Announcer: 0:00

The following programming is sponsored by Marc J Bernstein. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of this station, its management or Beasley Media Group. Entrepreneur, author and financial consultant, Marc Bernstein helps high-performing entrepreneurial business owners create a vision for the future and follow through on their goals and intentions. Ang O Honorato is a business growth strategist who blends psychology and business together to create conscious leaders and business owners who impact the world. Founders Forum is a radio show podcast sharing the real stories behind entrepreneurship as founders discover more about themselves, while providing valuable lessons and some fun and entertainment for you. Now here's Marc and Ang.

Marc Bernstein: 0:42

Good morning America. How are yous all this morning? I just thought I'd throw a little Philadelphian in there in the middle. Hey, it's the middle of June 2024. I don't know when you'll be listening to this, but it's the heat of the summer Early, early summer, lots of heat all over the country. We're having a hot one in Philly today. We just had some real hot ones. So hoping you're keeping cool and um, in more ways than one.

Marc Bernstein: 1:09

So, and speaking of that, our topic for today is something I was thinking about on the way into the radio station, which is busyness. I, you know, I was thinking about this and I was thinking why am I so, so busy? And you know, a couple of years ago, in the pandemic, I was thinking isn't it nice to not be this busy and have time to think and have time to relax and have time to sleep and have, you know, all those things that we should be doing for ourselves? And one question is is the busyness good? And it can be, but where we find ourselves? And what I was going to say is, I think everybody that I talk to seems busier than ever.

Marc Bernstein: 1:51

We're trying to connect with calendars and all. Everybody's very busy and I don't know if it's like pent up from not being busy or if it's what it is. If the economy's good, it's not really, as you know, as challenging as you know, they would have you believe if you listen to all the media and all that. So what is it? So I want to ask you, first, Ang, and then I want to ask our guest today your take on that. You know, what do you see, why do you think it is and what's going on?

Ang Onorato: 2:22

It's such a great topic, Marc you. What's going on? It's such a great topic, Marc you and I were just chatting offline that. You're right. We see it with each other, right, that when things seem to be super busy, a couple of years ago we thought we learned lessons, let's take time and take a debrief every once in a while, but we are absolutely busier than ever.

Ang Onorato: 2:45

I know for myself my theory on it, and you know I have to bring the woo Marc to things, but I really believe that in many ways I think that the busyness is that I think a lot of us have a fear of slowing down right, a fear of not doing the things, because should the work dry up, should the relevance, should our brand, you know, whatever it is, and maybe some people even out running? You know, I don't want to deal with other things in life, so if I just kind of stay super busy, then I can at least use that as an excuse, right, and I don't know that's everybody but I. When I'm coaching my clients every single week, we kind of dig down into the root of things a lot and I find a lot of that. It's staying really busy so that they don't have to deal with other things, so I'm curious how that might affect other people, listeners or you guys as well, but it's definitely a trend that seems fast and furious these days. Busier and busier, the summer's flying by.

Marc Bernstein: 3:33

And I like the first part of what you said. They feel like they have to be, besides avoiding other things, maybe just to be successful or to move their businesses forward. Whatever it is, they feel like they have to be busy all the time. And, by the way, I looked at this after I got to the radio station. I looked it up busyness is where the word business comes from. If you look at the old English, it came from busyness. So I'm going to ask our guest, will, who will be introduced in a minute, but Will I'm going Does business have to be busyness, in your opinion?

Will Schmahl: 4:06

Well, I definitely would have to agree with what Anne just saying.

Will Schmahl: 4:09

I also think there's a yin and yang approach going here, coming from the pre-pandemic to then having so much time and using it for other things, like hobbies, and that actually spurred a lot of growth and also new businesses, right. But I think that as we get busier, we almost have a kind of a fight struggle between what the world sees and also that we feel successful, right, I think that that happens, at least for me, where I feel I'm a project-based person, so I have to have something always going on. But I also feel that that helps me, you know, even if I'm working on artwork, it helps me with my business because I'm clear headed and I can focus and I have other ideas, right. So I think there's a lot of you know reasons why people personally keep busy, but I think that the approach to it is definitely a cause and effect of the pandemic. And now do we go back to work? Are you remote? Do you have enough? What your time is focused on? It's the challenge now, I think, for people.

Marc Bernstein: 5:10

Yep, and, by the way, I've been working from home a lot for a different reason. Our office is under construction and I'm way busier when I'm at home than I am when I'm in the office. This is because I think I feel like I have to be like I can't be goofing off again, you know. So I almost feel like fine things to do. It's pretty incredible. So. So, Ann, do you want to introduce Will?

Ang Onorato: 5:35

Yeah, absolutely so, joining us today and thank him so much for being here on a very hot day. So Will Schmahl is a seasoned entrepreneur and the CTO of House Mother. I can't wait to hear more about this and learn his deep story with this. But Housemother is an innovative app designed to streamline travel experiences for groups through the use of AI and machine learning power tools. It's a rich background or with his rich background in launching and scaling startups, including his first venture, content place. Will brings a wealth of experience and passion for solving complex problems in the travel industry, which is very important in the summertime especially so. Originally from New York City, he's actually currently joining us here in Philadelphia while he is leading the launch of House Mother. And welcome Will. Thanks for coming in the studio today.

Marc Bernstein: 6:24

Thank you very much. So Will you have an interesting story how you got here. So let's start with the very beginning. So I think you were born in New York City, but then you moved out somewhere, to farmland right.

Will Schmahl: 6:37

So I'm from Long Island thereafter and my family is mostly in the East Coast or they're over in the UK, but most of my family that's out east more Connecticut. It's interesting because my grandparents raised me and, coming from my grandfather being a science professor at Stony Brook College and my grandmother being a minister, it's a very balanced house to grow up in, um as well as uh, my one of my uncles was still living at home because he was young enough to be there, so he's really my older brother who, by the way, wasn't there a strawberry forum involved?

Will Schmahl: 7:18

yeah, so as we grow up, uh, my family was really, um, they had a large amount of land that was out east and we don't own that anymore. But I think, from the focus of going from farming gardens and having that life out east to my family, then, because of life changes, moving to Pennsylvania and my father staying out in Long Island, it's an interesting life to grow up in, but from a young age it definitely gave me entrepreneurship. It led to me actually, at an early age, having another business at the age of 17 that I sold. That was actually an exotic bird breeding business, which was you don't think that it's that awkward kid that went to school with a backpack with birds, right?

Marc Bernstein: 8:13

Interesting. Yeah, so, and you were talking about the balanced background.

Will Schmahl: 8:15

Did you want to expand on that a little bit?

Will Schmahl: 8:16

Yeah, so I think that my, my love of just different things in life and challenges and trying to solve problems definitely comes from the balance of of you know I believe in whatever happened to you in your life good, bad. The balance of you know I believe in whatever happens to you in your life good, bad, or you know it makes you who you are. I wouldn't change anything and I think that for me, balancing just new aspirations, new challenges and where I'm going to move my life next, I'll raise my hand for anything if it's a challenge right, it's only helped me in my career to balance that and have it also. And that balance is also I guess, andrew, you would see this as a balance between you as your culture, your person and also your job, and having that balance together. And I think that you need that in any environment, and if that corporation or the job isn't giving you that, then it could be thrown off. I think that that's what I've gotten from just my upbringing and my life.

Marc Bernstein: 9:12

Where did? Because this is House Mother. When we get to talking about that is your third launch, if you include the bird breeding business. Where did the entrepreneurialism come from?

Will Schmahl: 9:21

I definitely would say it was my grandfather. So my grandfather was a tinkerer. We had solar panels on the ceiling, sorry, on the roof, nice, he was already heating our pool before solar panels were even out, I mean. So he was definitely a tinkerer, that he was always building things and that runs my family. Most of my uncles are either carpenters or they work in some you know hands-on, uh, you know building a product or something, and I think that that definitely has been ingrained in me, definitely.

Marc Bernstein: 9:56

Sounds like he was an innovator, which is goes hand in hand a lot of times with us Gotcha, gotcha, so, so after that. So what happened to you? You did the bird breeding business. You went to college, by the way. What did you study in school?

Will Schmahl: 10:08

First dance, sorry, first music education, and with a minor in piano and voice at Moravian College. Right, and that was kind of my tie to Pennsylvania, since my grandmother was here doing ministry in Eastern Conference of Pennsylvania in the Methodist Church, so we were moving around a lot, you know, every three years to a different church, different you know town. So I've been in many different you know odd little places across eastern Pennsylvania and you know, basically, from there I missed New York and I transferred to Marymount Manhattan College for dance. So yeah, that's, yeah, that was my tie. It was either getting in there through music, which they didn't accept me into the musical theater program for music and voice which is funny because that's what I was actually majored in at Moravian but they accepted me in dance. So I was like, okay, they must need guys in the dance company.

Marc Bernstein: 11:04

By the way, I'll just tell you real quick. So I was a music composition and theory major in college and I had to take voice. So I remember I went in this vocal class and all the people around me were like you know all-American choir, this and that? And they said what's your experience? I said, well, I sang backup in a rock and roll band. It was kind of intimidating. That was the only thing about college that was really intimidating to me. When you had to do ear training, I had a roommate who's a very, very good musician but, we called it fear training and sight singing we called fright screaming.

Marc Bernstein: 11:37

You know, that was hard, because that was the thing we both feared most.

Will Schmahl: 11:40

He was not a singer either but yeah, music, just reading music was not my thing. I could automatically sing just hearing the notes. But you know, in general was definitely a huge part of my life in junior high and high school, like traveling all over to the music jazz festivals where they used to have the musical theater groups that would compete. It was pretty exciting, yeah.

Marc Bernstein: 12:00

Yeah, your original plan wasn't to really be a professional musician or dancer, is what you said.

Will Schmahl: 12:04

Not even I wanted to be a veterinarian, actually.

Marc Bernstein: 12:07

Tell us about that one real quick, only because it's humorous.

Will Schmahl: 12:11

Well, I worked at a veterinary clinic for about three years and you know I loved it and I was going to go to Ross College down south and basically, you know, like those veterinarians which I love to death, they were letting me do things I really shouldn't have been doing at that age, you know, and I couldn't handle the surgeries. I mean, I came out of the last surgery and the doctors basically said to me well, we love you, we know how much you love animals, but it's not going to work, and I knew it, I knew it already. But it definitely made me realize you know, when else will save time and money. Right, I could have gone down a path of trying and trying and pushing something that just wouldn't work.

Marc Bernstein: 12:52

So you came out of Marymount and I know your next thing and we'll fill in the gaps, but the next thing you created was a website called Content Place.

Will Schmahl: 13:03

Well, the short story is actually I ended up having an injury in dance school that ended my and I went to advertising and then basically started working for corporations AOL for 10 years and then I left AOL to be consulting in startups and then from there I ended up starting Content Place, which is a marketplace for film and TV creators to actually either fund, sell or license their early stage developments. And that has been a struggle, just you know, with the film industry is hard to move, but it's actually doing well and right now we're working on House Mother.

Marc Bernstein: 13:42

Yep, so tell us about House Mother. We have just a couple minutes, believe it or not, before the break already, but tell us about House Mother and where you are on that, and we'll have more after the break.

Will Schmahl: 13:52

Sure so House Mother was born from my own issues around managing a house during the summer with my friends or family. It could really be a nightmare just the logistics of on-trip needs or things that could come up or variables that basically you know either caused by people who are traveling with or staying with. We all love our family or friends, but sometimes you are their house mother right.

Will Schmahl: 14:17

Yeah, I mean, it's definitely the house. Mother could be the planner in every group, right? Yep, everyone you know family or friend group has it or has one, and you know, really, what we do is we provide a suite of tools that enables them to communicate, share and manage their stay, from expenses to everything else, and what we do is we then use AI and machine learning to mitigate rewards and risks, meaning that we'll tell them information, supply them with suggestions and also optimize their trip to the best that we can, so that you know, based on their user preferences, either individually or as a group. So, you know, sometimes it's just about knowing the information right when everyone is, you know you don't necessarily just you know while you're on trip together need to do everything every moment together. Just knowing, though, that you can meet up afterwards. That's what you need to do.

Marc Bernstein: 15:07

Great, how is House Mother catching on?

Will Schmahl: 15:09

It's going well. So our focus right now is beach houses and the summer seasonal rentals, which is an interesting segment of the travel industry because it's really not catered to, because it's a different type of rental. You don't find it on Airbnb, because they don't handle multi-week rentals right and they're very community-based right. There's a lot of beach towns all over the US. I was going to say it's fairly substantial, though, uh, it's. They're very community based, right, you know, there's a lot of beach towns all over the U? S.

Marc Bernstein: 15:34

I was going to say it's fairly substantial, though too, at the same time, it's a big market actually uh, which is you know.

Will Schmahl: 15:40

We found very interesting that no one was really cared to it, um, and it has a lot of uh ability to actually grow uh tremendously. You know from a just uh the aspect of how many people are actually in these houses during the summer.

Marc Bernstein: 15:54

With that, I think it's a real good place to take a break and hear a little bit more about House Mother, and we will be right back with Will Schmahl.

Announcer: 16:07

Summer is for sun, fun and unforgettable moments with friends and family. This season, take the hassle out of group travel with House Mother, your go-to app for managing on-trip needs, whether it's coordinating room assignments, tracking expenses or simply knowing where everyone is with their real-time location feature, house Mother ensures every aspect of your trip runs smoothly. Make this summer the best one yet. Download House Mother and start enjoying stress-free vacations with those who matter most. Visit HouseMothercom now. House Mother H-O-U-S-M-T-H-R. House Mother turning every trip into a home away from home.

Marc Bernstein: 16:46

We're back on Founders Forum. Ang, I heard a squeak there right before the break, so I know you wanted to ask Will something? I was laughing.

Ang Onorato: 16:52

Marc, because I'm like I love this so much. I knew the break was coming up, but I just wanted to say that it even ties into our topic this morning, because more and more people need to get away right. And take that time and have memories with people, so taking the stress out of organizing a family or a friend vacation. It is a really unaddressed need, If you ask me. I think there's a trend for people to do longer bachelorette weekends and bachelor weekends and things like that too so it's.

Ang Onorato: 17:21

it's a very interesting concept and very visionary? I think so, and it's at the beach, so you can't not love that.

Marc Bernstein: 17:26

I know lots of people, at least in my younger days, knew a ton of people that would have loved to have this, but we didn't even have the technology, obviously. But so, look, you're a serial entrepreneur, I would say at this point, and you have two businesses that are going. I'm sure it wasn't smooth sailing all the way through. I'm sure you had challenges along the way. Tell us about the challenges you've had and what strengths you've had to sort of overcome them challenges you've had and what strengths you've had to sort of overcome them?

Will Schmahl: 17:56

Yeah, sure. So I think that there's challenges that I've had with my first startup that really was just learning first. There's so much information out there for entrepreneurs and a lot of it's so opinionated and so different. Everyone has a different approach to how they would handle things, how it's acceptable in the industry or how it's acceptable by an accelerator. You're trying to always get approval when reality is you're trying to learn and handle and that's a difficult challenge.

Will Schmahl: 18:26

I found I'm an avid reader, avid attending every webinar. I can probably signing up for too many and not showing up because I have so much the busyness right Back to that. But I think the challenge is having the right information and finding the right guidance right, because sometimes some of these people that are actually providing information, they never even had a startup, right, which is actually scary. Just because you invested in a company and it was successful doesn't mean that you should be giving advice to everyone in the world, right? It's very confusing and some people need to make sure you do your research on who's actually providing this information, because it could become a challenge that you're taking decisions on your business from someone that's never even had a business.

Marc Bernstein: 19:10

By the way, I can attest to your busyness because you were working. When I walked in this morning in the studio, I was a few minutes behind you and he said I have an idea. I a few minutes behind you and he said I have an idea. I had to get it down. So you're an idea man for sure. So so, uh, we'll talk about the idea later. I don't want to get off track. Um, so where where do you go from now? Where do you go from here in terms of a house, mother, um, and that'll lead to my our next question.

Will Schmahl: 19:34

Sure, I mean. So just to play that into another challenge. You know, um, you know we're trying to raise funding for us. We're also trying to prove fully our model. We believe that we could do it by the end of summer. The challenge is making it transparent that we're really solving a problem. Travel could be seen from people as oh, it's travel, but everyone does it. It's a huge. It's a huge industry. It also plays into a lot of things from an execution standpoint, as far as our technology could be taken out and actually then used in other approaches, and I think that that's really what we're trying to make sure that the world sees and we could actually be successful at it and then get funding to actually keep going and build ourselves successful at it and then get funding to actually keep going and build ourselves.

Marc Bernstein: 20:22

Nice I could see. So I'm one that's used both VRBO both as a renter and a landlord and also Airbnb. I could see synergies with those groups as a possibility.

Will Schmahl: 20:36

Yeah, that's our long-term approach. So right now we're B2C, but we would like to become a guest app for every booking platform. Yeah, For their you know as their guest solution. It makes a lot of sense.

Marc Bernstein: 20:42

So if this were so this is June of 24,. If this were June of 27, and we're looking back on the last three years what would have to happen Will for you to feel that that was a successful period in your life. You can talk about business and if there's anything personal that goes along with it.

Will Schmahl: 20:56

Yeah, sure, I mean definitely, I think House Mother would have a significant amount of the market share and acceptance from people as a brand. I mean that's very important culturally as a brand and also as a company with employees that want to be there, because I think that is hand in hand. You don't have a good business unless you have employees that have a good culture, and I think that three years from now, I think that our goal is to be a guest app for at least one to two of the major players in the market.

Marc Bernstein: 21:29

And I'm going to ask your question for you. Oh, go ahead, you're ready. Go ahead, ask your question.

Ang Onorato: 21:33

Yeah, well, just kind of following along those lines. Will and you shared a lot about your upbringing and how it's kind of shaped you as an entrepreneur. But, similar to what Marc just said, if you were to take a look the other way, and if you were to look back and talk to your younger self, what would you tell about your younger self right now, about the journey where you are today and kind of where you're headed?

Will Schmahl: 21:55

oh, geez, um. So you know, I thought about this hard and I and I would tell my younger self that if there is a challenge that I'm uncomfortable with, it's okay and that finding help sooner than later is the best approach don't necessarily find help early on, which could have saved a lot of time. And also, just it's almost making sure that I feel comfortable to actually say I don't understand, but moving forward faster and that would give me that ability. I think that's what I'd tell my younger self that don't be so naive to actually looking for help early on to move faster, right.

Marc Bernstein: 22:40

So part of your three-year vision is be busier. I'm kidding, yeah, just kidding. Hopefully have an assistant. You sure hope so. You got to delegate everything but your unique abilities. That's what Dan Sullivan would say, and I think that's really important. I'm going to ask a question I thought Ang was going to ask. So the culture of the company that you envision. You mentioned a certain type of culture. If you had to paint a picture of that, what's that look like?

Will Schmahl: 23:07

You know what? In short, when I was working at AOL, it was the best company that I've ever worked for in my career.

Marc Bernstein: 23:12

I thought you might reference that, but I wasn't sure which way.

Will Schmahl: 23:15

Honestly, the days I worked there were the best days of my career. It just, you know, and they had it down with culture and the way they were, you know, internally and externally, and that bled through their business and I think that's you know. It's sad that they're not so much around right now as Verizon, but you know, what they were doing 15 years ago was incredible.

Marc Bernstein: 23:35

So you would like to model that culture after AOL? Yeah, pretty interesting. Is there a culture still like that today? Do you know?

Will Schmahl: 23:41

I think a lot of startups do have that. I mean, I think that definitely in the tech industry, you're seeing a lot of startups that are, you know, fully, you know having a culture that's fitting everyone and you know.

Marc Bernstein: 23:52

Do you know if it's still that way at AOL? That I'm not sure. Yeah, that's what I wonder about that, because larger companies get. That tends to change over time. I think, right, yeah, so we have time for some sort of fun questions. What do you like to do for fun? I know you like to go to the beach yourself. That's one thing.

Will Schmahl: 24:10

So I'm an artist besides all this, right, so I do abstract art, specifically with resin. That's kind of my therapy, so, but also it's where I have the best ideas.

Marc Bernstein: 24:23

We don't promote businesses, but we can promote hobbies. Because you do have a website Works by Will I do Because I went and looked at it you can do some really interesting stuff.

Will Schmahl: 24:36

Thank you, pretty cool. So you like to do that? Yeah, but other than that I do road biking and you know things that are just calming. You know I like to just have a moment. I'm not a reader, so things that I do are very art or culturally focused, where I like to experience things, live.

Marc Bernstein: 24:48

How about music? Because you started it with a large interest in music.

Will Schmahl: 24:52

I heard about your EDM-like in a previous podcast, but for me, I think that music festivals are important.

Marc Bernstein: 25:00

It's more my son, but I enjoy it with him.

Will Schmahl: 25:04

Music festivals are something I enjoy and something also House Mothers are great, for that's our, I think. For me, experience things with my friends or family are important.

Marc Bernstein: 25:15

I am headed with my son in the middle of next month to the Sphere in Las Vegas, which should be a lot of fun. I hear it's unbelievable. I really headed with my son the end of next or the middle of next month to, uh, the sphere in las vegas, okay, which would be a lot of fun. That's uh, I hear it's unbelievable. I would really want to check that out. Um anything else? Um anything else you'd like to do for angie, I think has a question. I see her no no, yeah.

Ang Onorato: 25:33

So so well, I'm curious. You know we talked about um. When you came in your your, your mind was already going with new ideas and jotting them down before even Marc got into the studio. How do you, what do you find if you combine your art with sort of the things that you dream up about in business, right? Do you find that parallel there? Are there things that seem to inspire you in a certain way and that kind of come up with these ideas, or how does some of that ideation happen for you?

Will Schmahl: 26:01

So if you talk to my co-founder, lou, he would tell you that I'm the creative person right, and that you know everything you see that's on. You know our website, our logo. I mean, everything is from my head and I've designed myself and made. So you know. I think that there's definitely a, you know, a connection between me being creative and what my output is in business, from either a marketing standpoint, but also from an idea standpoint, because art actually solves problems, believe it or not, if you actually think about it, and the way that it speaks to people and also the way that you could actually tell a story through a vision that isn't words. So I think that if you take that kind of that weird thinking of how that could be inspirational also, you know, and throw it into a brand, it's pretty cool.

Marc Bernstein: 26:46

Well, listen. So it's really a combination of art. There's obviously science in it too, the science of technology and the science of data and all that kind of thing. I can relate to that. I know Ang can as well. In our businesses, in financial planning, I always say it's as much an art as it is a science, because nothing is exact Things always change and it's really trying to understand your client and figure out what they're trying to do for the future and all of that.

Marc Bernstein: 27:12

So who's the science? We only have about a half a minute, but who's the science piece of your business?

Will Schmahl: 27:17

That would be my co-founders. Yeah, yeah, piece of your business, that would be my co-founders.

Marc Bernstein: 27:21

Yeah, yeah, got it, got it, got it. And how do you? And I guess they're very good at translating your art, yes, so.

Will Schmahl: 27:29

I always have people that are in my team that translate, because I'm definitely someone that has a specific way I talk. You know it needs translation sometimes.

Marc Bernstein: 27:39

Right. So back to your unique abilities, and you need people around you to complement your unique abilities to make it successful. So that seems to occur over and over again. Well, I think that's about it for today, for Founders Forum. So Will, thanks so much for being here. I think it was a great show. Thank you, Ang, thanks for being here on Zoom. Appreciate it, and everyone. Have a great day and we'll see you next week on Founders Forum.