: motorcycles included as an add on. Right if somebody is
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: a massive adventure a host, you'll find them renting out
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: an RV and a motorcycle or their pickup truck, a
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: trailer and a motorcycle, just not the same volume of
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: units that we have like within the broader RV category.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: When I looked through the trailers, I really like the
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: fact that you could find everything from a vintage looking
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: tear drop, you know, all the way up to like
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: a borious trailer.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: There's some really.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: High end units and then there's also ones that are
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: quite affordable or even have roof tents on them, So
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: I thought that was really interesting, the opportunity to rent
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: a trailer, which drops the per day cost quite a bit.
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it really does.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: And it gives you more flexibility because if you have
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: a trailer, you can hook the trailer and then you
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: can like cruise around in an adventure type vehicle. Right
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: if it's just a cheap for example, versus a truck camper,
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: you've got two in one. And yeah, I mean I
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: love the compact size of those.
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: Tear Drop trailers.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: That's super cool really.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: And they look beautiful right Like that's probably I don't
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: know if you know about the brand Taxa, but I
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: met the founder a while back and we stay friends,
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: and I really admired his whole story about and mission
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: to build like the most compact but beautiful and esthetically
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: pleasing trailer based on his experience I think of building
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: some like units for space travel.
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: I think was his background.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: I remember that.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: I think him at an outdoor retailer like twenty years
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: ago when we first started. That's crazy, yeah, and that
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: was I really like that. I love the fact that
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: when you peruse the site, because you know, I do
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: spend an inordinate amount of time on bring a trailer
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: looking for vehicles that I shouldn't buy.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: So it's kind of fun.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: It's kind of fun to go on to Outdoorsy and
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: just kind of dream a little bit of like, oh,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: I'd like to try this out or check that particular
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: unit out and see how it works in the field,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: and then plan a little vacation that's not typical.
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: Yep, totally. I mean, I'm glad you brought up the point.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: About a choice, because there's such a big difference. Right
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: These these trailers, you know, and teardrops even smaller, are
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: extremely lightweight and super easy to maneuver around. But you
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: don't know if you prefer that versus an all in
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: one and the benefit and convenience of not having to
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: like hook up and unhook your trailer until you actually
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: try those two things.
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: And I remember when we first started out Doorsy, I
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: thought for sure.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: That I was like I wanted to be all in
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: in the airstream, like a thirty foot minimum airstream because
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: I loved the beauty and the story and then they're
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: gorgeous and I love the interior. But you know, after
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: using it, like by the tenth twelfth trip, I'm like,
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: wait a minute, this is so heavy to tell. So
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: then I started thinking, wait a minute, what matters more
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: to me? And as it turns out, I over the
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: years eventually went from loving like a truck and a
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: trailer to actually just like a super compact camper van.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: So I really really got into like Class b's And
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: then now as we think about you know, you know,
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: renting in the future, retiring those kinds of things, I
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: think truck camper is where it's at. Like, I love
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: the simplicity and that forcing function.
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: Do not overpack, do not weigh it down.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: And honestly, you'll be happier when you're on the road
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: and you're out there for the weekend because you don't
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: need any of this stuff.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: You're true, And then you drop the truck camper during
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: the week and you can go to home.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: Depot use it as a pickup. Yeah, that's what I use.
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: I use a truck camper on my pickup.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: So well, those are some really great examples, Jen For
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: those that are watching YouTube, you'll be able to see
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: all the screenshots and everything like that of the different
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: vehicle that we talked about and some of the other
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: ones that I've dug up in my own research. And
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: then what does does the person need to be a
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: certain age in order to rent or does that depend
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: on the host or the insurance?
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: How does that work?
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: You know, when someone wants to go and do that
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: for a week, what are they kind of looking for
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: on like an average price to rent something like a
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: tacoma or a gladiator with insurance and everything.
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: Good question on the pricing research in Denver. But one
• 36:26
  Speaker 4: hundred and sixty dollars a night.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: Well that's cheap. It's pay less than I was expecting.
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not. It's not an expensive per night.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: And then when you start factoring in that you will
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: probably like bring all of your own food. And this
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: thing comes with like solar and energy saving benefits.
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: You're not have like a little camper on it, or
• 36:46
  Speaker 3: it does.
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: It has a super little like yeah, little rooftop camper.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: So like I'm just reading this particular listing and a
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: lot of these ones come fully stopped. And this is
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: where it gets really cool, right, Like the Overlander crew
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: is so into like how you actually enjoy the experience
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: that this particular host is bundling his headlamps, the tents,
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: sleeping bags, sheets, all the camping gear you need, but
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: taine stoves, your tanks, the pots, pans and dishes, which,
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: by the way, is one of the most important things
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: to consider actually when you're renting from outdoors Eve, Like,
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: based on all of the data that we've learned renting,
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: it's really important that you don't.
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: Overpack these things.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of mechanical failures and issues that come
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: about if the truck is like too heavy. So I
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: love it when you've got the hosts that are actually
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: including everything that you need right they're prioritizing the essentials.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: They're making sure that you've got all of the durable
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: gear and you've got everything that they think you need
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: for really good lightload. But like you still have the
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: flexibility for everything that you need. I would always lean
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: to the experts, and this is definitely one of those
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: categories like versus the more standard ones like a camper
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: van or a motor home.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: Not a week goes by that someone doesn't reach out
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: to ask how they can help support the podcast. We
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: are supported entirely by Overland Journal the magazine. So when
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: you become a subscriber to the Overland Journal print magazine,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: you get this beautiful book that comes in five times
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: a year. It also gives you access to our digital archive,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: and it's well over one hundred pages of gorgeous images
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: and detailed testing and adventures from around the globe. So
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: if you go to Overland Journal dot com and you
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: subscribe to the magazine, use the code overland Podcast and
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: that'll get you twenty percent off. It's only available to
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: our podcast listeners. We don't advertise it anywhere else, and
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: then you help us to maintain that independent, employee owned
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: journalism that we have been famous for, so it allows
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: us to conduct those tests without any advertorial Another way
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: you can help out too. I produced a book last
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: year with Simon and she Uster called Overlanding one oh one.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: You can find it on Amazon or Barnes and Noble
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: or even your local bookstore, and that encompasses my decades
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: of travel around the world, all my mistakes and failures
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: and and the lessons that I've learned in traveling around
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: the globe. Many of those that you hear on the
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: podcast have been distilled down into print form with great
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: lists and beautiful imagery, So you can find that at
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: your local bookstore. Overlanding One on one, and thank you
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: all for listening and for supporting us so much throughout
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: these years. That makes a lot of sense. What a
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: neat opportunity. You think about someone that lives in Germany
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: or they live in the UK and they would love
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: to come and see southern Utah. They fly into Salt
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: Lake City, they rent a tacoma with a camper on it,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: and off they go. And for that kind of money
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: per day, it's less than a hotel. And you've got
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: the car.
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: You got you've got the cars.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: That was one of my favorite things actually about truck
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: campers is yeah, it's easy to move around once you
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: hit your destination. And yeah, as I said, like a
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: lot of the hosts in this segment, it's not just
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: even a convenience thing. They're they're they feel proud to
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: be able to like equip the unit with everything that
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: you need because it's a way that they can show you,
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: like how they've experienced off roading and how they've like
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: dialed in exactly what you need for the for the and.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: From the hosting side, do you find that a lot
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: of these folks it's a way for them to be
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: able to maybe afford a vehicle that they couldn't normally afford,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: or a way to kind of underwrite some of the
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: expenses of having such a such an expensive vehicle. What
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: do you find What are you finding that, Like, what's
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: some of the motivations. Obviously there's going to be people
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: who maybe own five or six units and they're making
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: it a tiny business. But how about for the individual,
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: what are you finding people's motivations are to renting out
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: their car like that?
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the biggest the biggest motivation is definitely financial.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: They want to like fuel their own new global expeditions.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: Like that's what most people talk to us about, is
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: you can make thirty to forty five thousand dollars in
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: one year just renting it out, and that's like enough
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: to fund new trips, especially especially because like these guys
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: and women that are overlanding are pretty clever on like
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: how to save money, how to stay out on the road,
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: or how to stay on trips for as long as
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: possible without overspending. Right, Like, the whole point of overlanding
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: and longer expeditions is to see and experience life, not
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: to spend money doing life. So that's the biggest, most
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: consistent motivation is like how do we make how do
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: we make more money so that we can like fuel
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: exploring more. As AI starts to come in and as
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: they're saying, right, take more jobs and people start losing
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: their corporate way of working, I think you're going to
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: start seeing more people think about, Okay, what's my side
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: hustle or how do I work? And you will find
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: even like thirty year olds and forty year olds and
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: fifty year olds start to think more creatively about how
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: they live and work. And that's going to open up
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: people's minds for thinking about working on the road or
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: working for say six months, and then doing like a
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: longer trip for the next six months or three months
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: or whatever the increments are, which is really different from
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: how certainly I grow up in my parents right where
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: you would go to college and school for years, you'd
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: have your big career for twenty years, and then you
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: would retire. That's going to change much more frequent.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: I agree, and AI is here and it's not going
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: to slow down. So it absolutely makes sense that people
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: feel uncomfortable with it because it is something totally emerging
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: and disruptive. But I think I think if people look
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: at it as another form of leverage. So a company
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: like Outdoorsy requires leverage to grow, It requires capital, and
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: it requires human activity and effort in order to grow.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: But this is a way for people that are even
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: new to entrepreneurship or new to travel or new to
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: renting their vehicle use AI as a way to add
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: leverage to your own activity. Smart people are still necessary
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: in the world. Creative people are still necessary in the world.
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: But what AI allows us to do is amplify the
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: amount of output that a smart or creative or entrepreneurial
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: person can produce. I mean you and I as business owners,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: we have to have leverage or we don't grow. And
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: now we have a whole new form of leverage that
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: we can use to grow our business.
• 43:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, totally. And what's beautiful.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: But adventure travel is usually people that are interested in
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: adventure travel. And most people that rent any kind of
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: a truck, camper or over a lander type vehicle is
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: an adventurer.
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you've already.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: Built in like easy wins for capturing content or storytelling
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: or building out itineraries. And there's just so much change
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: in how we're consuming content. I would imagine that it's
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: going to open up like a new realm of content creators.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: And I think this is this is the segment of
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: overlaying curious people that we'll do you know, we'll do
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: the best in it.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: And I think it's it's so cool to see how
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: the marketplace has grown because really good friends here in
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: Prescott they owned a couple like laundry mats, and they
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: started Harvest host. They're just like, they're just the greens, right,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: So they're just like the coolest people, and they were
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: really smart. They figured like, hey, we want to travel
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: around the world, so let's have some laundry mats. And
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: they got back and they're like, now what do we do?
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: And you know, and the next thing you know, they're
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: like off to the races. Your story is the same.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: And it leads me to a question, Jen, what like
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: this is a huge experience for you personally to grow
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: a business to be at two hundred employees, which means
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: that you're you're quite on the track towards something very significant.
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: How has that changed you as a person? Like, how is.
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: Jen different today than you were in you know, two
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: thousand and fourteen or twenty twelve when you started all this.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: Oh well, I'm I am. I'm a lot happier.
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: So that's one.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: It's amazing, that is Yeah, that's a nice, a nice bonus.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: I'm really proud of the company that we have built.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: You know, we've built it with like these, you know,
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: two hundred plus people. So many people that work at
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: out Doorsy have worked for the company for like over
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: five or six years, which which I love. We've developed
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: a really good community of on on our host side
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: in particular, we know these people, they've become friends. I
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: don't know if you've heard or anybody had mentioned it
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: to you, but we run an annual event it's called
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: the out Doorsy Group Summit. This year it's happening in
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Austin on April seventh, and we're going to bring together
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: hundreds of professional operators and content career and all of
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: our service providers that make like running a marketplace work.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: And those moments give me probably the greatest amount of
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: like reminders that what we're doing really matters in the world,
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: which is what we had set out to build as
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: a company. We wanted to build a company where we
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: weren't selling a lot of extra, like frivolous retail products
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: to people that we don't think that they need, and
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: instead like creating environments where they can spend more time
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: with other with themselves, with their partners, with their families,
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: with friends, doing the activities, and then exploring like the
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: passions that make them the most happy and fulfilled in life.
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: And so that's changed me quite a bit as a person,
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: because as an entrepreneur, you don't often like stop, or
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: at least me as an entrepreneur, I don't often stop
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: and look back at everything that we've achieved and what
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: we built because I'm so focused on like looking at
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: the future and right now we're tackling the Okay, what
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: does a successful marketplace look like in the age of
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: agentic systems and AI infrastructure. But if you're asking me,
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: what's changed about me? And how do I feel?
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: Like?
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: I feel really proud to have built the great company
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: with great people around me and leadership that does the
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: right thing, that puts our customers first, and has created
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: products and services that I think fuel the world in
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: a better way. Then I'm a much more mature person.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: That's that's incredible, because you've the only way you get
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: to this level of success is to give so much
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: of yourself to get here and the fact that you
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: are experiencing joy in this moment that is extremely rare.
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: That is extremely rare.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's that constant balance right in the in
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: the entrepreneur psyche, it's it's it's joy, and then it's
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: I don't want to say fear, although I've come to
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: I've come to develop a really good relationship with fear.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: I now use fear as fuel, and so I don't
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: use it. I recognize it, and I'm like, thanks for
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: helping me point the right direction and give me some
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: of that natural energy. But I know, younger consider it
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: is something that will become debilitating. And so it's that
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: that push and pull of joy and fear. But yeah,
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: it feels good to work with a group of leaders
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: and people that over the years we've been able to
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: tweak and promote, and we've got some really solid talent
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: of individuals that lead our product and lead our marketplace
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: health and our marketing teams and our customer service teams.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: And then on the insurance side, we have a full
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: actuarial department and product claims and customer service and support.
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: Also very integral departments for people that are adventure curious
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: or over landers because you do not want to catch
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: yourself and with no cell service and like no way
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: to like hit emergency services or not have the insurance
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: that you need to cover you know, an adventurous trip,
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: because those things are par for the course. For anybody
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: that's renting vehicles to go overlanding.
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: Well, that's such a neat offering.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: And you know, to hear you speak about fear, you know,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: the only fear is natural. It's how we it's what
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: we're feeling. So feelings are totally natural. It's it's when
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: I think when people don't take action about what they're
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: feeling fearful of is when anxiety begins to creep in.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: And I've found that really the only antidote to any
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: form of anxiety is action. So the fact that you
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: have taken such action in your life to grow a
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: business and build a great team of people, and now
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: this many years later and this big of a company,
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: to find that you're feeling really happy, is that's a
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: rare outcome for an entrepreneur.
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: So that's something you should be really proud of.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well it's I've learned a lot from other entrepreneurs.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: I overdose on a lot of entrepreneurial content every day,
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: and that's that's what's helped teach me these things that
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: I've learned over the years. But I love your point
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: that you just made. It reminds me, like I have
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: a lot of these little entrepreneurial reminders or phrases that
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: I drop as like calendar or meetings in each of
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: my calendar time slots like morning, afternoon, midday. I color
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: code them and they are the phrases that like remind
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: me of what I need to focus on. And the
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: one I'm loving right now is start before you're ready. Now,
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: that might not seem like a big thing, right it
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: might just be, you know, just like a nice little
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: helpful cliche. But if you focus on the most important word,
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: and that is before, it like it helps like draw
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: out like what's important about that particular reminder. It's it's
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: not just start, but it start before you're ready, because
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: like that's usually what gets in the way, right people
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: want to put in a year of planning, three months
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: of planning. Even within my company, so there's great departments,
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: and there is a lot I could learn before I
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: really know a situation too deeply and I might want
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: to spend a whole week just like learning, investigating, summarizing, documenting, viewing,
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: and I have to constantly remind myself, nope, stop, start
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: before I'm ready, like take taking action is more important
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: than a lot of planning. I'm not saying planning is important.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: Planning is also important. Plans are important, or planning is
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: more important than plans starting.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: And also plans change so quickly, so you've got to start,
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: and especially at the rate at which things change today,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: if you wait even six months, it's oftentimes too late.
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: The pace of change is so quick.
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: That you really, if you've got a good idea and
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: you believe in it, take the leap.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you've got to get something like live and in
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: front of customers to see them react to it. Way
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: more than the importance of like absolutely perfecting something, because
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: if you're making something that no one wants to buy,
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: then you just or a new feature or a new
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: price point or a new tool, then you're you know,
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: you've you've spent time on the wrong thing.
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's such good, such good advice. And I'm sure
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: people that are listening appreciate those insights because it applies
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: also to travel. You know, we're never going to be
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: younger or healthier. Maybe a little healthier, but we're never
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: going to be younger than we are today. So saying
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: how I'm going to go and do this big trip
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: in ten years, that opportunity might not even exist then.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: So if something's really important to us, make it a goal,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: get off of the doom scrolling and put some energy
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: behind what does it take to actually go and see
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: that part of the world, or to start your own business,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: or to improve your life in some way.
• 52:23
  Speaker 4: I hear that all the time.
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: It's the biggest blocker that we have for families or
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: people that have never been in an RV or done
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: any kind of RV camping or camping at all. The
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: biggest objection that I hear all the time is, you know,
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: I have to plan it.
• 52:37
  Speaker 4: I have to know where I'm going.
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: I have to figure out my route, I have to
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: figure out the campgrounds.
• 52:41
  Speaker 4: I have to figure out the activities to do.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: Also, I have to think about how I'm going to
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: pack the RV or the camper van. And I also
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: used to think that too, until I did enough of
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: the trips and then I realized, no, actually, all you
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: have to do is just get in and turn the cake.
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: Because there's so many like and tools you can't even
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: you can't even get away from, like your browser and
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: or your internet connection, or recommendations popping up at you.
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: The only thing you really need to plan for is
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: can I get can I take the time off? And
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: you don't even have to get that right perfectly. Just
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: start with, Okay, I'm gonna leave work early this one time.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: I'm going to leave on Thursday night, and then I've
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: got the weekend. Start with that and you'll find like
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: and maybe with the first night, like we're you going
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: to stay the first night, get in the road, get
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: in in the RV and like hit the road, and
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: everything else becomes easy. You've got plenty of places you
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: can stop for food at restaurants. You start talking to
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: one person and they're going to give you five recommendations
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: that are better than you know many you've heard before.
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: You can pick up groceries along the way. It's one
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: of the best things about all these units is full
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: sight refrigerators. Like you just don't have to do that
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: much planning. In fact, what you have to do is
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: tell yourself not to do the planning and just get started,
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: Just get in the vehicle and go.
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: In fact, if I was thinking about, like my trip
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: down West Africa, if I'd tried to plan all of
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: it, it would have been impossible. It just you just have
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: to start in Morocco and figure it out as you
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: head south. Otherwise you're never going to go. It's just
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: and it's the same thing with the idea of like
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: how do I rent my vehicle or how do I
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: rent my home, or how do I find another source
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: of income that helps to support my travels. You know,
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: hop on to Outdoorsy and take a look. I'm sure
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: you guys have some great resources. You know, the site's
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: really fun to cruise around on. It's been a while
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: since I've been on there, and I was shocked with
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: a number of campers and trailers and vehicles that are
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: available to rent on there.
• 54:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, what makes Outdoorsy like the best rental place
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: is the quality of our vehicles and the quality of
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: our hosts bar none, like we have the that matters.
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: You know, you don't want to, you don't want to
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: like sign up for a week vacation and then find
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: yourself in like, you know, a nine year old unit
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: that hasn't been maintained, doesn't have like the right electric
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: or entertainment system or tires, and all of the hosts
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: on our platform, we've got really strict guidelines, and we
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: we prune our inventory a lot. We have a whole
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: marketplace quality team that looks at listings, looks at host responsiveness.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: They make sure, particularly for the hosts that get like
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: number one, number two or first page spots on the marketplace,
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: that these are like the best experiences at the vehicle
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: level and also at the host level, And that matters
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: a lot, particularly for people that are looking to just
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: even you know, use their like two or three weeks
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: holiday they get from their job like that. It matters
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: more to get your vacation time right. But the site
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: is so easy to navigate, and we have interspersed a
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: lot of really good like itinerary content. Our Instagram, I
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: think is like an awesome place to find and follow.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: We love to like showcase we'd love to have you
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: on our Instagram, and or maybe like celebrity celebrity content
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: coming the other way, where we showcase like people that
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: go really deep on certain types of vehicle or certain
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: types of trips. So you can like hit up all
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: the highlight reels and get good suggestions for like epic
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: road trips or just like easy quick weekends by state.
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: Really good community. As I say, it's not just a
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: listing site where you're just like perusing for like vehicles
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: to rent at good price points. It's a marketplace of
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: people that work together to like learn what's best and
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: have that come through in the listing and the content
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: that they provide. And then also like how they manage
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: working with you to describe like Okay, what's a.
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: Check in and check out?
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: How do you learn about the vehicle, how do we
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: share with you some of our best practices and like
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: things to include as part of the trip or not.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: And then all of our hosts are available twenty four
• 56:44
  Speaker 2: to seven, like the entire trip through the app, which
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: is great, And we're looking at incorporating some new like
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: mobile tech services so if something goes wrong and when
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: you're on the road an immediate click to call, aside
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: from providing roadside services like actually having mobile tech phone
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: call away. So we're layering in other ways to feel
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: like safe and like easily connected to people that have
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: your back while you're on the road because.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: So many of those systems are the same from an
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: RV to an overland vehicle.
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: Did you check the fuse? Are your solar panels covered?
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: Is it stormy out and there's a bunch of cloud cover.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: That's probably why your solar isn't charging the battery. You
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: could definitely have a hotline that would answer a lot
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: of those questions pretty quickly.
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: Yep. Absolutely.
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: It's amazing how it's usually, like they always say, right
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: on all technical support lines, it's usually one of three questions,
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: that's true, control.
• 57:37
  Speaker 3: All delete exactly.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: I was funny.
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: I went on your website the other day and I
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: was looking around and seeing the vehicles that are available,
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: and it was it was very low friction process. It
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: was really easy to get to the point of like
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: essentially securing a vehicle. And then this morning I had
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: to go onto U haul to rent a one way
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: trailer and that it took me seven times longer than
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: finding a Tacoma in Colorado to rent because there was
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: all of these pages where were saying, Hey, do you
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: want some tape? Do you want some you know, fernie pads?
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: Do you want this insurance? Do you want that insurance.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: Do you want this person to unload it? Do you
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: want to store your gearar? It was unbelievable to rent
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: like a small enclosed trailer was such high friction and
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: so frustrating. I'm like, I should have just bought a trailer.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: I would have felt better at.
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: The end of the process.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: So you guys are doing a great job keeping it.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: And the photos are great. You know, the site is
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: really inspiring to navigate. Some of the pictures that the
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: hosts put of the vehicles in different places are really beautiful,
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: so you can kind of see yourself in that place.
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's part of That's part of like how
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: we educate our hosts and how we make the marketplace
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: work for the host and the guests.
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: So we're coaching them on like what needs to be
• 58:51
  Speaker 4: in the carousel.
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: One of the things that we just added recently is
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: a quick summary section on all of our listing pages.
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: So that summary talks about what are the features in
• 59:01
  Speaker 2: the vehicle, and then what are some of the tips are,
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: like how to think about like what the experience would
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: be like. So when you're reading through this listing page,
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: obviously we've got to talk to you about like the
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: length and the weight, and like hook up connections and
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: like the particulars at the vehicle level. But what I
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: prefer more is what's a quick summary on how I
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: understand more about what the experience is going to be. Like,
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: So we've got a bors xt and like there, this
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: guy's quick summary is kind of cool. He's like, conquer
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: any terrain, This expedition RV is built for rugged off
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: grid adventures. And then he's talking more about like the
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: clearance the suspension system, like what it's good for for
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: what kind of like off trail, rugged paths and not.
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: And then also there's a couple of summary points around
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: like how to stay convertible, Like what are the requirements
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: that he provides for like the gallons of water in
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: this case thirty gallons, solar panel hot showers. It's also
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: talking about the bed linens and the dubat, which personally
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 2: I love because my husband massive fan of extreme sized
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: vehicles and voting adventure.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: That's such a great way for people to really parse
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: out what they're looking for. And when I was thinking
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: about our conversation today, there was a couple use cases
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: that I think the listeners need to be aware of.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: So let's say that you would really like to buy
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: a certain kind of camper or a certain type of vehicle,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: what a great opportunity to rent one for three or
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: four days, maybe for a week, and really see if
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: that size of vehicle or if that vehicle's right for you.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe you would really love to have a storyteller van,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: Like what a great way to spend like maybe two
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: grand to decide if you want to spend two hundred
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: grand or not. That was one of the things I
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: thought would be really helpful, would be for people to
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: actually get to use something that's very expensive that they're
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: about ready to make a huge purchase decision around, use
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: it out in the field. The other use case I
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: thought of was, so many of these vehicles are hardly used,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: so they may buy an earth roamer, or they might
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: may buy a van and a four whel drive van
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: and they only use it three or four weekends out
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: of the year, Like you cannot. The finances don't justify it.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: So either rent the thing when you're not using it,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: or rent three or four times a year, and you're
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: going to be at a fraction of the cost of
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: what would be otherwise a depreciating assets, so you know,
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: and the reason why I really felt like this was
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: a great conversation today. We don't normally do these kinds
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: of features, but there's no one else like you on
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: the market. You know, you're not paying to be on
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: the podcast. This is not a vertorial. We just are
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: grateful for the opportunity to talk to you. But no
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: one else is doing this, so I don't know that
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: people really are aware that this is available in North
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: America and other parts of the world.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: I'm so glad that you said it that way because
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: I was just so excited to talk to you and
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: also want to spend a little bit more time talking
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: about overlanding trips because I want to learn and do
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: more of them myself. I would love to like double
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: click on those points, because that's that's exactly right. I mean,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: these are expensive vehicles. I know that because my husband
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: and I have looked into buying a couple ourselves, and
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: every time I'm like gulp at the price tag for them.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: And they're different kind of a vehicle, right. These things are.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: Outfitted to be able to like live back country for
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: a few days. You're going to be geeking out on
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: batteries systems, weight tires, solar panels, and you got to
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: know how to use this equipment and the electrical systems
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: and build them. This is not for the amateur or
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: the first time a person, So I can imagine why
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: you wouldn't want to rent one or two. Just even
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: try two different types, two sizes, like go for a
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: lighter weight like pop up camper truck camp and then
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: maybe go for something like a little bit more significant
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: and get a feeling for what the decision matrix would
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: be like. Try that and then see if you actually
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: prefer that kind of like time out doors versus just
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: something that's a little bit more stock standard like a.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: Class B camper van.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: You find out you actually want to stay more in
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: like the urban city centers and not do as much
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: of the boondocking, because I don't think you know that
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: until you.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 4: Try it outdoors as perfect.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: We've got so much range of product, and we're in
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: forty eight hundred cities across North America. There's a really
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: good chance that you're going to find exactly the type
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: of vehicle that you want close to you. You can
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: rent it for a weekend.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: Use that to help guide a actual purchase.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: Decision and then to your point around Okay, great, So
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: now let's just say you've bought one of these things
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: and you're you know, one hundred thousand dollars in or
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: seventy five thousand dollars into it. It should feel a
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: lot better knowing that you can make thirty grand back
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 2: one year renting it when you're not using it, and
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: in a couple of years you've now paid off that
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: total unit.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 4: What's you know?
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: The like the sweet spot is you also still own
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: the unit, so you could resell it. So opportunity to
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: recover all of your costs are there. I think in
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: like probably a couple of year a couple of year
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: payback cycle.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what a what a cool concept. As we kind
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: of wrap up the interview, there was a few things.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: It seems like that you're a real student of business
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: and entrepreneurialship when it comes to travel or business.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: What are some of your favorite books?
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: What are some of the ones that you go back
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: to or you have on your playlist for an audio book?
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: What are some of your favorite titles. I'm a real
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: book nerd, so I always love to hear what people love.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: Well I can tell you so because of AI coming
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: down on us at warp speed. I have been spending
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: a lot more time listening to podcasts than reading books,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: although I will I will shout out from a from
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: an entrepreneur perspective, like the book The Hard Thing About
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: Hard Things, that is, like it's a classic by Ben Horowitz. Yeah,
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: and it really is, I think the most important book
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: that I've read. Not just because it's the reality of
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: like how you manage like leadership through the war of
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: building a startup to self sustaining, scaling business when there
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: are no easy answers, but I loved the core insight
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: in that book, which is important for all entrepreneurs to
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: know before they decide that they really want to get in,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: in particular if they're going to like leave their jobs
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: to make this decision, and that is you have to
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: find peace in the struggle, in the struggle of entrepreneurship,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: because even if you hit like a nice smooth path,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: there'll be another rough one soon. You've got to like
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: know how to find peace through the struggles. That's a
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: that's one of my all time favorite books. But I
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: would say I'm more into podcasts right now and listening
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: to them. I've been following Ray Dallyio. I'm not sure
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: if you know that way, Yeah, yeah, like I right now,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: Like I think for me, I listen a lot more
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 2: in understanding how he's reporting the macro events that are
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: changing right in the economy and in like the overall
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: world order that matters. And then his series Principles of
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: the Day. I follow them all the time, and I
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: try and cherry pick a couple that I think are
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: really important for our teams and share them so that
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: that's one great podcast. I also love Stephen Bartlett. I
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: don't know if you follow him. I think so he's
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: great because I think he's God.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 4: It's called the Diary of the CEO.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: He's great. Yeah, I've listened to a bunch of those.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: Awesome because he like what what he does well is
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: I think he is. He's got a good blend of
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: all the modern day business leaders, and it's a combination
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: of sharing their stories and experiences as well as just
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: like hitting some of the the you know, like the
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: facts of their of their businesses. So I bookmark a
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: lot of his podcasts and then I go back and
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: I can listen to like one or two of those
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: like business leader segments three or four times, and I
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: can always go back and pick out different nuggets. So
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 2: I've been using podcasts actually as a way to save
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: them and bookmark them and then go back and reference them.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 4: I could go I could go on.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: No, I appreciate it.
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: No, those are great, And I also like that he's
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: really low ego. He's really thoughtful, always an interviewer that
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: can be a little grading at times with some of
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: the hosts. I just listened to a great podcast on
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: AI by a guy by the name of Naval Ravakan
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: and it just dropped a few days ago, and so
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: he had like an hour long just kind of riff
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: session on the current state of AI that was very insightful.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: So I'll send you that after the Yeah, thank you
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: for that.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: I try not to watch too many of the doomsday
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: like ex Google CTO and or.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: Like the ted talks that are out there there. They
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 4: can be a little bit scary.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: But there's there's so much content around AI, and that's
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: actually the area that I'm spending the most amount of
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: my time. I'm doing an AI product leadership course now,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 2: and I had just finished a Stanford course to learn
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: how to ready an organization for moving into a world
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: where you'll have human agents and AI agents and building
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: like new products and services. Most people, especially when it
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: comes to travel, they're going to probably make a lot
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 2: of their like searching, finding, deciding decisions through llms. Now
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: and how do we how do we build product in
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: a marketplace that hits the right balance.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: That's an interesting time, a whole new adventure for sure.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: Last question, if you were to give some advice to
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: your call it twenty five year old self, if you
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: were everything that you've learned in life about travel and business,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: what would you what would you tell yourself? How would
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: you give that pep talk to you? If you were
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: about ready to or pick some other you know, twenty
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: five year old person that's getting ready to start a
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: life of adventure and business, what kind of advice would
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: you give?
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: I think the best advice is just don't quit. Forcefulness
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 2: is the master skill in life, because there's just there
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: were so many times, whether I was twenty five and
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: I had marketing manager jobs in different companies or where
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: I am today, the number of times that you want
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 2: to stop and quit because you think you're not doing
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: something good enough, or you're not smart enough, or you'll
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 2: never be able to figure things out. You will if
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 2: you just keep going. You have to be resourceful, though,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: so reach out to anybody, like reach out to yourself,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: right podcast podcasters, business leaders, competitors like everybody will.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 4: Probably answer your phone call.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: And if you can surround yourself by really positive individuals
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: that are also out there wanting to like maximize their
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: life and their learnings, then that gives you the energy
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: to like build the pieces together and you know, make
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: it another day because you can start and stop your day.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: Don't ever quit at the end of a day. Just
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: wake up the next morning and you've got a new
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: slate and.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 4: Keep it going.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: That's great advice. That's great advice. And it also applies
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: to travel. If you're having a really hard day of travel,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: don't quit the trip at the end of the day.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: Start up the next day after you got some sleep
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: and a cup of coffee, and you might be able
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: to dig deep. I remember hearing not long ago and
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: that the number one reason why most organizations fail is
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: not money. It's not something regulatory, it's not competition. The
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: founder runs out of energy, they give they give up,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: they run out of gas. So you're you're so right,
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: don't lift keep the keeper.
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if you must take a longer vacation or a sabbatical,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: but never quit. And also that point Scott around sleep
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: is like a really big one and also one of
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: my one of.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 4: My power moves these days.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: Like I am in I'm probably in bed like way
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: way earlier. Well, I am in bed way earlier than
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: I was when I was twenty five. But I might
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 2: be embarrassing for me even tell you what time I
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: go to sleep at.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: You.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 4: I try to go to sleep really.
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: Early in the evening, and I maximize the mornings because
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: I also try and spend weekends in silence. I know
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: that sounds a little like strange, but I.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 4: Try to.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: Try to use the mornings and use the weekends to
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 2: let my brain sort of like data dump everything that
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: I've learned, and then I trust my intuition to like
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: pop up and focus on what are the company's biggest problems?
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: What what is like my framework.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 4: Of what do I do? What do I drop? What
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 4: do I delay?
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: And that allows me to think through the work on
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: the table and only spend my time on the most
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: important problems, which is a skill in itself, because entrepreneurs
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: can get very caught up and doing a lot of things.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: But if you're not focusing on the most important problems
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: that the company has, then you're just you know, you're
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: It's a slow demise, but it's a demise, right. You
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: don't want to you don't want to shy away from
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: like the biggest problems the company has to solve.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 4: You have to have the energy to solve it.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: And so going to sleep early and using those like
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 2: early moment early mornings or those weekends to allow your
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: intuition to rise to the surface and focus on them
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 2: is those are entrepreneur power moves. I know they sound simple,
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: but like after twenty plus years, like that's the.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 4: The secrets some of the secrets to success.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: That's great advice, Jen, You are such an inspiration. You're
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: in a position of importance within our industry. We're grateful
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: that outdoors Ey exists and that you and your team
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: are empowering people to get out and explore, which is
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: what we believe is so important. We believe that travel
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: changes people in a positive way, and we want people
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: to have those experiences, to get off their phone and
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: actually go see that place for themselves. And what you
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: and your team are doing is empowering people to do that.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: So thank you for your time today, and thank you
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: so much for what you're doing for this industry.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 2: I really appreciate it. I'm so pleased to meet you.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: I look forward to meeting you in person. I do
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 2: hope you come to the Outdoorsy Group Summit this year.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 3: Well that sounds fun.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: You're absolutely right when you make those comments, Scott that
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: like sharing experiences with other people, has a much stronger
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: psychological link to long term happiness and intrinsic happiness, happiness
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: within yourself, and one of the best ways to do
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: that is outdoors with no distractions. And I really enjoy
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: having the conversation with you, and I look forward to
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: learning more about the community that follows you and would
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: love to think about how we could provide a bit
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 2: more value for them.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: You absolutely are and we thank you so much for
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: being on the podcast, and we thank you all for listening,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: and we'll talk to you next time.