Conversations on Growth, Marketing, and Building Better Businesses
Founders and operators talking through what actually works, across every industry.
From UCLA to Running Miami's Boutique Vacation Rental Company | Susan Bisnoff
Susan Bisnoff studied political science at UCLA with no plan to end up running short-term rentals in Miami.
After building a background in real estate and marketing, including time with Douglas Elliman Real Estate and B52 Marketing, she founded HostyMosty, a boutique vacation rental company built around a simple idea: treat every guest the way you'd want to be treated, and make it easy for them to book directly instead of paying platform markups.
Today HostyMosty manages short-term rental properties across Miami, known for the kind of hands-on hospitality that turns first-time guests into repeat bookings, and repeat bookings into referrals.
In this episode, Susan talks about the jump from a political science degree to running a hospitality business, why she built HostyMosty around a book-direct model instead of relying entirely on Airbnb and VRBO, and what it actually takes to run a boutique rental company in one of the most competitive short-term rental markets in the country.
He Stopped Foreclosures at the Bank. Now He Helps People Buy. | Mike Pocisk
Mike Pocisk spent years in banking with one job: keep people from losing their homes to foreclosure.
Then he became a Realtor. He describes both chapters as the same mission — just from different sides of the table.
Today he is a licensed Broker in NC and Realtor in SC, a NAR Certified Resort and Second-Home Property Specialist, and the Western Carolinas expansion agent for Savvy STR Agents, a team that has closed over 355 million dollars in short-term rental transactions. He also owns two STR properties in NC that he actively manages himself — so every investor conversation he has comes from firsthand operator experience.
In this episode Mike talks about the career pivot, the STR underwriting process he uses for every client, and what the Western NC mountain market actually looks like after Hurricane Helene — where supply dropped 21 percent, occupancy recovered faster than most outsiders expected, and a genuine window opened for investors who know which towns to focus on.
He also explains why 40-plus years in the Carolinas and an Appalachian State background matter more than any market report when an out-of-state investor is trying to figure out where to buy.
20 Years at Mayo Clinic. Then She Built One of Rochester's Top Real Estate Teams | Robin Gwaltney
Robin Gwaltney spent 20 years at Mayo Clinic before walking away to start a real estate career from scratch in 2000.
Twenty-five years later, she is the founder of the Gwaltney Group at RE/MAX Results — one of Rochester, Minnesota's most recognizable and trusted real estate brands — with a team of over 20 agents, two active residential developments, and a recurring TV segment on KTTC called Real Talk with Robin that covers the Rochester housing market every week.
In this episode Robin tells the full story. What those twenty years at Mayo Clinic actually gave her that made her good at real estate. What it felt like to start over in a completely new industry. How she built a team around the idea that clients are friends and the team is family. And what it looks like to carve out a specific niche serving Mayo Clinic physicians and researchers relocating to Rochester — a specialty that no generic real estate team can replicate.
We also talk about the Rochester market right now, the media strategy behind Real Talk with Robin, two decades of volunteering with Rochester Better Chance, and where she thinks AI fits inside a business built entirely on human relationships.
From CNN to 50 Vacation Rentals: Kathy Kelly on Building Digs Vacation Rentals
Kathy Kelly started her career at CNN in Atlanta as a video journalist. From there she moved to Boston for TV production and animation, then to Los Angeles where she ran the creative and production department for Williams Television Time — the largest Direct-to-Consumer media buying agency in the country.
In 1994 she started her own production and marketing company. In 2003 she moved to Paso Robles, bought a vacation home, and started renting it out before Airbnb or VRBO existed as concepts.
In 2016 she was hired to launch the Central Coast market for Turnkey Vacation Rentals, growing it to 100 homes in two years — generating revenue equivalent to the LA and Palm Springs markets. Then Turnkey cut 20 percent of staff ahead of its sale to Vacasa, and Kathy was among those let go. Several of her homeowners followed her out the door and helped her launch Digs Vacation Rentals.
Today Digs manages 50 properties across the Central Coast wine country and beach cities, holds Airbnb Superhost status for three consecutive quarters, and is recognized as the premier luxury vacation rental management company in the Paso Robles region. In this episode Kathy tells the full story — from CNN to wine country, from Turnkey to Digs, and what building a white-glove hospitality company from scratch actually looks like from the inside.
He Watched the Last Crash Happen. Then Built the Tool to Catch the Next One | Raymond Dozier
Raymond Dozier spent 25 years as one of Southern California's most respected commercial appraisers. He testified as an expert witness in Superior Court, US District Court, and Federal Bankruptcy Court. And when the 2006 to 2009 real estate crash wiped out trillions of dollars in wealth, he concluded that the industry's fundamental valuation tools had failed — and that nobody was willing to admit it.
So he built something new.
ValuExpose is a patented SaaS platform Raymond founded in 2012 that does what a standard appraisal cannot — it measures the sustainability of a property's value over time, detects divergence between market price and fundamental value, and gives lenders, appraisers, and investors a forward-looking picture of risk that traditional methodology leaves completely invisible.
He calls it the biggest advancement in real estate valuation since the 1970s. And in this episode he makes the case for why the next crash may already be forming — and who is going to see it coming and who is not.
He Lost Everything. Then Built the Tesla of Real Estate | Mike Hubbell
Five years ago Mike Hubbell lost everything he had built and found himself 28 million dollars in debt. He did not go quiet. He went back to work.
In this episode, Mike shares the full story behind Luxe Living Homes — a vertically integrated net zero real estate development platform he describes in one sentence: to revolutionize real estate the way Tesla revolutionized cars. Luxe acquires distressed properties and transforms them into energy-producing net zero communities, delivering cash flow, appreciation, and tax advantages to accredited investors simultaneously.
Mike walks us through what he lost, what broke, the new investment philosophy he built from scratch after the collapse — including his Rule of 75 percent — and what the road from 28 million dollars in debt to a 1.2 billion dollar development pipeline actually looked like. We also cover his 506(c) investor model, the crypto and digital treasury integration, what the net zero real estate market looks like heading into 2026, and where AI fits into the future of real estate development.
This is one of the most honest comeback stories in real estate. And Mike tells it better than anyone.
Real Estate Broker. Political Candidate. Dan D'Amico on Building Something Real
Daniel D'Amico has spent his career in service. He started as a firefighter with the FDNY. Then he built D'Amico Group Real Estate in Yonkers, New York — a faith-based brokerage built on one idea: you have a friend in the business. D'Amico is Italian for friend, and everything about the way he runs his company flows from that identity, including donating 10 percent of all gross income to ministries in Guatemala and New York City.
Now he is running for Westchester County Legislator for District 16 — and the platform he is running on is built around the same things he has been fighting for inside real estate for years: housing affordability, homeownership for working families, and public safety for the communities he has served his entire career.
In this episode Dan talks about the thread connecting all three chapters — the FDNY, the brokerage, and the campaign. What it means to build a business around your values in one of the most competitive real estate markets in the country. What he has seen in Yonkers and Westchester that convinced him the problems needed to be addressed from inside the policy arena, not just inside a transaction. And what a real estate professional who has actually worked this market for years brings to a political conversation that a career politician simply cannot.
$40 in Her Pocket. $3.5 Billion in Sales. The Valerie Fitzgerald Story
She arrived in Beverly Hills as a single mother with forty dollars. Today, Valerie Fitzgerald leads the number one team in the number one Coldwell Banker office in the country, with over three billion dollars in luxury real estate closed across Beverly Hills, Bel Air, and the Westside. In this episode, she shares the full story — egg farm in South Dakota, Ford model in New York, and building one of the most recognized luxury brands in LA from nothing. We cover resilience, what celebrity real estate reveals about human nature, and her bold new chapter with QUEENB: Grace. Grit. Reinvention.
From 40 Homes His First Year to $2 Billion in Career Sales | Bernie Gallerani
What does it take to move to a city where you know nobody, sell 40 homes in your first year, and build the number one team in your market for seven consecutive years? Bernie Gallerani did exactly that. In this episode, Bernie breaks down how he went from starting over in Tennessee with a new license and a family to feed, to leading a 20-plus agent team closing over 600 transactions and two billion dollars in career sales. We cover the real story behind scaling from solo top producer to team leader, the hiring mistakes he made along the way, what his operational engine actually looks like, and where AI fits into a business built on relationship and prospecting discipline.
From Landlord to Software Founder | Timmi Ryerson of Smart Property Systems Tells Her Story
What happens when someone who has spent 35 years managing over three million square feet of real estate decides the software doesn't work well enough and builds it herself? Timmi Ryerson is the founder and CEO of Smart Property Systems, a cloud-based property management platform she has been building for over 20 years from Ketchum, Idaho with a team of three and zero outside funding. Today it serves over 20,000 subscribers across six countries and nearly doubled revenue in 2024 without a single outside investor. In this episode, Timmi shares how she went from managing real estate to building the software to solve the problems she lived firsthand, why she rebuilt the entire platform from scratch in 2013, what small landlords are still getting wrong in 2026, and her honest take on where AI actually adds value in property management versus where it creates noise.
50 Years in Real Estate. $50 Billion Sold. Robert August on What Actually Makes a Great Salesperson
What does nearly fifty years in real estate actually teach you about sales, people, and building something that lasts? S. Robert August has helped merchandise over $50 billion in real estate, worked with Disney, Whirlpool, Pella, and Exxon, created the first centralized Parade of Homes that became the national industry model, and received the Legend of Residential Marketing Award from the NAHB. He is the only person in history to win NAHB's top sales and marketing award twice. In this episode, Robert shares lessons from five decades at the top of new home sales and marketing — what buyers actually want from a salesperson in 2026, why the close is the hardest skill to master and the easiest to fake, where small brokerages are wasting their marketing budget, and where AI will never replace a great salesperson.
From Boutique to REBNY's Best: Rick Kelly on Winning NYC's Biggest Real Estate Deal of 2026
What does it take to close a deal that four other brokers couldn't crack over ten years? Rick Kelly, founder and CEO of Alta Real Estate, just did exactly that and walked away with REBNY's 2026 Residential Deal of the Year, beating out every major brokerage in New York City. In this episode, Rick shares what it really takes to build a boutique firm that competes with the biggest names in the industry, how he cracked the international buyer market, what Southern warmth and New York tenacity actually looks like in practice, and why small and focused consistently beats big and generic in real estate.