This 23-Year-Old Built an Airbnb Empire by Documenting Everything

All right, welcome back. I've got with me now somebody that in a year's time, if I try and line this up, it will not happen. This guy is probably one of the hottest prospects on Instagram right now. And it is fate, as has it, that he has fell into this world of Airbnb and short term rentals that we all know and love. I've been following this chap since August, September time I had a couple of good conversations with him. Massive, massive fan. And it was Jeremy Verdum from BNB Calc who put me in contact with him. And like I say, being a mass fan, since this is somebody that could have put his skills to anything and he would have been a success. And I guarantee that he's going to go on to massive success in the future with whatever vertical he falls in. But right now, he is in his Airbnb short term rental real estate phase of life and it's amazing to have him on here with everybody right now. So we've got Rajan Chida. Now, Rajan, I've got 10 facts that I've learned about you from the short time that we've been chatting and following you around on the world of the Internet. I'm going to list them off and I want you just to fill in the blanks. That's all right.

Beautiful.

All right, so you're currently either 22 or 23 years old. You turned down an offer from JP Morgan in an internship back in the days when you're in Dallas. You then went and pivoted and got a 2.5 acre in Virginia with your business partner Renzo. You have a follow account on social media of closing in on a million combined on all of the socials on YouTube. Instagram has just topped over 500000 at the point of recording, which is insane. You started flipping shoes when you were 17 years old and like I say now you've come into the world of short term rentals, which is amazing. You are one of my favorite people because you've all gone in on diary bookings. This is how we got chatting and we're going to definitely talk about that. And you have modeled everything on a good friend of the show, Isaac French, and his Live Oak business venture that he did in Texas, which obviously he sold and exit for many, many millions. Fill in the gaps. What have we missed out there?

Wow. Thank you so much for the intro, Mark. I'm truly humbled. Yeah, that was, that was pretty much. That was pretty much it. I. I just graduated college six months ago in May of 2025. So I'm 23 now. Just turned 23 in November, went to the University of Virginia and that's where I really started my business ventures, selling shoes right before I got to college. So yeah, when I was 17 in high school, I started selling shoes. Did that for five years. And then my high school friend Renzo, in the middle of my senior year, brought me this land mill, which is two and a half acres of land in Virginia already subdivided into four lots. And yes, we took a lot of inspiration from Isaac French and his live Oak Lake model, building seven cabins and then selling, selling that. So our thesis was that if we can bring a live Oak Lake style property to Virginia, we haven't really seen one like that, we can't fail. So that's pretty much what we did. Finished off our first unit, planning to build two more on the same lot just like Isaac did. All of his are on the same line. He had seven, we're gonna have three. We don't have a lake, but we got, we got the Virginia mountains. So yeah, have our first unit out. It's been live, I think for a little over 30 days now. Every single day that we've been open, we've had a guest. I'm today's guest actually. We're in the cabin right now because we're gonna have a reality TV show pull up tomorrow. So that's gonna. And it's been an amazing ride. The best part of all this is that I get to meet people like Mark, super cool people. So that's my favorite part of all this.

It's like you say your style and we're going to, at some point we're going to share the screen and we're going to go and look at the content. We're going to talk about the content and just get the peak seek. But one of the things that I love about you is the storytelling and the effort that goes into the content that you put out. And I remember seeing in an interview that we said that you watch your, your Instagram Reels maybe 100 to 150 times before posting. You probably spend three or so editing and your first million view video was you talking about a sector system, you know, like boring topics that you have turned into, into content. And so many hosts that are watching this who are trying to dabble with content creation, they always, always come back to me when we talk about social and they go, I don't know what to talk about. I literally haven't got a clue what to Talk about nothing in my day is exciting. You have proved by talking about something like a septic system problem that you had turn into a million views. So talk about that. Talk about, like, you don't need fancy cameras, you don't need professional editors. Like, what is your system set up? How do you go about creating the content and what are you actually using to create this content? Break it sort of down for the people that are watching.

Yeah. I'm so happy this is the first thing that you bring up, Mark, because I get the same thing too. It's. I don't know what to talk about. My days aren't interesting. Every story can be interesting. You just need to tell the story in an interesting way. I don't think there's any topic that's not interesting. Like you said, the first time I ever hit a million views on a video was when I was talking about our septic system and I wasn't even on the property. It was me dragging a piece of paper to the camera, visually showing our four lots. It was a dirty piece of line paper. And I just explained how the engineer thinks that the septic system won't fit on this lot. This is even before we closed on the land. So that kind of broke a barrier for me. As in, okay, you don't need anything fancy. Because at that time, and even now, this is all the equipment I use to film. I have a $10 tripod. I use my iPhone. I have an iPhone 16. At the time, I was using an iPhone 14. And I use a mic, and that's all I have. So it's literally all in probably $150 setup. You can get away with buying a used mic that I have for probably $70. And that's what I've been ripping this entire time. Now, I recently bought a drone for more visuals, but even when I first started, literally got to probably 400,000 followers with just my phone, $10 tripod, and a $70 mic. So, yeah, go on.

Yeah, I was going to say, like you. So you have gone down this route of building public. You started, like you say, way before you even closed the land. You know, you've done hundreds of days now, you know, over 200 days of. Of posting this documentary. How do you still keep it fresh? Like, you're on the property today. I assume over the next two days you're gonna, like, film some kind of content. Like, what is the framework that goes through your mind now when you're standing at the property and you're going, what's today's?

Video.

Like, how do you break that down?

Yeah. So one thing that I'm super blessed and lucky to have is that real estate development as a topic, there's just so many moving parts so that I have a lot of things to talk about. So when it, when it came to building the cabin, you don't just. It's not just the actual structure that we're in right now. There's, you know, utilities, there's like the financing. There's so many little subtopics within the overall topic that you can hit on. And that's one thing I, I guess if we're talking about content for anyone that wants to start, you should think about the one broad topic that you're in. And for me, that's real estate development. But then also think about all the other subtopics. Subtopics you can hit after that. So within real estate development, there's financing and then there's design. So I talked a lot about interior design. And then our Airbnb is wellness focus. So I made a lot of wellness videos talking about wellness, real estate and also like hot tub, sauna, cold plunge remedies, like actual technical knowledge on wellness. And there's so many other things I've talked about too, even just my life as a college student building this thing. So there's a lot of different subtopics you can hid within the broad topic that you're in and you never want to box yourself into one. Something that's one thing that I've always been super passionate about, is that I love, I, I loved documenting the build of this, but I also give myself the freedom to just make a video telling stories about my life. And I feel like that's how I've resonated with so many people online is that I was never afraid to share my story. It wasn't always just about the cabin. And I think, I think this is something that people see. I'm no different than the person watching through the screen. Like, I'm really not. I graduated college, I didn't have, I had a good amount of money to my name through the shoe business, but that I took five years to build that. It was nothing. It was nothing too brain intensive that I don't think anyone else can do.

Okay, we are going to go look at the contents. I feel like we have to put it into context to show the type of content that you're creating because you're 100% spot on. But before we do that, like two questions that have come up. Number one, have you taken any inspiration in this storytelling style? Do you get inspiration from other people from outside of our industry, or is it just something where you've gone, I'm going to pick up my phone and I'm just going to talk and I'm going to edit it. Like, how are you coming up with this, these ideas?

Yeah, so what? I, I'm a huge fan of Gary Vee. So that's how I originally got started into content. I feel like that's how like so many people got started. But when it comes to actual storytelling frameworks, I've always been a writer, so even in school. So I will say there is like a natural capability for me to tell stories because I've just been writing for so long. But also when I first started, there was a kid named Mino Lee. He's not in our, he's not in the real estate industry at all, but he makes content about making content. And he's also a college student. He's in my grade and I remember seeing his videos and how he just framed stories and I loved it so much. That's how I first originally started. I was making content about shoes and I was just documenting the day to day, trying to tell little stories every single day about, hey, I'm sourcing shoes here. I'm cleaning shoes now. Just showing the day to day. And that's really the first person I took inspiration from. But now I see so many people that tell great stories. Like, I feel like I take bits and pieces from a lot of different people. But at the end of the day, you really have to think for yourself and tell the story the way that you want to tell it. I'm a huge believer that the first 50 to 100 videos you should copy, like, you should totally copy someone. You should copy me. You should copy me. Know you can copy anyone. And that's just to get the initial reps down. But after the first 50 to 100 videos, you kind of need to find your own voice and your own style and that's what's really going to start resonating with people.

What's really interesting these last three to four months is that I see so many people now in the real estate Airbnb niche on Instagram who are doing your style. You talk about copy and they are doing your style of storytelling. The, the quick clips and the, and the, the things that are going on in the background. It's very interesting, like how from a, from a content creator's point of view, do you go, ah, they're copying Me, Are you going, ah, man, that's so cool that somebody's trying to do what I'm doing and do it on their sort of angle.

Yeah. I mean, definitely at first, I was like, I remember the first couple people I messaged them, and I was like, yo, I recognize his style. This is super cool. But in the back of my mind, I was, damn, they just, like, ripped my style. But then so many people started doing it and showing me love, and they were. They were saying how I had inspired them. And it's just like, it was a thing where I said, okay, these people are running such cool businesses. I'm actually just going to connect with them. And that was the best decision I ever made in my life to this day, because now we just have a huge community of people that I've connected with all across the country. Young people, even older people, running businesses that I would have never connected with otherwise. And now every time I see someone who has a cool business and that's running it in a similar style, and I really like the video, I will literally comment on it. I will follow them, and I will message them. I'm like, I love what you're doing. We should hop on the phone. And I've been, that's the one thing. That's the one thing. I'm going to toot my horn on this podcast.

I would say that that is your superpower. I am like. I say. You say you're 22, 23. I'm 20 years your senior. Like, one of the things that you first did when we reached out, you reach back like, it doesn't matter. Your superpower is the. Is the connections. Your superpower is reaching out to people. Your superpower is getting back to people. I don't know how you do it, honestly, because I just imagine the state of your inbox on all of these channels, including the discords that you've set up as well. So that, I mean, it will definitely come to fruition later down the line, and we're definitely going to talk about that later on, but. But really cool. I mean, another thing I want to quickly mention before we share the screen is so many people host, in particular, they. They feel like they can't talk about their property. They can't talk about the place that they are doing up until that it's actually ready. They can't start. They say, I can't start marketing it. It's not ready. Where you literally started talking about Royal Oak months before it was even ready to the point of where you did it. Like, right at the very start, even before you, like, say you signed the D for it. Right. And you instantly had people following you and commenting and joining you on, on the journey. So if you could speak to a host who's watching this, who is in the process of renovating a property or getting it ready, what would you tell them to start documenting? Now, even if they're in. In themselves, they're thinking it's too early. Like, how can you speak to this?

I think what I'd ask them is that, have you. When you watch a movie, do you want to. Does it start with the finished product or does it start with the storyline that builds up to something that you then see the final product? No one ever wants to watch a movie with the final product. They want to see how you got there. Now, if your goal is just to get bookings and book out your property, then maybe, yet maybe doing a whole series and documenting it may not be the best, best use of your time if you're only optimizing for bookings. But what I can say for me is that I never have to put another dollar into a real estate deal ever. Like, ever. That, I think is the real power with this, is that meeting a lot of other people in real estate and showing just basic knowledge on the numbers and seeing how we went through the build and connecting with these people, talking about our struggles and how we got through that, that will show so much credibility in you for you to not only maybe book out the current property, but then go on to a bigger project. And I think that's the big picture with Instagram is that I feel like a lot of times we maybe look at the smaller picture and that, okay, I just want to convert to bookings. And I remember talking to you, Mark. I'm like, wow, my personal page isn't really converting to bookings right now. Well, yeah, my property isn't finished yet. At the time, it wasn't finished. Then when we started finishing, it was just a snowball of bookings on top of people who are like, hey, come build a royal oak here. I'll fund the deal. Hey, come. But, like, there's so many options now that I want that for the people in the industry, because there's a lot, there's a lot of people that are way smarter than me that deserve the money to go out and build cool stuff. But I put myself out there, so I'm getting those opportunities and I want that for other people.

I, I keep wanting to share the screen, but you keep lining up a Great question to follow the thing that you're saying. So the final, this is the final question, I promise and then we will go and share the screen and look at your content. But you have said on an interview that you haven't made a dollar yet from social media. But your phone is worth $500 million because of your network that you are building. And that is part down to a couple of your superpowers, which is obviously the storytelling, growing a following your network and ability is, is very, very good. So if, if all of this works out in your head, like from what you're planning, what does this all look like in 5, 10 years, 15 years time with like the, the opportunities are coming your way.

It's hard for me to have five to ten year goals. I've just never really, really been that person. I do play long term games. I know real estate's a long term game and I'm in it for the long haul. But especially with the network and social media now there could be an opportunity that comes to me that could completely change the trajectory of my life. And for example, the CEO and founder of Spartan it's, it's a race company basically like an Ironman. If you look it up, I think they're, they're, they're an amazing company. They might be a billion dollar company, I'm not exactly sure. But the founder, Joe Decenta, through Instagram we connected and he had a 750 acre farm that he just had, they used to live on it. And then he moved out and he's so busy running the business that he just has this beautiful mountain in Vermont. And he gave me and Renzo the opportunity to completely run the farm. It had a wedding business on it and he said if you save the wedding business, you can build as many royal oaks on here as you want and you can turn this into. Gave us literally through the kitchen sink at us, gave us the greatest terms ever. And if we took that deal, you know, that would have changed the trajectory of my life completely. We ended up turning it down for, for personal reasons. It's a little bit far away and all that. It just wasn't practically the, the best thing. But who's to say that an opportunity like that doesn't come to me in a year? And last year I was selling shoes and I thought I wanted to run a really big shoe brand and then Renzo brought me this deal. So it's super, super tough for me to say that in five to 10 years time I want to do X. But right now we would love to have 20 Royal Oak retreats outside of big cities in the US that is. That is the North Star.

And again, you just got a good context. This is like, this is 23. I would like try and think back, everybody watching what you were doing at 23, 23, I couldn't even scratch. So fair play to you to have this gumption, confidence, ability, skills to. To do this. And again, everybody watching, please drop in the chat, please drop in the comments and just show some love, because this is epic, right? This is a lovely little transition point. Let me hit this button. This is the me sharing the screen as I've been promising. So we are now on Rajan's Instagram account, as you can see here, 515, 000 followers. And let's go and just have a little look. Now, you might not be able to hear the. The audio, but what I'm gonna say. Let me just press this button.

Billion dollar inheritance.

Holy. Can you hear that, Rajan? When I put one up.

Yeah. My dad immigrated to the US from a small village in India in 1995, where he worked at small tech companies until he started his own business. He failed pretty badly twice until he hit a win on a big data company.

My dad immigrated to Canada 1989 from.

Johannesburg, South Africa, which is one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Going from starting a pole dancing company to building one.

All right, so very quickly on that one. Number one, my wife is from Johannesburg, South Africa, so I can totally agree with what she was saying there. But so walk us through this video, right? Walk us through the idea. Walk us through the. The thought concept. Walk. Walk us through, like, this is an idea that you've had recently. How has it come from being a concept to an idea to film into editing? So walk us through like a day in your life of putting this together.

Yeah, so this was a really cool video to shoot because I love doing collabs with other people. And the first thing I think about when I'm collabing with someone else is where is the overlap in our story? So my story, you guys know, 23, graduated college, had a yada, yada, yada. And then Jade, she's also my age, so she's 22, but she's from Canada, didn't go to college. And then she ran a trades company, a handyman company in Vancouver, and eventually sold that. She also was in tech and AI. So I was just trying to think, okay, where are commonalities? And we eventually probably were discussing for about 30 to 45 minutes. And we eventually came to. Okay. I think the best commonality we have is that both of our parents are immigrants and we're first generation. Like, we're first generation in the countries that we live in. And I've also told the story of my dad before with another person. So I knew that was a great topic that resonated with people already. So I was like, okay, why don't we just tell the stories about our dads? Okay. Very similar story. Came to America, started their own business, both entrepreneurs, and now we're both entrepreneurs. So I think that could be a great story to tell. So that's the framework. And then next is the visuals. I'm huge on the visuals. And when it comes to short form content, I'm going to get really technical here. I think. I think that could be.

Let's geek out. This is where we get to geek out. And we love geeking out here.

I. I love geeking out about this because I view short form content is like my art. I just. I just love creating just to create. That's. That's who I am. And I'm huge on the visuals. So the first three seconds in short form are the most important part. I don't care what anyone else says. If you have the greatest story ever, but it comes on sec. If it starts on second four, people's attention spans are fried. It's bad. So people will scroll if they don't see anything interesting in the first three seconds. And a huge part of that is the first shot. So me and Jade were thinking about, okay, what's like, a cool shot that we could do that. Because people register with their eyes before they register with their ears. So a lot of times we're thinking about the verbal hooks. I think a lot about the visual hook. And especially since the cabin is so visual and it's a. It's a great property and people have seen it a lot on Instagram. Now I want to play on that.

Let's just pause for, like, one quick second and just very quickly watch these first three seconds.

So our dads gave us a $50 million inheritance, right?

So that's. You're very visual. Right? The first three seconds. We've just played it. So you then give this idea to Jade and he's like, right, I'm gonna get on your back and we are gonna fall over. Like, so where did. Where did this idea come from? Bearing in mind the visual hook.

Yeah. So I was like, okay, there's two people. It is a boy and a girl. It would be. I'm like, yo, if it's not too weird, like, let me just. I actually just knew from the beginning that, yo, if I hop on you, she was like, at first, why don't I hop on your back? And I'm like, no, it'll be even, like, weirder if, like, you see a dude on a girl's back. I was like, that's just something that, like, will catch someone's eye.

Yeah.

And then also a visual that's always worked for me is that I have a drone. So I know I said before, you can get away with, you know, minimal equipment, but I eventually invested in a drone because when you put that thing up in the sky and I come out onto the deck, like, it's just. That visual has hit so many times. Yeah, it's just something that you never see. Those sky angles coming out onto the property is just. It's just a. It's just a visual I haven't seen anyone else do.

So I'm like a drone. That shot there is that.

Yeah, this shot is with the drone. So I set it up, like, kind of high up, but close to where you can still see that I'm on her back. And I'm like, we should just fall. I kind of just came up with that one on the fly. I didn't have a big science that. But we spent 30 minutes setting up the shot. This. This was our 10th take, maybe, because the audio. Every time I would fall, the audio would mess up, so I had to, like, hold the. The mic in a way where it didn't muffle when I fell. And this ended up being the best shot and the most clear. So after we had that, I was like, okay, this is great. The rest of the shots are still very important, but this was the one that I focus on the most. Yeah.

So you've. You basically, you hook everybody in with the first three seconds. So let's go and look at the. The one from the. The day before, the night vision one. And to be the best. So let me just go again, get the sound off.

My cabin is going to be the best night spot in Virginia.

So again, drone shot.

Yeah, this is a drone shot. And I can actually go into. So still great. This video still perform great, but in comparison to my other videos, like, one of my worst performing videos. And I could. It's. I think it's great to go through mistakes, and I think the mistake here was that the drone is a little bit too far, and you can't even notice that. I'm Speaking. I think that might have been the one that's. It's, like, unclear, like, who's speaking? Where is he speaking? My yellow jacket is kind of blending in with the yellow lights, so I think it's kind of hard to see, like, if I'm even talking. Whereas. And the other one with Jade, it's super clear because it's in the daylight. It's super clear. Like, who's. Like, it's a lot closer. Like, you can tell, like, this visual is just like, okay, like, what's going on here? Whereas in the other one, it's a little bit less clear.

I love that. And. And just as well, I think you'll have noticed every time that I play a video, I need to tap that on mute button to hit to hear the sound. So obviously, like Instagram and shorts, they. They play it like you say it. Like, it. It auto plays. And it. You see the visual before you hear the sound, which is. Which is so different to how we learn things. You know, obviously you see site before sound, before sight, obviously. But like you said, the reason why those three seconds. Seconds are so important is because you want to make sure that visual. Because, like you say, people see with their eyes, especially on Instagram, because before they hear the sound.

Also, something that's super interesting for you guys to hear is that I think it's a crazy stat, but don't quote me on it, but I think it's. 70% of people watch Instagram reels on mute. So a really good gauge for how a good video is. Can you understand it without the sound? So that's why I'm huge on, like, the text, like, the text you're seeing right now. I spend a lot of time, like, crafting that out on making that super clear. And I'll, like, change it, make it kind of dynamic. I think that's what really keeps, like, the viewer's attention is the text as well. All these little details.

That's an amazing stat. But, yeah, you're right. If it's not 70%, it is very, very high. They do listen, but they consume Instagram with no sound on, which is. Which is a big one. So these are two of your more recent ones. And what I love about your. Your pinned posts is you've got it right back to day one right now. Talk us through your pinned post strategy.

Yeah, I don't really have a pin post, like strategy. I only. The day one is I want. When people come to my page, I just want them to know what we're about. And then pinning the, the college. My graduation was just that, that was. I mean, I have immigrant parents, so that was like one of the proudest days of my life, graduating college. So I just have that post up there. And then the construction loan video is my most viewed video ever. So just putting my most viewed video up there kind of gives me a lot of credibility. I think it has like six, six and a half million views or something like that. And this is the other thing. This is the other thing. People who are telling me, oh, I don't have a property, I, I need to. That my most viewed video is in a classroom talking about, like, if we want to go through that.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So this is, this is your Most viewed video.

Three cabins for short term. Nine weeks ago, me and my boy bought two and a half acres of land for $37,000. We're developing the land into luxury cabins for short term term rentals. But how did two bot college students finance this project? Our contractor priced our first cabin at about 300k and we wanted a construction loan to finance that. We had to shop around 10 different banks before we could find someone that was willing to lend to us. We eventually found someone that was willing to lend 90% loan to value of our project numbers. We bought the land for 37 grand in cash.

Yeah. So talk us through this. This, this video.

Yeah. So at this time, we had, we had just dug the footage for our foundation, but I couldn't get out to the site and get any of those visuals. So let's go back to the first three seconds again because I think boy bought two and a half. Nine weeks ago, me and my boy bought two and a half acres of land for $37,000.

Yeah.

So, so me, I was like, okay, I'm not at the property. I, I don't have anything cool to show yet. But what's a visual that I can come up with that's, that's interesting? And at the time I was still in college and I was like, okay, I filmed in the lecture halls before. What's just a, what's just a frame that I think would be super interesting to show? And it's just, I put the tripod down, I was playing around with it a little bit and I'm like, oh, wow, this is kind of a cool shot right here if I just stood on a desk. So I was like, I really wanted to come up with the best shot. And then also when I talk about numbers using the whiteboard, like being really intentional with the visuals is it's just always. And yeah. So seeing the B roll showing Isaac's property, what it's going to be like, all this comes together on. Can the person who is watching the video visualize what is going to happen at a baseline? That's what I'm thinking about.

One of the things, the further that I get into like content creation journey and YouTube and whatnot, the things that people always keep saying is show, not tell. And I feel like you just hit the nail on the head right here is it, you know, people will see with their eyes and they want to see what you're talking about more than you telling them. Because if you were just to come on and just talk, numbers go in one ear, out the other. But because you've got it here, it will visualize and sink in more.

Exactly. And like you said, when you talk about numbers like this, and even though this isn't the most complex topic, when you're throwing around more than three or four numbers, it just gets hard to calculate. So you want people to do as little thinking as possible. One thing I use so I write all my scripts, I don't use a lot of AI, but when I do, it's, I'll write a script and then input it and then I'll say, I'll say change the language so that a fifth grader can understand this. Because sometimes I feel like in the real estate world we might be talking about things and it might be familiar to us, but it might not be familiar to someone who's not in the space. So sometimes I'll use that to clean up my language and make concepts like this a lot more simple.

So when you are filming, have you got a teleprompter on a camera? Or when you say you scripting this, are you just memorizing it and saying it back? Are you doing little short segments at a time? Like how are you actually putting it all together when you're filming it so you can get across these points?

Yeah, so I, I script on Google Docs and then I have two phones, so I have my like old iPhone 10 and I'll just put the script on there and then I'll film with my phone. So if you see, I film one line and then I change the angle so it's actually pretty easy to memorize it. So I'll look at the script on my phone, read that one line off, change the, change the camera angle, read the next sign, and so on.

So a, I bet you have tons of videos on your, on your phone. You must have the best storage ever. But B, what is your editing process look like? What tools are you using? What apps are you using? Like, how are you sort of remembering I filmed that and I got to put that all together. Like, how does that sort of look in. In like your world?

Yeah, I edit all on capcut on my phone. I've never edited on desktop before. So for all of you are like, oh, I need to get fancy software. No, no, I'm not letting you have that excuse either. I edit all on my phone to this day. Don't use any fancy filters. All I do is use cap cut, use the auto captions, sync it up. So the workflow is I'll film all the clips in order in the script. I'll input it into capcut. And the first thing I'd. In order to. And the first thing I do is cut all the dead space. So all the silences, I cut every little.1 second out. So if you go, go in my videos, you don't see really any silences. And if you do, it's very intentional. It's like a pattern break that I want to happen, but for the most part I don't have any silences. Then next I'll do all my zooms. So sometimes I like to keep all the shots dynamic. If you look at the construction loan video, there's no zooms because that, that video is from like a long time ago. I don't zoom in at all. But I use a lot of B roll like this. So I'll do my zooms and I'll do my B roll. So you see, I'm showing Isaac' all these B rolls. I'll put that in next. And then the next thing I'll do is these on screen captions. So this is super important to me. Like, all these on screen captions, I'll like move around. I'll chop it up so that it's only three to four words per line. Yeah. So do that, move that around. And then the last thing I do is choose the music. So that's, that's kind of the workflow right there.

And for you watching this back, like, obviously you've got. This is what done 32 weeks ago to this one, which was literally a couple days ago. How can you see your own personal improvement in your filming, your editing, your storytelling? Like, how do you. Can you do that? Can you like self reflect and go, wow, this is, this is amazing? Or do you struggle to be able to like break that down? Or can you actually see that journey that, that you are improving and taken.

Yeah, I definitely think my videos have gotten a lot better in terms of the actual storytelling and the visuals. Just because I have a cabin to work with now.

Yeah.

And it's not just me in the classroom talking about it. Like, I will say, if you have a property, you have an advantage over everyone just showing when I, if I told you, just looking like this, hey, we put our windows into our cabin versus me standing in front of the cabin that I put the windows in. Way more powerful to do the second one. Right. So I could see my videos get a lot better when the cabin started getting built. But what I will say is in June and July, I thought, I mean my videos, when I look back at them, I'm like, wow, like these videos are a lot. Not worse. They're still great, but they're a lot worse than what I can do now. But when you look at the views, it looks like, oh, you're getting a lot more views in June and July. And I think the thing about that was I was kind of the new kid on the block. There was like a really new style that was going viral versus now. I still think my videos are 10 times better than when they were before, but it's kind of lost its novelty a little bit, which is now I'm trying to transition. Not transition, but I'm trying to find like a new style almost. I want to play around. I'm in an experimentation, experimentation phase right now.

Yeah.

Because Look, I've done 198 videos in the same series. It's a great skill to keep that fresh. I don't know how I'm going to do it, which is why I'm here now by myself. And today I'm just, literally just going to think, hey, how can I. What's a new idea I can come up with? I'm not going to watch anyone. I'm not going to doom scroll today. Like, I'm literally just going to think like with my own mind, what have I not seen on social media before in, in the real estate space specifically. And let me just go try and shoot that. And it might flop, but it, it might do well.

Okay, so let's talk about conversions because obviously getting these numbers is, is amazing. You've opened up the cabin, you've got bookings like, like you say, and people are, people are booking. How are you finding that, that conversion now of going right, follow the journey to, hey, you know, book this, book this day. Like how now that you've opened the booking engine, you've got the website flowing, which we've, which we've got here. So you've got a website open, obviously you're collecting emails, which is, which is fantastic. You've got the website like flying and whatnot. Like, how are you, how are you finding that transition and what's like the next stage of your direct booking journey? Getting booking journey.

Yeah, exactly. So like I said before, if your goal is to get only bookings through the personal brand, you're better off not doing it. Because I had a hard reality check that when we first launched, we still weren't done, but I thought for some reason, hey, I have such a big personal brand, everyone's gonna book this cabin was not the case. And that's for a number of factors. I think the biggest one is that my audience is primarily younger men who are trying to become entrepreneurs. And the people that book luxury stays are older women, primarily over the age of, of 27, 28 that have disposable income.

Older. 27, 28.

That is not my audience. That is not my audience.

I love how you said older women. 27, 28. This is, I just love the mind of a 23 year old. Anyway, go, go back to it. So, so this is funny. All right, so now let's just very quickly. So you built a personal brand, right? And you've got the website now. I, I did notice that, that the Royal Oak retreat branded account popped up already at 24,000 followers. So like talk us through, got the personal. You opened up the website. Like you say your, your personal audience over, over here is a different demographic than somebody who would book potentially like, like a retreat. You know, they may try and treat their partners or whatever, they make, whatever. But like you've, you've opened up this. So number one, who's behind this? Are you behind this? If you like, sort of got somebody else involved with this, like, what's the sort of thinking behind the branded account compared to the personal account?

Yeah, so I'm behind this. And when I look at this, I don't even look at the view count, I'm looking at all conversion and like how we can. This is just, this is purely just like an ads account. Like, I just, I want to keep selling you on booking your stays. So that pinned post with Morgan, the one on the left, that literally got us like all our bookings to this day. So I said, okay, I, I don't appeal to women at all. Like, who do I know that does in the D.C. area? So like, it needs to be hyper local. I Was like, oh, wow, this girl went to my school. I hit her up and she's like, gave her three free nights. Her boyfriend is a basketball YouTuber funny enough that I used to watch since I was a kid. So it was super cool to have them be our first guests. And they made this video. Just a very simple funnel. Just comment to. To book your stay. And it works so well. It works so well. Like that's. She is the reason why our cabin is. Is been at 100 occupancy so far.

Amazing. Amazing. So you worked with an influence. Like you worked with an influencer of sorts.

Exactly. Yeah. But now. And I think this would be an interesting conversation, I'm almost like asking you a question, which I don't know if.

No, go for it, Go for it. Let's. Let's go.

These types of posts, what I'm understanding is that, okay, you'll get like a rush, a surge of organic growth and you'll get a good amount of bookings. But I almost feel that's such a. It's such an unpredictable system to where I think paid, like you said, paid ads is an actual business system that I could start running to get more bookings a lot more consistently. Because yes, like, I dropped this video and bookings are still trickling in from this video. When did we even make this? I think two or three weeks ago, right?

Yeah. Five weeks ago it went live. Yeah. Yeah. So.

Yeah, so. And it's still trickling in. But that's not. This video is not a system. This is kind of like a one off thing. And maybe we could keep. Maybe I can get away with keep doing one off influencer stays and, and juicing up the bookings. I'm not exactly sure. I'm still new to the game, by the way. Like, anyone watching, like, if you're in the Airbnb game, you probably know a lot more than I do. I'm still like a rookie in this. So I think paid out, creating a system for paid ads, getting the email marketing a lot tighter. Those are the kind of systems I want to build in 2026 to where my face is completely removed from this brand. And that's the only way you can sell too. Like, if my face is attached to this brand, that's not good for anyone really. So how can I create the systems to. To get direct bookings throughout the whole year? Like two years from now, when this.

Pipe is so number one, when somebody comments retreat. Have you got many chats set up or has Morgan got many chats set up where it instantly drops in a dm. Is that what's been, is that why you're getting people to drop, retreat?

That's what's, that's what's exactly happening. So we have many chats set up. We have a little message that, hey, thank you for your comment. Yeah, we'd love for you to book your stay, yada, yada yada. Here's the link to our website. Please DM us with any questions. And that's pretty much how I did it. And then I closed like those people in the dm, so if they had any questions, I would just be like, I would do that manually. So I don't even know if I was supposed to automate that part either.

But I mean, no, you're good, you're good. So first and foremost, manychat, phenomenal tool. We've talked about it a lot on, on the podcast and all the trainings that we've done. Everybody has noticed probably at some point last year or end of 2024, people were saying drop the, drop a keyword in. And like why everybody's saying this same keyword because many chat takes that runs it into an automation flows that you can build out to drive people to a squeeze page or for you, or for most hosts, you want to drive them to a booking page, right, With a, with, with a code. So that's number one. That's great. And many chat works all the time, you know what I mean? So you can have somebody come today, tap retreat on here and it will still be working to drive them to the right place. Now the cool thing about many chat is you can a b test it. So if, you know, if, if you jump in manually and for whatever reason it doesn't convert, instead of going straight for the kill, as in straight for the hey book, now maybe go, hey, you know, know, give me your email details, you know, give me your name and your deets and we can, we can continue the conversation. I can send you some more information. That's good because then, you know, even if they don't get the book in there and then you can get them onto the email list. Number two, how do you keep this evergreen forever? Yes, ads are phenomenal if you've got a really good piece of content. And one of the things that you guys are very good at is creating content, you can run that with paid ads that's targeted to the right people. And I know we've had a conversation in the DMs and I, we introduce you to somebody over in the uk that could potentially help with that. But like, if you target this to the right people, it will just sit there forever and just be like printing, printing money. And again, you decide whether it goes to a squeeze page, which is obviously to a lead gen to get the email, or whether it's going to go straight into the website to, to get them bookings. It depends on retargeting and all those things, but you just need like a couple of good pieces of content for that. What a lot of people do with people like, like Morgan is they use the shoulder season, which now is the shoulder season. It's like it's not the peak time, it's, it's the bit in between to work with content creators. You, you either know them from high school or you've known for a long time or you know, if, if they're good content creators, you can reach out and work out about a deal or even pay them a little bit of money where they can come and stay in a day where you're never going to get a booking, like a Monday, Tuesday or whatever. And they will create that content for you that, that you can use and then you can basically again run that with your strategy that will just run forever. Because as you know, content is great. Content sits there, but ads can just appear all the time, wherever you want it, anytime. And if you do it right and the targeting is right, it's, you know, you're paying pennies and you can get dollars back.

Yeah, so, exactly. So that's the, that's the goal with this is I actually had another female influencer stay recently. I haven't even posted her video. I'm honestly probably just gonna start running that as an ad because it was, it was also a very similar video to what Morgan did.

Nice. Yeah. Well, the goal is, once you do ads as well is, you know, you've got to pay to play on these platforms when you want to get like bookings. And the cool thing about it is that it can literally feel like your brand is chasing them around the Internet wherever they go, whether it's, you know, Facebook or Insta or, or wherever. So let's just very quickly jump over to Tick Tock. Right, so you're on the Tick Tock. You've got a steady following there. How, how are you differing your Tick Tock strategy to your Instagram strategy if, if any?

Yeah, I'll be completely honest. I don't pay much attention to Tick Tock, if I'm being honest. It's a, it's a nice platform. I feel like it's a lot of younger audiences, a lot of bots in my comments. I just don't really prioritize Tick Tock that much. I do like it that they pay for views, so it definitely is a little bit of side income for me. But yeah, if I'm being completely honest, I don't focus too much on Tick Tock. I've never responded to a Tick Tock DM ever. I really like Instagram.

Instagram is your, is your one. So do you just post and ghost on. On Tick Tock?

Pretty much. I'll respond to some comments here and there, but yeah, I kind of post and goes. It's not. Yeah, I feel like I had. I wish I had a better answer for this.

But hey, even if you're just posting and ghosting. 143, 000 followers, 2.4 million likes. You know what I mean? It's like even if you're posting and ghosting, hey, do that.

You know what I mean?

Right? We. We're coming to the end. I feel like this has been phenomenal. I really appreciate your time. You've shared so many little bits of, of nuggets that I want everybody to sort of take away. But if you were to leave, like, we've got one little gem that, one little takeaway that somebody here who is, who is watching can just take on and like, apply tomorrow. Like, what would, what would that be? What's your, like, your words of inspiration.

I really want to think about this because I do want to leave the people with something that's actionable or while.

You'Re thinking, can everybody just do us a favor? Number one in the comments, say thank you to Rajan. Showing some, Showing some love. If you've been following the content, let us know and I'll make sure that Rajan gets the link so we can, can, can interact with you, but also as well go and follow his account. So Instagram, it's Cheetah Rajan and obviously go and hit up Royal Oak Retreat. Go and sign up to the newsletters, you know, showing some love. And if you are interested in potentially working with him, then go ahead and send a message. He's looking to build out this, this franchise. And you know, he's, he's a, He's a good guy to. He's a good guy to know. So. All right, Ryden, I've given you some thinking time. What do you want to leave?

My one message that I've given to everyone in my DMs who asked me about starting content specifically because that is my strong. Or my strong suit is just put the phone on the tripod and record. I know we went through a lot of technical things today on the scripting, on how I did the shots. No matter. You could literally DM me for an hour and I can tell you how to do it step by step. And your first video is still going to be bad. Scroll down all the way to my first video, not good. Not good at all. First five videos, not good. First 10 videos, not good. So you just have to get the reps in first and then you can worry about the technicals. My goal for everyone is that post 15 videos first. Just put the phone on the tripod and record and make one small improvement. Every single video for 15 videos. Then we can start talking about the technicals. Then we can start talking about, okay, what should be my first visual, what should my hook be? But in the beginning, like, you just need. You don't even know how to talk to the camera yet. So that is a skill in and of itself that I did not have when I first started. And that's what you should be prioritizing in your first 10 to 15 videos. So just put the phone on the tripod and record. It's going to be bad anyway. It's going to be bad.

Just. Just be bad.

And I hope that's the most empowering thing I can tell you.

No, it is. Just, just do it. You know, Nike said it for a reason. And as there's a, there's a massive of theme that is developing throughout the, the whole series that we've been doing, all of the interviews that we've been doing with all of our amazing guest speakers. Doesn't matter where we're talking about social media, whether we're talking through LinkedIn, Instagram, whatever. It's be consistent, show up and be consistent. Consistence over time wins. And there's another, there's another one to it here. And buddy, thank you so much for your time. We're going to end it there. Can we all show some love? Rajam, thank you very much and we'll, we'll be seeing you very soon. Cheers, man.