August 12, 2025 • 46 mins
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In this episode of Security Halt!, host Deny Caballero sits down with William Denzil Collins, CEO and founder of Foxhole — a groundbreaking veteran-owned travel platform built to serve the military community.
From the frustrations of traditional travel booking sites to creating an Airbnb-style solution tailored for service members, veterans, and their families, Collins shares the inspiring journey of building Foxhole from the ground up. He reveals the lessons learned from Foxhole 1.0, the exciting updates coming in Foxhole 2.0, and how his military service shaped his entrepreneurial mindset.
This conversation dives deep into the power of community trust, the role of mentorship, and how social media marketing can fuel business growth. Whether you’re a veteran entrepreneur, a military family traveler, or simply curious about innovative veteran-owned businesses, this episode will inspire you to think bigger and support those who’ve served.
🎧 If you enjoy this conversation, don’t forget to FOLLOW, SHARE, LIKE, and SUBSCRIBE to Security Halt! on Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts to keep the mission moving forward.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Securepodcast is proudly sponsored by Titans Arms
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Arms today.
William Collins of FoxholeWelcome to Security Hall.
How's it going, brother?
It's going good.
Thanks for having me.
Absolutely, man.
You've got something unique andspecial and I am so glad that
you guys jumped at my invite tocome on the show.
(00:21):
I love finding veterans outthere doing amazing and
game-changing things.
Like most of us, I have stayedat Airbnbs before and the
experience used to be quaint.
It used to be fun and I wouldventure to say it is an absolute
fucking nightmare with the feesand the hassle these days
(00:43):
Fighting foxhole.
I just knew I had to bring itout to my audience and let
people understand that there isa veteran behind this, and I
want to dive into your story,man, and this amazing company
yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
We uh we share the same dislike for the extra fees
and, uh, that's something we'reso proud of at Foxhole is that
we don't charge a guest fee andI think the ability to go to
checkout and know that, hey, man, this listed price was $100.
Why am I paying $150?
That's a frustrating.
I mean, I felt that as aservice member when I traveled.
(01:17):
I felt that as a civilian whenI traveled, but Foxhole gives
you the ability to look at alisted price and calculate in
your head hey, I'm staying fournights, that's going to be $200.
And it's going to be $200.
So, yeah, it's super cool.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Absolutely.
Make it work.
Make it make sense.
The fee that you advertise is Xamount.
Why is it?
When I check out, it'ssometimes almost fucking double.
It's insane.
I understand Maybe you're goingsomewhere that is an absolute
travel destination, but if I'mgoing to interview somebody in
(01:52):
hoboken, wisconsin, in themiddle of nowhere, why is that
fee still outrageous?
But uh, we'll get to thatshortly.
I want to dive into you, my man.
How did you come up with this?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Give us the superhero origin story of Foxhole so
first off, I'm from a militaryfamily, so my dad retired
colonel.
I grew up in Fort Sill,oklahoma.
Where I grew up I was superlucky.
I was decent at football.
It's where my high school teamwe won state championship and I
(02:27):
got to sign to play division onefootball.
Nice, yeah, yeah.
So I was a quarterback at theUniversity of Louisiana Monroe,
played there and then I graduate, transferred to UCO, which is
University of Central Oklahoma.
I did my R2C, my master'sprogram, there, and that's how I
got it.
That's how I got my footholdinto the Army.
Football is where I learned alot of, I know, kind of being a
(02:50):
quarterback.
There's a mental game there.
It's not just you know how hardcan I hit someone, how fast can
I run.
So that really prepared me forthe Army.
So one, if you're a studentathlete watching this and you're
thinking about your careerafter football or basketball or
whatever, go join the Army, gojoin the Marines, go join the
Navy I built for you.
I promise Absolutely.
(03:13):
I commissioned as an infantryofficer to get my master's
degree and served four years inthe infantry, loved it.
And that is where the Foxvillestory begins, because I met the
best officer I ever served within the Army, spencer Colazos.
So Spencer Colazos was mycompany commander.
Here I come, you know, a secondlieutenant, brand new, don't
(03:34):
know anything, and he's like theseasoned top company commander
who had all the schools, all thebadges, all the experience.
He was amazing, and he kind ofput me under his wing and taught
me everything I knew in theArmy.
What's really funny, though, isI got out of the Army to pursue
he had an engineering degreefrom West Point.
He wanted to get out Now.
I stayed close, though, and heactually came up with the idea
(03:56):
of Foxhole.
So, spencer, he's our founderand our chief growth officer.
So he focuses really onstrategic partnerships and how
we're going to grow this thing,whereas I'm more I'm our CEO,
and I'm in the weeds, I'm in theoperations, I'm in the You're
in the fight.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
You're in the dredges .
Speaker 2 (04:16):
But that's where it started.
He called me up when I wasgetting towards either staying
in and going to, you know,triple C and taking command for
now, and he called me and sayshey, you know, there's a whole
story to it.
I actually had a service membercome in through Lafayette,
louisiana where he was living,and called him and was like hey,
are you still in Lafayette?
I'm a need a place to stay.
(04:37):
I had last minute orders, lastminute changes, and he opened up
his house to him and he stayedthe night with him.
But then he called me the nextday because we always had these
creative thoughts, we alwayswere thinking of something, and
he was like dude, what if westart Vet B&B?
And that's what the first namewas Like a week of like no, I
was instantly in.
I was like I'm in this, I'mgood, here's my refrag, my
(04:58):
battalion commander, and I'mgetting up.
I love this idea, I'm all aboutit.
That comes from four years andthen a whole childhood of
stressful travel.
I mean, I'm sure that you haveyour horror stories when it
comes to PCSing or EY orvacation rentals.
It's so bad, like you'retalking about three kids, wife
(05:20):
and husband, traveling with twodogs and they're having to stay
in a hotel and they're gettingin with a U-Haul and they
they're in somewhere they don'tknow.
U-haul gets stolen all the youknow nine yards.
So that's where foxhole began.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Oh, it's pretty cool yeah, man, I gotta imagine we'll
dive into this.
But you know, I want to pauseand reflect on this.
This friendship, mentorshipthat grew into a partnership.
That's something that'simportant to understand.
In the military, you will bearound some amazing individuals
(05:52):
and more often than not, just alittle bit of daydreaming can
lead into this.
If you're willing to be braveenough to go into something like
entrepreneurship, like being anentrepreneur diving into this
space like it's scary, did youhave any sort of hesitation or
(06:13):
fears?
How did you guys work throughthat?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
So Spencer and I have a belief that an infantry
officer and an infantry NCO cando anything.
Yes, if you give those twogroups of people a task, it's
going to get accomplished ifthey're really good at their job
.
Now, the secret code to allthis is Spencer and I's
partnership.
I won't find anyone, includingmy wife, that I trust more than
Spencer, and that was forgedthrough military service, so he
(06:39):
and I did.
I've seen him at some low spotsand he's seen me in some low
spots, where you know.
Luckily our character neverbroke and we we do trust each
other.
Like I said, spence is one ofthe best officers I ever met.
Served the ranger regiment.
Dad is a like ranger hall offame guy.
I mean just total stud whichcomes from an awesome.
I mean he's.
(07:00):
He walks the walk and he andhis family does too.
I couldn't think of one.
Just being partnered with himgave me the confidence to have a
partner who believes in thismission and believes in me and I
believe in him.
But the second part and this iskind of the secret is a wife who
owns a business like CharlesLouisiana, and that was the
second reason why I decided toget out was because her business
(07:21):
was doing so good.
She's a website designer, shedoes really well and she works
really hard.
And I got to see after beingmarried for three years, I got
to see the grind that she wasgoing through as a small
business owner.
She has two employees and shedoes really well, but she also
is the only one working besidesher two employees.
So I got to see and I got freereps at what she's going through
(07:45):
.
I kind of had a little bit of acheat code where I didn't have
to rely on like Instagram reelsand them telling you inspiration
.
I actually had someone whohappened to be my wife, who
basically gave us the blueprint.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah, yeah, living and breathing like blueprint
right there in the house, goingup against something that's
already out there proven concept.
Even if it's horrible, even ifwe hate it, it's out there and I
have to imagine it's like Davidand Goliath, you've got Airbnb.
Talk us through this process ofbuilding Foxhole 1.0.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
What were the first steps?
Foxhole 1.0 was were the firststeps?
Foxhole 1.0 uh, was built by mywife andi, so we we teamed up
and we built this when I was onterminal lead.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Really foxhole, that's a lot yeah, that's a lot
to do on terminal leave.
And and it was uh, I mean, notonly you're doing, you did an
app as well the, the website andthe app as well at the same
time.
Just the website.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
So we're launching the app here in September 5th,
okay, but Foxhole 1.0 was just aweb-based platform, man.
It was like Sprint, sprint,sprint, sprint, sprint, sprint.
This is I mean to anyentrepreneur listening you got
to pick something and go afterit.
You can't hide behind due dates.
(09:09):
And hide behind what I mean bythis is when I got out, spencer
called me hey, let's do Foxhole,let's do that B&B Dude.
That conversation happened inlike late November.
I got on terminal leaveDecember 1st, like we launched
this thing March 1st.
All that was was me saying likeall right, hey, we're gonna
(09:30):
launch this thing on March 1st,so that's our due date.
Just boom, right there.
Boom, march 1st done that takesguts, that takes guts, that's
not a lot of run time, startputting it on social media,
start getting people like, hey,march 1st I'm gonna have a
travel platform.
So we kind of put that pressureon ourselves.
And what I see a lot of peopledo is they like hide behind that
(09:50):
.
They, they don't put a due date, they sit on things for a long
time and it's actually how fastyou can go, the tempo you know.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah, yeah, no, there could have been right in that
same timeframe.
There could have been right inthat same timeframe.
There could have been otherpeople with the same idea.
In fact, I know there's otherpeople that thought about that
same idea.
You've got to beat them tomarket, you've got to be.
And oftentimes, what ifsomebody has got a more capital?
What if somebody has aninvestor Like you might just
have enough money to launch itfirst and get it up and running.
(10:20):
And how did you find theinfrastructure?
You have to go through and findplaces and develop that.
Like, how did you build thatnetwork?
Speaker 2 (10:30):
and you were uh referring to our supply and so,
like, our hosts are listening,yep, so.
So boom, we build the website.
We do that kind of secretly.
But as we're doing that andcurrently I'm old, call on hosts
, I'm, I'm, I'm uh urging ourveteran network, you know,
because, dude, the veterannetwork is way more connected
(10:51):
informally than everyonebelieves it is.
You know, you're one phone callaway from like the top.
Seems like so, man, I justreached out to some of my
veteran networks.
Like my dad, you know, heserved 30 years.
Both my brothers are both fieldfield grade officers right now.
So, and then spencer's side,and all we did was just make
spreadsheets of basically callsheets and just went calling,
(11:13):
calling, calling, and we got 10hosts to the list on foxhole for
the first, for the launch onmarch 1st, which I thought was
the biggest blessing ever.
I was like, thank you guys somuch for believing in us.
Um, and then after that, oursocial media game really got
really picked up and, uh, justreally, from social media man,
(11:34):
people will dm us and they'rejust like, hey, I want to live
some foxhole.
And then our customer serviceman.
We have a guy who's just thebest and he is like he's a
veteran and he totally is likejust online at all times and he
just totally professionallyhelps these people.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah I want to pause on that.
I want to dive into this for alittle bit.
I I work in the social mediaspace, so not only do I manage
and produce other shows securityhall, it's my thing but I got
other shows and one of the otherthings I got into was social
media marketing and managing forpeople, and I'm trying to
explain to somebody that, uh,they have to utilize social
(12:10):
media.
It's free.
It's free real estate.
You have to, but you have towork.
You have to understand youraudience, you have to understand
themes and messaging.
It's why it's perfectly.
Nobody wants to understand it,nobody wants to dive into it,
but it's.
You're perfectly suited for it.
If you're in the military, ifyou're an officer in the
military, by and large, you canoperate in social media and get
(12:32):
ahead of people in the game whenyou don't have the ability to
pay somebody to do yourmarketing.
Dig into Instagram, dig intolike.
I know, I know it's not easy,but if you brew some coffee, if
you stay up for a few nights,you can outwork the competition.
(12:53):
It's that easy.
You just have to understandyour niche.
You have to understand yourarea, your audience and the
veteran audience.
Oh my God, it's such an amazinggroup of people to work for and
to create content for, becauseI know what you like, I know
what you like, you listening, Iknow what you enjoy.
Did you dive into that space aswell?
Having to like initially tryingto keep everything within house
(13:16):
, not having to try to go out toa subcontractor or hire
somebody on?
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yeah, so the funny thing behind that is, have made
me personally every piece ofcontent, every flyer, everything
, and I did exactly.
What you just said was this waslike I need to master this.
This is where the game is beingplayed and I have to win this
game if I want, in order tosurvive.
So it's a pretty.
I'll take, like you said, brewsome coffee.
(13:40):
It's an effort thing, you know,just max effort, and once you
you get going, you really getgoing.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
it's really cool yeah , but you have to put in the
work.
That's the thing I I have ahard time trying to express to
people that are like, are goinginto it one foot in, one foot
out.
I'm like dude, the idea thatyou can just be half half
stepping this and not seeing itas an important part of your
business, bro, you're not gonnanot going to grow If you're a
podcaster, if you are in anysort of business where you have
(14:08):
to get your stuff out there.
You're not going to grow unlessyou take it serious and you
have to study it.
And one thing that I hate iswhen you give the person some
guidance and you give them casestudies and like, hey, look at
your top competitors, look atthe people in the same market,
and they still go do the samething utilizing ai.
It's photos, painful.
It's like you're never going toget a client.
(14:30):
You're never going to you'reyou're.
If you're a coaching business,like dude, take it serious, take
it serious.
How fast did you startgenerating a following and
getting people that like saylike, wow, this is working right
, I'd rather do this than airbnb.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
So march 1st we launched with zero everywhere,
zero listings or users.
Uh, we did.
We did have 10 listings, but,um man, we had, you know, zero
followers on instagram and rightnow we're sitting at 8500.
So we're almost to 10k.
Yeah, yeah, wow.
And all that took was I tellspencer this all the time and
(15:06):
the rest of the team so easy,because we have an awesome
product and we have an awesomehonest message.
I'm actually impressed withpeople who have to sell bad
stuff, just a bad deal, like acar salesman sometimes Kudos to
them because they can sellsomething bad, because for us
it's super easy.
(15:26):
We have an awesome product, wehave an awesome benefit.
I mean to get into the Airbnbguest fee.
Is so those people, airbnb,vrbo, awesome platforms and
companies to put us out there?
We don't necessarily competewith them.
Obviously, we're in the samespace.
We are just focused on servingthe military and whoever that
(15:47):
audience is, whoever of theveteran, active duty or military
dependent cohort come toFoxhole, dude.
You got to partner with us,we're going to serve you.
If you want to stay doing Airbnb, vrbo.
Hey, those are good apps, thoseare good platforms.
They've earned your trust.
So I mean until Fox platformsthey've earned your trust.
So I mean until foxhole, canyou know, earn your trust?
(16:08):
Hey, I totally understandstaying on those platforms.
Here's a great piece ofinformation to know before you
book the next time.
We don't charge a guest fee.
Example you get on a abnbplatform and it's listed for a
hundred dollars.
You're saying one night, andthen there's no host fees, so
there's no cleaning fee, there'sno pet fee, nothing else.
(16:30):
You got $100 for one night forone guest.
You're going to end up payingwhat everyone thinks in their
head $100 at or around Tax, say,five bucks.
So at checkout at Foxhole we'regoing to pay $105.
That's pretty awesome, becausewhat we do at Foxhole is we
(16:53):
charge a host fee.
We charge a 10% host fee ofthat $100, except all 100
through Stripe that's ourpartner.
We give 90 to the host and wekeep 10.
But the key, though, there iswe also pay the payment fee.
No other business pays thepayment fee, and that's
something we're committed to,because I'm telling you, man,
we're almost like a nonprofit, Imean, we're a for-profit
(17:15):
company, but we pay the paymentfee and we don't charge a guest
fee.
So really, out of that 10% weget, we're really only getting
7% because we're having to paythat 3%.
Just like every other business,they've got to pay the 3%.
So $105 on a short-term rental.
If you go on to any otherplatform, you're going to get a
(17:36):
guest fee, all right.
So just to give you an exampleof what some of these people do
you check out with $100.
That's why when you presscheckout it takes a second
because it's calculating all thefees.
Boom, now you check out, theguest is going to end up paying
around $121 for that becausethere's a 14% anywhere between
(17:56):
14% and 17% guest fee that theplatform charges the guests on
top of the price.
They put that payment fee intothat price as well.
So they give you that 3%payment fee.
So you're looking at 20% rightthere.
And on top of that, theseplatforms also charge the host
additional 3% to 4% servicecharge.
(18:18):
So every single time you stayat these other platforms,
they're making around 21% to 23%on every single booking.
Yeah, it's ridiculous.
That's just getting handed to aplatform.
Money that's just gettinghanded to a platform to me.
I just got tired of that as aservice member because I had no,
(18:39):
some of the.
I mean, I'm sure that youhaven't had these situations
where it's like I have to stayhere or I'm sleeping on the
ground because timing and ordersand everything else just hated
that someone could.
I'm not saying they takeadvantage of people, I'm just
saying like, from a militaryperspective, it seemed like I
had no other options.
Yeah, so that's why we startedFoxhole.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
And no guesswork.
Yeah, it can seem like look, Ilove capitalism, I love it.
I've been and traveled aroundthe world where that's not the
main theme and I don't enjoythose areas.
They're not fun.
I will say this when is enoughenough?
When do you make enough money?
One thing that's reallyinfuriating is those fees when
(19:22):
they get put on the Airbnb owner.
That's the other individualthat we got to look out for.
How is it fair to them?
How can we make the experienceenjoyable for both the guest and
the person who's putting theirproperty on that platform?
And I think that you're doing amore than fair, fair and really
(19:44):
admirable position by saying,hey, we're going to take that
fee and we're going to eat thecost.
We don't want to just pass itoff to you, the actual
facilities owner, and I don'tcertainly don't want the guests.
I want you to come here.
So that's, that's a big, bigundertaking.
How do we scale?
How do we scale?
How do we get bigger?
No, we're not competing, but wewant veterans to say, hey, if
(20:08):
I'm traveling somewhere, I'mgoing to Foxhole there.
They represent me, theyrepresent my service, I'm going
to go to them.
It's like, how do we scale?
And what's a plan for Foxhole2.0?
So thanks for bringing that up.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
So 2.0, one.
We had great growth in 1.0, thefirst six months, to where we
had a number of people callingto invest in Foxhole.
They see the vision, they seethe growth they see the numbers,
spencer and I.
we met with about four to fivedifferent investors, who all
gave us different you knowoffers to invest in foxhole, but
we chose one who is a veteran.
(20:47):
So we chose a veteran investor.
I gave us a six-figureinvestment and what that did for
for me as a CEO was I stillhave the control.
I own the company.
Everything that happens throughFoxhole is going to be either
because I failed or I wassuccessful or my team was, so
there's no I love that theempathy offer is still there.
(21:08):
Yeah, because, dude, some ofthese people were coming in
civilians and they were tryingto take the company.
They were just like here's acool amount of money, but we
want the company and I'm likeyou won't serve the military
community because you'll gocharge a guest fee day one.
So we chose actually to go witha veteran investor.
It was awesome pairing.
(21:30):
They have this super cool dealwith them because they just want
to see us run.
They just want to see us go.
What that did, though, is I gotto hire a team.
Right now, I have a seven-manteam.
I still do all the marketing,though I probably never hire a
marketing officer because it'sjust super quick.
Every time I post or every timeI build a product, I literally
picture speaking andrepresenting the military
(21:52):
community.
So if it's got one comma,that's messed up.
If it's got one comma, that'smessed up.
If it's got one animation,that's not tight end it like it
hurts me because I know that I'meither representing or yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
But you want to know why.
You want to know why?
It's because we've been trainedand it's a con op.
It's an absolute con op everysingle time and the BC is going
to read it.
I understand it completelyEvery time and the BC's gonna
rate it.
I understand it completelyEvery time I'm building
something for either my podcastor Special Forces Foundation.
It's exactly like a con op.
It's exactly like building.
(22:23):
I'm not using PowerPoint, so atleast there's that.
Now I'm using Canva.
It feels more snooty.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Well, if there's anyone out there listening who's
in now the army, ortransitioning, or a veteran who
has some marketing, you know,let me know, but you gotta pass
the test first yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
It's important to understand like you gotta at
some point you do have to let goso you can focus it.
It's just like hey, this isgood for the captain me.
Now I have to transition up tothe major.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Dude.
That's a great point.
That's a great point ForFoxhole 2.0, what I did was I
met one of the best human beingsthat I've met in my life so far
.
It's Troy T.
He's a 55-year year old, or hemight be 52.
He worked at microsoft as asoftware in engineer.
(23:23):
He also then, like, worked hisway up into manager roles and
then he jumped around fromdifferent oil companies to work
on as their software site.
Dude, I found I listed the jobfor chief technology officer,
had like 100 applicants insideof like 20 minutes it was crazy
interviewed a lot of them, um,and a lot of them were veterans.
(23:43):
It was cool.
I wanted to hire a veteran, but, boy, you know, I met and hit
it off and I hired him right onthe spot.
Uh, he was awesome.
He's responsible for, he's thelead developer on Foxhole 2.0.
I'm telling you right now and Ihope this is like the click that
gets, like smacked Foxhole 2.0is going to revolutionize
(24:05):
military travel forever.
This app, I've seen it.
Every week I have a meetingwith them and I review the
product, the design, everything.
It is the cleanest, mostefficient, most simple UX UI
I've ever seen.
Really, oh man, I'm telling youif you're a veteran or active
duty or a military dependent,you are going to want to
(24:27):
download this on September 5thbecause it's only yours.
You can go, show all yourfriends and be like look, I was
hoping you'd say sooner and I'ma tech nerd man.
I need to see this one 1.0 isstill up and uh it's, it's
serving the military communitylike it's.
It's done 25 plus bookings.
So it's a fully functionalwebsite, but it's not an app.
(24:51):
But we are, we're building likethe end-all, be-all Taj Mahal
app.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Heck yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I cannot wait for it to get on the market and that
people can jump right in.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yeah, and we want to just take a moment to highlight
this.
Being able to get an investorand then being able to find the
right person and then building ateam these are all important
milestones that so many peopledream of.
And it's just like you know,getting that runway because a
lot you know sometimes you got abootstrap, sometimes you just
(25:23):
got to get this thing out thereon your own.
But getting that person thatsees what you have and then
agreeing that that's the rightperson, that sees the right,
sees the vision that you're alsoenvisioning I I got to imagine.
That felt amazing.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
It did Not to get too .
I do say I am a Christian anddude a lot of prayer and just a
lot of trust man.
That's why I go back to what Isaid at the very beginning is
you can't sit on decisions toolong.
If you sit on them too long,they go away and then someone
else makes them faster.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah, and don't discount the power of prayer.
If you're listening and you'reout there and you're in the
space, my wife gets on me a lotbecause I'll complain about
something and I'll talk about afriction point, a sticking point
, something that's really on mymind, and just wearing me down
the first thing she'll say isall right, have you prayed about
it?
And just wearing me down, thefirst thing she'll say is all
right, have you prayed about it?
(26:15):
Have you sat down and prayed?
If you haven't, look, I get it.
Faith is still a touchy subjectfor some of you.
I get it.
I'm going to talk about itbecause it's part of my journey.
It's part of my life.
You got to go and talk to thebig guy, whoever that is for you
.
I'm not going to judge youExactly, man, it's your journey.
You find it.
But talk to God, talk to theuniverse, talk to who you
(26:37):
believe in, get it out there,put your trust and faith and let
that out.
Put it out there, get it out ofyour mind and then move forward
.
I'm telling you, god works inmysterious ways.
You'll be surprised how manytimes you're dealing with that
frustration.
You give it over in prayer andthe next day, that person that
(26:58):
you needed to talk to orsomebody that you stumble upon
gives you that piece of adviceor that resource that you were
needing and you're like back to100%, back at it and you know,
in your journey, understandingthat that's something you can
turn to.
Looking at it now.
On this side of the journeyunderstanding that that's
something you can turn to,looking at it now, on this side
of the journey you got to beable to say, hey, there's proof
in the pudding, like when I wasstressed out, I was able to pray
(27:20):
, I was able to give this overto God and say, hey, I don't
know how we're going to make itthrough it, but I'm going to
trust in you and I'm going tomove forward.
We're going to launch this.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
No, and say this for anyone listening For me.
From my point of view, it'skind of like how Spencer was my
partner and he was in withtogether.
I'm never alone, man.
So I may be in my office doingall this work and crushing it
and making quick decisions, butif I ever need anyone's help, or
maybe I'm questioning somethingor something I'm doing it's a
quick prayer.
It's just that simple.
Maybe I'm questioning somethingor something I'm doing.
(27:50):
It's a quick prayer.
It's just that simple.
And that gives me theconfidence to go execute and
make sure that I'm doing thingsright and take a pause, Say, hey
, am I being greedy?
Am I doing something bad here?
Is this the right move?
That's what it provides me, manand I.
Just for people who don't havethat dude, you're missing out
because you're doing this alone.
(28:10):
Yeah, dude, you're missing outbecause you're doing this alone.
Dude, props to them if they cando it alone.
You're better than me.
You're stronger than me, Iguess.
Yeah, I definitely love thatteammate.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Yeah, that's the best way to put it, man, that's the
best way to put it.
Just an additional resource outthere hey, if you can do it on
your own, hey, my body andspirit.
I had to tap into that spiritdomain to get back what I was
missing most and it brought meback to the best version of
myself, and it truly is part ofthis entrepreneur journey.
It is.
It fits in all aspects of yourlife.
(28:44):
But in this journey, whenyou're staying up late at night
and you don't have somebody totalk to, if you're a solo
entrepreneur, that's the guythat you can talk to and rely on
.
You got to be a little morepatient for the answer.
Sometimes you got to be more intune, like, okay, this might be
me waiting a little bit longerfor this answer, but it's out
(29:05):
there, it's worthwhile.
But now you have a team, nowyou have people around you.
How has it been managing theteam?
Have you were some?
Speaker 2 (29:18):
pitfalls and some struggles, trying to get back in
the team mentality and, uh, somuch, oh, we're veteran owned
and we're veteran operated.
So seven employees and five ofthem are veteran and, uh, like,
they have served that's, that'sa plus.
And then the two who haven'tare in roles where we do serve
civilians.
So, troy, our CTO, I'm justgoing to be completely blunt
it's very hard to find a veteranwho has the tech background to
(29:41):
do what he's doing.
I mean, he's literally buildingan app that's going to compete
and outperform major platforms.
Yeah, that's hard to find.
That's hard to find.
Uh, our second uh guy he just,um, he's serving civilian hosts
as our.
It's called our chief supplyofficer because we, we focus on
(30:02):
supply and demand, so supplies,the host demands a guest, so all
he does is he's focused on hostrecruitment and host retainment
.
Yeah, oh, that he is.
He is a civilian and he, hedidn serve in the military but,
oh my gosh, he, he comes from amilitary home.
He, he grew up with me, yeah,that's awesome yeah, he was.
(30:22):
He was a division one athlete.
Uh, that's the thing I'm tryingto build at foxhole.
Is this like team firstcompetitiveness, almost like
your dream unit in the army, youknow.
And then the other dude, a guywho totally helped us, is a guy
named Martin Howe and he was aChinook pilot, oklahoma national
guard, got out, got his MBA,got out as a captain, multiple
(30:43):
deployments.
He was a prior service guy,full stud, and what he does for
us is he's our director ofstrategic operations.
That sounds like a title thatyou're like man, that's what.
What's that guy do?
But he is a person that I canjust put on any problem or
project and it's.
It's absolutely crushed anddone.
And, for example, he'soverseeing Foxhole 2.0.
(31:06):
Because what people don'tunderstand is when you're making
an app and you're makinga brandnew platform, you have the
design aspect.
So you, so you have a you, oneperson does it all.
So you have a designer who'sdesigning it, who then delivers
the design plan to the developeror developers and then they
build the actual tech stack.
You have this, basically twofronts, that are, you have to
(31:27):
coordinate or else you get infront of one another.
It's not going to, it's notgoing to work.
So it comes the budgeting,because you know, yeah, you
right on budget and uh, burtonhas done such an exceptional job
.
It's really showcasing what theveteran community is capable of
man, because that's it's likehe was one of the best pilots in
local national guard and nowhe's he's responsible for
overseeing foxhole 2.0.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
So was he a warrant officer or was he a proper
officer?
He's proper, he was acommission.
I was gonna say, if he was awarrant officer, then, uh, he a
proper officer.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
He was a proper.
He was a commissioner, not aman.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
I was going to say if he was a warrant officer, then
he's pretty good with a budgetman.
It sounds like you guys arebuilding a team of teams.
That is like being able to putpeople together in certain
sections to get them to execute.
Well, that's not as easy as youthink.
You can theorize it and itbreathes well on paper, but
(32:14):
getting them together, gettingthem to, you know, and it's kind
of biased, because this is kindof a sexy, cool thing to do,
whereas you know otherentrepreneurial endeavors that
might not be as attractive asbuilding a game-changing lodging
app, might be a little moredifficult.
But this is fun, this issomething that's exciting.
(32:37):
When you come into work, it'slike oh, like, oh man, like
we're changing the way veteranstravel, exactly certainly going
to be bringing something new.
That's wanted, that's needed.
It's like that excitement andthat thrill has got to help that
.
That's got to be an added bonus.
But moving on to, like that,the growing, the supply, growing
the amount of places you canstay at, like how is that grown?
How are you finding you know itwas.
(32:58):
It was probably a little easierwhen it was just you cold
calling.
Now it's, it's become a biggerthing.
How are you broadening,expanding man so?
Speaker 2 (33:07):
one chief supply officer does an awesome job of
just honestly using our FoxholeInstagram account.
Just, I mean just any host,because most of these people
direct book to when you're ashort-term rental owner and I
haven't touched on it yet but wealso do long-term stays I can
(33:29):
get that in a second but forthese short-term rentals, what
they often do is they're tryingto maximize bookings.
If they could have this thingbooked 365 days a year by 365
different people, it's a gooddeal.
So they'll list everywhere.
They'll list on Airbnb, vrbo,bookingscom, furnace Finder.
What they also do, though, issome of them they'll just list
(33:50):
their own website, they'll justcreate their own, and they just
rock and roll, and they do itall in-house.
What we try to do is we try topartner with veteran hosts.
That's our number one goal,because we have two people who
can host on Foxhole.
One is a veteran, so when I sayveteran, this is the hardest
part about marketing to themilitary community.
(34:12):
When I say veteran, in my headI'm thinking everybody, because
kind of, in a way, but if you'rean active duty veteran or
military dependent and you havea rental or you have an open
room in your house, you can listthat on Foxhole.
Right now Foxhole is notinvolved.
You verify your military statusby creating an account.
You can just list your property.
The second person is a civilianhost, which right now what we
(34:35):
do is they have to submit anapplication to us and then we
partner with a veteran ownedcompany who does a background
check on them and then they signour foxhole standard.
It's really just Army values,in all honesty.
It's just saying that you'renot going to take advantage of
pricing stuff like this, thestuff that people get frustrated
(34:56):
with on other platforms.
We do recruit civilian hosts,but they cannot book, they can
only host To get that supply.
What we've been doing is whatfirst started off with cold
calling and just finding places.
However we can find them Turnedinto now this unique veteran
network that like spread.
It's not a fast spread, it'snot like a blow up wildfire, but
(35:19):
what it's turned into is aboutwe've been gaining about three
listings a week.
So you say that to anyone else.
They're like it's not that much, but it's a domino effect.
Because, example is, we found aveteran in Texas who reached out
to us, just literally got onour page, contact us for him.
He had 27 properties throughoutTexas and he was like hey, I
(35:43):
want to serve.
Hey, I got out a long time ago.
I still want to stay connectedand serve the military community
.
Sign me up, dude.
He's gotten 11 bookings aloneoff of lots of cause he's got.
He's got one.
That's a.
It's gotten 11 bookings aloneoff of Foxhole Because he's got
one.
Have you ever heard of a Glamp?
Yeah, yeah, he's got a Glamp inTennessee.
All of his listings are inTexas except he's got two Glamps
in Tennessee.
(36:03):
They've been booked everyweekend on Foxhole by someone at
Fort Campbell.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
I love that.
I love that it's the communityserving the community.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
that is absolutely and there's a couple of
civilians too who and they'relike, hey, I never served, but I
love our military and like, putme up to list on foxhole and
they're some of our best hosts.
Because they're like, hey, thisis my way of serving.
Because you know, yeah, you'renot making it, they're not
charging my guest fee andthey're going to save money.
Listen, at my property onFoxhole, sign me up.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Yeah, it's a no brainer when you just described
with the gentleman in Texas.
That's a lot of our guys aregetting into real estate.
Like I know, there's a vastmajority of seventh group guys
in Florida right now, in thepanhandle, that need to get on
this app ASAP because that'sexactly what they've done.
You spend, you know, vastamount of your career traveling,
(37:00):
saving your money.
You start buying properties.
I know a lot of my friends thatas soon as they got to Florida
and when seventh group made theBRAC move, as soon as they got
down there condos, beachfrontproperty scraped every penny and
bought and have.
I'll be.
I'll be sending some peopleyour way.
It makes sense.
Serve the community, you'repart of it.
Put your stuff out there onfoxhole.
(37:21):
This is brilliant man.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
And then how about this?
Another, another thing say youare tdy in seventh group and
you're going to florida for anofficial eating or training and
you're only there for like aweek or two weeks.
Right, you're on orders, thegovernment's going to pay for it
.
You can stay at a foxhole andget reimbursed by the DOD.
Yes, so if you're a host andyou're anywhere near DC, so this
(37:47):
is a see.
I wanted to share this so bad.
We have a retired colonel rightnow in Washington DC.
He's a grad bed.
We have a retired colonel rightnow in Washington DC.
He's a field artillery officer.
Awesome guy, great, he's reallysmart and he's fun to talk to.
He heard about Foxhole.
He owns rental properties acrossthe country, probably about 12.
Sold them all, boom Done.
He then buys, he's buying.
He bought one this week, he'sbuying two other ones Short-term
(38:10):
rentals in DC, and he wants ageneral officer or senior NCO
who's going to DC or thePentagon.
And he's buying two other ones,short-term rentals in dc, and
he wants a general officer orsenior ncos who's going to the d
, who's going to dc or thepentagon and he's going to stay.
His dream is that they justlist through foxhole and that
they get reimbursed and they'restaying as a really nice place,
and what that does for the hostis you can, this guest isn't
paying for it, it's literally,it's it's their official travel.
(38:32):
You, you know, yeah, dts, doneand done, so no more what that
does for the traveler.
So, if you're active duty andyou're listening to this, what
that does for you is no morehotels, no more PCS.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
No more kitchenettes.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
No more driving from Florida to, you know, Fort Lewis
, and at two o'clock in themorning you're trying to get
into a third story hotel withthe dog.
It's not happening anymore.
You just roll up to an air orroll up to a foxhole Boom.
So you know, that's the coolpart for us, and you're still
getting paid back.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Exactly, I love this.
This is yeah.
I cannot.
Oh, my goodness man, I'msending you some folks.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
The other cool thing about Foxhole that it's secretly
my dream is one thing I hatedabout, especially.
I mean, I can't speak for otherbranches, but the Army.
There was a different platformfor everything Personnel.
You had to go log into this.
If you wanted to do training,you had to log in DTMS.
If you wanted to, I mean it'slike Defense ready yes, so you
(39:32):
had like eight different logins.
Now, granted, you did just useyour cat card, but I'm just
saying, like you memorize allthese different places With
Foxhole, my dream is that youcan just log into Foxhole and if
you want to manage a property,boom, it's Foxhole.
If you want to rent to military, boom, foxhole, all on Foxhole.
So that's my dream is that whenpeople think travel they say
(39:56):
foxhole.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Yeah, what about for PCS, long-term rentals, for
moving into a new area?
I don't know, maybe that's toomuch, but I would say one of the
hardest things for me when Imanaged my property in North
Carolina was PCS season Peopletrying to find a place for you
(40:17):
know, trying to move my property.
Be advertised on this websiteversus this website.
Any thoughts about doing andmoving into the wider real
estate market?
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Oh, so for the PCS example.
So what we do and this is likecheat code, in my opinion, to
anyone who's a long-term host soif you're looking to rent to
military who are PCSing, soyou're looking at 28 days or,
more typically, six months to 12months, you can list on Foxhole
.
We do long-term stays andhere's the best part we don't
(40:48):
micromanage you, we don'tcollect a monthly payment.
So say, give me an example uh,lieutenant collins is going to
fort fort polk, louisiana, to goup to his first unit.
I can go on foxhole, find along-term stay that I like, that
it's in my price, it's gotenough bedrooms, whatever.
Well, I pay right there.
(41:09):
So say it's listed for $1,200.
I pay $1,200.
What I would do is I don't haveto go through the actual
in-depth, but the guest is goingto pay $1,200 because that's
the listed price, right, justgets it.
15% of that is going to go toFoxhole.
So it's $180 that first month.
(41:30):
After that you keep 100% of therent, sign your lease.
You can pay on Foxhole if youwant monthly, if you want to
just like they sign your leaseand you go to whatever systems
you use.
So, zelle, venmo, that's allyou man.
You can totally do that.
We're not involved.
All we care about is deliveringyou the verified military guest
(41:51):
who signs your lease, and thenwe collect our payment.
If they never sign your lease,we're not.
It's not like.
We're like oh hey, all right,readjust, we'll go find you a
new.
That's one thing Foxhole doesthat no one else does is.
We have a PCS service.
So, example we had a guy goingto Fort Bragg, a staff sergeant
in Foxhole.
Now we have a form on ourwebsite that he could have
(42:14):
filled out, but for whateverreason, he just he shot us a DM
and it was like dude, I needhelp.
I PCS in a month, matched himwithin 48 hours.
Wow, and that was just straight.
Us just and that's.
We have a guy literally on staffwho is doing that role.
So anyone who's like exampleI'm in command, I have a short
PCS, I don't have the bandwidthto plan my PCS hey, just message
(42:37):
Foxhole.
Man, it's a free service.
You tell us how many bedroomsyou want, where you're going,
the price range you want.
Hey, we will email you backwithin 48 hours with like hey,
here's three options.
Here's the listing link.
Click on it.
Connect with your host.
That's awesome.
Like hey, here's three options.
Here's the listing link.
Click on it.
Connect with your hostexperience.
So that's what we do and that'sthe best part, because these
(42:57):
guys can just hey, I need to goclear, cif, hey, I need to.
I still have to do my dutiesand responsibilities in the role
that I'm in, can't even worryabout moving my family or moving
my stuff.
So you do that for free 100,100%.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
That's fucking awesome, william.
I think that you guys are goingto be a very, very, very
successful company.
Dude, it's a no-brainer for me.
It is a no-brainer for me.
If you're traveling and you'rea veteran or service member,
you're not using Foxhole.
You're going to look back atthis and you're going to say man
(43:33):
, I wish I would have paidattention, I wish I would have
known about this, but I got afeeling.
In the next few months, youguys are going to know who
Foxhole is and you're going tobe utilizing them, because I
promise you right now, I willnever use Airbnb ever again,
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever.
William, I can't thank youenough for being here, man.
Before I let you go, though,where can we go?
(43:56):
When's that?
Tell us again.
When's the app launching?
Where can we go to check outfoxhole?
Show us, tell us, all of oursocial media social media
handles you got I know, Iappreciate it.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
So if you want to check us out on social media,
it's going to be at stay foxhole, okay, uh, that's for instagram
, twitter, uh, facebook or x,you know, okay.
And then if you want to checkout Foxhole 1.0, say you want to
book right now or go create anaccount, hey, go to
stayfoxholecom.
Here's the other cool thingwhen we move over to our
(44:24):
custom-built app, if you sign upon 1.0, you'll automatically
get carried over to 2.0.
We'll have to do it again whenwe launch 2.0, we may launch it
before September 5th, but wewill launch it by September 5th.
Nice, 100%, september 5th isthe far right.
(44:45):
I'm trying to launch ithonestly in the last week of
August.
Okay, I'm telling you guys,it's going to be in the App
Store, it's going to be awesome.
And it is going to be just formilitary, because only if you're
active duty, if you're aveteran or military dependent,
can you access Voxel.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Dude, this is awesome .
This is going to get used andpeople are going to love this.
I already know it.
Especially coming around August, people traveling Can't wait to
see this in a destined area.
Man, yeah, this is uh.
You, sir, came into the rightmarket with the right app.
This is going to be freakinghuge.
William.
Again, thank you so much forbeing here.
(45:24):
To all y'all tuning in, pleasedo me a favor.
Go ahead and pause theepisode's almost over.
Just go ahead and episodedescription.
Click those links.
Send a friend request toFoxhole.
Link up with them.
Follow them on their journey.
Be one of the first that cansay like hey, I stayed at
Foxhole this weekend.
It was awesome, leaving thereview.
Go to their website.
Support our veteran communityand our veteran entrepreneurs.
It's not an easy job.
(45:45):
I'm not asking you to just playKate.
I'm asking you to try it.
Give it a shot.
You can go to every other appand pay a lot of money, or go to
Foxhole, stay in an amazingplace, pay no fees and be
supporting a veteran business.
So it's a no brainer move.
I'm Danny Caballero, thank youfor tuning in and we'll see you
all next time.
Until then, take care.
(46:06):
Securepodcast is proudlysponsored by Titans Arms.
Head to the episode descriptionand check out Titans Arms today
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Arms today.
William Collins of FoxholeWelcome to Security Hall.
How's it going, brother?
It's going good.
Thanks for having me.
Absolutely, man.
You've got something unique andspecial and I am so glad that
you guys jumped at my invite tocome on the show.
(00:21):
I love finding veterans outthere doing amazing and
game-changing things.
Like most of us, I have stayedat Airbnbs before and the
experience used to be quaint.
It used to be fun and I wouldventure to say it is an absolute
fucking nightmare with the feesand the hassle these days
(00:43):
Fighting foxhole.
I just knew I had to bring itout to my audience and let
people understand that there isa veteran behind this, and I
want to dive into your story,man, and this amazing company
yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
We uh we share the same dislike for the extra fees
and, uh, that's something we'reso proud of at Foxhole is that
we don't charge a guest fee andI think the ability to go to
checkout and know that, hey, man, this listed price was $100.
Why am I paying $150?
That's a frustrating.
I mean, I felt that as aservice member when I traveled.
(01:17):
I felt that as a civilian whenI traveled, but Foxhole gives
you the ability to look at alisted price and calculate in
your head hey, I'm staying fournights, that's going to be $200.
And it's going to be $200.
So, yeah, it's super cool.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Absolutely.
Make it work.
Make it make sense.
The fee that you advertise is Xamount.
Why is it?
When I check out, it'ssometimes almost fucking double.
It's insane.
I understand Maybe you're goingsomewhere that is an absolute
travel destination, but if I'mgoing to interview somebody in
(01:52):
hoboken, wisconsin, in themiddle of nowhere, why is that
fee still outrageous?
But uh, we'll get to thatshortly.
I want to dive into you, my man.
How did you come up with this?
Speaker 2 (02:04):
Give us the superhero origin story of Foxhole so
first off, I'm from a militaryfamily, so my dad retired
colonel.
I grew up in Fort Sill,oklahoma.
Where I grew up I was superlucky.
I was decent at football.
It's where my high school teamwe won state championship and I
(02:27):
got to sign to play division onefootball.
Nice, yeah, yeah.
So I was a quarterback at theUniversity of Louisiana Monroe,
played there and then I graduate, transferred to UCO, which is
University of Central Oklahoma.
I did my R2C, my master'sprogram, there, and that's how I
got it.
That's how I got my footholdinto the Army.
Football is where I learned alot of, I know, kind of being a
(02:50):
quarterback.
There's a mental game there.
It's not just you know how hardcan I hit someone, how fast can
I run.
So that really prepared me forthe Army.
So one, if you're a studentathlete watching this and you're
thinking about your careerafter football or basketball or
whatever, go join the Army, gojoin the Marines, go join the
Navy I built for you.
I promise Absolutely.
(03:13):
I commissioned as an infantryofficer to get my master's
degree and served four years inthe infantry, loved it.
And that is where the Foxvillestory begins, because I met the
best officer I ever served within the Army, spencer Colazos.
So Spencer Colazos was mycompany commander.
Here I come, you know, a secondlieutenant, brand new, don't
(03:34):
know anything, and he's like theseasoned top company commander
who had all the schools, all thebadges, all the experience.
He was amazing, and he kind ofput me under his wing and taught
me everything I knew in theArmy.
What's really funny, though, isI got out of the Army to pursue
he had an engineering degreefrom West Point.
He wanted to get out Now.
I stayed close, though, and heactually came up with the idea
(03:56):
of Foxhole.
So, spencer, he's our founderand our chief growth officer.
So he focuses really onstrategic partnerships and how
we're going to grow this thing,whereas I'm more I'm our CEO,
and I'm in the weeds, I'm in theoperations, I'm in the You're
in the fight.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
You're in the dredges .
Speaker 2 (04:16):
But that's where it started.
He called me up when I wasgetting towards either staying
in and going to, you know,triple C and taking command for
now, and he called me and sayshey, you know, there's a whole
story to it.
I actually had a service membercome in through Lafayette,
louisiana where he was living,and called him and was like hey,
are you still in Lafayette?
I'm a need a place to stay.
(04:37):
I had last minute orders, lastminute changes, and he opened up
his house to him and he stayedthe night with him.
But then he called me the nextday because we always had these
creative thoughts, we alwayswere thinking of something, and
he was like dude, what if westart Vet B&B?
And that's what the first namewas Like a week of like no, I
was instantly in.
I was like I'm in this, I'mgood, here's my refrag, my
(04:58):
battalion commander, and I'mgetting up.
I love this idea, I'm all aboutit.
That comes from four years andthen a whole childhood of
stressful travel.
I mean, I'm sure that you haveyour horror stories when it
comes to PCSing or EY orvacation rentals.
It's so bad, like you'retalking about three kids, wife
(05:20):
and husband, traveling with twodogs and they're having to stay
in a hotel and they're gettingin with a U-Haul and they
they're in somewhere they don'tknow.
U-haul gets stolen all the youknow nine yards.
So that's where foxhole began.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Oh, it's pretty cool yeah, man, I gotta imagine we'll
dive into this.
But you know, I want to pauseand reflect on this.
This friendship, mentorshipthat grew into a partnership.
That's something that'simportant to understand.
In the military, you will bearound some amazing individuals
(05:52):
and more often than not, just alittle bit of daydreaming can
lead into this.
If you're willing to be braveenough to go into something like
entrepreneurship, like being anentrepreneur diving into this
space like it's scary, did youhave any sort of hesitation or
(06:13):
fears?
How did you guys work throughthat?
Speaker 2 (06:17):
So Spencer and I have a belief that an infantry
officer and an infantry NCO cando anything.
Yes, if you give those twogroups of people a task, it's
going to get accomplished ifthey're really good at their job
.
Now, the secret code to allthis is Spencer and I's
partnership.
I won't find anyone, includingmy wife, that I trust more than
Spencer, and that was forgedthrough military service, so he
(06:39):
and I did.
I've seen him at some low spotsand he's seen me in some low
spots, where you know.
Luckily our character neverbroke and we we do trust each
other.
Like I said, spence is one ofthe best officers I ever met.
Served the ranger regiment.
Dad is a like ranger hall offame guy.
I mean just total stud whichcomes from an awesome.
I mean he's.
(07:00):
He walks the walk and he andhis family does too.
I couldn't think of one.
Just being partnered with himgave me the confidence to have a
partner who believes in thismission and believes in me and I
believe in him.
But the second part and this iskind of the secret is a wife who
owns a business like CharlesLouisiana, and that was the
second reason why I decided toget out was because her business
(07:21):
was doing so good.
She's a website designer, shedoes really well and she works
really hard.
And I got to see after beingmarried for three years, I got
to see the grind that she wasgoing through as a small
business owner.
She has two employees and shedoes really well, but she also
is the only one working besidesher two employees.
So I got to see and I got freereps at what she's going through
(07:45):
.
I kind of had a little bit of acheat code where I didn't have
to rely on like Instagram reelsand them telling you inspiration
.
I actually had someone whohappened to be my wife, who
basically gave us the blueprint.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Yeah, yeah, living and breathing like blueprint
right there in the house, goingup against something that's
already out there proven concept.
Even if it's horrible, even ifwe hate it, it's out there and I
have to imagine it's like Davidand Goliath, you've got Airbnb.
Talk us through this process ofbuilding Foxhole 1.0.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
What were the first steps?
Foxhole 1.0 was were the firststeps?
Foxhole 1.0 uh, was built by mywife andi, so we we teamed up
and we built this when I was onterminal lead.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Really foxhole, that's a lot yeah, that's a lot
to do on terminal leave.
And and it was uh, I mean, notonly you're doing, you did an
app as well the, the website andthe app as well at the same
time.
Just the website.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
So we're launching the app here in September 5th,
okay, but Foxhole 1.0 was just aweb-based platform, man.
It was like Sprint, sprint,sprint, sprint, sprint, sprint.
This is I mean to anyentrepreneur listening you got
to pick something and go afterit.
You can't hide behind due dates.
(09:09):
And hide behind what I mean bythis is when I got out, spencer
called me hey, let's do Foxhole,let's do that B&B Dude.
That conversation happened inlike late November.
I got on terminal leaveDecember 1st, like we launched
this thing March 1st.
All that was was me saying likeall right, hey, we're gonna
(09:30):
launch this thing on March 1st,so that's our due date.
Just boom, right there.
Boom, march 1st done that takesguts, that takes guts, that's
not a lot of run time, startputting it on social media,
start getting people like, hey,march 1st I'm gonna have a
travel platform.
So we kind of put that pressureon ourselves.
And what I see a lot of peopledo is they like hide behind that
(09:50):
.
They, they don't put a due date, they sit on things for a long
time and it's actually how fastyou can go, the tempo you know.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah, yeah, no, there could have been right in that
same timeframe.
There could have been right inthat same timeframe.
There could have been otherpeople with the same idea.
In fact, I know there's otherpeople that thought about that
same idea.
You've got to beat them tomarket, you've got to be.
And oftentimes, what ifsomebody has got a more capital?
What if somebody has aninvestor Like you might just
have enough money to launch itfirst and get it up and running.
(10:20):
And how did you find theinfrastructure?
You have to go through and findplaces and develop that.
Like, how did you build thatnetwork?
Speaker 2 (10:30):
and you were uh referring to our supply and so,
like, our hosts are listening,yep, so.
So boom, we build the website.
We do that kind of secretly.
But as we're doing that andcurrently I'm old, call on hosts
, I'm, I'm, I'm uh urging ourveteran network, you know,
because, dude, the veterannetwork is way more connected
(10:51):
informally than everyonebelieves it is.
You know, you're one phone callaway from like the top.
Seems like so, man, I justreached out to some of my
veteran networks.
Like my dad, you know, heserved 30 years.
Both my brothers are both fieldfield grade officers right now.
So, and then spencer's side,and all we did was just make
spreadsheets of basically callsheets and just went calling,
(11:13):
calling, calling, and we got 10hosts to the list on foxhole for
the first, for the launch onmarch 1st, which I thought was
the biggest blessing ever.
I was like, thank you guys somuch for believing in us.
Um, and then after that, oursocial media game really got
really picked up and, uh, justreally, from social media man,
(11:34):
people will dm us and they'rejust like, hey, I want to live
some foxhole.
And then our customer serviceman.
We have a guy who's just thebest and he is like he's a
veteran and he totally is likejust online at all times and he
just totally professionallyhelps these people.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Yeah I want to pause on that.
I want to dive into this for alittle bit.
I I work in the social mediaspace, so not only do I manage
and produce other shows securityhall, it's my thing but I got
other shows and one of the otherthings I got into was social
media marketing and managing forpeople, and I'm trying to
explain to somebody that, uh,they have to utilize social
(12:10):
media.
It's free.
It's free real estate.
You have to, but you have towork.
You have to understand youraudience, you have to understand
themes and messaging.
It's why it's perfectly.
Nobody wants to understand it,nobody wants to dive into it,
but it's.
You're perfectly suited for it.
If you're in the military, ifyou're an officer in the
military, by and large, you canoperate in social media and get
(12:32):
ahead of people in the game whenyou don't have the ability to
pay somebody to do yourmarketing.
Dig into Instagram, dig intolike.
I know, I know it's not easy,but if you brew some coffee, if
you stay up for a few nights,you can outwork the competition.
(12:53):
It's that easy.
You just have to understandyour niche.
You have to understand yourarea, your audience and the
veteran audience.
Oh my God, it's such an amazinggroup of people to work for and
to create content for, becauseI know what you like, I know
what you like, you listening, Iknow what you enjoy.
Did you dive into that space aswell?
Having to like initially tryingto keep everything within house
(13:16):
, not having to try to go out toa subcontractor or hire
somebody on?
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Yeah, so the funny thing behind that is, have made
me personally every piece ofcontent, every flyer, everything
, and I did exactly.
What you just said was this waslike I need to master this.
This is where the game is beingplayed and I have to win this
game if I want, in order tosurvive.
So it's a pretty.
I'll take, like you said, brewsome coffee.
(13:40):
It's an effort thing, you know,just max effort, and once you
you get going, you really getgoing.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
it's really cool yeah , but you have to put in the
work.
That's the thing I I have ahard time trying to express to
people that are like, are goinginto it one foot in, one foot
out.
I'm like dude, the idea thatyou can just be half half
stepping this and not seeing itas an important part of your
business, bro, you're not gonnanot going to grow If you're a
podcaster, if you are in anysort of business where you have
(14:08):
to get your stuff out there.
You're not going to grow unlessyou take it serious and you
have to study it.
And one thing that I hate iswhen you give the person some
guidance and you give them casestudies and like, hey, look at
your top competitors, look atthe people in the same market,
and they still go do the samething utilizing ai.
It's photos, painful.
It's like you're never going toget a client.
(14:30):
You're never going to you'reyou're.
If you're a coaching business,like dude, take it serious, take
it serious.
How fast did you startgenerating a following and
getting people that like saylike, wow, this is working right
, I'd rather do this than airbnb.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
So march 1st we launched with zero everywhere,
zero listings or users.
Uh, we did.
We did have 10 listings, but,um man, we had, you know, zero
followers on instagram and rightnow we're sitting at 8500.
So we're almost to 10k.
Yeah, yeah, wow.
And all that took was I tellspencer this all the time and
(15:06):
the rest of the team so easy,because we have an awesome
product and we have an awesomehonest message.
I'm actually impressed withpeople who have to sell bad
stuff, just a bad deal, like acar salesman sometimes Kudos to
them because they can sellsomething bad, because for us
it's super easy.
(15:26):
We have an awesome product, wehave an awesome benefit.
I mean to get into the Airbnbguest fee.
Is so those people, airbnb,vrbo, awesome platforms and
companies to put us out there?
We don't necessarily competewith them.
Obviously, we're in the samespace.
We are just focused on servingthe military and whoever that
(15:47):
audience is, whoever of theveteran, active duty or military
dependent cohort come toFoxhole, dude.
You got to partner with us,we're going to serve you.
If you want to stay doing Airbnb, vrbo.
Hey, those are good apps, thoseare good platforms.
They've earned your trust.
So I mean until Fox platformsthey've earned your trust.
So I mean until foxhole, canyou know, earn your trust?
(16:08):
Hey, I totally understandstaying on those platforms.
Here's a great piece ofinformation to know before you
book the next time.
We don't charge a guest fee.
Example you get on a abnbplatform and it's listed for a
hundred dollars.
You're saying one night, andthen there's no host fees, so
there's no cleaning fee, there'sno pet fee, nothing else.
(16:30):
You got $100 for one night forone guest.
You're going to end up payingwhat everyone thinks in their
head $100 at or around Tax, say,five bucks.
So at checkout at Foxhole we'regoing to pay $105.
That's pretty awesome, becausewhat we do at Foxhole is we
(16:53):
charge a host fee.
We charge a 10% host fee ofthat $100, except all 100
through Stripe that's ourpartner.
We give 90 to the host and wekeep 10.
But the key, though, there iswe also pay the payment fee.
No other business pays thepayment fee, and that's
something we're committed to,because I'm telling you, man,
we're almost like a nonprofit, Imean, we're a for-profit
(17:15):
company, but we pay the paymentfee and we don't charge a guest
fee.
So really, out of that 10% weget, we're really only getting
7% because we're having to paythat 3%.
Just like every other business,they've got to pay the 3%.
So $105 on a short-term rental.
If you go on to any otherplatform, you're going to get a
(17:36):
guest fee, all right.
So just to give you an exampleof what some of these people do
you check out with $100.
That's why when you presscheckout it takes a second
because it's calculating all thefees.
Boom, now you check out, theguest is going to end up paying
around $121 for that becausethere's a 14% anywhere between
(17:56):
14% and 17% guest fee that theplatform charges the guests on
top of the price.
They put that payment fee intothat price as well.
So they give you that 3%payment fee.
So you're looking at 20% rightthere.
And on top of that, theseplatforms also charge the host
additional 3% to 4% servicecharge.
(18:18):
So every single time you stayat these other platforms,
they're making around 21% to 23%on every single booking.
Yeah, it's ridiculous.
That's just getting handed to aplatform.
Money that's just gettinghanded to a platform to me.
I just got tired of that as aservice member because I had no,
(18:39):
some of the.
I mean, I'm sure that youhaven't had these situations
where it's like I have to stayhere or I'm sleeping on the
ground because timing and ordersand everything else just hated
that someone could.
I'm not saying they takeadvantage of people, I'm just
saying like, from a militaryperspective, it seemed like I
had no other options.
Yeah, so that's why we startedFoxhole.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
And no guesswork.
Yeah, it can seem like look, Ilove capitalism, I love it.
I've been and traveled aroundthe world where that's not the
main theme and I don't enjoythose areas.
They're not fun.
I will say this when is enoughenough?
When do you make enough money?
One thing that's reallyinfuriating is those fees when
(19:22):
they get put on the Airbnb owner.
That's the other individualthat we got to look out for.
How is it fair to them?
How can we make the experienceenjoyable for both the guest and
the person who's putting theirproperty on that platform?
And I think that you're doing amore than fair, fair and really
(19:44):
admirable position by saying,hey, we're going to take that
fee and we're going to eat thecost.
We don't want to just pass itoff to you, the actual
facilities owner, and I don'tcertainly don't want the guests.
I want you to come here.
So that's, that's a big, bigundertaking.
How do we scale?
How do we scale?
How do we get bigger?
No, we're not competing, but wewant veterans to say, hey, if
(20:08):
I'm traveling somewhere, I'mgoing to Foxhole there.
They represent me, theyrepresent my service, I'm going
to go to them.
It's like, how do we scale?
And what's a plan for Foxhole2.0?
So thanks for bringing that up.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
So 2.0, one.
We had great growth in 1.0, thefirst six months, to where we
had a number of people callingto invest in Foxhole.
They see the vision, they seethe growth they see the numbers,
spencer and I.
we met with about four to fivedifferent investors, who all
gave us different you knowoffers to invest in foxhole, but
we chose one who is a veteran.
(20:47):
So we chose a veteran investor.
I gave us a six-figureinvestment and what that did for
for me as a CEO was I stillhave the control.
I own the company.
Everything that happens throughFoxhole is going to be either
because I failed or I wassuccessful or my team was, so
there's no I love that theempathy offer is still there.
(21:08):
Yeah, because, dude, some ofthese people were coming in
civilians and they were tryingto take the company.
They were just like here's acool amount of money, but we
want the company and I'm likeyou won't serve the military
community because you'll gocharge a guest fee day one.
So we chose actually to go witha veteran investor.
It was awesome pairing.
(21:30):
They have this super cool dealwith them because they just want
to see us run.
They just want to see us go.
What that did, though, is I gotto hire a team.
Right now, I have a seven-manteam.
I still do all the marketing,though I probably never hire a
marketing officer because it'sjust super quick.
Every time I post or every timeI build a product, I literally
picture speaking andrepresenting the military
(21:52):
community.
So if it's got one comma,that's messed up.
If it's got one comma, that'smessed up.
If it's got one animation,that's not tight end it like it
hurts me because I know that I'meither representing or yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
But you want to know why.
You want to know why?
It's because we've been trainedand it's a con op.
It's an absolute con op everysingle time and the BC is going
to read it.
I understand it completelyEvery time and the BC's gonna
rate it.
I understand it completelyEvery time I'm building
something for either my podcastor Special Forces Foundation.
It's exactly like a con op.
It's exactly like building.
(22:23):
I'm not using PowerPoint, so atleast there's that.
Now I'm using Canva.
It feels more snooty.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Well, if there's anyone out there listening who's
in now the army, ortransitioning, or a veteran who
has some marketing, you know,let me know, but you gotta pass
the test first yeah, it's.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
It's important to understand like you gotta at
some point you do have to let goso you can focus it.
It's just like hey, this isgood for the captain me.
Now I have to transition up tothe major.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Dude.
That's a great point.
That's a great point ForFoxhole 2.0, what I did was I
met one of the best human beingsthat I've met in my life so far
.
It's Troy T.
He's a 55-year year old, or hemight be 52.
He worked at microsoft as asoftware in engineer.
(23:23):
He also then, like, worked hisway up into manager roles and
then he jumped around fromdifferent oil companies to work
on as their software site.
Dude, I found I listed the jobfor chief technology officer,
had like 100 applicants insideof like 20 minutes it was crazy
interviewed a lot of them, um,and a lot of them were veterans.
(23:43):
It was cool.
I wanted to hire a veteran, but, boy, you know, I met and hit
it off and I hired him right onthe spot.
Uh, he was awesome.
He's responsible for, he's thelead developer on Foxhole 2.0.
I'm telling you right now and Ihope this is like the click that
gets, like smacked Foxhole 2.0is going to revolutionize
(24:05):
military travel forever.
This app, I've seen it.
Every week I have a meetingwith them and I review the
product, the design, everything.
It is the cleanest, mostefficient, most simple UX UI
I've ever seen.
Really, oh man, I'm telling youif you're a veteran or active
duty or a military dependent,you are going to want to
(24:27):
download this on September 5thbecause it's only yours.
You can go, show all yourfriends and be like look, I was
hoping you'd say sooner and I'ma tech nerd man.
I need to see this one 1.0 isstill up and uh it's, it's
serving the military communitylike it's.
It's done 25 plus bookings.
So it's a fully functionalwebsite, but it's not an app.
(24:51):
But we are, we're building likethe end-all, be-all Taj Mahal
app.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Heck yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
I cannot wait for it to get on the market and that
people can jump right in.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yeah, and we want to just take a moment to highlight
this.
Being able to get an investorand then being able to find the
right person and then building ateam these are all important
milestones that so many peopledream of.
And it's just like you know,getting that runway because a
lot you know sometimes you got abootstrap, sometimes you just
(25:23):
got to get this thing out thereon your own.
But getting that person thatsees what you have and then
agreeing that that's the rightperson, that sees the right,
sees the vision that you're alsoenvisioning I I got to imagine.
That felt amazing.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
It did Not to get too .
I do say I am a Christian anddude a lot of prayer and just a
lot of trust man.
That's why I go back to what Isaid at the very beginning is
you can't sit on decisions toolong.
If you sit on them too long,they go away and then someone
else makes them faster.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah, and don't discount the power of prayer.
If you're listening and you'reout there and you're in the
space, my wife gets on me a lotbecause I'll complain about
something and I'll talk about afriction point, a sticking point
, something that's really on mymind, and just wearing me down
the first thing she'll say isall right, have you prayed about
it?
And just wearing me down, thefirst thing she'll say is all
right, have you prayed about it?
(26:15):
Have you sat down and prayed?
If you haven't, look, I get it.
Faith is still a touchy subjectfor some of you.
I get it.
I'm going to talk about itbecause it's part of my journey.
It's part of my life.
You got to go and talk to thebig guy, whoever that is for you
.
I'm not going to judge youExactly, man, it's your journey.
You find it.
But talk to God, talk to theuniverse, talk to who you
(26:37):
believe in, get it out there,put your trust and faith and let
that out.
Put it out there, get it out ofyour mind and then move forward
.
I'm telling you, god works inmysterious ways.
You'll be surprised how manytimes you're dealing with that
frustration.
You give it over in prayer andthe next day, that person that
(26:58):
you needed to talk to orsomebody that you stumble upon
gives you that piece of adviceor that resource that you were
needing and you're like back to100%, back at it and you know,
in your journey, understandingthat that's something you can
turn to.
Looking at it now.
On this side of the journeyunderstanding that that's
something you can turn to,looking at it now, on this side
of the journey you got to beable to say, hey, there's proof
in the pudding, like when I wasstressed out, I was able to pray
(27:20):
, I was able to give this overto God and say, hey, I don't
know how we're going to make itthrough it, but I'm going to
trust in you and I'm going tomove forward.
We're going to launch this.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
No, and say this for anyone listening For me.
From my point of view, it'skind of like how Spencer was my
partner and he was in withtogether.
I'm never alone, man.
So I may be in my office doingall this work and crushing it
and making quick decisions, butif I ever need anyone's help, or
maybe I'm questioning somethingor something I'm doing it's a
quick prayer.
It's just that simple.
Maybe I'm questioning somethingor something I'm doing.
(27:50):
It's a quick prayer.
It's just that simple.
And that gives me theconfidence to go execute and
make sure that I'm doing thingsright and take a pause, Say, hey
, am I being greedy?
Am I doing something bad here?
Is this the right move?
That's what it provides me, manand I.
Just for people who don't havethat dude, you're missing out
because you're doing this alone.
(28:10):
Yeah, dude, you're missing outbecause you're doing this alone.
Dude, props to them if they cando it alone.
You're better than me.
You're stronger than me, Iguess.
Yeah, I definitely love thatteammate.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Yeah, that's the best way to put it, man, that's the
best way to put it.
Just an additional resource outthere hey, if you can do it on
your own, hey, my body andspirit.
I had to tap into that spiritdomain to get back what I was
missing most and it brought meback to the best version of
myself, and it truly is part ofthis entrepreneur journey.
It is.
It fits in all aspects of yourlife.
(28:44):
But in this journey, whenyou're staying up late at night
and you don't have somebody totalk to, if you're a solo
entrepreneur, that's the guythat you can talk to and rely on
.
You got to be a little morepatient for the answer.
Sometimes you got to be more intune, like, okay, this might be
me waiting a little bit longerfor this answer, but it's out
(29:05):
there, it's worthwhile.
But now you have a team, nowyou have people around you.
How has it been managing theteam?
Have you were some?
Speaker 2 (29:18):
pitfalls and some struggles, trying to get back in
the team mentality and, uh, somuch, oh, we're veteran owned
and we're veteran operated.
So seven employees and five ofthem are veteran and, uh, like,
they have served that's, that'sa plus.
And then the two who haven'tare in roles where we do serve
civilians.
So, troy, our CTO, I'm justgoing to be completely blunt
it's very hard to find a veteranwho has the tech background to
(29:41):
do what he's doing.
I mean, he's literally buildingan app that's going to compete
and outperform major platforms.
Yeah, that's hard to find.
That's hard to find.
Uh, our second uh guy he just,um, he's serving civilian hosts
as our.
It's called our chief supplyofficer because we, we focus on
(30:02):
supply and demand, so supplies,the host demands a guest, so all
he does is he's focused on hostrecruitment and host retainment
.
Yeah, oh, that he is.
He is a civilian and he, hedidn serve in the military but,
oh my gosh, he, he comes from amilitary home.
He, he grew up with me, yeah,that's awesome yeah, he was.
(30:22):
He was a division one athlete.
Uh, that's the thing I'm tryingto build at foxhole.
Is this like team firstcompetitiveness, almost like
your dream unit in the army, youknow.
And then the other dude, a guywho totally helped us, is a guy
named Martin Howe and he was aChinook pilot, oklahoma national
guard, got out, got his MBA,got out as a captain, multiple
(30:43):
deployments.
He was a prior service guy,full stud, and what he does for
us is he's our director ofstrategic operations.
That sounds like a title thatyou're like man, that's what.
What's that guy do?
But he is a person that I canjust put on any problem or
project and it's.
It's absolutely crushed anddone.
And, for example, he'soverseeing Foxhole 2.0.
(31:06):
Because what people don'tunderstand is when you're making
an app and you're makinga brandnew platform, you have the
design aspect.
So you, so you have a you, oneperson does it all.
So you have a designer who'sdesigning it, who then delivers
the design plan to the developeror developers and then they
build the actual tech stack.
You have this, basically twofronts, that are, you have to
(31:27):
coordinate or else you get infront of one another.
It's not going to, it's notgoing to work.
So it comes the budgeting,because you know, yeah, you
right on budget and uh, burtonhas done such an exceptional job
.
It's really showcasing what theveteran community is capable of
man, because that's it's likehe was one of the best pilots in
local national guard and nowhe's he's responsible for
overseeing foxhole 2.0.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
So was he a warrant officer or was he a proper
officer?
He's proper, he was acommission.
I was gonna say, if he was awarrant officer, then, uh, he a
proper officer.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
He was a proper.
He was a commissioner, not aman.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
I was going to say if he was a warrant officer, then
he's pretty good with a budgetman.
It sounds like you guys arebuilding a team of teams.
That is like being able to putpeople together in certain
sections to get them to execute.
Well, that's not as easy as youthink.
You can theorize it and itbreathes well on paper, but
(32:14):
getting them together, gettingthem to, you know, and it's kind
of biased, because this is kindof a sexy, cool thing to do,
whereas you know otherentrepreneurial endeavors that
might not be as attractive asbuilding a game-changing lodging
app, might be a little moredifficult.
But this is fun, this issomething that's exciting.
(32:37):
When you come into work, it'slike oh, like, oh man, like
we're changing the way veteranstravel, exactly certainly going
to be bringing something new.
That's wanted, that's needed.
It's like that excitement andthat thrill has got to help that
.
That's got to be an added bonus.
But moving on to, like that,the growing, the supply, growing
the amount of places you canstay at, like how is that grown?
How are you finding you know itwas.
(32:58):
It was probably a little easierwhen it was just you cold
calling.
Now it's, it's become a biggerthing.
How are you broadening,expanding man so?
Speaker 2 (33:07):
one chief supply officer does an awesome job of
just honestly using our FoxholeInstagram account.
Just, I mean just any host,because most of these people
direct book to when you're ashort-term rental owner and I
haven't touched on it yet but wealso do long-term stays I can
(33:29):
get that in a second but forthese short-term rentals, what
they often do is they're tryingto maximize bookings.
If they could have this thingbooked 365 days a year by 365
different people, it's a gooddeal.
So they'll list everywhere.
They'll list on Airbnb, vrbo,bookingscom, furnace Finder.
What they also do, though, issome of them they'll just list
(33:50):
their own website, they'll justcreate their own, and they just
rock and roll, and they do itall in-house.
What we try to do is we try topartner with veteran hosts.
That's our number one goal,because we have two people who
can host on Foxhole.
One is a veteran, so when I sayveteran, this is the hardest
part about marketing to themilitary community.
(34:12):
When I say veteran, in my headI'm thinking everybody, because
kind of, in a way, but if you'rean active duty veteran or
military dependent and you havea rental or you have an open
room in your house, you can listthat on Foxhole.
Right now Foxhole is notinvolved.
You verify your military statusby creating an account.
You can just list your property.
The second person is a civilianhost, which right now what we
(34:35):
do is they have to submit anapplication to us and then we
partner with a veteran ownedcompany who does a background
check on them and then they signour foxhole standard.
It's really just Army values,in all honesty.
It's just saying that you'renot going to take advantage of
pricing stuff like this, thestuff that people get frustrated
(34:56):
with on other platforms.
We do recruit civilian hosts,but they cannot book, they can
only host To get that supply.
What we've been doing is whatfirst started off with cold
calling and just finding places.
However we can find them Turnedinto now this unique veteran
network that like spread.
It's not a fast spread, it'snot like a blow up wildfire, but
(35:19):
what it's turned into is aboutwe've been gaining about three
listings a week.
So you say that to anyone else.
They're like it's not that much, but it's a domino effect.
Because, example is, we found aveteran in Texas who reached out
to us, just literally got onour page, contact us for him.
He had 27 properties throughoutTexas and he was like hey, I
(35:43):
want to serve.
Hey, I got out a long time ago.
I still want to stay connectedand serve the military community
.
Sign me up, dude.
He's gotten 11 bookings aloneoff of lots of cause he's got.
He's got one.
That's a.
It's gotten 11 bookings aloneoff of Foxhole Because he's got
one.
Have you ever heard of a Glamp?
Yeah, yeah, he's got a Glamp inTennessee.
All of his listings are inTexas except he's got two Glamps
in Tennessee.
(36:03):
They've been booked everyweekend on Foxhole by someone at
Fort Campbell.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
I love that.
I love that it's the communityserving the community.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
that is absolutely and there's a couple of
civilians too who and they'relike, hey, I never served, but I
love our military and like, putme up to list on foxhole and
they're some of our best hosts.
Because they're like, hey, thisis my way of serving.
Because you know, yeah, you'renot making it, they're not
charging my guest fee andthey're going to save money.
Listen, at my property onFoxhole, sign me up.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Yeah, it's a no brainer when you just described
with the gentleman in Texas.
That's a lot of our guys aregetting into real estate.
Like I know, there's a vastmajority of seventh group guys
in Florida right now, in thepanhandle, that need to get on
this app ASAP because that'sexactly what they've done.
You spend, you know, vastamount of your career traveling,
(37:00):
saving your money.
You start buying properties.
I know a lot of my friends thatas soon as they got to Florida
and when seventh group made theBRAC move, as soon as they got
down there condos, beachfrontproperty scraped every penny and
bought and have.
I'll be.
I'll be sending some peopleyour way.
It makes sense.
Serve the community, you'repart of it.
Put your stuff out there onfoxhole.
(37:21):
This is brilliant man.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
And then how about this?
Another, another thing say youare tdy in seventh group and
you're going to florida for anofficial eating or training and
you're only there for like aweek or two weeks.
Right, you're on orders, thegovernment's going to pay for it
.
You can stay at a foxhole andget reimbursed by the DOD.
Yes, so if you're a host andyou're anywhere near DC, so this
(37:47):
is a see.
I wanted to share this so bad.
We have a retired colonel rightnow in Washington DC.
He's a grad bed.
We have a retired colonel rightnow in Washington DC.
He's a field artillery officer.
Awesome guy, great, he's reallysmart and he's fun to talk to.
He heard about Foxhole.
He owns rental properties acrossthe country, probably about 12.
Sold them all, boom Done.
He then buys, he's buying.
He bought one this week, he'sbuying two other ones Short-term
(38:10):
rentals in DC, and he wants ageneral officer or senior NCO
who's going to DC or thePentagon.
And he's buying two other ones,short-term rentals in dc, and
he wants a general officer orsenior ncos who's going to the d
, who's going to dc or thepentagon and he's going to stay.
His dream is that they justlist through foxhole and that
they get reimbursed and they'restaying as a really nice place,
and what that does for the hostis you can, this guest isn't
paying for it, it's literally,it's it's their official travel.
(38:32):
You, you know, yeah, dts, doneand done, so no more what that
does for the traveler.
So, if you're active duty andyou're listening to this, what
that does for you is no morehotels, no more PCS.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
No more kitchenettes.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
No more driving from Florida to, you know, Fort Lewis
, and at two o'clock in themorning you're trying to get
into a third story hotel withthe dog.
It's not happening anymore.
You just roll up to an air orroll up to a foxhole Boom.
So you know, that's the coolpart for us, and you're still
getting paid back.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Exactly, I love this.
This is yeah.
I cannot.
Oh, my goodness man, I'msending you some folks.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
The other cool thing about Foxhole that it's secretly
my dream is one thing I hatedabout, especially.
I mean, I can't speak for otherbranches, but the Army.
There was a different platformfor everything Personnel.
You had to go log into this.
If you wanted to do training,you had to log in DTMS.
If you wanted to, I mean it'slike Defense ready yes, so you
(39:32):
had like eight different logins.
Now, granted, you did just useyour cat card, but I'm just
saying, like you memorize allthese different places With
Foxhole, my dream is that youcan just log into Foxhole and if
you want to manage a property,boom, it's Foxhole.
If you want to rent to military, boom, foxhole, all on Foxhole.
So that's my dream is that whenpeople think travel they say
(39:56):
foxhole.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Yeah, what about for PCS, long-term rentals, for
moving into a new area?
I don't know, maybe that's toomuch, but I would say one of the
hardest things for me when Imanaged my property in North
Carolina was PCS season Peopletrying to find a place for you
(40:17):
know, trying to move my property.
Be advertised on this websiteversus this website.
Any thoughts about doing andmoving into the wider real
estate market?
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Oh, so for the PCS example.
So what we do and this is likecheat code, in my opinion, to
anyone who's a long-term host soif you're looking to rent to
military who are PCSing, soyou're looking at 28 days or,
more typically, six months to 12months, you can list on Foxhole
.
We do long-term stays andhere's the best part we don't
(40:48):
micromanage you, we don'tcollect a monthly payment.
So say, give me an example uh,lieutenant collins is going to
fort fort polk, louisiana, to goup to his first unit.
I can go on foxhole, find along-term stay that I like, that
it's in my price, it's gotenough bedrooms, whatever.
Well, I pay right there.
(41:09):
So say it's listed for $1,200.
I pay $1,200.
What I would do is I don't haveto go through the actual
in-depth, but the guest is goingto pay $1,200 because that's
the listed price, right, justgets it.
15% of that is going to go toFoxhole.
So it's $180 that first month.
(41:30):
After that you keep 100% of therent, sign your lease.
You can pay on Foxhole if youwant monthly, if you want to
just like they sign your leaseand you go to whatever systems
you use.
So, zelle, venmo, that's allyou man.
You can totally do that.
We're not involved.
All we care about is deliveringyou the verified military guest
(41:51):
who signs your lease, and thenwe collect our payment.
If they never sign your lease,we're not.
It's not like.
We're like oh hey, all right,readjust, we'll go find you a
new.
That's one thing Foxhole doesthat no one else does is.
We have a PCS service.
So, example we had a guy goingto Fort Bragg, a staff sergeant
in Foxhole.
Now we have a form on ourwebsite that he could have
(42:14):
filled out, but for whateverreason, he just he shot us a DM
and it was like dude, I needhelp.
I PCS in a month, matched himwithin 48 hours.
Wow, and that was just straight.
Us just and that's.
We have a guy literally on staffwho is doing that role.
So anyone who's like exampleI'm in command, I have a short
PCS, I don't have the bandwidthto plan my PCS hey, just message
(42:37):
Foxhole.
Man, it's a free service.
You tell us how many bedroomsyou want, where you're going,
the price range you want.
Hey, we will email you backwithin 48 hours with like hey,
here's three options.
Here's the listing link.
Click on it.
Connect with your host.
That's awesome.
Like hey, here's three options.
Here's the listing link.
Click on it.
Connect with your hostexperience.
So that's what we do and that'sthe best part, because these
(42:57):
guys can just hey, I need to goclear, cif, hey, I need to.
I still have to do my dutiesand responsibilities in the role
that I'm in, can't even worryabout moving my family or moving
my stuff.
So you do that for free 100,100%.
Speaker 1 (43:09):
That's fucking awesome, william.
I think that you guys are goingto be a very, very, very
successful company.
Dude, it's a no-brainer for me.
It is a no-brainer for me.
If you're traveling and you'rea veteran or service member,
you're not using Foxhole.
You're going to look back atthis and you're going to say man
(43:33):
, I wish I would have paidattention, I wish I would have
known about this, but I got afeeling.
In the next few months, youguys are going to know who
Foxhole is and you're going tobe utilizing them, because I
promise you right now, I willnever use Airbnb ever again,
ever, ever, ever, ever, ever.
William, I can't thank youenough for being here, man.
Before I let you go, though,where can we go?
(43:56):
When's that?
Tell us again.
When's the app launching?
Where can we go to check outfoxhole?
Show us, tell us, all of oursocial media social media
handles you got I know, Iappreciate it.
Speaker 2 (44:02):
So if you want to check us out on social media,
it's going to be at stay foxhole, okay, uh, that's for instagram
, twitter, uh, facebook or x,you know, okay.
And then if you want to checkout Foxhole 1.0, say you want to
book right now or go create anaccount, hey, go to
stayfoxholecom.
Here's the other cool thingwhen we move over to our
(44:24):
custom-built app, if you sign upon 1.0, you'll automatically
get carried over to 2.0.
We'll have to do it again whenwe launch 2.0, we may launch it
before September 5th, but wewill launch it by September 5th.
Nice, 100%, september 5th isthe far right.
(44:45):
I'm trying to launch ithonestly in the last week of
August.
Okay, I'm telling you guys,it's going to be in the App
Store, it's going to be awesome.
And it is going to be just formilitary, because only if you're
active duty, if you're aveteran or military dependent,
can you access Voxel.
Speaker 1 (45:03):
Dude, this is awesome .
This is going to get used andpeople are going to love this.
I already know it.
Especially coming around August, people traveling Can't wait to
see this in a destined area.
Man, yeah, this is uh.
You, sir, came into the rightmarket with the right app.
This is going to be freakinghuge.
William.
Again, thank you so much forbeing here.
(45:24):
To all y'all tuning in, pleasedo me a favor.
Go ahead and pause theepisode's almost over.
Just go ahead and episodedescription.
Click those links.
Send a friend request toFoxhole.
Link up with them.
Follow them on their journey.
Be one of the first that cansay like hey, I stayed at
Foxhole this weekend.
It was awesome, leaving thereview.
Go to their website.
Support our veteran communityand our veteran entrepreneurs.
It's not an easy job.
(45:45):
I'm not asking you to just playKate.
I'm asking you to try it.
Give it a shot.
You can go to every other appand pay a lot of money, or go to
Foxhole, stay in an amazingplace, pay no fees and be
supporting a veteran business.
So it's a no brainer move.
I'm Danny Caballero, thank youfor tuning in and we'll see you
all next time.
Until then, take care.
(46:06):
Securepodcast is proudlysponsored by Titans Arms.
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