Inside John's Locker

Well, we knew were dealing with people’s vacations and we knew we had to get it right. So we wanted to test every aspect of Owner’s Locker before we launched the service.

I’m always quick to give others credit for good ideas but I want to be selfish this time and say that our beta trial was my idea and I had a lot of people tell me we were crazy to do it. But to make absolutely sure everything could work smoothly we gave the service away to a group of volunteers. But while I will knew it was the right thing to do, I’ve got to say that I had NO idea that it would be SO successful.

I had been playing with the concept of Owner’s Locker for several years when the opportunity came up in my career to just do it. Luckily my wife and family were extremely supportive. I began pouring more and more energy (and money) into Owner’s Locker until it became a full time project. I certainly wasn’t alone—I had a lot of help. I pulled in a lot of people with good ideas and skills to help develop Owner’s Locker. Graphic artists, web developers, brand managers, IT specialists, friends and the inevitable accountants and lawyers.

The business was completely designed and the walls were covered with complicated flowcharts of how Owner’s Locker would work. We were on our fifth version of the website. Custom bar code tracking software was designed and delivered; a manufacturer of the Lockers was lined up. We even knew what type of van we’d use and what the uniforms would look like.

But something was missing. Was Owner’s Locker simply a good idea? Or was it reality? It looked good on paper. It sounded like a good idea. But did it really work? Hmmmmm.

This nagged at me until one morning while taking a shower, it just hit me. We were going to give the service away to a group of volunteers and prove that it was real and that it would work.

Two other important things happened at about this time. I decided that to really do Owner’s Locker properly we would need several investors and I also began to draw up a list of people I could have join me as a partner. Being a lone wolf was not healthy and while I relied on lots of people, I needed to work side by side every day with someone as passionate about Owner’s Locker as I was.

The name that kept coming to the top of my list was Brian Whitt, whom I had met 15 years earlier when he sold me my interest in Disney Vacation Club. That has turned out to be one of the best things ever to happen to Owner’s Locker.

With Brian on board we mapped out the design of the beta trial. These were the goals:

1. Prove that all aspects of Owner’s Locker work.

2. Allow for a low cost, low risk start-up of Owner’s Locker.

3. Establish an operating track record.

4. Collect feedback about Owner’s Locker from actual users.

5. Establish Opinion leaders.

6. Provide guidance on what our education and marketing efforts should be.

While Brian and I thought the beta trial was a great idea, we were about the only people who did. Many people told us we were nuts to just give Owner’s Locker’s service away. They were wrong. Seriously wrong. I’ll describe the beta trial, how we got our volunteers and detail the things we learned soon.