AirBnB wants all your money! - Episode 099

Alrighty. Welcome back. The vintage. Yeah, that sepia tint, it's like those western photos. Oh, I love it. Welcome back. Another episode C suite unfiltered with my candies. How are we doing today, sir?

Fantastic.

Dude. We are in the, we are in the heat of spring rush. Most every market is at its peak at this point for, for all of Augusta. So it's exciting. How has spring rush been? Give, give everyone an update. Just from the outside looking in, if they aren't a part of Augusta. What, what is spring rush looking like feeling like right now for Augusta?

This is only my second spring rush where I actually have not been out in the field at some point. So like last year was the first year, this year's the second year where like, I didn't jump out and help the team for some reason. Like, whether it be just like morale or just like to keep my hands dirty kind of thing. I think after I went to North Carolina and for like 30 days, all I did was in the field, I was like, okay, I think I, I got my fill.

Yeah. Yeah.

So funny because the people, people in the comments always bash me for like not being out in the field. Like, wait, wait a second, wait a second. I've been doing this since I was 11. And the whole goal is that you don't work in the field and then you move on to new and better things and then you create jobs for people that are getting started.

Totally.

So I always think that's kind of funny. I've had some fun in the comments recently. Yesterday, Yesterday I, I, I, I put this, this thing like eat meat, lift heavy things. Right? Of course, someone in the comments, like according to the World Health Organization. Did you see this? No.

They listed meat as like the carcinogenic cancer causing, blah, blah, blah. And, and so I was like, you know what? Usually I don't retort. Usually I don't. I couldn't help myself. I was like, yes, the, the WHO also said that two weeks would, two weeks would of Matt squaring and lockdown would, would cure a worldwide pandemic.

And I'm like, you know, so anyways, we, we've been having some fun in the comments recently.

Good, good. No, I, I like, I like when you professionally retort in the comments because yeah, people sometimes on the Internet, I know that's been previous non financial advice of mine, which is just get off the Internet. Like stop being on the Internet so much.

So negative stuff about Alex in my comments, folks. Come on now. What are you doing?

Yeah, yeah. Someone the Other day on a introductory call with me, they're interested in joining Augusta. And they were like, you know, Mike kind of like, reminds me of that. What's that, like, guy that does the gym thing? He, like, sells a bunch of gyms. I was like, like, Alex Harmosi? He's like, yeah, that guy. I was like, mike would think that is one of the best compliments ever.

So, yeah, dude, people, people were trying to trash talk him and me in, in the comments on one of them. And, well, what was funny is they were like, trying to, like, say, like, I was like, better. And then there was someone else that come and like, stop trying to be like, Alex. I'm like, look, look, look.

First off, like, the reason that, that most people don't get anything from coaches or people that are influencers is because they never go deep enough on one person, right? And, and, and they, they, they get advice from 50,000 authors, a whole bunch of podcasts, they listen to everything on YouTube, and, and for that reason, they never go deep and never actually learn something. I've gone the opposite. And I was like, I choose one person. I'm gonna go really, really deep with them until the, until, like, I, I squeeze that thing for everything it's worth. And so it started off with Grant Cardone and Gary Vaynerchuk, both of which now I don't really see the direction. I, I, I don't really see myself in there going after what they're doing.

And it's been like that for five, six years. But I, but I saw Alex way back when I did have a gym, and his content was gym content. That's when I got onto his stuff, and it has been extremely beneficial. And I've made sure that, like, everything is aligned around that. So, you know, you're gonna get 10 different opinions online. So eventually you gotta just determine which one are you gonna follow, because otherwise you're confused. You'll go for, like, one person will say, do it this way. Some one person will, like, I've just chosen, like, this is the path I'm going on. And it's like, my coach is Alex's.

And like, I'm just going that way. And until it does not serve me, I will continue to do that at a very deep level, and I will respect the person that authors that content. So people trying to throw shade on Alex, it's like, look, no one's perfect and there's, everyone's gonna have rough edges. And if you don't like someone's rough edges, fine. But if that Also prevents you from hearing what they have to say and that what they have to say is extremely beneficial to you, then shame on you. Like, it's like going to the doctor and because the doctor's overweight, you don't get medicine from him or you don't take the advice that you should lose weight. It's like, no, like, they do know what they should be doing. Just because they have rough edges or they don't look the same way as you does not mean that the information or the prescription they're giving you is wrong. And so I always think it's funny when people do that because I think it's very beneficial to choose one person and almost, I wouldn't say blindly, but like, almost exclusively follow what they're talking about because you get way more depth and then you get more holistic training because you're taking a certain.

Ethos and applying it across life instead of just one discipline.

No, it's a good way to look at it. I think that similarly, like, I was trying to think of, like an example as you were describing that, and like, let's take something like, at its face value, very simple, at its deepest value, one of the most complex systems in the world, stock trading, right? And there are so many people out there that are give stock advice, that'll have their newsletters, right? Like, I subscribe to Prof. G. Scott Galloway's newsletter, his market reports newsletter. I was listening to Prof. G. Markets this morning, you know, just learning a.

Little bit and everything in the US Bro.

But it's like, but I, but I think then I listen to other people that are very different than his perspective, and then, well, am I, am I getting a balanced approach maybe? Or am I just creating some sort of like, paralysis with my decision making? Because obviously Scott's rich. Other people I listen to very rich, all financial advisors. So, like, which is the correct way? Well, it's a game, right? Business is a game. Stock market's a game, whatever it is. And to your point, it's like, well, if you go really deep on one person who is objectively successful and aligns with the success you're trying to achieve, would it not be more likely that you will achieve that a similar level of success or a level towards their, their level? Does that make sense?

Yeah, it's not that either. Either perspectives, right or wrong, it's the fact that that person has a certain recipe. If followed, it would create that success. And the reason that I am a big proponent of choosing one person going deep on them is because you get the recipe completed and instead of, I don't know if I should do it, they said this and they said that and like, so inaction is actually the enemy. And so flip a coin as to who you're going to follow. Assuming, you know, there's certain, like, you know, whether you need to, some people need to agree with people morally or politically or religiously in order to just follow them. And that's fine. And if you do that, I would just like take their recipe and take action. Like, taking action is actually the thing that creates the success, whether you, what recipe you use, who cares? But what most people do is because there's so many different recipes being thrown at them and they're getting information from so many different sources, they never actually start baking and therefore they never get the cake. So.

Yeah, no, it's a good point. Yeah, no, I agree with that. I think, yeah, just taking action, like learning, going for it. I think for me, I was in, you know, I mean, we haven't really talked about this publicly, so happy to share a little bit is I didn't really kind of know where I was going inside of Augusta, if that makes sense. Like, I'm, I'm publicly sharing here a little bit. Like you and I had conversations, like, obviously I do the introductory calls and like some of the onboarding and the training of new owners, but it's like, okay, like, what skill set do I need to gain? What do I need to do in order to achieve that next level success in my career? And so I pitched you on the idea of like, hey, can I get a sales specific coach, specifically a corporate sales coach, someone who has built companies, who has helped corporate teams expand with reporting and tracking and projections and things of that nature. And that has proven to, at least from my perspective, help produce a little bit better clarity around my role, clarity around where I'm trying to get to. And ultimately I do see more of a path to success because I've just honed in on one person. I'm not looking at. Well, this person did corporate sales and this person posted this. And this person said I should use this CRM. And this person said I should track this way. And this person said I need to have a spreadsheet that looks like this. It's like, let me just zoom in on one person and who's done it many times very successfully. Like, he's worked for five companies that have gone public, had had very high level positions and VPs and C suite level. And I'm just going to follow his system and I'm going to tweak it. And you've seen me working on that. And I think that that is a testament to exactly what you're saying is like, okay, do I think he is the quote, unquote, perfect coach? Not necessarily. But has he been there, done it, and he's, has he achieved levels of success that I want to achieve? Yes. Great. Then let's just follow him for a while.

Yeah, like for, for every single email template or automation that he has, there's someone else that would do the exact opposite or say that that's the wrong intro line, that's the wrong subject line. And so it is not a matter of saying something is right or wrong. It's a matter of taking action. And it is easier to take action when you have one recipe and you just can like follow the ingredients and follow the measurements and how much of it do you put in and when do you do it? And so it is not a matter of right and wrong. There's, there's, there are, there are shades of correctness. It is a function of taking action.

Yeah. 100. Cool. Well, that was, that was an unexpected introduction, but happy we went down that rabbit hole. We did bury the lead a little bit. So I did want to ask you this. This is episode 99. Our next episode is going to be 100. Do we need to do anything special for the 100th episode? Oh, we'll do book release. A book launch?

Yeah, that'll be coming out by the time we record next. That. Yeah, yeah, come out.

Yeah. Well, I was going to touch on that as well, but yeah, next. Next episode will be 100. So if you have any ideas, if anyone has ideas on what we should do, leave a comment, maybe we'll implement them. We'll do something fun. We'll do something dumb. I don't know, but I was like, we should do something. Right?

You want to be, you want to be a. Get to take a guest spot on the 12 hour live stream?

Oh, are you doing a 12 hour live stream for the, for the book launch? 100. Yeah, sign me up. Sign me up. June 2nd. Let's see. Yeah, I'll check my calendar, but it's all days.

Yeah, you don't need to check your calendar.

I'm going from 6:00am to 6:00pm Dude. Fair enough. Fair enough. June 2nd. All right, so that is a Monday. Yeah, yeah, I know. Sign me up, dude. Give me the. If you need me in like your witching hour, like 4 to 5pm you know that last push Again, I can hop in.

Yeah, dude, I'm going to do like, I'm going to have the walking treadmill. I'm going to have food lined up. We have like all these. I have 10 lectures to go through. It's going to be crazy.

I'm all about it. Yeah, give me a slot. Let me hop in there. Oh, that's awesome. I love that. All right, well, if anybody has ideas that they want us to do for the 100th episode, check, leave a comment, let us know and then check out the 12 hour live stream that apparently Mike's going to do and maybe I'll be on. So wanted to switch it up here. Talk a little bit of business news. So kind of zoom out. Look, look outward a little bit. Some of pods recently we've been looking a little more inwardly. Talking lawn and landscape, talking Augusta, talking copilot. But let's look outward and let's look at other businesses and do some analysis here. I know we've done that a lot in the past. I know people are interested in that. Last week at time of recording, Uber had a new announcement. Brian Chesky, CEO of Uber. And I know you're a big fan of Brian Chesky.

Airbnb or Airbnb?

Sorry, Airbnb. Sorry, I was looking at my screen. I was. I had a tab open for Uber. My apologies. Airbnb is what we're talking about. But I was looking at the word Uber. Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb Correction, had a presentation last week about the significant changes that are coming to the app. So have you heard anything about this or you want me to just give a quick brief overview?

Go ahead and give a brief overview.

Cool.

I am aware. Yeah.

Yeah. So last Tuesday at time of recording is when Brian Chesky had a big Airbnb event, Big Airbnb announcement. And the short of it is they are now launching Airbnb Experiences and Airbnb Services and they're actually going to be inside of the same app. So they're not going to be separate apps or separate logins or separate accounts. They will be inside of the standard Airbnb app. And the idea behind Experiences and Services is taking the network that Airbnb has already created with homeowners and Realtors and Verified Properties is then taking those people and their connections and providing potential experiences that you could book on your trip. So you book an Airbnb to Denver, right? And you want to know what the best hiking trail is, but you don't want to figure it out on your own. And you're not the most experienced hiker. So you could book an experience with someone who lives in the Denver area who has, you know, first aid certifications, whatever it may be, and they have hiked millions of millions of miles, whatever it may be, and you can book an experience for them to then take you on a guided tour or guided hike in the mountains outside of Denver. Same thing with services you could also do like booking someone to do private chefs, like come in and do a private dinner party for you and your friends, things of that nature. So basically taking their network and extrapolating from just, we are now rentals, but we are also renting and giving you experiences. We are also allowing you to rent and get services from our trusted network of people that we already work with and that are already verified. So what's your initial reaction to this seemingly interesting expansion? Because Airbnb is just used to just be rental vacation properties. This is a whole different ball game from the outside looking in.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I think it's a leap. It's definitely a great leap. They need to do something. Because you don't want to pigeonhole yourself into just a travel company. I get it. If you're trying to become a trillion dollar company, you can't just stay a travel company. I get it. I don't know if it's going to take off now. I don't like to be. I don't like to doubt Brian. I don't like to doubt anyone that's trying to do something new and exciting. So I would love to see it work. I don't know if this is going to take off. I think they're attacking, they're attacking 10 different verticals, for example, in services.

All.

Of which have their own individual apps I could mention that do exactly that same thing. And I don't know if you're gonna be able to get enough penetration in the market. Now when someone does travel and use an Airbnb, I do think they will use potentially services.

And.

What'S the other one? Services.

Experiences.

Experiences. I think they might use it like some subset of those. But like, let's just say that out of every person that does an Airbnb, 1 out of 10 uses these functions. I don't know how much of an impact is going to have on the, the overall revenue and profitability of Airbnb. It's also harder to extrapolate a lot of revenue from a someone who's doing a $50 like massage versus a thousand dollar rental. Of the, of an apartment. I also think it's much more ancillary in terms of discretionary income. That being said, people who use using Airbnb typically have a discretionary income. So like, that's great. But do I think in an economic recession, people are going to be like paying 150 per plate for someone to come to their Airbnb and be a chef. Why would you not just go to a five star restaurant and spend a hundred dollars there? And so I was like, for me personally, I wouldn't want a chef to come to my house and make me food. I'd rather go get the experience of going to a restaurant. Also, I don't like having people around if I'm on vacation. Like I don't want, if I'm going on a hike, forget getting anyone else to come along. Like I don't want to see people. So I don't know. It'd just be interesting to see if they can make this take off. It'll interest to see how they monetize it. It'll be interesting to see if it gets adopted. I think it's going to still. I think their challenge is going to be, I only log into Airbnb when I'm going to an Airbnb, I. E. A rental of real estate. And so what they're trying to break into is the person who doesn't go on a vacation and just uses the app to get people locally that are doing the hike, the chef to come into their house, etc. That looks interesting. Whether or not that we look across the chasm from a brand perspective of a travel company to actually, I use these for services and experiences in my local area. That's the gap. And so whether or not they can cross that. And you gotta be careful because if you become the local app that everyone uses, do they think of you as a travel company? Like where they go to when they go traveling? Like, do you now need to integrate something like a Expedia or some sort of other travel, like to do rental cars and airplanes? Because like I still need to maintain my money maker, which is the real estate. So it'll be interesting to see if they can cost the chasm. They want people to open up this app when they're not traveling. I don't know if they're gonna be able to do that. If they do, they have done a masterful job. And if there's anyone to do it, I think Brian, Brian's probably capable.

So yeah, I think my initial reaction and then I'll get into some, some stats and other information that I gathered around this. But my initial reaction was it felt like the like initial was this feels like a misstep. Like that was my initial reaction. I was like, no, you guys are the vacation rental. Like, I'm not going to go to you to hire a private chef. I'm not going to go to you. You know, when it's services, I mean it's, it's hair, it's makeup, it's laundry, it's grocery services and it's like, well, there's, you know, people are very loyal to their salon. People already can use clickl. Different, you know, features for shoppers for them. So laundry services, like very common. So this thing's already very common. So I'm like, okay, so we're going into markets that there's already usually a lot of loyalty around and also services that are very easy for most consumers to get at this point. Right? To get those lower level services. It's those higher tier services that I think for them is what they're trying to tap into. Right. I think they're going up market with this, as we say. And that would be the people that have that additional capital that just want to go to a trusted brand Airbnb and book through them and do your. Do you. Your point? I would disagree where you're saying like, I don't know who would use that on travel. Well, if you and say you and your wife are traveling at some point and you know, I don't know if you want to skydive one day or scuba dive or whatever, but like, would you rather just go to like a trusted brand Airbnb, find the person with the highest rating. You're not going to look at the price. You're just like, who is the highest rating? I'm going to book them. Oh, they're available tomorrow. Great. I'm going to book them. I think there is a use case for people like yourself where there is that time is money. You want that experience. You're just going to pick the highest rated person through a trusted brand Airbnb that you know is going to have terms and conditions to protect you as a consumer versus what are you going to do? You're going to go on Google, you're going to look for the person that's highest ranked on Google, then you go to their website and then you're going to have to contact them and you're going to have to look at their terms of service. So I think there is a use case. I don't think it's the big money maker for Uber. I think it's more of a brand play around. We're already a trusted brand, so use us for these other things. That was my initial reaction.

Yeah, no, I 100% agree. I also think it's a bit of a reach that they're going to be able to get enough people to sign up for these services because they are a middleman. And all these services have seen what they've done to real estate and they're going to be very apprehensive. Like, it's, it's the, the. Do you really want to get with this person in bed? Because you know there's gonna be some problems and they've seen what's happened with, like, I've been a, A host on Airbnb.

Yeah.

It's like there's a lot of fees and so if I am doing, let's just call it skydiving and I have a 30% margin, am I willing to give up 25% margin to. To Airbnb because there's a middleman now? And, and. Or do I rely on the fact I have 3000 Google reviews and I have tons of leads coming from there, like, will I want to even sign up? So it's a marketplace. Like, they have to do two sides of this. Is why it's always difficult. Marketplaces are tough to build, and then they're extremely hard to compete with is because I have, I have to get all the consumers to buy into this new logic of Airbnb. That's what we've talked about so far. But there's another side of this. Like, like, will the businesses actually sign up for the service and accept a middleman into the equation? And then it's a matter of like, well, now they have to charge more to be able to recoup the extra 20 or 30%. Okay, then I, as a consumer, I just simply am going to go into Airbnb and look at this as a review site and then I'm going to go into Google and book that person.

Right. No, I agree with that. And I think that I was thinking about it too, from almost like an upwork perspective. Right. Because if it is individuals offering these experiences, offering these services. Let's go with the private chef example. Well, that's because you'd be one person that has all the, you know, the tools and the pots and the pans and the knives and the skill set to become a private chef, but they don't have the exposure. They don't have a website built. They don't have a Google page, say, but they can go register on Uber. They can put their, you know, food handlers permit, they can put their whatever degrees or certifications and then get verified as a private chef on, or, excuse me, on Airbnb. Sorry, I keep saying Uber on Airbnb. I think that there is some value for those people to kind of get into the market to offer those services. And even for myself, like, if, if you're in a smaller market, like, I, I was looking, I have a buddy's bachelor party coming up and I was like, you know, what if I surprised him with a private chef one morning? Like, what if we just had a private chef come in? I was like, I just want to see. I couldn't find like, anyone in the market we're going to be in. I was like, there's, there's literally no one. Like, and the only people I did find, either they only do like, dinners, like dinner experiences and they're thousands of dollars, or they just don't have an online presence. So as a consumer, I'm not going to trust that they're like, oh yeah, this person's great. It's like, there's no website. It's just like a phone number and an email that sketches me out versus I trust Airbnb. I booked through Airbnb. It's a great service. Like, I would go through that. So I do think there's a use case. I think it's small, but I don't know if this is a money play for Airbnb. Do you think it's just like expanding the brand? Like, do you think it is just more of them taking authority over? We are the experience brand. We're the travel and stay experience. We are the adventure and the hikes and the private chefs and the, whatever their brand, they've hit a huge point.

Of saturation with their, their stays. They also have a huge amount of regulation that is around real estate and as soon as you start housing people. And so that's a huge moat. But it's also very difficult for them to expand. So you think about, hey, we need to have 10 or 20 expansion next year. Like, they are saturated. Many of the markets and many areas have regulation. Like, I had to close down on them like back in the day, my, my Airbnbs, cuz, like they weren't allowed in my city. Now all of a sudden, new regulation came through and I was going to be fined $200 a day. So, like, that's very, very regulated. Area in market where doing services is much less regulated. I, I also have another thing with the merchants that is I think going to become a problem for them and that is the amount of people that tried to get around Airbnb because they knew I was paying fees. As soon as they wanted to book like more than a week, they'd be like, hey, I'll take, let's take this offline I e off of Airbnb and I'll pay you give me a discount. I think it gets more, even more complicated when you actually see the merchant. And so right now like as a host, I never saw my guests, it was all digital check in and they go, they get the app, blah, blah. When, when you are doing a hike for me and I get your review from you, I know you're getting charged from Airbnb. If I book through you, why would I not just message you or go to Google or whatever and set up this appointment and then pay you directly? It's easier now to do that than ever. So how they gatekeep that is going to be interesting. Obviously they can penalize processors and penalize merchants, but I feel like what's going to happen is they're going to get some, they're going to allow people to abuse the system to get merchants on the platform and then they're going to turn on the merchants and be like, okay, there's all these things if you do that that you're going to get penalized for. And so it'll be interesting to how they even roll that out because they've got to play two faced here. They've got to be like very.

Customer centric and they've also got to suffice, these merchants. And the fact that the merchant now with the credit card processor in hand is not able to take money from a consumer is a problem in my opinion. Also when upsells and recurring revenue. If I'm going to book someone for another hike, do you really think I'm going to tell them to go through Airbnb? Like there's not. The reason I did that as a host is because of liability. I have insurance through Airbnb and I pay Airbnb for insurance to make sure that things, if something goes wrong, I'm taken care of when it comes to the hike or I'm a masseuse or whatever. Like I don't see the value of having a middleman as much. So it just be interesting to see if they can, if you can walk that thread, that line, there's a branding Play from the consumer's perspective. There's also, like a huge marketplace that it's going to come from.

The merchant side. And to your point, I think the part that I kind of question is, can this be bigger than what they're currently doing? And does this distract them from what they are currently doing? And if they just made it better? I don't know. I don't know. To be determined. And again, if anyone's going to do it, I think Brian and his current state of affairs with the way that their product team works. Like their product team is dialed in. Yeah. Now I kind of see, like, Prow product works a little bit more. They do a fantastic job. So if anyone can do it, it'd be Brian and the team.

Yeah. Fair enough. Well, here's an excerpt from Brian's announcement and from the Airbnb team. It says that Airbnb says its services are vetted for quality through an evaluation of expertise and reputation. Right. So that's kind of that consumer protection. Right. If I'm going through the brand I trust, I will get a better service, if you will. And that service hosts have an average of 10 years of experience, so that's crazy. The people that they're signing up to do these services and experience have averages of 10 years of experience. Once again, more trust around the brand and what you're paying for. The company says the hosts also have completed the company's identity verification process and are required to submit relevant licenses and services. Certifications. Services are available at nearly every price, the company said, and many services include an entry fee offering below $50. People choose hotels for their services. There's a quote here from Chesky. People choose hotels for their services. People choose Airbnbs for the space. Now they've given. They're. We're giving you the best of both worlds. Amazing homes with services that make them even more special. So it is just kind of like a plug into the existing brand. Like, we are the All Things Travel, Experience, Enjoyment and Life brand. That's kind of what I feel like they're going for. Does that make sense?

Yeah. 100 is everything. They're trying to, you know, do it. There's several everything apps and, you know, there's like a race for, like, OpenAI and X, for example, that are trying to go after, like, payments in your wallet and social media all wrapped up in one. And you're like your personal assistant. And someone like Airbnb is trying to, like, take everything in terms of services, travel, et cetera. So, like, we'll See? We'll see.

Yeah, yeah. And something from Scott Galloway. So this is one, one piece of data that I did want to bring forward because he did kind of a deep dive on this. He said 30% on average. 30% of hotel revenue is ancillary services. And he said, I bet higher end hotels are much more than that. Right. Because that's just like a ballpark industry average. So I think that's where maybe Airbnb does see that opportunity.

Okay.

If hotels are 30, hotel revenue is coming from those ancillary services. Should we get an ancillary services? Right. They already have the data, they already have the user base. Why wouldn't they just plug in those ancillary services? So I'm interested to see where it goes. I mean, obviously, I don't think there's, I, I think they've obviously done the testing. My initial reaction was this doesn't make sense to me. But the more we've talked about it, the more we've explored it, I think it just maybe makes a better consumer experience. I don't think it's maybe a money play for them. I think it is more of a branding, long term expansion, trusted brand all.

It's all a money play.

Yeah, but like you, but even as you were saying, like the initial, like, it's not like going to make a massive additional amount of revenue for them immediately. Right. And that's where it works.

It's a huge, much larger tam.

Right.

Because I, I might, I might use an Airbnb once or twice a year, but if I can use one of their services every other week, that becomes valuable.

Yeah.

So it is a money play, but is it?

Well, yes. Yeah.

Like, will they make more money at the onset? No, because they have it built, built up the marketplace like they have with Airbnb.

Yeah. And their growth as a whole has, has not stagnated, but drastically declined in terms of the rate of increase. And so it is a way for them to expand. So, yeah, I think that's, they've been.

Expanding fees forever and that's what, you know, try pushing hosts away. And so the only way to expand now that you're publicly traded company, everyone expects more revenue every single quarter. You've got to go in a new vertical. And so they're doing a very thoughtful way. I, I give them credit for taking two years, really, and, and nailing this. So we'll see how, how they stick it.

Yeah, I'm excited. Well, here's what we need to do. Once it, once it's official, I Don't know if it's going to be launched in our, in our market. They're initially starting with 650 plus cities. I do not know if we're going to be listed there, but you and I should both try something just to test it, just to see.

Just.

We'll try it out. Very cool. Well, let's, let's jump over. This is why I was saying Uber so much and creating a new vertical. Uber has invented buses. So have you seen any of the backlash that Uber got here recently with a new service that they just released last week as well?

I, I have not seen any of this. I think any large company that rolls anything out new gets backlash these days. So hit me.

All right, so basically what they're going to do. So Uber's head of products, Sean Cancel said or console. I'm not sure how to pronounce it. He said. Said. We ask that riders walk a few blocks to a predetermined point at a predetermined time to participate in a predetermined route, which they will share with a couple of other riders. We call this route share. So they basically invented buses. There will now be a more budget option on Uber. That's the backlash they're getting online. Like, everyone's like, they invented buses. Look at them. They're so smart. Where now, for a discounted price, I don't know how much, but what you would do is when you, you, you select where you want your ride and when you want it. And then what Uber does is it basically makes a pool of other people that are going generally in that direction. So it's not Uber pool, which was a previous existing option where it was like, hey, you might share with one or two people that are getting picked up at the same spot and then they're getting dropped off along the way. This is, you tell Uber when I want to drive, when I want to go, and where I want to go, it collectively gathers other people that are in a similar situation. And then it predetermines like a corner. So, you know, you might have to walk, you know, quarter mile, three quarters a mile, who knows? Like, I don't know what the max is on that, but you'd have to walk to a spot, you meet those people there, you all get in the car, and then it basically is about a mini bus route. So interesting to see that expansion there. That does seem like maybe a little bit of a desperate money play, because I did see that Uber has also kind of been a little bit stagnant in terms of their growth. So any thoughts on that bus expansion from Uber?

I think it's a great, great play. The reason is, is because you know, if you go to a conference or an event or a stadium and you leave and there's thousands of other people leaving, you will see hundreds of people waiting for their Uber in one spot and a whole bunch of cars one by one picking them up. It would make way more sense if a bus showed up and picked up 50 people. Way more sense. It's better for the environment so all those people get happy. Woohoo. It's better economically because if they all pay half price, but there's 50 of them, I just made 25x on that trip. Trip. So I think this is a great move. I, I will take the contrary on this one. I think it's a fantastic idea. Whether or not they can get the drivers on board with having a bus type vehicle and then having enough profitable routes for them to run, that's a different story. But if I can get two or three riders in quote bus, I will probably make more money than driving my Prius. So I think it's, it could make sense very quickly from a leasing like if I leased a 12 passenger van for example, and let's assume that on average I'm only taking four or five people people. I just, I could double or triple my income as a driver. It's like I'm a big fan. Big fan. I think it's a winner. Not in Bellingham, not in Bellingham but in like Seattle. In, in cities, metropolitan areas. In, in and around conference centers.

Yeah. Yeah. So some of the, the finer details are that the, the route share would be from right now in the, the cities. They're going to be testing it and are rolling it out and it's not tested. It's. They're rolling it out. This is a service. It'll be right now from 6am to 10am and then 4pm to 8pm on weekdays. So really kind of peak rush hour times, peak transit time. So this works especially as you're saying, you know, the, the inverse of you have a conference, a big event versus in the morning, like hey, a lot of people are going to the same massive office building when we're talking, you know, larger metropolitan markets. So put them all to all five people join on one street corner and they all go to the same office building. They don't work together, but they all now can kind of commute together. And the routes would be set to have pickups within 20 minutes. So it Wouldn't be that you'd have to wait a long time as long as you can put it in. And it's like one of the predetermined routes. They say the goal would be every 20 minutes there would be a route share option. So max Your wait in 20 minutes and it would cost up to half the price of a regular Uber X. So I think, you know, on average UberX in the city at rush hour, you're probably spending 20, 30 bucks. So in this regard you're looking at 10 to 15. That's, that's, that's good savings if you're using an Uber, you know, every day potentially or every other day.

I like this, I like this recurring services too because yeah, as a function of now if you can get it cheap enough, you can do it maybe every day you don't get the car because $10 each way it's $20 times 20, it's 400amonth. That's the same as much as a car payment. And now you don't have to have parking. So like this is legit. I'm a fan.

Yeah. Yeah. And here, here's the kicker. And this is exactly what you're saying with the recurring services. Here's the kicker, second to last paragraph in this article here from Forbes. Uber is also a way to lock in the price for a specific route by paying a subscription. So they're, they're going the subscription model already.

They like their, their stock's like at the highest it's been in a very, very long time, I think ever. It's doing pretty good because they, they started turning up.

I'm sure I haven't looked at it here. I'll just pull it up for, for the, for the fun of it.

Oh, I think we, you cut out there.

Oh, hello. Can you still hear me?

I can hear you. You're good.

Cool. Yeah. They recently peaked last week at $91 a share. Yeah, $91 a share. Right now they're sitting at 89. So that is their, that is their all time peak.

Here's the real question. Did everyone take our financial advice about a month ago when we said to buy the diff. That's the real question.

Great question. I dabbled a little. I dabbled a little. So yes. Yeah, hopefully everyone did. Did. All right, well that, that, that's kind of all I had for today. Talking a little Uber, airbnb, things of that nature making me want to travel. So any not financial advice to wrap up the day for the people.

Take it away.

My not financial advice is tune into the next episode because it's the hundredth episode and we'll, we'll do something. I don't know what it's going to be. I got some ideas. I'm workshopping some stuff. I don't know how, how much you're going to want to get into it in terms of crazy, but I feel like we got to do something fun.

Good stuff. Good stuff. All right. My non advantage advice since, you know, I seem to be doing apps every, every single time these days. Macro factor highly recommend. Here, I'll quickly show you kind of what it looks like. Kind of shows you basically a breakdown of, you know, what you got to do in terms of your carbs, fats, etc. Here, let me get something more interesting so you can kind of see, you can kind of see the top there. It tracks your macros, which is your fats, carbohydrates and your proteins and your calories. It's pretty awesome. I have not tracked my calories like I said last time for a very long time. But this is nice and simple. It takes me like two seconds and it does scan foods but does a horrible job of doing that. So. But I eat the same like 10 foods, so it's pretty easy and it has been working very well for me and Brianna.

So nice. Love that. Very cool. Well, that is the pod like and subscribe.