Tim Gordanier

We do the opposite. Oh, man. Yeah, that's not helping anybody. But he's not wrong. And remember, they had the big light shows in the middle of those. Okay. It's crazy. Yeah. Lagoon, sorry.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I guess that would do it.

day one so the rule of thumb right now we learn is that you got to start with beers and end with tequila yeah yeah yeah yeah i think that's probably the way to do it but yeah that's crazy i never even thought it and it's funny i never even thought of getting in the lingua but that's that's crazy i love it yeah like there's alligators i think i like you more now yeah there's alligators in there there is they're like bro there's alligator i'm like all legit i'm like i'm from florida i'm not scared of alligators who cares whatever anyway they're not fast enough

I digress. So Disney comes to hire you. Yeah. And I got hired from them. And I went to, when they hired you, they gave you basically courses in Disney University, which is actually an accredited university.

You know this because you were there. But a lot of people don't know that. I say this to Americans and Canadians. They're like, it's Disney University? Disney Culinary is like a huge deal. It's legit. Huge deal.

I took their hospitality and marketing. It was amazing. Yeah, it's great. Best year and a half of my life. So you learned way more there than you did in college. Oh, yeah. hands on. I just like the hands on. I made no money. They pay you crap. Yeah. Like no money at all. You know, did you work in the park while you're doing this? Uh, yeah. So it actually got to shadow.

So I was doing some days we were in the office. Some days we were doing, I was a manager of a nightclub on pleasure Island, which of course we're old enough to know what that is.

No. Mike Hughes was the GM of all of Pleasure Island. I might know Mike Hughes. I just don't remember the name, which is curious because I have a good memory. I should remember that. I'll show you a picture. I managed mannequins for one night. That was insane.

It's very possible.

Yeah, he's been around forever. I'm going to see here. It was really cool to do it. It's like, yeah, just something I've never done before. And the third floor mannequins was frightening. I'm going to be honest with you.

It looks sort of familiar. I don't.

Yeah.

98.

And how long did you stay there? A year, year and a half almost. And it was, it was just like, like I said, it was just a thing to go in and learn and no money. We partied a lot. It was like, it was crazy. Yeah. but I learned a lot and they, and they have like blacklist. It's legit stuff.

I don't know if I should stay in this right now, but, but they, they've got some, they got some crazy, crazy stuff going on in the marketing. Hey, they're strong. They got power. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure.

You don't want to get in their bad side. I'll tell you that much. There is a blacklist.

Um, So anyway, Ale House, I don't know if you remember Ale House.

Miller's Ale House.

And what was it? Sorry, the roof is on fire. It was, oh my God, the boo, the big bamboo. The big bamboo. Do you remember this? No. So it was a shack. And I think it burned down recently, I heard. And they used to serve this stuff out of the back, moonshine in their drinks. And you would go in and the song was, you know, the boo, the boo, the boo is on fire. We don't need no water. Anyway. Oh, God.

They bring out these drinks. And I'm telling you, two drinks, we were hallucinating. I mean, I don't know what the hell was in this. No clue what this place was. Never heard of it. It was on a bend coming from Orlando into Lake Bonavista. That's all I remember. And anyway. Are you talking about Baja Beach Club? Maybe that's what it is then or before that or after it. Maybe.

It burned down. That's all I know. It looked literally like a shack in the woods. But it wasn't the woods? No. I don't know. So after Disney... You spent a year and a half with Disney. What did you do next? So after that, I came home and I actually got into learning. I self-taught myself how to do web design because it was kind of a thing. And I started making websites.

Backstudied, looked at websites, studied the backend coding, trying to figure out how they did it. So you went from Orlando back to Toronto? No, I went back to Owen Sound, which was like the worst. Oh, Oh, geez. That's a temperature shock. And I'm like, you know, I'll bartend and serve. I'll learn this coding, live at my parents' house. Because, you know, I was kind of didn't know where to go.

You come home and it's sort of like school's over, your placement's over, and now you're sort of just lost. You're like, what am I going to do next? So I'm glad I did that because I went home, got rid of my school debts, and just got my grounding. And I learned how to code and started selling website design. So I started doing this for restaurants and businesses.

And yeah, I moved to Collingwood to continue it, moved to Toronto to act. And then while I was here, I was also bartending serving. And then it hit me on an idea. When did you move here? I moved here in 2000. Oh, here? I just moved here last. So I wouldn't be in November 23.

Right, right. So you moved to Toronto. Yep.

and you're just working in the puddle right yes i was there for a while and then i started 2006 uh sorry like i was 2004 it was an idea but 2006 is when we opened the door i created the world's first google street view so i actually beat google to the patent office real true story i have the paperwork it's crazy and then i i'm an idiot didn't get backers for it i was a bartender struggling actor

It is what it is. And then I basically filed patent for this idea where you would advance down the street with a mouse or a button, and you could click on the buildings and go inside. And so I had a working model. We submitted it to the patent office. I had a year, so I had patent pending. And I abandoned the patent. Oh!

yeah probably would have worked that probably would have been more something but you know what's funny is the accolades of like everyone's like do you not you don't dwell on i'm like no because you know at the end of the day i looked at it like hey i beat google a team of google i beat them to the office with an idea i mean that made gave me power i was like i did something amazing i don't i don't need i don't need the i don't need to be praised about it okay but had i done it differently i might actually be dead though i might have a lot of money yeah would have been nice to be paid about it

Oh, yeah. Who cares about the praise? Just pay me. And we joked about it because we're like, if Google had, if I had gone through that and Google bought me out, which they would have, I would have, who knows, maybe I wouldn't be here right now. Yeah, good call. And that kind of money at 27, I would have died. Yeah, fair, fair. I don't know. Fair. So that was cool.

And then basically seven years later, I was trying to come up with a reinvention of my brand there. And we still carried on the business. We ended up doing animation and going to animation with the street. So you can click on buildings and go in that way. By the way, I'm the only guy that knows the holes in Google's patent because patents can't be repatented.

so once i file patent they can't patent the same idea so the things that i sent through are not patented by google they're open source at that point as you might know for after a year the patent pending means that it can't be repatted again by anybody yeah including myself so i know the holes in it but it's pretty funny but anyway i digressed if you go back

We were trying to recreate basically a loyalty program. So I came up with this idea that I was going to create a card, which was going to do what I'm doing now with the key. And I got in the shower and it was an hour and a half. That's how the key came to be. It was literally just 2014 in the shower. Sounds very weird. Spent an hour and a half.

I went from a card going in the shower to come up with that idea that the card's stupid. No one's going to buy a card. Cards are dying. I knew that. No one's going to carry a card. How do I remarket that and make it cooler? And then the key hit me and I was like, and then we got like all this chip could be in it. And anyway, my head went crazy. It was an hour and a half. My bill was crazy.

So that was where I had it made because the site that I created, which is streets.to, it actually had that animation thing that I went through. So I was dealing with hospitality clients for like nine years in the end. And basically, so I already had restaurant partners. So it's just a pivot. Yeah. I just basically said, Hey, when these clients come in, you'll, you'll do something for them.

And they're like, yes, that sounds great. And they liked the idea produced a hundred keys as a, just a test phase. And we had a party and people lost their minds. And I'm like, oh shit, this isn't going to help my business. This is a new business and this one's going to die. Yeah. So I closed the other one. I actually migrated into this, this, which is, it's crazy.

You go to find an idea to save one, to bring it to the next level. And then you find an idea that's going to overtake it. It's crazy.

Like, what was the... It was, it's funny. I think I've just been so confident in what we're doing and we built this thing in Canada and it's just been amazing. So I knew how to do it and it was just kind of, hey, I'll approach businesses and say, you know, you should be on this. It's kind of cool. And I showed a working model. And they're like, wow, that's, that's actually cool. Yeah.

We've never seen this before. And I thought that was weird. I thought when I came in, I would have more competition and there really wasn't. Yeah. So that kind of shocked me. First to markets, all that matters. Yeah. All the matters. I've heard there's other people have tried.

I mean, there's been people that have done similar ideas with like, you know, a mobile app or like a card and they just didn't flourish. But this one, this one had legs. I could tell by the way they just, they would light up. Yeah. Like you did when I gave you the key, actually. I love that.

It was good. It

And by the way, we bring Toronto, Montreal members. So we have the keys are in those cities too. They have their own unique key. And again, limited number. And they can now use it in other cities.

That's sort of helped open the door here because I mean, my business model is built for hospitality. They like what we're doing because we're not greedy and we're smart about it. And we know that, listen, it has to be a partnership. You have to make money. I have to make money. And we have to work together.

So instead of charging you for marketing, we just want to welcome you because you fit what we're going after. And I think it's going to be a match. And so we're sort of matchmakers. And we're in the middle. And we charge for the key. And they charge for their service. And everybody wins, including the keyholder. Because the keyholder, I'm just making them kind of go in without that hookup.

Yeah. So we, we basically created a key. If you want to, it's a VIP recognition program built in with a social club. The idea behind it was pretty simple. I mean, we basically reinvented a card into a very cool format and wanted to make it something that people would talk about. And it was kind of cool to show and you felt right.

They don't need a hookup anymore. The key's their hookup. Well, let's talk about the process of actually getting the keys done. Obviously, this is done in China. So Hong Kong, yeah. But we have a QC, so there's a little more in-depth with ours. We have a QC, which was really important because shipping out these keys, quality control is everything.

Yeah, so I have actually a firm out of the UK that actually handles it, and it's their factory in Hong Kong. And so they go in and they check these on the line on production day. They're actually testing these chips. Are they in there? Are they looking right? Is the keys wrong? I mean, I used to see some of them would come off the line that, of course, don't look right.

But it was nice having the QC because I think in literally probably 10 years, that's how long we've been doing almost, I'd probably say three

Toronto was really hard. When we first started Toronto businesses, yeah, no one knew what it was. We were really starting something new. And part of this process, why I think I don't have a lot of competition is it's not easy. I took the hard road. Everyone's doing apps now. I chose physicality because I think it's important.

I think people are losing track of what it used to be to touch something. And I think people love touching something.

The first few years was just train, retrain. And we constantly, if there was ever a report of anything that someone had an issue, we'd go back and retrain. It was just constant. And after, of course, the brand got known and people started getting more and more, people had it. The word spreads around really quick. And all of a sudden, we haven't really had many issues. Vegas was a shocker.

I actually thought it would be harder. I thought there would be some issues. Yeah, because people bounce a lot. Yeah. And to be honest, we've only really had a couple issues that were reported that were early on in our days. And what I like about Vegas, I think it's a hospitality town. They train really well here. They train their staff.

And the staff don't leave because I think the staff are making money. So it's great. And it's been easier for sure. Do you have like point of sale stuff that you leave at the bar? Like if somebody does this, you do this and it's there where they can see it. Yeah, we have an onboarding process. So we come in and we actually train, we leave a couple of keys for the staff to win.

We want to make some of them key holders themselves, which really, really helped because that gets that culture going and makes them feel a part of the team, which they are. So, and now you have a chance to win a $700 key and they're like, this is really cool.

and yeah it's it's worked out really well but yeah it's it's definitely still you know we go in and train them and we have an onboarding process for sure how often do you go back and visit on premise and make sure things are going right pretty often i mean i've got i've had a lot of awesome awesome help and key holders like some of them have turned into ambassadors and and i that's when you know you've built a good brand is that people are reaching out like can i do something and they're key holders and i love it that's a great question that's a great question so

And everything about it, everything from weight down to the look, we were very, very specific and careful about. So even the curated partners. So we go and source the best of the city built for locals, by the way. And the idea was to, again, bring locals out to the places that we found out were the best in the city. And we keep finding and sourcing.

This guy goes, what was that? 100%. Well, that's what our key holders are doing. It's funny because they love showing it off too. So it's kind of cool for social and that's the other part that I wanted to touch on is that it brought social back and that whole physicality aspect like I just spoke about is it gets people talking at the bar. It's a conversation starter.

And it's cool because some people are at a bar and they're on their own sometimes and then they meet somebody next to them and go, what is that key? And you could make a new friend and it's that simple. And I get a new key holder.

We have a referral program within for key holders. We haven't got one set up for our, our partners yet.

I would, I mean, I definitely need that for sure.

Agreed.

it's minimal so we got obviously people in toronto so we got someone on the ground in toronto montreal um and i'm kind of just sort of the guy that's right now in vegas i'm i'm sort of just you know meeting businesses constantly and just just basically making sure we onboard the right spots and meeting people and hosting parties and

And then we got, obviously, our bookkeepers, our social media people, live chats. We have a live chat service, which is really important. You have to have someone that actually has someone, you know, wants to reach out and have an issue. You want to have someone answer something.

I definitely winged it when I came here. No question. And I mean, I've opened three cities. So I opened Vancouver after Toronto. So Toronto was 2015. 2017 was Vancouver. 2019 was Montreal. And then the pandemic, of course, loved it. We don't want to talk about that. But yeah, I'm actually happy. But I mean, we ended up closing Vancouver because someone had to go.

And my hottest cities were Toronto, Montreal. Why did somebody have to go? It was really hard to travel in 2020, 2021 and to manage the cities. And, you know, the sales plummeted because you can't send anyone to restaurants. I really got lucky in a way, but lucky is a bad word. I was fortunate in that I had a plan originally where I grandfathered. I still keep that now.

So someone came into our program and bought early, then they kept their grandfathered rate for life. So every year they keep that rate and we don't change it. We'll never increase it. Yeah, that's cool. So it turned out, it was kind of a mistake that worked out in our favor because we were very respectful of our members. And one day,

pandemic rolls around yeah we were preparing a letter to go out to everybody to refund their money because the keys had renewed subscriptions had all renewed in toronto and montreal and we started getting people writing us going we don't want to lose our rate and we want to support you guys and they tell us keep their money i'm like huh

And each place recognizes you for just having the key and treat you like a VIP. And the idea was everyone was being recognized.

wait a minute, right, they want to keep the rate and renewing keeps the rate and they appreciate the loyalty. So I was kind of touched by that. It was cool. And then we saw reciprocations and I realized, okay, humanity is still there. So then we went and built takeout and delivery perks. And then I had to deliver. I'm like, I can't take your money and not deliver.

So I still, I found a way to make it work, but crazy. So- by happenstance.

Toronto in the summer, Vegas for nine months.

what like like dude just because you're a bartender doesn't mean you're gonna be able to pull this off or just because you can bring in ladies on a thursday night doesn't mean you can pull this off i've been called a promoter and i hate that word because i'm like i'm not a promoter i love promoters by the way yes but i'm not a promoter right and there's a difference but i think that's your pool to find that person to bring in and be a partner in these businesses markets

You hit the nail on the head because we're looking at other cities, obviously, and obviously want to grow this, but we actually have two that are coming up. But the idea was exactly that. My goal is to go around and basically onboard the cities with a partner. And essentially, each city has its own ambassador, its own Partner. Yeah, it should.

And the beauty of the program, another reason why people don't really, again, I haven't had anyone take us on is that one, it's a lot of work. It's definitely a lot of work. It's funny because you got to onboard and train and retrain. You got to polish a product that's physical. I mean, I imagine my competitor is going to be in the form of an app. They'll go the easy route.

But where I win is that we're opening them up locally based on locals best. And then we sew them together. Every city I open, it's just more reach. So Vegas Key works in Toronto, Montreal, by the way. And so if I open in Scottsdale, which is the plan next, and DFW, you're now gonna be able to reach those and their keys will reach Vegas.

Asheville. Bluff Nashville. I mean. But we really focused on locals. So the hard part for me, and you're right, conference is a big market.

What's that? So we have the airport lounge there, actually. Oh, that's cool. So we work with the club, LAS, and they're also obviously there in Dallas, DFW. So, yeah, so we're starting, man.

But no, dude, look, look, Denver's another place I could see.

Miami excites me so much.

Starting a city is expensive, but you're right. You're right. I mean, in terms of my, the margins are insane when you actually build it out.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Dude, I,

but you know at the end of the day it's that it's that a lot of people aren't willing to wait so it's sort of that's where i'm patient i'm a patient guy that's also part of the concept when i don't charge for marketing for our partners we curate in because my time's money so as you know times everything it's way more than money and if i'm going to market you i got to really believe you're a fit because if i'm not taking money from you which i don't do

If I'm not taking money from you, I'm not going out there looking to sign on businesses to make money. I eliminated the human nature component. My idea was that the minute there's money incentive, then you could fail and go out and try and make money because maybe you're short for a month. Maybe you want to make a little extra money and you end up losing your focus.

Bro, I would pass. And then teach them. And I've got the process down. We've got the polished brand down. Because here's the thing, right? Yeah.

Man, that's a quantum leap for you. I've even thought about dedicating three, four months to each city we bring on each year where I would onboard them. And that's the plan is that I would actually go and onboard them. You can't. You can't. You can't do that. I could. I could. Yeah, if you're going to grow slow. No, but you could do three, four a year. It's not crazy.

Dude, you could literally launch six in the next three months. I guess I'm just super careful. Like I said, I'm a really patient. I'm a weird cat.

You got to break some eggs here. You're going to have to break some eggs. And there's an old adage, you know this, less is more sometimes. And I'll be honest with you, like I said, I'm the most patient business guy you're ever going to meet. I'm okay with making my money and then, you know, maybe I'll make more next year. I'm that kind of mentality.

I always like making more, but I don't like to, I'm not a rush. I'm not a rush guy. But one thing I will say, part of the process that's, you know, isn't really, unless you really think it out, you really have to integrate yourself. And I've learned that here. You have to integrate yourself with the right circles of people.

That takes more than, than just, you know, you can't just bring them into the same train. That's why you need the JV. No, we have to teach them the process of how, and that takes longer than a couple of weeks. I hate to say it. Okay. By the way, I would love to go your route.

100%. No, and I get you. I'm going to get a cattle prod and just chase you and zap you with it. And it's funny. I've been pushed by some business guys. They lose their minds. They're like, why are you growing so slowly? I'm like, I just, I'm happy. You know, I'm building it up, right? I'm trying to be careful. And right now, to be honest, I'm still kind of, I have a polished brand.

The brand's sexy. And that's one that I get a lot of love with. And I really, I love that. I'm blessed. And I built it. But I'm also still kind of like, you know, there's things I want to polish still before I jump. And then you're right. It may change.

Right now, how do they find you? So you want to go to key.vegas. My email is pretty easy. It's Tim at key.vegas. And yeah, you can download the app. The app's really cool. I don't know if we didn't talk about the app.

Hit Tim up and say, Tim.

I never thought it would be that big. It's crazy.

Tell me he went on a few of those.

I'm first in. I just want to be first.

That was funny. It's kind of like the vape of today. They started, they said, it's all good. It's good. And then one day they're like, oh, wait, it's bad.

It is. I like that. It's like sliding the gold coin across, but it's obviously a gold key. You slide it to the bartender and the bartender knows exactly what to do. So if you go to Legacy Club, for instance, you slide this to the bartender, you're with a date or you're on your own, whatever, or you're with a friend, colleague, whatever. You slide it across and they instantly recognize you.

They come up with two classy drinks and they present it on the house. Every time you go, you can go every day. It doesn't matter. It's a, it's just a recognition thing.

There's a little bit of a barrier entry to it. But priced where we didn't want to, we wanted locals to go and we wanted locals to feel right. But we didn't want to also overcharge where I thought, you know, you don't have to overcharge. It's cool. Make it approachable. Make it cool.

And not your coupon hunters, because coupon hunters, they don't pay $700 to get in. They just want the free. And we never discount our key. So that was important is that the key has to hold its value too, just like we make our restaurants. And restaurants hate discounting. Discounting should never be done anyway.

And it makes sense because back in 2007, I think coupons were kind of cool.

that was right in the throes of the financial crisis i can kind of see that people were looking for a little free everything back then but i think and i personally like the back then i was like i was younger but i was like a two for one burger i'm like sign me up yeah but you know when you get older and more refined and i think the society changed too i think people want value they're sorry better and it's it's important yeah and better doesn't come with a discount

So we released those last year. We launched in February 1st, actually, last year. And we sold out in September, which was crazy. I also gave a lot of keys to the right, you know, obviously. Yeah, sure. Local, local. You're one. You're one. Celebrities. We got some cool celebrities with it, actually. Even Kristi Noem, I actually just presented a key to her.

She's the new secretary of the Homeland Security. It's crazy. That's very cool. Yeah, that was actually really cool. She's very good looking, by the way. Oh, wow. Yeah. You might've noticed. Shocking. Good looking women. Shocking. And very, very, very amazingly put together. I mean, I listened to her speak at a conference and just, just an amazing woman. She's a story. Yeah. All right.

And you bootstrapped this whole business. Bootstrapped. And then we released 1000 more pieces here. So I totally went off track. That happens. So 2024 keys. And then we added an extra thousand because we're a subscription model based.

So each year we want to obviously add a little bit more because we keep about 92% and usually in our other cities, which is Toronto, Montreal, which we'll talk about. Yeah. But yeah, so we have released 1000 new keys this year. So once those are gone, they're gone. Yeah.

And it took building obviously the brand and the polish and the cool factor. Oh, yeah. Believe me. I ain't saying it's easy. And the events. And we do keyholder socials, which are cool. So we actually do host those on our own. So we'll bring keyholders out together and meet other keyholders. But you're right.

We're sort of, I always say this, we're kind of the Uber of hospitality because we just kind of enable people. We create a program and then we send them out. And then the restaurants, obviously, you know, it's a marketing tool really for them. They're bringing in the business from us with our keyholders. And they do the fulfillment, which is great. You're right.

It was important. That was one thing that was funny in Toronto. We used to get businesses when I was younger, and we've been around 10 years there. I wanted to make sure everyone was going to be honored always because it's confusing otherwise, and the brand really for my brand isn't good, and then me marketing your restaurant isn't good because I can't rely on you being cool.

So one of the things that happened back then was, you know, they'd say, well, we don't want to do it on Friday, Saturday. I'm like, no. So the one rule I would always say was you have to honor it at any time. And to be honest, I mean, giving someone a welcome gift when they come in to dine with you and spend their hard-earned money, they get it. You know what I love about Vegas? They get it.

They didn't have to say anything. They just knew. They're like, anytime. It's cool. That's good.

Yeah. Well, I mean, obviously I have a team.

What was your early life like? So I'm from a small town up in Owen Sound, Ontario. So it's about two and a half hours north of Toronto. And that's where I've been living, Toronto. I've been in Toronto for 20 years. But yeah, it's been crazy. So we started, I started a small city. I knew I didn't belong.

I knew I wasn't going to be that guy on the line in the factory, which, hey, some people love it. Some people...

Did your dad work on the line? My dad was actually an engineer for Hydro, which was crazy. Okay, cool. Yeah, that was kind of cool. My mom did like, you know, advertising sales for a local newspaper. So mom was a salesman? Mom was a salesman. But you know what's funny? My dad was the entrepreneur who gave it up for his kids. Really? Sort of his, you could tell his passion.

So he used to take me to sell. He nurtured it. I mean, I sold hockey cards when I was 10. We went to shows and we had tables and he booked it and he saved the money for college for me. And I didn't know that, but he just, he was kind of, he wanted to do it. He opened up to me about it. That was the hustle. Yeah.

He took the safe route. Cause of course you do that when you're having a family. Some people will take the safer and it's okay. Yeah. Yeah.

So were you a guy that got good grades in school? I was, it's funny. I was pretty average in school. I had a gift of like photographic memory. So I would, it's funny. I would study before exams and just obviously ace the exams. But you never did your homework. No, it was pretty.

Right? I do the dummies ones. Cause I used to read the, I used to read the Cole's notes and the dummies, whatever.

He'd be the same way, though. Of course. But we're kind of proof that you can still make it if you don't do the 4.75 points. Yeah, I do.

It's a lot harder to be a self-starter in our business because that's the hardest part, I think.

So you graduated from high school. Did you go to college? Yeah. So I went to college in London, Ontario and Fanshawe, and I didn't go to a fancy university. And then, well, actually I kind of did actually, because in the end I ended up getting hired by Disney, if you can believe it, Disney marketing. They came and recruited me out of school, which was crazy.

I applied, there were like 20,000 applicants. You were in school for marketing. And they went around the country looking for Canadians to represent them. Just because they like that. They figure you're nicer. They just figure you're nicer.

And they look for that. And they also have Epcot. And they wanted marketing input for Canada because they have a Canadian pavilion. Oh, dude. Amazing. Many, many days at the Canadian Pavilion.

No way. Oh, for years. I was in Lake Buena Vista. So right there. Yeah, it's amazing.

Actually, it's Canada's first, actually. Then it ends in Mexico. Not the way. Well, wait. Actually, it depends how you go.

You've got to go left. No, you went.