Experiences

Mark Sandeno: 00:03

Welcome to the Experiences Podcast. My name is Mark Sandeno, and I am here with my really good friend, quite frankly, Zach Smith. We have, just full disclosure, we've traveled the world together, but Zach happens to be a traveler extraordinary. Not only is he an amazing traveler and a fun guy to hang out with, well, he's the leader of one of the most exciting travel experiential businesses in the world in my opinion. I wanna welcome Zach.

Mark Sandeno: 00:32

Thanks for being on the show today.

Zach Smith: 00:33

Real pleasure, Mark. This is great.

Mark Sandeno: 00:36

This is the first time we've looked at each other across microphones. Normally, we're, riding bikes through Bangkok or sitting in some sort of business networking meeting, but I, you know, I like it. I think it's good. I mean, happy to have you here. Okay.

Mark Sandeno: 00:50

So we're gonna jump right in. Zach, just give us the DL. Who are you and what the heck do you care about?

Zach Smith: 00:58

Oh, boy. Well, my name is Zach Smith. My parents gave me this middle name though that seems to be kinda following me around my whole life. My middle name is Bonaventure. I've kind of just had to embrace what comes along with that.

Zach Smith: 01:15

And so after college, I did some traveling on my own. And yeah, I just been kind of sensing and integrating the best I can with my surroundings. And, you know, this business didn't start as a pitch deck or anything like that. I mean, it just sort of emerged, and I've been doing the best I can with it.

Mark Sandeno: 01:38

Correct me if I'm wrong. Bonaventure is bonaventure, like it's not bonaventure, but it means good adventure. Right?

Zach Smith: 01:44

Good ventures. I was told that meant good ventures through life. That's what my parents told me growing up. Since we have a very generic kind of boring last name, they decided to give my brothers and I more unique middle names.

Mark Sandeno: 01:58

Okay. Anywhere.com. Not only is it an amazing domain, but it's a super cool company. So what inspired you to create anywhere, and what is it, and what makes it unique in comparison to other businesses of its type?

Zach Smith: 02:16

Well, it organically came to be. I was traveling through Central America. It really was a a one way ticket to Oaxaca that kind of got the initial catalyst going. Throughout traveling in Central America, I ended up deciding and getting an opportunity to stay longer and work for someone in tourism. He had a small information business.

Zach Smith: 02:45

I learned a little bit tourism, I had been traveling through Central America and learning Spanish and really appreciating the culture and the different things I was able to experience. And so I was offered to just answer emails and help people decide how they could spend their time in this small little town called Monte Verde. And this is at the top of the Continental Divide in Costa Rica that's famous for a Cloud Forest. And so here I was at age 24, in a dusty little room 10 by 10 with stacks of newspaper piled up and three or four cats living inside of it. And this guy is saying, yeah, this computer right here is Monteverde info, and this other computer over here is arinal.net.

Zach Smith: 03:31

These were two little websites for this area. And so I learned a little bit about tourism.

Mark Sandeno: 03:38

And so this was Arenal was the volcano there down in Costa Rica in the hot springs?

Zach Smith: 03:43

Mhmm. Yeah. Volcano in Hot Springs. Mhmm.

Mark Sandeno: 03:46

And so you were helping this guy. It was just an information play, or were you guys booking trips for tourism? What was happening?

Zach Smith: 03:54

There was not full trips or anything like that. He had published some information about the area because frankly, he got tired of answering everyone's questions when they would show up at his youth hostel. And so by this point, there was some web traffic on those websites. And he had made a few casual relationships with some hotels and transport companies in the area. But it was a very accidental business and didn't really have much to show for it.

Zach Smith: 04:26

I saw something that I thought was interesting.

Mark Sandeno: 04:29

Okay. I have to just jump back here. You were literally just a disaffected American youth. You're like, I'm out of here, and you're living in Latin and century. But you're in you're eating mole in Oaxaca, tripping around Monte Bon, maybe heading down to Chiapas for some day trips or whatever, and then you end up down in Costa Rica, and you're just you literally are hanging out, which is, honestly, it seems a little on brand.

Mark Sandeno: 04:53

You kinda have a joie de vivre and a little bit of an insouciance and a devil may care. I can see you. I can see you doing this. You were just down there, what, just to experience life, and you just stumbled into this thing. Right?

Zach Smith: 05:05

Yeah, I mean I had a bunch of books in my backpack and I was body surfing on the Pacific and reading books in hammocks and you know, good food. I had worked really hard, I had just graduated university and so I was definitely just open to better weather number one, because I'm from Oregon. And December through May, June, it's kind of miserable. So that was one of the catalysts. But yeah, there was a couple serendipitous encounters that led me to this little office in Monteverde, Costa Rica.

Zach Smith: 05:37

I befriended the gentleman, Jacques, French Canadian guy. And we would take photos of the volcano up at the Continental Divide. And there was something in my mind that said, I want to realize the potential of this little enterprise. And this guy's not the guy. And he knew it.

Zach Smith: 05:57

And I decided on my own time to just research how it worked. And what was the business model I had I really knew nothing.

Mark Sandeno: 06:06

In your degree was you what was your college degree?

Zach Smith: 06:09

Well, I went into university, started business for about a year. And I thought it was incredibly boring, I didn't like it at all, so I studied psychology instead.

Mark Sandeno: 06:18

And was this in the nineties, early nineties?

Zach Smith: 06:21

No. Well, I graduated high school in 1999 and then graduated university 02/2004.

Mark Sandeno: 06:27

Yeah. So I'm sorry that I even, for a second, thought you were my age. I am so much older than you. So but this was before, like, at the time in 02/2004, were there, like, online travel portals? What was happening in that space?

Mark Sandeno: 06:42

What were you seeing and what were you figuring out in comparison?

Zach Smith: 06:46

Listen, I mean, I was trying to help people. That was the real intention behind it. So this business was, again, as I said, very casual. I felt like there was a seed of opportunity there. People were searching online, people wanted to make some plans before they arrived.

Zach Smith: 07:06

They were looking for information. I told Jacques that I thought I could buy this business. I didn't know how I didn't have any money. I was learning enough about it. And I was adding a lot of value because I was connecting with these people that were interested in visiting.

Zach Smith: 07:20

And, you know, just you build a relationship with these people, they don't know what it's like on the ground. And you play this role of helping inform them how to use their time wisely, how to experience what's possible in this area. And so that's really the seed of it.

Mark Sandeno: 07:37

Okay. There was no great entrepreneurial aspirations like, hey, there's a need, I'm gonna fill a need, and maybe I can make a living doing this.

Zach Smith: 07:45

Well, of course, there's that I wanted to make a living. And I wanted to do something interesting. I had a love for being present in some of these cultures versus being in a bubble, moving around in a tour bus, going from buffet line to buffet line. And I wanted to empower people with a bit more perspective. So when they're there, because they have a very limited time, usually seven days, ten days, they're making the most of their time.

Zach Smith: 08:13

You know, I ended up Yeah, going back home. Before that I actually I knew I needed a technology partner. Right in this whole process. I knew I needed a technology partner. And so I had made up a mind my mind that I was going to find a way to buy these two websites.

Zach Smith: 08:30

And so here I am, in an aerial tram going through the rainforest. I haven't told my parents haven't told my friends haven't told anyone that I was thinking about purchasing a business, or how to do that even This stranger across from me in the aerial tram says, what are you up to down here? I use this, you know, instinct in me to should I express this or should I hold it? I hadn't told anyone. I hadn't expressed anything about this opportunity that I felt like I had.

Zach Smith: 09:01

And, you know, right across from me was my business partner today. So I decided to tell him, Hey, yeah, I'm thinking about buying these these websites and this and that. And he just happened to be a software engineer just happened to be open at the same time to doing something entrepreneurial. So we stayed in contact for the better part of six or seven months, I wrote a business plan and got more formalized with my ideas. Yeah, we ended up, you know, starting in business in March 2006.

Zach Smith: 09:32

And there was a whole saga around that. But our first expression, Tony and myself was anywhere Costa Rica. So that was really the first utilization of the brand anywhere and how we wanted to express it was just to tell the story of the country beyond just what you could book. So all the national parks had profiles, all the different destinations had profiles, and they were categorized by environment type or the sort of vibe you would find there. All the hotels were also categorized in different attributes.

Zach Smith: 10:06

So, you know, we're doing species profiles, we're doing all these different maps of when whales were migrating, or dolphins or different seasons where fish were passing through or turtles being nesting in different parts of the country. So the whole concept was really to inform that visitor so they could make the best choice with their time. And then right alongside of that we had the local team to help customize that trip. So then I was going around meeting all these hotel owners and all these tour operators all over the country. So I played almost every role in the business, from answering emails to taking photos of rooms to negotiating contracts, to entering rates, just doing all sorts of different things to help enable this process of ultimately no moment of regret while you're spending your precious vacation.

Mark Sandeno: 11:00

Let's dig into that a little bit, and I'm gonna kinda get to the punchline a little bit first. Anywhere.com is all over the world now with the flagship offering being in Costa Rica. And back when SEO, before search engines changed and AI kinda short circuited search, if you were doing a search for Costa Rica and you wanted fantastic content with a lot of positive reviews anywhere Costa Rica was coming up and you went through a really interesting change with your brand I wanna touch on because I think it's a really cool entrepreneurial story. So you're all over in the world. You've gone through lots of changes.

Mark Sandeno: 11:39

Going back to kind of the origin story of anywhere and why you're doing it. Earlier, you said, hey. We wanted to help people avoid buses and buffet lines. Right? In order to achieve that mission and how it matters to humans, why do you have to go through all the trouble of really being the experts in an area and creating that local team and creating relationships with hotels?

Mark Sandeno: 12:03

Why bother? Like, how does that help you achieve the mission, and why does it matter to someone who's looking to take a trip?

Zach Smith: 12:09

Well, partially because we value each person as a unique person with unique preferences. Right? And so we want to play the role of a true matchmaker versus moving people in a large vessel from point to point, where they're all from maybe the same culture, or, you know, experiencing this geography as a series of places. And they are the people that are having most of the conversations amongst themselves. Our goal is more.

Zach Smith: 12:47

We also if we value you as the visitor, we have to value the host Also, we have to value that host culture in the same way, and make sure that they're participating in that value creation, and that value chain. And I believe that that's what people are looking for, because people want connection. They're using, oh, travel, I'm gonna go travel to this place. That's great. There's a difference between a I've entered a new geography, and I'm experiencing a geography.

Zach Smith: 13:22

And so we're in the experiencing of a geography, which means you need to have an appreciation and an understanding of the host geography and its people.

Mark Sandeno: 13:31

How does it compare to mass travel in achieving that mission?

Zach Smith: 13:36

I think mass travel has served a role. We've scaled up a global infrastructure of air travel that has enabled more differentiation to emerge. But mass travel has been a strategy to keep the world safe. Because when we're flying around moving and leaving income in various geographies, we're not going to go to war. You know, that's been a post World War two strategy, you know, that I think has run its course.

Zach Smith: 14:08

Mass travel won't go away. It's relatively convenient and inexpensive to, you know, go, you know, on a package trip where you're in one place the whole time, and you're eating and drinking there. And that's fine. It's just not what we offer. And I do think it is problematic when you think of the host culture and what's possible with travel versus just a vacation product.

Mark Sandeno: 14:43

I'm gonna take a moment just to bring up your website because I think this is just a really you just basically outlined the difference in my mind between mass travel and what I experience and have always experienced when I go to anywhere.com. Right? So if I say, hey, I wanna go to Vietnam. I wanna make a trip in Vietnam that I'll spend with my friends, and I wanna do, some hidden local gems. What's really unique about Anywhere's technology versus how I think about mass travel, which we don't wanna kick mass travel in the teeth because, you know, getting on a cruise ship and having a few day excursions in the port and back again is you know, it's a certain type of trip and it can be good.

Mark Sandeno: 15:26

But what you guys have made along with your bajillions of five star trust pilot reviews is a really it's a neat technology enabled backed by human way to create a trip. So, like, I know I wanna go to Vietnam. I'm not sure when I wanna go, and it's for myself and my friends. There's gonna be three of us adults, and it's you know, let's say I wanna do it in 2026, and you even you make it easy. It's like, hey.

Mark Sandeno: 15:51

I I am flexible. I think I wanna go to in October, maybe November. I can give you a budget and I can sign in to save my preferences. And then eventually what ends up happening, and this has been my experience with you on other trips I've planned through your platform, a very high touch, high context travel plan, which is just absolutely amazing what you've done. I mean, is a phenomenal effort that I have not experienced elsewhere.

Mark Sandeno: 16:22

Do you see yourself as a particularly unique technology plus travel enablement play?

Zach Smith: 16:30

I mean, I hope so. It's not for me to decide. I can't force this. I can't distribute, you know, this into everyone's home and say, hey, this is the way it needs to be. That's not my role.

Zach Smith: 16:43

We can create and we can hopefully be, you know, attractive and value add for the visitor. But usually, this you know, what you just went through, it's unfamiliar. And since it's unfamiliar, people are not sure if they can trust it, or they're not sure what they're gonna get on the other end of it. I want what we do to speak for itself. I don't really want to be the pitch guy or a sales guy or, you know, that kind of thing.

Zach Smith: 17:09

I want it to naturally be, you know, understood and realized. We've had to reconcile with certain challenges along the way. But ultimately, I think we're in a position that I think we can attract more people and especially the people that have already planned a trip with us. And they know that we offer an experience and a state of mind while they're moving around a geography that is fundamentally different than what they have experienced in other times where they've been in a geography. So our platform and our process leads to an an experience in itself, not just like all these series of experiences, but just the feeling and the embodiment of that experience is different.

Mark Sandeno: 18:01

Yeah. One of the things I find interesting about your platform, taking an experience economy principle of co created value where people tend to value things they participate in creating is your app in the process of figuring out what you want. You create kind of an initial basis. I want adventure trips with me and some of my friends. I'm not a 100% sure where I wanna go, so it very expertly makes it easier for me to complete an initial travel plan.

Mark Sandeno: 18:31

I also noticed you kind of alleviate my fear in the process. Like, listen. This can be changed and amended, but, like, let's start with this. And then in the process though, I'm I'm helping collaborate my trip. And then what happens is your people get involved and, you know, probably a little bit of AI and some of your people, and I can amend it until I get it just right.

Mark Sandeno: 18:53

It's like, you know, I'm kinda thinking there's too many transfers or maybe I wanna stay in one place a little bit longer. And, hey, is there one time I know I said I wanted moderately priced experiences, but I'd really like, like, a five star experience at least some of the nights. And it's malleable, but in the process, I am co authoring this amazing experience with regional travel experts. It's really cool. It's an amazing thing.

Mark Sandeno: 19:18

Is this the key way to use that term again? I really liked what you said that I avoid buses and buffet lines. I might be on a bus and I might go to a buffet, but kind of that categorization of travel. Is it the fact that I'm collaborating with you which enters me into the experience culturally and helps me avoid a non personalized experience?

Zach Smith: 19:41

Well, yeah. I mean, I think the trip isn't right until it feels right. So getting into the co creation aspect of it. Yeah, it is iterative. And we're willing to take that time to make it that way.

Zach Smith: 19:58

Because we do think it's worth it for that host geography to get a visitor that is more informed and more appreciative, and that they're not anxious or stressed or, you know, uncertain of what's happening. They're able to be in that present moment, and experience, you know, what their hard earned dollars and their dedication of time and allows them to do. And we believe that that's absolutely an important way to build memories to generate perspective, and to learn that, hey, there's a lot of wonderful people all over the world ready to support you. So, I mean, as far as there's elements of a trip that might include a breakfast buffet, But this is your trip, and you are a unique person. And you're going to now have more opportunities to connect and be a part of, you know, the experience of that local geography.

Zach Smith: 20:58

And so I think that there's a lot of ways that innovation presents itself, it can be hard to pierce awareness. And we're okay with being patient, it's worth it. And so that's another, know, thing that we, you know, value. It's an ongoing process. It's not baked.

Zach Smith: 21:19

It's not done. We're constantly in this creative process to make things better.

Speaker 3: 21:23

As you've heard in this interview, we're talking to retailers that host people. And how do you do that? Well, there has to be a way for people to book their experience with you. It's our contention that the world needs another booking tool like it needs another hole in its head. That's not what we need.

Speaker 3: 21:41

What we need is a platform for bookable retail, and that's what the Experience app is all about. In just a few clicks, if you happen to be a Shopify e commerce user, you can add bookable experiences to your website. They're on brand, it's at your domain, it's done through the Shopify checkout, and you control the data right there in the admin. You can transfer customers, you can create scannable QR codes, they can be reminded of their upcoming experiences, and it integrates really nicely with everything you do as a retailer. So you're selling your products right next to your bookable experiences and you don't have to use things like Eventbrite or Ticketmaster or one of the other thousand bookable tools out there.

Speaker 3: 22:28

If you want the tool that works for you as you host people in your retail environment, which quite frankly is pretty much table stakes these days in an era where people don't have

Mark Sandeno: 22:38

to leave their home to buy anything. They're going to come out to

Speaker 3: 22:40

create a memory with you. Go to experiencesapp.com for a free fourteen day trial. It doesn't require a credit card to do the fourteen day trial. And by the way, if the fourteen day trial isn't long enough, just hit us up in the in app chat and we'll extend it for you. So thanks for listening.

Speaker 3: 22:57

Experienceisapp.com. Go there today. Add it to your Shopify store. And if you're not already a Shopify entrepreneur, this would be a great time to start. Go to shopify.com, get your store going, and then immediately go over and add the Experiences app to your store.

Speaker 3: 23:15

Once again, this is Mark Sandineau, the CEO of Experiences. We hope to see you soon.

Mark Sandeno: 23:21

You mentioned earlier a little bit of the fear or uncertainty. And then, you know, if people like, hey. What is this? Can I trust this experience I'm having with anywhere planning my trip? And then you have the other side of it where some people say that mass travel, it's cheaper and more convenient.

Mark Sandeno: 23:38

So, hey. I'm just gonna go to a resort and maybe take a couple day trips into the the small market nearby. What do you think people who are unwilling to deal with a little bit of uncertainty or get outside the convenience of mass travel are missing out on? What would you say to that person if you're saying, hey. Consider another way.

Zach Smith: 24:00

Well, listen. I mean, if convenience and price are the only things that matter, we should all be eating at McDonald's.

Mark Sandeno: 24:10

Touche. Is that just a mic drop right there? Let's get real. Are we talking what are we talking about? Are we eating at a five star is it a a three Michelin star restaurant to travelwith anywhere.com, or is it somewhere in between McDonald's and, you know, one of those places?

Mark Sandeno: 24:28

What are we looking at?

Zach Smith: 24:29

We take you to the farmers market, there's lots of local producers, and we assemble the meal that suits the preferences that you have. Everybody wins. You win, you're getting more unique experience that is, you know, more impactful for you and your family or you and your loved ones or you as an individual. The local suppliers are directly benefiting from that. It's just a win win win.

Zach Smith: 24:56

There's a lot of extraction that can happen when you know, you choose the most convenient option each and every time. That is not always about it was there and I just experienced it. Went, it was great. Our way is that way. And we believe that's the way it ought to be.

Zach Smith: 25:16

It's just, you know, I'm not here to evangelize it as being so much better. But it does have a more holistic approach. The curious people are willing or interested in to try it, then we're here. My second travel experience was to an all inclusive resort in Cabo. I've gone to others like over different times because friends wanted to have a convenient party there and or it was a bachelor thing or whatever.

Zach Smith: 25:44

And that stuff, like, I'm not here to judge it. It's just there's sometimes in our lives, where we want to explore more. And we want to make it easier to have a travel experience, which kind of introduces a little bit of struggle and a little bit of what am I going to put together? How is this going to work? That's what we're here for is just enabling that that experience to be just more than the most convenient choice or the choice that is more popular.

Mark Sandeno: 26:15

I'm not trying to stroke you here, but I do think it drives your point home. You have so many five star reviews on Trustpilot, but this undergirds your point. Here's Tom Cox. Public review. Happy to recommend anywhere to anyone.

Mark Sandeno: 26:32

From the first point of contact, I felt listened to an important I've never used an agency in this matter, and I was very impressed through the process. And I would say the concept of a modern or a traditional travel agency has largely kinda gone the way of the Dodo bird. So you guys are, you know, bringing that back. Here's another one that's really powerful. Team Anywhere were fantastic designing and planning the whole trip based on our requirements and budget and suggesting alternatives.

Mark Sandeno: 26:59

And if the initial options did not suit, Jessica was amazing helping with every last detail all the way through the process and never being far away when we wanted to make changes. What's interesting about this, I'm a fan of you, Zach. I'm a fan of Anywhere. I'm ashamed to say that even though I've planned a couple trips, I've never pulled the trigger on any trips with Anywhere. I'm looking forward to it.

Mark Sandeno: 27:20

What I see Anywhere doing is providing excellent value, and it's not that people can't have an amazing time on a cruise ship or just going to an all inclusive resort. I've done a lot of that stuff as well. It's fantastic, and you can get a little scrappy and plan some of your own day trips. What I would say is you are a really interesting, modern, international experience actualization play where you're using technology just the right amount to help people author these incredible experiences. And it's an amazing thing that compared to, you know, some of the big travel aggregators or the booking platforms, it's too expensive for them to do that.

Mark Sandeno: 28:03

The minute you get humans involved at the level you do, it's just untenable. You know, from what I've seen, the prices that you charge for the bespoke level and the collaboration you allow, it's an incredible value. A few questions to kinda wrap things up here. You can choose to answer if you're not because a lot of the people that would listen to the experiences app are entrepreneurial. They're people who are like, hey.

Mark Sandeno: 28:34

I'm into experiences, and I'm into how people do this and make this work. So I want to ask you a question in a minute about, you know, is anywhere.com a tiny little business? Is it a big business? However you wanna give us an understanding of the impact you're giving the world, how many people are experiencing something. But, well, let's start with that question.

Mark Sandeno: 28:55

What kind of impact are you making in any way that you feel comfortable characterizing the amount of trips you've done over the last five years, year, ten years, or whatever?

Zach Smith: 29:05

Tens of thousands of trips, And again, the North Star is not a single moment of regret. And again, a trip with us usually involves 15 different services, which usually are an individual small business, hundreds of thousands of individual services. And sometimes the party is four people or two people or 17 people. So we've had a lot of impact trying to build a connected trip experience. So that's another kind of thing to think about is the vending machine of online travel is very fractional.

Zach Smith: 29:47

So it's this time based booked experience. Well, how does that connect to the other experience and the other experience and the other experience, when our trust network creates a connected trip, if one little thing goes wrong, or someone gets sick, or a plane gets delayed, whatever, we're a single point of contact to adjust the entire thing with one message. So there's no stress, and there's no waste of time that someone might have gets them out of their present moment. This is should be fun. This should be enjoyable.

Zach Smith: 30:21

They should feel like someone has their back. You know, the industry does not really create that ecosystem. Everything is individual booking, individual contract. If you have an issue, you're going to some call center somewhere, you're wasting time, you're stressed, you're frustrated. So we alleviate a lot of that by being that connected trip.

Mark Sandeno: 30:45

That reminds me of one of the principles of durable memory creation, whether it's in a local retailer or it's travel. You're not specifically talking about theme and theater, but being able to link everything together under kind of this concept umbrella of and this is something I think Anywhere does really well, and you've spoken to it a lot here, like, hey, here's the purpose. Here's the vision. Here's the why. Yeah.

Mark Sandeno: 31:13

You're buying transfers and a hotel room and some food. What I really love about what you're doing is you're leading with this outcome. I am looking for this type of experience and whether people know it or not, the way your communication and your technology is set up, it's seeding this desire in them to have a very particular type of immersive experience. And then your technology is being used to make it really easy for the people to collaborate their way to co created value. That creates a more durable theme, and it leaves room for more theater.

Mark Sandeno: 31:49

Theme and theater are two things that cement psychologically or neurologically the value of the consumpted or the consumed experience, and it creates more durable memories leading to nostalgia that actively alleviates anxiety. It's really a social good. And I think, you know, your reviews and the ethos by which you communicate what you're doing undergirds the fact that you're on mission and you're doing it. It's really, really cool versus here's the best deal. Everyone loves a deal.

Mark Sandeno: 32:19

There's nothing wrong with a great deal. But sometimes we gotta kinda look side eye at at a really good deal and you're like, but am I going to achieve the outcome I need or I should have? Right? Last question. Where's an area that anywhere.com is developing or anywhere?

Mark Sandeno: 32:35

I'm sorry. The domain is just so good. Anywhere.com. There's a whole story by how you got that. But what's a place that Anywhere is developing right now in the world that you are particularly excited about?

Zach Smith: 32:46

We have four active geographies in development right now, and I'm excited about all of them for different reasons. Morocco, Mexico, Greece, Italy are all active. And we have test clients going to those geographies before we publicize it on the website. But, you know, we're really excited just to be a resource for our repeat and our referral clients, because they're what is driving this, I personally could be satisfied, you know, not amplifying, you know, I have a lovely family, I have plenty in my life that I, you know, enjoy doing, I feel compelled, and kind of called to just keep going. And what's great about the established reputation that we've earned is that clients ask us, hey, I'm going to this place.

Zach Smith: 33:42

Can you help me? Can you help me? Hey, it would be great if you could help us in this country. And, of course, we've had to say no for years and years and years and years and years because it's just hard. And it takes a lot of work to activate a geography, we get a lot of incoming requests from, you know, prospective partners, you know, I've gone out and found some partners, and we have a lot of values based alignment.

Zach Smith: 34:05

So it's now getting a little bit easier for us to integrate our system with their expertise and their geography. So I feel like there's fewer bottlenecks to amplifying anywhere than years ago, it's always been a concept, it still will be a concept for many years. But the idea is that we can make some progress on developing that concept that, you know, doesn't require so much grinding and, you know, weight on certain elements. It's getting easier, which means that the time is right. So anyway.

Mark Sandeno: 34:45

Well, no. Hey. It's been great. I'm gonna sing your praises here for just a second. If you're out there in the world, right now, the destinations the published destinations for anywhere are Costa Rica, Peru, Ecuador, Belize, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Guatemala, Indonesia, Panama, to be four more.

Mark Sandeno: 35:04

If you're thinking, I've wanted to go to one of those locations, and you're wanting to stitch together in a collaborative way, a very high context, personalized experience that is a fantastic value. Here's a really easy domain for you to remember. Anywhere.com. It's hard to forget. Zach, you and I traveled together.

Mark Sandeno: 35:27

We've been to India together on the same trip. We stopped over in Thailand and did bike tours and food tours and just had a ton of fun, had some suits made that I don't fit in anymore, unfortunately. I really appreciate you coming on today. Our experiences business, completely different thing. We enable retailers to offer their own experiences, but it's so similar in the mission that I'm proud to associate at least in part with the mission of helping people actualize these positive experienced memories that are typically outside the status quo way we live our lives.

Mark Sandeno: 36:05

So I I really appreciate your mission in the world and thanks for being on the podcast.

Zach Smith: 36:09

Much appreciated, brother. And right back at you. You've always been a a wonderful force in my life and helpful human days that we work and, you know, just like a shared vibe. And, you know, I love that you're still at it. All love me.

Mark Sandeno: 36:25

All love straight up hugs, brother. Thanks.