Ep 57: How YAK DAO is Fractionalizing Ownership of Recreational Properties with David Woodbury

YAK DAO is fractionalizing ownership of recreational properties, making it easier and more affordable for everyone to own a piece of their favorite vacation spot. 

This is David Woodbury's story…

David Woodbury is a veteran of the US Coast Guard, serial entrepreneur, and speaker on Web3. He is also the CEO of YAK DAO, which is a luxury camping brand that fractionalizes ownership of recreational properties through NFT memberships.

In this episode, you will learn the following:

1. How David Woodbury went from the Coast Guard to understanding the Web3 world and doing the work that he's doing now

2. What a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) is and how it works

3. What Yakdao is doing to reinvent the timeshare model

Connect with David:

Website: https://yak.camp/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/theyakdao

Free Download:

The Words of Web3 - A comprehensive glossary of terms used in the space https://mailchi.mp/9d043022b5a0/words-of-web3

Connect with me:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbrooksheehan

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DrBrookSheehan

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/drbrooksheehan

Transcript

[Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 Hey, welcome to another episode of Dr. Brook on the Block. You know who I am, dr. Brook, the friendly Cryptopractor. But today I am joined by my co pilot David Woodbury, who is a veteran of the US Coast Guard, serial entrepreneur and speaker on and Web3. He's also the CEO of YAK DAO, which or YAK DAO, which we're going to talk about today, which is a luxury camping brand off for fractional ownership through NFT membership. Jack is revolutionizing the way individuals can own and engage with real estate assets. Yak is developing a global luxury camping brand that fractionalizes ownership of recreational properties through NFTS memberships. Welcome to the show, David. So glad you're here.
 
 [David Woodbury]
 Hey, Dr. Brook. Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 Absolutely. Like I always ask my co pilot on the show, we want to hear your origin story and how you went from the Coast Guard to understanding the Web3 world and doing the work that you're doing now.
 
 [David Woodbury]
 Sure. Yeah. The Coast Guard was quite some time ago, so there's a lot in between that and getting into Web3. But my background as a serial entrepreneur, I started my first company back in 2008. It was a wireless service provider. That company was acquired in 2012 and then built a marketplace called Camp Native. So it's a booking engine for campsites and RV parks all around the world. So that's sort of how I got to the outdoor space. In, I guess, 2017, I started investing in crypto. I'd known about Bitcoin since 2014, but unfortunately didn't make my first investment until most people got really excited about that bull run in 2017. So investing later on that year and got crushed when it dropped. But that was how I kind of got my first chops in the space. Like most people, you've got to lose a little to learn a little. Absolutely. So, yeah, from there, I continue to invest as DCA into the market, do my own research, and started following a few different YouTube influencers or whatnot. And I guess what really got me going was in 2020 when COVID hit and I started watching governments just print fiat currency like crazy and there was no controls on it. Right. So I ended up getting really heavily involved as a business operator. There was zero instances ever where the government was soliciting me to give me money. And that's what was happening, like in the early stages, Q1, Q2 or whatever, 2020. But I recognized that as a red flag, I guess, and sort of dove into crypto and a better understanding of how money works and how this technology. As a technologist, somebody that's been in sort of Web Two heavily in Web Two, I wanted to know, like, the underlying tech behind what we were building in the space. And so out of that was really Web3. And so I guess I didn't really get the power of Web3. Until I started seeing Axe Infinity as an investor, just in the token, but I'm not a gamer. But what was happening is they were changing. Like, the majority of users were in the Philippines and Vietnam, and those users were actually making more money playing Akse than they were, like, working their job. So it was sort of like normalizing income. That was, like, the first thing. As we start looking at a more global business ecosystem, I think Web3 is having an influence. That was, like, one of the first projects I noticed that was just utilizing Web3 in a unique, interesting way with the gaming side of it. And then I think from there started watching NFTs. And at first, I wasn't really compelled by NFT projects. It was mostly, like, the art community and the music. And so I didn't get the real value until I started seeing a couple of projects, like, I think links DAO as an example. They fractionalized ownership of a golf course and then Fries DAO, which is fractional ownership of a like, a fast food franchise. And I started seeing, like NFT It really was like, individual digital ownership on the Internet and applying that to social platforms. And there's just so many things that we could scale from the Web3 standpoint. So anyways, that's my background. How I got in the space ended up becoming a speaker at the state level, talking to quite a few, I would say small businesses across the state of South Dakota where I was based at the time. And through that process, I thought, how do I apply this to my own business, which is Camp Native? And that's where YAK DAO has come out of.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 That I love it. That's such a beautiful story. All of us who are in the space right now look back and go, dang, we should have gotten in at the time that someone had said something to us, but we probably wouldn't have had the understanding that we do now. And we got in at the time we did for a reason, but we can always go, Dang it, I could have been better off. But it is what it is, and you're moving forward and you're doing what you're doing, and you're doing incredible things. Before we get into what YAK DAO is, I really want you to first define the term terminology decentralized Autonomous Organization. That's what the word DAO or that's the acronym DAO is. But define that for my listeners first and then we'll kind of go into Yak.
 
 [David Woodbury]
 Yeah. So a decentralized autonomous organization is really an organization that's run and owned by its members. So what's really interesting about this structure is what we're doing is we're creating a way for startups to essentially launch, like, a publicly traded company out of the gates. So today, like, the biggest companies in the world are owned by the shareholders, and certain shareholders have maybe more influence than others. Same situation with the DAO. Many DAOs are sort of top heavy with membership statuses investors, whether that's like, token holders, whether that's NFT memberships. So you have some influence in voting rights based on your status as a member within the organization. But the reality is every member has a say or a vote. So it's a democratic way to running an enterprise out of the Gates versus like a centralized concept which is launched essentially as one or two people or some cofounders and you're more like trying to build this team. So that only a handful of people profit, where a DAO is like, more of a movement, where a whole group of people that believe in something get involved. And like I said, I would say the best analogy is just to think of, like, we're sort of creating publicly traded companies but right out of the gates.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 Great explanation, and thank you for sharing that. So tell us, tell the listeners what Yak DAO is doing. You guys are very outdoorsy. It is recreational type things. But more importantly, people can own pieces of these recreational campsites or they're owning the kind of like a timeshare they're owning like I don't know. You explain?
 
 [David Woodbury]
 Yao sure, yeah. So I guess we're trying to reinvent the timeshare model. Historically, that's been a pretty poor user experience for most people. So that is a component that we're focused on sort of reinventing with this model where, say, owning a condo in Mexico, it's costly for most people, so they end up buying a week. And the issue with that is that upkeep and everything, it may not stay the same, actually, like liquidity. Like, if you decide, I don't want to go to that place anymore, and then you want to sell it, that's really difficult with the old school timeshare model because it's tied to a specific date and not everybody's calendars align with that specific date every single year. So I think that's sort of an old model. What we're doing with Yak is so we're buying recreational use land, and this comes from our deep experience in the space, like managing basically what Camp Native does is we manage bookings for 800 properties across the US. And so we see sort of like I mean, we have tons of data on great locations and, like, well run operations and also on the other side of it. And so we were kind of able to take a lot of that data and start thinking about creating or starting our own property. And we focused on the luxury camping side of it because it's one of the most it is like, the most lucrative investment in real estate from an ROI standpoint right now.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 The glamping type camping.
 
 [David Woodbury]
 Yeah. So Glamping stands for Glamorous Camping. Basically what you have is like, a unit that has it's like a Marriott hotel on the interior. Like super high end plush interior. Our units, they have like, a Swedish stove. We're planning to put, like, a hot tub or a pool in a community center might have, like, a steam shower. But this is, again, with the DAO, all the members get to vote on this as the resources come in, and we're able to kind of, like, architect the plan around how that property is going to shape up. So basically, we founded the DAO back in April, and we did a presale that sold out in June. We are currently in the process of working with a couple of funds right now to finalize the we're under contract for a property, 22 acres in Bourbon, North Carolina, that's right by Ashville. And so we've got, like, we're on the side of a mountain and we have a private fishing hole and swimming pond, like, on the property, just an amazing piece of land. And we're planning to close on that in the next ten days. And then from there, we're going to develop about 30 units on that property. So the interesting thing about those units is they project to do each unit projects to do about $60,000 a year in annual revenues, and they cost about $35 to $50,000 to develop a single unit. So when I say, like, the ROI is pretty strong, it's very strong, like, ongoing for these particular structures. So I think one of the interesting things that I saw in Crypto is that we have this challenge of buying digital assets and then actually translating that into real world income or like, fiat currency that we can spend. And the challenge is, like, you have to sell your assets in order to live right? I mean, that's just like, if you're in the space, that's what people do, is you sell. And unfortunately, nine times out of ten in this industry, because it's so volatile, you end up jeopardizing significant upside when you're in a position where you sell. And so with Jack, we've structured it where it's really like a hold, and you can invest in these opportunities and these opportunities and provide commissions to the NFT members. So a member can buy a Dome outright as an NFT. A Dome can also be split into 50 units. And those are just like, shares to an extent, whereas they're not tied to specific weeks or anything like that. So, again, like, reinventing and rethinking the timeshare model because there's obviously more desirable weeks out of the year. And what we want to do is create sort of a more democratic approach to, like, ownership of these assets so everybody shares in the upside or DAOnside of that particular unit. And if you own one 50th or half of a Dome of you own a Dome outright, you're basically just enjoying the revenues that are produced by that. Our DAO basically operates it completely, so it's totally turnkey for numbers.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 Okay, so I guess a follow up question or just clarity for me too. And I think the listeners may benefit from this question is, say I own a dome outright. And then you said that dome can be almost fractionalized into 50 different tokens per se. You guys run that 50 tokens. So you give fractionally, like, oh, this person wants these this week, and this person wants this week, but this is my dome that I own? Or am I also can I manage my own dome and say, like, I want this person to have five of the 50. I want this person this person wants to buy ten of the 50. Is that option on the table?
 
 [David Woodbury]
 Yeah. So we have a membership tier. So the membership tier is three tiers, and there's Monica, which is our top tier. And that's like for a serious real estate investor, like somebody that maybe wants to buy a dome outright. And then the next tier is Everest, which is like, maybe I want to buy some fractions of a dome, but I don't have, say, $50,000 to buy a dome outright. And then the tier after that is for campers. It's a discount on the stays. Okay, so that's our different membership tiers. But to answer your question, when we develop a property, the value of a Mona Kia is that they get first right, a refusal. So Amanda Kia could buy a dome outright and then turn around and say, well, I want to offset some of the cost of the dome by bringing on some fractional investors through the Everest community. Everest could then buy like ten of their MFPs or whatever, and they maybe continue to hold 40 of those. Or let's say there was another property that we end up developing in the next six months or whatever, and I'm on a Kia is like, oh, I want to invest in that, but maybe I don't have the cash flow or the liquidity right now. So let me sell some fractions of one of my other dome so I can have like, another dome at this other property.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 That's yes.
 
 [David Woodbury]
 Okay, so it's almost like creating like somewhat of a retail syndicate.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 Yes.
 
 [David Woodbury]
 I'm sorry, real estate syndicate.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 No, exactly. I knew exactly what you meant, but yes. Okay, very cool. And then that explains what it is and how it works. And so people can all of this is now available to be minted on your site. How do people, if they're interested in this kind of stuff, get one of these?
 
 [David Woodbury]
 DAOs yeah, the membership monarchy NFTs the Everest, NF T's KTN Ft, those can be purchased on pretty much any exchange or at Yak Dot Camp.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 Okay.
 
 [David Woodbury]
 And from there, like, our discord is pretty much where we're releasing units. But again, if you're a monika, there's a separate chat for those folks. And so they're basically given an opportunity to invest. And then after that, we open it up and we do have some fractional opportunities. And I think what's going to happen? Like, it's our first property, so we're filling it with lots of different people right now. But after we get property one up, I think it's going to be really advantageous to be a Mona Kia because the results are going to be very strong, like from a revenue standpoint at this particular problem. So anyways that's the way you would get involved is like OpenSea you can find Yak on OpenSea, you can find us on Luxury or just go directly to Yak camp and you can there from the site and then from there like if you want to own any of the membership options you can reach out to us directly. We only have three domes available left at the Bervard property. Everything else has been already committed to, but we do have three units left and then we're planning about a dozen resorts in the next few years.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 Oh my gosh. In all different parts of the United States or all different parts of the country?
 
 [David Woodbury]
 Well, the world. Yeah.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 Globally.
 
 [David Woodbury]
 Yeah. So we have a member with like 25 acres on the Indian Ocean in Kenya and he's interested in doing something there. And we've got members in Australia and Asia and Europe and so South America. So I think the objective is to have this digital nomad type opportunity available as well, which I think speaks really well to the crypto community.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 Absolutely. Yeah. I see so many incredible benefits financially, not even but then that as well. But also having the ability to travel because as a member, even if you're at that lower tier, you can go to all of the different resorts and stay at these places. Correct?
 
 [David Woodbury]
 Yes, you can. You get a discount, 10% off like, all of our stays or whatever.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 Yeah, perfect. So let's transition a little bit. And I was actually talking to a real estate developer and investor here. I'm in San Diego on the show, so he's an episode that just got released today. Yours will be a few weeks out, but let's talk about NFTs in real estate and how that's kind of shifting the way that things are currently being done. You know, where it's a really long drawn out process. The sale happens, escrow title, all the stuff to where we're at or where we're moving into with tokenized ownership through NFTs and then just being able to do syndicates with non accredited investors. What is your whole take? Like, what would you say, NFTs in real estate? Let's talk about it more.
 
 [David Woodbury]
 Yeah, so I guess I want to be careful because I don't work in the real estate industry and I don't drive my income from real estate historically. So I wouldn't say like, I'm an expert on that. But what I have spent a lot of time on is looking at systems and industries that are sort of right for disruption. And I do particularly believe that real estate is because anytime you have a pretty significant middleman markup in a transaction, there's value that can be driven and that's been found out. Like, if you were to ask somebody 20 years ago if, like, you know, 90% of everything would be bought by Amazon.com like, that, they wouldn't have believed it. Right. Like, nobody's going to replace the experience of trying something out at a retail store or whatever it is. But we've figured out ecommerce can replace literally everything in retail. That's just an example of an industry that was significantly disrupted by technology, by Web Two. I look at time, like, I just bought a house, and, you know, the time to close it wasn't too long. It was like five or six weeks, but there was nobody in the house, and the money was like, it was there to buy the house. And so there was no reason, if I wanted to buy that house, why couldn't I have just bought it and be in it like 30 days or like, a day later? That's how transactions work. But it doesn't work that way because they have to line up the title company and you have to line up, like, the financial or the mortgage companies and the brokers and the underwriters. And so what I think Blockchain does is it just creates a lot more transparency in the the way that the technology works. It's a long ways out. I don't think, like, a lot of these systems are going to be reinvented overnight. But the fact that a Realtor still gets 6% of a transaction, that's really a significant piece of what is most people's the majority of their net worth, if you think about that, it's the biggest transaction that most people do is buying or selling a house. And again, I don't want to, like, minimize the work and the effort that those people put in because I know they work hard to make that money. But a lot of that, I think we have a hard reality to face as humans is that technology is more efficient at doing our jobs in many areas.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 Yeah.
 
 [David Woodbury]
 There are certain things, like a transaction that could be handled quickly and efficiently. Yeah. It's tough to say that maybe 6% or 7% isn't found in a new technology in the future. And I think Blockchain and NFTs play a big role in that just because of the speed and transparency of how fast you can gain liquidity on it.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 Right. Like, you could have been in that house rather than waiting five to six weeks. You could have been in that house, like you said, the very next day, like, here's the money. Here.
 
 [David Woodbury]
 I was moving like three states, and I was having to live in Airbnb. And so there was a big cost to me. There was like a cost of 4000, $5,000 or something like that in the interim. Yes, there's a cost to all of that. So it's not just about convenience. It is about the money too.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 Right? Absolutely. And you said that there was you think that we're still quite a ways away from all of that. I do agree to some extent. I think we're moving a lot quicker than people recognize and realize. And just with Bitcoin coming out in 2012 ish right to where we're at now, or 2000. And 2009 is when the white paper came out.
 
 [David Woodbury]
 2010.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 So we're about twelve years with Bitcoin, right, where people are like fake currency, fake currency. And then now we have an entire technology where more companies, more projects, more people YAK DAO are building on blockchain technology, building out these new and part of a new entire ecosystem. So in terms of real estate and NFT's, I think we are a lot closer than we really think we are. But there is a ways away in terms of mass adoption or people kind of understanding it more and recognizing that this is going to be a part of their everyday life and it's going to be the way that like, home sales or real estate transactions are done. It's going to be the way that we transact in business. It's the way that we're going to be, like you said with the timeshares, you know, it's going to disrupt a lot, a lot of different user case scenarios that we know of today.
 
 [David Woodbury]
 Absolutely. Yeah, I agree 100% with you. There's a lot to be disrupted in the space, that's for sure. I think there's no arguing that.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 Yeah, definitely. Awesome. Well, I know I think my services is getting a little choppy here. You look frozen to me on the other screen, but do I look frozen?
 
 [David Woodbury]
 No, you don't. Okay.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 You are a static image right now. I'm glad it's a good picture of you, so don't worry. But with that being said, is there anything that I didn't ask that you would like to highlight? I know you're doing some incredible work in the Web3 space. I want people to definitely check out Yak Camp, which I will put in the show notes. Yak Camp? I believe you said the URL for that. I will put those in the show notes. I'll have people connect with you in all the ways that you want them to, but is there any other closing thoughts that you have?
 
 [David Woodbury]
 No, I mean, I think the other thing you can follow us on Twitter. It's just the Yaktow on Twitter and yeah, I just appreciate being on the show and getting to chat with you about real estate and NFT.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 Absolutely. I love this stuff and yeah, it's fun. It's fun to meet people like you. It's fun to engage and find out what people are doing in this space because it is so vast and it's like busting with so many different opportunities. There are so many things blossoming out of this and so like, kudos for doing what you're doing because it's exciting.
 
 [David Woodbury]
 Well, thanks for having me, Dr.. Brook. I appreciate it.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 Absolutely. All right, for those of you listening, if you listen to episode you know the drill as we pull this train into the station exit to your right and we will see what an exit you made it.
 
 [Dr. Brook Sheehan]
 You made it. Congratulations. That wasn't so bad, was it? I hope you laughed and learned a little bit more about this Web3 universe and how simple and fun it can really be. Would you be so kind as to leave us a review and share it with your friends and family? It would mean so much to get this out to more people as we embark on the greatest transfer of wealth that has ever happened in human history. Can't wait to see you on the next one. Bye.