Your Happy Hour - Episode 21: Black Friday

Episode Date: April 26, 2024

Happy Friday everyone!Tune in to episode 21 and let’s chat about: Black Friday.In this episode we are joined by inspiring multi-preneur, global thinker and travel enthusiast, Matt Davison who is the founder of OG Ventures, Travel Tractions and now the very cool space of Cape Coliving. Get 10% off your stay via Friday Feels!We unpack topics like: the global hustle of living and working around the world, the reality of entrepreneurship in the travel industry, the truths about house hacking and home stacking it in foreign regions and cultivating a community with a culture of feedback and honor.We’ll be here - every Friday - celebrating with you!Connect with us @ friday-feels.co and Connect with Matt:Capecoliving.com - Coliving in Cape Towntraveltractions.com - Travel SEO Marketing Agencylifefromabag.com - guide for remote working around the worldog-ventures.co - Investing in profitable lifestyle business.instagram.com/mattgdavison - Instagram▶ Podcast Chapters01:14 Welcome Matt!01:44 The Journey: Of living and working around the world06:21 Oh the Black Friday Feels!10:06 Starting startups in crazy times16:18 The Reality of Entrepreneurship: Baby steps to success19:28 The Global Hustle: Community and Co-living in Cape Town24:00 Stay in a hostel: Find yourself by losing your keys31:37 10 years ago… Ignorance is bliss!37:50 The truths: House hacking, Home stacking and Getting onto the Ground Level46:06 Cultivate a Culture of Feedback and Honour49:52 Gems of the Week!55:09 Connect with Matt56:05 Final thoughts57:57 Next week and Farewell

Happy Friday beautiful people and hello to you all out there tuning in for your first sip of the weekend. you tune into your happy hour friday feels we're celebrating all you working professionals out there doing your crazy craft embracing the beauty of being human and connecting authentically we are host sarge and nicole and we're living and working around the world holding space for you and keeping it raw and real as we share fresh content with you every week so follow us on linkedin at friday feels and instagram at these friday feels for updates throughout the week in our last episode we chatted to working professional lauren muir who shared with us her not so traditional journey from starting as an entrepreneur at the age of 14 to now being in her first corporate gig 10 years later, and what she has kept close to her heart in moving through

difficult times in her career. And this week we have a very inspiring multi-preneur joining us. We welcome Matt Davison, who is based in Cape Town, but a global thinker, travel enthusiast and has made his living in just that. As the founder of Travel Tractions and now Cape Co Living in this very cool space of Hustle House, we know it hasn't always been an easy journey Matt but we are so excited to hear more about it. So a big welcome to you, thank you so much for joining us. So happy to be here, so looking forward to this. So this theme of the month is Enduring Through Exhaustion. And when we had a call earlier, you told us a little bit about how much you have endured through exhaustion in your journey. And so maybe just tell us a little

bit about the journey, where it all started, and what this topic means to you and why it's important. Yeah, I love this topic. I generally love loved your topics but i thought this one really resonated with me and my team and kind of what we've gone through up and down in the last couple of years but the journey's been quite a long one i think it started about 12 years ago really when i went off to thailand after i'd finished my degree and I was a teacher there and I discovered that you kind of work online and it wasn't too foreign back then but it was pretty foreign especially for South Africans of this working online and I gradually would tell people what I was doing in South Africa what I was studying and that was just updating websites small menial kind of stuff for a travel business which I was really passionate for I love

that kind of job finding nice pictures about a place and putting on a website and I made money from it and that was really cool but when I went to Thailand and I helped people with their businesses there I gradually stopped teaching because teaching is a very fulfilling job but an exhausting job you know I understand why these teachers need two weeks or one month or two months holidays because it's just one of those ones where you need to take a break but i think that's kind of where the journey started for me over 10 years ago was working online and figuring out that you could make money online this was all so far into me because the buying in south africa online was tiny i think back then it was like two percent of people were purchasing online which is

like nothing and i met other entrepreneurs i met people kind of finding themselves in thailand people starting businesses and it just opened up a million and one kind of ways that i never really thought of our business so with that i realized that i needed to get more experience in the marketing and working online and a lot of people tell me to work in agency to learn how they do it and kind of replicate that or um or not replicate that depending if it was a good agency or not i guess so i did that for a year and it was great great learning experience but i hungered for that travel and that's being an entrepreneur and building my own things instead of other people's businesses and i got a bit tired of being a night owl and sacrificing my nights for my work on my

own businesses and in the day working in the agency. So eventually I quit, packed up my bags and went back to Thailand because it's just such a fantastic destination for work-life balance, for food, for culture, for dropping anywhere in Asia. And I think, you know, I think that's where it really ignited me. But I was always looking for a new place to live or a place to live that wasn't South Africa for some reason I was very I would say anti-South Africa almost back then which is a bit sad um but as I traveled more I

became more I miss South Africa more I missed our beaches I miss our food I miss our prices so I discovered that I wanted to come back but it happened very strangely that happened on a Facebook group one guy was looking for a marketer to to market this startup in South Africa called Vibescard which is about finding things to do anywhere in the city you were and it resonated massively with me because I was traveling the whole time and trying to find things to do anywhere in the city you were. And it resonated massively with me because I was traveling the whole time and trying to find things to do while going into these new cities. And I was like, cool, I get to solve a problem that I want to solve back in South Africa. I get to build a team. And that kind of was my next big step back into entrepreneurship.

And I invested in that business, flew back to South Africa, built that team, had an exit, and then started Travel Attractions. And the entrepreneurship bug bit really badly. And I used a lot of that money to start multiple businesses. One of my heroes is a guy called Peter Levels. He's quite a famous guy. He did a project of a startup a month for 12 months.

And he made Nomad List and a couple of other really successful startups and when i built my thing i kind of launched a startup every month until two years later i had too many businesses and i needed to kind of focus so yeah that was about four or five years ago and here i am with another business in a completely different model and thoroughly enjoying it that's quite the journey. It has been. I mean, 10 years goes by pretty quickly, but summarized into two minutes, that's it. Life moves fast when you're having fun, huh?

Yeah, that's exactly it. It's not fast when you're having fun. Yeah, yeah, it is. And, you know, I connected with you when I was back in Cape Town in February, because I couldn't stay in my home, because my home was being home exchanged out, which is the way I've been living in the world. And so I was looking for a place to stay. And I came across Hustle House and Cape Coat Living and all of that. And I was like, this is really, really cool. And we started looking at these kind of things at Friday Fields so it was really great for me to see something what you are building in Cape Town and and I kind of get what you're saying the more I travel the more I do miss Cape Town and South Africa tell us a little bit about you know when when you we spoke you said that you obviously built your business during the last few years and so we've had an interesting few years in the world.

There's been lockdowns, there's been emergencies from lockdown. And we decided to title this topic for this week, Black Friday. Tell us a little bit more, I won't unpack it. Well, Black Friday is a weird word in my company. Sometimes it's a swear word sometimes it's a it's an exciting day sometimes it's a it's a hard day depending how you look at it it's been many different kind of days over our time um here in my company we we generally do double or triple our revenue over like that black friday cyber uh monday weekend because a lot of

our clients are overseas and the americans take black friday very seriously um but what that does is uh because i'm travel attractions is a service business we are a marketing agency and we sell time uh generally when we do three times the sales in in a month um you know that's still three months of work or four months of work and then slightly discounted it's maybe even more than that it's like four or five months months of work so we do a hell of a lot of prepping not just in the marketing materials but the team like up to six months of prepping for black friday even when we've done that it's still such a hard time for my company we've had so many people tired and have to work through it or not work through it it's just like it's a tricky time for south africans because like

we take south africa almost shuts down from the 15th of December to about the 10th of January to a certain degree. So, and I'm very, I build lifestyle businesses and how I like to see it is like businesses that you enjoy doing and that you like to do. So it's really tough for me. And we've been actually very nice about it in terms of like, I want people to spend time with their families in the December time. And I think that's so important is to capitalize on those moments with family

because I could only do that when I was traveling during Christmas time almost or during that time I'm back. So yeah, every year we plan for Black Friday and every year we get it a little bit more right, but we get it still very, very wrong. I think my managers get a bit stressed when we start talking about black fighters and what specials we're having and by the time about april may runs around we are tired we are depleted and we need to just like get through the final

part of our black friday orders and kind of get on track. And then almost by that time we're in June and we need to be prepping for the next Black Friday. So my business to a certain degree has revolved around Black Friday because we get so much new customers and we're working so hard and we're trying new things. So yeah, that's been my working through the exhaustion of Black Fridays and prepping for it. And it's just a big part of what's made us grow to a certain degree and and what was Black Friday like after lockdown that was a crazy crazy Black Friday I

think I was quite fortunate with Black Friday because I had a beautiful house I mean in in lockdown time because I had a beautiful house in Bloberg, I realized that I love remote work. I'd always imagined having a remote company. But I saw a five-bedroom house in Bloberg and was like, okay, cool. Maybe I need my team to live with me because previously I'd been in an entrepreneurship house. And that was such a cool energy. It was like an amazing energy of all these entrepreneurs working really hard, working until like 2 o'clock in the morning, sharing coffee at like middle of the night. And I, in a way way wanted to recreate that so i got this beautiful house in blowberg and just started hiring people left right and center to kind of train them in this house because you just get so much better on board training when you're like face to face and you can hear conversations

happening next to you so and that i think was our second year of business that's kind of when we were making it you know we were scaling from five people to about 18 people when COVID hit. So it was a very interesting build-up to COVID. And then COVID happened, and Travel Attractions is a travel marketing company, and travel evaporated in two days or three days. I mean, I was going to fly to a conference in Italy, and I was watching the news and seeing how bad this was. And it was very bad in Italy when it first kind of started happening.

The death rate was, like, extremely high there. Anyway, the conference got canceled. I was like, okay, the conference got canceled. And then, like, the next day, it was like, oh, shit, okay, these people are closing down. Countries are closing down. And, like, within three days, everything had closed down. And you can just see like in all my clients' analytics, it just drops like 90% of like the demand for travel evaporated. And I convinced all these young people, at that stage it was a training program, interns to join my company, join me on this journey of building a travel marketing company.

But no one was doing any travel marketing it was a very tricky period for me because I didn't want to I don't want to let people go I just you know built all these people and got them to kind of join me on my journey I just got this massive house where I could train people it just just, for me, quitting kind of was an option, but not really an option. So I struggled a lot during that time. I mean, I used to, I remember this so clearly, is like I'd wake up from my dreams, which were nightmares,

just nightmares of dreaming of like where am I going to get money, and I would start my day almost throwing up, and then going to the office with these young people and being like okay today we're gonna we're gonna build this website and build this website and luckily I had the um I had the thought of wanting to build all these like small companies during this time at that time I was kind of passionate about cannabis and CBD and South Africa just legalized um cannabis for recreational use at home. So I was like, okay, let's build some cannabis businesses and some CBD businesses.

Which was really nice because my team used to have to try a lot of CBD products. So I guess it kept them calm, kept them wealthier. And we built other businesses during that time, but we didn't know. So luckily I'd been a consultant for like the few years leading up to that so i'd worked with businesses in australia in like the comparison engine business insurance i'd seen affiliate businesses in europe i'd seen uh other guys in southeast asia who had like amazon businesses so i'd been exposed to all these awesome business models and i did have money saved up we had like three months of payroll in the bank and that was okay amount.

So I knew that we had three months to make a plan. After that we were screwed. So we kind of just, we just built and I think it was a lot of fun because young people, we're talking about people just out of university, they became project managers and like managers of a website within six months or a year of them working with me. And got to build teams and we we we made it like um we had to like the we had a couple of freelancers that we kind of reduced their capacity a little bit and i try to honor

the permanent team a little bit more than the freelancers but we didn't have to i think we paused them for like i don't know i think anything from two weeks to maybe two months, which wasn't a terrible pause for that time period. And a couple of months later, we were trying to hire Travel Start, which is the big African travel company in South Africa. We were like, OK, now we can kind of maybe build a better team and get people from other companies. We were letting people go. So we were kind of like on the hiring within three or six months after this and building these businesses and things seemed to be going okay so we were kind of fortunate that maybe cannabis got legalized in South Africa and I had already an interest and we also had a whole lot of other businesses in the insurance space in the outdoor adventure space

too so that became really big in America. People were spending a lot more time outdoors. So yeah, it was an exciting time. But if you asked me if I'd go back to it, probably not because of like the stress that I had. It was just an immense, immense, immense amount of stress. And I just had to work. I kind of like worked through it. And I'd always been okay with amount of stress. And I just had to work. I kind of, like, worked through it.

And I'd always been okay with coping with stress. And that period really, like, I had to find different mechanisms. I had to see a psychologist and tell him my side and kind of get that feedback from him. I started climbing and doing activities to try and break the mental fatigue that would happen in the afternoon so I could go climbing and do exercise and then be refreshed to work in the evening again so it it was like one of the hardest periods in my life but definitely the one where I grew the most so uh it was tough but it definitely helped me become who I am today and I'm able to have I'm able to handle a lot more stress because when I'm stressed, I'm like, remember that time that you couldn't even sleep and you were throwing up every day you used to get up?

Like, it's not as bad as that. So you can get through this. So, yeah, it was good. I think it's a good point that you make, right, is a lot of people, I mean, now it's coming to light more, but entrepreneurs are sharing more about just the sheer stress that happens when you just don't know there's no roadmap. And everybody handles that differently. But it's very much so I would say something that sometimes you're so excited about the product and the company and your team that you don't really think about what it's doing to you, kind of like the toll it's taking on your body or the toll that it's taking on your mental capacity.

So, I mean, you're also working at such an accelerated rate, right? And so it's obviously like you're not just going in, okay, when I get there, this is what I do. You're constantly thinking about, okay, how do I make this better? What should I be doing? I think if you're idle in those periods, you know, when you're not thinking about work or the next thing and you're kind of thinking in your current position, you can get stuck in that kind of position of like, oh, it's so bad.

Yes, it is bad, but it's going to get better. So like a lot of my team, when they go through hardships, I think work-life balance is becoming more important now. Back then, maybe like five years ago, there was like this Gary V hustle culture, like just work, work, work, do what you love and you won't get burned out or whatever. But I'm a little bit of a proponent of like, hey, I know things are kind of tough, but maybe work on your own thing or keep your mind busy or read a book or get kind of lost but like do something like just do because if you're doing you won't kind of be too sad but it's kind of hard

it's really hard to to do that because I think a lot of people have different mechanisms where maybe they don't communicate that they are sad or maybe they got nothing to do so it is tricky but i'm such a proponent for like just do just create just just you know um try i think it's such an amazing kind of thing so i was forced to i think if i didn't have all those employees maybe if i had five i would have sat around and waited for COVID to finish. But I was just in a position where my back was against the wall and I didn't want to step too much back. I wanted to just go. And in the end, it was okay.

I mean, it was a good thing for me, at least. I've recently realized that it really is in these moments, like you say, where it's the hardest that you are growing the most and I've come to realize you're very right you know sometimes you feel like you you just can't do anything because there's so much that you want to do but just doing the little things like just doing what you can today the things you can't control the things that you can tick off and that kind of of gets this momentum going and this keeps this ball rolling, you know, and that's really important.

Yeah, I think it's the baby steps, you know. It's one day at a time, one week at a time. I think a lot of people try and think like six months or a year or two years and they just get like lost there. But literally, if you just do one thing and one foot in front of the other, that kind of gets you there. Yeah, I think that's awesome advice foot in front of the other that kind of gets you there yeah i think that's awesome advice for a lot of the entrepreneurs so tell us a little bit about hustle house and the

type of people what type of people really enjoy hustle house do you see a lot of people coming and staying for months on end is it mostly entrepreneurs are you seeing remote workers very curious and and what sort of amenities you guys have there well i looked for this house for so long um so if we speak about the kind of people this is what resonated with me and why i started this business is i really struggled to relate to normal people again which was like people who maybe had corporate jobs or people who hadn't traveled and that was kind of hard for me because I would go to a bride and so much people would tell me how much they hate their jobs and I'm like oh you can just you know do another job

and I think it's hard it's way easier to say that than to actually do it but when I stayed in a co-living in Palma Mallorca called it's called Palma Co-living I'd been traveling for 10 years and staying in hotels and airbnbs and hostels and none of those like really invigorated me to the extent that this co-living did because it was like in backpackers you have like 20 and 30 olds the kind of young people who are there on holiday and it's kind of hard to work in those kind of places and then hotels hotels was very lonely. So you'd be in a hotel for maybe a week, or in Airbnb in a week and a month, and it was also so lonely. So when I discovered this co-living in Spain,

my mind just was like, whoa, there's this whole different way to kind of do it. So I traveled for another year trying these business models out and staying in these things and i was like okay like south africa is beautiful i need to do this in south africa like people need to see it and a lot of the complaints people would say about coming to south africa is quite a long journey so it's like 16 hours or maybe 20 or 30 hours depending on your flights to get here and a month's stay which is like the co-living general kind of stay would be it yeah it was a good format and I found this house that has all of the bedrooms have ensuite

bathrooms which is a really important things to the ladies I hear so that helped a lot that it was a nice guest house that had these en suite facilities and then we we interview almost every guest and you're asked what qualities and what kind of you mentioned some of the words that i recently did interviews before this and it's adventurous curious compassionate community and you know those kind of like really words that kind of resonate with me and those are the kind of people that come through here and it's so cool because they might be working corporate and I can get to hear how corporate kind of works and how their systems and their processes are and then I hear this scrappy entrepreneur who's pitching people to kind of invest in his startup and I hear about people

who are like five-year entrepreneurs and the problems that they're going through so you're just exposed to all these incredible conversations with very similar like-minded kind of people so yeah we've tried to really also make the space a community space where the dining room for example has enough seating for 12 to 14 people in case you want to have everybody over for dinner to sit together instead of like tables of two where you're kind of isolated. And the outside area has this kind of, you know, same kind of thing, you know, for 14 people.

We have a rooftop that's got a putt-putt thing in case you want to do meetings and be on a call and play putt-putt while you're on a call. And we've got this podcast room. So we kind of try to make it so that every need you might have is kind of taken care of. And we try and really look for people to stay in the house that have this community, adventurous, curiosity kind of mindset and curate these spaces where connections can

happen. I remember sitting with my girlfriend on the first month of this group and we're probably like one week in and they were sort of making jokes and asking people to go to dinner together and we're like okay cool we've made it the community now is built they're starting to make these plans. And that's the most exciting thing for me. So we kind of have these facilities to try and make those connections happen. And they're already meeting each other. They're sending pictures in the WhatsApp group of the meeting on opposite ends of the world.

And I'm like, it's happening. So we try and build that kind of environment here. It sounds like you have a very collaborative environment. And I will say that when I was traveling, doing some solo travel for work, I think, and then I would take a vacation afterwards. Early on in my career, I stayed at a hostel in Amsterdam. And I thought it was just such a cool environment. I mean, these people were doing like the coolest stuff and they planned so many activities. And it was kind of like you could go downstairs at any given time or day and people are doing things.

There's food there. And I was like, wow, this is really amazing. And even now, when I think about it, like sometimes I mean, now you can afford to go to nicer places. You can afford to go to like a hotel and I'm like but it's so lonely you know like if I don't know anybody here like I usually try to ask people like oh do you know anyone in this place you know and before I go but sometimes I find myself when it's kind of weird because you're just like there's all these people around I wonder if there's other people wondering the same thing right when you happen to find yourself on like solo travel, or your partner is not with you for that day, or is coming like a few days later,

it's always really interesting to kind of hear how people interact. So it's really nice that you created a community like that. Because I know for a lot of people, like even now, they'll be like, oh, you're too old to kind of go to a house or it's not safe or something and there is like some concern there so it's hard because the market isn't really providing like another opportunity to do so so it seems like hostel house is that opportunity yeah i think you're not alone in thinking that you know that is is a hostel the right kind of place and you know i think when you get, you have more financial ability to forward other places. But like I encourage all my employees, I'm like,

I don't care what age you are, like if you've never stayed in a hostel, you need to stay in one. Like there are these hostels that are made for work or made for play and they all have like their certain vibes. But some of the best travel experiences that i had was definitely not staying in a airbnb alone with my head down working it's when i'm sitting in a hostel and these people are like oh we're gonna go feed elephants and wash them uh at two o'clock do you want to come and i'm like uh yeah let me like speed through this

work and go and join them and kind of build these friends. So I think traveling, staying in a hostel is one of the best things you can do. Like I still, you know, I did have a bad experience in the last hostel I stayed in because it was like I messed up really badly in Barcelona and there was some festival going on. And I could either pay 400 euros for a room or I could pay 56 euros for a 40 person dorm for a night it was just these young kids in this dorm it was a bit different experience for me but I still enjoyed it I still have a story from it I still met some interesting people and

kind of went through that so I love the hostel thing I love that way to travel so I'm like if anybody asks me like a lot of South Africans are travelling for the first time in their 20s very overseas I'm like please go stay in a hostel and they normally say

oh I'm an only child and I'm not used to doing that I'm like three days that's all you gotta do is three days stick it up for three days it might be hard the first day

but someone is gonna ask you what are you doing for dinner or what are you doing for lunch and you're going to make a friend and I think travel is better shared I agree I agree with that and now like there's so many more reviews and things like that I was going to say I remember that night I had like a lock on my laptop I slept with it under my pillowcase I was just so scared because i didn't know what to do i also booked it i'm pretty sure by accident so i thought it was like my own room but it was actually like a shared room and it was only other guys and i was so scared to tell like my parents because

they were just like oh did you get in okay or is it good i'm like yeah but like so i think i messaged like one of my co-workers i was like hey just letting you know this is where i am and i think definitely with those kind of periods where you grow and you get to learn about yourself a little bit more it's like oh i can handle that situation well i did like that well i didn't like that so for me it's it's a huge opportunity for growth putting yourself in this like slightly uncomfortable position like i'm actually extremely introverted so sharing a room with eight other people or four other people is like a bit hard for me but it's just open these incredible kind of doors so it's the the first thing i recommend to anybody especially while they're young but i don't think people should be thinking oh i'm 40 or 50 i can't stay in a hostel like it's it it's no one judge they don't like oh you I was

called the old guy actually in Albania and I was like 26 at the time so I mean there's no old person there you kind of make jokes and everybody's kind of involved there's no there's no not time to visit a hostel honestly that's what my belief is absolutely I can say I I never really traveled much like that when I was in my 20s and I'm traveling a lot now and I stayed on a when I went back to South Africa before I had to spend one night in Paris and I stayed in a hostel then it was wonderful and I ended up talking about locks so I ended up locking my handbag in the lock box with the key for the lock in the handbag so like talk about like failed experience you know I mean building experience rather and it was just it's so beautiful when

you've traveled a lot and you know as you were saying mad like the more you do these things the more you put yourself in these situations the more you know that you can handle anything it will all be fine you know and out came the hotel the receptionist with her massive you know key cutter and like this first time it's happened so boom boom it was all done I bought a new lock but like yeah I think it's a wonderful experience you learn so much about yourself and and that but I really think what you're building with Cape Co-Living and Hustle House and the world's needing more of these co-living spaces. You know, we're having a lot of conversations with co-working spaces that are partnering with, you know, hotels and Airbnbs and all of that. But they're also needing to build that community in a way.

And so you have a beautiful blend of both, which I think is really special. Yeah, I think people are looking for community i mean it's just nice to know people through facebook or instagram or whatever but when you get to meet them in person it's just it's slightly more deeper and it's a growing space you know before this call we were speaking how much it's growing and how this is like not just for digital nomads it could be for like retirement people it could be for students it could be for a kind of lot of things and even though i'm introverted i see so much value in community and like hearing ideas and putting yourself in these kind of situations where you wouldn't put yourself and you wouldn't hear about and opening your eyes to different cultures different people

so like i'm such a huge proponent for travel so i think like travel and entrepreneurship but i've told everybody to travel because they put you in this situation i imagine when you locked your uh lock and bag and every your passport probably and everything you you know had to be like your problem solving skills must have been going left right in the center and luckily it was you know solvable by asking the receptionist but i'm sure you would have learned how to pick a lock or break a lock if that didn't was you know solvable by asking the receptionist but i'm sure you would have learned how to pick a lock or break a lock if that didn't work you know so it's a really cool way to put yourself in a weird situation and have to like realize that you've got to get through it to get to the next thing yeah absolutely and and so talking about like next thing and putting

through i mean you've kind of given us a little bit of a journey but did you see yourself here 10 years ago? What you're doing now? I always saw myself in entrepreneurship I just knew that I would be I struggle with we discussed this the other day but I struggle with

authority a little bit so I always knew that I would have to kind of be my own boss to a certain degree but I never knew I'd have a co-living but I had something like this that blowberg I have had a blowberg a house in blowberg was a five six bedroom house and um covid happened and I needed to fill a room so I let another entrepreneur in the house and he couldn't he was going through a divorce and he was an entrepreneur and I was sympathized with the guy a bit and he's like i can't afford the deposit so i was like okay well you've got lots of furniture you can sign it over to me and we'll call that your deposit and this guy was doing lots of drugs and alcohol in the house and i was like okay and then he wasn't

paying rent so i had to start you know selling off his furniture to cover the rent and he was furious about this which didn't make any sense because that was the only way to kind of do it and my housemates explained this to him but eventually what happened was it was a very negative experience in the end because he everything imploded his wife divorced him he got fired from the new job I was selling his furniture. He couldn't afford rent. He was not getting his life on track. And everybody was outside the house.

And he and I had locked all his furniture in a room. And I was like, no, you're not getting your furniture back. You can move out whenever you need to. But I can't not take something for the rent that you haven't paid. Anyway, I moved out the house. I took my dog and I went to go sleep with my brother because I just didn't feel that comfortable. And he had actually assaulted me that night. In the process, we had called the police and we had called security and it was a big hoo-ha.

But there was like 70,000 Rand in damage, so about $3,000 or $4,000. The next day, my house was flooded. He turned on the taps and he was just a malicious person. But I went to court and I had to like go through this whole process. I swore, I was like, I'll never, ever have a five bedroom house or have like this kind of arrangement again. So if you ask me like three years ago or four years ago, never, ever, ever, ever would i say i'd be in this position

but the co-living in spain was for me such a beautiful thing like you hear how passionate i am about people staying in hostels imagine how passionate i am about the co-living because you know this is the real business that i'm really passionate about so yeah i definitely saw myself having a business this one one, probably not. The online businesses, 100%. Like, I love digital marketing. I'm not a big fan of sales. I love the fact that you can put up a website, sell some stuff,

wake up in the morning and someone's bought something in your sleep. Like, I don't know, it sounded, you would hear people speak about that and it's like, it's lies. What are they talking about? And I fell in love with that feeling. So I always knew I'd have an online business. I always knew I would maybe have employees. I really enjoy having a team.

I enjoy leading a team. So yeah, online business, 100%, co-living, no. And now I hope, you know, I'm in love with this kind of business. So I'm really enjoying it. And people are asking me, am I going to scale it? Probably not.

Um, because I think it's quite a big on Darwin. I think it's hard to scale a personable community based business. And this, honestly, this business was born out of my, you know, very similar position to you actually,

is when you go to Cape town, you want a place to of my you know very similar position to you actually is when you go to Cape Town you want a place to stay you know and I would look at places to keep in Cape Town to stay and the rent was like three thousand dollars and four thousand dollars for a nice an okay apartment in a nice area and I was like I don't know I can't justify that being a South African knowing what they pay for rent and stuff like that so this was this business was kind of born out of my selfishness of trying to find a place for myself in december but also wanting to share this beauty of south africa and so much cool things have happened in that development where i really like the business

that i want to continue it and and kind of see it through and kind of see what models i can put on top of this business, like non-renting the building I'm in. But I think the real value is being able to buy the building, live in the building, and then see that asset appreciation and then maybe sell it in the future. So I think if I went in any direction, I'd probably be trying to acquire property and buy it and moving in that

kind of cool direction. House hacking. House hacking. Yeah hacking, yeah. That's what you're into. So, like, that's what I would really love to kind of do. But I think that comes with, like, a whole lot of different challenges, you know, like dealing with contractors, dealing with good plumbers, dealing with good electricians, dealing with laws,

dealing with bad tenants, you know. Like, there's all these things that things that you know it's always daunting starting a new business especially like a very different business and i'm nowhere near close to being good at this one i need to like do this one for another year like i cannot tell you the problems that we faced in the last week in this house because of what's going on with the storms in Cape Town. I was in a wedding in George when I was raised, and the roof tropon collapsed and fell off, and it was keeping the people up. The wind was rattling the windows.

There were sparks outside because one of the electricity wires. People had packed their bags because they were worried that one of the sparks would maybe catch fire or something. So, yeah, it's a challenging business, this, actually. And to get this house ready, because it was a dig, it was a student house before, so to get

from a student house to, like, I think, fit for digital nomads, we used to Airbnb's home hotels, which was a big kind of adjustment. But so much fun. Yeah, I think those are the things that people don't, sometimes you don't hear about it. And it's good in a way, like if you don't have to experience it, it's good.

But it's always kind of plan for the worst, expect the best. You're really lucky when you do get good tenants um but i remember there's this woman on instagram and i used to follow her because she had a lot of advice on airbnbs that was their whole i mean there's some people that's their whole business is actually just airbnb hacking so they actually get things under contract by sellers who just don't want to deal with the business. They have an extra property and rather than doing it to long-term tenants, they'll get it under contract and then they'll basically just handle the Airbnb bookings. So it's not even their property. And they'll just do that in mass and it's fine when it works well,

but when it doesn't work well is where you know then one person like doesn't really have it or or like you know uh causes issues etc and like going through that process and the laws is such a a big part of that and there was a woman who i think it was her own house that she lived in she rented out a room in it and this lady decided to book for i think it was two months or something and she paid initially but then she stopped paying or it was six months and she paid initially and then she stopped paying and it turned out like in that state because the laws are state specific she actually had to go to court with this woman to actually physically remove her and the lady was so brazen.

She would, like, come out during the day and, like, eat food and go back in the room. And it was, like, it was so funny because this lady, she videotaped her. She's like, this woman has been staying in my house. This is what they don't share about, like, on Airbnb, you know. And this was her business, you know. Like, she did this. And so in her own house and she was telling people like, Hey, you shouldn't rent out for over a month and a day because then it's, they can, can be considered a certain type of tenant.

And then you have to prove that like, you know, that's the thing in the u.s which is big is everybody anybody could say anything right but like you have to wait for your court date for you to like uncover the evidence they can push it they can do all this thing so all that time that you're waiting it's money that you're losing it could be investors money it could be your money, it could be, you know, so those are the things that make me a little weary about it. But obviously, you know, there's ways to mitigate. So I remember when we had the Airbnb in North Carolina, and we had just redone the whole house and we were, everything was new. And the first person that booked on Airbnb, it's like almost like they threw a party there and we were like, oh my God, there goes all of our everything. Like what is going to happen? And we were so scared. Like I couldn't sleep that night and I was like, this is a bad idea. And like, I mean,

in a good way, we tried again to like mitigate as much as we could. Like it wasn't a super expensive house. So we're like, okay, well, how much could the damages be you know we have intermediary like they had airbnb and it turned out actually when the cleaners went they didn't have any issues they were like the place is spick and span it doesn't smell there's nothing there and we were just like are you sure like because we could see the cameras from the outside you can't put cameras on the inside but you could just see people coming in and out and I was like oh my goodness like but it's like these things that you just you never think of you know no I think as an entrepreneur you really have to like you you kind of prepare for the worst or you have to prepare for the worst and uh hopefully things kind of work out uh for you and i think things are going to go wrong

you know so the fact that you know the first night gave you all the stress and you kind of just had to go through it and the second time was a bit better but i imagine you spent that night looking on amazon for like noise detection things and thinking about how you can update your t's and c's to kind of avoid this so i think like i definitely would have been as confident to start this business if i didn't go through the labor law not the labor laws the laws of south africa to like get this other guy because in the end you know i got a warrant of arrest for him which is you know quite quite an extreme kind of way but that's the the lawyers were kind of going for and then i didn't invoke that but i i i'd been through the

process like i was so scared to go to courts and i was so scared to get lawyers and i was so scared in this whole process but now i've been through that i'm like if someone tries to squawk at me i'd be like come at me like i've got the lawyer i got the I've got the court, so I know what I'm going through. Have you done this before? Because if you have, that's not going to be a good thing for you. So I think business is just one of those things where you kind of have to go through the bad times to know what's ahead of you.

There's no way. Someone can tell you, yeah, you're going to have a squatter or you're going to go through this. But I think it's really nice that entrepreneurs are showing that side now because there used to be this like uh instagram glam kind of like yeah i'm only working 10 minutes a day on my business and i'm like cool i wonder how long that business is still alive if you're only working 10 minutes a day um so i think it's a really big part of entrepreneurship is to like grin and bear it get up face the things prepare and kind of go through through that and i imagine for your business must be quite tricky because there's different laws in every state

you know so like it's it's it's tricky you almost you know you've got to find a repeatable process but when you're expanding it's hard to really have repeatable processes yeah yeah yeah it is it's it's very state specific we have different strategies for different states when we're looking at it or evaluating and also the people are different in different states too like north carolina was like the easiest thing ever I mean, it wasn't the easiest, but the people made it easier. Like just dealing with the people, their personalities, it's slower. You can ask them. People are willing to share.

You know, in New York, it's very different. And now in Miami, it's even more different for us. And so it's each like region and state also have their own own kind of vibe and we were lucky enough to be able to do business or try and talk to people in different industries and states because it's very much like our own like boots on the ground market research i mean there's things you can read online but it's very different when you're actually there physically and that sense of community is different in different states yeah yeah i think you've got to have a good community or a good support system or just you've got to be a little bit plugged in you know you have to in the end of the day you cannot go alone like

there's there's no one who has made a successful business by just going alone and not listening to anybody you kind of have to build that community and i think that's such an important part of business and everything is to kind of uh expand your your your net or your horizons and kind of speak to people because they'll give you the the real the proper advice they're on the ground you know uh instagram is can teach you so much but it's not gonna like tell you the nitty-gritty conversations and even you know the blog posts that you're going to read so i'm a big proponent for being like sometimes it's really hard to build a community i think it's one of the hardest things to do is put yourself out there and be like i want to do this does this sound crazy or stupid

or uh silly and then getting feedback from someone and then someone be like oh i've done that you should do this and they'll probably like shave a day minimum or months if not years of your learning if you're able to have that community and have that feedback uh bounce back to you so i'm a huge proponent for kind of doing that i think that kind of brings us to one of the questions that we always ask people you know what is the best professional advice that you've gotten it's so hard um i think i think just the ability to get up, like to continue. Like you're going to go through to like I try and have a culture of feedback.

So my parents are always kind of telling me what I can do better. And it's quite tough. So the thing that I've taken away the most from my parents, maybe not something that was said to me, was just to continue. I know things are tough and you've been hurt or whatever it might be, but you kind of just have to continue. And a huge thing that my parents instilled in me is manners maketh a man. So again, if you have a community and you've kind of let people down

or you've broken promises or not lived up to what you kind of said then it's going to come back and kick you in the butt at some point or another so like i think the really important thing is in business is is persevering in i wouldn't say one direction but just like persevering in that direction and building your expertise your resilience and your stress and your experience and just everything in a direction and then treating everybody you can with as much matters and honor as you can because I work in marketing and I work in online marketing, which is SEO.

Word of mouth is the best channel for anything. People speak highly of you if you treat them nicely and treat them respectfully. So I think that sometimes the sad thing in business is not always kind of follow through, it's just to be honourable. But I think if you are honourable, people will remember. And if people kind of take that into the workforce

or take that into the agreements or just take that forward with perseverance, it will be set up for success at some point or another. It's going to all come back to you. So I think that's the biggest professional advice I've taken from kind of people around me, I guess. And I can totally resonate with what you're saying in terms of South African families have that thing.

We push quite hard, but it's so rewarding down the line. We have high standards and we have honourable communities. So I think that's really good advice as well. Your parents just want the best for you at the end of the day. And in the end, I think South Africans have good reputations for our work ethic and the way that we kind of go out there. So I think it is a very South African thing is to be like, you know, go out there and make think it is a very south african thing is to be like you know go out there

and make the most of it you know uh and we don't shy away from feedback you know someone said okay you didn't do such a good job and it's like okay i'll do a better job or i'll do it get it fixed or whatever it might be but we kind of have that you know thing where we we are we're quite honest with each other but we're still friendly in that kind of thing but i think south africans are really great uh work people and people are waking up to that it's so incredible to see all these european and american companies hiring south africans because of our work ethic and our education levels and all of these things so it's been really cool to kind of see south africans really utilize and appreciate it in

these you know other kind of countries and i think it's because of how we were brought up here. Yeah, no, that's true. And that's true. And then it's, it can sometimes be hard when you're in it, when you're growing up. So, but it's, it's worth it in the end. So for any, any young South African listening. Character building.

My parents are called a character building. I used to hate the word character building, but now I'm like in my 30s, I'm like, cool, thank you so much, character boarding, because it's like I wouldn't be here if you didn't, if you made it easy. But that's a great segue into our section of the week that's talking about our gems of the week and what makes you a good working professional, what fills your cup. And, yeah, you've obviously had a really rough time coming back from

after the storms and everything. But do you have something that you feel has been like a gem of the week i think a gem of the week probably just surround yourself with good people you know i have a fantastic girlfriend who's actually helping me with all these technical difficulties that we've had. She's a little bit sick right now, and we've had to deal with a washing machine and things broken, and she kind of handles the kind of calls that we have. And also the people that we have in the house are really fantastic. You know, they had to problem solve a lot of the problems that were going on while Cape Town was kind of imploding.

So my team of the week is just, you know, it's not undervalued people and the people around you because they have the ability to make everything so much easier and nicer. You just kind of treat them nicely, even if things are tough. Everything's kind of going through their own thing. But in the end of the day, people want to help people. Like people are not bad, maybe just going through stuff themselves. But, you but yeah my dream

of the week would be to to hope you think the best of people and it will come back to you and surround yourself with those people that's awesome thanks matt how about you sage yeah i think uh matt you said something that really resonated with me this week which was that you know the problems are always going to be there. They're kind of expected. So if you build them into the plan, then it doesn't seem so. I mean, when you're going through it, it's like, oh my goodness, how did I not think of this? But it was always going to be something, right? That you didn't think of or that could have happened or was just random. And I think sometimes as, you know, people who are always pushing the

boundaries, it can be a lot of pressure. So it's always good to kind of remember that. And the other one I will say is after talking so many of the people that we have on here, especially the entrepreneurs, you guys say the same things over and over. And it's, it's so crazy how it resonates across different industries, different, you know, types of companies, different geographies, as well, you know, which is just like, keep pushing, constantly trying things, excited to build, finding your community, XYZ. So it's always good to kind of hear those reminders because no matter what business you're in those are kind of core pillars that you kind of have to have to build upon so thank you for sharing that I would say those would be my two gems of the week

what about you Nicole yeah I guess mine ties those together a little bit and it's really about navigating the unexpected plan with grace and it's uh you know I where the lady I'm staying with and the dogs I'm looking after so she had to travel for work she's got an incredible job doing uh broadcasting for events around the world. And anyway, I had to go drop her off in Marseille, which is about two and a half hours drive from here. And just for context, the car is a UK car. So the same as in South Africa, the right hand drive. But in France, they drive on the right hand side of the road as well.

So it gets a little tricky, but I've gotten used to that. I've got over that fear of being here. as well so it gets a little tricky but I've gotten used to that I got over that fear of being here so as as we dropped her off and we have all five dogs in the car it's chaos you know because it's her babies they're saying goodbye and I realized my data package has run out these are the things that happens when you travel and you like buy month to month or week to week or whatever and I yeah so I just didn't have any google maps that I got so used to over the years to navigate me and I've never been to Marseille and by myself and I've never driven these roads that I was on so anyway somehow managed to navigate myself with

no google maps and just half of the the map that was trying to kind of connect and show me where I am. Got a little lost in Marseille city, took a few wrong turns. And about three hours later, we got back to our destination and dogs were all quiet in the car. And I was like, absolutely like drenched in sweat from stress stress but it was kind of cool to just you know wangle it old school again and i forgot how much we used to use maps um actual maps um so it was cool to navigate and and just to know that again doesn't matter what happens you will always be okay i was watching the petrol like kind of go down very close to zero. So that was not helping the problem. But anyway.

And it wasn't like, hey, navigate to closest petrol or gas station, you know. So it's probably a very stressful time. Yeah, yeah. But it's all good, all good. It's part of the experience. So, yeah. So that was my dream is just self-trust, I guess, and a lot of angels. So thank you to the universe for that. And so I guess that brings us to our final thoughts.

But before we do do that, where can people find you, Matt? How can they connect with you? I'm a little bit on Instagram. I haven't posted in a while, but I love to keep track of where people are in the world in case they're in the same place as I am. So I love Instagram for that and kind of seeing people travel. It's one of my passions.

But I think Travel Attract attractions is my main business. Or actually, OG Ventures is my main business where we kind of invest in small businesses and entrepreneurs who are kind of figuring out and need kind of helping hands, especially in the marketing department. So OG Ventures, travel attractions, and then, of course, Cape Co-Living. So if any of your listeners are around Cape Town and are staying here for more than a week we would love to host them

so we're happy to get them 10% off if they just mention Friday Fields in the form when they're applying and they'll have a little chat with me and hopefully get to see the house so those are where you can find me around the internet and the real world.

Thank you. And I hope I get to stay there next time I'm in Cape Town. We'll have to make a plan. I hope so too. You have to come visit. You know,

I think that you'll love it. It'd be nice to speak to you more about business and life and your travels and just everything. So I really hope that the next time

you are in uh cape town that you can come stay or work here or any capacity it'll be really awesome amazing thanks man thank you for joining us today it was really really cool chatting to you and always fun to hear another south african accent far away i try and move away from it but i'm glad i still have a tinge of it Sergio, it was such a pleasure to hear about your businesses. Really, really, really cool. Hopefully I get into flipping at some point. That is one of the big goals.

So it's really cool to hear more about that. I'm looking forward to listening to more of the podcasts. I need to get in there. I'm not a big listener of podcasts in general because I'm always in meetings and I struggle to find that space. But I really enjoy your guys' topics. So I'm excited to kind of listen to it little bit more thank you so much and thank you for having you know for sharing your story and your businesses and yeah I'm sure we're going to do some cool stuff together at some

point thanks it's been a pleasure being here and so for our audience out there if you're listening are you feeling those black fr Friday feels where the credit card is maxing out and your energy is burning up and you're just exhausted? Well, we want to know how are you tackling these moments? What does enduring through exhaustion mean to you? And how are you navigating being human in the world? And we'd love to hear from you. Remember to tag us using hashtag these Friday feels to share your stories and listen to

us and all your favorite platforms and to work with us have us broadcast friday feels from your space and organize your next workation reach out to us at hello at friday-feels.co next week it's the month of may no we are not april food you. We are already in the month that marks the twists and turns of the seasonal tides. And so we're dipping our toes into a new theme and we're calling it the tipping point. That moment you knew things had to change and you were going to be part of making it happen. So we're going to explore the journey leading up to and after major shifts in some of the very cool working human lives. Stay tuned.

But until next time, that is our mix. We had so much fun mingling with you and we wish you safe travels. Into your bed, into the night and into this awesome weekend. See you next week and keep it real.