Strawberry Fields Vision Purpose-Driven Living and Lasting Impact

Hey everybody. I'm doing a little interview today for Ricardo Amigo and new listing Strawberry Fields. But what we're really interested here is talking with the developers, Mike Gaining and Vivian Glick about their vision of this project that they started and now are passing on potentially to a new developer or at least selling an incredible piece of land here in the Pescadero Basin, right behind Gavilan. This is a prime area. And what I really want to find out today from Mike and Vivian is talking to them about their dream and what Strawberry Fields was to be and could still be to a new developer or somebody else who has the same vision that they do. So I want to introduce Mike Koenig, Vivian Glick. Thank you guys for being here today. I really appreciate your time and I want to find out a little bit about your backgrounds, a little bit about what makes you tick, what brought you down to the Baja in the first place, what other kind of pursuits and things do you do in your own spare time. So maybe let's start with Vivian. Vivian. So can you tell us a little bit about what makes Vivian go.

All right, well, first of all, it's great to be talking to you. Thank you so much for all of your help and guidance and wisdom in the market down here in Pescadero and in Bajasura. So my background, my last 20 years I've been involved in humanitarian work, working in East Africa and now in India, specifically with adolescent girls. I've also got a background in marketing and healthcare marketing. Both of us are many time published authors as well. And for me, my big aha moment was when I came down to mea Modern Elder Academy, which is right next to Strawberry Fields, right?

Yeah, it's really literally just right over there.

And had just an extraordinary experience being in this wild, wild but civilized area, just seeing gorgeous beach line with nobody on it, and moreover, meeting an incredible community of people.

There's a group of expats here, the Mexican community, it's conscious and it's regenerative. The farmland that's here that is still really untouched. I wanted to be a part of it. You know, after Covid or during COVID I was lonely. You know, people just started moving and isolating and it really filled my heart to be in this area where people were just so conscious and so this idea of creating a community ourselves, Chip Conley has created such a great community down here with MEA and has built community of housing as well. And so I think it just kind of is the piece of the puzzle for what's next for us in terms of we want to sink in with beautiful land, amazing people.

Yeah. When I met you, it seemed like you really love this place. I could feel it radiating off of you. And you shared with me a little bit of your vision, which we'll talk about next. But after Mike kind of tells us his online AI wizarding skills, which is pretty amazing. Like, I'm definitely dealing with a couple of experts and a master at online marketing as well. So I feel pretty honored to be in this group and representing these guys. But Mike.

Tell us a little bit about what you do.

Well, I'm a serial entrepreneur. I grew up in a small town, a very small farming community in Minnesota.

And I've built and sold a bunch of companies now doing a lot in AI and I've helped build brands. That's basically what I do is I work with founders and create businesses with them. And part of our appeal of coming down here was Vivian called me up from MEA and said, I want to move here. This feels like home to me. And I say the same thing any supportive husband would say to his wife. That's a great idea, honey. So we started shopping and one thing led to another and we got this itch to buy land and develop and soon it turned into a big, big project. So we bought this property with the intent to bring more like minded people down here. People who care about the environment, care about the culture, want to be part of something special and unique and also be disconnected and unplugged. And thankfully now due to Starlink and all the tools like you, you can have the best of everything. The best weather, amazing culture, great expat community, well integrated, it's extremely safe. And we've been living here now we're in our third month and we're committed to being here and living here. The truth of the matter is the project just got bigger and bigger and I realized for us we had some big family issues going on. My, I just lost my parents and we realized we're in beyond what our capacity is. And I'm good at what I'm good at, which is building businesses. And we just decided we want to live here and find a right fit person who can see the vision and what we created and be able to carry it forward and take it to completion.

Yeah, it's pretty brilliant. And I think a lot of your, both of your marketing skills and your background and your, your sort of database of people and influencers and people like all over the place that you're associated with all the time was something that probably or definitely affected your design and your kind of your idea here. Like you were even trying to integrate something so that if somebody was a fairly successful entrepreneurial person and maybe they have a big web presence that you were even going to integrate like a broadcast studio to the developer.

So the vision of Strawberry Fields was 12 homes, a studio, a theater, a regenerative center. We do a lot in the longevity space, Huerta Farm. So we have farm to table, there's space to put a restaurant. You know, it's a big vision. And again we realize that we've spent decades getting great at being grid marketers.

Yeah, great marketers.

Becoming developers.

Is, is beyond our skill set. That that would be it. And we realized, and again for me, I'd rather bring the people here and create the community and the culture. And Vivian has been building communities and culture and doing your philanthropic and non profit work in Uganda and India now for, for decades. And again we just, we just sat back and we said this feels bigger than what we can do by ourselves.

Yeah, I understood that even the fact that you were attached to this project in the beginning, you had four or five friends already. They were just like sign me up.

We had, we had down payments, we pre sold homes. I don't know if it's safe to talk about the numbers here, but I.

Mean it was, it was good numbers.

Sig numbers.

Yeah. And that was, you know, you really started this project. How long ago was that?

We started the project in the like basically mid-2022.

Okay.

And so I think that the, you know, the thing that's really interesting around the conversation about the studio was this concept of being able to work from anywhere. The whole world turned nomadic during COVID and the idea to have this full broadcast studio down here. You can see Mike can create that anywh down at a table. And to. And that was really who we originally started marketing to were, were our clients, Mike's clients, our friends, our community. And it was just like, yes, I want this, I want this, I want this. And you know, I know we'll talk about it. But the vision for Strawberry Fields is more than a vision. We have full developmental development planned for 12 homes. The Casitas. We talked about the studio, the regenerative health center.

Yeah, I know you'd never completed the, the whole approval process on everything, but you were pretty close to like about to submit everything and get it going when you decided that this project was maybe just a little bigger than you wanted to take a bite out of.

That's right. That's right. So we did all the work. We invested substantial amount in the plans.

Yeah, there's beautiful, beautiful home plans.

It's a finer development. We worked with the developer of Chileno Bay. We're now in Cabo where homes are now being sold for like $15 million, Cabo Azul, etc. And we have detailed architectural and engineering plans for every component.

Yeah, it's amazing though, online and through rules out there. I can't promise anything to anybody about the plans or anything like that. They are around. You guys would be happy to share everything that you've learned or everything you've done with anybody who's it can be. They hit the bottom line.

Happy to safely say that.

Happy to turn all that over and even be. I'm sure it'd be amazing to have a conversation with you guys, even personally for anybody who's considering the development in that area.

I think that's just found value too right there, which is great. But I love the fact that we get to talk about people that have such a good vision in this area. Like something that would be future. This is, it's like a very future vision of this area, but yet so like you said, sustainable. All the right words that we're using. And then again the remote aspect of the lives down here that people can have and run successful businesses. I know many entrepreneurs down here right now who have successful companies and they're running them out of the Baja.

This is a founder's paradise. You know what we found is there oftentimes eight figure and above founders, they've had exits. They're looking for a place they can live part time, be safe, feel like you could surf in the morning, you can do business in the afternoon.

The food, the drink, everything. This is a foodie pirate.

Love the food. And I personally was living in New York City. I was a senior director of commercial real estate for Cushman and Wakefield. I was selling a bunch of Brooklyn and had a big team. And I came down here myself five years ago and I was just enthralled with this area. I mean I've been all over the world and I say to myself, is this the absolute most beautiful place I've ever been? No. I mean there are places that almost overwhelm you with. With beauty. But this is a place that has a perfect balance for me and I think for entrepreneurial people and people that like to have space for thought. Yeah, I felt like the energy down here was really strong. The whales love it down here. They bring their Little babies to.

Yeah.

Grow up and feed them right off the shore here. So it's an amazing, just spiritual thing about that too as well. And I think this place really draws people that are, I guess like entrepreneurial, are have a vision, want to be reborn and really find out who they are.

Right now this is the same reinvention. It's where innovators go and what we found. Every night we go out, we meet more new best friends. So many like minded people who are spiritually conscious, grounded, fascinating. They've got big deep histories from all over the world. It's. It's astonishing.

Yeah, there's many. You'll. You will definitely find your.

If it was going to use a homeopathic term, it'd be similimum, A little piece that fits your piece right on. You know, like the thing that, that activates you or helps activate them. I've met so many people like that down here that are just very interesting people.

Yeah, and the musicians too. The live music is extraordinary. Yesterday we went out and launched a couple baby Tortugas that were still hatching. I've been surfing almost, well at least several times a week since we got here. You got amazing surf break right there. Another one not even a mile away.

No, it is great that way. Right? That was always going to. It was definitely part of what brought me down here was the surfing. I was like what do I want to do with the rest of my life as far as, you know, just being active, being outdoors, great food, great community and this satisfied everything, you know, in my, my view, yeah, I think.

It'S regenerative and I think that that kind of open space of nature makes it just. You get creative again, you know, it's past the have to do and it's like what do I want to do and what can I really bring to, you know, bring to the world? And being in this space is just really regenerative. And I think one of the other things that's really great about Pescadero and Todo Santos is it's really close to Cabo. So it is close to one of the, you know, most traffic to airports in the world. We're literally 55 minutes away, but it's a world away.

Yeah, I always love that too. That funny enough, from San Jose del Cabo airport you can get up to here in about the same amount of time as it takes to get to downtown Cabo because of the difference in traffic. Yeah, it's a beautiful simple drive, you know, beautiful four lane highway all the way up gorgeous coastline. It's just like driving back and forth there is like a pleasure. Yeah. No traffic. Yeah. You can go right around all the main routes and right to the airport if you want to do that. So if you want to live here and you have a potential commuting business lifestyle, you can get anywhere in the world from here really easily and cheaply.

And I can't believe how cheap it is to go from New Jersey to here, for example.

Yeah. Or you want to take a quick trip to Mexico City for vacation or to South America to go skiing. Really easy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We just had some family down from Minnesota. He got on a plane in Minnesota, got to Cabo in a couple of hours. I mean like think about that transformation. Negative 3 degrees to.

Oh, I think about that. I go to Minnesota too, for both of my youth.

I mean it's so easy.

It's really 45 minutes away. Anything you need can be delivered here too.

And the growth of this place that I've seen in the last five years since I've been coming down here is pretty extraordinary. Like all the amenities are all filling in now. They're like said people with ideas are coming down here. Like if. Again, if you're an entrepreneur.

Yeah.

This place, massive opportunity. Yes. Opportunities abound everywhere. As far as. So what do you guys. What's like your, your future hope and vision for this area?

Okay. Oh, that's a great question. Well, for us it's community again, finding like minded people. We want to give back part of the, our vision has always been to give back to the community. Help the mexic population.

One of the things is labor is really cheap down here, which is great for us. The exchange rates, great for us.

And you know, anyone who follows Mexico knows the economy down here just gets stronger and stronger. Education in many parts of Mexico, manufacturing gets better and better. So there's I again, our goal and our vision is to be close but disconnected. So an hour away is just fine.

Right.

So I think for us, we want to spend at least half the year living here and taking advantage of other business opportunities, entrepreneurial opportunities, and participate with the music, the food, any way we can add value. I know that's a general answer, but part of it's just living in one of the most astonishing places in the world.

It was great. It's really.

I think I'm repeating myself, but that's the.

It seems to be the theme down here that a bunch of people all say similar situations.

Yeah.

Have similar thoughts.

And I think, you know, what are Our aspirations for this area is that it continues to be developed consciously with conscious developers who are really interested in, you know, not blowing the place up, but also, like, preserving the magic and the paradise and, you know, to really be a part of it. And that was very much one of the things I wanted to say about Strawberry Fields. Why it's called Strawberry Field is it was an organic strawberry farm for years and years and years. And so the land is clean. It isn't full of pesticides and insecticides and, you know, garbage from many years ago, which is a huge attraction for you. How do you keep that mindset?

Right. It's a beautiful piece of land, for sure. And there are definitely seems, or there seems to be a movement of younger people and farmers that want to farm a little more diverse down here. Not necessarily just mono kind of crops, but start to do heirloom tomatoes and different lettuces and spices and herbs, because the. Again, the culinary offerings around here are really great, and they're growing all the time. I know a few chefs that have their own gardens, and they'll import things they can't find anywhere else just so they can grow them and prepare food with them.

Yeah, we've met a bunch of young people who are young Mexicans and.

Americans who were either raised here, spent years here, who are really committed to soil preservation, conservation, doing the organic thing. Again, diverse crop culture. And for example, we met a young guy who brings in goats, so he'll plant a bunch of native plants to.

Do whatever has to be cultivated.

You know, cultivate the soil and be able to grow organic foods and rotate crops. Again, with consciousness without chemicals and pesticides. We see a lot going on with water preservation. And, you know, it's. It's. It's really good. I think the right integration of different cultures coming together is another really attractive part of this place.

Yeah, it's very diverse. And you're really. Everybody's living side by side, and I think it's just a really unique community.

We haven't seen it anywhere else.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, guys, that was amazing. Thanks for your candor and your vision and helping, you know, me, even clarify more of what your vision was. And I think this is a great lesson for, like, any developers down here. Whether you're going to do large projects or whether you want to do boutique hotels, boutique living situations, whatever, or, you know, retreat centers, it's that everything is available down here. And especially if you have a really good idea for it, you know, you can get your vision. Vision to life.

Yeah, people want to participate. That was the other thing that we really, really liked is we had. We did not hear no's. We heard a lot of yeses, and a lot of people want to participate. And I will say again what you can't say, which was for us, we only had to bring down a couple groups. We're like, yeah, we're in. They took one meeting, they saw the plans, they said, we want to be part of this whole thing. And.

You know, it was purely for us a combination of family, personal things, and a realization that, you know, we're at the age where we want to focus on what we're great at and.

Who we're great with.

And, you know, we love to market. We love to create and multiply value.

Absolutely. You're very good at that. Well, that's. That's amazing. So I'm looking forward to helping you guys in your next chapter and anybody else who comes along that's interested in finding out more. I'm glad that you guys are available, too. Yeah, and we are.

We are available to. To aid and. And make someone else's dream come true. Participate in any way we can. Consider us collaborators, just as we are with you. We're here to create and add value.

Thank you. No, really appreciate it. Thanks, guys, for tuning in, and it's been a real pleasure again. Mike Koenig, Vivian Glick. Great to see you At Pescadero. See at Pescadero.