Frank Curzio 00:00

How’s it going, out there? It’s Wednesday, July 2, and I’m Frank Curzio with the Wall Street Unplugged podcast, podcast where I break down the headlines and tell you what’s really moving these markets.

Frank Curzio 00:15

So in a minute we’re going to get to my interview with Eric Goldreyer. So, Eric is the founder and CEO of Savvy, which he started a few years ago to create an alternative to Airbnb and Vrbo. Now, taking on giants can sometimes be a pipe dream for entrepreneurs who have very big expectations,

Frank Curzio 00:35

and usually they end up in failure. But Eric, he’s not just some entrepreneur; he’s been in the hospitality and travel industry for over 30 years. He created bedandbreakfast.com, which he sold in 2010 to HomeAway, which is Expedia and Vrbo today, for an 8-figure exit. Then he created Turnkey Vacation Rentals,

Frank Curzio 00:54

which he then sold to Vacasa in 2021 for a 9-figure exit, and it was over $600 million. So, to say Eric is just a veteran in the vacation rental space is an understatement. He’s actually one of the best in the world. And now, instead of retiring—he’s done very, very well—riding off to the sunset, he started Savvy.

Frank Curzio 01:16

Now, why would he do that? If you notice with entrepreneurs, they’re kind of never satisfied. They want to keep going, create new companies, they know how to do this, and the professionals at it, right? There’s a whole formula behind it. And when he looked at this industry, which is vacation rentals, he identified a fundamental flaw that’s taking place, and it just started taking place.

Frank Curzio 01:36

Where competitors like Airbnb, Vrbo, which used to be great alternatives for hotels or instead of hotels and booking hotels for travel, but now they’re charging absolutely insane fees. And we’ve all seen them, because I use Airbnb as well. And why are they charging more fees? Because they’re publicly traded companies. And when you’re publicly traded, you need to grow forever, right?

Frank Curzio 01:57

You need to grow fast, and you need to grow quarter by quarter. If not, your stock’s going to get annihilated. So, one of the easiest ways is to raise prices, especially when you have big companies that expand in certain areas all around the world. Then it comes down to, okay, how else could we grow? Offer new services, but a lot of them decide to raise prices, and the fees are absolutely out of control. So when you look at Savvy, they do not use a traditional model.

Frank Curzio 02:17

In fact, it’s almost a direct booking marketplace that allows property managers to list their vacation rentals directly to consumers with zero commission fees. Which does what? It saves customers like you and me who have to pay these massive fees that go to the big sites, an average of more than $500 per booking.

Frank Curzio 02:37

So Eric’s going to tell you the rest of the story, but I will say this: if you’re an entrepreneur or intend to be one, this interview is a must-listen-to. Because Eric’s going to break down a lot of stuff, we’re going to get to questions, he’s going to show you his playbook on what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur, including simple rules that most ignore. Again,

Frank Curzio 02:55

you’re looking at certain people that understand the formula of how to get exits. They’ve been there, they’ve done it, and they do it time and time again. It’s not luck, guys. Okay? It’s a formula, and we’re going to break that down for you. So again, if you’re an entrepreneur or intend to be, definitely listen to this interview. And here’s my interview with Eric Goldreyer. Eric, thanks so much for joining us again on Wall Street Unplugged.

Eric Goldreyer 03:14

Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.

Frank Curzio 03:16

So, I did a nice intro and showed how you’re the best entrepreneur that ever lived, smarter than Warren Buffett and everything.

Eric Goldreyer 03:23

Yeah. Yeah. All right, well, thanks for having me. Good to be here.

Frank Curzio 03:25

That’s it. That’s it. That’s it. That’s good. But seriously, I just told him about your successes with, you know, bedandbreakfast.com, Turnkey, and now you have Savvy. And I guess we’ll start: what’s your inspiration for Savvy? You had two winners. I know you could retire and do anything you want, but it’s, you know, what’s the inspiration?

Frank Curzio 03:43

Because I want to speak directly to a lot of entrepreneurs out there that everybody wants to be an entrepreneur, but, you know, there’s a lot of mistakes that are made, there’s a lot of things they don’t do. And someone who you had, you know, two successful exits and been an entrepreneur all your life, but now you have Savvy. What’s the inspiration for starting, for going, you know, basically round three just of, you know, all those two success stories?

Eric Goldreyer 04:03

Yeah. No, no, great question. And for all those people out there that want to be entrepreneurs, I mean, I love it. And you just start. You got to start. So many people talk about, “I should do this, I should do that.” Do it. Go do it. But it is a roller coaster. Even on the third one. It’s a roller coaster, so be ready for it. You know, I think the inspiration was just, it was sort of an amalgam of things.

Eric Goldreyer 04:24

I’ve been in the industry for over 30 years. We’ve built marketplaces before. I own a boutique hotel, or co-own, outside of Austin. I’ve got two vacation rentals. And I’m a traveler. And so, guess what? I saw how egregious the fees were, and I was frustrated.

Eric Goldreyer 04:44

The actual sort of event was, my wife and I were taking our daughter and two of her friends to 30A, Seaside, Alice Beach, you know, that whole watercolor, that whole area, several years ago. And we found a $400 a night place. We were booking it for four nights, and I expected,

Eric Goldreyer 05:03

you know, okay, $1,600, tax, you know, tax title, license, $2,000, $2,700. And I was like, “What the hell?”

Frank Curzio 05:13

Wow.

Eric Goldreyer 05:14

So I looked into it, and I’m like, “Okay, this is crazy.” Then I started thinking about, sort of, from my bedandbreakfast.com days, how distribution costs, you know, what had happened in the hotel space versus what had happened for independent lodging providers, whether it was boutique hotels, bed and breakfast inns, now vacation rentals.

Eric Goldreyer 05:34

And I just thought, you know, this is crazy. There’s a better model here where travelers can save a lot of money that can go towards either a nicer stay or a longer stay or bringing in a chef or whatever, or staying in their pocket or paying for their travel. But the impetus was basically, I mean, I’ve just always, it’s hospitality.

Eric Goldreyer 05:56

And I want, I see the need for a marketplace, if you will, platform that allows travelers to easily do discovery for vacation rentals and find them and compare and somewhere that they trust, and then they can book it direct and they don’t have to,

Eric Goldreyer 06:15

you know, get raked through the coals and spend a lot of money that doesn’t even go towards enhancing their trip. And I think that was the big driver, was, you know what? We know how to build this. There’s a huge need here. This is a huge industry. Lots of people are sick of fees. And it’s not just vacation rental fees, right?

Eric Goldreyer 06:34

It’s your Ticketmaster fees, your StubHub fees, it’s your.

Frank Curzio 06:36

It’s insane. It’s insane.

Eric Goldreyer 06:37

It’s the gratuity.

Frank Curzio 06:38

It’s insane. It’s insane right now.

Eric Goldreyer 06:40

It’s everything. I mean, you buy a coffee, not like a double half caff, triple, whatever, whatever, but I mean, give me a drip coffee. And they spin the thing around and it’s like a dollar, $2, or $3 is your gratuity options on your $4 coffee. And you’re like, “Seriously? You poured me a coffee.” Anyway, I thought we could do our part.

Eric Goldreyer 07:00

And I thought it was a great opportunity to leverage the background that I had. And it’s just, it’s fun to create something that solves a need. And I think that’s what drives a lot of entrepreneurs, is just doing it, making it happen and seeing people find it and love it.

Eric Goldreyer 07:20

And it’s just cool. I just saw a Trustpilot review we got this morning, another five-star review. And, you know, the lady’s comment was, “Oh, you know, I see stuff on social a lot.” And, you know, I’m always sort of hesitant. I’m so glad that I went and actually looked. I legitimately saved $400. Like, it was real. And it was great.

Eric Goldreyer 07:38

And I’m already planning my next trip through Savvy. And it’s like, okay, we just helped that lady, you know, save probably $800,000. I mean, on average, since we launched savvy.com February last year, we’re saving people almost $500 per trip. That’s a lot of money.

Frank Curzio 07:56

Yeah. And it’s pretty cool when you go to your website, savvy.com, where you actually have it and you can click any trip you want and any days, and then it’ll show, like, you know, the Airbnb or your competitor’s price right next to it. And, you know, sometimes it’s not that much, sometimes it’s a lot. Like, I clicked on one of them and it was, I think it was $1,200 difference, right? You save $500 on average. But you actually see it. It’s not like, “Oh, well, this is what we do.

Frank Curzio 08:16

Just trust us.” It’s, no, you’re going to see it, you know?

Eric Goldreyer 08:18

It’s across the board. I mean, the average savings on Savvy since we’ve launched and we’ve done thousands of reservations is over 16%. So it’s between 16 and 17%. So if you’re going to Telluride for a ski week, you know, we’re going to save you $10,000. If you’re going to, you know, Houston for the weekend for a wedding, we may save you $300, $200.

Eric Goldreyer 08:39

But it’s typically, you know, between 16 and 17%. And that’s material.

Frank Curzio 08:47

So I’m an investor in your company. If I’m not allowed to say these numbers, it’s perfectly fine, but you sent us a June update of some of the growth that you’re seeing. And you sent us updates and everything. So, I mean, the growth is, yeah, I mean, you guys are rocking and rolling with it. Gross booking value has nearly doubled since January, growing close to 40% month over month. Customer acquisition cost is down 65% year to date.

Frank Curzio 09:07

You know, just, it’s incredible to see this. And I want to ask, with bedandbreakfast.com and also Turnkey Vacations, is it similar growth? Are you seeing more growth compared to this timeframe? Because.

Eric Goldreyer 09:22

I would say we’re seeing more.

Frank Curzio 09:23

Yeah.

Eric Goldreyer 09:23

We’re seeing more aggressive growth. And I would attribute that to the fact that a couple of things. One, we’re not creating this industry, right? Bedandbreakfast.com, the internet was being launched. Innkeepers didn’t know what the internet was. We would go to a conference, an innkeeper conference in California,

Eric Goldreyer 09:44

and tell innkeepers, “We’re going to put you on the internet.” “Yeah, what’s the internet? You know, I don’t.” We get our reservations through guidebooks. I mean, we’re not having to educate the industry that this vacation rental segment exists. And we’re not having to educate people that there’s fees.

Eric Goldreyer 10:02

People are sick of fees. They know about it. So I think the reason we’re seeing, you know, more aggressive growth is just because we have the solution for a big pain point on both sides of the marketplace, right? For travelers, they’re paying way more money than they need to pay.

Eric Goldreyer 10:22

And for property managers, someone else owns their customer. And it’s someone else’s terms and conditions. And it’s someone else holding onto the money until after check-in so they get the float, not the property manager. So, you know, as a property manager, I want a direct reservation. And as a traveler, I’m used to booking direct, right?

Eric Goldreyer 10:41

We all go to Expedia and we look for, or Google, and we look for what’s the best flight from here to there. Once we find which carrier is the right carrier, we go book direct. Same thing on cars. You know, I don’t go to Avis and Hertz and Enterprise independently. I go to an online travel agency like Expedia. I do my search.

Frank Curzio 11:00

Yeah.

Eric Goldreyer 11:00

And then I go book direct because I know I’m going to get a better rate.

Frank Curzio 11:03

You’re going to get a better rate now.

Eric Goldreyer 11:05

It’s no different in the vacation rental industry. And people just don’t realize that. And I think, you know, because travel is something that’s sexy, we’re not talking mattresses, we’re not talking razor blades. People talk about travel, right? Like, you know, curious where you’re going this summer, Frank, right? Like, what are you doing?

Eric Goldreyer 11:24

So when they see friends and family, it’s one of those things that people naturally, you know, “Hey, where you been? Where are you going? What are you doing?” And when you save someone $500 or $5,000 on a vacation rental, one, they’re going to come back. And two, they’re going to tell their friends and family.

Eric Goldreyer 11:42

And so we feel that just getting the platform out there and having it work really well and be clean and tight and have a good UI and UX,

Eric Goldreyer 11:54

it’s just awareness. And as we make people aware of the platform, like the lady that gave us the five-star review on Trustpilot this morning, of which we, you know, we’re a 4.4 overall on it. It doesn’t sound great when you compare it to reviews on Airbnb and Vrbo, but like Airbnb is a 1.1, Vrbo is a 1.2 on Trustpilot. We’re a 4.4, going to 4.5.

Eric Goldreyer 12:16

So it feels pretty good. But those people, I mean, it’s meaningful. And so I think that’s why we’re seeing, you know, yeah, almost 40%, not annual growth, month over month over month over month.

Frank Curzio 12:27

Month over month, yes.

Eric Goldreyer 12:28

And we couldn’t start that in any marketplace. You know, you can’t just go out and drive demand and then they get there and you don’t have any inventory. So we spent several years building inventory so we’d get a lot of properties. And thankfully now we’re at that spot where we can go out and actually start driving demand. And what that will do is that’ll get,

Eric Goldreyer 12:50

you know, all of those property managers that are sort of in the middle of that bell curve that haven’t signed up yet, even though it’s free and even though we have a link to their website and their phone number and a link to all their socials on every one of their properties on our site, unlike Airbnb and Vrbo, they’re not all on our site yet. And they’re busy, right?

Eric Goldreyer 13:10

Property managers are busy. They got a lot to do. But once they start hearing, “Oh, wow, such and such got a reservation.” You know, blah, blah, blah, he got a reservation, she got a reservation, then they’re going to start getting on. We’ll get more inventory, more supply, we’ll get more travelers, and the thing will start going.

Frank Curzio 13:27

No, it’s great. So incredible growth. How is AI impacting your business? Because I book on Expedia, and I do the same thing now because I’ve been on Expedia for probably 15 years, I feel like. And now I actually have an account because I book trips late because I travel a lot and sometimes it’s late notice. I’m speaking at conferences and going to different places for business. And I think they know that, right?

Frank Curzio 13:47

Just trick of the algorithm of 15 years of history. They know everything about me. But when I actually went into Expedia, and this really pissed me off, I went in and I didn’t log in under my name, right? And whatever, Platinum, whatever, you know, because I’ve been doing it for such a long time. And when I went in as someone that does not even have an account, the price was cheaper for someone that’s been there for 15 years.

Frank Curzio 14:06

And I was like, “You have to be kidding me.” And now, even the last two trips I just booked for the summer, for later this summer, I actually saw the prices on Expedia. And then I went directly to the places. And it was easy for me to even book the flights. It was cheaper going directly to the site. So I don’t know if they’re using some kind of AI around it, but how’s AI impacting your business? Because you’re seeing more and more people book their travel through AI.

Eric Goldreyer 14:26

You know, for us, right now, AI is about internal tools mainly, right? More than half of our code is written by AI. We’re aggressively implementing it in ourselves and marketing side of the house and our care side of the house.

Eric Goldreyer 14:44

We’ve been focused on making sure that all of our data is structured and in a data warehouse so it’s accessible via AI. And, you know, at some point, we’ll stand up an MCP server. I think it’s still too early for us. But we’ll make sure that we’re accessible. And I think that’ll help us drive materially more reservations.

Eric Goldreyer 15:04

I mean, just like GVR, Google Vacation Rentals, right? We launched our first cohort on GVR. Now we’ll, you know, that took four months. Now to get the rest of them live should take, you know, another two months. And that just drives awareness. It drives brand. It drives trust.

Eric Goldreyer 15:23

And it drives volume. And I think AI will do the same thing because, you know, ultimately, if you’re on an AI platform and you find several different ways to book a vacation rental, I think travelers are going to have more trust in a brand like Savvy that has vetted professional hosts.

Eric Goldreyer 15:44

And then we’re at the same price than going directly to the property manager that they haven’t heard of or not aware of. And we should be obviously less expensive than the other guys. So I think ultimately it’s going to be a big driver for us.

Frank Curzio 15:57

It is interesting because I love how you look as an entrepreneur of, you know, the disruption, right? What’s not working. And when you’re looking at these two companies, I think it’s an $80 billion valuation, Airbnb, Expedia’s $30 billion valuation, right? The market cap side.

Eric Goldreyer 16:10

Bookings out there.

Frank Curzio 16:11

And these guys are basically, they’re forced because of publicly traded companies where you have to show growth every single quarter forever, right? If you don’t, you’re going to get punished as, you know, your stock’s going to get punished. So when you scale as quick as they did, they’ve done an incredible job. It comes to the point where what else could they offer? They’re offering different services now. But then it comes to like, okay, same with Uber.

Frank Curzio 16:30

I mean, Uber used to be so much cheaper than taxis. And now it’s on par with taxis, right? Because they had to raise their prices. So, you know, is that something you look at from an entrepreneur standpoint where how do I disrupt the market? What do you hear from, like, different people? Because that’s something that I noticed in the last 12 months. And you started this, I think you started maybe in 2022 before you really turned into Savvy, if I’m not mistaken.

Frank Curzio 16:51

So you were early on this because the last 12 months, as someone that booked on Airbnb several times, I mean, the fees are astronomical. I mean, it’s noticeable. Like you said, when I went on it, I was like, “Holy cow, what’s going on here?”

Eric Goldreyer 17:02

Yeah, yeah.

Eric Goldreyer 17:05

I just think more and more and more people are going to realize and there’s still a lot of people that just, no pun intended, but they’re not savvy. They don’t realize that they’re paying $500 in fees to Airbnb and it’s not going towards their stay. And so that’s a part of our job is just educating them that there’s a better way or a smarter way to do it.

Frank Curzio 17:26

So talk about the part, and I think we’re going to get a lot of entrepreneurs listening to this. What are some of the mistakes they make? Because one of the mistakes even I made when I started my business is I think your ambitions are so high where you’re like, “I’m going to be bigger than everyone in the industry.” Where I noticed that when I talk to people like you who’ve been there and done that,

Frank Curzio 17:45

it’s always like an exit strategy, right? It’s like, “Where I’m going to be? It’s definitely a need for the bigger competitors. If not, we’re going to continue to grow. But here’s a service that is definitely going to complement them because they don’t have this right now.” Talk about some of the negatives or positives or things you’ve learned along the way because so many people have, they see it,

Frank Curzio 18:04

they identify it, you know, the disruption. But yet, when you structure your company and how you attack and how you run your company in terms of raising capital, there’s just so much that goes behind it to be successful where you could have that great idea, but maybe you’re not executing right.

Eric Goldreyer 18:19

Yeah, I think it’s being very intentional about where you’re headed and what you think your market is, right? What problem, what pain point are you solving and for who? I mean, I’d be the dumbest guy in the room if I said I was going to disintermediate Airbnb, right? And like, be bigger than them.

Eric Goldreyer 18:38

They’re the market. They sort of created the industry. Even though Matt Klaus launched Vacation Rentals by Owner, or a.k.a.

Eric Goldreyer 18:45

Vrbo, or now Vrbo, you know, 15 years ahead of them, Airbnb sort of created the category. But, you know, to your point, you know, you mentioned the market caps, $80 billion, $30 billion. There’s hundreds of millions of people that stay in vacation rentals.

Eric Goldreyer 19:04

And it’s a, you know, it’s a huge industry. So, you know, the thing about travel is not everyone stays in a vacation rental. People that stay in a vacation rental don’t stay in a vacation rental every time they travel. And people that stay in a vacation rental don’t always go back to the same destination, right?

Eric Goldreyer 19:23

You may be going to Destin, Florida, for this trip. And next time you’re going to, you know, Southern California. And then you’re going to that Arondacks. Who knows? But we’re not trying to be the answer for everybody. I mean, some people want to book through Airbnb because they have a brand affinity for whatever reason.

Eric Goldreyer 19:44

Or they want that, you know, they want to be able to call somebody if something goes wrong and wait on hold for hours and go through several rounds of trying to get some money back for something. We chose to create a site that is for savvy travelers specifically,

Eric Goldreyer 20:05

the ones that are going to go showroom on Airbnb and Vrbo, but then see the value of booking direct and want that direct relationship and want to save that money. And then they go spend a bunch of time on Google or on the internet trying to find a way to book the property directly.

Eric Goldreyer 20:21

So our market was, let’s go provide a way for people that already do that, but let’s do it in a way that is way easier than they do it now. Adds a layer of credibility because we do, you know, the trust and security vetting process on all of our hosts.

Eric Goldreyer 20:40

So they know that if they book with one that’s on our site, it’s been vetted. We use Persona to do our third-party vetting. And let’s just make it easy, money-saving, and trusted so that for that, what is it? 5, 10, 15, 20% of the industry that wants to do that?

Eric Goldreyer 21:02

Great. All you other guys keep going to Airbnb and Vrbo. Or maybe there’s times when you want to book on Airbnb and Vrbo, but there’s times when, you know, you want to book it direct. If it’s a small trip to Houston, you know, and it’s going to be $400, maybe go ahead and book it on Airbnb. But if you’re taking the family to the beach and,

Eric Goldreyer 21:23

you know, watercolor in Florida, you want to save the $3,000 or $4,000 and you book it through Savvy. So I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all solution for a traveler on the demand side. On the supply side, you know, we tell property managers, you got to be on Airbnb and you got to be on Vrbo. Those are the big guys.

Eric Goldreyer 21:42

Those have the majority of the share in the industry. They’ve got the most eyeballs. You’d be a fool not to be distributing on those sites. But what every single property manager almost wants is they want a direct relationship with their guest. They want to own the customer relationship. They want it to be their terms and conditions.

Eric Goldreyer 22:03

They want to get the money when the reservation’s made, not when the stay happens, you know, 45 days later. They want to make the float. But the problem they have is, you know, they all can spend money building a great website and they can get a professional photographer and they can have a good booking engine. But that’s not the problem.

Eric Goldreyer 22:23

The problem is traveler behavior. Travelers, you and I, Frank, we’re not going to go look at 15 or 20 different property manager websites in Destin, Florida, to find a place to stay. We’re going to go to Google or Airbnb.

Eric Goldreyer 22:36

So until the industry on the supply side supports a marketplace like Savvy to give travelers an alternative way, travelers don’t have anywhere else to go.

Frank Curzio 22:48

Yeah.

Eric Goldreyer 22:49

So we as an industry are forcing them to go to Airbnb and Vrbo. So what we’re trying to do and what we’re having to do is educate property managers. Look, we get it. You want direct reservations, but you’re going to keep banging your head against the wall if you think the solution is a website with good photos.

Eric Goldreyer 23:06

We have to give travelers a way to find us because we’re not going to change their behavior.

Frank Curzio 23:12

Yeah. And for me, doing a due diligence on your deal and why I came in and actually offered it to one of my investors is when you said, “Look, we need to capture.” I think it was like 2% of the market and it’s a billion-dollar company, right? And that seemed reasonable for the valuation we were getting. And I was like, “That makes a lot of sense.” It’s not like, “Oh, we’re going to replace them and you’re not, you know, cropping all over the competitors.” It’s like,

Frank Curzio 23:30

“Hey, this is the alternative, which I really loved.” And I guess the next question I want to ask you is when it comes to a team. So now I’d love for you to tell you, you know, your list of advisors is like a who’s who, right? Who’s in the industry, right? And some of them. I’d love for you to let everyone know. But for people who are starting, you need a good management team.

Frank Curzio 23:49

How do you get that management team over? Because, you know, you basically don’t have a lot of capital when you first start your business. Is it having them participate in the business? I mean, talk about that process where now, whatever you do, you had so much success, people are going to follow you. You’re going to have a great advisor team, management team. You earn that. But for people who are starting, you also want to lock in really good talent. How do you do that as an entrepreneur when,

Frank Curzio 24:09

you know, you don’t have as much capital to actually be able to hire these great people with experience?

Eric Goldreyer 24:14

It’s a great question. And I think it’s what makes a founder, right? It’s sales. When you’re a founder, you’re selling to raise money. You’re selling to get people to join your team. You’re selling to get supply to join your marketplace. You’re selling to get travelers to then use the marketplace.

Eric Goldreyer 24:33

I mean, that’s your job. You’re number one salesperson. Yeah, given people upside in your business. So you’re aligned is great. And it gives them ownership and makes them feel a part of it because they are a part of it. And it rewards them correctly. Finding the right people.

Eric Goldreyer 24:54

I mean, you know, it’s hard. I wish I had a silver bullet there. I think I’ve sort of been lucky in that I just happened to meet the right people at the right time through different relationships. I mean, networking and knowing people and getting introduced to people. But I would also sit here and say that I’ve made some bad hires, right?

Eric Goldreyer 25:14

You know, at bedandbreakfast.com, my first sort of rodeo, I was like, “Okay, I’m not going to hire friends and family. I’ve got to keep that separate from business, right? They’re not together.” And after I had that exit, and then when my good buddy and I were like,

Eric Goldreyer 25:36

“Okay, what are we going to do next?” Then together, we were like, “Okay, let’s go do Turnkey.” And I wasn’t ready to be CEO and step back in day to day. I sold my business at bedandbreakfast.com so I could be with my family. My kids were young at the time. And so we brought in a CEO. He happened to know the guy, right? And he came in.

Eric Goldreyer 25:55

And then with Savvy, I’m like, “Okay, if I’m going to be in the trenches working, I want to do that with friends.” Like, right? Who do you want to be hanging out with? Friends. But it’s been hard because we’ve made some hires that didn’t work out. And I love the people. But it’s like,

Eric Goldreyer 26:15

“Hey, I’ve got, you know, a fiduciary responsibility to investors. This isn’t getting us where we need to be. We’ve got to make a change.” And, you know, so it’s tough to hire friends and work with friends because it doesn’t always work. But I would rather try it,

Eric Goldreyer 26:35

have it not work, and them know that, “Hey, if we don’t get there, we’re going to have to make a change. But let’s give it a try.” And, you know, I wish I could say I was a 100% success rate on that, but definitely not.

Frank Curzio 26:47

Wow, that’s really interesting. I love that. That’s really cool. You don’t hear that often. People are like, “Stay away from family and friends.” We have family at our business as well. But, you know, they’re good workers and they’re great workers. But also, I had an experience that wasn’t that good. So I hear you, you know, which is interesting. But talk about some of the advisors that you have now for Savvy. I think that’s really interesting.

Eric Goldreyer 27:07

Yeah, so we’ve been really blessed. And I think a part of that is, you know, life is relationships. And being in the industry for 30 years, I’ve got some deep relationships in the industry through bedandbreakfast.com and Turnkey. And then also the successful exits helps who you get to meet and stuff.

Eric Goldreyer 27:23

But no, you know, our list of advisors spans from David Klaus, who launched Vacation Rentals by Owner back when I launched bedandbreakfast.com, Carl Shepard, who was co-founder of HomeAway with Brian Sharples.

Eric Goldreyer 27:42

Gosh, I’m sort of spacing out. John Banzak, who was at Turnkey with me and then went on to Vacasas and now Casago.

Eric Goldreyer 27:54

We’ve got a bunch. I can’t even list them all right now.

Frank Curzio 27:57

We got a spot of a lot of language switches.

Eric Goldreyer 27:59

We got a good group. And full disclosure, I’ll tell you, it’s not like we have a monthly call or anything. These are folks that have agreed to be available if I’ve got questions for them and stuff and reach out and talk to them. But we’re not flying them in to, you know, do an offsite or anything.

Frank Curzio 28:15

And that’s good advice as well, right? Just having advisors that you can actually, you know, just hear from them, see what’s going on. And that helps a lot too. They’re not necessarily on the board, you know, the major commitment. But, you know, they’re there if, you know, when you need them.

Eric Goldreyer 28:28

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, they’ve seen it also. So not only, you know, do they have great experience and background, but opening doors for you, et cetera. It’s just, you know.

Frank Curzio 28:41

No, it’s great stuff. Well, I mean, you follow through on everything. That doesn’t always happen when you invest in private markets. I tell everyone how risky it is, right? You want to hit like one out of six or seven, and you probably be very, very good. So, but you just follow through on everything. I know you, you know, it’s really exciting. I’m hoping they get to speak at a conference again. You know, when I interviewed you, everybody loved you.

Eric Goldreyer 29:00

Yeah, I loved you.

Frank Curzio 29:01

It was really great. And I guess I’ll end with this as someone that travels a lot, has been around this industry. Could you tell me a place that you went to that’s kind of like underrated that people don’t know about? And maybe a place that might be a little overrated. And I don’t know if you want to say the overrated one because I don’t want you to prep on any city or anything.

Frank Curzio 29:15

But is there any place that you go to you’d be like, “Hey, you know, a lot of people don’t know about this place, and it’s really cool.”

Eric Goldreyer 29:21

Wow, that’s a great question. You know, I would say, Frank, that I’m such a chump and that I’ve been in a rut for the last while, once we had kids, that we pretty much, you know, we have a vacation home in Breckenridge, Colorado, which, by the way, as where Matt Klaus had his,

Eric Goldreyer 29:42

Matt and David had his vacation rental that started vacation rentals by owner, right? But we go there a lot. Our other travel sort of seems to be all over the place.

Eric Goldreyer 29:57

I think, you know, I think my favorite, I wouldn’t say it’s quite undiscovered, but one of the best trips we’ve had is a catamaran in the British Virgin Islands. And it’s not that that’s undiscovered, but it’s not like it’s one town or one place there, right?

Eric Goldreyer 30:15

It’s just being on the boat and relaxing wherever you’re at anchor down there. So I recommend that one. Vancouver also, to me, Canada.

Frank Curzio 30:28

Vancouver.

Eric Goldreyer 30:29

Absolutely beautiful. And not a lot of people go to San Francisco. A lot of people go to Manhattan. Vancouver’s gorgeous. It’s got the sound right there. You can see Whistler. But it’s a modern city with, you know, all the restaurants and stuff that you can imagine, but also outdoors.

Eric Goldreyer 30:50

And then I think another off-the-beaten-path one that I really love is

Eric Goldreyer 30:56

in Kauai, Honolulu Bay, up at the north end of Kauai,

Eric Goldreyer 31:03

right before you start the Kana Pali coast.

Frank Curzio 31:09

What is that?

Eric Goldreyer 31:10

That’s the road to Hana is on Maui.

Frank Curzio 31:12

Oh, on Maui. Okay.

Eric Goldreyer 31:13

And Hana’s pretty much, I mean, there’s a cool hotel there. And it’s beautiful. And the drive is beautiful. All these waterfalls, you know, at least you used to be able to swim in. I don’t know if you can now, if they let you. But no, on Kauai, that’s good. A place I’ve been that was overrated.

Frank Curzio 31:33

That’s a tough question, so.

Eric Goldreyer 31:35

Yeah, I don’t know if I can think of one because I typically try not to go to places that are just sort of ongoing because there’s this hype about them. So the overratedness maybe just doesn’t apply to me because I’m not following like the latest craze and like, “Oh, I saw this on Instagram.

Eric Goldreyer 31:54

I got to go to this place.” Oh, that was lame. I’ve heard we did go to Greece two summers ago, and we had a great time. I hear there’s some places in Greece for my kids. They went over early. We sent our three kids, and they did some bonding time. And then we met them on another island.

Eric Goldreyer 32:15

And they’re like, “Yeah, this place is sort of all hype and no delivery.” And I’m spacing on the name of it. It was one of those islands, Mykonos and.

Frank Curzio 32:28

Mykonos Road, the Santorini or.

Eric Goldreyer 32:30

Yeah, well, we were in Santorini. That’s where we met them. And I think they were in Mykonos. And they’re like, “Hey, if you’re in college and you want to do the club until 4 in the morning or 6 in the morning, great.” Otherwise, you know, there’s prettier places. Because Greece is beautiful. It’s a great place to go. It’s absolutely gorgeous.

Frank Curzio 32:47

Yeah, Greek islands.

Eric Goldreyer 32:47

But there’s certain places, right? Like Ibiza. It’s like, “Okay, that’s just, it’s not my vibe, but it works for a lot of people. So they should go have fun there.”

Frank Curzio 32:57

Yeah. And I know it’s tough out there too because I remember going to the World Cup in Brazil. This is, wow, maybe eight years ago, 12 years ago. And we were worried because of what we hear, right? And just stories that you read, that you normally read to do your research. And if you notice, and I know you’ve noticed, I mean, look at where the World Cup is in the US. And we’re seeing all these people going,

Frank Curzio 33:16

“Oh my God, what we were reading about America was terrible. And it’s so great.” So yeah, it’s kind of hard even to do some of the research on it, depending on what you’re doing the research. And I guess it’s great to have something like you also have comments that actually tell you, right? Then real people telling you than just, you know, whatever media outlet you’re listening to sometimes could be a little biased, right?

Eric Goldreyer 33:34

Well, yeah, you got to remember that the media has to make money. And, you know, they’ve got to publish things that cause people to react and engage. And that with the world the way it is, that line gets further and further that they’ve got to really, you know,

Eric Goldreyer 33:52

you can’t watch news now without, you know, breaking news at the bottom.

Frank Curzio 33:56

Breaking news.

Eric Goldreyer 33:57

Give me a break. Yeah. The nightly news, ABC, ABC, whatever, the CBS, the nightly news comes on at 5:30. And it’s like breaking news this evening. And you’re like, “My wife and I joke.” When it’s about to come on, we always like look at each other. Breaking news.

Frank Curzio 34:12

Breaking news breaking.

Eric Goldreyer 34:13

Yeah, every day. And you’re like, “Okay, I’m so jaded. Everyone’s so tired of it.”

Frank Curzio 34:18

I guess last question here. And so you were fortunate to have the route in your last two exits where a large competitor bought you. So say if you’re growing so fast, have you ever thought like the exit strategy, well, you can continue, you can raise money, continue to grow. But say if, you know, you don’t have one of your competitors coming in and saying,

Frank Curzio 34:36

“Hey, we really like this,” or making an offer, the IPO route, is that available as well? Or is it just.

Eric Goldreyer 34:42

Oh, I mean, the business would be big enough that for sure that’s an option. Do I get excited about that? Not really.

Eric Goldreyer 34:51

I’m not a, I think it makes more sense for someone that wants to run a successful business like this that has the, you know, the industry expertise and/or the financial understanding ultimately to run it long-term, right?

Eric Goldreyer 35:11

Let us build it, let us get it going, and make it work for travelers, make it work for property managers. And then it’s whether it’s private equity or it’s, you know, one of the big guys in the space that’s like, “Okay, this is another model that, you know, is adjacent to what we’re already doing. You know, let’s pick this up.”

Frank Curzio 35:29

Yeah. And I say great. I mean, it would be great for our investors if we had an IPO. It’s an exit, right? But with that said, it’s a different animal. Running a company where every quarter you have to make, and it’s short-term thinking. I talked to a lot of CEOs in my 30-year career. Just everything’s so short-term in nature where I think when you’re private, you get to really look at the long-term picture a little further out, which is really cool, you know?

Eric Goldreyer 35:48

No doubt. And I mean, just the, you know, the whole public thing, I think that’s there’s better CEOs to run the business than me for that scenario. So if we went that route, that would be a good time for me to transition out and bring in someone with better chops that’s done that before and gives the business the best chance of success.

Frank Curzio 36:09

No, it makes a lot of sense. Well, Eric, listen, I appreciate you coming on. I appreciate you really, you know, letting us get personal with you, right? Because there’s so many entrepreneurs out there. You’ve been there, you’ve done it. And, you know, you learn from people like you because you’ve made mistakes on the way. And then you have these successes, which are huge. And everybody focuses on the successes. They don’t focus on that journey. And, you know, being on that journey is really what it’s all about to me. I always say that, you know, everyone thinks you’re going to get from here to here.

Frank Curzio 36:29

It’s easy. It’s a journey where you learn the most from. But to really explain that, I think it’s going to help a lot of people out there who want to start their own businesses and try to disrupt different markets. And you could do that easily.

Eric Goldreyer 36:37

Well, I hope so.

Frank Curzio 36:38

Right?

Eric Goldreyer 36:38

Yeah, I hope so.

Frank Curzio 36:38

It’s really cool. So thank you so much for coming on. Listen, and congratulations on success. Very happy being an investor. So am I one of investors. But hopefully you enjoy this summer. I’ll probably talk to you before that. And hopefully you’re going to be at our conference this year in October as well.

Eric Goldreyer 36:50

Sounds great, Frank. Thanks for having me.

Frank Curzio 36:52

All right. Thanks, man. Great stuff from Eric. Reminds me of Michael Poli. Michael Poli you might know him from horse racing, Triple Crown, but also founder of Vitamin Water, which he sold to Coke for $4 billion. Then he founded Body Armor and sold that brand to Coke again for over $1 billion. And I think he’s doing, what is it? Another one with Tom Brady, right?

Frank Curzio 37:11

With Sneakers. So Noble, I believe it is. And there is a formula. I said that in the opening. The best entrepreneurs are not lucky. They know how to identify a market and see the flaws in it. Then formulate a plan on how to disrupt it. And then what do they do?

Frank Curzio 37:28

They know how to get funding, which is pretty easy because everyone that invested in these guys early are always going to come into the next deals because they made a fortune. That’s why you never want to blow up your list. You never want to do something stupid. Look at short-term because if you’re successful in your endeavor, you’re going to have those investors following for the rest of your life, no matter what you do. And I’ll be honest with you, even for me, people have made me money in the past.

Frank Curzio 37:48

They send me terms of the deal. I don’t even look at the terms because they made me so much money in the past. And they’ll be like, “Hey, you know, I started this new thing. We’re going to have financing around.” I’m like, “I’m in.” Because I know how good they are. I know the experience. Even before I look at the terms as someone who’s an analyst, I look at this stuff. So they understand the funding part. They understand how to build a team. A lot of these teams come along because they’ve been in their previous successful winners.

Frank Curzio 38:09

And then execute with the full intention of what? Of having an exit strategy. I think a lot of people miss that, right? So I’m going to start this company. I’m going to be bigger than Microsoft. You have to have an exit strategy. Your goal is to sell your business to Microsoft. And then you could retire. You could start over again with another entrepreneur business or whatever you want.

Frank Curzio 38:27

But you want to be able to sell something because you’re identifying the flaw that these big companies are going to look at, just like Michael Poli did, and also Eric, and say, “Hey, these guys are missing this point. We’re going to create something that fills a void. And these guys are going to pay a high premium for it once we get this up and running and successful.” So full disclosure, I’m an investor in savvy along with my one members because I looked at Eric’s track record.

Frank Curzio 38:48

And through a friend, I knew that he was raising money. He said, “Hey, if you want to come in, come in.” And I came in. I also offered to my one members. I also interviewed Eric at my conference, at my one conference, which is the first conference we ever have. We have it in October. The same place I will have in Pier 66 for one members this year. And I interviewed on stage and everybody loved him. He was great, charismatic,

Frank Curzio 39:07

as you could see from the interview, and answered everyone’s questions, right? And then I think even more people came in after that. And Savvy is also a sponsor for the podcast because it’s a service that I truly believe in or I wouldn’t have invested in. So anyone looking to book an Airbnb or Vrbo, check out Savvy first since they’re going to provide the exact listing of all the competitors, right?

Frank Curzio 39:27

The same site the competitors are listing. And you’re going to see how much you could save. And even Eric said sometimes there won’t be a big saving. Sometimes you might want to go for Airbnb. But the fact that they show that stuff, on average, it’s the same listing that you don’t have to pay the fees for, which saves you an average of $500. And also because the sponsor of the podcast, which I offer everything, I try to offer great deals for all my listeners.

Frank Curzio 39:47

You can go to savvy.com/wsu and you’ll get an extra $50 off your first booking. So it’s www.savvy.com/wsu. So not only are you going to get a 50% discount, on average, you’re going to save $500 for your booking.

Frank Curzio 39:59

So guys, I love having interviews like this, not just because I’m an investor in the company, because I love how Eric is down to earth and is able to explain how this process, it’s not easy, but it is a formula. And by learning from the best and just, you know, shut up and listening, right?

Frank Curzio 40:18

Listen to these people of, you know, learn from their mistakes, right? And he’s made mistakes in the past. And just like I’ve made mistakes in the past with my business, right? And you learn from them and you build, right? And learning from someone that’s done this as an eight-figure and a nine-figure exit is pretty cool. So hopefully you guys enjoyed this video, but let me know what you thought at frankkersresearch.com. And I hope you all enjoy the holiday weekend.

Frank Curzio 40:37

I’m going to be upstate, New York, where I bought lots of fireworks. If you’re a long-term listener, you know what that means. My dad, who’s passed, wow, probably over 25 years now, I used to have these big firework displays until, you know, they threw them in the back of a police car because you’re not supposed to light off, especially upstate New York is really quiet update even on the 4th of July.

Frank Curzio 40:57

And they say, “If you do this again, that’s it. We’re going to come up and arrest you.” He’s like, “I promise I won’t do it again.” And he did it the next year. And they put him in the back of the cop car with probably 30 of my family members there. And then they said, “That’s it. If you do it again, you’re done.” And afterwards, he was like, “All right, I’m done.” And it was funny because we have a property up there that’s up on a mountain. And it’s also like a cemetery, a really old cemetery where you see,

Frank Curzio 41:17

you know, Civil War and stuff like 1800s. It’s amazing. And the cop actually went in through the back way and was watching us. And my dad’s like a power maniac. So he was actually lighting all the fireworks. And there’s a cloud, it was very humid. It was a cloud of smoke. We have about five open acres of property. And there’s a cloud of smoke where you really couldn’t see more than 20 feet. So the cop is seeing my father like these.

Frank Curzio 41:37

And then he comes up all the way through the driveway. You have to drive all the way up to get there. And he’s like, “You know, I saw you guys lighting all the fireworks.” And my dad’s like, “I know what you’re talking about.” And the cop’s like, “I saw you running and lighting the fireworks. I was right there.” He’s like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” And then he put him back in the car and said, “Look, that’s it. You’re done.” And that was 27 years ago, I think. Maybe even longer, 30 years ago.

Frank Curzio 41:56

So it’s a 250th anniversary. And I figured I just spent a lot of money, thousands of dollars on tons of fireworks. So, you know, it should be pretty cool. It’s going to be special. I may get arrested if I do. I might miss a couple of podcasts. But I’ll be back. I should be back. I don’t think the bail’s going to be that much. But if you want new stock pics, I might ask you to bail me out, but we’ll see. It should be cool,

Frank Curzio 42:15

but we’re really going to light the whole forest up. It’s going to be pretty crazy because we got motors, everything. It’s going to be really cool. So we’re enjoying 4th of July with my family members. It’s going to be so much fun. And hopefully you guys enjoy it too. And yeah, I love 4th of July. It just has a special place in my heart for my dad. It was his favorite holiday. So I’m really looking forward to it. And hopefully you guys will also enjoy the long weekend.

Frank Curzio 42:35

So I’ll see you guys next week. Take care.

Announcer 42:37

Wall Street Unplugged is produced by Curzio Research, one of the most respected financial media companies in the industry. The information presented on Wall Street Unplugged is the opinion of its host and guests. You should not base your investment decisions solely on this broadcast. Remember, it’s your money, and your responsibility.