Nathan St Cyr - Turning 1 Star Motel Into #1 Small Hostel In North America

Nathan is the co-founder of Malama Capital & host of The Hotel Investor Playbook, a podcast that shows how to buy and operate award-winning hospitality properties. Nathan's goal is to turn a $400,000 investment into a $400 Million Hospitality Based Business. With his business partner, they were able to take a 1 star motel located in Hawaii and turn it into the #1 small hostel in North America. His true passion is in team building and helping others become the best versions of themselves. Born in MN, he has made Maui his home for the last 29 years. He's a dedicated husband and father of two.

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Discover the path to financial freedom through real estate investing.
• Explore the lucrative opportunities of transitioning to hospitality real estate.
• Unlock the power of leveraging partnerships in real estate for exponential growth.
• Understand the significant impact of zoning on property value and investment potential.
• Dive into the promising investment opportunities within the hospitality asset class.

The key moments in this episode are:
00:00:00 - Learning from Failure
00:03:19 - Power of Partnerships
00:04:33 - Taking Action in Challenging Markets
00:14:16 - The Journey of Real Estate Investing
00:15:50 - Taking Action and Overcoming Fear
00:24:45 - Creating Value through Zoning Opportunities
00:26:00 - Opportunity in Adversity
00:27:47 - Taking Action Amid Fear
00:30:13 - Sharing Lessons and Knowledge 

Follow Nathan 👇
https://www.malama-capital.com/
https://www.instagram.com/the_hotel_investor_playbook/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathan-st-cyr-467069241
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-hotel-investor-playbook/id1756195265

SUBSCRIBE IF YOU'RE LOOKING TO BUILD WEALTH THROUGH OPPORTUNITIES IN THE REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY
✅ http://relfreedom.tv

GET STARTED INVESTING TODAY AND ACCESS OUR DEAL LIST!
📈 http://investwithelite.com

PARTNER WITH US ON BIG DEALS!
💵 https://eliteadvantagepropertieshq.com

BUILD YOUR REAL ESTATE AGENT CAREER WORKING WITH INVESTORS
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 http://eliteadvantageagent.com

LEARN ABOUT REL FREEDOM & HEAR MORE REAL LIFE STORIES
🎙️ http://www.relfreedom.com

FREEBIES: DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE FREEDOM FOUNDATION BLUEPRINT
💵 https://www.relfreedom.com/blueprint

LOOKING FOR A REAL ESTATE AGENT ANYWHERE IN THE US? FIND A TOP AGENT IN YOUR COMMUNITY
🏠 http://www.eliteagentreferral.com

JOIN OUR FACEBOOK COMMUNITY
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 https://www.facebook.com/groups/relfr...

SUBSCRIBE TO THE REL FREEDOM PODCAST
🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
🎧 Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0...
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5nXA5hL...

LET'S CONNECT
👉 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mswenson13
👉 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getrelfreedom/
👉 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@relfreedom
🏠 Minnesota Real Estate: https://www.eliteadvantageteam.com

Read the full transcript:

Nathan St Cyr
Sometimes learning the difficult lessons and the failure is exactly the rudder that we need to get us steered to the right place. That ultimately my first couple of failures, they got me to make that investment to go have the courage to raise capital that first when I knew nothing, had no experience. So I think developing that skill of taking action is just a huge, huge, huge step.

Mike Swenson
Welcome to the RELFreedom show where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host Mike Swenson. Let's get some real freedom together. Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of RELFreedom Real Estate Leverage Freedom where we talk about different ways that people build time and financial freedom through different opportunities in real estate. I'm your host Mike Swenson. If you want to get started on your real estate investing journey, check out our website free freedom through real estate.com. we've got a lot of great content and information on there for you to get started but it's really about taking action. You know you can consume content all day long. We certainly have a great story today, but it's about taking action. So what's the thing that you can find and take action on today? We've got an awesome guest. We've got Nathan St Cyr. He is the co founder of Malama Capital and host of the Hotel Investor Playbook, the podcast that shows you how to buy and operate award winning hospitality properties and your goal. I, I heard this, this is awesome to take 400000 of investment and turn it into million dollar hospitality based business. So excited to, to see your journey as it continues to grow. Obviously you've done a lot and we're going to dig into that. So excited to hear your story, Nathan.

Nathan St Cyr
Yeah, Mike. Hey. Well, first of all I appreciate you having me on and look, freedom through real estate has been a passion of mine my really since my, you know, over 25 years. So to be able to get to dig in and talk about that a little bit, I'm pumped for you know if we look at where we're at right now, my business partner Michael Russell and I, we have a combined real estate portfolio valued at about $30 million. That is just, it's 100, him and I. So to this point we've, we've bootstrapped along the way and, and we've, we've certainly done all right. I think when people want to hear a little bit about our story, a lot of times what they want to hear is a little bit about what you said they're like, wait a minute, we've seen that you guys turned a $400,000 down payment and you leveraged that to create over $8 million of equity in under three years. Like, what the heck? How did you do that? And, and so I usually like to pick up a little bit, kind of focus on that area of our, the growth of our portfolio. You know, we're currently publicly documenting our journey of taking that $400,000 and then creating this hospitality company with a vision to, within the next 10 years, have a $400 million portfolio. And so along the way, we're going to, you know, share with people how we're doing that. But people are like, well, wait a minute, let's $400,000 into 8 million in three years. How did you do that? So I'll kind of pick up that. There's, there's really three key points in that, that story. And the first one is, is really the power of, of partnerships that I'll get into. I've found that in my life that I believe that I'm further along and was able to compress time in financial freedom utilizing the leverage of partnerships. So, so that's one area. Secondly, the pivot from going to, going from residential and long term rentals into commercial real estate. And specifically the, for us was another area where when we did that pivot, we were able to again, you know, that key of compressing time, hit that amplifier button and really hit that, that time freedom. And then the last one is, you know, having the courage to really take action while other people within the market are frozen. Which is, I think, a common theme out there. When there's challenges in the market, people hold back. And we had a philosophy of when there was challenge in the market, specifically Covid, we went on attack mode. So I'll kind of dig into if you want any of those three areas, but I'll let you, I'll let you, you dig into which one. Choose which one you want me to dig into first.

Mike Swenson
The one thing I should add, and for, for people that I'll see this online, they see your hat, we should mention you're in Hawaii. Right? So for a lot of people that look at time and financial freedom, kind of do what you want when you want. For a lot of people, they might have a goal to go to. You know, me coming from Minnesota, we're bracing for, for winter here. I'd love to get out of here, but I say I have a wife and kids that I love, that love staying here. And so that's kind of what holds me here. But for you, you were born in Minnesota and went out and eventually made it out to Hawaii. So maybe just first kind of talk about that journey, being able to be in a spot where a lot of people would love to live.

Nathan St Cyr
Yeah. Well, first of all, I love that you asked that, because it really. One of the most pivotal points in my life really has to do with the decision to be here. So I went off to California to. To go to school. And when summer started to approach, I had decided. Made the decision not to go back to Minnesota. I was gonna chase this girl that I had met and was falling in love with. Instead of going back to Minnesota, I was going to give up my summer with my family and my mom, and I was going to head out to Ma, where she was from. And I spent the summer here. Had an absolute blast. And at the end of the summer, she really hit me with a. A life decision that has really shaped me. She said, I'm not going back to college. And I'm like, what? She said, I just. I'm not going back. I just. I feel like being here is the best thing for me. And I'm like, okay. I was raised by a single mom that sacrificed everything in her life to put me in a position to succeed, to put me in a position to get into a private school in California her whole life. Like, I just. I'm flashing all this through. I'm like, oh, my gosh. So here I have, you know, the potentially the love of my life in one hand, and then I've got my mom. I'm going to break someone's heart here. And so I had to make this difficult decision. And ultimately I made the decision to. To stay on Maui. It's worked out. We're married to this day. We've been together for 30 years, and we have two incredible daughters, and they're the joy of my life. I love being a girl, dad. But in that moment when. When I made that decision, it was shortly after that that I'm like, what am I doing?

Mike Swenson
There's.

Nathan St Cyr
This is Maui. I'm out on this island. I have no life experience. I was driving. I was a driver for Pizza Hut, going, my life is supposed to be more than this. I know I was born for greatness. Like, come on. Like, what am I doing? And I read the book that had just come out. A lot of people, I hear, read this book, but it's after it'd been out for 20 years. Right. Well, I read right when it came out. Rich dad, poor dad. And it armed me with this belief all of a sudden that, oh my gosh, here's this new way to look at I can go and help money make money for myself. I just have to go and earn some. And it was really the start of my entrepreneur, entrepreneurial life really started then and has been pivotal in where I am today.

Mike Swenson
So your note, meet a girl from Hawaii. I live in Hawaii. Mine is meet a girl in the cold, frigid north. And now I'm in the cold, frigid north. So lesson learned.

Nathan St Cyr
Well, here's the good news. As a dad of two daughters, I hope that they carry that power where, where they choose to live, their spouses are going to have to live. So hopefully that pays me back later for all the sacrifice. But it was also a huge drive in my life though. If you know anything about us in the Midwest, it's like family is everything. It's like it's where we're rooted and grounded and we'll do anything and everything for family. It's the most important value that we have. So to make this sacrifice also provided that why and that drive. I always wanted to find a way to create the bridge to be able to go back and forth from Maui to Minnesota along the way. So that that's been a huge driver in my life.

Mike Swenson
Talk a little bit about the journey into real estate for you. What did that look like for you? Then we'll dig into why hospitality and kind of the partnership piece. But talk about kind of dabbling in in real estate getting started.

Nathan St Cyr
Yeah, well, after I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I went on an absolute. I'm like, okay. I put my plan together and real estate was like where I wanted to be. But I'm like, I, I don't, I don't have a penny. I'm a driver for Pizza Hut. So I put in place this plan to go and find the best restaurant on the island. And I, I started as a busser and I'm like, I'm going to work my way up to become a server and make the most that I can in hospitality in, in restaurants so that I can take those tips and move them into then money that can make money for myself. And so I did that. And as I was working my way from busser to foodrunner to to waiter, I was, I was saving up capital and I saved my first $10,000 and I decided to start flipping cars. I knew nothing about cars other than I'd driven a couple, but other than that I knew nothing. And man, I started making money. I was like, holy crap. I, I, I found this guy and man, he was helping me and we were doing this thing and well, eventually what I recognized was I ran into Fast Eddie. He took all of my money. I got scammed, I lost all of it. But I think where a lot of people would be like man this, they quit and give up. I'm like, no, I gotta, I gotta plan here. I gotta get to real estate and to get to real estate I gotta make some money. So I kept working in the restaurant, I saved up another $10,000 and now I started self educating myself on day trading. Oh boy, that went worse. That went worse and quicker than, than the flipping cars did. So my $10,000 a day trading was gone very quickly. But what I recognize is why am I doing this? I'm doing this because ultimately I want to get into real estate. I'm like, you know what, I'm just, I'm gonna go for it. I don't have any money. But now I know I can earn money. I know I can earn ten grand in six months. So I called my mom and I asked her for her contact list because back then we didn't have phones where you just share contacts. It was like you did everything. There wasn't, you know, email was barely getting started. So she sent me her contact physical contact list. I went and got, wrote an investment letter, $10,000 I was looking for. I'd pay 20% and I do my best to pay it back in less than a year, but I'd pay the full 20%. And in the meantime I was looking for a property that I could purchase and I sent out these letters, I went to Kinkos, I wrote the letter, made Copies, got a book of stamps, literally mailed them out and I had one returned envelope that said, we'll do it, we trust you, you're a good kid, that's always done well. And so an aunt and uncle, they provided me the $10,000. I paid them back, by the way, within six months, $12,000 total. And that was my first capital raise. And we bought our first home. We house hacked. It was for $183,000. We lived in an attached studio, my wife and I, while we fixed up the house, the three bedroom we rented out. We've never made a mortgage payment, my wife and I on this home, never. And, and then about three years later, we refi. So we did the brrrr concept and we purchased our next home and we moved up into a higher class of home. But I want to share the story about that. That home, we still own it, it owes, we owe $74,000 on it. And it was recently appraised for $925,000. We've never paid, we didn't pay for the down payment. We raised that capital and we never paid a mortgage payment. And that thing is sitting there with over $800,000 of equity. So look, time does, as time goes on in real estate, that's, that's what happens with the power of just, just real estate itself. And so that was the, that was the start of really, hey, I'm onto something here. And then we started. My career increased. I, I started a sales career and found a passion for leadership and was doing something that I absolutely loved and was funneling money from there into real estate throughout the years.

Mike Swenson
It's such a great story, you know, for people that listen, it's the sexy headlines that people are attracted to in terms of real estate investing and finding these great things. You know, it boils down to, you gotta be in the market for a while too, right, for some of this stuff to grow. Yeah, you can make a lot of money quickly, but you also have these winds of this slow journey of appreciation, growth, making a smart decision, you know, to have renters making a smart decision to do a burr on a property, but it's those things over time will just grow and grow and grow and grow. And so for people listening to this, you know, I always kind of just tell people, you gotta find a way to get a tally on the board somehow, right. In real estate. And it doesn't have to be what your future path is. You know, you may not start out in hospitality, you may start out somewhere else, but you Got to figure out to get started to know what you like, what you like doing, what those returns are, what you don't like doing. You know, I share a story of a flip that we did that we ended up not making any money on. And I looked up and saw all the time that I poured into it, and I was like, this isn't for me, you know, but you got to figure out what. What you like and what you don't like to get better and to get sharper on what you do like and. And really find your sweet spot.

Nathan St Cyr
Okay, so you're. You're speaking my love language here. It starts with the action, right? Like that stepping into that first action of, you know, flipping cars. Stepping into that first action of day trading. Like, stepping into that first action of I didn't have everything figured out, but I started to create this relationship with fear and failure that was like, all right, look, I know ultimately where I'm going to get, like, that's already done. I'm getting there. So I need to start to take action to create the skills, the understanding, sometimes learning the difficult lessons. And the failure is exactly the rudder that we need to get us steered to the right place. That ultimately, my first couple of failures, they got me to make that investment, to go have the courage to raise capital that first, when I knew nothing, had no experience. So, yes, taking that. I think developing that skill of taking action is just a huge, huge, huge step. And then having that relationship with fear and failure. Action is the counter to fear and failure. Where you fear or where you're scared to fail, that's okay, Just step into it. That's okay, Just step into it. And as you get used to stepping into fear and failure, that relationship starts to really, really improve, where you're like, oh, this is awesome. This is new. This is growth. This might be painful, but I know that I can step into this. Good things are going to happen. They might not happen right this second, but they will eventually help me grow, which will create the skills that are needed as I progress in my journey. And at some point, that's going to amplify.

Mike Swenson
You know, a lot of people would look at, you know, hey, I lost money, you know, in flipping cars. I lost money in the day trading. I look at it, yeah, as it's an educational expense, Right. You know, some people will go blow money on an MBA or depending on what they want to do, or further education, become a doctor. Right? Like, that's super expensive. And so you're learning through doing and getting better and Finding out where that next best fit is for you. It's not wasting money, it's education money that's going to help you spring forward faster.

Nathan St Cyr
Yeah. And I would. We, my business partner and I, we used that exact what you just stated we used in the first three years of our development of our company as it's like, okay, well if we wanted to go get our doctorate in hospitality investing, like our doctorate in it, we wanted to become like absolute experts. How much time would we have to put in and how much would we have to pay to be like experts to go to the top schools? And I mean, people come out of doctorate programs with $400,000 of debt, right. And we're like, all right, so $400,000. Eat eight. $800,000. Are we willing to go learn the lessons of $800,000 to come out the other side with this education? And we were both like, yes. So as we made mistakes along the way, we're like, man, that's, that's been an incredible part of our education that will serve us tenfold as we move forward. Whether it's construction budgets, whether it's, you know, just the way that we negotiate financing all of these different things along the way, that maybe we're first, that we learn lessons on, they're going to pay dividends as we move forward.

Mike Swenson
I totally agree. So talk about kind of the journey here into hospitality. What kind of got it started for you and how has it grown?

Nathan St Cyr
Yeah, so it really started with my sales career. I had, I built the highest performing sales team in a $20 billion industry here on Maui. And I learned early as a sales leader that one of the most impactful things that I could do to go and break records year in and year out, because my goal was never to just like do something well once. It was like I was studying dynasties and looking at how could we go. And really life changing financial money really happens with not just doing something well once, but over and over and over. Can you repeat it? And so I realized that if I could go and find the right who's that had the right. The bigger their vision was, the better person that they were, the higher character that they had. And they had a defined why, if I could pair those with what I was doing and what I was teaching, that they would ultimately execute at the highest level. And that's where an incredibly important moment in my life occurred. I recruited Mike Russell, who is today my business partner. But we worked together for over five years and he worked under me as a salesperson. Eventually Became a sales leader of mine. And we recognized that we had similar passions. We had a passion for real estate and our whys were both aligned. We both wanted financial freedom and time freedom and we both wanted to go and put a huge frickin dent in generational wealth. So we wanted to do something big. And we also recognized that we had complementary skill sets. So I had the skill sets of team building, visionary leadership, big picture stuff. He had this unbelievable attention to detail. He was an unbelievable executor. Executes things at the highest level once he learned, figures out how to learn, digs in, very detailed, audit oriented out of everything that he did in his business. And we're like, look, I believe that we could go and accomplish our goals faster and better if we were aligned and partners versus if we go on to this journey of life alone. And because we both had a passion for real estate, we decided, let's go, let's go, let's go do something big together.

Mike Swenson
I think, you know, some people realize or maybe have this mentality of if you want it done right, do it yourself. And I'd rather have the whole pie myself. I've also always kind of just believed, let's find people that want to do stuff together because yeah, it's a bigger piece. And you know, the example we kind of use is would you rather have a slice of a watermelon or a whole grape? You know, you can have it all to yourself, but it's a lot more fun to do it with other people and to do people do it with people that are aligned and want to go in the same direction that you want to go. And so, yeah, I mean obviously that, that value of partnership is huge because you can split up the workload, you both see things differently, you can kind of help, help each other out and balance each other out, but then you've got somebody to kind of go through that with.

Nathan St Cyr
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And one of the lessons that I learned, we wanted to go and do something big together. But he made a shift and this was really important. He made a shift from, from going from long term rentals to short term rentals. And here on Maui, this was back in 2015-18 and, and the regulations were, were coming down really quickly. He did it the right way. He went and bought two luxury homes, one with under his name, one under his wife for me. And then he left me behind. He's like, all right, I've done so well with these short term rentals and hospitality. Like the cash flow and the margins were so Massive that he's like, all right, so check one, financial freedom has. I don't, I don't need this, you know, $300,000 sales job anymore. I'm good just from these two short term rentals. And I was like, holy crap. He left me behind and it was too late for me. Regulations had already hit, but look, we were still going to do something big together. And, and what he recognized was, well, this is great that I have this cash flow, but the reality is there's lack of control. Number one, with all the regulations that were coming down, it's like, number one, I can't depend on this. And then number two, it doesn't matter how successful I create this business of short term rental. It's only valued at what the other homes in my neighborhood are worth. I'm not creating general generational wealth here. It's like, my home is still worth what the home across the street is worth. It's based on the comp set versus in commercial real estate, where you have the opportunity to say, hey, the more successful I am here with income and noi net operating income, then ultimately I can go and force appreciation. I can go and force equity, right? And so we recognize that. And that's when we decided to go into the multifamily space and we did an apartment building investing educational course together. And we were on our way. The first property that we called on to consider purchasing, it had gone under contract that day. But there was this little note in there that said, previously run as a hostel. And we're like, hostile. What is this like? What do you mean hostel? And it's important to understand this because on Maui, there hasn't been a hotel that sold in Maui for under $25 million in over a decade. So, you know, hotels weren't even on our radar. But all of a sudden, here's this apartment building that was within our radar of an approachable piece of real estate, and it was being run as transient vacation rental. And we're like, what is this? And as soon as the real estate agent figured that we had some interest in something, he caught onto that he started. Because that property went under contract, we couldn't even look at it. But he started sending us all this information on hostels and youth hostels around the globe and how the US was way behind. And we're like, oh my gosh, kind of his short, my business partner, short term rental. All of a sudden we're like, wait a minute, could we go and receive that level of margins? But at the same Time, because it's properly zoned. And in hotel zoning, could we. Are we onto something here? And that's where the. Really the start of our hospitality journey and investing and making the shift from residential into commercial. And this business model, really, the light bulb went off and we went all in.

Mike Swenson
That's such an awesome story. I remember probably four or five years ago hearing somebody talking about, you know, creating value add in real estate and saying, you know, really, one of the primary ways where you can create an insane amount of value add is through zoning, you know, kind of opportunities and zoning. So many people just see the property for what it currently is, and you've got to be creative, you've got to think differently about how you can add some value in ways that other people maybe have passed it over. But therein lies a lot of the opportunity. I mean, the sweet, easy deals where it's just a layup after a layup after a layup up, like, those are gone. Right. You've got to find ways to add value in ways that other people haven't thought about. So. Yeah, that's, that's cool just to hear that.

Nathan St Cyr
Yeah.

Mike Swenson
I mean, to be in Hawaii and have an opportunity like that is awesome. To really spark that future growth for you.

Nathan St Cyr
Yeah. And I think, you know, the last point I want to make on that, that that part of the story is about taking action. So, you know, so many times you maybe think, oh, I'm kind of onto something. And then you're like, okay, well, and then you hit some roadblocks and you let it go. Well, we actually went out and purchased a property and we were going to convert it. I mean, we spent, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars on design and a consultant. We knew nothing about hostels, nothing. But we felt like, look, this is, this is an area where we could not just add a hostel and create a prototype here in Maui. We could go and scale this because the US market desperately needs it and it's approachable. So we could go attack this thing. And. And so we bought a property we were going to convert, went and got a hard money loan. And then right as we were getting our, going into our final refi, this crazy thing called Covid hit and everything changed. Lenders backed out. We went through. I mean, it was. It was a crazy time where we had to do everything we could to just, just save the property, to go from a hard money loan to get permanent financing through a local, local bank. But within all of that, we finally got everything secured. And during COVID the Maui county changed the zoning of that type of use and they changed it where if you were already doing hospitality, you were fine. But because they made a change, nothing new could take place. So now there we're sitting with this property that we were going to convert. It's Covid. We have a business model that is based on dormitory shared accommodations. During COVID Imagine that. I mean, go back to all the fear and what was happening. And so what did we do? Most people would just be like, man, we got to just shift. We got to shift gears. This hostile thing isn't going to work. We went and doubled down. We're like, look, everybody else is filled with fear. The market has absolutely shut down. Maui was literally a ghost town. People couldn't fly in. It was literally locked down. And. And we're like, this is an opportunity. So we went to every hostel. We went knocking on doors. There were. There were four or five of them here on, on Maui at the time. And, and sure enough, one of them responded and said, we'd like to have a conversation. Because imagine how they were feeling. They're like, dude, you know, we're. They were a baby boomer ready to move on to life. They're getting ready to retire. And then all of a sudden Covid hits and they're like, this thing is done and here we come. Yes, we'd like to purchase your place. So we were able to, because we took action when everybody else was filled with fear. We were able to purchase for a fraction of the cost and by the. Took nine months to close. And by the time closing occurred, man, we were getting the wave of pent up demand of like Covid, revenge, travel. And in, really, in less than 24 months of US opening, we refi. We turned a 400,000, actually $365,000 down payment. We turned into $5 million of equity in less than two years. Not only that, but we dug in and became experts in the space. And in less than that two years, we were also named the number one small hostel in all of North America. So we made unbelievable strides in just going after our passion, taking action, believing in ourselves. And all of those decisions that happened earlier that we talked about earlier that kind of helped those muscles build through skill and experience. They paid off in that moment.

Mike Swenson
What an awesome story. I just think about the. The other kind of real estate related analogy that, that always sits in the back of my head too is when they talk about if everybody's running away from the fire, you got to be smart enough to think like, where's the opportunity here. If I go into the fire, you know, and like you said, the easy decision kind of the, the first blush, you know, thought is crap. I gotta sell. Because, yeah, this whole thing is changing, but you gotta be smart enough to. To stick with your gut and think, well, herein lies an opportunity. And if, if I double down on this opportunity, it can really pay off in. In a way that it did. It's not the easy answer, but guts.

Nathan St Cyr
Yeah, absolutely. And look, I mean, we've learned a lot of lessons through that process, and we're documenting this whole thing right as we're going through it now. We're like, man, we gotta, we gotta just document this journey. So. Because tons of people have reached out and they're like, you know, man, you guys have had all of these learning lessons, and so we're like, hey, let's. Let's document it. So we created the Hotel Investor Playbook as an opportunity to say, hey, if there's others out there that, you know, are looking to compress time. Because that's, you know, look, we. I did a lot of my own, like, so much of this, and it worked. Like, taking all those action steps, they worked. I created 4 to 5 million dollars worth of equity over the course of 20 years. But then by partnering, by learning all of these lessons, I was able to compress that by making these shifts of over doubling that in three years. Right. So it's, there's, there's opportunity for people to learn from each other in today's world. And, and that's one of our passions along the way is, hey, let's, let's make sure that we're passing on everything that we've, we've done and learned through, through our process.

Mike Swenson
Like you said, Hotel Investor Playbook podcast that you guys started, where else can people go to learn about you and what you guys are doing?

Nathan St Cyr
Yeah, it's really, that's. That's where it is. The Hotel Investor Playbook, Whether it's Instagram, whether it's our website, or whether it's the podcast, we're just branded as the Hotel Investor Playbook. And yeah, come check us out if, if you. You're wondering if hospitality is an asset class that you want to invest in, listen to a couple of episodes. And we also call it the Passionate Asset Class because it's an absolute blast to create these memorable experiences and be able to put a creative spin on real estate. So, yeah, come check us out for sure.

Mike Swenson
Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom. If you're listening to this, please reach out to him. Just a wealth of information and just, yeah, something cool and exciting. You know, we've got, we've got some short term rentals here and it's fun to see the stories of people. You know, we're, we're in Minnesota and people still travel to Minnesota to come hang out, see family, see friends, have awesome experiences. And so the house hospitality, it is a lot of fun. So thank you so much for coming on and best of luck to you as you guys continue to grow.