00:22 Hey, welcome back to the show. I'm so excited today because we're talking about a topic that you probably love as much as I do. Cynthia, will you first get us into the conversation by telling us who you are and what problem are you solving with your business?

00:36 Yeah, thanks so much for having me Todd. My name is Cynthia. I'm the CEO of Dtravel and what I'm solving is actually something very personal that I'm solving my own problem. So at Dtravel, we're a web three power travel ecosystem, and we're building products for the vacation rental industry to solve some of the biggest challenges around distribution, connectivity, trust and reputation, and then tooling.

01:01 I love it. All right, so, so dive into that a little bit because when people hear Web 3.0, they start thinking crypto, they start thinking validation, authentication. There's a lot of stuff that goes with Web 3.0. How is that, like what are you developing for Web 3.0 with the travel industry? Because I think this is a lot of cool stuff you're doing.

01:24 Yeah, I love the question. So within web three, what is really core to the ethos is what we call ownership. Because as the internet evolved, you had web 1.1, which we call like read. So you can interact with it. All you could do was just read off the internet, right? So if you think about the early days of the RBO, you had a directory. If you wanted to book something, you'd have to call somebody. Web two introduced what we call read and write. So now you can interact and actually do things. You can create content, you can change things. And so VRBO became this platform that you can now not only see what was available, you can now book. And in web three, what's involved is this idea of ownership. So everybody that is using a product or is involved in the internet, they should get ownership within that product or that thing. And that's really core to what we're doing as well, because I come from the vacation rental industry as a property operator or owner. I've been in that space for almost a decade and I'm a community builder at heart. So I co-founded the largest host forum online and they still run it today. And for me, that was about bringing together all these property managers and owners from all around the world to learn from each other and to really be a community. And with what we're building, we're trying to go back to that idea of being a community and to give everybody within our ecosystem ownership via our cryptocurrency. So the idea is that we want to help people take ownership back into their business and build up their own brands so that they don't have to use platforms like Airbnb. We do that through giving them the tools to be able to do that. And then in return for them, you know, participating and helping us grow our ecosystem, they get our token too. So it's a fundamentally different model than what exists today. And you know, I always like to say that it's not about one company being bad or wrong. It's really just like the model of marketplaces not working because they're extractive in and so with Web3, it's all about how do we change these paradigms that we operate within and have it be more community based. So a lot of the things that I'm going to be talking about today is going to be around community. And I think this is what makes us really different. This is what makes Web3 really different. I think for your listeners, this is something that they really should tap into because community at the end of the day is so powerful. Like you just can't buy community and you can't buy that kind of loyalty.

03:46 Well, I'm definitely into the community factor and I'll explain later why, because I don't want to steal the show because I can talk a lot about community. But I love that that's such a big piece of what you're doing. Now, I mean, a lot of people would arguably say Airbnb is not old and stale yet, but you're saying it kind of is. I mean, tell us about that problem because as an outsider to your industry, I guess I still see that being a very cutting edge solution and I'm grateful for it. You're talking a lot about the marketplace and how that's not a great place. Help us understand what you're saying. Help us understand the problem.

04:25 Yeah, so I think of this as a continuum, right? There's always gonna be people who wanna use a platform or a tool like Airbnb, but there's a lot of people, and this group of people, they're growing, who really wanna take back ownership of their business because what actually happened during COVID, and I think this was really a watershed moment for the industry, is that there are obviously mass cancellations because of the travel restrictions, right, and that was, yeah, that was a really tough situation. Like, I don't think there was a right or wrong answer. But what I think from the, yeah, exactly. It's a difficult situation. Like somebody is going to lose. And I think for property managers, what ended up happening is that a lot of them are professional. They have big businesses. They have a staff. They have all of these properties with a lot of expenses, as you can imagine. Some of them are running multi-billion dollar businesses. And so overnight, you go from, okay, I'm expecting, you know, tens, hundreds, millions of dollars in revenue. And overnight, those are all gone, but I still have all the expenses to run this business. And so they had policies around their booking. So some had like strict cancellation, some had like moderate cancellation, but it didn't matter what you set. You just had your bookings canceled. And so I think at that moment, a lot of property managers realized, okay, well, if we're using these platforms, yeah, we're really vulnerable and we ultimately don't have control. And so there's been this movement called the book direct movement to actually move towards being able to form a direct connection with guests and not have that intermediary in the middle so they can set their own policies and terms. And then it ends up being cheaper for the guests as well, because now you don't have the platform fees. Yeah, exactly. And I'm sure anybody who's gone to Twitter for even a minute and looked up, you know, Airbnb, you hear so many complaints about pricing. So that's also another huge factor.

06:21 Yeah. It's gotten a little crazy. It's like they just replaced the hotel industry. And you know, on a recent, we just went to Europe last spring and it was like, we literally booked almost all of our, all of our rentals were Airbnb style. They were residences, but it was through a hotel site. And I was like, that's kind of weird. Like it has gotten a little confusing.

06:42 Yeah, that's a really good point because I think a lot of the hotel industry has seen that there's this huge market in vacation rentals. So a lot of them have either invested in their own brand or they've acquired another brand to grow that because they obviously want market share. And so there is this interesting blurring between the lines and also professionalization, I guess, of our industry where, you know, when platforms like Airbnb started, you had like somebody renting out a room. And now the industry has just matured and become a lot more professional where you have people running, you know, multi units or even a portfolio of properties. And I think it's good because it's, you know, it gives a more consistent, good guest experience. But then I think there is also this shift towards it feeling not as personal. And I think that's what we're also trying to fix is when there's a relationship directly between, you know, a property manager or a host and a guest. It feels a lot more personal. I think there's just something like from a psychology perspective, when you have something in the middle, somebody in the middle, you just think, oh, they're the big bad corporation or company, and it doesn't feel like a personal relationship anymore.

07:50 Right, well, and it also opens up the door to a whole new level of marketing where a property owner will also feel a lot more connected to that client for return visits and things like that. You know, I've had some really positive Airbnb experiences where I think, oh man, if only I could reach out to that guy again, because that was like the coolest place. You don't really have that as much with Airbnb as you could if you're booking direct with the property owner.

08:18 Yeah, exactly, exactly. So that's really what we're trying to empower is like you said, when you have a stay and it's a great experience, you don't really have a way to be able to continue that relationship. And so one of our products you travel direct is giving operators the ability to create a direct booking website or link that they can then share with guests to rebook or to build that branding themselves.

10:00 Cool, so as we dive in that part of it, how would that then replace though, because obviously as a consumer, it's super easy just to go to Airbnb or hotels.com or booking.com and find a whole wealth of these properties. What is it going to do to that from a consumer level of being able to ease of finding availability in these areas?

10:23 Yeah, that's such a great point. You know, this is one of the reasons why I think the book direct movement has had some challenges is like you said, even if somebody has a direct booking website, it's been really challenging for a consumer traveler to find that because there's no sort of like aggregated search for direct booking sites. And so that's one of the problems that we identify and that's something that we're going to be working on and we're actually working on something. Can I talk to you about it earlier, Todd? That's going to be like AI powered search. So we're pretty excited about launching that soon.

10:54 Love it. Love it, love it. Yeah, I just, as you were talking about that, and I've been thinking about it while we're talking, is, you know, yeah, I don't know if I want to get nerdy on the interview,  But I mean, there's probably some way to, 

11:04 Yes, let's do it! I love nerdy stuff.

11:05 yeah, all right, let's go a little nerdy. There's gotta be some way to tag every one of the properties that you've been able to help with your platform and make that some kind of Google searchable tag so that as you search for rentals in this area, is there a tag that then makes it more searchable to pull that into the search results? There's probably some ways to do that, and obviously AI is going to help, but if there was a portal or some tool that you could even make that a third-party API integration where people could create their own, I don't know, regional, like, hey, come to Park City. I live in Park City. parkcitydirectrentals.com, I could have an API connect into everyone using your tool and then somehow have it tagged to all those properties as a search option. I don't know, just thinking out loud.

12:01 No, no, I am like grinning from ear to ear because that's literally something that we're working on right now and so the fact that you suggested it and see the value in that is huge validation.

12:12 Yeah, no, it's a big deal. I think it's really, really cool. I've seen some other industries do things like this and so it is a fascinating thing because I think that the next generation of search is gonna be very much a tool of who has the data and how available are they making the data. And so as you become a big data aggregator and a big data supplier, this now does put you in a whole different world as Airbnb because you are able to connect the dots for people and give people the option to create the dots themselves. You know, I think it's great.

12:50 Yeah. I actually really want to put a fine point on this because, um, when, when are the products that we're going to be building out in the future, like our long-term vision is what we call the protocol. And so this, you can think of this essentially as one single source of truth via something like an API. Because what happens in the industry today is like you said, it's very fragmented. And so unlike the hotel industry, you don't have these API feeds where you can get all the hotels in one API. You have to build all these like individual connections. You have to like go and find individual owners. It's, it's really hard because as an industry, it's hard for us to scale because there's so much friction, right? And so if Todd, you wanted to come in and create, yeah, like Utah direct bookings, you can do that because there's all of these like gates in place where you have to get permission and, you know, it just really restricts innovation. And so with the protocol that we're building out, what we want is to have one single source of truth for all vacation rental listing data that an owner would own. They would input it into the protocol and then anybody who wants to get data from the protocol to do things like build out the direct booking site, to build out pricing tools, do anything, like they don't need to ask permission. They just go to the protocol, basically like get that API access and then they can build whatever they want. And it's like fundamentally a different way of thinking about data access. And I think what's happened in like hotels and then vacation rentals is there's this belief that closing data is a moat, but that really restricts innovation, right? And I think that's what's really good about web three is. It's all about openness and accessibility because a lot of the roots came from open source. And so I think that model is really beautiful because open source has been proven to lead to more innovation, not less. And so that's very much the model that we want to take on is like, how do we make it easier for anybody in the industry to come in? Because if you open it up to access where anybody can get that access, like the industry is only going to grow, right?

14:53 Right, right, I love it, I love it. And I think that you're also, you know, I had a guest on yesterday who was re-challenging all of the salons and kind of the beauty industry in opening up a, they call it the HairBnB of their industry. It's fascinating interview, you're gonna love it when you hear this, it's like, I love it because it's like, there's a lot of empty chairs and salons that go unused every day.

15:10 Oh my god, that's so funny.

15:12 Well now these work from home hair stylists can now book a seat for the day and just use it when they have clients and not be paying for it when they don't. It's an interesting model. Yeah, so there's a lot of really creative, fun things going on today and Web 3.0 is obviously a big piece of that. You talked about your own coin and all that kind of stuff. That's a fascinating thing that I haven't yet wrapped my brain around the whole idea of creating your own coins but I know there's value in it. And so, as you start to build this out, tell us about some other highlights along your growth journey so far. I mean, you're not too many years into this, but you're into it long enough that you've had some cool motivational factors. What are some highlights of your journey so far?

16:10 I think two that immediately come to mind are our team and then our community. So our team is incredible. I always say that there are secret sauce. Not only are they super experienced in the vacation rental industry and the web three industry, but there are people who are just so passionate, who really are there for the right reasons. Like everybody on the team believes in the mission that we're building out. And they really are there because they actually want to make a difference. Like you feel it. And when our community members interact with the team, like they feel it as well. And we hear from all of our customers is yeah, the team is the best part of detravel, like that's why we love the team and our community members. Like it is insane. Like when people meet our community members, they're just blown away. So there was a conference in the South of Portugal last week. And two of our earliest community members actually went there on our behalf, like totally just on their own volition, had a bunch of swag that they had made themselves and went around promoting detravel to everybody. And basically we're acting like RBD. And you know, these are, I think when we have these stories and meet these kinds of people who believe so much in the mission and the vision of what we're doing, it just is so powerful, right? And I said this at the beginning, like this is passion and loyalty that you just can't buy. It doesn't come from spending marketing dollars. It comes from making this genuine connection with people and then them really sharing that vision. And I think what's really beautiful is it's not about our vision, it's about co-creating that with the community. And I think that's kind of like how Airbnb started, and I think they've kind of moved away from that. And that was always what attracted me to that community and what made me build a community within their community. And so I really wanna bring that back. And I think with the community that we're building, that we have built, like people come because they see what like what the vision of this should be like, right? What vacation rental should be like. And so they wanna build it with us.

18:10 No, I think it's fascinating. I could foresee your disruption being similar to what probably needs to happen in the Uber and the rideshare community. There's the need for some, those innovations took us from a whole different world that we've known all of our lives into this new thing of like, hey, I can run my house. I could use my car for something, for making money. Like these are great innovations, but what you're doing in disrupting this industry is really kind of that next stage that will hopefully settle it and kind of turn it into a more common place for people to generate revenue and more revenue from their own properties and be able to, to your point, control it a little bit more. You know what I mean? I think it's cool.

19:00 Yeah, I think when you give people an ownership in the things that they're building, they just are so much more invested, right? Because they know that they are now owners in it. And I really like what you said, which is all of these companies, like we need to give them credit for all the foundational work that they've done, right? Like every company that comes before lays the groundwork and then you build on top of that. So I think that companies like Airbnb, Uber, they've done a phenomenal job in innovating at the time. And, you know, I still think that they're doing a lot of really great things, but for the people who want something different, that's what we're here to offer. 

19:39 Right. Very cool.

19:40 So, you know, I never feel like it's a bad thing to have some competition.

19:44 Oh, no doubt about it. No doubt about it. And they will be competing as they see her, you know. Probably this podcast could drive a lot of that concern for them. I'm just kidding. 

19:58 Yeah, I'm sure.

19:59 But, you know, here's the thing. Growth never comes easy. And as you have been building and seeing the success you have, you got a great community, you got a great team, all this kind of really feel good stuff going on. Tell us about the challenges, because I know it doesn't happen just like snap of a finger, boom, we've got something cool. Are there things that you were a little bit surprised in trying to grow this that kind of halted you in your tracks for a minute so you had to build a workaround?

20:26 I think any startup always struggles with prioritization, right? Because there's a million things that you could do and there's a million cool things that you want to do. And so how do you pick? And sometimes it's not even about picking the right thing. It's picking the right thing at the right time. Because let's say you made a bet on it today, but it actually doesn't materialize until or it wasn't the right timing until years later, then it's still wrong timing. And so that's something that I think we've really tried to address internally by, we have this quote that we build whole list, sorry, we design holistically, but build incrementally. So we build sort of with the end in mind, but we take small steps so that we can always adjust at any time. And then we really try to do planning on a quarterly basis to stay really focused instead of like you know, trying to do too many things at once, but then building in the flexibility so that we can adapt and change and prioritize other things if we want. And I think with early stage startups, it's really hard to have the discipline and the processes in place to do that because, you know, early stage startups, especially, yeah, they tend to be a little bit chaotic, but I think that really makes a big difference because if everybody knows what your priorities are, then, you know, nobody's confused. Everybody's going in the same direction. And something else that something else that our product manager has done really well is he usually has like two or three things that are ready to go. So all the requirements are there so that just in case one gets delayed or we have to prioritize something else, it's not like we're waiting around until we have to get those priorities ready. So I think that's something that's really helped us a lot and I would definitely suggest that startups do the same thing.

22:07 Love it. Now, everything you just said is right out of my playbook. I do a lot of consulting with people who are in that growth and scaling stage. They're post-launch and everything's exciting, chaotic, and all right, what do we do next? And I think that you've really pulled a good page out because alignment is probably the biggest problem. And alignment needs to happen at least quarterly. I mean, you talked about that being almost hyper-regular. I almost think monthly for the first few years is really good time to just kind of say, okay guys, where are we at? Where's our goal? Are we, are we headed that direction still? You know what I mean? Have we, have we veered off the course too far? And, and as you have a leadership team, like sounds like your product guy is totally aligned with you and what you got going on. Like as you get all these teams aligned, that's where you do see the growth and that's where investors see, hey, these guys are actually on a path and they're moving fast down the path. They're not just like crossing it every once in a while. You know what I mean? So I think what you're doing is fascinating. I'm assuming you've raised some money to date or where are you at revenue wise?

23:20 We have, yeah, we've raised some money and we're still pretty early stage. So we launched our Dtravel Direct product last June. And I think one of the challenges has been for us is that we required you to have a property management system to connect to Dtravel and use it. But this week we're actually removing that requirement. And so, excuse me, any property manager that wants to use Dtravel today to create a direct booking website or even just a direct booking link that they can send to somebody can do that. And so we're super, super excited. So we have 5000 property managers on our waitlist who have been waiting for over a year. So now we can finally unlock that and get them off the waitlist. So we're all really super excited about that. 

23:59 Wow. 

24:00 Yeah.

24:01 Well, everybody's excited about that kind of stuff. That's a, I mean, who doesn't want 5,000 enrollments in a month, right? Wait lists are cool. 

24:09  Yeah. 10,000 with your podcast, Todd.

24:12  Dude, we're going, we're getting there. We're gonna do this. Cynthia, we're totally on board. Now this has really been a fun conversation, Cynthia, and I really love your passion. I love what you're doing, the problem you're solving is so personal and it comes out in everything you're saying because just the look in your face and everything you're saying, it just screams, we're doing this because I need it and I know other people like me need it too. We're going there. So I love products like that. Really fun.

24:42 Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. It is very much a personal problem that I'm solving. So every day I love waking up and being able to talk to our community, work on this problem and just like be innovative and be creative.

24:55 Now, we do need to wrap up, but I want you to just talk about your community, because a lot of businesses fail to do this. And I think that, honestly, for those of you listening, if you don't know who your community is and you don't have a community, you gotta start a community. Will you just kind of lean into that for just a minute, because how much have they helped you develop your product?

25:17 Oh, huge. Like we literally have calls with our customers every week. We have a product request board, but like we have personal relationships with all of our customers. And so I think, especially in the early days, that's what you need. Right. Because you, you are kind of the product, like when you don't have a robust product, your team, your customer service, that is part of the product that you're delivering. And so that doesn't become scalable over time. That's how you have people who are just like so bought into everything that you do there. They become your like 100 true fans I'll buy anything that you say because you showed up and you like really resonated with them on a personal level and you know most companies don't do that anymore.

25:56 I love that, I love that. And if you haven't read 100 Truth Fans, you really gotta check that stuff out too. You're dropping some good info all over the place, Cynthia. So thanks again for all that you've done. Thanks for sharing your story. And who is it that you'd like to shout out? I always ask this of everyone because there's always somebody or a group that's kind of helped them as they've been leaning into their business. Make sure they're leaning the right way.

26:22 Well, you know, I definitely have to thank my team. Like they are incredible. Um, I also have a coach, Tim Adams. He's just literally changed my life. And so I could not recommend him more, but, um, yeah, I'd say he definitely has been such a game changer for me personally and professionally.

26:40 Fantastic. What made you think you needed a coach?

26:45 You know, it's like that saying when, what is it, when you're ready for the teacher, then the teacher appears or whatever that quote is. And so I was looking for an executive coach and I found him from a friend and he's actually like a holistic coach. So he actually works with you on like a physical level, career, emotional everything, and he basically was able to help me optimize all areas of my life. And I think the last year has been really a testament to everything that we've worked on together. And I definitely maybe would have gotten there eventually. But yeah, he definitely like.

27:25 Now it helps to have a guide. I mean, even Luke Skywalker needed Obi-Wan and Yoda. So I love it. Thanks for sharing that and thanks for, honestly, for those of you listening, if you don't have a coach, you don't have a community, you're really, really disconnecting yourself from problem solving quicker and understanding the needs of your clients better. Do both of those things. You need to lean into that hard. Cynthia, you're amazing. Thanks for sharing your story. Thanks for being with us. And the rest of you, we look forward to catching up with you on the next episode. But thank you, Cynthia, for being here.