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For the first episode of 2020, Eric Janssen speaks to Sarah Sklash, HBA ’07, co-owner of The June Motel, a 16-room boutique motel in Prince Edward County.
Find out how a New Years Resolution helped Sarah take the leap from side hustle, to full-time entrepreneur, who together with her business partner, chose to transform the ‘diviest motel you’ve ever seen,’ into one of Ontario's most Instagrammable experiences.
The Ivey Entrepreneur Podcast is sponsored by Connie Clerici, QS ’08, and Closing the Gap Healthcare Group, Inc.
Transcript
You're listening to the Ivey entrepreneur podcast from the Pierre L. Morrissette Institute for Entrepreneurship at the Ivey Business School. In this series Ivey entrepreneur, and Ivey faculty member Eric Janssen will anchor the session.
Eric Janssen
Sarah, welcome to the Ivey entrepreneur podcast.
Sarah Sklash
Thank you happy to be here.
Eric Janssen
Yeah. Good to have you in. So firstly, I had to point out, I couldn't let it slip by that you were originally a Windsor resident. Is that right? You grew up in Winchester
Sarah Sklash
Yeah, I grew up in Windsor.
Eric Janssen
We have to call that out whenever we get a chance. raising up entrepreneurs from Windsor. Yeah.
Sarah Sklash
Are you from Windsor?
Eric Janssen
I am.
Sarah Sklash
Oh, no way. Oh, cool.
Eric Janssen
Yeah, born and raised. Yeah. So Sarah, I want to start with the question. What is the June or what is the June Motel.
Sarah Sklash
The June Motel is a retro but fresh boutique motel brand. We started off in Prince Edward county with a 16 room motel. And we've recently purchased our second property in Sabo beach.
Eric Janssen
And where can people find these properties?
Sarah Sklash
So our website is the Jean motel calm. Or you can find us on Instagram at the Jean motel, or follow kind of our behind the scenes journey on at motel Yay, life that motel a like hotel, yay. But with an M.
Eric Janssen
Take me if you would, back to where these entrepreneurial Inklings started. So I know earlier on you had mentioned when we were talking at a time, no interest in being an entrepreneur right out of school, but now you are full bore into it. So like, Where did the Inklings even start for you?
Sarah Sklash
The inkling started when I started binge watching Dragon's Den. So worked for the government. I'm sure we'll chat about that a bit. But I just started seeing this other kind of path, did a few little very unsuccessful side hustles. And eventually just wanted this opportunity to be creative to really set my own path. And that's when I was like, Okay, I need to take the leap, do something new and become an entrepreneur.
Eric Janssen
Okay, so you took some swings, what were the side? hustles? And when did you do those?
Sarah Sklash
So, as I said, Really unsuccessful, I bought about $1,000 worth of Turkish towels. I think I still have like $950 worth of Turkish towels, like lifetime supply of towels. stell. And then the other one was, I was called in silk cram. So it was, you can make a silk scarf with your own Instagram photos. Also not very successful.
Eric Janssen
So when did you come up with these ideas? Like when did you start trying things out like this?
Sarah Sklash
Really, I'm trying to think whenever Dragon's Den came on Netflix, it was shortly after that, that I just started getting this idea to do something creative on the side.
Eric Janssen
So you graduated in 07. And these side hustles were post graduation while you were out working full time.
Sarah Sklash
Yeah, it was probably five years after graduation.
Eric Janssen
Okay. And maybe dig back then you had mentioned before? No Inklings when you were a student? Or before that? What changed from Heck no, I'm not going to do when I'm a student to interesting, I'm going to start trying some things and taking some swings.
Sarah Sklash
I think I'm sowing government, there's a limited opportunity to be really creative. You are often getting things approved by 20 people above you. And I think so it was kind of in contrast to what I was doing there was partly giving me that inkling to say, Okay, let me let me try something, just create it all myself.
Eric Janssen
Got it. So that was your outlet for some sort of creativity. Anything when that you can think of maybe reflecting back when you were young that led to this need to creatively express yourself or eventually go out on your own, the way you were raised? Was there anything that you were growing up?
Sarah Sklash
Even to this day, like I I remember being at Ivey, never thinking I was going to be an entrepreneur, I am a Doer, I really like I like to get things done, which I think is a great quality and an entrepreneur. But I was also happy to just follow someone else's vision for quite a while. So I can't really kind of dig down into where that came from other than just maybe, like being a creative person. And I think entrepreneurship really lends itself well to creativity.
Eric Janssen
Cool. Okay, so you are trying some things taking some swings on the side. hustles your words not phenomenally successful. Where did the idea come from for the June?
Sarah Sklash
Sure. So I have a business partner who's one of my best friends. And the June came from really just like, both of us being in this place where like, okay, we're ready for a real life change. Let's get together, let's brainstorm a whole bunch of ideas. We both really like wine. So that is kind of where we started the brainstorm was whatever we did was gonna be kind of surrounding wine. And I know kind of motel seems like a stretch now. But the two of us had gone and done a race in Prince Edward county in 2012. Back then, it wasn't quite as well known as it is now. But spent three years hunting to buy a cottage at there. And kind of that time, both of us experienced there was no place to stay. There was a lot of old fashioned BNB's divey motels. So we knew that there was a need for something in the area. I I've always loved travel followed kind of travel trends, and had seen you know, other people doing cool things with motels. But anyway, we, we weren't, didn't start off with going right into the buying the motel, we were going to do just like one weekend, run a wine camp, it was going to be you know, low risk. But I was closely following the real estate market out there, and knew that there was this motel for sale. And so we were like, okay, we're gonna take over this motel, bring in a bunch of people to do this, like weekend wine camp. We're like, but the motel is kind of gross. So we're gonna have to bring in new bedding, bring in some plants bring in lots of wine. And then we're like, or, you know, at that point, why don't we just buy it? So we bought like the DI vs. motel you've ever seen?
Eric Janssen
Wow. So there's a lot here. Let me unpack a little bit. So the what was sounds like you wanted to run just a weekend little wine event. And this quickly accelerated into we're gonna buy a motel. So what was the timeline like from we're gonna do this weekend to let's just buy the motel?
Sarah Sklash
Yeah. So it was January 2, this was New Year's resolutions that we started the brainstorm. It was within a week that I had called up my old real estate agent and said, Can we go look at this motel. So over the winter, we drove out there. And so a few you know, a few weeks later, we were putting in offers it to buy a commercial property. I mean, it takes maybe a month or two to really wrap up the whole process. But we moved in beginning of June.
Eric Janssen
Wow. Yeah. You moved in the beginning of June. Did that have anything to do with the name or the name is separate from when you moved in?
Sarah Sklash
very separate. Okay.
Eric Janssen
Yeah. That is a that's an intense timeline. So I want to dig into the detail on the brainstorming process. So sometimes people get hung up on the ideation process. My I don't have the right idea. I don't know how to come up with it. It's not big enough. So New Year's resolution came up to continue on the side hustle thing and you just committed doing brainstorms. How did that work? Like where, when With who?
Sarah Sklash
Yeah, so again, with my best friend, April, I think it started out over kind of juice in the morning. But as I mentioned, we really like wine. So the brainstorm just kept flowing over some wine. Throughout hundreds of ideas from kind of shipping wine out to people at all. We knew what one of the pillars was. And I think that really helped it was the thing that we are really passionate about. And then just yeah, it was just kind of forcing ourselves to brainstorm and throw lots of ideas.
Eric Janssen
And how did you capture them? Like, was it at your apartment? Where did you do the brainstorming
Sarah Sklash
At her apartment. And then at a juice bar over the morning.
Eric Janssen
Okay, yeah, this was all in one session, like one massive brainstorm.
Sarah Sklash
Might have been over two days. But yeah, it was intense. It was lots of ideas. It was lots of kind of spin off ideas that kind of built on one another.
Eric Janssen
Cool. So a couple days, hundreds of ideas. How did you start to narrow down the ones that you thought would be most interesting to work on?
Sarah Sklash
So I think so weekend of wine camp was the one that we really was the one of the initial brainstorm that we kind of started off with. And then as we flush that idea out, and thinking about all the costs, thinking about all the work, that was when it was a light bulb moment to say we should just buy it.
Eric Janssen
Wow. So you jumped from running a weekend boot camp to buying the motel and clearly You had a long inexperienced track record in commercial real estate to pull from,
Sarah Sklash
Not at all. Thankfully, we found a really good lawyer who we still work with, who had a lot of corporate real estate experience. And he's the one that really helped guide us through that first experience.
Eric Janssen
Okay, so you, at this time still have a full time job.
Sarah Sklash
Still have a full time job
Eric Janssen
decided to buy took a trip down to buy the motel put together? Did you get investors or?
Sarah Sklash
No, so borrowed some money for a down payment. And then one of the interesting things about corporate real estate and commercial real estate they didn't know is vendor take back mortgages. So we're a bank probably wouldn't have lent us the money. It was actually the sellers of the motel who are looking to retire that held the mortgage on the property.
Eric Janssen
Got it. And did you buy it as a business or as a real estate property? Like were they saying it puts off x in cash flow or income and you bought it as a business? or?
Sarah Sklash
Yeah, we can get into that. It was called the sportsman motel. They were not doing a great business at all. So we didn't buy it based on the business that they were running. But based on the potential that we saw there.
Eric Janssen
Got it. And then you said, getting creative with the financing will pay you back over time as we build the business and make it successful.
Sarah Sklash
Yeah, so really, it's like a standard mortgage that you'd have on any property, but it's with the vendors of the property, and really ended up with fabulous terms that probably no bank would have ever given us.
Eric Janssen
Wow. Awesome. Okay, so you still have a job you find yourself being an owner of a commercial property a motel. You took possession. So all the six months from I think we're gonna we may end up running this weekend wine fest mini festival events, too. I own a motel in June. At what point? Did you leave your full time job?
Sarah Sklash
Yeah, so I, to this day, my business partner won't really let me live this one down. I did both for a while she moved in solo and I would come out every weekend to work the motel. I just I wasn't in kind of a financial place to be able to quit my job right away. I needed that kind of ease into it. But it was a really tough year it was I'd work all day in my government job. And then I'd come home and have to do all sorts of work for the hotel. And then every weekend, I would be living in the motel.
Eric Janssen
Okay. How did you even start to prioritize what to do? I mean, my mind is racing with Do you work on the physical look and field you jump to the marketing? Do you like, Where did you even start with now we own this thing? Yeah, What do we do?
Sarah Sklash
So the sportsman motel was a very interesting place catered specifically to fishermen and hunters. And we had no motel experience whatsoever. And because we took a possession in June, and the season is pretty short, in Prince Edward County. So you really you make your money June through September, and then it kind of quiets down. So we got an education in running a motel and just ran the sportsman motel we would check guests in, they would ask us where to go fishing. couldn't really help them with that all that well. So we think that was important. We made a lot of mistakes and running the motel that first year, didn't really know what we were doing. But we learned how. And what was great was we also learned how under the sportsman which wasn't going to be the brand that we carried on afterwards.
Eric Janssen
Got it. So you literally just bought the property. Did you change anything out of the gate or just ran it exactly as it is?
Sarah Sklash
We ran it exactly as is. So we took possession at June 1 and we had a full house on June 3.
Eric Janssen
Wow. Yeah. So didn't even take your towel. Turkish towels didn't even move change the towels or the anything with the front desk or anything. You just took it over and ran it? Yeah,
Sarah Sklash
We took it over and ran it. We did hire some staff. And thankfully, we hired a woman who had a bit more experience than we did. So towels, we kept doing ourselves. There were a few little hotel motel tricks that she taught us. So definitely made some small process improvement. And we put booking online and listed ourselves on Expedia. So we definitely and even that first year modernized the operations quite significantly.
Got it. What else did you do to learn? I mean, at this point, you've de risked a little bit because you're working with a friend that you know and trust. To use a lot of full time job, but still a huge amount of risk. So like, in addition to running the hotel and just learning on your own, what else did you do to try to get up to speed?
Sarah Sklash
Yeah, so there was a TV show called hotel impossible. That was where we learned about 50% of what we know about running a motel. And then I bought a, like B and B's for Dummies. And that is where I learned the other 50%.
Eric Janssen
That is amazing. Super scientific.
Sarah Sklash
Yeah, for sure.
Eric Janssen
That is awesome. Did you? Did you like formalize it at all? Did you have like a guide and a Bible of all your learnings or just between you and your partner is all in your head?
Sarah Sklash
Yeah. All in our head? At the time, we are kind of formalizing it now for sure.
Eric Janssen
Got it. So getting it out of your head and getting it onto paper? How did you know that this was gonna work.
Sarah Sklash
So really, from personal experience, I knew that this was what was missing in the region, I knew more and more people were learning about Prince Edward County. And so I knew that there was demand, and fully designed the experience to cater to ourselves. So that we knew it'd be a place that we would like to stay. So you know, there was at least an audience of two that this was going to be perfect for.
Eric Janssen
Wow, I see. Many people who've done that, and things have worked out well. There are some people who do something similar and don't, right, so you you build a product that you like, but then and then release it to the world. And turns out that just you liked it. So what made you believe that you were representative of like the rest of the people out there are just, I don't know, age characteristics, like you built it for you. But what do you were the only two that hung out there?
Sarah Sklash
Yeah. And, and we knew, even as the sportsman motel that they were doing a good business, and it was filling up. One of the other things that we kind of built our business model around was, there was one other cool place that had just opened was always 100% fall and was going for 12 $100 a night. So we said, okay, you know, we'll be the second best place to stay knowing that they were doing well.
Eric Janssen
Got it. So was the other one located in the area.
Sarah Sklash
Yeah.
Eric Janssen
Got it. Got it. So existing business that was doing okay. The sportsman. Other business in the was it was another motel. But independent guy was doing pretty well. So you thought worst case scenario, even if we just make some minor improvements in the sportsman hotel? This is gonna still be a good thing. So you were okay with the call it the worst case scenario?
Sarah Sklash
And we were Yeah.
Eric Janssen
Okay. Where else? So you started to build what you wanted? How did you get inspiration for that? Like, was it all in your head? Like, where did you go to figure that out?
Sarah Sklash
So over the course of that first summer, we started a prototype room, it might have not been the best decision, in the peak season to take one of our rooms at a service. And a whole other thing is we did all the renovation work ourselves, which we also were, you know, had limited skills in. But we started, we found this one wallpaper. We're not interior designers, but we really like interior design. And we found this one wallpaper that kind of captured the essence of what we wanted to create. So we got that on the walls. We've listed that prototype room on Airbnb, just for that summer. So you have this divey motel, and then you have one really beautiful room. But that gave us an opportunity to kind of test it out, get some real people in there, get some feedback. And that kind of gave us a sense of where we wanted to go.
Eric Janssen
That's interesting. Interesting. So you ran most of it as the sportsman but then put some effort into making one room the way that you could potentially make the rest of the room. Yeah. And did you actually so you listed it but did you actually rent it out? Like we didn't stay at
Sarah Sklash
The very first time we put sportsman motel guests in there. The feedback that we got was awful. They absolutely hated it. They missed all the old furniture and we had this you know panicky moment of you know, did we did we get this all wrong? But once we got ourselves on Airbnb, and we were getting kind of the target market that we are going after, they absolutely loved it.
Eric Janssen
That is interesting. I wasn't thinking that but yeah, you've the sportsman is attracting a certain type of person. But where you wanted to go was a totally different type of person. So how did that transition go? Was there was it one season to the next or?
Sarah Sklash
Yeah, so really, the sportsman motel we closed down that fall and then it was completely rebranded for the next season, we had very few of the sportsman guests ended up returning, partly because we were sold out and had tripled the price that we're charging as the sports men. So it was partly a price point and partly just, we are so in demand that they couldn't get in if they wanted to.
Eric Janssen
Wow, That's another bold move. How did you decide to triple the price?
Sarah Sklash
Again, just I mean, usual kind of pricing exercises of looking to see what comparable places and the county we're going for, again, pricing it to be free, or the second best place in the county, what would be affordable?
Eric Janssen
Wow. These are all like simple, you say them simply, but they're hard, right? These are actually all independently very hard decisions to make
Sarah Sklash
For sure. And some of the decisions were ones, you know, we had to ask other people what they thought about some of the things we're doing one of the boldest things that we did. Now, it's part you know, it's iconic of the gin, but we painted the doors pink on the motel. And I remember, my mom just repeatedly telling me that that wasn't a good idea, and that we were going to alienate, you know, potential customers. And so really, it was this vision that we had, and kind of sticking true to what we felt was this brand that we were creating. And now you haven't stayed at the June if you haven't taken your photo in front of one of our pink doors, right?
Eric Janssen
so you're making that transition from who the sportsman was for to who the June was going to be for? Did you ever document like, this is who our ideal customer is? This is where they read and vacation and play, like did you document and we actually,
Sarah Sklash
I feel like that's one of the processes that we went through and fairly in a fairly formal way. But again, I would say we were the target market. But yeah, it definitely kind of gave a lot of thought to who the clientele would be.
Eric Janssen
So then you you took it over in June ran it as the sportsman you close it down for the fall. How did you then prioritize? Well, firstly, it's going to seem expensive to renovate? I would think, and then there's just so much to do in feet of snow. So how did you prioritize? When to do what to do? How to finance? there's just there's a lot
Sarah Sklash
yeah, sure. And whether or not we did things the right way, hard to say. It was definitely a scramble to the very end. Again, everything we did, we did on a very tight budget, we borrowed the money to do the renovations. We borrowed it through kind of a community features that's very entrepreneurial focused. And so our renovation budget was what they were willing to lend us, which meant, so that was on a $250,000 budget for the renovations. And every inch of this place needed updating. So that meant we were going to do a whole lot of the work ourselves. So if you stay at the June, admire the flooring, because we did all the flooring ourselves, we painted we wallpapered, we would have these weekends where we tell our friends to come visit us and wine country, and then we'd assemble furniture together. And so really, it was getting those renovations done. So we would lay floors during the day. And then once we couldn't lay flooring anymore, we kind of go into the evening and work on our systems and our marketing and all of that. So we were renovating up until the very moment that guests checked in. So fast forward, we have much better project management now. But the first time you do something, you know, you do it as best as he can. And you learn things by getting kind of really good systems and processes in place was important to us. And kind of spent a lot of our time there as well.
Eric Janssen
So you got some inspiration, design things for yourself, use the budget, the budget was what you got from the grants or sponsor loans. Yeah. quarter million or so. Then you had to start to drive demand. So like, Oh my gosh, we bought this thing. We're totally changing the clientele. So all the people who stayed here before we're gonna probably not like us anymore. Like I'm Oh, Virgin. We need to attract a whole new clientele. Everything's on the line. What did you do to think about how to drive demand?
Sarah Sklash
Yeah, so luckily, my business partner is kind of a marketing and public relations guru. So that was really good find in a business partner. Things got off to maybe a slower start. But we had a very strong kind of marketing and public relations plan. So we first of all just listed ourselves on things like you could find us on Expedia back then that got some of our rooms fall, if you're searching for a motel or hotel, but right from the very beginning, even when budget was incredibly tight, we hired a professional photographer who gave us great kind of assets to work with. And we had a really strong Instagram game right from the very beginning. That was really our main marketing tool was Expedia, then I'm trying to think, but we definitely caught the eye of a lot of media. And our first year, actually, yeah, we again, she had a lot of great experience there. So we did, we invited media out, as well as a bunch of influencers, which definitely helped to get the word out about the motel. And then, I don't know, it was all a whirlwind. But within a few weeks and months, we had been in Toronto life. We had Vogue out weird, just exploded, it was crazy.
Eric Janssen
And did you hire a firm to do that? Or that was all through?
Sarah Sklash
That was us? Wow. Yeah.
Eric Janssen
So how did you how did you know to do that or what to do, or how to contact these people.
Sarah Sklash
So my business partners background was in public relations. So she had some good contacts, that definitely helped us get our foot in the door. But a lot of the influencers that we'd invite out would be people that we followed personally, and we'd reach out, people were pretty happy to be invited for a weekend in wine country. And we really meant it when we'd invite them out. And we'd show them a really good time, they would post all about it on their own account. And that definitely helped get the word out and helped us. We are sold out. I probably had kind of a slower first month, which we needed. But when summer hit we were 100% sold out.
Eric Janssen
Wow. So this sounds like this perfect story of stumbling on you committed this new year's resolution. You come up with some ideas, you narrow them down, you buy it, you run it, turn it over 100% occupancy. So everything went perfectly.
Sarah Sklash
No, definitely not perfectly. And we I mean, we worked so so hard that first year, it was April and I and a few staff who I don't know how many hours I'd be at the bar, checking guests and pouring the wine. I'm so physically, it was a grueling first season. Not to mention that we're also running like a motel, which is a big building with a lot of people in it. 24 seven. And so learn, like I know more about plumbing than I ever thought I had no. And there's a lot of processes now that we have in place that come from all the mistakes that we made. So things have gotten a lot easier. We say you can tell year after year, the way that we handle our garbage is the thing that just gets easier and easier because our systems just get smarter as we go along.
Eric Janssen
How do you? Where do they live? Is there a Is there a June handbook? like where do you put them all?
Sarah Sklash
We do actually. Yeah, we now have a playbook that kind of details. This is how we do things.
Eric Janssen
Got it? And what sorts of things are in your playbook.
Sarah Sklash
Everything from some of the things you should do when you check a guest in? What are your tasks at the end of the night? If you're working the front desk that you should do? What playlist should you put on in the morning and the evening? It's an evolving document, we've stopped printing it out because we keep kind of improving it and realizing there's things that we could use some more processes for. But yeah, there's a lot of especially now with the second property a little more standardization to the way that we're doing things since I'm not always there in person.
Eric Janssen
Got it. So is it a Google Doc? Is it a PowerPoint? Like?
Sarah Sklash
Yeah, it's a Google Doc. Yeah.
Eric Janssen
Interesting. So every new employee or current employee gets access to it. Yeah.
Sarah Sklash
So this is part of the training for anyone working in the front of front of house, mostly, if we need a back of house playbook on the to do list is really going through all of the sections in the playbook.
Eric Janssen
Cool. So you send an advanced some lessons that you learned, because a handful of interesting ones here, but maybe I'll let you Is there one or a few that you want to point out like biggest lessons that you learned along the way?
Sarah Sklash
Sure. Good question. I think one of the ones we really believe in is do less and do it really well. We've become masters of running a motel. We know we understand rooms, we understand our guests and checking them in. But there are times when we want to really go beyond counting At the core of our business, I remember in the very early days, I think we thought we were gonna make our own shampoo. And every we're just gonna do it all. So we've moved, you know, we know the part that we are really, really good at. And then we focus on building partnerships with other businesses who really they know how to make really great shampoo, for example.
Eric Janssen
So how do you decide what's core and core?
Sarah Sklash
Our core is the motel experience. And beyond that is kind of outside of our core.
Eric Janssen
So update us, then you're three years in.
Sarah Sklash
And so this is one year as a sportsman, we're wrapping up our third season as a gym towel.
Eric Janssen
Great. So bring me up to speed where things are today.
Sarah Sklash
Yeah, so the biggest news was earlier this spring, we purchased our second motel. One of the things we just kind of recently realized was almost we did it before we were fully ready to have a second property. So there's been some growing pains. But the beauty of doing it before we were fully ready, meant that we also realized how we had two kind of things we had to put in place to really be capable of successfully running two gene motels, just like the first one around as well. We didn't run it under the gene Mattel brand. So we had a kind of a season to ease ourselves
Eric Janssen
how do you split time between the two.
Sarah Sklash
So we work on kind of what that plan looks like. Prince Edward county now is really home for me. So it's where I'll hope to spend more of my time set up Sabo beach so that it runs really smoothly and can be there kind of every two weeks, perhaps we're still kind of working that out. Right now we're in Project mode to get it renovated, and turn it into the gym. So spending a lot of time in Savile beach right now?
Eric Janssen
Would you have done it any differently? So when you were in school, had no desire to be an entrepreneur, but then got the edge? If you could go back to you wish you would have just discovered this sooner or you are there's something that you learned that you think made this more successful than it would have been without those experience? Sure.
Sarah Sklash
That's a tough question. I probably could have started on this venture maybe two or three years earlier. But I don't regret the years at all that I spent working for the government and doing other things. I think working in a really large organization helps you understand how to build a well functioning company, even if it's on a much smaller scale. I also I say it kind of jokingly, but I do find as kind of the role that I play and the business, I'm still working with the government at various levels on a daily basis. Yeah.
Eric Janssen
Something that stood out to me, when you were talking about some of the lessons that you had learned. It's about this mix of your business and your lifestyle. Sodid you intentionally get into this space or create this business so that your business and your lifestyle would make co mingle? Or I mean, were you intentional about that? If so, how
Sarah Sklash
Yeah, and I think that part's still still evolving, but we make decisions based on not just what's best for the business, but also what's best for our lives, as well. As I've mentioned, we run a business that's literally 24 seven, I currently live at the motel. And so one of the decisions that we've made as we close over the winter, it's we leave some money on the table. But for me that was finding some balance in the business that we have so that I can be all in when we're open. The other thing was building a business in a space that I really, really love and a truly, you know, I as an entrepreneur, I find life and business are so intermingled and I'm so passionate about that I work all the time really, but that when it's in a space that I love and working with my best friend on it, it really makes it just a great experience.
Eric Janssen
So what are your year looks roughly like going like crazy from when to when and then when you're off? What do you do?
Sarah Sklash
Yeah, so things are changing again with the second motel this year is going to be a little bit different. The Prince Edward county properties open from April through November. This year, we're really focusing on the sub beach project over the winter. So it's nice winter kind of two purposes. One is really pushing that kind of work life balance to the life side. And then we also, it's a good opportunity to kind of be reinspired. So every year, we try and do an inspiration trip where we'll go, we'll travel. It's really the best part of being in the travel business is I can go stay at great places, and it's, you know, it's business.
Eric Janssen
Are you? Do you find yourself able to turn off? Or like, are you able to just sort of sit there and no, read and shut down? Or are you looking at everything thinking, Oh, idea, I need to write it down. Or I need to tell my partner an email or
Sarah Sklash
Yeah, while just stay in a hotel was like very analytical about every single detail. That's there now. I still enjoy it. But yeah, it can't can't turn off.
Eric Janssen
Yeah. But you don't mind because you love to do it.
Sarah Sklash
It's fun. Yeah.
Eric Janssen
So where what are you focused on? Mainly now? It sounds like getting the new property up and running. That's the focus for the fall winter,
Sarah Sklash
Yeah, so it's gonna be a really big project. We're currently in the design phase of what it's all gonna look like, we're really excited this time, because we've kind of planned so that we can have some contractors, so I won't be laying flooring over the winter. I'm excited about. Yeah, so really, the focus is on that property right now.
Eric Janssen
So this is gonna go out to a group of Ivy alumni and beyond other entrepreneurs? Is there anything that we can help you out with?
Sarah Sklash
Sure, yeah, always happy to kind of grow our community. One of the ways that we're doing that we're very, very active on Instagram. There's @ the gene motel. But another fun one is @ motel a life. So like hotel, yay, but with an M, and just kind of being involved in that community. We're pulling people asking for their thoughts on what we need to incorporate coffee and room or coffee in the lobby questions like that. So happy to have more people involved in that.
Eric Janssen
Great. And then if they so happen to be in and around Prince Edward county next season, maybe swing by, or salt will be swing by and the motels
Sarah Sklash
book earlier.
Eric Janssen
This has been great. Last thing I want to ask you before we wrap up, any advice to your call it 20 year old self think your back, maybe third or fourth year university? Probably, I don't know, maybe happy with where you're at, but also maybe nervous about what's to come or what you're going to do. advice to your college, 22 year old self.
Sarah Sklash
Sure, I was thinking as an entrepreneur, every class that you took an IV would come in handy. And I do find myself on occasion being like, I remember hearing about this, I wish I had paid even more attention wish, accounting, very important skill to have as, as an entrepreneur, so everything that you're learning, and everything, whether you're ready to kind of jump right in as an entrepreneur now. Or if it's kind of 5, 10 years down the road, you're going to be learning skills that will prove useful in the future, for sure.
Eric Janssen
Cool. Well, I think I got a lot out of the conversation. It's really neat to hear your story retold in a different way and to get to dig into some of the details of how this actually got started. So appreciate you sitting down to spend some time.
Sarah Sklash
Yeah, thanks so much.
Introduction/Outro
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