$>>$ Mya: When I started, I had myself and my Brooklyn and the guy who poured coffee at the coffee shop. And within probably three or four months, I ask Bram to come on$,$ and he was at least helping out in his spare time. He came on$,$ I think it was nine months into the company, officially, and became a part$-$owner with me$.$ And then it was, I guess, December of that year $--$ so now we're talking maybe a year and a half, where we decided to expand to three more cities. So we hired six more people. And then very shortly after that, we realized that we couldn't run New York on our own. We needed a New York manager, so we hired a New York manager. So at full capacity, like six months ago, we were at nine people, full$-$time. And then we had like $50$ part$-$time guys who ran all the events for us on weekends.

$[$ Music $]$

$>>$ Bram: When people are excited about something, they'll do virtually anything. We had employee across the country working for us for virtually no income and no stability, merely because they enjoyed what we had to offer, and they were having fun.

$>>$ Mya: It sounds so cheesy, but I think it was really the passion and everyone's belief that this was going to work. And even if it didn't work, the belief that this was so worthwhile. I think we gave everyone a lot of ownership in their cities. We said, "Okay, every time you want to run a trip, you run it by us$.$ And we talk about it$,$ and we see if it works, and we see if it makes sense, and we see if it will sell." And then within a few months, I was like, "Okay, if you know it's going to work, don't come to us$,"$ you know? Like "You got this." Luckily, nothing ever really went wrong. And every trip that wasn't perfect, we'd take as a learning opportunity, and we thought that everyone really became better because of them. And so we let them make a couple mistakes here and there, and we said, "This is your baby. You're going to grow it$.$ You're going to see it$.$ And it's going to feel good, because you're going to go to your happy hours, where you invite all the people who come on your trips, and you're going to see a hundred people there. And it's going to feel awesome to know that you helped these hundred people get out of the city. And I think that for a year, that was definitely enough feel. And then we gave everyone equity. A little bit of equity, but it vested after their first year.

$>>$ Bram: So if events were able to be profitable for the business and in brand with the business, then they'd be compensated for that. If somebody is working with us purely to get rich, I$\text{'}$m guessing they've made a poor choice. The idea was to really motivate the employees in the satellite cities to take ownership of the concept, to think about Urban Escapes in their city as not just a plan for, "This is what you need to do$,$ but think about, "Here's the brand, here's what we're trying to develop. Now take it and formulate what you think would be best and run with it$."$

$>>$ Mya: I think at the rate that we were growing, it's hard to lose enthusiasm, because the second that you lose enthusiasm with one part of it$,$ three more parts open up$.$ So Living Social contacted us$,$ and they said, "Hey, we love what you do$,$ and we think if we all do it together, we can all do it better." And we thought about it for about a day, and we said, $"$We agree. If we can all do it better." So we on the one had were doing the whole acquisition thing, and on the other hand, we mobilized our directors, so there were six of them. And we said, "Hey, we want you guys in New York, ASAP, because we think that we need a central office." And so in about four weeks, everyone $--$ re$-$crafted their whole entire lives, moved to New York and now we've got central office in New York, with the original eight of us$.$ Yeah, I think $--$ a friend of mine once told me that he started his own company because he wanted to pick who he worked with. And I really get that, you know? I love our team, and I loved what they were doing, and I think that mutual respect that we all had for each other was sort of the defining motivation behind that company.