How to scale your business for sustained success.
What does it take to scale a business for sustained success?
In this episode, Rich sits down with Joel Holland, CEO of Harvest Hosts, a unique membership program for RVers offering stays at over 5,000 locations.
Joel shares his entrepreneurial journey founding and growing Storyblocks into a nine-figure business, culminating in a successful sale to a private equity firm. He dives into the real challenges of starting a company, from nailing the perfect product-market fit to scaling. Joel details his experience jumping domains from a tech startup to scaling Harvest Hosts in the hospitality travel space through leadership, listening, and learning.
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“Any action is more powerful than inaction.”
“The simplest way to run a good company is hire great people.”
“A lot of times the answers exist either with your customers or your team members. They already know the answer. You just have to find it.”
“So when you're starting from zero, you've got to create brand awareness. You've got to convince people, ‘This isn't too good to be true. Trust us, give us a shot.’ All those things go into product market fit. So it's frustrating because just having the best product for the best price doesn't necessarily get you the fit. And so you start to learn that brand is important.”
Practice Makes Profit: Using the Business Model Innovation Framework to think about how your business needs to evolve to remain relevant in your market.
League of Strategic Minds [listener question]: What's the most important skill for a leader to possess?
Winsights: Ideas for Advantage: Warren Buffett. Billionaire investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, said “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say no to almost everything.” What have you said no to in the past month that's enabled you to work with greater focus and precision?
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(00:41) Deep Dive Interview with Joel Holland
(46:28) Practice Makes Profit
(49:44) League of Strategic Minds
(50:41) Winsights, Ideas for Advantage
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Links:
Submit a question for Rich to the League of Strategic Minds
Joel Holland on LinkedIn
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Strategic Thinking Institute Website
Inc. Magazine’s Top 4 book for 2024: STRATEGIC Book
New executive development platform: Strategic Fitness System
Sign up for Rich’s free Strategic Thinker Newsletter
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Rich: [00:00:00] Are you strategic? The answer can make or break your business. Welcome to Strategic Minds, the podcast where we'll do a deep dive in conversations with extraordinary leaders to learn how they think, plan, and act strategically. I'm your host, Rich Horwath, founder of the Strategic Thinking Institute and author of the book Strategic, and my vision is to teach the world to think strategically.
Now let's explore strategic minds.
Mash up: Yeah, we're stuck. So what do we do? I have no idea. You need a new strategy.
We need a more dynamic strategy. The strategy, you have to strategize, but you won't strategize. Let's talk a little strategy.
Rich: Welcome to Strategic Minds. Today on the show, I'm excited to speak with Joel Holland, CEO of Harvest Hosts, a membership program that connects RVers with unique experiences at more than 5, 000 interesting destinations across the U. S., Canada, and the U. K. Joel purchased the company and grew it into the largest alternative camping option in North America, driving nearly [00:01:00] 200 million in revenue to small businesses around the country. Prior to that, he founded Storyblocks, a pioneering one stop shop for stock media. He's been named one of the top 25 entrepreneurs under 25 by Business Week Magazine, Young Entrepreneur of the Year by the United States Small Business Administration, Entrepreneur of the Year for the greater Washington DC region by Ernst Young, and recognized on the Inc. Magazine 30 under 30 list. Joel, thank you for being on the show.
Joel: Thanks for having me, Rich. Unfortunately, it's been a really long time since I made those lists. I'm an old man now.
Rich: Well, we'll go back in time a little bit with this first question. I'd love for you to share with us a little bit about where you grew up and how that environment there and the people shaped who you are today.
Joel: Yeah, I had an interesting childhood. So I was born in Arlington, Virginia. Basically, a lot of my younger years were in Northern Virginia. After first grade, my parents actually moved us down to Shendo Valley. which is kind of a beautiful mountainous area [00:02:00] of a little more Southwest Virginia. And We grew for seven years.
We basically grew up in the woods. And so there was this gap. Born in Northern Virginia, moved down to the mountains to a very rural area, which are very formative years, and then moved back to Northern Virginia for middle school and high school. So I've got a bit of both. And I, I feel like that actually has impacted who I am today because I love cities, I love culture, but I also feel most comfortable.
in nature and in the mountains. And that's where, that's where I exist now, or where you were. I'm in Vail, Colorado, and I've lived here full time for eight years. And I think the reason I can live in the mountains and be so content is because of that childhood experience.
Rich: I'd be interested from that standpoint, Joel, did, how do you think that shaped your capacity or appetite for learning since you were maybe a little bit more sheltered from technology than, than the average person?
How, how did that, Influence your approach to learning as you've, as you've grown throughout your years.
Joel: Yeah, it's interesting. There weren't, yeah, there's, there weren't a lot of distractions in the mountains in, in Basie, [00:03:00] Virginia when technology was just starting to kind of come around. Right. And then I, and I distinctly remember when we got the internet and got the first computer and I was immediately smitten.
I found it just fascinating, like, That we could connect with the whole world and who I was and how old I was didn't matter. It was just what you did that mattered on the internet. So before that, I don't know, I think you're forced to be pretty creative when you live in a place of solitude. And it was a lot of time spent in the woods, walking around, hiking around and just being imaginative.
And I, and I just kind of, I don't know, I don't know if I was a creative person by nature or if it was a forcing function of living, you know, in the woods and coming up with things to do, but I was never bored. And I always loved selling stuff. I mean, I, I, now I realize that from a young age, I was an entrepreneur in the sense that I just loved taking products and selling to people.
And I would, you know, anything that wasn't nailed down, I would try to sell. I mean, literally when you were, we were younger, my parents laugh. I was going door to door, trying to sell people gravel from their driveway. And, and I was like, [00:04:00] I was only a few years old. So it worked, made a little money and, but then upgraded to golf balls from the local golf course and built a golf stand.
And, and then eventually. The internet came around and I realized now I can sell anything to anybody, anywhere. I just have to find the right product and, and get the price right. And that was pretty eyeopening. And, and so I remember the first, I created an account on eBay in 1997, the same year I bought a computer and had to create a fake identity because I was only like 12.
And, and I started selling stuff on eBay and I loved it. And I became a power seller on eBay pretty quickly. And that was, that was the, that was the. That was truly what got me to this point of, wow, if you have the right product for the right price, it doesn't matter who you are, you can connect the dots.
Rich: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a really powerful combination as you share that entrepreneurial spirit as well as that explorer's mindset of living in the woods and, you know. Having that level of curiosity and exploration, I think that's really powerful. I'd also be interested, I know you attended Babson and Babson [00:05:00] is historically, you know, ranked one of the top colleges, I think it was recently ranked number two by Wall Street Journal overall, but it has a great reputation for entrepreneurship.
Share with me a little bit about your experience there and how that helped to continue to build that momentum for you.
Joel: Yeah, totally. Totally. So. I knew I wanted to go to Babson from a young age and it was because I was, I was a different kind of kid, but I wasn't into sports. I liked playing sports, but I certainly didn't follow them or learn about them.
I didn't read sports magazines. I read fortune magazine and Forbes magazine, like an entrepreneur magazine. Like I was obsessed with business magazines. I didn't care about like Michael Jordan, cool guy. I cared about CEOs. I just found business people very interesting. And Babson was constantly ranked. One, well, the number one entrepreneurship college by U.
S. News and World Report. And so as a kid, I also read U. S. News and World Report. And so I just was like, this is neat. They're number one entrepreneurship. That's got to be my place. And I applied early decision, got in and I loved it. And it was fantastic. It was everything I'd kind [00:06:00] of hoped it would be. It was me and a couple thousand other kids who were obsessed with business.
And it was a really cool environment to learn. Like I love business, but to learn accounting and learn finance and economics. And Babson has very hands on applied learning programs for, for business, which is why they rank so well. The first year you're there, you create teams and you pitch a business concept and the school funds you like a little VC fund and you run a business over the course of a semester.
And you're basically graded on how well this business does. So, I mean, you're like thrown into the fire. I met some of my best friends there, you know, to this day. The big question I always have, and I don't know the answer to this is, does Babson breed entrepreneurs or do entrepreneurs go to Babson? In my experience, we all selected to be there.
We were very entrepreneurial to begin with. I don't know that you can really teach entrepreneurship, but you can fan the flames. And I think that's what Babson did.
Rich: Excellent. And as you, as you fan those flames, obviously you started Videoblocks, which became Storyblocks. So you were really a tech entrepreneur and now you've [00:07:00] jumped over to the hospitality travel space.
And it's not, not necessarily easy for CEOs to move from one domain to the other. There's a lot of examples of CEOs who've tried that have not been successful. There's a few who have been successful, but share with us a little bit about What inspired you to move from that, that tech domain to, to, to the travel hospitality space?
Joel: Yeah, totally. So yeah, Storyblocks was my first real startup, right? I, I had done a bunch of little things from age 12 selling on eBay to selling, I sold a bunch of, I sold software and I, I did all kinds of stuff, but Storyblocks was the first real company. And that was one that I was kind of incubating through Babson.
Running it from my dorm room, graduated, started doing it full time in my parents basement. So like it was a true like basement story and ended up growing it to a, to a nine figure business. And it did great and selling it to a private equity firm. So, but it, but it was not an overnight thing that, that took me like 15 years and, and I learned a lot.
And one of the things I learned was there are certain things in business that [00:08:00] good at doing and that I enjoy doing. And there's certain things that I. That I'm not good at doing, and I don't enjoy doing. And at Storyblocks, I did, I had to do it all from the beginning, right? Like it was a true zero to one ground up building a company that didn't exist, finding product market fit, which is by far the hardest thing to do, and then scaling it.
So after I sold it, I was kind of burnt out, honestly, at that point. I was just burnt out on too much, just, I had been in the same thing for a long time. I was wearing too many hats. I was living in a city. I was tired of city life. I was ready to get out into nature. So. My wife and I kind of took up and picked up and took off in an RV and traveled around the country, visited all the lower 48 states, had an absolute blast.
Ended up setting down roots here in Vail, Colorado and took a year, just played, right? It was, it was always my dream to be a ski bum. I love skiing and I, I tried my hardest, right, for a year to just ski and play. But in the back of my mind, the thought of like, Doing another business kept creeping in because, you know, first I was really young, right?
I was early 30s. Clearly it was not time to retire. [00:09:00] I had a lot of energy I needed to put towards something productive. And it was kind of interesting how all play without any work started to actually get dull. It truly like at first it was awesome. I loved it because I was so burnt out of work. I just wanted to play.
But within like six months playing started feeling a little less special, little gluttonous perhaps. And I was like, okay, I got to find the next thing. And so I knew this time around, I was like, you know, I, I, I'd prefer not to build a business zero to one. Like if I can find a great business and buy it, and try to scale it, perhaps that's a new way to do things.
And, and to me, business is very much a game. Like there's lots of things you can learn, level up and change direction. So I didn't want to do the same industry because I'd already done stock media. I want to do something different. But I also had this concept of, you know, of a Venn diagram where I can go to a totally new industry like RVing and hospitality, but it needs to be some overlap in skills that I've built over the past 20 years.
And in the middle of that diagram, for me, was [00:10:00] technology. Building websites, digital memberships, because Storyblocks was a membership, online marketing. I'd gotten pretty skillful at building, selling products using Facebook and Google and, you know, other things like that. And so I said, okay, I can find new industry with an overlap of some of these things I know how to do.
And I tried kind of The basic way you might think, I like contacted every business broker out there, told them all, Hey, I'm looking for a business. These are some industries, blah, blah, blah. But I was kind of going about it wrong, I think, because I was trying to like solve for, I need a new business.
Instead of, I need a business that I care about. And, and I cared about storyblocks. I loved storyblocks. I was a, I shot video, I shot photos. So I really built a product for myself. And I think that's a great way to build a business because it gets you through the trying times, it gets you through the boring times because you care.
Like, To give the extreme example, I could never sell port a johns, even if you paid me a couple million bucks a year, because I just, I know they're important, but to me personally, it's just not something that I'm excited about. Right?
Mash up: Right.
Joel: And so I was [00:11:00] looking for businesses, not because they excited me, but because There were businesses that had good P& Ls and like, and what I realized was, okay, that's like, that's like looking for love in all the wrong places.
So I took a step back and I, and I said that I asked a very simple question, which was, what do I enjoy doing? Right. Like, I still enjoy shooting footage and photos, but I don't want to do stock media again. What else do I enjoy? And. The obvious thing, well, skiing was one thing, but I couldn't find any businesses there, unfortunately.
I'm still hoping. But the other one was RVing, right? I'd been RVing for a couple years, had fallen in love with the community and the whole lifestyle. It turns out it's a very large industry compared to what I thought, right? There's like over 12 million RV owners in the country. So I was like, all right, why don't we do a little 30 day challenge where every day I have to do something that moves me towards finding a business in the RV world that overlaps somehow with my skill set.
And every morning I'd get up and I'd make some progress, either like reaching out to a company, having conversations, et cetera, et cetera. And there was a, there was like a [00:12:00] gloomy Saturday where I was a little hung over and I didn't feel like playing my 30 day challenge game, but I did it anyway. And I'd heard about this little company called Harvest Hosts and the concept was a membership for RV owners, digital membership for RV owners, that lets them stay overnight at wineries and farms.
Yeah. If you remember. And I was like, well, that's interesting. I, I, I love RVing. The idea that I could stay at a winery or farm sounds awesome. The fact that it's already been built over nine years and there, there's at least a core, right? There's a core concept. I wonder if I could scale this thing. And so I reached out to the owners and just said, Hey, I love what you've built.
Would you ever have any interest in selling it for the right price? And the last, the last piece of that question, by the way, is the most important part. If you ever contact someone about selling their business, make sure you include for the right price, question mark, everyone will respond because they can't, they had, they got to know like, well, what's the right price?
Are we talking trillions? Like, what are we talking? So, so they did respond and they said, we had never thought about selling. We're perfectly happy doing what we're doing. But let's talk, let's uh, what's [00:13:00] the right price, let's figure this out. And so we got to know each other over the course of a few months and they made me create a whole presentation on what I would do to the business if I bought it, which I really appreciated, right?
This was very much a mom and pop passion based business. Sure. And yeah, and so basically we found a price that worked for them and that worked for me that I could afford and bought it in May of 2018. And got to work trying to apply a lot of the concepts that I had used successfully at Storyblocks and disregarding those that had not used, that had not worked.
And it turns out that was quite a cheat code and it sped up the process by a few years.
Rich: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, you, you talked to, I think that was a great technique that you shared with us, Joel, that idea of the Venn diagram. And I think that a lot of the leaders out there, that's something they could definitely use in looking for their next opportunity.
And I wanted to tie that in because you talked about what business would I enjoy and the things I enjoy. And as in looking at your background, you've got some fascinating hobbies, including certified [00:14:00] FAA, certified drone pilot. Uh, that Swiftwater Rescue Level 4 from the American Canoe Associations. How have you continued to bring maybe some of those principles, some of the lessons that you use in your hobbies into this experience with Harvest Hosts to continue to further that enjoyment piece?
Yeah.
Joel: Yeah. So. And everybody's different, but what I learned with Storyblocks is that I was living an unbalanced lifestyle. I was living, eating, breathing, drinking, sleeping, and waking up Storyblocks. And the problem with that is it was too much of my identity and it put too much pressure on the success of that company and the daily success.
And the reality is in business, things aren't always going well, right? There's good days, there's bad days. Well, on the bad days, it was a real knock to my personal identity because that's all I was. Right. And Eventually I burned out, right? And then that was the risk, right? The risk was you burn out. I was lucky that I burned out, put a great CEO in place.
The business succeeded and we sold it. It could have gone other ways, right? Like burnout can lead to a lot of nasty stuff. So [00:15:00] with Harvest Hosts, I was like, all right, this time I'm going to do things a lot differently, a lot of ways. I'm going to hire the right people early. So I'm not You know, doing the stuff that I don't want to do.
I'm going to once again do a business that I enjoy. So there'll always be that piece, but I'm also going to have like a life outside of Harvest Toasts so that I'm never unbalanced with too much. Like when you care too much about one thing, I think it can make suboptimal decisions a lot easier to make.
And so, yeah, now today I'm a part of the search and rescue team here in Eagle County. So we do all the backcountry search and stuff. Um, other benefit of doing something like that is. I, you know, I'm dealing with life and death stuff all the time. It puts life, it puts things in context because now at Harvest Hosts, stuff's really not that big a deal, right?
Like nobody's going to die. Um, and so I think that has given me a different perspective that, that takes a little pressure off. I mean, I can have these conversations where like, there's tough stuff happening in the company, but I'm like, you know what? It's really not that bad. Literally nobody's going to die here.
Like we might lose a little money. Right. [00:16:00] You know, et cetera, et cetera. But like, that's, it's not life and death. So I don't know. I think having passions and hobbies outside of your business is very important so that you're not too concentrated in one thing. And then, and then like you said, you can learn something from all these other things you do.
And getting a little perspective for me from these other activities helps a lot.
Rich: Excellent. That's a really healthy approach and I appreciate you sharing that because I think there's still a lot of folks out there that, that struggle with that balance between having that identity tied so much to their business, especially if they started the business.
So I think that's a really healthy suggestion to, you know, think about hobbies and think about other areas to utilize or channel some of those talents and skills and, and find ways to, to decompress a little bit and keep things in perspective. So really appreciate you sharing those Joel. I'd be interested to dive into the scaling piece a little bit.
I work with leaders in lots of different types of organizations from Fortune 500 to mom and pops. And in a number of times, they are trying to scale. Uh, you've shared with us some of the steps that you took when you were at Storyblocks to, to build that business from the [00:17:00] ground up, the zero to one. And now you purchased a business and you know, you're continuing to grow that.
And as I followed you, you're being very successful in doing so. I wonder if you could share with us some of the principles specific to scaling that you found helpful as you've grown the business.
Joel: Yeah, so, man, the first thing I think that most traditional business owners lack when it comes to scaling, one is like, is the interest in doing it, right?
I mean, they've been, and the interest tied to being afraid of fully committing to it, because if you're going to scale a business, there's a lot of ramifications. One, you're going to spend money, right? So you've got to be really confident that you've got a good product market fit and something that can scale.
And you can't just go out and toss a couple dollars to test that. And so this is one of the things I told the founders of Harvest Hosts when I bought it. I said, I'm going to spend millions. on Facebook in like the next month or two to, to get this thing out there. Is that, would you be comfortable with that?
They're like, Oh God, no. Right? Like, they're like, we spent like 5, 000 [00:18:00] total advertising, right? And their concept was, we've been around for nine years. This is an amazing word of mouth product, which it is. We think everyone who wants it has already heard about it in the RV industry. And at that time, they had 6, 000 members, right?
So today we have a quarter million members. There's clearly room to run. And getting the word out there was what helped scale it. Being smart about how you get the word out, right? Like spending your money intelligently on the right marketing channel is super important. But I think that's the, the first part is just having the confidence to say, okay, we're going to invest here and, and this might, we might lose some money, right?
Like that, and that, that can be tough. So you gotta be mentally ready for that. Then you have to be ready for the actual business to scale. So like our business, when I bought the company, there were 600 locations. Today there's over 5, 000, uh, 6, 000 members, now over a quarter million.
Rich: Yeah. You
Joel: can't do that without scaling the infrastructure.
And so it used to be a mom and pop team. Today we have 80 employees full time all over the country. And that was another question I asked them. I was like, you know, if this, if this works and this scales, you're going to have a lot of [00:19:00] employees. Is that something you want to deal with? And their, their honest answer was no.
We, we like running this ourselves. We have no interest in managing employees. And that's a perfectly acceptable answer. Management is not for everyone. Half the time I don't enjoy it, right? Like it's just, but it's, but it's part and parcel with business, right? So once you've made the decision, you've got the confidence, then figuring out what, figuring out the unit economics of the business is probably the most important part.
And so figuring out what is a customer worth the first time they interact with What's their average order value? What is their lifetime value? And my products have always been memberships, so lifetime value is a little more appropriate, right? Like how long do they say subscribed? True. Five years? Six years?
What are they worth? 500? 700? But, but it works for any company, right? Like if you sell clothing, most, how many customers are repeat customers? How often do they come back? What is one, like what is rich worth on average when he comes to the website over the course of his lifetime? Once you get confidence around that number, say rich is worth 500, your average [00:20:00] customers are 500.
Well, now, now assume, let's assume your profit margins are 50 percent just for round numbers. So 250 worth of profit. Now you can go out on Facebook and Google and pay up to 250 to acquire customers profitably. And, and, and in some ways it's just that easy, right? And, and, but it starts with getting those unit economic numbers down and be very confident about them.
And,
Rich: Yeah, thank you. That's a great explanation. I think that's going to be really useful for a lot of folks out there that maybe struggle with the finance piece and worry a little bit about how are we going to make that work. So I think that is really helpful. Joel, you mentioned a couple of times the product market fit and I've talked with other folks, Bill Harris comes to mind, who's the co founder of PayPal when he was on the show.
We talked a little bit about that and his approach. I'd be interested when you think about that, because you've mentioned how important it is. What are you thinking about? What's going through your mind as you look at product market fit?
Joel: Yeah, it's really hard. And I say that because you can have a really good product that [00:21:00] people should buy and you still can't get them to buy it.
Right. So it's, it's like product market fit is not just having the right product for the right audience. It's also convincing that audience to give you a shot and you're fighting against consumer apathy. So if you, if there's any other product out there that people are already using, even if yours is better, you've got to get them to change.
And this is where this concept of 10x better comes around, right? Like, and, and I, I, it was probably Google that started it, but basically saying we build products that are 10x better because it has to be 10x better. And that can be A few times cheaper, four times more useful, whatever, like, but substantially better than the alternative options to get people to actually get over their apathy and move to your product.
And I've seen this firsthand because when I built Storyblocks, you know, our video blocks was our first product and it was stock video clips that you could get a 99 subscription and get unlimited downloads to. If you went to a competitor, you were going to pay hundreds of dollars for one clip. It was a very, very big value proposition.
But even though, even though it was [00:22:00] such a big value proposition, it was hard to get the word out because no one heard of video blocks. So when you're starting from zero, you've got to create brand awareness. You've got to convince people like, this isn't too good to be true. Trust us, give us a shot. Like all those things go into product market fit.
So it's frustrating because just having the best product for the best price doesn't necessarily get you the fit. And so you start to learn that like brand is important, that people, like if you hear, if you see an ad tomorrow on Instagram for some brand you never heard of. It doesn't, it doesn't resonate that well, right, compared to a brand you love when they come out with a new product.
You're like, I already, there's this like feeling in the back of your mind, if you feel good about or bad about a brand, right, feel good about, but if you feel nothing, that's also bad, right? So this is why I now like to buy brands. And over the last six years, I've now bought six companies that we've kind of put together into harvest hosts, but they're all great companies with great reputations.
And now our job is easy. It's just take this great company with a great reputation and let more people know about it. [00:23:00] I don't have to build up from, you know, from the ground up. To give you the counterexample, in the last couple of years, I've built two products from the ground up and they're both really good products.
They're really inexpensive. They do amazing things for our viewers. They're really, really good. And almost no one took them, even though I had all these customers that I could cross sell them to, they're so much better than the competition, but it's not what we were known for. It was a new brand, it was outside of our lane and it just didn't work.
So yeah, product market fit, it's a tricky wicket.
Rich: Yeah. So would you have any advice for those, those leaders out there that have built products recently? They, they understand there is a need, they built the products, they don't have the brand built just yet. What advice would you have for those type, those folks, because there's a lot of folks out there in that position where they don't have the established brand yet, but they do have something and let's say maybe it is going to be 10x better.
How would you go about approaching that moving forward based on what you've learned recently with a couple of those products?
Joel: Yeah, [00:24:00] brands. So I think what I've learned and this, this tracks everything we've ever read, brands take time. It takes time to get mass market appeal for a brand, but where you start is with your enthusiasts and your first movers, right?
And I'll look at Airbnb as an example. They started and there were some diehard fans who were like, cool concept. Like never heard this company didn't exist. Never heard of Airbnb. Love that idea. Heck yeah, I'll give it a try. And they started with these like first movers and that got them to a certain level.
And then they actually faced some challenges breaking through to mass market. And that's where hopefully by that point, you've learned a lot about your unit economics. You've learned what works and what doesn't work, the feature sets that people are attracted to. And then you can take all that and start to do some more impactful advertising and marketing.
to the mass market to build the brand. So, so it's like, it's a step. It's like, I guess the, the short answer is brands take time. It's not going to happen overnight and you can step into it by starting with those enthusiasts. Start with the diehard fanatics, get them using it, loving it, [00:25:00] telling you how to improve it before you worry that you're not making it to mass market.
Rich: Okay. Excellent. Great advice. As you were looking at Harvard Harvest Hosts, um, to acquire. So when, let's go back a little bit, how did you, since you weren't, since you weren't in the space already, how did you go about understanding the competitive landscape? Because obviously, you know, the competitive landscape is going to have an influence.
On the, the momentum you're able to build, the success, being able to 10x versus other, other players. What was your approach to thinking about the competitive landscape as you, as you were determining whether or not to move forward with this opportunity?
Joel: Yeah, definitely. So at the time, and this is six years ago, I wasn't so convinced that product market fit was such a hard thing.
At the time, I would, my, my decision was kind of what a lot of entrepreneurs think, which is like build versus buy. You know, like, I'm like, I love this concept, but like I could build it. Right. There's nothing stopped me from going and getting my own network of wineries and breweries and farms. And then marketing it and [00:26:00] selling it.
But what made me decide to go pursue the acquisition route was the part that got me excited was taking this concept and getting it to more people. Getting more RVers using it, getting more small businesses on the program profiting from it. I was not excited about having to build from the ground up.
Having to actually like do the chicken and the egg problem, contacting new hosts saying we don't have members yet but we're going to and then trying to get members for a limited host network. That's hard. Two sided marketplaces are tough, or platforms in this case, they're tough. And so I went with where I was most excited, which was the scale phase.
And I'm like, I love this concept. It's already great. Let's make it, let's see if we can make it even better, right? And by the way, the way we could make it better was by improving the technology. So Harvest Hosts had a wonderful concept, a good, good heart, but it had no good technology. So That was the first place I could add value is building an app, building a website, building a booking engine, and then
Rich: taking it to the masses.
And to that point, when you think about a product, a [00:27:00] technology, something maybe we can pick up and touch, it seems like it might be a little bit easier to say, yeah, this is 10x better or it's 5x better. It's, it's, it's at parity. You're really, Using more of an experience to drive that differentiation. Has there been any insights from your standpoint the last six years as you've tried to 10x Harvest Hosts relative to other options out there because it's more experiential versus a tangible product that you can hold?
Joel: Yeah. So it's interesting. I, I'm a big fan of the mentality, like competition matters kind of, but it shouldn't actually really drive your decisions. What, I think what should describe your decisions is just like, how do we make this product better for our customers? Right? And, and so I've spent very little time thinking about the competition or, or alternatives and more about like, how do we keep making this product a complete no brainer for every RVer?
So that if you have an RV, you obviously have to have harvest hosts. [00:28:00] And luckily I, I am an RVer, so that helps a lot, right? Like in a lot of ways, I'm designing this product for myself, for my own selfish needs. That helps. But we also do a ton of, uh, customer member feedback, interviewing, surveying, like constantly to try to just constantly figure out how do we make this product better.
And we're in that, and every day we're making it better. And that's what's cool is, is we're making it better and we're not raising the price. So the value proposition is getting better and better.
Rich: And when you talk about the value proposition, it's, I always think about the business model in three phases.
It's a business model, how you create value, how you deliver value, how you capture value. And you just talked about the value proposition. What, what, what do you think is important in creating that extraordinary value prop for somebody who is, you know, really experiencing what you have to offer versus again, buying a tangible product?
Any, any thoughts that you have on value proposition and how you make that extraordinary from an experience [00:29:00] standpoint?
Joel: Yeah, I think the way I simply, I kind of think about it in a simple way, which is how do you make the gap between the price and the value? And the value they're getting as big as possible, right?
And it'd be like this. So like price, value, gap.
Mash up: Yep.
Joel: If I was charging a thousand dollars for a Harvard Social Membership, And they're getting 1, 000 in value. That's a tough sell. But instead, they're getting 1, 000 in value and I'm charging 99. That's like, okay, all day long. People are like, why are you so cheap?
I'm like, because it's really easy to get in the money, right? Either like actually in the money or just mentally, they're like, I feel good about this 99 I'm spending. And for us, that hurdle is one, maybe two nights of staying at Harvard Soast per year. Most RVers are out on the road 30 days plus. So it's not much, it's not much.
And that to me is like, I love a low hurdle for people to feel good about what they're paying. And by the way, the lower the hurdle, the harder it is for competition to come in. And when Jeff Bezos has this famous quote, which [00:30:00] is your margin is my opportunity. And I like to say like, I like to keep my price as low as possible with most bang for the buck, because then members are happy.
They retain or renew very, very high rates. They have very high NPS scores because for what they're paying, they're getting a ton of value. And what you have to have in that situation though is a pretty large market, a large addressable market, right? If your market's really small, being able to have the low price, high volume
Rich: solution can be tough.
Right. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think Bob Iger describes that as selling trombone oil. It's, it's, can have the best trombone oil, but the market's not going to be too big for that. So, uh, in his book, uh, The Ride of a Lifetime, which is interesting. The other thing I'd be interested to is you've talked about some wonderful ways that you and your team have, uh, created this experience for our viewers.
How, how do you, Joel, look at that process from A to Z, the things that the, the RVers would see, and then [00:31:00] even the things that are behind the scenes that you and your team are doing to create that memorable or extraordinary experience. How do you think about that process overall and how do you make sure it's the best it can be on a consistent basis?
Joel: Well, one of the things I try to remember is we need to keep it, keep it as simple as possible. Simple. Simple. Right? Like everyone's lives are very complicated these days. There's a lot of distractions, a lot of technology, a lot of stuff. And RVing is kind of a nice way to escape and travel and going to experience life on the road.
Let's make sure our product doesn't complicate things. And so we spend a lot of time trying to figure out, yeah, we got over 5, 000 locations and there's a lot of different booking options, but how do we make this a clean, Simple way to just have a better time on the road. So yeah, there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes.
But we try not to bother our members with that stuff too much. For them, it should be as easy as opening the app or the website, searching for a location along their route, finding a [00:32:00] beautiful winery, looking at the photos and the reviews, going, yeah, this looks awesome, clicking book, right? So I think, um, yeah, the simpler, the better.
I mean, it's funny, think of the simplest business. For the user, it's zoom. You get on zoom, bang, you're just like, there you are, just video to video. But imagine on the backend, all the things they're doing to try to make that, that clean and simple. So we're not that simple, but, but, but that's a great, like extreme example.
Rich: Yeah, you know, you mentioned growing up and spending part of your childhood in, in kind of the woods in a forest area and more deserted. I'd like to know, understand Joel, from your standpoint now as a CEO and you've, you've run a number of businesses and you've acquired businesses. How do you find time or make time to reflect on what's next?
As I look at research, a lot of leaders struggle and now the research says 45 percent of leaders are not sure that their business is going to exist in 10 years because they're not able to commit time to thinking about the future. They're [00:33:00] so caught up in the day to day. What's been your approach to Reflecting, stepping back out of the day to day and thinking about what's next for Harvest Host.
Joel: I've, this is a place I'm really fortunate in just kind of the lifestyle design
Rich: that I
Joel: have. When I lived in the DC area and I was in the office every day, I actually found that really tough. Because you're constantly bombarded by the issue of the hour. And now I live in the mountains. And our company's fully remote.
And so I have a lot more control over my schedule. And so I spend plenty of time, of course, on Zoom calls and in meetings, but I also spend a lot of time just sitting in the woods and, and just thinking and reading, right? Like a tremendous amount compared to how I used to operate. And that's just a, that's by design.
And I think that's been very, very helpful. I think it gives me, I mean, I like to live in nature. It just makes me calmer. I was a lot more tightly wound when I lived in a city. That's all just personal preference. But I think the idea, I mean, to take another extreme example, [00:34:00] Warren Buffett, he, he, he takes pride in showing people his schedule and it's always empty.
And he, he, he, he prioritizes spending hours every day, just reading. And that's cool, right? Like that's, That doesn't work for everybody, but you know, for him, he's trying to get away from that cluttered mindset and he's only trying to make, I think he says like one big decision a year. Right? And the guy's done pretty well.
Right? Like he measures his success in the things he doesn't do and not what he does do. So. I like his other favorite quote, I was like, hurry up and do nothing. I love that. It's like, it's not hurry up and do something, which we're all really good at doing and filling the time. It's like, let's just sit down and try doing nothing for a minute and see what fills the gap.
So I try to be intentional about that. It's hard. I mean, anybody who has the type A personality to be stupid enough to build a business is the kind of person who is not really good at sitting quietly and not fiddling their thumbs, but it's, but it's a good exercise. And so again, it's like, It's kind of like in the book, Atomic Habits, where he talks about the easiest way to make a habit, uh, is to make [00:35:00] it easier to do, right?
So if you're trying to do, if you, if you want to start doing something, make it easier to do it. If you want to stop doing something, make it harder, put the M& Ms in another room instead of on the counter, right? You're going to be a lot less likely to eat them, right? And so if you can like make it so you're not, do a no meeting day, as an example, just make, make a no meeting day.
There's no problem. Cut a week out, day out of your week and try to force yourself to have some time for reflection. And I think it's pretty powerful.
Rich: Yeah, the design that you talked about, designing time in your calendar to, to read, to reflect, I think is a great principle to share. Are there any other leadership principles, Joel, that you found at your time at Storyblocks and now at Harvest Hosts as you've grown as a leader?
Any other principles that you use to help yourself stay on track and to continue to lead in the best way that you can?
Joel: Yeah, so when I was younger I built Storyblocks in my like teens into twenties and like it is remarkable how stupid I was back then. And, and like, and it's only in hindsight that you realize that.
And I'm sure by [00:36:00] the way, in like 10 years, 15 years, I'll look back on today be like, wow, what an idiot. But, but at least I'm not as dumb as I was then. And back then I thought running a company, being a leader meant Having to like roll your sleeves up and get into everything, right? Like do it, do it yourself.
And that there was like some badge of honor for like trying to like be in it, be in everything, do it all. But that can actually be very, very counterproductive. And what I've learned is the simplest way to run a good company is hire great people. And, you know, Steve Jobs once said, we hire people to tell us what to do, not the other way around.
Right. And, and, and that's, and it makes sense. Like hire someone who's really good at marketing, really good at customer service, really good at finance, and then let them do their thing. And so what I've realized is like the easiest, management can be so simple. And it's just as simple as asking questions.
It's as simple as checking in with your team and asking them like, how are you doing and how can I help? Right. And, and being, and being genuine about that. I never did that when I was younger. I just tried to like help and I stepped on toes and I got in people's ways and like, I'm sure I was [00:37:00] super annoying.
And today I'm sure I'm still annoying, but like, at least I asked questions. So yeah, checking in with your team and asking questions. A lot of times the answers exist. Either with your customers or your team members. They already know the answer. You just have to find it.
Rich: Yeah. Yeah. Great principles there. I think that's going to be really helpful for people.
The one other area I'd like to build on is, you know, you've talked a lot about your outdoors experience and the hobbies that you've had outdoors, being able to build a business, then scale a business. You've been very successful in navigating many different Uh, lanes and experiences to, to, to drive continued growth for, uh, the folks that you're working with and working for.
I'd be interested because I, I do strategic coaching with leaders and that's something that especially today with so many inputs for data and information in ways for CEOs to be touched by external stakeholders, internal stakeholders, it, it seems like. There's sometimes a feeling of being a little bit overwhelmed in trying to navigate the business from one [00:38:00] stage to the next.
You shared some great, um, great context around, you know, using hobbies and other experiences to really put things in, in the right perspective for your business. Any other, you know, Tips, Joel, that you could share with our listeners around how you've been able to successfully navigate from, from one domain to another domain, to one type of business, to another type of business.
Joel: Well, I think one of the things I've, I've kind of seen is that there's a lot more similarities across business industries than there are differences. That running a good business It doesn't really matter. It's industry agnostic. It always comes down to like the same types of issues. Hiring the right people, finding that product market fit, figuring out how to properly scale the business, where to spend money on marketing and advertising, how to improve the product.
It's, it doesn't matter if you're making cars, you're making a technology widget, there's a lot of similarities. And so that's where I do a lot of reading, right? Like, You go to the basics, like good to grade and built to last, right? Like [00:39:00] there, there are reasons certain companies withstand the test of time and you can look at their cultures, right?
And so you use Disney as an example. Disney has been around forever and they're an amazing company with incredible brand. That makes me curious, like how they do that. Like what makes a hundred year brand like that? And so then of course, then I read Ride of a Lifetime. You learn a little more there. Like you start to kind of go deep on it.
Yeah. That's where I like to spend my time is reading about the businesses that I want to be like, and, and kind of looking for trends and parallels.
Mash up: And
Joel: there There are a lot of them, it turns out. Like when you really start looking, you start to see the things that like work well and, and different people are different ways.
Like I'm not, I love learning from examples. There's so many great examples out there now written down and you can like learn a whole lifetime of information by reading a book. It's incredible.
Rich: Yes, absolutely. What I'd be interested then is you talked about your, your organization being entirely virtual and, and I know there's a lot of leaders.
These days that are challenged with do we stay virtual? Do we bring people back in the office? Any tips that you'd have for people [00:40:00] on successfully leading teams virtually? So if you've got teams virtual, maybe there's people listening out there that are thinking of starting an organization and it's ripe to be led virtually.
Any things that you found particularly helpful in leading virtual company?
Joel: Yeah, communication is key and that's the hardest part. So, the benefit of in person is that you're forced to be around each other and there's gonna be a natural dialogue and there's gonna be a natural comfort that you get from seeing your peers.
And the more you see them, the more you're willing to tell them the truth, etc. So in a virtual environment, which by the way I love, like I'm a huge fan of the virtual company and I'll never go back. But it's an extra burden to make sure that you're Giving the tools and we're very lucky with Zoom and Slack and some of these other asynchronous tools that people can still communicate, but you have to foster it and make sure people are doing it because one of our cultural values is fearless communication.
And I always tell my team that's the hardest one because a lot of us have never seen each other in person. So it's hard for me to go to Rich and be like, [00:41:00] Hey, I'm going to fearlessly tell you, I don't think what you did there was right. That's hard because we don't have that relationship like we would if we had a bunch of beers together, right?
Like, so it's just, it's an extra. Challenge, but it's not insurmountable. Because six years in, 80 employees, I think we have a great culture. Not every person is built for remote work, right? And so it's kind of like, not every person is built to be an entrepreneur, not every person is built to be a ski racer.
Yep. Know yourself and also hire the right people. Hire the people who thrive in a remote environment, who are good at like being self starters. I would say most of our employees are very good at like, we use the OKR framework, we set the big objectives, they create their own key results, we all agree on them, we use Lattice to track it all, and then boom, done, it's that simple.
And we have quarterly OKR updates, our people on course or off course, it's on the wall. But the type of person who thrives in that environment is good at taking the big picture assignment, breaking it down, and getting it done without someone holding their hand or standing over them. So, I'm guessing what [00:42:00] we'll see is some companies start going back to the office, Amazon just announced they're pulling everybody back.
Every company's DNA is different and their culture is different. No judgment, but I think, I absolutely know remote companies can work and do really well and you just have to be really intentional about how you design that culture so that communication is flowing.
Rich: Yeah. Absolutely. I love the intentionality and then the communication piece.
And I think if you get those right, the relationships build and then the trust comes into play. And then like you said, you can have those candid conversations with folks. Great stuff there. Well, Joel, I'd be grateful if we can close our conversation today with your responses to six questions that I call the strategic six.
Are you up for that? Yeah, let's do it. All right, number one, what was your first job?
Joel: Selling golf balls at a golf course, I guess, was really the first real job. Yeah, I'd go collect them and then put them in a little golf cart. I did a little, sorry, in a wagon and it was honor system. And, and that was my first taste of like, Ooh, people will like give you money when you give them something they want.
This is cool.
Rich: Yes, that creates the appetite [00:43:00] for sure. Uh, number two, what's your favorite vacation spot? This is going to be a tough one for you with all the RVing you've done.
Joel: It's also tough because I moved to my favorite vacation spot, right? Like, and this is a risky, risky move because if you'd asked me when I was living in DC, my favorite vacation spot would be Vail, Colorado because I love skiing.
It's still my favorite vacation spot. And so we love traveling. We travel, uh, all over. In the rv, but I'm always excited to come home. So I think that my, my home is still my favorite vacation spot, which is, which is pretty darn cool. And I, and I, and like, again, this goes to like, if you have the ability to work remotely and move where you love Mm-Hmm.
everything gets a lot easier.
Rich: Yeah. Yeah. That, that great example of designing your life there. Number three, what's one word that best describes you?
Joel: Passionate. Yeah. I'm a passionate guy. Right? And, and, and I think that. That kind of comes through in the stuff that I do.
Rich: Yeah. I think you have to be as an entrepreneur, especially with the success that you've had for such a long time.
You got to have that passion. So that makes, makes a lot of sense. Number four is going to be tricky too, because I know as we've [00:44:00] chatted today, you're, you're very well read. So I'm going to ask you for one book that's had the most significant impact on your development.
Joel: Well, actually. It would, it, I've read a lot of books.
I love business books. I love them. I read them all. Just like, I could give you a zillion examples, but truthfully, the one that had the most impact was one I read when I was like 10 and it was rich dad, poor dad. And this created this whole concept in my mind. His whole, his whole premise was you can either have a job and work the rest of your life chasing the paycheck, or you can create assets and let them work for you.
And I just thought that was such a tremendous like concept. And I latched onto it as a kid. Like, let the business do the work for you, like, let the income come in, so you don't have to get up every day and go work in a mine. I like it. So, and I was young when I read that, but it really, it resonated.
Rich: Excellent. Great tip. Number five. What's the one piece of advice you'd most like to share with others that would fit on a bumper sticker?
Joel: Well, I think, honestly, I think Nike nailed it. It's just do it. There's this great, Daniel Pink wrote The Power of Regret, and he did this huge study of [00:45:00] like hundreds of thousands of people on their deathbeds and not on deathbeds, different age groups, and asked them like, what do you regret?
And the biggest regret that, the biggest regret categories that people had were always things they hadn't done. It wasn't stuff they had done, it was always stuff they hadn't done. I regret not doing this, I regret not doing this. And so I think any action is more powerful than inaction. And that especially applies in business.
Like, just do it. If it doesn't work, adapt. Move fast and break things as Zuckerberg would say, but like, but, but, but forward momentum is powerful.
Rich: Yes, yes, absolutely. And finally, number six, what's the most exhilarating moment you've experienced in your professional life?
Joel: I guess it would have been selling story blocks to Great Hill Partners because that was a culmination of Literally over a decade of very, very hard work.
Mash up: Yeah.
Joel: And there were a lot of people who believed in me, including our initial investors. So Updata Partners put in money to this untested 20 year old founder.
Rich: Yeah.
Joel: People joined me, you know, executives joined me, like, taking some equity, hoping it was going [00:46:00] to work out. And then one day it did. And, and it like, and they literally give you a trophy.
And so it's the best trophy I've ever received. Um, and, and it's because our investors, We're happy. My executives were happy. My employees were happy. And I was happy. So it was awesome.
Rich: That's amazing. Well, Joel, I really appreciate the wonderful tools, the tips, the techniques that you've shared with us today to help everybody out there maximize their strategic potential and just really want to say thanks again for being the guest on the show today.
Joel: Oh, thanks Rich. That was fun.
Mash up: What are we talking about? Practice. Practice makes perfect. Practice makes profit.
Rich: When I lead the strategic thinking and planning process for executive leadership teams, one of the most insightful exercises we go through is business model innovation. A survey by consulting firm PwC of nearly 5, 000 CEOs found that a whopping 45 percent are not confident that their companies will survive more than a decade on their current path.[00:47:00]
It's crucial that you spend time not just on the day to day, but also thinking about how your business needs to evolve to remain relevant in your market. You can practice thinking about the future by using the business model innovation framework I designed. Your business model is comprised of three areas.
How you create value, how you deliver value, and how you capture value. If we put those in a left column on a chart from top to bottom. The next column over is the norm, how you currently do those things. The third column in the innovation or expressed another way, the deviation from the norm, is how you might evolve those approaches in the future.
So again, we're We've got business model on the left column, how you create, deliver, capture value. Next column is the norm, how you do things today. And then that third column is the innovation or deviation from the norm. So let's think about an example for each. In creating value, the norm for movie theaters for many years was that [00:48:00] food was minimal, No alcohol was served and seating is random.
However, the innovation by Imagine Theaters and others introduced high end food, uh, alcohol, a living room like, uh, atmosphere, and reserved seating. When it comes to deliver value, the norm for many years for computers was to receive help with PC problems. You 800 number and ship the computer to a third party, and hopefully you got it back in the same, uh, same way it was sent at some point.
However, the deviation or innovation that Apple created was the genius bar they put in retail stores so that you could have face to face interaction for a number of your different challenges that you had, and it also allowed people to feel, to touch, and to try new devices as they were coming out. And finally, that third area of the business model Capture value.
The norm for automobiles typically was that you as a motorist would buy or lease a car from a dealer requiring you to purchase [00:49:00] insurance and having maintenance costs. However, the deviation or innovation is now you can join a subscription program. Companies like Volvo, Cadillac, Mercedes Benz, you jump onto an app, you have one monthly fee, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
If you think your business is guaranteed for a future, try getting in your car and heading over to Blockbuster Video, or picking up some gifts at Toys R Us, or finding a good book at Borders Bookstore. Obviously none of those companies are really around anymore. As Netflix co founder Reed Hastings said, Companies rarely die from moving too fast, and they frequently die from moving too slow.
In this segment, the League of Strategic Minds, I answer questions submitted by
Mash up: listeners. I
Mash up: appreciate your strategic mind. Must have a strategic brain. Great strategic minds of tomorrow, right here.
Rich: Today's question, What's the most important skill for a [00:50:00] leader to possess? Research by McKinsey and Company with 250, 000 executives pose this exact same question. They found that the number one most important skill for leaders is the ability to set strategic direction. Additional research by Puzes showed that if a leader is able to demonstrate to her team that she is strategic, the team is 40 percent more committed to executing the strategies than if they think she takes a flavor of the month approach to setting strategy.
If you have a question you'd like answered, visit the strategic minds page on the website strategyskills. com and complete the brief submission form. If your question is selected, you'll receive some strategic swag. For your contribution.
Mash up: Any insights? You play to win the game. Any further insights? You don't play to just play it.
Insightful. I want winners. I played the game to win. I want people that want to win. That's very insightful.
Rich: To close today's show, our win site or idea for advantage [00:51:00] comes from Warren Buffet, billionaire investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, who said, the difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say, no. To almost everything. What have you said no to in the past month that's enabled you to work with greater focus and precision?
If your team needs a new process and tools for strategic thinking, lacks a common language for strategy, is too reactive and tactical, or would like to increase innovation to grow profits and create competitive advantage, Visit strategyskills. com where you can learn more about strategy workshops, online certificate courses, the Strategic Thinker newsletter, and hundreds of other resources.
Pick up a copy of my newly released book, Strategic, and take your leadership development to the next level by subscribing to the Strategic Fitness System, an innovative, state of the art executive development platform. Remember, be strategic to be your [00:52:00] best.