good evening
welcome to timeshare talks and my name
is john raymond
i'm a timeshare broker resale broker and
i'm your host tonight along with wayne
robinson the author of
a great book called everything about
time shares
and everyone interested in time shares
should
be looking at this book and you'll find
the information about it down below in
the description
right next to the subscribe button which
we hope you'll punch
and uh along with us also as irene
parker a good friend of mine who's
helped a lot of people
sell their time shares our guests
tonight
are mike kennedy and james burbidge
the uh co-founders of koala which is an
innovative new timeshare rental platform
and we're excited to hear about
what their company has to offer
but first before i bring them on i'm
looking here
behind irene and i see
it looks like revolving art and uh
irene is that i see einstein in a pair
of tennis shoes
what's what's that all about oh yes that
my daughter is an artist and she is the
owner of daredevil tattoo in the lori
in chinatown and um
uh this was actually censored because
the high school
labels children so einstein was labeled
dyslexic
and there's little people behind this
tennis shoe
saying hey we got scholarship too and
um she goes by michelle miles with a y
and her and her husband actually met
james and mike at a restaurant that
mike's affiliated with
and when i was reviewing their website
i guess it's not intentional but the
name of their new koala mascot is miles
with a y
[Laughter]
yeah and we're going to be in brooklyn
in a few weeks so
look we're hoping to get together once
again so
thanks for asking wow
well bringing on mike and james uh
who would like to be the first to kind
of give us an overview of what your
company
does and how it can help people well i
don't want to follow einstein but i
guess we will
[Laughter]
um so yeah i'm mike kennedy the
co-founder and ceo of koala we
james and i started this platform or
this company i should say about three or
four years ago really
to solve a fundamental problem that we
uh saw in the timeshare industry
we really wanted to empower the
timeshare owner
uh in a way that we felt hadn't really
been done before
and we do we're doing that initially
through a rental platform
and then through some other various cool
features that we'll be launching
throughout the process of
the product so that's a quick overview
uh sam and james how would you like to
add to that
uh john thank you very much for the
introduction yeah it's it's been an
interesting journey for me i
you know i'm 20 plus years in technology
technologist and
um had my hands on on a number of
startups but
but meeting mike and you know his sort
of tenure or decade in
spent in the time share space i found it
very interesting that the pain point
that he was solving
um and so koala's been an amazing
journey for me to
really build a technology tool
essentially to
give control and flexibility back to
time share owners
um and really provide that freedom in
the way that they
they are able to utilize their product
or how it should be at least
so um you know mike and i've been on an
extraordinary journey today
and uh it's only just beginning and of
course we're we're fairly new you know
the platform's less than a year old uh
so we're obviously very excited to be
talking to you about it
well i have i met you guys uh
i think about a month or so ago and i
was totally blown away i think that you
guys have an amazing
amazing product to give people and as
you said it empowers time timeshare
owners well i'm a timeshare owner and i
have a few weeks and i've experimented
with your website and it's
really easy to add my resort
i to rent my week out and
i even made some mistakes your your
system
found those just found those mistakes
and you you have a lot of integrity
uh to find them because what if somebody
would have rented those
and they really weren't in place uh
you guys have done all this work for me
and you haven't charged me a penny
can you kind of explain your philosophy
yeah it was really important to me
that going into this uh we
had a option or a platform that had no
upfront fees
you know this is not a novel concept
where there's kind of a consignment
listing
it's obviously the status quo for airbnb
and verbo and the other
you know home rental sites but for
timeshare it seems to be really focused
on taking
pretty extensive fees up front and what
that signals to
most users is that their job is done
once you put that listing up they've
already gotten paid so
where's the incentive or any of those
platforms to move anything beyond that
to try to move the needle for us
it was a very simple uh process so we
know there's
really valuable inventory out there uh
inventory that's
valuable and not being utilized to its
fullest extent by owners
and they have fees to cover so let's
just create a platform that's super easy
for them
trustworthy and like you said has
integrity and if we do that right
there'll be plenty of money there the
company will make money the company is
flourishing at this point and seeing
growth so for us
it's not about finding ways to
take small fees up front for us it's
finding ways of building a
legitimate trustworthy brand that is
you know essentially it will be global
and will be
really there to facilitate uh help and
transparency for these timeshare owners
the way they deserve
yeah yes so irene i think you had a few
questions you wanted to ask
um mike and james yeah my
uh my husband and i are getting older
and we've been offloading our
uh timeshares but we are still able to
travel
so i actually for the first time in 30
years
rented a week from a friend of ours but
we have
we intend to rent from koala in the
future
and i know that red week and tug are
very well respected
but you hear these stories of um
renting and the person you show up and
they're not there
and i don't know if that even happens
with them
but um if you could just explain a
little bit
of the difference between koala
and tug and red week for people that
maybe like me that have never rented
before and are trying to compare your
service to theirs
yeah absolutely um so those two
platforms in particular are really more
listing sites
uh they again you know there's a small
nominal upfront fee
you know for what you're seeing in the
industry they're very nominal but at the
end of the day they're really more of a
listing site
and that requires for the most part
these timeshare owners to handle the
transactions do the rental
agreements ensure that what they're
putting up there is accurate
or even there at all and that's also up
to the traveler to ensure that the
person they're renting from
is legitimate uh and you know we've
done due diligence and done research
where there's literally travelers
going on facebook accounts of red week
listings trying to find this owner to
see if they have
photos staying i mean this system it's
just not the way the modern traveler
wants to make bookings especially
you know things that are two and three
and four thousand dollars that they're
sending this money in advance so
i mean look again those marketplaces are
very reputable they've been around for a
long time so this is not the marketplace
but
the issue is that the way that they do
business invites
or opens the door to all sorts of
potential problems
and or fraud and i say problems because
a lot of the issues that occur that
we're finding by verifying all the
listings
they're not fraud they're just mistakes
bad check wrong check-in dates wrong
resorts wrong unit types everything you
could possibly imagine we catch it on a
daily basis
as john just told you and you know it's
what you know it's one thing
to be quote defrauded because the
listing doesn't exist but
if it's the wrong check-in date or the
wrong unit type and you have a family of
five and it was accidentally a studio
that's still a problem you still really
qualification so you know for all of
those reasons
we recognize the one thing in timeshare
is that unlike airbnb and verbo we
actually have the ability to do a
checkpoint and you know ensure that what
they're checking into is accurate so why
wouldn't we do that
like of course we're going to do that so
we really want to kind of create this
security
we talked about security before which is
not just from a financial transactional
perspective but also from
the type of environment and community
that we're stabilizing and creating for
both
owners and travelers they know that what
they book they book on koala they're
going to check into
or we're giving their money back that's
it like there is no room for fraud
and we interviewed jessica burke last
week who's with um
she just concentrates in virginia beach
rentals and i asked her the same
question
um is what i rent from you do
is it comparable to what someone would
pay
in maintenance fees for that year or
more or less
is that based on the desirability of the
property
uh that's a great question and a lot of
people want so we actually
go a different route than telling people
to price off their maintenance fees
because that could be
erroneous in terms of what the market
value is we really tell people to do
some research in the market figure out
what your weeks are worth
if you could find the exact units you
know sometimes resorts rent
those units themselves you know make
sure you're below that price because
people rent from owners because it's
less money that's just
the nature of it and if you can't find
that exactly you're gonna try to find
something comparable
you can use your maintenance fees as a
barometer but that shouldn't be
the only thing you price off of there
are some off-season units that i know
in the in the the the hilton gravitation
club that i sold with that
you know there are large units and off
seasons and in many cases the
maintenance fees could be more than what
the the rental unit would actually earn
uh so i would caution people to you know
do some due diligence with that but
a lot of people do do it but it's based
more on what the market share of what
comparable units are renting it should
be so our owners set their price right
so we try to give them the tools that
they need
to make educated choices when they're
listed just like an airbnb
owner can go on put a house or a room up
and have no idea what it's worth
completely overcharged or completely
under charge
but at the end of the day it's theirs we
have a team that goes through and does a
lot of quality checks that if we find
something that's really well priced
we'll
put some little extra marketing behind
it and found something that's really
overpriced we'll contact that owner and
say maybe you want to do some research
on this
um you know we're still a relatively
small team so we can't get to everything
but we do our best to ensure that
they're optimized
and my last question is i when i was
going through your website i saw
vacation
subscribers for 9.99 a month
or 99 a year and um i was interested in
what that was about
um that sounds like you know i like
being a part of things so can you
explain a little bit more
if that's an option right now for our
family
the answer is we wanted to see if people
like to be part of things
[Laughter]
we're not taking any money yet all we're
taking is early sign ups for free it's
like we're just trying to get an idea we
know that that
travel subscriptions are really popular
right now we know we have access to
really interesting stuff that we could
um provide a little more value to some
of these subscribing members
uh it's very low barrier to entry i mean
we're modeling it like ten dollars a
month nothing crazy but you know for
this like you said timeshare owners like
that consistency and i think that
um we can we can really provide that so
we're testing with it and and wayne uh
what do you think about all this you've
been in the business for so long
and um it's a whole new concept
yeah i'm learning uh more about this as
i talk to these gentlemen
i did want to ask them who you
appreciate primary target
i'm sure this was a trauma yes
the other listing the other sites that
we're talking about that are in this
space
they get paid from time share owners to
list a timeshare
their job is fun they don't care if it's
priced over they don't care if it's
priced under
they already got paid these are the good
ones
the bad ones are scamming these people
and doing it
so we need to make sure that this
inventory is
optimized to move so in other words the
traveler is just as important as the
owner
so when we say optimize we mean what are
you putting up there
is it priced well because if it's not we
just did all that work
we got your listing verified we checked
it with the resort we made sure all of
that stuff if it's not priced right we
did a lot of work for nothing we it is
in our best interest
to be your partner in this process uh i
will say though
it is really the problem that we're
focused on is really the
time share industry and really um
creating better tools
to help these owners and not just
existing owners but how do you redefine
the category for younger generations
that are coming in that
you know they have more options today
than they did even 10 years ago so how
do you
how do you kind of mold a product that's
going to be more appealing for
the next generation of travelers so
that's something that's always on our
mind as well but at the end of the day
we are really building a community for
these timeshare owners we're not immune
to this idea that this is just a
traveler facing
you know product we really do want to
focus a lot of trust in education with
these timeshare owners have a lot of
tools and resources for them as well
okay so if somebody's interested in
using your service
uh what steps do they need to take
obviously they go to your website
is that an easy process um
sorry repeat the last part what steps
they need to take as a as an owner
as an owner is it an easy process
yeah i mean we james can maybe you want
to take you
yes wayne it's uh we've definitely spent
considerable time trying to
build a process that is as easy as
possible
um we we do use some terms internally
like a three step easy listing process
or e to z uh step process
but um technically if
you're if you understand at least what
you own
and know how to make a reservation we
curate a lot of the resort data all of
the resort data in fact and the
descriptions
um unit types so when an owner comes
into koala
and tries to make that listing it should
in theory
take less than a minute um it can take
up to two three minutes and if you
try to do something like this uh you
know in a in another ota like airbnb
uh typically you would have to collate
all of that information
all of the images the descriptions the
unit amenities
etcetera etcetera and so that's a very
lengthy process but
we've spent considerable time trying to
build that funnel that really
allows another to come in and and
hopefully go through that upload process
within a matter of minutes can i expand
on that real quick we have
so to james's point we've we've already
built all the resort data out so
if resort x for example has six
different unit types and three different
types of two bedrooms like you said
oceanfront ocean view and garden view
we've already categorized all those so
when you go in and you start typing in
your resort it'll recognize it you
click your resort it then knows all of
the unit types available
you select your unit type and then you
just set your dates and your price it's
that easy and we do have some tools to
help you price it as well
but again it's not an exact science but
it's something that will continue to
develop as we get the data in the system
that's amazing what a great service it's
so important
is the population of the younger and the
older
with timeshares now costing you know 30
40 50
000 if you're 75 plus should you be
expending that kind of initial
outlay so you know your um
program appeals to that as well as to
the younger people instead of getting
pulled off the street in vegas and
plunking down 20 30 40 000 and you don't
even know what a time share is
this is a great way to learn what time
shares
are about and to do some coming out yeah
comparison shopping among the different
choices
yeah and that's a great point and i
think um you know
it's always something i found
interesting i think wayne brought this
up before that like their only marketing
tool is to kind of like
bribe you to sit into a desk for an hour
or two hours but like if you just
built natural demand for the product it
would
be better people would want to go see it
because they're interested in what it is
people you know tesla does not have to
bribe you to go see a tesla
well there's a waiting list for tesla so
like how do you build a product that
people really want and it resonates with
you
and while this won't fix everything it's
certainly a step to opening those doors
well um guys
i i want to have you guys back i've got
more questions
and i think our audience is probably
going to come in with some questions in
the next
24-48 hours as they see this show
so uh let's let's make a plan to do this
in the future
uh wayne do you have anything else that
you'd like to add
no that's about it i'm going to put them
in my book today so it should go in by
tomorrow i want to make sure
people are aware and i will put them on
my linkedin
promoting
and i just want to say that i'm really
excited next week we
are scheduled to interview keith
dewhurst
from timeshare consumer association and
james is from
england and they are based in the uk
and so we'll be able to
um introduce uh keith to this program as
well
and open this up to our our eu
neighbors looking forward they're not
you anymore i think
positive topic don't bring it up yeah
right right right yeah
well this has been a great evening guys
thank you all
all of you for joining us and uh we look
forward to having you back again
and seeing everyone just good night to
everybody
good night wayne thank you so much