Listen to stories from The Chirp of everday people trying to navigate the complex world of dealing with money within their relationships. Dive into the positive, the negative, and all the stories in between that we all hold near and dear to our hearts when it comes to finances and our loved ones.

The Chirp Podcast | Pigeon Loans

Introducing The Chirp: A Podcast By Pigeon Loans

For some time now, we've been working on something we think can be super special for the Pigeon Loans community. Throughout our journey of building this innovation, the Pigeon Loans' team has listened to countless stories from people of all walks of life about the pains, struggles, wins, and success with making loans with their friends and family. From nightmarish tales, to memories that make you laugh, we all have a story to tell when it comes to money and our relationships.

Even though we all share these life experiences, we rarely as communities talk about them openly and honestly. The story of helping a friend start their small business from nothing, or the anecdote of a deceptive significant other walking away from too many unpaid promises - we as people, are not having these conversations.

So to change the narrative and give people of all walks of life a chance to tell their stories to the world, we're launching a new podcast called The Chirp 🐣🎶

It's time to rethink the way we feel about handling money within our relationships and communities. We all have stories when it comes to lending and borrowing from friends and family. Some of us have fond & positive memories about those times, while others think back on those moments with pain & regret.

Regardless of your experience, we all have a story to tell, and that's what we are here to do - tell stories that uplift the community.

The Chirp is here to educate you on the world of loans, its impact on relationships, and how we can remove the stress of lending with friends and family. 

Join us as we talk with everyday people, celebrities, thought leaders, mothers, daughters, business men, caretakers, and everyone in-between. Dive into the positive, the negative, and all the stories that we all hold near and dear to our hearts when it comes to dealing with money within our relationships.

You'll find all episodes for The Chirp podcast on:

Audio Transcript of Introducing The Chirp: A Podcast By Pigeon Loans

Hello to all you amazing people in the Pigeon Loans community. My name is Cameron Laird and I'm here to deliver to you some very exciting news.

Very soon we're going to be launching The Chirp. A podcast by Pigeon Loans hosted by yours truly.

I'm going to be chatting with some awesome guests about the personal relationship side of money lending - how it can be super awkward with friends and family when loans are involved and how we can all work together to change the narrative.

So if you're like me, with very little education when it comes to loans, and you're looking to get informed while listening to some fun and interesting conversations along the way, then this podcast is just for you.

So be sure to follow Pigeon Loans' social media over the coming few weeks for more information on The Chirp, and we cannot for you to listen in.

We're launching a new podcast called The Chirp, focused on stories from everyday people regarding how we all deal with moving money within our relationships.

Story 2: If We‘re Such Good Friends, Why Are You Contacting Me?

Welcome to another episode of The Chirp. If you didn't get a chance to check out our previous episode, you'll certainly want to take the time to listen to Story 1: Don't Get Married In Your 20's. For this episode, take some time to listen to Geoff Speiran - a business minded mogul living in Panama juggling friendships, finances, and unexpected asks for money.  

Friendships make life worth living. We go out with our friends, we laugh with our friends, we eat with our friends, and most of all we try to live the best lives we can with our friends. However, sometimes those friendships fade away and we forget about them. But what if, a friendship you long cherished that dissolved over time, surprisingly came back - but this time, with a request for money. Listen to Geoff as he tells stories about his childhood in Dublin, fond memories he shares with his cherished friends, and a disturbing tale of an "ask for money" from a once trusted acquaintance. 

You'll find this episode of The Chirp on:

Have a story to tell and want to be on our podcast? Let us know by sending an email to claird@pigeonloans.io.

Story 2: If We're Such Good Friends, Why Are You Contacting Me?

Audio Transcript of If We're Such Good Friends, Why Are You Contacting Me?

Hello everyone! Welcome back to The Chirp, a podcast where we chat about how relationships have been affected by money and loans and how we all learn from these experiences.

If this is your first time joining us on the Chirp, please give us a like, a follow, subscribe, depending on what platform you're on, and please give us a review. We release episodes every fortnight, and this enables us to be on your front porch ready to be consumed on the day. 

This week I had the pleasure of chatting to my best friend for many, many years, Mr. Geoff Speiran. While we both used to live together in Dublin, Ireland, Geoff now works in Panama for Diageo, a multinational alcohol  beverage company, where he is a business development manager for airlines and cruise ships. 

Now while we conducted this interview from opposite sides of the globe, it was as normal for me as if we were in the same room. I knew he’d make an excellent guest for The Chirp as we grew up together and witnessed many examples of relationships being strained by money. 

I’ve known Geoff for nearly 20 years, and it was great to hear some tales he had on loans with friends putting a spanner in the works sometimes, some tales more recent than others!

Let’s dive into the interview and allow me to introduce my old comrade, Geoff.

Geoff, thank you so much for chatting to me today. How goes it in Panama at the moment?

Hey Cameron, how are things? Panama goes well, I'm currently on a small island off the coast of Panama called Baucus Del Toro. So I've temporarily relocated. I’m a digital nomad, an opportunity that I'm given at the moment which is grateful. So I'm here for another two, three weeks at the moment.

Are there digital nomads where you are at the moment? Is it a kind of a little hub for them, or did you find this little island off the coast?

I actually came a year ago, October last year, it was the very first day Panama opened. It was like the first place where there was almost no restrictions. However, we flew out here, it's like a 30 minute flight from Panama City. All the restaurants were closed, all the hotels were closed, the only place that was open was where we were staying. So that's how we found it. But very much it's like a digital hub center. A lot of Americans, a lot of people coming from, from Latin America as well. So you got an eclectic mix of people like I'm in a cohort again for the last two weeks and it's super busy as it's a lot a lot of people so it's nice. The only thing we have is rolling blackouts, which you got to be careful for.

What are they? As in like electricity gonezo?

If it rains too hard, the electricity is gone for a day or two days, we were where we used to live before. We were on a small beach called playa now, I thought that power would go out for like two or three days at a time. And then we'd have to figure out how to get work done and stuff. There's one hotel that had a generator that we used to be able to get to.

That would fill me with so much anxiety. If you had shit to do if you've stopped to do during the day and you're like oh, I'm sorry, boss, please don't fire me. I don't have any electricity, nevermind any WiFi. How did you explain that?

I like how you thought about work. I thought about food. I was like my fridge freezer is gone. All my food is destroyed. What am I gonna do? How am I going to eat? So I like it. You were like, how am I gonna keep my job? I said there's like two hotels, the hot generators where we could make base camp out of and get our work done. But it was more that it gets dark at six o'clock every day. So that is not like daylight savings in Panama. So you basically want to go at six o'clock, it's dark, and you need to flash light out because there's no streetlights where we were. It was a really small beach town. It was one road, five shops, and a couple of hotels.

So Geoff, tell me how you ended up in Panama. Obviously, for our listeners at home, we grew up in Dublin, Ireland together. I’m now based in Spain. You're now based in Panama. And you've been abroad and working abroad a lot longer than I have. So can you tell me a little bit how you went from, you know, both finishing school and finishing college in Dublin to getting going all the way to Panama?

Yeah, I mean, it seems to be like a journey that had 1000 stops along the way. But each one was hugely significant. And kind of, if it hadn't been for a single journey, I probably wouldn't have ended up where I am. And it all really started with taking off Spanish in university and then going away for a year abroad and learning Spanish in a small town called Ciudad de Our. So I think once you've lived abroad, and you have that independence or something that you want to maintain and keep at any given cost. I think we both know that renting and doing that at the moment, and certainly for the last number of years, has been outside of our reach. So looking inwardly, like it was just absolutely crazy. And it's indicative of where all of our friends live as well. We could go on a whole other podcast about where everyone's at at the moment. But all that wonders of the globe. all four corners, certainly so for me there was Spain as the first element or first taste of freedom, then obviously had the language capabilities. I managed to maintain those finished university and really wanted to get out and explore the world again and was offered a job in Florida working in a private member's site working in a private member's Country Club, which was great fun. But it was crazy, tough work. small town called Vero Beach, made some amazing friends for life though I've met my current fiance. So it definitely left a good imprint. And as a result, America has always been close to my heart. So yes, that again kind of fed into what I wanted to do. I was a bartender there, I wanted to move into the brand ambassadorial world and while I was living in Vero Beach in the US, I applied for a job as a brand ambassador and subsequently got the job. I lived in London for about two years. While I was doing that, and then the company had set up an Irish Whiskey distillery in Dublin, relocated to Dublin, moved in with my folks, because that was all we could afford to do at the time. I mean, renting again was crazy. My fiancé, my girlfriend at the time, was studying in a final year college so we bought work working full time, which of course makes things super challenging financially. And I was at a conference in France at an Irish bar. And I bumped into the gentleman who was now my manager, I was hosting an event. And we got talking and he took my card and added me on LinkedIn, the old the old fashioned way. And hashtag network later, hashtag networking. Exactly. Hopefully, weeks later, I got an inbox to say hi, I'm the head of Americas Are you would you be interested in relocating? And after much deliberation, and not a lot of knowledge around Panama I figured it was like a perfect storm of being able to pick up Spanish being closer to America challenging myself in a new role with a new company. I'd have to have absolutely loved this even though I moved here three days or four days before the pandemic like really kicked in and so Panama has its tremendous places. It's definitely a hidden gem like most people think of the canal but there's a lot to love and appreciate around here as well.

We've definitely had we've been blessed I think the parables you know, growing up together as well and our family homes being quite close that we always have had kind of that safety net to fall back on. Should things be going awry? And especially with accommodation now but there's one thing and there's one thing I you know I love about you and when we grew up together and you know, went to school, you know, dare I say became men together was the kind of the similarity we always had was we always had to work as soon as we could, you know, growing up as teenagers because we weren't getting any handouts from the family. And so I'm keen to ask you because obviously you know, here you are, it's been a long and winding road, always, always ascending. I was working from such a young age and you know, earning from such a young age shapes how you handle your money and your finances today?

I think it's two things. One is what were we 16 years old, and 2008 so like we became part of the sort of generation that we're out of age we really understand like somewhat understand finances money, and what money can get you and what the value of it is in some capacity and...

Not to mention the recession happening as well. 

So that's my point, which is that it’s obviously a huge financial crisis. So obviously I had a huge bearing in like our then value and how we think money works for us. So as you said, like there was, there wasn't a lot going around back then. And I was lucky that I had done a couple of shifts with different buyers from the age of 15. My dad always said, always remember him telling me that bartending is like a trade you can really bring it anywhere around the world. And like again, every road and every journey has got me to where I am and if I hadn't begun bartending, to get me through college to get me my kind of money that I needed, I wouldn't have gone to Florida to become a bartender I wouldn't have become a brand ambassador and I could be living somewhere completely differently. So it all kind of circles back around in that respect. But I think in working everyone should work in either hospitality or retail. I think having something that's your own and earning and working as part of a team in any capacity at an early age helps kind of form really good habits. I think the formation of those good habits drives how you then want to spend and utilize your money. Yeah, and how you plan to use your money, because I've worked in zero hour contracts and I've worked where minimum wage jobs and I worked in jobs where you could just be doing events like all different bartending things and it was extremely hard to say off manage here and I'll try and do this and there was no Etoro there was no Robinhood there was no real way of kind of understanding what my money could be used for other than going out with friends and and spend the frivolous frivolously so that's kind of what we did. But I think from an early age you put in the right markers to say okay, I do enjoy having my own finances, I do enjoy actually managing these myself. And like any 18 to 20 year old would know you still managed to spend it on. For me it was always about traveling, whether that was summers abroad, various different aspects that I always wanted to do - I want to go out there and see a bit of the world and I was very lucky to be able to afford that and through different jobs. So I mean yourself, what was your first job Cam, you remember?

I worked in a supermarket in Dublin called Tescos, and that was my very first job. I was 16 very close to home. I think I was on like 11 euro an hour, which was well for a 16 year old. Yeah, it was because no other 16 year old was working when I was working and I had to because the recession was was you know it hit hard. But um and it's funny you say that because we did used to think when we were all kind of 18. And going forward from that we all were working. But one thing that I've, you know, always always spoken about is the fact that we all grew up having to lend each other money, we all grew up having to, you know, sort out a kind of a roster of loans, if you will, between each other. Because if we didn't, there would have been a couple of people left by the wayside who would have wouldn't have been able to go to a party in which I suppose was the main focus of those years wasn't it?

I mean, there'll be no point in going out if your best friends couldn't join you, right? That was what we wanted to do. And one person will be getting paid the following Friday and the next person the following Friday, and it was always just sort of handed back and dealt back. And I mean, we made it work. We formed lifelong friendships throughout those years and think, I mean, I always see it like, either it's on Instagram or Facebook. Who do you know, more than five years I'm thinking? I know some of these old friends like 15 years at this stage. And we're all really, really close still. And I think I don't know whether our secret loan system works back then. And that's what helped galvanize us. 

And I think as well, what was the big, you know, contributor was the fact that we were students as well, and going out and having these incredibly cheap drinks and not having to pay too much to get into the nightclubs and things like that. But I think today the loan system worked with all of us. If we were to go out to our homes these days, I think, you know, I think that the numbers would be a lot larger.

The numbers would be larger, but it'd be a lot easier, right? Nowadays, it's like we didn't even have proper mobile phones really, like what could we do to text each other by pressing letters, three to knock certain numbers three times to get each individual letter like nowadays, you do it 100 different ways. 100 different apps, send people money, keep track of a hell of a lot better, like I'm sure, there's certain money that went under the radar. But I think even with lending friends money, it can always be a little bit of a risk. But there's a great quote, I think it's in a Bronx tale. And he's talking about how like, I gave this guy $20. So if they never give it back to you, you got rid of the guy for $20. So I haven't taken that approach with all my friends. But I definitely gave money to people in the past thinking like, oh, cool, no problem. We're friends. Like, you'll get that back to me. And they've ghosted you or they've completely abandoned you. So I think that quote has always sort of stuck to me in some way or another that, hey, if I lend someone money, and I never see them again, then that's all it took to get rid of a scumbag in my life, which is cheap, right?

Exactly. There's a reason why that person didn't pay me back. Absolutely. And the thing is, well, that was a big thing. The other positive, we talked about the positive when we were all used to, you know, sort each other out and dig each other out when it was time to go out and stuff. But there was these kind of negative, you know, situations or scenarios where friends were, you know, because we weren't incredibly wealthy, we were kids, we were students, we weren't working full time, like we are now. So the work of times where money wasn't returned, and relationships were definitely strained. But, you know, at the end of the day, we were kids, but in this day and age now because we're both you know, 30 and thriving, as they say, really enduring well you're Yeah, absolutely. But what kind of examples or stories happened to you recently where you know, relationships have been strained that you know, the excuse of being a kid just didn't suffice. I think...

That your friends that you always want to believe in them and if someone comes to you and they really need help, like people who you have met in the past and you formed relationships with whether that's kind of acquaintance level or a much personal connection like you want to have that faith in people that I really need this for this project that I'm starting where I really need this cash for this visa or I really need this money for something and you kind of say, Well you know what, you're trying to make yourself trying to do something better you're not going to spend it on wasted and you're not gambling or anything else. So like, I'll give it to you of course I'll give it to your close friend and I hope I want the best year. Now recently, we did have a situation where we were contacted by someone who we met years ago who I met years and years ago who I'm friends with on Facebook and Instagram and would comment the time and and and loosely keep in touch, but now real direct kind of conversation. So I was quite shocked when I got a message like it was last week earlier this week saying - "Hi Geoff. Hope you're well Congrats. I hope things are good in Panama. Look, I need $300 for a visa. If I can't get my visa I can't get my job and I can't move to my new new country.". I've know this person for a long time. We've worked together and I was so taken aback firstly because they haven't been in touch and I don't know whether that's how to be unwise or how desperate they were, right? I mean, are they so desperate that they're combing through a friends group of old friends? And then you think about it, there's so many psychological impacts that go into your head as the person who's been asked. I think the first one that came into my head was actually frustration. Like, why, if you're in need, why did you contact me? On the deadline - you know, if we're such good friends...feel comfortable and open to come and talk to me about anything, personal, financial, or what have you. So I think the first thing was frustration there. And then you start to think. Okay, well, what's happened in this person's life that they don't have the ability to gather the $300 to get their visa for their new job? And why is there no other resource that they have? That's legitimate, like a banker, or any other particular way? So you start to go through these situations and, you know, you discuss it with partners, or discuss it with your close friends. And ultimately, we didn't actually. I didn't feel comfortable, I spoke to them. I said, hey, look, I don't know if this is necessary, I think I do, can you give me some more context? And then they just said - No, it's completely fine. Don't worry, I've got it sorted. Cheers. Good luck. And then never heard from them. Haven't heard from them since despite having followed up and say - Hey, did you get over? Did you get the visa? Where's the new job? So again, the emotional challenges like as a kid, if someone asks you for 50 quid, you're not thinking, why are they asking me? What's the understanding? Everyone's an adult, you try and actually put yourself in their perspective, a hell of a lot more. Yeah. And then yeah, as I said, I haven't heard from them since. So I do hope they got over if they listened. I mean, I hope they got there. I hope they got their visa, I hope everything went well for them. But my advice would be stay in contact with people who care and who you trust about and who want to be confiding things in because, you know, finances tear people apart very easily. And we've seen people come and go, and as I said, if it only cost X amount to get rid of them, whatever. But this wasn't that scenario, it was so much different. And so I hope that hope that person the best, but it was an unusual situation to be placed in, especially when it's like a Tuesday afternoon, and you're not even thinking of it.

Well, first and foremost, fairplay to you for getting back to that person. And you know, I know a lot of people that would have just been, you know, I would have seen that. I don't know how I would have reacted. I mean, if I saw that I probably wouldn't, I wouldn't have replied, responded straightaway, I would have been initially a bit taken aback, I would have initially been pissed off in the honest thing, because you are, it sounds to me as if this person kind of just sprayed the walls, hoping that something would would stick. It wasn't as if they were like, I'm only going to ask Geoff, and that's going to, you know, I think it sounds like he or she requested this, you know, let alone off a few people. And someone just kind of got back to them sooner. Do you kind of smell that from the situation?

I do, unfortunately. And the question is like, how much do they actually need? It wasn't like a personalized message or anything. And then you just hope that they're not in in real trouble in any way. But yeah, again, you feel not to play the victim. I didn't feel like a victim in any way, shape, or form, I would have helped if I, if I even heard more from them or had more context. Yeah. But these are the sorts of dilemmas you have and you faced when you're a little bit older. But ultimately, decision was made for me, they didn't come back to me, they didn't hear back, I had in my head I would still if I if roles were reversed or not roles reversed rather, but if I was in the same position to do the same thing again. I think I would still proceed in the same way I would say hey, is everything okay? You know, what, what is the situation? I haven't heard from you in a really long time. You're out you're doing things you know, you're active. It's not like you've been a hermit or haven't been doing different things. So it is a surprise and a bit of a shock. But...

What if, a friendship you long cherished that dissolved over time, surprisingly came back - but this time, with a request for money. Listen to Geoff as he tells stories about his childhood in Dublin, fond memories he shares with his cherished friends, and a disturbing tale of an "ask for money" from a once trusted acquaintance.

Story 1: Don‘t Get Married In Your 20s

Welcome to the very first episode of The Chirp! We know you have been anxiously awaiting the launch of this podcast from the moment we dropped our surprise trailer. Well, the time has finally come to bring The Chirp to the airwaves, and man do we have a wild story to share with you today. So, buckle up, get your listening ears ready, and dive into a Story 1: Don't Get Married In Your 20s.

Marriage is a delicate dance to get right. Two people come together to mix their finances, ambitions, and dreams together in hopes of making something magical. However, not all relationships have a fairy tale ending. Listen as we talk with CEO of washbnb, Daniel Cruz about his struggles with juggling his marriage, divorce, money, his career, and aspirations in life.

The Chirp Story 1: Don't Get Married In Your 20s

Audio Transcript of Story 1: Don't Get Married In Your 20s

Hello and welcome to The Chirp. Cameron Laird is my name and I can't tell you how delighted I am to be hosting our very first episode. This is a podcast months in the making and now we finally get to release it to the masses. 

So what are we all about? Earlier this year I sat down with Brian & Tilly, co-founders of Pigeon Loans, which is a platform that allows friends and family to lend each other money in a structured, regulated way without any awkwardness or trouble involved. 

Around the time of Pigeon Loans’ inception and when Brian & Tilly were doing their market research, they heard countless stories of loans between friends and families and how it affected their relationships. Some were good, some were bad, some were downright terrible, but there was one commonality between them all: it is never easy to be involved in a loan with someone you are close with.

So we decided to create a space for people to share these stories, to listen in or watch (depending how you’re consuming this content), relate to these stories and to realize that, instead of shying away from these awkward tales, let's put them out in the open, diffuse the tension and learn from each other.

So if you have an uncomfortable story about a loan with a friend, a bad financial situation with a family member, or maybe even a positive lending story that actually worked out, we’d love to hear it! Drop me an email and let me know. 

For our first episode I’ve been lucky to chat to a very talented entrepreneur named Daniel Cruz. Daniel is the co-founder of washbnb, a service for Airbnb hosts and hotels to get their linen collected, washed and returned, alleviating the huge workload that is laundry cleaning. 

Daniel and his colleagues are hard at work in Atlanta, where they’ve recently joined the Techstars Global Network, but he was kind enough to take the time to chat to me about his genius ideas, his growing business and how he has had his own relationships affected by loans as well. 

This was a great conversation with a great man who has done nothing short of kick-starting this podcast, and I very much hope you all enjoy this chat too. Let’s dive in!

Daniel, thank you so much for agreeing to chat with me today. When I heard you were coming on, I did so much research and one thing that I didn't know before was the amazing story of washbnb. I have come to know it quite well, but I'd love you to tell it to our listeners if you would mind.

Yeah, definitely! So washbnb is the brainchild or the result of my experience as an Airbnb host. I moved from Milwaukee to San Francisco in 2016 and took a job in Mexico. I was traveling a ton and so I was able to get my own place on Airbnb, just as sort of an experiment. I invested in a really cool neighborhood in Milwaukee and it turned out to go kind of gangbusters! So after about six months doing that, I added three more units and realized that I might be onto something here! However, I was instantly sort of overwhelmed with laundry. Imagine washing, drying, and folding everything in your house! All the bedsheets, linens, bath towels, and cleaning rags. You have to do that three or four times per week, multiply that by three or four properties, you quickly realize that laundry is this unsustainable full-time job. What I really wanted was a side hustle so I could build a business, do different things and expand my Airbnb property business. But what I got was a laundry job, and it took me about three years to realize that there's nobody sort of willing to take this problem on. And so washbnb was born from that!

What we do is we try to give Airbnb hosts and small hotels the experience of a big hotel. A big hotel has this massive laundry room. They have all these linens, they take them to the rooms, they replace everything and then they take the dirties back at the end of the day. It's like a magic bottomless closet, so that's what washbnb is! A bottomless linen closet for Airbnb hosts. We own the best linens you can buy, the same thing that you would get at the Ritz Carlton, and then we allow Airbnb hosts to rent them from us on a continuous basis. We got started about a year and a half ago right before the pandemic and now we're in the last month of TechStars right now in Atlanta.

I watched your presentation on ‘business pivots’ for the Indiana SBDC. Great talk, great presentation and I would implore everyone listening to check it out. It was really an inspiring talk from you. What's on the horizon for washbnb? 

Yeah, great question. And thanks for checking that out. I almost forgot I did that! We did a bunch of fun appearances around that time. When the pandemic got started, we had just invested all of our money as well as quitting our jobs. And so we jumped into this business that we thought was going to be like gangbusters, like wildfire! But what happened was the week we started it, the pandemic sort of shut everything down, and they looked like everything was going to zero. And instead of sitting around crying over spilled milk, we start putting our heads together, 

We said to ourselves, “We have no jobs, we have lots of time. We've got a little bit of money that we put in the business. Is there something else we can do with our time?” We realized people were really struggling with laundry, especially senior people. All the laundromats were basically closed, and this left people without this service in a time where hygiene and everything is important. 

Standardization is important without the ability to get their clothes clean. So we quickly pivoted and said, “Hey, we've got cars, we've got these bags that we were going to use for our service. Let's Just open up a laundry bag service and provide it for free to people that are really struggling in the pandemic, especially seniors and lower-income people that don't have access to laundry, to begin with!” It was a great story and it really brought us together and showed us how to pivot. It showed us how to put our heads together. I think we went from that idea and concept to website functioning, taking orders within four days. 

So there was a good experience for us, The New York Times picked up the story, and then that actually catapulted us back into the discussion because there are some hotels opening in Milwaukee at that time. And they came to us and said, Hey, I know you're targeting Airbnb hosts, but we read about your story we love it, is there any way you can do a small hotel, we said sure. And that sort of kicked us back into the washbnb thing. And so now we're very much on that. We want to keep pursuing washbnb as a scalable business, we want to change the conversation around sustainability, around quality, around what you expect when you check into an Airbnb, and what you actually receive. And at the same time helping our hosts and customers optimize for what they're best at, which would be providing hospitality, providing a repeatable, excellent stay. 

And so we want to enable them to do that. In order for us to do that, we've got to have some combination of investments, some combination of team building and culture that supports that really like hospitality-driven mindset. And so that's why we decided to join TechStars! It combines investment with mentorship in the sort of startup mentality that we need to gain a little bit of. We have to buy a ton of sheets for building last-mile logistics. And so preparing ourselves for either additional investment, which we do so crowdfunding, which is how we met the Pigeon Loans team. So the combination of crowdfunding and institutional investors and our own capital all making a go together, we want to get into as many markets as possible in the next five years.

When you left your day job, COVID put the biggest spanner of all time in the works. What did you do with that time? What kind of resources did you turn to? I know you said you had a bit of money saved, but describe your journey back to where you are now, at TechStars, being excited about the future, what was it like for the first little while?

Man, it was pretty terrifying! I was staring at zero in the face. I mean, I had spent 35 plus years building a career, moving all over the place, trying to like figure out where I belonged in the world. And had done a really good job, since I moved to Milwaukee, at combining Airbnb as a semi-passive stream of income. I was finding really good bartending jobs for the big sports teams in the area and networking my way through there, doing a little consulting in that space as well from my background in the alcohol beverage industry. Also I was working at GE Healthcare also at the time, and I recently decided to quit GE Healthcare thinking, “I've got these great airbnbs and I've got this great bartending income”. And so I'm like, “Alright, I'm going to quit this really good paying job at GE Healthcare and strategy so I can start washbnb.”

And within days, all of that disappeared. I've got all these expenses that I was planning on being able to pay for and now it looks like it's all gone. And who knows if that is gonna last forever. 

The scariest thing that stood out to me was the fact that you had numerous properties there with no one to look after them financially. To have to have to worry about all these properties sends shivers down my spine!

Yeah, you captured that feeling. I think I had $60,000 to $80,000 in bookings just evaporate within a month. We were supposed to have the biggest summer ever in Milwaukee. And it all just went up in smoke instantly. I was frantically searching for ideas for opportunities for resources. And  were those were going to come from, I wasn't quite sure. I think everybody was playing the same guessing game at the same time. And because everybody was doing the same time, you couldn't get ahold of anybody. If you called the bank, you were on hold for six days!

It has been the worst period in customer service history! So, we like to hear stories about how our relationships have been affected through money and through lending as well. Obviously, we've touched on how things were quite difficult during the pandemic, but do you have any kind of stories, washbnb related or no, where you have had relationships affected by lending or money in general?

Yeah, definitely. Not too much in the washbnb realm. And I think a big part of that is I taught myself through this one experience that I will share. If you are going to take money for your business as an investment, there should be some very clear structure around it. I knew washbnb was not at that stage especially going through the pandemic. Nobody I know that's really close to me, in my immediate family, has the sort of money to say, “here's a few $1,000! if you lose it, no big deal”. So with washbnb, I was trying to keep things separate. And I think that did create a little bit of tension between some of our co-founders about where the money would come from or how frequently or soon we would get paid. But I think we're able to manage those expectations quite well as this is a really uncertain time. We put our money in this thing, let's figure it out. 

How long was the grace period before you actually started to see some returns? 

About 18 months. We just got our first paycheck on September 15. And today's the 21st.

Thank you. First-ever paycheck working for myself in terms of working for a company that I create.

So tell me that story that you were going to discuss.