Why I left my corporate job, started a company, and bought an RV
Sponsored by SnowSearch — now LIVE!
Portillo, Chile; summer 2012. 2 months that would change my life and leave me fixated on the unrelenting pursuit of snow.
For those who know me — or follow me on social media — it’s no secret that I love snowboarding. I’ve been infatuated with the sport since I copied my old brother and switched over from skiing at age 8. While studying hospitality as an undergrad, I had the realization that I could intertwine this passion with some semblance of a professional career.
This led to me moving to Chile to work as a Receptionista at Ski Portillo in Chile. As the only American living on-site with 500 Chilean employees, this made for a challenging yet epic life experience that is worthy of it’s own post. While I quickly realized hotel operations wasn’t for me, I knew from that summer forward that the sport would play an elevated role in my life.
Like many of my peers, upon graduation I suppressed the desire to follow my heart and pushed myself onto a conventional path working for a large consulting firm and more recently, a hotel company. I don’t regret this in the slightest as I have learned an insane amount and built a strong network in just a few years. Still, while working in real estate in New York and Boston, I found myself truly living for the weekends — specifically the winter ones where I had the chance to return to the slopes.
During this period of time, I’ve averaged 15–20 days/season, a feat which was not without serious effort. Despite the strong proximity these cities provide to an array of top notch East Coast resorts, the trip planning process remained incredibly convoluted — even for a somebody as crazy obsessed as me.
When I took a step back and thought about why, it started to become clear to me. The industry is currently experiencing a massive demographic shift whereby spending power is finally transitioning from baby boomers to millennials. Existing online platforms are literally designed for my parents generation, who have for decades been the average buyer for on-mountain service providers. Today, nearly 65% of skiers and snowboarders are below the age of 34.
Just as our parents were super ‘loyal’ in regard to their favorite hotel brands, they were dedicated to the ski resorts they knew and loved. Simply put, if they grew up skiing at Stowe, it’s likely that they would continue to visit Stowe each season, teach the next generation to ski there, and [if they one day had the means] purchase real estate nearby.
Millennials couldn’t be more different. We have a deep desire to explore and venture to different destinations for each trip. While Stowe may remain great spot for the annual family vacation, we want to go to Killington for MLK weekend because of nightlife, Utah for deep powder in February, and Tahoe for spring skiing and Apres in March. On top of that, we lease longer and avoid buying homes, so the concept vacation homes are out of the question.
Resort companies have taken note, as is evident by the proliferation of passes such as the Epic Pass (650K+ sold last year), Mountain Collective, and Max Pass, among others. These passes include lift tickets at an array of resorts around North America (and beyond), giving young people the impetus to travel and discover new world-class mountain resorts. With demand for these passes driving further consolidation in the industry, the trend appears to only be accelerating.
As a former holder of the Mountain Collective pass, I can attest to the fact that these are pretty awesome in that they cater to the sense of flexibility and optionality that my friends and I seek. Still, they present a major challenge that has not yet been addressed by existing players.
Whether you have these passes or not, it’s really hard to figure out where to go when, how to get there, and where to stay.
With that in mind, I couldn’t be more excited to introduce you all to SnowSearch, the dream solution that I am building with my Co-Founder (and roommate) Luke Zirngibl.
Since January, Luke and I have engaged with hundreds of skiers and snowboarders across the country and heard without fail a message that has confirmed our initial hypothesis: the end-to-end experience going skiing and snowboarding from major cities is painful. While we can’t share too much about exactly how we’re going to improve this — our secret sauce, so to say — we can assure you that we’re hard at work preparing to launch our platform in advance to W ‘17/’18.
So, you may be asking yourself why we bought an RV. Good question — so are our moms!
SnowSearch will operate as an Online Travel Agency (‘OTA’), similar to Expedia or HotelTonight. These companies make money by distributing travel inventory on behalf of service providers in exchange for a percentage of revenue from successful bookings. They’re quite good at it, too — the percentage of hotel rooms distributed by OTA’s in the US increased from 25% in 2011 to 42% in 2016.
In order to effectively launch our platform, we will need to develop relationships directly with resorts, hotels, and other service providers, and we believe the best way to accomplish this is face-to-face. So, what better way to travel long distances on a budget than an obnoxiously large old truck that could act not only as our transportation and lodging, but also as a mascot for our brand?
After surprisingly little deliberation, we pulled the trigger on a 1994 Catelina Coachman — team SnowSearch’s home on the road this summer. Better yet, we agreed that we would share the day-to-day adventure — the many up’s and likely many more down’s — with all of you!
With that said, It’s my pleasure to introduce you to ‘Ol Betty’, a name passed down from her prior owner. We were going to name it ‘snowmobile’, but something about Ol’ Betty works. Just look at her…
With our rural Massachusetts truck mechanic’s blessing — she needed a new control arm and exhaust manifold to be road-ready — we will soon embark on a journey due Northeast. On top of these resorts being right in our backyard, the opportunity to streamline the experience for weekend warriors from Boston and New York is so incredibly strong, we believe it’s the perfect place to launch.
Stay tuned over the coming weeks as we collaborate with two awesome local artists to give Betty a makeover, detail out our travel plans (seriously — come visit us for a few days, she sleeps 6), and launch other cool ski related content (ski for a week in Japan for under $2,500, anybody)?
Please drop us your email to stay updated with our progress and gain access to amazing deals starting this Fall. Feel free to reach out via the email below with any feedback/thoughts/ideas as we work towards our goal of modernizing the snow sports experience for young people. We would love to connect.
-Bryan
Co-Founder
