CV Hustle

EP#32-Marketing That Makes You Unmissable-How David Rios Turned Attention Into Opportunity

• CV Hustle Studios • Season 3 • Episode 32

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 1:01:55

Send us Fan Mail

A pink billboard with nothing but a face and a name sounds reckless until it turns into TV, brand partnerships, and a thriving Palm Springs business. We’re joined by David Rios, a real estate entrepreneur and interior designer known for bold vacation rental design, high impact marketing, and building experiences that feel like boutique hotels. He walks us through the exact mindset behind spending on visibility, keeping your branding consistent for years, and using social media to stay top of mind without feeling fake.

We also dig into the work that happens when the cameras aren’t rolling: learning the fundamentals of design, getting comfortable selling, and stacking multiple income streams so you’re not exposed when the market shifts. David shares how the 2008 crash forced a reset, why creative financing can keep deals alive, and what it really takes to flip properties that stand out in a crowded market like the Coachella Valley.

Then the story gets personal and intense. David opens up about building and running his own Palm Springs hotel, The Velvet Rope, and the operational reality of hospitality, staffing, and protecting a luxury guest experience. He also recounts the aftermath of a nearby bombing that caused major damage, created insurance and lender chaos, and tested every ounce of resilience he had.

If you care about entrepreneurship, personal branding, Palm Springs real estate, interior design, or hospitality business strategy, this conversation is packed with practical lessons you can use right now. Subscribe, share this with a friend building something, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

Cold Open And Quick Banter

SPEAKER_02

Fresh squeeze, and dream dreams of Friday. Stocks up, dashboard digital. I'm gliding. Salmon over T Raw. Keep it authentic. Everything you see raw.

Billboards And Marketing That Works

SPEAKER_02

Welcome back, everybody, to CV Hustle, the podcast where we talk to the best and brightest entrepreneurs here in the Coachella Valley. And today's guest, you've seen him everywhere. You've seen him on TV, on billboards. He's a real estate mogul. He also owns David Rios Design. Mr. David Rios, thanks for coming in and chatting with us.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you for having me. What an introduction. I want to get to know him too. Let's do it. I forgot I was on all that.

SPEAKER_01

You're a superstar. I didn't even know it. Like all those little things. I love it.

SPEAKER_00

That equals a lot of money, and that money went away a long time ago. But no, it it that marketing, everything about, you know, starting your own business is all about marketing. And that's a portion of marketing. And uh the billboards are what got me the TV show. You know, it got me everywhere. Instagram got me places as well. So uh putting money into marketing is the number one key that gets you to the next level.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely. I believe in that too. We're Gary Vee disciples over here, too.

SPEAKER_01

So I didn't know about them. I didn't know you had billboards.

SPEAKER_00

Everywhere on freeways. Oh, what that was the 10 freeway, the 111, and I kept that up for like five years. No, and you had to Google me to find out who I was. It was just David Rios all together with this big ol cara, and I was right there. It was just like this bit it was pink and just me. So it was it was catchy, right? And it was just simplest. I remember simplicity, and everyone's like, damn, who's David Rios? And it was just a big face. It's just my face.

SPEAKER_01

Big face, and then you have it right here on your forehead. Boom, David Rios.

SPEAKER_00

I low no pile over here. Eyebrows done. Who does this eyebrows when you do real estate? It was just like real, uh, it was uh design and real estate. And you know, I married the two of them because they go hand in hand.

SPEAKER_01

It's all hand in hand, yeah. All right, so I want to take it back a

Why Palm Springs Became The Plan

SPEAKER_01

little bit. Um, are you a native here? Like, or if you're not, how the hell did you get to the Coachella Valley?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, that's a great question. So back in the days in the 90s, um, uh late 90s, I would come out here just to party with friends. And at that time, uh vacation rentals were starting. So we would rent our house for the weekend and then come out and party. I started doing the math. And I was like, okay, there's six or eight of us that come out. We divided, we only paid 200 bucks each for the whole weekend, and we had this really cool house. And so I was like, eventually I want to get a vacation rental. It makes sense. And back then it was like literally what they would say is it's the gays and the grays. And it was like a ghost town. There wasn't that many people, but we were here to party. The gays were here to party and they had money, they had style, and the houses were bombed. So I'm like, okay, I'm gay, I got some style, I like money, and uh, this fits me. And so that's how I came to Palm Springs in the late 90s. In 2012, um, I started coming out here to design and I bought my first house in 2015. And I knew there was a calling for me because I was teaching people how to elevate their houses to look like boutique hotels. If you have a backyard, why can't you have a swing and why can't you have a day bed? Why can't you have a cabana? So experiencing what we were doing at the vacation rentals, and that's how I turned that into a business.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my God. So then those vacation rentals that you rented, so you just found them online or you you knew somebody here, or how did that all work out?

SPEAKER_00

So we would go online and check them out. And what what caught my attention was the tile, the the wallpapers, uh, the uniqueness of like the couches, like a hot pink couch, a green couch, something so over the top. And that was, I was like, I am my own client. So, you know, this is and the best part about Palm Springs specifically, not just the Coachella Valley, but Palm Springs, it had a very luxury look to it. And people were not afraid of design. They want to push the envelope. And I just took it to like the next level. Like, I mean, we're having you know murals and different artists coming in and putting their stamp on my home. So it was like David Rio's collection of homes. So I was always flipping as well from like God 2000, I guess 2003. I started flipping. And so uh I was like, there's a there's a passion of fun, quirky, pop art, different, unique, high-end, only in Palm Springs. And I felt like Palm Springs was somewhere that I could actually flourish and still get the return on the money because they weren't they weren't messing around. They were here to, it was our second home, and this was an investment to them.

SPEAKER_01

So we um so my aunt lives in Palm Springs. We we grew up in Palm Springs, coming to her house, swimming, that kind of thing. We were too poor to have a pool, honey. So we would come to Auntie's house. But like this is what I tell people when they come in. There's to me, there's two types of different Palm Springs, right? You have the the modernism and you've got the you know, the white with the pops of the color, and you have that kind of look. And then you have the real kind of subdued with the big brown rocks and the like the glass and the metal, and you have kind of those typ, you know, different types of looks, which I think is great. And then also Palm Springs was also known because you had the rat pack here. It was very celebrity driven, right? And so that's another reason Palm Springs got like really popular because all of those people came here to escape the craziness from from over there.

SPEAKER_02

Well, also the hundred mile rule. You ever heard about that? Yes. From the hundred miles, so back in the 50s, all this all the Hollywood stars couldn't be a hundred miles, had to be a hundred miles or less away from the studio in case they had to get on call. So Palm Springs happens to be like 98 miles away from LA. So that's why all the celebrities came out here initially is to you know party and build a second home and stuff like that.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

You know, so that is true.

SPEAKER_00

And you know the the the crazy part is I'm glad you mentioned that because I went into phases. So like I went into that really like fun pop art wildness, and then again appreciating the the modernism movement and the you know from the 19 uh 50s to like 19 late 70s, you know, that that simplistic design that I had more appreciation for, like couches and statement pieces. To me, it was a little boring, you know? And so once I found out that Palm Springs actually was developed and designed in the 1930s, that's my jam. I mean, give me some richness and some moldings and some. So that's where I found my passion as well is that I can do the fun pop art that's gonna get, you know, the bachelorette weekends, or you know, we get the the the uh minimalists that are willing to spend some really big money on a small house but just sit on a $5,000 chair. Or we get these people that just want to spend some money that want to feel like they're back in 1930, feeling that Rat Pack era, and these, you know, like a Gene Harlow and all these iconic people that would that really paid um attention to like O Las Palmas, you know, that was built in the 1930s, so colonial homes, Spanish style homes. I just thought Palm Springs was always just like mid-century.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, they've got some big ass houses in Palm Springs. My God. I'm working on Marin right now, and there's like eight bathrooms in this thing, and then you still have two casi, or you have a cassita outside outside with two bathrooms and you know, two separate rooms. Um, okay. So let me take it back real quick. How did you get into

Design Roots And Learning By Doing

SPEAKER_01

design? I mean, I I know you just probably had the eye, but like did you have family members in it? Like, how did you how did that all get channeled in and flourished like a little flower?

SPEAKER_00

Yes, no, so I this thing blossomed into my grandma. She was just so fun, so over the top. Like she came from like 15 kids in a in a two-bedroom from Texas. My grandpa crossed the border from um Waljara and they met when they were 13 years old. And, you know, and my grandma had that hustle behind her. It she did bars, restaurants, and she gave her kids a lifestyle that she never had. But I always remember my grandma's struggles and seeing what she created in in an elevated experience. My grandma was very like over the top. And so she had the really nice couches, and and I got to move around her furniture. At seven years old, I was a designer. And it was literally just it was in me because I just wish that there was a window there or another door. Um and my grandma would host these elaborate parties, and I would caters would come in, and she did one time, she did a Hawaiian theme, and I'm like, oh my God, like we have like dancers and all this stuff. So as a kid, I was that that kid that was always around adults. I didn't want to be playing around with the kids because I had ADD and I had ADHD, everything. I talked a lot. I just wanted to be around adults, and I just I I wasn't like wasn't the normal kid.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, there's no kids that are doing, they were playing with their hot wheels and exactly.

SPEAKER_00

And I wanted to move around furniture, and I think that's where really elevated that is my grandma allowing me to see and move things and her not saying, like, hey, maybe that's that's not right or whatever. She would just go with it. And so that's that's the where I started. And a lot of people will say, hey, because I allow people now to come shadow me at any time you want. Like come sit next to me, see what I do, whether it be ground up development, whether it be staging, designing, you name it.

SPEAKER_02

You let people shadow you like for free.

SPEAKER_00

All over the world for free for free. What? Because I want you to really, I want if you're gonna make a career, not to say that college well, I'm gonna say college is not for everybody, but it's a waste of money. You know what?

SPEAKER_01

What we say is like, I'm the exception, not the rule, right? So that's the same thing with you, you know. Like my kids are are like, you know, you didn't go to college, and he did. He's super smart, and he's got like a he's got a degree and all of that. And I never did, and I always felt like bad or ashamed for that. And now I'm just like, no, I still made my own way and and that's that.

SPEAKER_00

So and you have the the the the power behind it being uh an entrepreneur or being a self, uh well, not say self-made, but but being having that uh company, having that responsibility and so forth. There's only a quite a few people that can actually to even own up to that and and want to want a a company, and that has to do with struggles that you either went through as a child or growing up or seeing companies that you didn't like and you wanted your own say to put your own spin on things. So now I tell people like, come next to me and sit next to me before you go get your real estate license because maybe it's design, maybe it's architectural, uh, maybe it's you know engineering, maybe it's uh staging, but there's something that you'll see and take for my daily life. And for me, it's always about how can I make more money? I'm wearing many hats. And that's the only way you can, if you really want to survive, you can't focus just on real estate. You can't focus on design. You have to focus on a variety of different forms of income that comes in because when the market shifts and moves like it did in 2008, I lost everything in 2008.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00

And I had to restart over. And I was like, wait, I do design. So that makes sense. I'll just continue. I'll get a whole crew together and we'll start flipping properties. And that's that's what saved me.

SPEAKER_01

God.

SPEAKER_02

So real estate came before design, or does a design come before real estate? Because you're a dual threat. So what what business did you kind of go into first and kind of figure, hey, I can mesh the two?

SPEAKER_00

It went pretty quick. So I and in high school, I started working for a collection agency. Uh, and that was collecting uh for the gas company. It was $15 bills, you know, calling them collecting. I got really good at that. And I was like, oh my God. So there was an opening. Telemarketing, man. Telemarketing.

SPEAKER_02

Learning how to sell. Come on, you know. It works. It works.

SPEAKER_01

Asking people for money. Yeah. Because I have a lot of people that are like, you own a business and they're like, they're scared to ask for money. And it's like, no, this is what you what you do, honey. It's they know it's coming. They know that.

SPEAKER_00

You have to. And I learned that later on in life, but I mean, it was it was having that that understanding of I'm ruining this person's credit, but actually, after they pay it, I'm fixing their credit. Well, I'll just my mom was a real estate agent. My uncle had a um a commercial um uh brokerage. And so I seen the commercial side, I seen the residential side. And I said, you know what, mom, I will fix their credit and then you can go sell them a home. But I was already within the design that was already in me. So I said, Well, I was going to school, um, I went to fit them. I went for one to one year, I dropped out, and I started working directly in the industry. I started working with a showroom in LA, working with blueprints and and um and different designers and going to on-job sites, working with you know, the permits. And so I got to see all that that was fascinating. So my the person that was shadowing, she said, look, go to Santa Monica College and get a lighting design, take a lighting design course because this is how you're gonna properly spec out lighting and so forth. So I did that, and then that, of course, that leads into like, you know, finding the fixtures and that's the the fun part of it, right? Not just recess lighting, but the recess lighting gave me the fundamentals. So it was like, you know, really just kind of seeing how everything worked together, fixing the credit, and then I started doing that. I started understanding loans, got into loans, and then loans went into getting my license. So I would fix their credit, give them a loan, sell them a house. And then I was like, hey, these people are walking away from this amazing property, cul-de-sac with big yard, but they hate the kitchen. And I'm internally, I'm saying, like, I already know what I can do. And I always say, we can do this, don't walk away. And I was like, you know what? Shut up. I'm gonna make my but open my mouth and say, hey, imagine this. And back then I was able to get money from the seller to give a credit back, and I was able to accomplish that. So I can say, this is how much it's gonna cost. We're gonna get it from the seller, we're gonna up the sales price, and this is your new kitchen. And so I got known for that. And it was that that's where we call what we call now is creative financing, pulling money where there's no money to make this happen on someone else's dollar and financing it.

SPEAKER_01

Financing. I haven't heard that.

SPEAKER_00

I like that.

SPEAKER_01

Talking about those terms we were talking about earlier. TTFY. Oh, yeah, thanks for the invite.

SPEAKER_00

The legal that I don't understand. What did what did she just say? She'd be rude to me. Oh, she meant that. Okay, sorry. You could be my friend.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So creative uh creative uh lending led you to another career in real estate then, basically started you in real estate then, huh? So that you got into real estate, so just basically mirroring the two, huh? And you kind of mentioned 2008. So, I mean, a lot of us got hammered in 2008. So that was pre-Pond Springs Day, though. You're still in LA at that time, correct?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And you know, again, it was a mental thing. So my parents were teenagers when they had us. You know, my mom was sick. My had my sister, my mom had my sister at 15, she had me at 16. The three of us are born on the same exact day, June 30th. All three of us. Oh my gosh. Literally only a year apart.

SPEAKER_02

Wow.

SPEAKER_01

Mama busy. You know what that's called when somebody's born on like like a year apart. They're it's called Irish twins.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Are you Irish?

SPEAKER_00

My grandma's Irish. I cannot believe you just said that. My grandma, yes.

SPEAKER_01

Grandma's Irish, Irish. My mom is Irish. And Irish, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, my mom's really what he thought. She's really light. She had blonde hair. Yeah, it's so funny. No.

SPEAKER_01

Oh.

SPEAKER_00

My mom does though. That's great. It's so funny. Yeah, she was the lightest one. They used to think she was a white girl walking around, you know. Um, but no, that that um my grandma is uh Irish, half Irish, and her father was, and um, and her mom was uh native Indian and and uh Mexican.

SPEAKER_01

Ah and that's why you're so beautiful.

SPEAKER_00

Well I'm trying to keep up, you know? It's hard these days, you know. You look at people, well, like I go to school and I reunions, I'm like, damn, you let yourself go, right? Right? Yeah, back then. Oh God. It it's hard to even keep up today's you know, image. But back then, coming from something that I, you know, we didn't have much. My mom had stuff, but she didn't want to teach us the lifestyle that she had. I guess she felt like she was my grandma worked too much, so that she was raised by nannies. She wanted to be there with us 24-7. And her being a teenager, it was hard because there's things that we didn't, we, we didn't have. My mom fell in love with my dad. My dad was very lovable, but you know, he went, he was on the other side of the track. So he was into like the gangs and the different lifestyle. And my mom chose that because she felt love for my dad. And that was a tragedy that we had to see growing up. Because by the time, you know, we were in, you know, I meant first grade, second grade, we were in home, we're we're in shelters, you know, we're in shelters and bouncing around because my mom wanted to keep us together. And it was this very dysfunctional relationship that she had my dad. He was in and out of jail. And, you know, and as a kid, you you see this, but you get frustrated during your child, you know, like, you know, I think it was eighth grade, ninth grade was my worst years because I had so much resentment and anger towards my mom. Like, why did you put us through this? Why didn't you? Grandma had a nice house. We could have gone to her. You know, it was always this, and my mom was just like, I'm just, I want you to have what I didn't have was love. She gave us love. And so that's what I take away from my mom and dad. My dad has passed recently, well, 2008. Um, but it was it was an understanding of giving them appreciation because that's all they knew. When I was 22 years old till the um until 2008, that my girls, I had foster kids, and they had there was a first year in college and 2008, and I had lost everything. And I didn't know how I was gonna keep them. I'm like, you know, I've I've had a privileged life from um, let's say 20, 23 years old, because I worked my ass off several jobs, got into real estate, had my own brokerage, had my own, you know, real estate was good. And so I was making good money. I had foster kids, I didn't know how to raise them. I was just taking them out, giving them love and spending, you know, giving them shopping trips. But the core of it was that I was able to help them out. And then the time frame that 2008 came around, they were gone to college. And so I did, I wasn't, I didn't have to, I didn't feel that anxiety of like, oh my God, I'm losing everything. I don't have a house now, and my cars, and it was a blessing. It was a blessing because God took away things that I didn't need. I had five cars, I had all these houses, I bought my family houses. Humbled your ass. Quickly, quickly, you know?

SPEAKER_02

You can do that real quick. Real quick. That happens.

SPEAKER_01

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02

So 2008 happens. We we all have horror stories from 2008, but did that kind of force you to maybe pivot to more of the design? Is that is that time period where you're kind of reinventing business and all that?

SPEAKER_00

It did, and I I think I flourished during that time because I didn't have this pressure of these mortgages and these payments all around me. And I said, you know what? At 16, I was homeless by choice because my mom had kicked me out and she said, Well, God, you're gay. And I'm like, Well, shit, who's been picking out your outfits and your hair for the last fucking, you know, 15 years and shit? Like now all of a sudden you're gonna ask me if I'm gay. I thought we're gonna have a party, you're for political dancer.

SPEAKER_01

That girl, you know, you knew. Take out that outfit now.

SPEAKER_00

Don't even try. Yeah, so it was it was funny that she said, Oh, you want this lifestyle? But that again, I go backwards, you know, and I and I seen the time frame that she asked me that people were dying of AIDS, left and right. That's true. And so I, you know, I understood that, you know, that that that she came from a place where she was trying to be hard with me and say, hey, my friends are dying. You want to have this lifestyle? Go out there and see how hard it is. And I said, you know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna turn that around. I will never come home and I will never let you know my struggles, but I'm gonna prevail because I've always been a hustler. And I I I was always working two jobs, even in in um, what was it, ninth grade? I was washing canopies, tables, and chairs at a party rental company. That anything that I did back then, whether it be a collection agency, working for the party rental company, I use that to my daily life now. And that is what brought me success. Learning how to work with the brides, working with events, learning how all of these things I tell everybody take it as a stepping stone, even if it's customer service, answering a phone call, negotiating, negotiating with like the, you know, having them pay their auto deficiencies or their their electric bills or gas bills, all of that will elevate you if you look at it in that those terms.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Every job can be a learning experience, right? It has to. You can learn, you can learn from, like you said, being like, you know, cleaning up tables, you know, or being a bus boy in a restaurant. You learn skills that are gonna be, you know, the backbone of your success, you know, going forward. So that's that's that's a good, it's a good little tidbit to go with, you know. Every job can teach you something, even when you're young.

Flipping Strategy And Bold Risk

SPEAKER_01

So when you were talking about flipping, so like back in the day, it used to be easy. It's not so easy now, right? Because like everybody's jumped on the bandwagon, and then you had like all of these shows that think it's you know it's really easy and what have you. So like did you have did you have one that was just a total like, fuck, what was I doing? Why did I do this? Probably a couple.

SPEAKER_00

Probably all of them. All of my skills, but you know, back then I I did make money in the in the terms of like I I knew what I was gonna sell it for. I guess what the blessing was I didn't have to pay a designer because that that was me. I didn't have to pay an agent because that was me. I didn't, I got my own loans because that was me. So yeah, it was I was blessed in those terms. And I've just always been a hustler in the in the mind frame of I knew what this could potentially sell for. It wasn't until I really got out here in 2015 when I crushed it. I still probably have one of the highest recording sales per square foot. And that was because I I was just wild. My mind frame, the creativity. So I I learned later on that if you want that success, you can't, it can't just be all you. You got to bring in other entities that will help you out and elevate your your design. So if you if you're wanting to make a great flipping, hire a designer and allow them to make your choices. Get an architect to make sure that the square footage is correctly, and knowing scale. So it's working with so many other people if you don't have that. And that's what that's the way you can have a good return. So for me, understanding that the the selections I was making were going to be good choices, I was um, I the the payment, should I say, at the very end of the day was rewarding. And so, you know, I didn't feel like I had competition because my mind, and then people were like, oh God, David has these crazy homes. There's I was the first person to ever paint a house in 2015 black in Palm Springs. They thought I was crazy. Yeah. And I called it the bank. And I had a solid, a solid glass door, and people like, that's not part of the budget. I said, it's a $20,000. They're like, that we can get one for $2,000. I said, I don't care. We're gonna get a $20,000 garage door and it's gonna be all mirrored solid black. We're gonna do it. And that was it, was such a statement piece that people would stop by, take pictures by. Where in the world would you see that? And then so I got that the idea. I was I wasn't afraid to push the envelope. I wasn't afraid to have a different experience here in Palm Springs because I knew that there was a clientele for it. And the more unique, the more different that you are here in Palm Springs, people want to want to see it. They want to talk about it. Right.

SPEAKER_01

You know what I want to see on a garage door? Like when it comes down, Marilyn Monroe. Boom. Wouldn't that be cool? You can do it. Or like, you know, just something like really cool. That would be good. Now that you said that, I'm like, ooh, the mirror. I don't want to see myself. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00

So hey, some people like it. So you know, something like all angles, baby, back there, yeah. You don't beckon it in, the nice car, you know?

SPEAKER_02

As long as you have a nice car, you can't be driving no hoopty having a smear garage. Yeah, you know. Like a scrub. Um so you mentioned coming out here to Palm Springs.

Trixie Motel And TV Pressure

SPEAKER_02

I want to talk about uh one of your projects in Palm Springs that's pretty famous for is the Trixie Motel. You want the one that's the one that kind of made your name a little bit out here. Yes. Um, can you kind of speak to how that came about and you know how that that whole that whole episode?

SPEAKER_00

Well, it was just a blessing. Um, I started with Instagram. Instagram tagging people, getting companies to tag me. And I one of my girlfriends, she's I don't know how many 10 million followers she has. She's a one of the biggest brands ever. And I said, How are you getting these people to like follow you? And how are you getting these companies? You know, she said, I did was just tag them and tag them and tag them. I was like, that's irritating. No, tag them and tag them. So I started doing that. I got Home Depot during COVID. I had my own line um of 12 doors that were customized for David Rio's designed uh doors. I had um uh a partnership with Floor and Decor. I had all these partnerships because I was tagging them. And so that's got that's what got their attention. The billboards, I really feel brought me the Trixie Motel because it was out there for such a long time. It was pink, her brand was pink. They knew that I was designing these crazy vacation rentals that were over the top. If you didn't cut, if you came to me, you would have you need to have a budget for exterior. It wasn't, I said, I can show you ways that we can pick uh you know cheaper selections on certain things, but outside, don't come to me. Yes, because I'm known for that. And I do I we wanna we wanna create this uh this resort feel. So that's I think that's when they were looking for designers. Originally I was uh wasn't their first choice for a designer. I came onto the show as a project manager.

SPEAKER_01

Well, Don, let me catch my pearls.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, and then working with another designer? Are you kidding me? And we were so you different, we're opposite. And so filming was was difficult because they don't they wasn't scripted, it was kind of like on the fly, and I was a little bit more shy and bashful on the show.

SPEAKER_01

Wait, wait, back me up.

SPEAKER_02

I don't know what so the Tracy Motel was featured on Discovery Plus as a reality TV show for those of you that don't know. So go ahead and check that out. Ah, HBO Max. Comes in mid-season and saves the day, apparently. Is that that's kind of how they framed you in that show?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so they they came on um and they were looking, they said, Look, David, we need your team. I said, the only way I'm coming on, you already have your designer, is if I have full control over all the contracts, the architect, the engineering, the sourcing out every material. And it wasn't part of their budget because the property brothers owned that show. And they gave Trixie Mattel, she is this famous drag queen that's from all over the world. She's the most humblest, most loving, most workaholic person you will ever met. Her and I were just eye to eye on everything. And it was nothing but a bunch of celebrities on every single episode. So it was eight episodes, and they brought me on, and I hadn't done TV. Um, I had done stuff for like living spaces and just current commercials and stuff like that. But coming on and working with the property brothers, are you kidding me? I was nervous as hell. Um, but I knew my shit and I knew what it was gonna take. Now put a spin on that, it's COVID. And you you have to test every single day. And if you test uh negative, you're off for 14 days. And so I said, Look, there's they came to me and I said, Look, it's gonna be about a year. Give me a year and we'll we'll do the whole hotel from top to bottom, right? They said, No, we need four months. You want four months with my crew. I'm gonna need to bring in people from San Diego, Orange County, LA, and then over here. And if you guys give me full control, I can get this done for you guys in four and a half months. That's all I can commit to. And we're talking bound down to the stud, a hotel. Oh interior, exterior, four months. It was four, it was how many rooms? Seven rooms, plus a bar, plus a check-in room, plus the exterior, plus we're talking about, you know, in the shortage in during COVID. There was like tile we ran out of tile, we ran out of so many things. But again, having full control over that and and filming during that time frame at 100 and something degrees. Then it got cold. It was a-turn the ACs off in there so you could film? Well, we didn't. Oh, that's it was worse. Oh, my poor guys were sweating and I'm a sweat. So I'm like, hold on, dad, we're gonna go. But it worked out.

SPEAKER_01

You shouldn't have worn that little handband. Oh, I didn't even rios.

SPEAKER_00

I was in booty shorts half the time. I said, look, let me know when we're filming because I'm gonna look like I'm going to the gym half the time, you know. But it was it was such a blessing, and we won Best Reality TV show over the housewives. Oh, wow, you know, in 22. And it was just working with all these creative people, even with the other designer, she was so different and unique. I learned stuff from her as well. Totally. She made her own wallpaper, and you take something from that, you know. It we I didn't feel like there was a competition. I really felt that it was a collaboration of all of us together, and we're still friends to this day. I I mean, even like the people behind the scenes, uh, because of course you want to rub shoulders with everybody, they're the ones who are gonna tell you the other um, you know, producers and editors and HGTV, it's a big thing. So I I I made friends with everyone, and and I and that's an another part of my success is that TV show was all we're I mean, we're in Times Square. I mean, there was there was so much marketing on that show. That's the reason why it one of the reasons why it got it did so well. And then HBO Max picked it up. So Discovery Plus, HBO Max, I got the travel channel and all these other small things after that. And it's funny because Trixie said, Are you ready for this? Because this is gonna change your life. It's gonna change your life. And it is funny because now that I have my own hotel, people come in and like, you're the one from Trixie Motel, or oh my god, I seen you on TV, or blah, blah, blah. And it's just, it's just, it's, it's a humbling blessing opportunity that that I was that was I was blessed and given that chance to be featured.

SPEAKER_01

Was there any, you know, like any okay, create some drama kind of thing, like slap the contractor, or nothing, nothing good? Come on.

SPEAKER_00

No, honey, because that shit was every single day. There was drama and that was not filtered. There was times where like it was, it was wild. And this again, the the designer, she was her first, you know. I'm like 20-something years into it. And they got this girl, and she's fresh design. She she came in from apparel. And I'm like, you're gonna have her on TV. She doesn't know her leg. I mean, from backwards, I mean she didn't know scale and all this stuff. And I'm like, it went down and it's on the show. And it's like, and I I, you know, you I'm very polite with my words, but I'm like, there's frustration. I'm like, who the F is gonna be paying to redo this with the take off when we smooth coated the walls and then applied this expensive ass wallpaper, and it wasn't to scale. It was like these tiny, so many mess ups. Or I said, you know what? We're filming, fuck it. You fucked up again. You fucked up again, and I'm probably gonna have to pay for it. And so it was it was raw. And it's there's it's it's a lot of it's it's comedy. The whole thing is comedy.

SPEAKER_01

That's good though, right? That's what people want, and that's what gets.

SPEAKER_02

I mean, that's what gets eyeballs, right? Is the drama. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, and there was drama. That's why they brought people in to stir the pot, right? Yeah, producers are always in your ear to stir the pot.

SPEAKER_00

But Lisa Vanderpump's on there. Um, uh Leslie Jordan filmed at my house right before he passed away. So we could, I mean, they're all A-list celebrities that's on the show. And it is just it was a fun time and a fun experience. I wouldn't take it back, even though, yes, it was stressful, especially during COVID. Yeah. And two of my workers, we lost them during that time because of COVID. Really? Yeah, we didn't. They died because of COVID?

SPEAKER_01

A lot of people that died from that.

SPEAKER_00

Oh. Meanwhile, my mom, not to talk about politics because I don't give a shit anymore. I love everybody. I love, I mean, fucking love Democrats, I love Republicans, I love everybody. I don't give a shit. I even ran for city council. That was a lot of people.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you. No, thank you.

SPEAKER_00

That's my motto. COVID was so it would broke up our whole entire family. My family was uh four shots, and some of them were against it. I wanted to be around my grandma, so I got vaccinated. Uh, my brothers and sisters weren't about it. My mom ended up going to uh getting um, you know, both lungs started collapsing, she had pneumonia. They took her in. She she survived. And we're talking about I'm filming, not knowing if she's gonna if she's gonna last or not. They had to put her on a ventilator. She was on ventilator for 30 days. This is during filming, and I had to still show up. And like, you know, it was and me and my mom had a disconnect before that. She disowned me again because I decided to get married at 40. And so we we weren't talking for five years, and all of a sudden now there she's on her deathbed and they're calling me, and I'm like, I don't want to talk to her. Like, I already, I already mentally thought that she was gone two years ago because I had to go back to 16 years old and all this disappointment took me two years to get over this. Now it's okay, forget it. Let let it be down the drain. Let's let's make up. And so during that time frame, you're working, you're trying to to understand this COVID thing, and then still being on a show and then dealing with my poor mom. You know, thank God she she survived. It took her a year and a half to come back together. They said she'll never walk or talk in. She had a trach. It took a year and a half to just close a trach. And so, and then she was messed up, you know.

SPEAKER_01

That on I didn't know you could close a trake.

SPEAKER_00

You can, yeah. But so she has a scar.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

But you know, it she couldn't close it. It for it took her a year and a half to close to actually still up. I heard that they get like infected a lot. Oh God, she had inside we get calls like she has air in her body, she has she's uh developing this, she's developing that. I don't know what's the next, what's the next process, you know? And her and I weren't even talking. So she had my brother, my poor brother had to take on that that task, and I I would allow them to make the decisions. And I said, you know, I'm just I'm working it out with you guys. You tell me what you want, this is where I stand. And so, you know, again, that that that political stance of whatever they were thinking at that point, we we stayed together. You know, we had to stay together because we knew that ultimately it was for my mom. And, you know, and I bring that to today's life and today's day and era is like politically, people are divided right now, and it's sad, and and and beliefs on whatever. I want people to respect me the way they I want to respect people back the way they respect me without talking about political politics and and this, all these other uh stuff that's going around in the world because every day we wake up and we don't know what the F we're doing. We don't know how bad it's getting. And it's it we're in a shit show right now. So I just love that people love me and that's how I respect them.

SPEAKER_01

Well, I always say, like, I have clients that are both, right? And you've got Democrats, and you would just have to treat everybody the same, be an apolitical thing, and just it's not it doesn't need to be in the workplace. You know, it just isn't yeah.

SPEAKER_02

We can all we all really want the same things,

Buying A Hotel And Owning Operations

SPEAKER_02

I think, when it comes down to it, right? It's just we have different views on how to get there, you know. So um, you had mentioned though that the the Trixie Motel is kind of a a trying time. What what about that show made you now want to go in? Because you now own a motel as well, right? So you got into the motel business.

SPEAKER_00

I felt I was making all these people millions of dollars. So why am I not doing my damn self?

SPEAKER_02

So right. So how did that happen? You were you were in the show and then and then you're like, hey, I can do this myself, right?

SPEAKER_00

So creatively, I only had decisions for exterior items. And that was like the pool, uh making bars outside. You know, those are the the directive and and creativity I got to um play a part of during Trixie. Um I got to put my doors, I'm known for my iconic doors all over Palm Springs. So I got to have my little uh staple on that. But again, I was like luxury. I'm over the top. Like I love the glitz and the glam and all that shit. Like I like high-end stuff. And so with designing in that hotel and then going and getting four other hotels that I helped design, no one was doing old Hollywood glam. And I said, you know what? This is the market from 20-year-olds to 90 year olds. They're gonna spend some good money because they want to feel glamorous. I got the idea of them doing all the seven rooms different themes. And I said, you know, there was an opportunity for me to buy a hotel.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Because the meantime at during that time frame, I was selling hotels and designing them. So I would sell a commercial. I got into commercial about six years ago. So I would sell a hotel and then I would come and design it. That's where the money was. But no one was allowing me to do old Hollywood, you know, because maybe because of the life.

SPEAKER_01

Well, because it's Palm Springs, and so they wanted something like So you had you had this very uh Boho uh uh movement that came in.

SPEAKER_00

You know, that was a lot of references from Joshua Tree and Yucca Valley and all that. And they wanted this minimal look. It's very cleaning. Ah, God, give me a damn life here that's a thousand dollars.

SPEAKER_01

All the all the coffee shops that are like that right now, right? Yes, it is. But it is calming.

SPEAKER_00

It is calming. It is calming. I want over the top, I want drama. So, like, so I knew that there was a money in in um in old Hollywood. And so I bought my own hotel in Old Las Palmas and I themed out each room specifically on a variety of homes that iconic people, actors, singers, had in old Las Palmas so you can actually walk there. So I studied their house, I mean, down to their scent. I talked to their kids. Um, you know, there's a lot of uh actors that have kids that still live in Palm Springs. I love Lucy, um, Nancy uh uh Frank Snatcher's daughter. Like they live still here in town. So it was it was a cool experience to have my own creative um say on everything. I didn't have different ownerships, I didn't have partners, I didn't have, it was just me, my wildness. I had a bunch of girlfriends that are in the pinup world and and are really well-known, like models. And so I brought one of my girlfriends on. I said, I need the effeminate touch on this. Uh, I because I can get a little too masculine on some of the designs. I said, Where, what am I missing? And and I would help, she helped me select, you know, some of the bedding, uh, some of the wallpaper. So, you know, having her a girl's, you know, yeah, I've ultimately they are my clientele. The women's gonna make the decision. What I love about what I did was that remember that she's gonna make that decision. Give her something good. But yeah, it was ultimately the girl's gonna make the decision, and I gave them nine different reasons to come back and experience a different mood.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and go keep going and get to come back nine times. It's like toilet paper, right? You know, people are always gonna buy dollar because they need it. They gotta come back to his place to experience each room.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and sharman extra soft?

SPEAKER_01

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00

It was like, wait, oh my gosh, it we plugged or we backed up the toilet. I'm like, I know it's Charmin, but I you're gonna come over here. Your ass is gonna be nice when you leave David's hotel. That's all I'm saying. Is it that they come with this like scotch that I was like, oh hell no? I want to wipe my ass with something nice. So sharman soft. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02

Even down to that little detail.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01

Sharman, call us. That's how we do it, babies. We're tagging you.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, your tushy will love you.

SPEAKER_02

You got to do all the fun stuff with the design, then you have to run a hotel. Did you get into the weeds with running the hotel, or did you at that point kind of get out of the business?

SPEAKER_00

No, my recommendation is if you want to be an owner of anybody, I mean anything in this world. I mean, you have got to be there night and day for the first two years. You have to see the fundamentals on every oh, no one can wash a bathroom like I can. No one can wash uh linens like I can. No one can do my towels the way I can. And so these are the details that put yourself into a luxury hotel, stay there, see the amenities that you loved, and recreate that there. And so for me, I had to know every single thing about the aspect of the business, running it in-house, outside. Uh, and and my cleaning girls, they taught me so much. And so, you know, tricks to get stains out or whatever it is, uh sense, you know, we said we were dog friendly, now we're not, unless you have a license for it. But other than that, like it was really learning the aspect of marketing. You have to know it. And so if you're gonna start a business, my recommendation is know every entity of it. Not to say you have to be good at it, but you have to know it. Because como un pendejo, you're just there and someone calls out. People call out all the damn time.

SPEAKER_02

Guess who has to fill in? You gotta go, you gotta go. You gotta step in and do it.

SPEAKER_00

And when people are like, oh, you can't go out this weekend. I'm like, well, shit, do you want a hotel or you don't want a hotel? Because you have to do the ugly side. And then the other thing is that you have to come back and kiss out at night. You know, people want to see the owner there. They want to see you're smiling, and you want to see, you know, and it it's it's uh, it's more rewarding than it is a struggle. I I think that my biggest struggle owning the hotel is finding quality, good staff because they they leave or it's hard to find them, or someone are younger. So what I do is I tell people, you want to come work for me for three months, so that's an easy way out. And you can see their hustle. They either have it or they don't.

SPEAKER_01

Well, it's an so like us, we do a 90-day probationary because I'll know within like two weeks or maybe even sooner if you're gonna be, if you're gonna last or not. So it's in and we've always had lived by the model like hire, hire and then fire quickly because it's fire slow, fire fast. There you go. Yeah, something like that. I love that.

SPEAKER_02

We have to. You're fired. You have to. I mean, you're it's your business, you know. It's it's uh you know within the first two weeks if it's gonna work out or not. It represents you.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it represents you. I mean, even when the girls come all theater, here's a rubber band, girl, pull it tight. There you go, you're good. Let's go back. Come on, come all sloppy to work. No, no, no, no, no. And it'll smell good. There you go. Our rooms are known for our smell. And I'm like, how do you get this scent? You know, it's like glade or the plug-ins, little, and I change them out. Like some of them like uh like Fabriz or you know, Airwick. And it's like you get a little experience, you know, some smell like colognes. So that you're known for your brand, and your brand has got to be from the exterior. I walk around literally with a rag all day long. There's something I need to wipe down. There's something my ADE will kick in. I'm like, no. Or the leaf floor. Oh my God, talk about tranquility. That leaf floor when I'm stressed out, and it's too noisy for me. I love it.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, I'd be like, ah, turn off. Um, so is are we talking about the the the velvet? The velvet rope. Velvet rope. Okay. Okay. And so I'm assuming you came up with the velvet rope because it's old Hollywood, right?

SPEAKER_00

And it's like the name came up because it's such a small uh exterior, and you pass by it, you don't really see it. But you never know unless you pass the velvet rope what's behind it. And so the minute you walk into the doors, you're like, oh my God, it didn't look like that outside because it's it's very simplistic. It's a Herbert Burns property, and he's an iconic uh architect designer, everything. And he um he designed these very minimalist 1950s mid-century. And I want to keep it the the way he made built it because that eventually can be a class one designation. Um but but really paying attention to the architect because they they appreciate that in Palm Springs. But you come inside and then bam, it's all glamorous. I mean, we're talking about our from our pillows to our furniture outside to our you know, cabanas, our day beds, our everything is luxe. Even the pillow, I'm the if you want to lay down. I mean, sometimes people will fall asleep outside and they don't even go inside the room because it's so luxe on the on the bed. And literally that bed is like $300 on Amazon or Wayfair, and they don't even know. But you pay that extra money and you know they get this feeling that they're in this luxury, you know, velvet rope, you know, establishment.

SPEAKER_01

Which brings me to the disaster.

Bombing Damage And Insurance Reality

SPEAKER_00

Oh, the osmole.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, so what year was it? So this year.

SPEAKER_00

This last year. Shut up. Well, May will be a year. No shit.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, so 2025.

SPEAKER_00

25. May 17th.

SPEAKER_01

There was what it was a planned parenthood.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_01

And then some psycho came and he blew the shit up.

SPEAKER_00

He um he had help with another guy. It was uh it was very equivalent to the Oklahoma bombing. It's it was a 350-pound bomb. He put in his mom's car. And thank God the mom wouldn't allow him to use the car before because there would have been eight staff members working during the time he blew him up. And he came into the city at six in the morning, and then uh about 10 50 a.m., that's checkout time for our hotel.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_00

And um, he designated the bomb and he left, he he tried to uh live stream it, and he also filmed it. And he had a lot of different social media outlets that he was letting them know this this is what he was gonna do. And basically, he was upset that he didn't get per he didn't have permission, they didn't have permission to be born. So his parents did so that you know the he was.

SPEAKER_01

How the fuck do you get permission to be born? Like, the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

SPEAKER_00

So obviously he's yes, crazy. And so this I but you know what, it stems from the parents because um there believe it, uh he caused me financial damage like to no end, right? However, uh it seen the interviews of his parents, my heart went out to this kid was 23 years old, lost. You could tell just by the the interviews with the parents. I'm like, this kid had never had a chance, and he was in 29 palms around, you know, doing all this research, and you know, he had so much time on his hand, and they were crazy. The parents, I think, were crazy, you know. So I seen where that kid struggled from from a mentality standpoint. So the bomb itself was 250 feet away from my hotel. And so what did all the damages to my hotel was actually the car. The car blowing up on the hotel is what did the severe, because you gotta remember, it's a car and particles. Everywhere. It took and remember, we just opened up in 24. I bought this damn thing at the height of the market at $4 million, put a million dollars into it. You gotta remember, I got rid of all my houses, sold everything that I've had to finally have this hotel because this is my bread and butter. Maybe you know, the market wasn't doing good, but I'm gonna put all my efforts into this gorgeous over the top. Nothing's gonna be like this. It's gonna be a showpiece for Palm Springs, put everything in there, you know, and the payments were high, and then that happens. And then once that happened, didn't know that they were gonna categorize it as an act of terrorism. Well, why didn't I have a terrorism insurance? Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01

Are you kidding me? Insurance, it's such a fucking hack. Are you kidding me? Right?

SPEAKER_02

That's what you have insurance for, it's for stupid.

SPEAKER_01

Well, it's just like earthquake, right? If you don't have earthquake insurance, you're fucked. Why I didn't even know you could have that.

SPEAKER_00

The crazy part is the the policy for homes, they take care of that. So my neighbor, they have a 1930s home, it's beautiful. Anyhow, that their whole roof blew up too. But they got they got paid back because it was residential. I'm commercial. And so the commercial, they didn't want to help me out. I was but my walls barely hanging on uh to to Denny's. I mean, we had all my my ACs were we're talking about under two years. All my ACs were blown. My roof was down to two and a half inches. Our doors, our windows, our light fixtures, our ceilings, everything. And and then you go from from May to August. It rained in August for four days in the middle of summer. And we had a stop again and start doing all the ceilings again because the water came in. It was like, and again, and this is the other thing, too, is I just got a foreclosure. I literally don't I going to the fucking 2008 again. I just saved my building two months ago because I got behind three months. My lender was like, oh, go for it, no problem. Just fix it all. So I got hard money loans. I fixed it. We're talking about $200,000 of fixing the property that I just spent a hundred a million eight on. And then of course they want a one-lump sum of $135,000. I'm like, how? I'm barely making these high-end interest payments to hard money loans because we didn't get any help. And I'm trying and I'm still making you your payment. How am I in the world? So I I'm I I've lost my house. Well, I'm I'm it's a short sale right now, which is a blessing. Again, I go back to 2008. Uh, they're taking a million dollars off what I owe. I'm really sad about it because it was the founder of Palm Springs, their family ranch. It's a two-acre ranch in the middle of Palm Springs. I'm the only one that can have horses and cattle, and it's just a unique house that. But I said, you know what? I'm okay. I'm gonna walk away from a million dollars that I owe. There we go. I get to save my building and I'm back up. And, you know, God is bringing more people to the hotel. I feel like there's there's been more awareness of it because of the bombing. And so I gotta take it like, you know, but if you would have had this interview like a couple of months ago, I would have been freaking crying. I would have been a mess because I, you know, you have to pay for an attorney to go help uh work with your lender that is just money hungry, knowing that after you fixed it, now they want the their arrears. And I was like, I got behind three months. So I had to let my house go, which is gonna be fine. I'll figure out something else.

SPEAKER_01

But you stay at a motel.

SPEAKER_00

The hotel motel. No, I can't. I'm there way too often. People have been knocking on my door. Yes, come in. No, no, no. But I I can't either. So I'm gonna I'm gonna downscape. I'm gonna, I'm, I'm actually gonna go. It's crazy. Um, I've always had these large estates, and my house is almost 4,000 square feet uh with two acres with all these damn cars that I don't need anymore. And I want to scale back. You know, I I got the little flair of going to these small little three-day trips. And I think I want to, I want to explore, you know, maybe traveling, not crazy travel, but I'm talking about if I can get there in about three to four hour flight, I want to be there, you know, and experience life now because I'm getting older, I'm almost 50, and I'm like, there's there's things that I can't do anymore. I might my knees, like even dancing, you know, it bugs me. I'm like, well, shit, I want to still hike and I want to do this. So, you know, this is this this makes me aware of the things I have not taken advantage of. And, you know, if I if I'm it's a blessing that I'm able to keep this hotel and if it's family ran, like everyone in my family were we're we're there together running it. And because, you know, you can't really count on staff because they call out all the damn time. So, you know, it's it's but it's a work of labor, but it's also rewarding. Um, and I look at and and and thank God every day in my car like thank you for allowing me to be open. Thank you for allowing my staff to still be there. Thank you for no one getting hurt. There was people in the pool, in the day beds, or people walking out and came inches from from seat belts and and all these parts of the cars that were blowing out metal. Imagine if they touched someone's flesh.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and then you would have been sued for that shit, probably. Exactly. Right?

SPEAKER_00

Not one person died. And I was I was coming in when the bomb happened. Um I thought I seen his body on the ground. I thought the helicopter had crashed. And so that's where that's where it was. But when you look at it and you see where the damage was done, he had it, he created like this four foot uh crater in the ground. Wow. That's how powerful this bomb was. And so, like, it's it's just, you know, when I got when I got there, I went into action. I didn't even go to my hotel for like 45 minutes because I was helping out all the other hotels around me because ladies were, you know, bleeding at Denny's, and and we were trying to get them up to their car, not even thinking anything happened in my hotel. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

What the hell? Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02

And these are the stories you don't hear. I mean, we we're in Mid Valley here, we didn't really even see it. But I mean, the the aftermath of this thing is, you know, years in the making, you know, like for you financially, it's a hit, and you know, everybody else around, people that you know, that got injured. What you know, what a tragedy, man. But your your outlook on it is very positive. I mean, for me, I'd be tucked away in a corner somewhere if you know if I had to go through all that. So you're pretty, pretty strong, dude, man. Resilience. Resiliency is is.

SPEAKER_00

I go back to that 16-year-old kid being homeless and just wanting it. And uh again, right now I don't have family I can call like, hey, can I have a hundred thousand dollars? Can you assist me with this? No, my ass needs to be there and figure out a way to to to make it work. Because I I I lost everything. I sold everything to have this one what this one asset. You know, and I it everything else is going away. But again, it brings me back to my tranquility. I don't need all this stuff that I have, and I'm getting rid of the house now, and I'll I'll start start up again like I I always have. Yeah. So it's it's it's a it's a reflection of reality that that I probably need it as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Well, and I always tell him, like, growing up poor, you're not really afraid to lose it. You're just like, I made it with, you know, I made it with the government cheese baby. I can, you know, it's okay.

SPEAKER_02

Right. Oh, I know about wealth. I think it's an advantage, right? As an entrepreneur to be kind of have nothing. And then you can always go back to that. You know, you you didn't die, you made it through, right? You know, people that people that come from wealth, like thinking about being poor, those are the ones that jump off the bridge, you know. They can't handle it, right?

SPEAKER_00

I feel bad for their kids. Because I mean, these kids, I mean, they're not ready for for today's work. For work, yeah. Yeah, it's like shoot, pay the bills, you know, live in Palm Springs and pay electricity bills.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, that what is it, Southern California Edison? Screwing everybody, baby.

SPEAKER_00

Man, oh but but I found a uh a way around that mini splits. Uh-huh. Mini splits save the day, honey. Let's go.

SPEAKER_01

We have one.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. They work. I forget the big old five tons. You can get a three-ton and it works just as well. And you turn that off and on as you. Yes. Power mode. Come on, let's go. Turbo. Turbo it up, though. Bang, bang.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. Changing gears a little bit from the from the tragedy that you had to go through.

Social Media Collaboration Playbook

SPEAKER_02

Um, you're really good on social media. Like that's how we kind of found out about you, you know, your self-marketing. And so, what is your advice? I mean, you gotta do it, right? As a business owner, right? You gotta get out there and put yourself out there, right? What would your be advice to to the entrepreneurial uh community about that? Because a lot of us older cats, we don't, you know, we didn't grow up with this stuff. We're not native to this stuff. The young kids are growing up in this world, but you you seem to have adjusted pretty well for your business. How you know, what advice would you give to people?

SPEAKER_00

Come off knife, come off genuine, and don't be afraid to everyone say this word, but it's so true. This is what we're doing here. This is facts because you literally called me. I said, Yes, bro, let's go. Let's go. Collaboration, collaboration. There is no competition. People are like, Why are you giving a a shout out to your another agent? Why are you telling this another designer? Why are you featuring this architect? Why are you featuring, you know, this tile company? Why are you feature because it's a brand of mine. There is a remember this no one will have your personality. No one will sell the way you do. You're gonna have a connection with someone and no one will ever take that. If you go in with this chip on your shoulder that this could be your competition, you're never gonna succeed in anything you do in life. You have to be vulnerable, you have to be willing to be able to ask people. I say this all the time too. If they don't want to collaborate with you, chances are you don't want to work with them anyways. You don't want to work with them. The minute I start doing collaborations with posts, following other people, complimenting other people, I will get their stuff and put it on mine and they think it's I've done the work. It's not. I'm actually just showing some other designer from back east that I absolutely love. And that's what brings success. I've never been afraid because what do they do? Shut the door on you. Damn. That's why I go back to when I when people say, Oh my God, David, you're self-made. No, I'm not. I'm self-driven. I'm not self-made because the the ugly stuff is what made me today. The people that opened up the good parts that opened up the doors for me, that allowed me to follow them and shadow them and see it. There's David Rios is is composed of so the hardships, the good, the love. I was almost crying, but it's it's the the pain that we go through is what makes us. And so, like, for me, it's I it's never been like uh just me. I I want I I think the people that were shitty and the people that actually gave me that opportunity to shine. So from Instagram, you know, it's again grabbing people's people are like, Oh, I don't have any um listings. Yes, you do. Go on there, they just posted that they have an open house. I want you to go on there and repost it and they'll act like your followers will think it's your listing. You have an opportunity, and they're so grateful that you just shared their what do you go? I share all the damn time. And so when when someone's following you and you see all these shared posts, they mentally think it's yours. Because they're following you. Yeah, they're not even thinking like, oh my god, that this is not their product or this is not their brand. Oh shit. If I have a tile company, I'm featuring color selections, I'm I'm I'm featuring custom couches, but you have a tile company. No, I'm I'm showing everything because when you own a home, you have you have different areas, wallpapers. Oh my god, this is a new product I have. This, this, this tile. Oh, look at this wallpaper. It goes by this. Tag them, bam, you're on their story.

SPEAKER_01

But are you doing your own? Because it's it's a lot of time, right? Like, I'm like, shit. He's like, you have a beautiful, like, like he does payroll. So what's gonna show you?

SPEAKER_02

What am I gonna do? I mean, we find I have we do stuff, but it's not as beautiful and as fun as what the stuff you guys do. You guys do it.

SPEAKER_00

But you can follow her along and take video, take video because I'm a control freak. I do the velvet rope and I do my own personal one. And I can only be upset about me when that damn face is not lit up. If your face is not lit up and you don't have a daily story, people are attracted to you. They want to follow your story, they want to see how the progress of this is coming on. And sometimes it doesn't move that fast. So I have other projects that I can showcase. However, they fall in love with your design. They want to know when this is and they want the hiccups too. They want comical, they want, they want to know you're real, and then they want to see you. I was with some friends. I don't show my travels because then they get judged. So you don't you don't want to go you don't want to boast of that, but you want to show that you're out having a drink or cocktail or talking to people.

SPEAKER_01

It's supposed to be 80%, I thought, business, and then 20% personal or something like that. That's good. Because you need you kind of need that little bit of, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

They want to know you're real. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

See, I don't think I could do that because I'm too negative. I fucking hate everybody.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, you told bullshit. I'm not one that hates anybody. You're the you're the social one.

SPEAKER_01

No, it's I mean, but I mean, you get clients that just drive you fucking crazy or like, oh, I that's all I it's all I complain about.

SPEAKER_00

What I so I don't think I could do So what how I overcame that was I have a 20-minute rule. You have 20 minutes to be upset about anything and you have to let it go. Because then we have uh we have nine rooms and there's so many people coming in all day. I have to change my attitude right away. When this bitch is over here bitching about that, and that person over there, and then the the tile or the the selection, whatever that we chose, isn't coming in for another week. This guy didn't show up to work, and I I gotta give myself time to be upset about everything, take it in, but also change like this because anyone that walks through my door, they deserve my undivided attention. They deserve David at his fun and happiness. And in the meantime, like bills need to get paid. I'm stressed out. You know, we're trying to make payroll, we're trying to make the mortgages, worrying about all of these moving parts. But again, I signed up for this. And the only way that people can perceive me is by giving them that love and the respect. And if you give them that tension and and and not hone in on a whole day of just dwelling on one damn thing because it's easy to do. Oh, easy. Uh, it's like fuck you have 20 other other orders that are coming in. So I give in myself that 20-minute little to be to allow me to take it in, be frustrated, and then let it go.

SPEAKER_01

The bitch fest. Yeah. Instead of Coachella Fest, it's a bitch fest.

SPEAKER_02

We got to, man. We got to. Otherwise, you go crazy internalizing all that stuff.

Advice On Branding And The Close

SPEAKER_02

I'm kind of getting up against time here, but we always like to ask our entrepreneurs what advice they would give to the next generation coming up, somebody that maybe wants to be the next. David Rios, what advice would you give to that, to that person?

SPEAKER_00

I would, my best advice I can give anyone and everyone that's watching this is that no matter how old you are, whether you're 16 years old listening to this, or if you're 75, 80 years old, there's never a wrong or right time to start a career to jump into something that you love. Find the passion that is instilled in you that comes natural and find a way to make money in that. And there is, whether it be what again, at whatever age, it's not about education. It's about getting yourself into something that a business owner will see, hey, that comes natural to them. That's gonna make me money. And it again, it's it's it's there's so many age groups that when we start talking about retirement, start talking at 16 years old about retirement, 20 years old. You know, start start shadowing people that have things that you like. And that's the best advice I can give you because you're gonna learn so much, so much about jumping into every industry. And whatever industry you decide to jump into, make sure that you know all the parts of that, how it came together, how it's being built, how it's being structured, how you're selling it, all of those will lead to success. And don't be afraid to help ask for help. It's not always just about you. The the minute you open your mouth and you ask for help, you're gonna see people that are genuine to you, that'll help you build your business. And again, the key word again that we take away from this is collaboration. Collaborate with everybody. Collaborate, collab. A piece of one thing is better than not having anything at all. And again, you'll get business. That that's what's taught me is just I can continue getting business because I didn't I didn't mind taking a small piece of the pie.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I love that. Collaboration, man. That's it. That's it.

SPEAKER_01

Hopefully it's apple pie. The little cider vanilla ice cream.

SPEAKER_02

That's right. So, where can our audience find you, David? Uh, Rios Design or the Velvet Rope. If they want to stay at your hotel, check out your your design service, real estate. Where is the best place to reach out to you and find you?

SPEAKER_00

By all means. Um, and when you come to branding, uh, you are your brand, you are your walking image. Take care of yourself, look good, look cute. Make sure that whatever brand that you start, whether it be a real estate agent or anybody, keep your name consistent, keep your telephone consistent and never change anything. Continue it going because you, it's so hard to build a new following. So everything is just David Rios, David Rios Designs, David Rios, David Rios. And so my branding is all that. Um, and my hotel is the Velvet Rope PS or the Velvet Rope. Uh, you're more than welcome to come stay, visit. We have live entertainment. Uh, but it's it's something that that that people will talk about for the rest of their for the rest of their lives because I've created something that's old school that they want to hear, they want to see, they want to uh be around. And so it's it's a luxury design that I've come up with. And my brand is luxury. And so it's not about money, it's about the way you put things together on a variety of price points. It's the way you put things together. So David Rios, and keep that in keep that in mind. It's it's a household name. And whatever you're doing as far as your business, keep it consistent for the next 20, 30 years, and people will always remember your name. That's great advice.

SPEAKER_01

Can I ask one quick question? So you said you have rooms that are different. So, what are the rooms?

SPEAKER_00

So we have uh Elvis Presley, and it's a mixture of his honeymoon house. Yes, oh my god, it's so cool and it's very luxury. Yes, we have uh the presidential room, which is a playoff of JFK and Marilyn Monroe. We have the Elizabeth Taylor room over the top, gorgeous. We have the studio 54 room because I was born in '78. Okay. Kind of fun. We have the playmate room. We can't say playboy, so it's playmate. It's sexy and gorgeous. Darkness. Hugh Hefner, I just can't believe it's from I went to a party um at his house. It's right there in Old Las Palmas. No, I'm sorry, uh, movie calling. We have Gene Harlow 1930. We have I Love Lucy, we have to call it the Ricardo Suite. Um, we have uh Liveratchy, we have to call it Kendalabra, and then we have the Rat Pack. And then I'm a fan, I love Amy Winehouse. So my my bar is outdoor Amy Winehouse. Big, big. We love Amy Winehouse. I love Amy Winehouse. We call it Bar Valerie, and it's uh you're walking into 1930, old jazz country, you name it. We have a twist that's elegant. Is that the bar area?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah. Oh, we gotta go.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we gotta go.

SPEAKER_02

We gotta go.

SPEAKER_01

Understand Amy Winehouse.

SPEAKER_02

No, this is the bar's Amy Winehouse. Oh my god, go have a drink, a little homage, you know.

SPEAKER_00

All the drinks are named after her hits. Um, we have pictures of her, but again, it's just you soothe a different era when you're in there. And everyone appreciates it. It's been it's been a blessing.

SPEAKER_01

Very cool. Well, I can't wait to go. You're the take me out.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, it's on the calendar. On the calendar, maybe after Coachella. Boom. They're gonna be pretty busy the next couple weeks. Well, David, you're a you're a rock star, man. Thanks for coming in. We've been wanting to have you on the show for a long time. You know, you're you're a rising star in our community, and we appreciate you coming in.

SPEAKER_00

We appreciate you, and thank you guys for allowing me to have this time to just explain my little life in a nutshell and and and take this that I will never stop. I will always continue going. No matter what hardships that we have, we gotta, we gotta prevail. We have to prevail in this world.

SPEAKER_01

That's the ADHD and the grit. That's all you need. Right?

SPEAKER_02

Yes. Well, thank you, David. You're awesome. If you found some value in that, guys, you know the routine. Like, subscribe, and follow. And we'll see you next time on CB Hustle. Girl, bring me some more. Poached eggs with the truffle on the side.

SPEAKER_03

My mosas flowing like a West Coast tide.