Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: All right, folks, so we're here at the OHCI conference with Jason. Thanks for your time and showing me your wagons and everything. So tell us a little bit about your company and the problems you solve for RV park owners.
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm with Conestoga Wagon Company.
We started this about 2015 with our own park in. It's called Conestoga Ranch.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: Nice.
So it was conceived with like, hey, I have my park. And I'm like, how did it come. How did it happen? Like, I want to. I'm gonna build a freaking wagon at my park.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: Well, it started, you know, as a campground park industry was started with the same mindset that everybody has here. You know, we're building a campground, a park. How do we make ourselves unique?
Set itself apart? It was started with my partners and they. They designed and built the first wagon, which is much different than the one that we're in right now, I imagine.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: 10 years.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: Yeah, 10, 11 years now.
So what worked then? It's in the Rocky Mountains. May not work in Texas, may not work in Florida.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: Sure, sure.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: And so as we evolved as a company, as I've sold know, 700 plus wagons across the United States in 10 years, we've changed them to fit the RV park's needs and demands, to be a longevity product instead of a.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: From the heat to the cold to the humidity to dry.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Everything.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: So everything in mind, how do you cool them? How do you heat them? Yeah. A big one was how do we do the bathroom?
Everything we do is. Was those things in mind as a campground owner and also something that can work for you as for rental income.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So. So who's your. Kind of your ideal campground? If somebody's listening to this and they're like, you know, who's your. Who's your avatar? Like, yeah, well, you don't mention parks. Yeah, there you go. There's a good answer.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: But, you know, it's. It's just any re. Park, a campground, you know, that wants to add glamping.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: Or different amenity to them. You know, people are looking for revenue streams. What's going to attract people to stay at your park? Y. What's going to attract people to stop.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: Yeah, it's definitely Instagram worthy. You know, it's more inspiring like to take your kids somewhere like, well, they're going to stay in the wagon. It's going to be a family experience that they're going to remember for the rest of their life.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: Yes, sir.
[00:02:06] Speaker A: Because it's different.
[00:02:07] Speaker B: Yes, sir. So we have. We have wagons at simple parks that just, you know, a slip pulled into to fancy glamping resorts at a guest ranch in Montana.
[00:02:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:18] Speaker B: And so it.
People are looking for something unique to stay in.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: And so if you're in a park in Florida or have them in New Jersey that don't want to or can't travel all the way to Wyoming or Idaho or Utah to stay in a wagon for the west, they can stay in them in their backyard. Still have that experience camping.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
Did you do the ones at Camp Quicher Bitching in Lake Bridgeport?
[00:02:41] Speaker B: And some of those. We possibly. I've sold some of them.
[00:02:45] Speaker A: That's another business part. I was just curious. I was just thinking because I brought up Turner Falls and then you did those. Yeah, Y. Because I recently saw those. But I. I think it's great. And I love how you were telling me on the little things like the insulation and, and what did you call it? Just air in between the.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: How did you say that? On our canvas wagons, we call it our double canopy system.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: Right.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: And we use air as an insulator. And we do that for a reason.
One, you're staying in a wagon. You want it to feel like a wagon. We like the light to transfer through.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: So it has the experience of feeling like a wagon with the light coming through.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: Yeah. The sun and.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: Everything.
[00:03:19] Speaker B: But also it's the main thing about
[00:03:20] Speaker A: that because we're indoors, obviously.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: But the main reason too is we don't want it to mold and to smell bad in the wagon. That's a real turn off, people.
[00:03:28] Speaker A: That's why I saw the glamping tents. I'm like, you gotta keep a pressure washer on stamp to clean them. Yeah.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: So you, you come into the wagon, it's. It feels like a wagon, but it also feels luxurious. You have a king bed. You have a wagon wheel table, bunk bed.
[00:03:44] Speaker A: Yeah. I can picture a family of four right here with these bunk beds for the kids and mom and papa.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: You have plenty of room inside. You're not crowded, you're not climbing over yourselves. And you think of a wagon with a king bed in it, has enough room to walk around it. But also these wagons have a high end bathroom in them too.
With everything you keep in mind of moisture. So the double canopy airspace, we don't want it to mold.
Mold equals smell. Yeah. You don't want it to smell bad.
Wanted to keep it clean and maintain it easier.
[00:04:11] Speaker A: Yeah. The longevity of them.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: Yeah. You put fabric insulation, you're taking a chance of having fabric mold inside there yeah. And we've done enough that we understand that that will happen.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: Right.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: And so this is why I designed it and built it this way. And then with the bathroom, it's a separate building built as we call it a shower pod. Then we pick it up and we set it inside our wagons.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: Yeah. They look really nice.
[00:04:32] Speaker B: And you have a, you know, high end bathroom inside a wagon. A nice large shower on demand.
[00:04:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:39] Speaker B: Water heater.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: Yeah. I think it's. It's definitely a lot of love put into this and. And it sounds like it's been a nice. Over the past 10 years. Good evolution on how you build them and, and just with the consumers thought, you know, consumers in mind, if you will. So. But it's definitely great quality. I can definitely.
I need to. I got four parks now, but I need to have a park to where I can put some of these at because I think they're pretty awesome.
[00:05:02] Speaker B: Yeah, we. You mentioned a good key thing too is one you don't start out perfect. You know any. Anybody that says they're perfect in the start.
[00:05:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Red flag.
[00:05:12] Speaker B: But you also want to pay attention to somebody who learns from their mistakes.
If. Or mistakes or stuff that they don't know yet.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: Listening to those feedback. Yeah.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: So you listen to feedback and you learn and you make adjustments as you learn.
That's the key for me is we've been trying.
[00:05:25] Speaker A: It's a growth mindset.
[00:05:27] Speaker B: Yeah. To grow with the industry or grow with the demands. Learn. Instead of making the industry fit what we think there is, we should try to grow with it and what works and what doesn't. So these absolutely hold up to high winds.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: You mentioned that. Show me a video. 100 mile an hour.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: You know, they. As long as they're set up properly, they're going to hold it to winds. The canvas doesn't flap off. We actually ship these fully assembled, just like we're sitting in right now with this wagon going down the freeway, it comes to your property, it rolls off the wheels function.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:55] Speaker B: Place it at your location, connect it ready to go.
[00:05:57] Speaker A: Plug it into your RV side if you will. If you need. Yeah, yeah, that's great. I was in my camper last summer, we had a windstorm and it was like 80 miles an hour.
[00:06:04] Speaker B: I'm like, oh.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: Luckily the wind was going long ways with the camper, but I was about to tie that sucker down.
[00:06:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: And that was 70, 80 miles an hour. You know, 75 winds. You often hear about campers flipping over. So you showed me a video of 100 miles an hour not flipping, not even worried about it.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: You know, you could stake down the wheels, make sure precautions because you know weather events can affect.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: Life happens.
[00:06:23] Speaker B: Yeah, life happens. Anything just be a little prepared. But you know, if it's tested to the quality. Yeah. The canvas isn't going to flap or rattle all night long driving people nuts. You know, this is a high end camping or glamping experience where you can be comfortable, also have experience, also have the amenities. A really nice bathroom and have your coffee, coffee fridge, power charge your phone,
[00:06:48] Speaker A: go grill some food out front. Yeah.
[00:06:50] Speaker B: Air conditioning heat. You're not suffering in a wagon. It's going to keep it.
[00:06:53] Speaker A: Nobody's going to rough anym.
[00:06:55] Speaker B: It's going to be cool in here. We've had them in Arizona when it was 118 degrees and it stayed cool. It was plenty cool inside here. It wasn't just barely keeping. It was awesome.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:03] Speaker B: But then we have other levels of wagons too. And the new one we just released, we called it our hardtop wagon, our top flux wagon.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: Is that the one with the windows?
[00:07:11] Speaker B: That's one with the windows on the side, fully framed all the way back. We've had some people request that instead of a canvas wagon, instead of our double canopy, we frame all the way back from the shower pod.
So it's completely all framed in.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:25] Speaker B: And you have windows look out the side. So another level of a wagon, if people want a higher end glamping experience, we can offer it. We can go as basic as a simple basic wagon. You know that people crawl into and put a sleeping bag if they want. But we have the basics to the high end.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: Whatever people's needs are, we can help them with it.
[00:07:43] Speaker A: Awesome. So you just can customize them? Pretty much, yeah. What you need to do. That's pretty neat. And I like how you talked about earlier, before we started about the showers is that you know, before a lot of places would have showers outside but now it's just the customer has to have them on the inside. So that's very important. Yeah.
[00:08:01] Speaker B: We build pre built shower houses that go next to the wagon. We've been doing that for a lot of years too.
First ones to really figure out a ANSI code unit with a VIN number and a steel frame shows up, you set it down and use it so that can be used independent of the wagon. Also that's a market for every parks and campgrounds. They don't need wagons, they need a shower room, an ADA room or a laundry room or an office. We offer Those you just plug them in like you would a park trailer park model without building permits. It works really well. But now we're building them to customize shape like I said and put them inside the wagon.
[00:08:36] Speaker A: Yeah. So yeah, I think it's great because like my construction mind, like I have one friend partner that's trying to buy a park and he's going to hire us to expand 50 sites. And so like I'll just. Light bulb went off when I was talking to you is a property taxes. Because you said the way it's stamped that it's. It's a. What do you call it?
[00:08:54] Speaker B: If it's equipment.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: Equipment.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: Yeah. If it's equipment, then it's not a property improvement.
[00:08:58] Speaker A: Yeah. So. So we're just essentially putting extra showers, extra laundry in an RV side 50amp plug, tie it into that same sewer, running a sewer hose and then tie it into your water.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: Works simple.
[00:09:10] Speaker A: So. So for somebody that's listening to this, that is say they have buying a park or they own a park and they're going to expand it. And the way that their infrastructure is for their shower house doesn't make sense to expand it. But, but you have all these new sites so you have a different capacity. So then now here's another option. Yep. You, when you, when you go expand your park, you know, if you could have a little forward thinking, you could just have a little run your water, sewer and electric the same as you as your expansion. And then bam. You have another little shower house.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:09:35] Speaker A: And you're not having it. Like you said, deal with more permits and figure out the construction on that side.
[00:09:40] Speaker B: And then in the future, if you want to redesign your park again, you can move it.
[00:09:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: Disconnect to pick it up, move it somewhere else.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: 10,000 pound forks.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: Yeah. So you're not wasting your building. You know, and you know, our parks too. You understand this. Could you build them? They're getting bigger and bigger and one great big, you know, central location where the bathroom is and you have the far park or far slip. They don't want to have to walk all the way in. You can spread these out through your park and people, you know, have the amenities right next to them. A nice bathroom, nice shower.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: Yeah. There's even counties and cities now I'm seeing they're like, that's in their requirements. We want the shower house to be no more than 300ft from any RV site. I saw that in Temple, Texas. Yep.
But you know, because they have that in mind too because they got the
[00:10:22] Speaker B: customers A lot of franchise requiring that as well. Yeah.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: So. But I love the versatility on this. On the showerhouse side if, you know, if you're a park owner.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: Expansion or even just with development in mind because you don't have to have one central location. Maybe your park is a little spread out. Then, hey, let's put a showerhouse over here on this western section, northern section. And then it just makes your park that more desirable.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: Exactly. And also same thing with wagons and those. We have to learn from those. What works, what doesn't. The longevity. What are we building it out of? You know, how are the walls? Are they washable? Because they're draining the floor. You know, everything comes in, you know, we got feedback, you know, so, you know, it's nice. I've had some big corporate campgrounds that have told me they appreciate us because we've always listened to their feedback. So we want.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: That's important.
[00:11:08] Speaker B: You know, people. I didn't understand. Some people aren't the most careful.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. We manage them.
[00:11:15] Speaker B: We know they'll do things in there we don't want to mention.
[00:11:18] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:11:18] Speaker B: And so you want to make it so it's not harder for the park owner to clean or maintain or watch.
[00:11:24] Speaker A: I've had, I'm just going to get a little weird here. I've had somebody let their dog go number two in the shower and leave it there.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: I've had somebody with their baby number two in the shower. I'm like, like, how do you. I don't even know.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: I've heard a lot.
Those stories are more.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:38] Speaker B: Probably shouldn't talk about.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had, I had a cleaning guy at that park where that happened. He says, I'm not going to do it. And I'm like, I'm. I'll go do it.
He's just like, it's. I'm not going to do it. I'm like, I understand.
[00:11:51] Speaker B: To make it easier for. To clean up, like the walls too.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:54] Speaker B: You know, we can do nickelboard wood in there, but we recommend a washable material. The products we use in there, really durable. They'll last.
They hold up easy to clean.
[00:12:05] Speaker A: Yeah. You said it's the same type of material as your shower inserts, right?
[00:12:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: Just feels like it looks good.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: The high end product costs more but.
[00:12:12] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: I'd pay a little bit more. So I have less maintenance in the future too.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Because when a lot of times I'll just do the cheap FRP board, you know, and there's just. It's clean.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: You can't clean it, you know, and you get different environments, too. In that cheaper board, the glue or material doesn't hold to it, pops off.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: Yeah, we've had problems with them. I don't recommend it.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: So. Yeah, if you do, it's not just a cheap material that you're sticking on there with some glue from, you know, the hardware store.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: It's.
[00:12:35] Speaker B: It's. You have to do it a certain way. And it's very high quality stuff. It's the same stuff we do our showers with. So all the walls are lined with pretty much shower material so they can be hosed down. It's durable. It's not going to bubble. It doesn't flake off. It's really good.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: Yeah, that's an important thing. Paint it a year down the road, five years down the road. That's where you really see that difference.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: Yeah, you want to clean it, you know, in humidity. Because of all the humidity is toilet, sink, shower.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: Just wipe it down. You don't have to scrub it. You know, if. If there's mold growing on the side of that shows you're not cleaning your.
[00:13:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:05] Speaker B: Your bathrooms.
[00:13:06] Speaker A: Right, right, right. Well, awesome, man. I think you got a. A good business here. I think you put a lot of love into it. I think it's. It's what you were put on this planet do. There's a lot of passion behind it.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: I appreciate it because.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: Because that's not the case a lot of times in business. And I'm just being honest with you. Some people are just. It's all about the money, you know, like, how do we. Noi. Noi. But you could tell talking to you that you know this, you love what you're doing.
[00:13:29] Speaker B: Well, thanks.
A lot of effort into it and we appreciate it.
[00:13:32] Speaker A: Yeah. So awesome. Well, thanks for your time, but yeah, it's nice to meet you.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Thanks, Jason.
[00:13:37] Speaker A: Yeah, Cool.
[00:13:38] Speaker B: Appreciate it.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: Yeah. So when you said your first and last name.
I'll send you that clip and then start. Just launched a podcast, RV Park Pros. And so this will be a podcast episode and I'll share it with you too.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: Thank you very much.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: Yeah, it's awesome.
[00:13:51] Speaker B: It's okay if we repost it?
[00:13:54] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:13:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:55] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm trying to get out of my shell, so doing this podcast stuff is that. And then getting more regiment with social media.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: Stay in the.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah. I can definitely see that you need
[00:14:05] Speaker B: help with your parts. Keep a broke chair with you.
[00:14:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
Awesome, man. Thanks for your time.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: Thank you.
Thanks for taking time to reach out.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: Yes, sir.
[00:14:18] Speaker B: We'll be in touch.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: Yeah, cool.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: Thanks again.
[00:14:20] Speaker A: Thanks.
