Episodes

Chris Kilcullen has spent three decades in hotels, closing more than $200 million in deals as a senior broker at Avison Young. He's also sold franchises, brokered acquisitions for a REIT, and now built his own hotel concept, so he's seen the flag question from every angle. In this episode, he and Michael dig into the real math: why a commodity economy hotel can lose 30 to 40 percent of its value the moment it drops its brand, and why a well-positioned independent or boutique property can out-ear...

He's not a hotel investor. He built his career in multifamily and self-storage, growing a portfolio that peaked near $1 billion across more than 4,000 units. But the way he underwrites deals, ranks markets, and raises capital works across every asset class, hotels included. That's exactly why he's on this show. Data beats gut feel by a million miles. That's his rule, and in this episode, he breaks down the two metrics he checks before touching any deal, the same ones that predict a hotel's pe...

Most hotel investors build the product first and spend years chasing an audience to fill it. This guest did the opposite, and it paid off big-time! In this episode, Michael Russell sits down with a former travel content creator who built a following of over a million people, then used years of staying in the world's best hotels to figure out exactly what makes a property worth sharing, and designed his own around it. That audience helped his first Bali hotel hit 80% occupancy in month one and p...

Most people walk past the ugly deal. That's exactly why the ugly deal is where the money is. In this episode, Michael Russell sits in the hot seat as a guest on the Lights On Podcast, sharing the unfiltered story behind how he acquired a rundown one-star motel in Maui during COVID and repositioned it into the number one small hostel in North America, growing annual revenue from $500K to $2.4 million in just a few years. Co-founder of Howzit Hostels and Malama Capital, Michael has built a hosp...

In this episode, you'll learn how to diagnose whether your property is actually a candidate for wellness positioning, and if it is, how to implement it in a way that lifts ADR without blowing out your expense line. A hospitality strategist who spent 20 years in hotel sales and development before building a consulting practice around wellness revenue joins us to share the playbook she's used across independent properties worldwide. Emily Johnson's approach has helped properties drive occupancy...

It took zero dollars of his own money to buy a $4.5 million waterfront resort. It took three years and over a million and a half dollars out of pocket just to keep it. In this episode, you'll discover the deal, debt, equity sequence he says has never failed to raise capital on a good deal, and exactly when a joint venture beats a syndication. A multifamily investor who scaled to over 600 rental units, and once raised $10 million without a following or a dollar from family, walks through the on...

Most boutique hotel operators are leaving serious money on the table, not because of bad locations or bad products, but because of bad marketing fundamentals that nobody told them about. In this episode, you'll hear exactly how one operator diagnosed a 40% occupancy problem and fixed it, taking her Bozeman boutique property to 80% occupancy with a $3,000 monthly marketing budget. A sixth-generation Montanan who started running a historic hotel at 23, sold her first property after 18 years for ...

What happens when you find a deal that could change everything, but you've drained your bank account just to close it? In this episode, you'll hear exactly how one operator went from cleaning parking lots to owning the building, and what that journey taught him about risk, focus, and building a business that doesn't need you in it every day. A vertically integrated hospitality operator who built an 84-door portfolio across two countries and is now pursuing a 140-key historic hotel in Sardinia...

Most people assume you need outside investors, a big budget, or a prime location to build a profitable hospitality brand. This episode proves otherwise. In this episode, you'll learn exactly how one builder went from working as a contractor to owning a luxury micro resort that nets over half a million dollars a year, with no syndication, no partners, and no fancy market. A builder and founder who bootstrapped a five-cabin luxury brand from $90,000 out of pocket joins the show to break down how...

You hit your targets. You built the business. So why does it still feel like something's missing? In this episode, you'll discover why deferring your happiness until the next deal, the next promotion, or the next milestone is quietly destroying your leadership, your team culture, and your returns. A personal freedom coach who has spent 30 years in hospitality and now works exclusively with CEOs and top executives joins the show to share the self-leadership framework that changes how high-achi...

What if you bought a rundown bed and breakfast on Zillow, moved in the next day, and turned it into Colorado's first luxury treehouse hotel, all without raising a single dollar from outside investors? That's exactly what Ashley LaRocque and her wife did. And six years later, their property is booked through 2027, generating six-figure wedding revenue they never saw coming. A former TV producer who left corporate life to build something from scratch, Ashley shares the unfiltered story of what i...

In this episode, you'll discover how a single ultra-niche lodging unit can outperform a full hotel on cash-on-cash returns and what that signals for boutique investors paying attention. A treehouse designer whose work has been featured in the New York Times, Architectural Digest, and HGTV joins us to break down the real numbers behind experiential lodging. Dustin Fighter has spent two decades building one-of-a-kind suspended structures, and his original pine cone treehouse, 60 feet in the air...

What if the most overlooked apartment deal in your market is already built, it's just flagged as a hotel? In this episode, you'll discover how a valuation gap between hotels and multifamily creates forced equity of 40 to 50% before you change a single wall, and why most investors completely miss it. A CEO who has completed over 30 hotel-to-apartment conversions across six states joins us to break down the exact strategy his firm has used to generate a 20% annualized return since inception. Ry...

Experienced real estate investors make the jump into hospitality every year. Most of them underestimate what they're getting into. In this episode, you'll hear what it actually looks like when a seasoned commercial operator buys his first boutique hotel, and what he'd do differently. A commercial real estate investor who built a $75M portfolio across retail, self-storage, flex space, and adaptive reuse projects shares the unfiltered story of acquiring, renovating, and opening Salt Ranch, a 48-...

What does it actually cost to build a boutique hotel from scratch in a foreign country? More than you think, and not just financially. A short-term rental operator running 220+ properties across 40 cities is now three years into building a 20-unit boutique resort in Medellin, Colombia. No bank financing. A licensing process that restarted from zero. And a price tag is climbing toward $4.5 million. Tim Hubbard joins the show to walk through every layer of this project with total transparency. I...

Most people who buy their first hospitality property don't realize they just bought themselves a 90-hour-a-week job. The difference between owning a business and being trapped inside one comes down to a single number most investors never bother to calculate before they sign. In this episode, you'll learn the exact revenue threshold your property needs to hit before you can hire real staff, implement real systems, and actually step away from day-to-day operations. A 26-year campground owner an...

Jasper Ribbers went from trading equities on Wall Street to traveling to 100 countries as a digital nomad, funding it all from a single Airbnb apartment in Amsterdam. Today, he manages pricing strategy for over $125 million in annual short-term rental bookings and co-founded Freewyld, a micro-resort brand in Idyllwild, California that's pulling $190 RevPAR against a $97 market average. In this episode, Jasper reveals which STR markets worldwide are generating the best returns right now, why 99% ...

What does a land investor who's done 400+ deals have to teach hotel investors? More than you'd expect. In this episode, you'll discover how the same principles behind finding off-market sellers, creating value through entitlements, and building passive income apply directly to hospitality investing, even if you've never bought a single acre of dirt. A former Army officer turned land-investing expert joins us to break down how he built a machine that generates $44,000 a month in passive income...

Fear of making the wrong move is why most aspiring hotel investors never get started. And ironically, that hesitation is costing them more than any mistake ever would. In this episode, you'll learn how one developer went from zero hotel experience to 50% NOI margins, a REIT acquisition, and a second brand now scaling to 10+ locations across the US. A former McKinsey consultant turned landscape resort developer who built two properties from scratch, sold 90% to a REIT, and is now pioneering a l...

If you're still tracking your hotel pipeline in Excel and spending two hours screening each deal, you're working harder than you need to. Ziggy Hallgarten lived with that frustration as an analyst, so he built the solution. In this episode, you'll get fresh market insights from the ALIS Conference, learn how AI can cut your deal analysis time dramatically, and hear what the entrepreneurial journey looks like when you're solving a problem you experienced yourself. A Cornell Hotel School gradua...

What if there's a way to scale a hospitality portfolio without having to own the real estate? For operators looking to grow quickly without raising millions in equity or navigating complex bank financing, the OpCo-PropCo model offers a compelling alternative path. In this episode, you'll discover how to build a hospitality brand by leasing properties instead of buying them, command premium ADRs without real estate risk, and scale across multiple markets using the OpCo-PropCo model. An outdoor...

Most investors think they're building a business, but they're actually building themselves a job. The truth? If you died tomorrow, your "business" would die with you. A real estate investor who scaled from 80-hour weeks to just 4 hours per month reveals the exact automation framework that freed him—and how to apply it to any real estate asset, including hotels. Mark Podolsky built a multi-million dollar land flipping operation, lost 50% of it in 2008, then rebuilt it into a passive income mac...

Most hotel owners think the only way to reduce OTA dependency is to throw more money at Facebook ads or hire expensive marketing agencies. But the real solution isn't more budget, it's leveraging what you already have: authentic stories and staff who actually care about the guest experience. A hospitality marketing veteran who's advised VCs and built a 1.6 million social following reveals the direct booking playbook that independent hotels are using to reclaim revenue from OTAs. Scott Eddy has ...

Most first-time motel buyers don't lose money on the purchase price. They lose it by underestimating CapEx, guessing on underwriting, and assuming they can "market" their way to higher occupancy. That's how people get smoked. In this episode, you'll learn a simple, real-world way to sanity-check a value-add motel deal, including what "light reno" actually costs per key and which levers really move ADR. My guest is Jordan Malara, an ex-Space Force engineer who went from managing short-term ren...