Julian: Hey everyone. Thank you so much for joining the Behind Company Lines podcast. Today we have David Stange founder of Beachy, a B2B hospitality technology company serving the nation's top resource and beachside vendors. David, I'm so excited to chat with you in particular because as we were talking before the show any technology that's kind of integrated or building or working within a space that's been around forever.

I mean, hospitality has been. Did don't have time. I assume once we started building huts and maybe there were some Airbnbs in, in in a previous life. But it's so exciting to see how technology is kind of enabling companies to do, you know, old processes better. And I'm so excited to chat with you about how you've been able to integrate that and also what it's like selling into companies.

But before we get into all of that good stuff, Talk about the stressful vacation that led to Beachy, that I think you denoted it, that there was one experience that really kind of, was the antithesis for, you know, building Beachy and kind of, going on this journey?

David: Yeah so first, Julian, thank you so much for having me. Really excited to be here. And you know, it's amazing. I do think some of the best ideas come out of personal experiences you know, some of the best businesses. And it wasn't that long ago. You know, my daughter's born, I go down to the beach, my first vacation as a dad. I'm super excited. Like I'm in my hometown, you know, back visiting my parents on a beach that I grew up on.

And I just had a really bad experience. I mean, stating in line waiting there would seem like forever. , you know, to rent chairs from the kid that used to be me. And I just had this epiphany moment, like sitting there holding my little baby girl and it was like, why can't I book my beach chairs?

Same way I booked Maryland seat. Same time I made my hotel reservation and I looked around, talked to a lot of different people, and. and the product just didn't exist. There was never, there was, there had not been a point of sale system built specifically for the unique needs, like of running a beach in pool operation.

And so that was what we set out to build that product's on. I don't know, I mean over a thousand destinations now across the United States and Caribbean. And and we've just had a ton of fun, you know, just, I mean, I mean, it's Beachy for crying out loud, you know, so , you know, I get to travel and our team gets to travel to great, you know, hotel destinations across the country and you know, that was the first product we built.

It certainly expanded from there. You know, we're doing a lot of different things and a lot of different verticals within hospitality, but, you know, really just started with just having a really bad vacation experience, and I just, yeah I think that first day of vacation, whether it's your first time or it's, you know, the last time you have a vacation, but like, it is just, you know, you get there and you're all, you mean you're so excited and you just want it to be perfect and when it's not, you just, You know, it's like, ah, like I, I've been anticipating this vacation for, yeah, for some people maybe it's five years, you know, because, you know, with Covid and everything else, they haven't been on vacation it seems like forever and they just want it to be perfect and when it's not.

That's just a, you know, it just creates a really bad taste in people's mouths. And that was, yeah. You know, hopefully we're part of making that experience better.  

Julian: Yeah. Talk about you, you said you were a beach boy at one point, kind of selling and and distributing the chairs. And what was that experience like and did you grab from that experience to kind of build some of the features and mechanics around how people would actually use from the point of sale perspective versus the customer perspective?

David: Yeah, I mean, When I was 14 years old I grew up in the Florida panhandle and my dad kind of came to me earlier that year and said, Hey, David, like you're not gonna be allowed to lay on the couch all summer, like, . You gotta go find a job, man. You know, and and so yeah, where else would I want to work, right?

Other than go get a job on the beach. So I did that every summer until I graduated from college, so 14 until I was 22. and I think, I mean certainly it had a huge impact on how we built the product and like what the product looked and felt. Based off the experiences that I had. And like, Tanner, who was Beach's first employee, he's also, he was a beach boy, you know, so like, he had a little bit different experience than I had.

So it was coming together to build this perf what, you know, what we consider to be, you know, like the perfect product for beach attendance to use. And that's, I mean, honestly one of the biggest compliments that we get, and we hear it quite often, is obviously this was built by somebody who worked on the beach.

Cuz they, cuz like whoever designed this or built it, Gets it. Yeah, and we hear that pretty consistently, you know, with our customers. And obviously that's a huge compliment to Yeah. To, to us and a big testament to the team that's behind, behind us. You know, actually building it. I mean, that's been, yeah.

Cause that's the hardest thing right? Is I don't write code. Yeah. So, so, you know, it's, you have this visionary of this idea and then you gotta go find someone who can actually, you know, put the, put pen to paper and make it happen.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. No, I and there's so many questions around the building process that I'm curious about, especially, you know, as a non-technical founder and, you know, working through that communication.

But before we go into that, what in particular was missing with other, whether they had a system or didn't and what was the challenges in terms of incorporating the information? I'm, I'm sure there's some kind of logging of how many, you know, pieces of inventory you have and where those inventories are and there's a.

Intricate kind of, almost like choreography to getting what you want when you want it, right? And then returning it and continuing the cycle. What were the challenges that Yeah. Companies and products had at that time?

David: I mean, the, what most companies use to run their beach and pool operations is pencil and a clipboard. And then they, you were using the most sophisticated, like when we started this, you know, seven years ago. I'm not even exaggerating, Julian. We'd go down to a beach that we were trying to like get, you know, like with the whatever. Yeah. With the hotel. And I've seen you probably like you're young enough, you may not even know what this is like.

They would literally have like a carbon piece of paper and like the credit card thing and like, oh yeah. Like back and forth, you know, and then, and they would take those slips of paper at the end of the day and turn them into the front desk. And the front desk would run the credit card. I mean, this isn't 25 years ago.

This is seven years ago. Right. I mean, this is and it really, I mean, yeah, it like, so, so it was, yeah, the beach ecosystem was really ripe for disruption. But if you think about it, it's really hard, right? I mean like it's sand and water. Like what are the two, like what are two things you don't want your technology to touch, right?

I mean, like go through your iPhone, you know, five years ago now you can probably get away with it. The technology, you know, apple technology's so good, but. I mean, go throw your iPhone four into the water, you know, it doesn't work anymore. Throwing in the sand, it doesn't work anymore. You know, so, so it was there's certainly just a lot of challenges around, I mean, not only the software side of it and building something that would replace, you know, clipboard and paper, which, you know, sounds simple.

And but it's not, yeah, I mean, like, you know, cause it's been used like the same thing had been used for so long and most of our end users. You know, typically on some sort of substance, especially back in the early days you know, . So we're dealing with guys that are, you know, maybe not, you know, have full capacity coladas,  

Julian: couple pina coladas deep.

David: Sure, for sure. Sure. . Yeah, that would, pina coladas would be, that would've been easier compared, you know, to, to what we dealt with. But but yeah, so just taking something that's been run on clipboard and paper for a long time, digitizing it in an environment that's really hard to. Put technology onto, so there were certainly, I mean, especially early days, I mean, just a lot of operational challenges.

Yeah. You know, cause we were coming in you know, really disrupting an industry that most people, it's funny, you know, like in the early days, like even trying to go raise money, people would be like, oh, this is cute. But it's not a business. You know, like it's beach chairs, you know, and we're like, and then having to explain to them, This is a bigger industry than what you think it is.

Yeah. You know, and then it took people realizing, well, once we established that, then we can go into these other verticals, which, you know, that's where the business is now. Right? Yeah. And so, and so it really took, you know, finding investors that had a vision or, you know, that shared my vision, right?

Sure. And getting told no over and over again. Yeah. And. Being committed to, like, I, like, I'm gonna make this happen. Like, I believe in it and like, I don't give a shit if you do, but like, I'm gonna go make this happen. Cause I know how big the opportunity can be. So, you know, and listen, I mean, it's been my, I was talking to my dad about this the other day, you know, like, of just the journey, you know, like it's not you're not going straight up the mountain, right.

You're, I mean, you're going, you're zig zza and switchbacks back and forth. It gets to the top and so yeah, I mean, it's been a fun journey and we've, you know, we've, I think we've created a really cool product.  

Julian: Yeah. It's, I, I've equated sometimes like when they tell you how to walk through a blizzard and you go and diagonal. To try to move forward, right? It's like you don't always see where you're gonna go or where you're gonna end up, but this path is gonna lead to something eventually. You know, when you talked about, you know, kind of implementing the technology, especially in an environment that's difficult, what goes into like the onboarding process?

I'm assuming through the sales cycle you have to talk to Maybe I don't know if it's bottom up and or top down. But once you. Establish the technology or the relationship. How do you onboard and integrate? I'm assuming that there's gonna have to be some operational changes. How hands-on did you have to be or do you have to be when you're implementing Beachy?

David: So, over Christmas break we had some folks in town. And we did a beach bonfire and we did it on the first beach that cool Beachy ever operated on. Right? So it's awesome. There were like 25 of us out there and we're just telling stories about Beachy and no one except for me knew that it was the first beach that we ever transacted on.

Super cool. Yeah. So I, I kept that from everybody until we got there and I was like, Hey, I wanna tell you guys a story about this beach. And so we had gotten some. But the other half of the funding was contingent on having an MVP that was running real transactions. Yeah. Right. So no fake data.

Like we had to have a customer that was transacting and the beaches open on March 1st in the Florida panhandle. Right. They put out chairs march through October. . And I remember going down the beach, March 1st, we got our mvp, we were ready to go. We got our first customer, like we are about to make some money.

And we sat there for four days waiting to run a transaction. So yeah, it's come a long way since then. Yeah, you know, we have a, like now we have a very formal implementation process. You know, we have an implement, we have implementation teams and customer support teams and customer success.

But but you know, like all that's evolved but also like our customer base has evolved too. Our very like, and I think that we're lucky in, in this cuz hospitality is extremely slow to adopt , new technology, right? So they're like Oracle or the, you know, like, I mean the agility of the world.

I mean like these big like legacy companies that have been around a long time and like have the trust of the big. You know, they can roll out technology, but when it comes to, you know, an up and coming company like Beachy has been, you know, like they, they're kind of looking at us like, who are you?

Like, we're not, they won't even look at us. And so our very first customers were outsourced third party beach vending companies that had. Contracts don't work for the hotels, right. So, so we were lucky in that like our very first customers were not the brands or even management companies. They were the smaller, you know, a lot of them mom and pop businesses that maybe have two or three different locations where they're running beach chairs.

And so like that generated us a great base of business. So, so we were able to like kind of buy our time to be vetted by, you know, the big brands before, like to get into those, to get those deals done. Because if we wouldn't, if we would've gone straight to the brands or straight to the management companies, we would've run outta money.

Like we didn't have enough funding to wait five years. to get a contract with a flag hotel. Right. Or with one of the flags. And so like, you know, like our sales cycles evolved, our implementation schedules. I mean, like everything has evolved. Yeah. And you know, We kind of kid about, like, we're not playing youth soccer anymore.

Yeah. You know, if you go like, watch a little kid's soccer game, like everyone runs to the ball, you know, and like everyone's trying to get to the ball and it's like, we can't play that way anymore. Right. Like, yeah. Like, we need to, you know, we need to graduate to, to, you know, playing, to playing soccer the way that it was meant to be played. So, yeah.  

Julian: Yeah. It, it's so fascinating. And I feel like a lot of companies take that approach where it's they work with who exactly is their use case, even if it's adjacent to maybe the logos who you want to . But I feel like that process kind of. Earns you a lot of of feedback that then kind of creates a really honed in product and prepares you then to go upmarket.

And what was that upmarket experience like? Did you did you have a plan or an implementation or once you felt the product was at a certain point, then did you kind of go and shop it around or were, was there interest already in the product to implement?  

David: Yeah. So I mean, there was some interest like we signed our first publicly traded company in 2019.

That was a big deal for us. I mean, to break into that, you know, which, which created a whole nother, you know, like our customers were like all like, Mom and pop, you know, small businesses. And then we signed our first public traded company and they're looking at our accounting requirements and they're like, you know, oh my gosh, you know, this isn't gonna work for us because, you know, we're a public traded company.

We have to have it all this way. So like, we literally had to go like rebuild all of our like accounting, you know, piece of our business to suit a publicly traded company. But we didn't know any better, you know, so it was. And, but so like I certainly, I mean there, there was interest, right? But the interest would, you know, would come and go from the brands or from the management companies.

Really what changed everything. Four Beachy was, so like when you rent chairs or like you're at a pool or whatever like outside of your hotel room. And you get into a beach chair, pool chair, Beachy knows your name. Like cuz we keep track of who's sitting in the chairs. We get payment information.

So that way. Like for, to reserve the chair. But most importantly, like we patented all of our mapping technology so we know where every chair is on every beach and every pool at any given time. And with that, we realized how valuable those three pieces of information were, and so we started integrating into legacy food and beverage software.

Yeah, whether it was the Microsystems or the InfoGenesis systems of the world, and really taking an existing legacy system and modernizing it. And so not, like not going into a hotel and. You have to, we're gonna take out Oracle, or we're gonna take out and we're gonna implement a whole new point of sales system.

And it's like we're just gonna live on top of the existing systems, modernize them, bring them into the 21st century, running off 5g, you know, and really, You know, giving a better guest experience at the beach and pool, not only for being able to reserve the things that you wanna do in advance of your stay, you know, now it's a food and beverage platform where, you know, cocktail server comes up to you, Hey Julian, how you doing?

Can I get you something to drink? Right. So now I was at Eden Rock in Miami Beach. It's one of my favorite hotels in Miami. It's a great customer of ours. I was there. Like two or three weeks ago now, I guess it was before Christmas. So, but my cocktail server showed up to my chair with exactly what I was going to order because they knew that I was going to order that.

And like, when you want to talk about a v I P experience, right? Like I, they don't know who I am. I mean, you know, but. They show up. I'm trying to remember the guy's name. My cocktail server was a guy, I'm trying to remember his name, but he shows up and he is like, Hey David, I brought you your margarita patron with Grand Martier.

And I was like, hell yes. Like it's working. You know, like, this is amazing. Like how man, that to like, that was, I mean, it was the best experience I've ever had. Like, I mean, to juxtapose that to what I was seven years ago, staying in line for 45 minutes. You know, to get a chair, right? Yeah. To now, not only was my chair pre reserved and waiting for me, my cocktail server shows up with them, 30 seconds of me sitting down with the drink that I was going to order, and I'm just like, blown away.

That's not a five-star guest experience. That's a 10 star guest experience for me. Yeah. And by the. That dude prob, I mean, he made more money that day than he probably has made any other day in his life because I'm like, yeah, just keep bringing 'em and like, yeah, I'm, yeah, at the end of the day I signed the iPad.

I'm like, you know, custom tip, you know, like, here you go. You know? So. Yeah. Yeah. And like, cuz to me, like that's what this whole thing is about, right? It's empowering hotel. With technology to provide a better guest experience. And so you've got, you know, happier guests. Make happier employees. Yeah.

Happier employees make happier management. Happier management makes happier ownership. Right. And so, yeah, like, and it, but it starts with, you know, empowering the staff and like, I think that's one big like mistake I made early on. Growing up in the hotel business. My dad's been a hotelier for 50. Like I was like, I just need to make like the general managers happy and like if we can like, give them software that they like, they'll make everyone else use it.

And that was totally wrong. Like, that was, yeah. So that was definitely the wrong approach. You gotta make the person who's using the software love it. And so if cocktail servers love it, then it makes everybody else happy. Yeah. And so it. The end user of, you know, the $15 an hour cocktail server, you know, telling me if you take this iPad outta my hands, like I quit.

You know, if you take Beachy away yeah, I'll go to another hotel that has it. Like that's empowering staff with technology and just driving home that guest experience.  

Julian: That's an incredible, I was just in Hawaii recently and not only getting a chair or getting a a cocktail on the beach, like it is a little bit of a strenuous process and you know, I totally agree with the experience.

It's like, if the experience is 10 out 10 or 11 out of 10, then, you know, everything kind of trickles down. I'm having a great time. I'm happy to be more generous. I'm obviously on vacation, so I'm. Kind of, aware of the cost that I want to spend because of the hard earned hard work money. And it's so interesting that you went the other way in the approach and in that transition where you were affecting the end user, which was the cocktail server.

Because I can see by masses if they are kind of, you know, promoting or I guess giving good feedback around the technology. it then kind of trickles down to everyone else or trickles up to everyone else and becomes a much more successful experience. And I'm curious though, kind of looking back on, on building the initial product as a non-technical founder and then even now as you've kind of, you know, I'm assuming, gained more knowledge and have a better communication, what were you not so good at in the initial, you know, MVP building process and what are you better at now that kind of.

You know, add more features and get into more verticals with a more honed in technology.  

David: Yeah. So patience is probably the biggest thing I've learned with technology. Right. So Josh, who's the founding CTO of Beachy him and I had some you know, like knock down, drag out arguments, like, I mean, and it was this like brotherly love kind of situation.

Like long story, but Josh and I didn't know each other when we started the business. We met at a Nashville hot chicken restaurant called Hattie Bees. When I was living in Nashville, , we talked like two hours and then boom, we started a business together. Yeah. And so it's not like we had like years of history, right?

I mean, like, we just came together, had a mutual interest to build something great. And like he, he was so, Josh passed away. And Josh was genius. Like, he was one of the smartest people I've ever met, and I think that Genius made him one of the most frustrating people I've ever met. . And so, so it's learning patience, right, in that I'm not motivated by the same thing that you're motivated by or that he's motivated by.

And I've found that technical people are not motivated. Like I am not, like, not to say it that way. Like they're not motivated by the same things. Yeah. So, . And so it was just learning patience. And in that my, you know, I cannot tell a customer that something's gonna be done in a week.

I, you know, you just can't. Right? You just, you know, you're, we're gonna put in our roadmap we'll keep you up, update with progress. When it's done. You know, and yeah, now we're much better about gauging, you know, when things are going to be, when things are gonna get done. But early days, I mean, it was, it.

You know, learning patience and then not chasing the car. You know, like we would, we'd have a big customer prospect come and they're like, oh man, that would be great. We'd buy that if it did this. Yeah. Oh, let's go build that. You know? And it's like, and then like we went away from all these other priorities that were.

Maybe more important or just as important, but we were trying to get this one customer, you know, and so I think that it's, you know, sticking to a roadmap yeah. You know, and and having patience. I mean, like, it just, the things are not gonna get done. on the things are gonna take twice as long and cost four times as much. Yeah. As you, yeah. As you think they are. Yeah.  

Julian: It's, yeah. I guess, you know, for early founders out there and kind of with your experience, what advice would you give them if they're, you know, building a product or going into something that they feel strongly about, but. And maybe there's some pushback, there's some hurdles in terms of building and maybe they're you know, they don't have the technology background, but they're looking to partner, you know, what kind of, what would help them kick off their product that he, that in hindsight, maybe would've helped you.

David: I mean, you just have to be relentless. Yes. And you've gotta want it more than anything you've ever wanted in your life. I. Like, I mean there, there were times that, I mean, my wife would look at me and go, Like, like, you know, like am like, am I more important to you than bey ? You know, like, cuz she was, I mean, like, it was, I mean, it was that, I was, yeah, it's hard.

I am still that passionate, right? I am like that, like, I don't, like, I don't give a fuck what you put in my way. Like, we're going to knock it down and we are gonna get over it and we are going, you know, like, and we're gonna win. And and so I mean, like, I just think that's like, you've gotta have that mentality, right?

Of just, yeah. Like, it doesn't, like nothing else matters, right? And if, you know, and I tell people this all the time, like if you've got an, if you work for corporate America and like, but you've got this idea, this dream that you want to pursue, like what are you waiting on? Like, you can always go get a job working for corporate America.

Like those jobs will always be, Yeah, you've got one, maybe two opportunities to go build something great and that ride, it's a rush. That, that I can ne like, if you haven't done it, you just, you'll never get it. Like, yeah. The rush of building something is like, it's just a high that, I don't know, like I, I'm still chasing, right?

Like, I don't wanna ever let, I don't ever want to come down. And like, once you catch it, like, like catch that bug, like you just can't think about doing anything else. Yeah. And you know, you'll wake up thinking about your idea. You go to sleep thinking about your idea, you wake up and then the night you're writing notes about your idea.

You know, like, and I still do that, you know, seven years later. And like, I'm as passionate today as I was the day we started the company. And so anyway, I mean, like, that's a long way to say like, you, like you just gotta go get it. And yeah, you just can't let anything stand in your way. I mean, you know, I'm not telling you to go mortgage your house or Max all your credit cards, right?

I did both of those things. You know, you know, I mean, you know, I have, you know, a significant amount of my net worth. I mean, invested in Beachy. I've invested in every round of funding that we've ever done, and I'll continue to invest in every round of funding that we do. You know, as long as I can, because I want to own as much of this as I can, you know? Yeah. You know, for the inevitable outcome.

Julian: Yeah. At this point in Beachy's kind of you know, time or timeline, it sounds like you've gone to different vendors. Your partnerships have expanded and I'm sure the responsibilities for you as a founder have changed. I guess what in particular is difficult about your job today?

David: . Yeah. I mean, think it goes back to like, still for me is patience, right? Yeah. In, in, in managing a team that, you know, like if I had if I was, if we had a team of a hundred salespeople and we were just a hundred salespeople, like I know how to manage that team really well. But you know, when you have customer support and customer success, you have, you know, product management, you have sales, you have, you know, qa, you have, you know, then you have all your engineering team and you have, you know, , like different people are just, they're are managed need to be managed differently or need to be, not treated differently isn't the right word, but like the expectations of different people are you know, it's just different.

And so like you can have a conversation with one group of people that nec that you can have that same conversation, but you're gonna have it differently with another group of people. And I think it's reading the room, I think it's leading with compassion. , know, giving a shit about the people you work with.

You know, one of the things that we do at Vee, when you start. We'll fly you into town for your first couple days of work. And I ask, and I want you to bring your wife and kids if you're married and have a family or bring your boyfriend or whatever, right? Your girlfriend and your significant other.

And I wanna spend time getting to know them too. Like I have a list of my desk of every single person that works for Beachy, the name of their spouse, the name of the kids, the name of their pets, right? Like when we're making a big decision, I'll pull that out. I'll look at it. I think about it all the time cuz this isn't, this company isn't about me, this company isn't about the founders.

This company isn't. You know, the people that just work for Beachy it's the company's about the people that we work with, but it's also about their kids and their spouses and their livelihoods and like their future. And so, you know, I think that, you know, being a founder of a company, you know, comes with a lot of responsibilities and, you know, trying to motivate and lead a team is, you know, super difficult.

I think especially now more than ever, that everyone's. Yeah. Everyone, you know, all these companies have gone remote, right? It's like, how do you, right. How do you motivate a team? We're on, we're now in, we're in like five countries, you know? Yeah. You know, with employees now. So it's like, how do you motivate people you've never met?

Right. That's, and in person, you know? So that's really hard. Yeah.  

Julian: And what are some of the ways you do it?  

David: And so, . So, so I have this idea it's not my idea but it was an idea that it was given to me called Best First Day. . And so like, I want your be your first day at Beatie to be the best day you've ever had, any job you'll ever have.

And so we do little things around, like, especially if it's someone in another country like an engineer that we've hired, like we have a team in Poland or south America, Canada. . Like we can't necessarily fly them in right to spend a few days with us here in Florida. So, but we'll send them like a big care package with swag and then like a gift card to a restaurant, like, and like say, hey, like, dinner's on us tonight.

You know, like, I mean, just, there's a lot of different things that we've tried. People love swag. I think I've got like nine things on say beach right now. So, it's like my whole wardrobe. But you know, we're always trying to think of new and creative ways to, to engage with our team that's remote to keep them motivated, keep them going.

Cuz especially on the engineering side. I mean, engineering is a grind. Like there I could, I, like, even if I had the skillset, I don't have the mental capacity to sit on my computer and do it. Yeah. And so like realizing like how special and like uniquely talented the people on the team are and making sure that like, they get called out when they do something fantastic or, yeah.

Or you know, you know, like we had an all hands meeting today and we were talking about, you know, we're celebrating. So summer engineers, six years, six years of Beachy. Wow. You're like, are you kidding me? You know, like six years. Yeah. Like, and two of them, two of them, it was the first job they've ever had.

You know, so, and software, we were their first software jobs, you know, it's like to keep those guys for six years. I mean, like, I think it, you know, like that's an amazing feat. Yeah. To keep guys motivated and going and wanting to be here for six years especially. Just in the, you know, like the jobs and everything that, that are, that have been out there.

Julian: Yeah, I love the best first day and I feel like it just takes, you know, an increment of attention to detail and compassion. I love the leading with compassion piece. I think a lot of founders have echoed on this podcast that, you know, a lot of the challenges of being a founder is it's keeping everybody motivated, but it's really about being centric to, you know, the employees and the experience and also the goal.

And it's hard to take yourself away from, you know, what beat you or the product is doing. You know, we attach ourselves to, to it. But once you make that shift, it seems like things can kind of, you know, domino effect in a positive way.  

David: Yeah, I mean, I got, I mean, I can't tell you, I mean, early days, you know, being up at two, three in the morning, like troubleshooting issues and stuff, and then me being like, why is no one else up right now doing this with me?

Why am I the one, you know, then it's like, Because people work different hours, right? Yeah. Like, I like staying up all night. Like they don't, you know what I mean? It's just like, yeah. You know, in your head it's really easy, like to get this mentality of, you know, like, of like, you know, just, I'm gonna, you know, like I'll stay up all night, I'll work 24 hours a day and like, yeah.

And like, I, you know, I hate this whole idea of like hustle culture and like, you know, that I work harder than you cuz I work 22 hours a day. It's like, you know, like, you know, I don't, you know, I don't really buy into any of that. It's just. You know, like, everyone has their jobs due, let's go get our, let's go get it done.

But I want to film as a team. Like when we talk about wins with our sales team, you know, like we don't call out individual people. It's like, Hey, the sales team's been working their ass off. Like we closed, you know, the sales team closed four deals in the last three weeks. You know, and this is what that means for the business.

It's, you know, it's just like, cuz it's a team effort, right? Yeah. I No, in, we don't have any individual contributors on our team. I mean, if you can't work as a team, Get credit as a team and give credit as a team, then like, you know, this isn't the right place for you. Yeah. And I just like to think that like, you know, leading with compassion, like work group people that like give a shit about each other.

Yeah. Like we genuinely like being together when we're together. Like we're having a offsite meeting next week and I've. I've gotten a couple messages from a few of the people that are gonna be there like, Hey Dave, like, dude so excited to hang out next week. Like, what bar are we going to on Wednesday night?

You know, and it's just like, you know, like, and like that to me is really exciting. Like, I'm real, like I'm excited to see these, see some of these folks, you know, that I haven't seen in three months. You know, that was the last time we all got together. We do it every quarter. And like, so that to me is like important.

You know? You gotta like the people you work with.  

Julian: Yeah. You know, in regards to Beachy, what are some of the biggest challenges that you face?

David: Oh man. I mean, talent we're recruiting and hiring. That's incredibly difficult. Yeah. Even, you know, being fully remote we just hired a, we just hired like a new engineer last week. I mean, but that process took a few months to get the right person. Yeah, we've got like three, three or four more open.

Right now that we're hiring for. And just, you know, being selective about who we bring into the team and making sure that we get the right person. So that's, I mean, hiring is, I think, will remain a significant challenge for us moving forward. And then you know, I mean, integrations for us are always hard, right?

I mean, integrating into, I mean, You know, we're dealing with point of sale systems, you know, that are still in use in the hospitality system that I think are built on Windows 95, or I think some of them have, like, they still have like the green and black screens from, you know, like, like, you know, they're not like, it's just like days.

Okay. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. Like it's, you know, like trying to integrate in into these old systems. I mean, it's certainly a challenge. You know, and I think that, I mean, listen, I mean, the hosp hospitality tough, right? I mean, For those on the podcast that don't like, know a whole lot about it. I mean, like you've got, you know, the owners of the hotels and you've got the management group and that management maybe Marriott or Hilton or you know, could be one of a thousand management companies.

But then you've got like the onsite staff and there's just like all these different departments and so when we go in and close a big deal, there could be eight different departments involved in one deal. And like that makes things, you know, just, it's a complicated sales cycle and navigating all of that.

And I think that we've done an incredibly good. You know, especially in the last 24 months of, you know, of exceptional growth. But that process is always still, it's just a little sticky, you know, like, especially when like there's a hotel that, that really wants our product, but it's owned by Marriott.

Managed by Davidson. And then this other piece is managed by Hilton, you know, and it's just like, I don't know, there's like, we have to get, we have to get approval from three different companies, from Marriott, from Davidson and from Hilton before we can take our product onto the location. Right. And you're just like, why?

Like, this isn't, this shouldn't be this hard. Yeah. This shouldn't be this hard. So, yeah. So yeah, those, that's, those are the biggest challenges this year. Yeah.  

Julian: If everything goes well, what's the long-term vision for Beachy?.  

David: I wanna do this forever. So, I don't know exactly what that means. I get, ask this question a lot.

If I wake up 25 years from now, I'm 37 years old. If I wake up, you know, and I'm 65 years old and I'm still doing this, I will have lived an amazing life. We are having so much fun. I wake up every day excited to go to. And as long as I'm doing that, I'm gonna be doing this. Yeah. And so as long, you know, and if not, then you know, I don't know what that means,

I mean, like, there's, there, I think there's a lot of opportunity for us out there. I mean, whether it's a PE exit or a, you know, even a strategic exit. I mean, I mean, who knows? Sure. Those are not things that I think about. Like I, I think about waking. You know, every morning going to work, keeping my head down, staying humble and just creating exceptional product that, that, you know, our end users are gonna fall in love with and, you know, happier, you know, you know, happy making happier guests.

Julian: Yeah. I guess I, maybe I don't know if this this question is valid for you, but if you weren't working on Beachy, what else would you be doing? ,  

David: I mean, I keep telling my wife that I just want buy like a catamaran. I follow all these family on YouTube that like have catamaran sail boats and just sail around the world.

I'm like, that sounds incredible. I would definitely wanna do that. I have a four, I have a four year old and eight year old. And so she's like, that's just not, you know, in the cards for us for at least another 15 years, but, . But yeah, I mean that's, you know, I mean, I'd be doing like, just something on anything around the water.

Like, I wanna be on the beach every day. I wanna be out fishing, you know, I want, like, I've got fishing poles behind me, you know, like I've, I mean, I've got a, you know, we have a boat where we spend a ton of time on the boat just out fishing. That's Anything around the water, that's what I'd be doing.

Julian: Yeah. I would like to ask this next question, not only for my audience, but also for selfish research purposes but whether it was early in your career or now, what people or books have influenced you the most?  

David: Oh man. So, . I mean, there's, so there's a few. And so like in Nashville, I had an hour commute to work each way every day.

Yeah. So I would read books, you know, like, or listen to podcasts or read books on my car. Or not read them, but you know, listen to In my car. Yeah. And I would do it on like two times speed, so I could get through a book in like a couple days . And so if there's a book, I probably haven't read it, but I'd probably listen to it.

And so I would say like, my favorite chapter of any book I've ever read was is in, it is chapter two in Extreme Ownership, where already talks about this no bad team. So it's just bad leaders. It's an incredibly like powerful story that, that he tells. I don't know if you've read the book extreme Ownership's a great book and Chucko will. Navy Seal talks about there's no bad teams, just bad leaders. So you can read the chapter or read the book. It's really good. And then a book I've read more than any other book is called Scaling Up. It's like the Rockefeller Principles to Business.

Like I, you could read the first chapter of that every day for the rest of your life. I think I learned something. And then another book that we talked about a lot at Beachy is is I'm, I've got like three books in my head. Never Split The Difference. Yeah, when we're talking about, you know, working with our sales team I think that's a really good one.

And then, you know, Zero to one Peter Thiel's book. I mean, like, I think any and every startup founder needs to read that book at least once a. So yeah, I mean that's kind of a handful of books that have had an influence on me and certainly I think every startup founder should read those books.

Julian: That's amazing. And I definitely have read split the difference. And it's so fascinating that the way you ask questions could really get to common ground with whoever you're speaking with. And even if there's a level of friction or even if there's a level of you know, I guess cooperation that you both have in whatever circumstances scenario.

It's so fascinating the mechanics behind how he describes how to do it. I know we're coming to the close of the episode, so I won't take too much more of your time, but I always like to give my guests a chance to give us your plugs. What are your, what's your website? What's your LinkedIns, your Twitters your socials?

Where can we find and be a fan of Beachy and even where can we even use the product? And what are some of the partners that you are excited that you're working with? .  

David: Yeah, I mean, so, we're on, we're I, maybe not most, but we're on a lot of four and five star hotel properties.

You know, like I said, about a thousand hotel destinations, maybe even more than that now. You know, across the United States. And the Caribbean. Most, you know, good portion of those are in South Florida. I mean, Miami is probably our biggest market as you can imagine. But we're out in your neck of the woods too.

We're out in California and we're, you know, in Lake Tahoe and we're in, you know, different, I mean, I, you know, we're like, rosewoods are Rosewood properties are a really good property of ours out there. But but yeah, so, but finding me on social media is pretty easy. I'm super active on LinkedIn.

Just, you know, David Stange and then all of our social are just @beachy or @beachyapp and our website's, www.beachyapp.com.

Julian: Amazing. Well, David, I hope you enjoyed yourself and thank you so much for joining the Behind Company Lines podcast.  

David: Best podcast I've ever done. Julian, thank you so much.  

Julian: Appreciate it. Thank you, man.