Tommy Nguyen (StoragePug) on Self-Storage Marketing That Wins: Websites That Rent, Reviews That Convert, and the Pug Playbook

Chris Feild (00:00)

So I got twin nine-year-old girls.

I don’t know what I’m gonna do. They are coming off the bus, man, and they are just fired up about something that happened in school. ⁓

You know when your kids are really young and it’s adorable when you hear them curse for the first time and you get to turn to your spouse and say, ⁓ they’re using your favorite word. So, so they come off the bus and I’m not going to mention their names, but the younger one says, I’m just dealing with bitches.

Andrew Rockoff (00:30)

Yep.

Chris Feild (00:42)

I’m just dealing with bitches all day long.

She’s nine.

And then the older one, also nine, older by a minute, gonna cling onto that for the rest of her life, she comes off the bus and after the bus clears, she starts crying.

And thank God I’m only here in the second hand because I’m not ready for emotions like that from the girls. And I’m really worried as to what type of treatment my wife gave her mother as a young woman and how much karma.

Andrew Rockoff (01:23)

Mm-hmm.

Chris Feild (01:27)

is now going to be directed back to her and of course by default affecting me it’s it’s really going to be a bumpy ride from I suppose now what do you say 15 16

Andrew Rockoff (01:43)

What was the radio station that you hosted at college? Just so can introduce you properly this time.

Chris Feild (01:50)

Hahaha

You don’t mean 1610AM WRFT Temple Amblers only radio station. That’s right!

Andrew Rockoff (01:58)

Welcome in your host Chris Field from

Chris Feild (02:03)

was thinking about it this morning because I haven’t talked about that in, you know, 20 years, 22 years.

So, ⁓ I… The show, was on Wednesdays at two o’clock in the afternoon, so I called it the Hump Day Midday Show. And, God, it must have been… That’s right! Two to three!

Andrew Rockoff (02:16)

You

That’s some prime time right there, Chris. Right in between classes.

That’s a solid 10 to 15 while they’re going from class to class.

Chris Feild (02:38)

⁓

I’ll tell you the signal didn’t reach the hallway unless you had the door to the studio open I swear to God

Andrew Rockoff (02:46)

Hey Bobby, you wanna swing that up a little bit? There

we go.

Chris Feild (02:51)

Come on in, let’s play pretend. Let’s play that somebody’s listening to this. Like we’re doing it right now.

Brian (02:58)

How’s that sound?

Andrew Rockoff (03:00)

Fantastic. Brian, you still rocking pants or did you get into full podcast outfit?

Chris Feild (03:01)

Real good.

Brian (03:02)

Nice and crisp.

I did, I kept them on. I was in too much of a rush to take them off.

Chris Feild (03:12)

gotta be chafing a little something though.

Andrew Rockoff (03:15)

No Vacancy is the self-storage podcast that pulls back the roll-up door on the industry’s most outrageous stories, toughest challenges, and unexpected laughs. Hosted by the team at Access Self Storage, each episode brings together real operators, sharp marketers, and off-the-wall personalities to talk about what really goes on behind the gate code, from crazy tenant tales to hard-won lessons in customer service. It’s raw, unfiltered, and a little irreverent.

just like life in storage.

Andrew Rockoff (03:46)

Hey, Tommy, how you

Tommy Nguyen (03:47)

what’s up guys? Andrew? Good man, good to see you guys. Thanks for hanging out with me today.

Andrew Rockoff (03:49)

How’s it going?

Chris Feild (03:49)

Hey, man.

Brian (03:54)

Tommy always brings the juice.

Andrew Rockoff (03:54)

You’ve met both Chris

and Brian, right? Okay.

Tommy Nguyen (03:57)

I believe so, surely. Yeah,

So, ⁓ will y’all be ⁓ posting video too or just audio? ⁓ okay,

Brian (03:59)

choking down at granola bar.

Andrew Rockoff (04:04)

Just audio,

Brian (04:05)

You don’t have to be as careful. Right, right. know, things happen. Scratch an itch. Do what you got to do.

Tommy Nguyen (04:09)

We can pick our nose and…

Yeah, yeah.

Andrew Rockoff (04:18)

So how’s it going?

Tommy Nguyen (04:19)

It’s good guys. excited. I was premature. I emailed Andrew. ⁓ Last week I might be running a little bit late and it turns out I was very early. It was not last Tuesday. It was this Tuesday. So it worked out well.

Brian (04:30)

A whole week early. Nice, nice.

Man, I wish I was that on the ball, that I was like a whole week early to stuff and making mistakes instead of…

Tommy Nguyen (04:42)

It was a rare

occasion just for you guys. I am rarely that on the ball Now all of y’all are up in in Jersey or

Andrew Rockoff (04:48)

You

The two of us with good internet connection are up in New Jersey.

Brian (04:54)

Pretty much.

Tommy Nguyen (04:57)

Chris! Where does that put you, Chris?

Chris Feild (04:58)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

that puts me in the bowels of Pennsylvania somewhere, Tommy.

Tommy Nguyen (05:05)

Well, Andrew, they just got internet six months ago, so, you know.

Andrew Rockoff (05:09)

I’m trying to take it easy

on him, but I mean, come on.

Chris Feild (05:11)

That’s

Tommy Nguyen (05:13)

Ha

Brian (05:13)

⁓

I was telling Andrew earlier Chris that maybe you should look into Starlink.

Tommy Nguyen (05:18)

Honestly, my partner uses Starlink. ⁓ And they don’t even have internet at their house, they just use Starlink. So. There you go.

Chris Feild (05:18)

That’s right, I’m gonna… I hear it’s wonderful.

Andrew Rockoff (05:26)

There you go, Chris.

Chris Feild (05:27)

You

want me get up on the roof for this podcast?

Brian (05:32)

We’ll call Elon for you.

Tommy Nguyen (05:33)

HAHAHAHA

Chris Feild (05:37)

The only reason I need the extra boost is for this. Excellent.

Tommy Nguyen (05:40)

Yes, yes, I love it.

Andrew Rockoff (05:46)

We’ve got Tommy Nguyen from StoragePug, founder of StoragePug, joining us today. Tommy, thanks so much for being with us. We appreciate it. We’re gonna keep it loose like we’ve been, and we’ll see where this takes us.

Tommy Nguyen (06:00)

I’m excited to be here guys, Andrew, Chris, Brian, thanks for having me guys. I think it’s gonna be a fantastic episode.

Brian (06:06)

Absolutely. Glad to have you. Tommy, you’re the pro at this. You’ve, how many gab focus sessions have you guys recorded now?

Chris Feild (06:07)

Thank you so much. ⁓

Tommy Nguyen (06:15)

are

the one that we’re going to have this upcoming Thursday will be our 78th episode. Yeah, and that’s in addition to we’ve also hosted, you know, different webinars and podcasts for the state associations, especially during COVID when everything was shut down. you know, the associations weren’t really prepared for it. So we partnered with a bunch of different states to host their virtual webinars. And honestly,

Brian (06:20)

Amazing.

Tommy Nguyen (06:40)

I think at that time, we will get into it, but I think at that time, people thought Storage Pug was much bigger than we were. Just because they kept seeing our name everywhere. Like, you know, in association with like the North Carolina Association, Texas and Pennsylvania and Florida. And it’s like, no, we’re just a few dudes in Knoxville. So we definitely had some fake it till we make it energy in those early days.

Brian (06:48)

Okay, that’s cool.

Chris Feild (06:48)

Mmm.

Andrew Rockoff (07:01)

Yeah

Brian (07:08)

That’s awesome. I’m sure Andrew loves that. That means great marketing somewhere along the line. Somebody nailed some great marketing. So how did the brand name come to be?

Andrew Rockoff (07:11)

Yeah, there it is.

Tommy Nguyen (07:19)

So we were in my partner’s basement and we had decided by then we had decided we’re gonna be a company, right? And so, well, of course when you have to have a website and you have to have a logo, of course, right? And so we were in his basement, Matt, and we’re like, what are we gonna call ourselves? And we looked around the industry and the industry is pretty clinical, right? It’s a lot of self storage, a lot of like,

very not fun names. And so we’re like, let’s be something more interesting.

Brian (07:52)

You can say it like access

self-storage. It’s okay. Look, I love it, but it does stem from, you know, wanting to be at the front of the yellow pages in the A section back in the day.

Tommy Nguyen (07:56)

You know, two on the nose. It’s a great name.

Andrew Rockoff (07:58)

Our name is Great Brian.

Tommy Nguyen (08:05)

You know what? I love that. That

Andrew Rockoff (08:07)

Absolutely.

Tommy Nguyen (08:08)

is knowing how to market well. So shout out Access. But ultimately, we decided, you know what? Let’s be a dog-themed company because dogs are fun. Everyone loves a dog. And so we looked up a list of breeds. And my partner had just gotten a Shiba Inu puppy named Betty. And we’re like, stored Shiba Inu would be kind of fun. obviously, ⁓ it doesn’t quite roll off the tongue.

Chris Feild (08:29)

Does it roll off the tongue?

Andrew Rockoff (08:30)

doesn’t really roll off the tongue.

Brian (08:32)

Right. There you

go.

Tommy Nguyen (08:33)

And so we looked at the list of breed names. We’re like, pug. It’s three-letter word. It’s short, storage pug. And everyone loves a pug. And then when we Googled storage pug, there was no results, which meant like, awesome. From day one, we can dominate that search. And then the domain was available for $12 on Google domains. And that was it. I think it took us maybe 12 minutes.

Brian (08:54)

Sweet. That’s awesome. That’s a great

Andrew Rockoff (08:57)

I thought it

was gonna come from like one of you having a pug. I thought that was gonna be this great.

Brian (08:57)

story.

Tommy Nguyen (09:02)

Still

to this day, no one has a pug at Storage Pug. We had an HR lady, she, Winona, she, who actually, now she works at the NSA, the National Storage Affiliates. She’s on their HR team over there now. But she had a pug. But that came years later. were well, know, Storage Pug was well established by then. So yeah, none of the founders still to this day have a pug. But it’s in our heart and it’s our DNA.

Andrew Rockoff (09:05)

God.

Tommy Nguyen (09:30)

And I think we were chatting yesterday about branding because we’re rolling out this new thing and we’re talking about branding and then Matt said it’s like, honestly, doesn’t even matter what we call it because we made a company called Storage Pug and here we are. Right? So like when you have companies like Apple and Google and you know, like who cares what the name of the company is as long as you provide good service and you’re good people.

Brian (09:31)

I like it.

Andrew Rockoff (09:48)

Good point. Yeah.

Tommy Nguyen (09:58)

and you have a good product. company, but Pug has been fun because we refer to ourselves as Pugs, the industry refers to us as the Pug, and so it’s taken on its own personality, which worked out. So I’m glad we did choose a name that was easy to personify, if that makes sense.

Andrew Rockoff (10:15)

Yeah. Also great socks and t-shirts. Coming from Pug. Yeah.

Brian (10:16)

Absolutely.

Tommy Nguyen (10:19)

yeah, made it so easy. Yeah.

Chris Feild (10:19)

Yeah. Yeah, I’d like

Brian (10:21)

Yeah.

Chris Feild (10:22)

to get into that a little bit. ⁓ Who does your merchandising? Do you guys have quarterly meetings? I mean, how often do you review that and roll it out?

Tommy Nguyen (10:30)

You know now, our, have

an events manager, yeah, we have an events manager, Garrett now, who’s awesome, and he leads full charge on it now, but in the early days, it was a combination of me and Matt. We would ⁓ order, we would order blank shirts for cheap, like from these stock, you know, from these bulk places. Shout out blankstyles.com. We no longer order from y’all, but we love y’all in the early days, because we couldn’t afford the real shirts.

Chris Feild (10:54)

Hahaha

Tommy Nguyen (10:59)

But we ordered, you know, as nice of a shirt as we could and we would take it to a local printer here in Knoxville and then we’d actually print the shirts. And so we did a lot of like just in the week, like we would just roll up our sleeves and get it done. But nowadays, Garrett, he came from big company called Radio Systems. They do like Invisible Fence, a huge, you know, international company. And so he did a lot of their events and swag.

in his time there and so he had a lot of contacts and so now shirts are way easier, socks are way easier ⁓ and so but yeah so but in those early days it was just a lot of like we just got to figure out how to do this when we don’t have any money and don’t have any people we just got to roll up our sleeves and get it done but now we have a guy named Garrett who manages it all for us and it’s it’s a dream.

Andrew Rockoff (11:52)

these two can attest like every time we’re in person for a podcast recording, I am wearing my storage pug t-shirt. It’s just comfortable. And ⁓ I think I’ve worn it like three or four times when we were in Woodbridge.

Tommy Nguyen (12:01)

Yeah.

Brian (12:08)

Yeah, we

started to make a bit of a joke that it’s Andrew’s podcast uniform.

Andrew Rockoff (12:13)

Yeah.

Chris Feild (12:13)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Tommy Nguyen (12:14)

Dude, I love it. I’ve seen it as now that’s the first as a podcast uniform, but I’ve seen it as workout shirts. I’ve seen it as amusement park shirts. ⁓ People tell you know, I have more grown men sending me pictures of themselves in their socks too. I’ve seen many an ankle ⁓ in my text message. ⁓ Which you know, which is, it’s kind of fun, right? So like,

Andrew Rockoff (12:14)

I love it.

you

Brian (12:33)

You

Tommy Nguyen (12:43)

So if this wholesale storage software thing doesn’t work out, we can pivot as a merchandise company, all day merch. ⁓ but with the socks, so the origin of the socks though, my partner’s dad was the president. I think he was on the commission of the Knoxville airport. So before you get too crazy, Knoxville airport, if you never flown in, it has 12 terminals. So, you know, the president of the Knoxville airport is, is, is modest, right? But

Andrew Rockoff (12:48)

merch, absolutely.

Tommy Nguyen (13:10)

He went to an airport trade show, which I didn’t know was a thing, but he came back with a pair of socks from Cirrus Aircraft, who’s actually, they’re based here in Knoxville as well. And so he’s like, hey, I got these socks. And that was where the idea came from, was like, what kind of monster throws away a pair of socks? They don’t, they’re gonna give it to somebody, they’re gonna put it their sock drawer, or you’re gonna leave it in their desk.

But you know, people are of course, they’re going to throw away notepads and pins and all the other swag, right? And at that time, that’s what we gave away. We had notepads, we had pins, had koozies, all this stuff that no one wants. And so we’re like, you know what, instead of spending any money on these other stuff, we’re only going to spend money on socks and t-shirts. And so that was it. And so that’s, that’s worked out really well. Now we’ve become kind of known for it and it’s gotten crazy. This year in 2025, my design team came up with five different designs. And I don’t know.

Andrew Rockoff (14:03)

I got three of them.

Tommy Nguyen (14:04)

And you got ⁓

Andrew Rockoff (14:05)

Just saying.

Tommy Nguyen (14:06)

And Andrew’s got three of them. And so who knows what in store for next year. And then the shirt. So we made ⁓ a very conscious decision to get the nicest shirt that we could afford. Because we didn’t want because we all get the swag shirts that are a little like crunchy, you know, that you never want to wear. We wanted a shirt that we wanted to wear because at the time, like, you know, we I couldn’t afford to buy clothes. ⁓ So, you know, and so I would want to shirt that. Yeah.

Chris Feild (14:29)

Ha ha ha!

Andrew Rockoff (14:32)

Expense it. I gotcha.

Right on.

Tommy Nguyen (14:34)

So

we got the Toltex Tri-Blend. That’s your secret for the day. You want to go for the Tri-Blend. Totally worth it.

Andrew Rockoff (14:39)

Love it.

Love it.

Chris Feild (14:42)

It’s soft. They’re very

Brian (14:43)

Nice, nice.

Chris Feild (14:44)

soft.

Andrew Rockoff (14:45)

They’re

awesome.

Tommy Nguyen (15:11)

Yeah

Chris Feild (15:11)

Tommy, ⁓ you mentioned rolling up your sleeves and getting the job done. And when I was doing my research about you, that seems to be a theme since you were a young kid. And it seems like you got that from your mom. Can you talk a little bit about your mom? I know she’s owned her own business for a long time. What she means to you and how she shaped who you are and the company that you

run.

Andrew Rockoff (15:35)

Chris just coming in with the Sean Evans hot ones quality question on the first one out of here, dude.

Tommy Nguyen (15:41)

I love it, man. I love it. I love it. Make it

Chris, you did some deep research, man. I love that. No, so we, I’m a first generation immigrant. I came here to the US when I was a kid. I was two, I was a baby. I have a three year old now, which is crazy. And, you know, so was around Vera’s age when we came to America and my mom, she came here with me and her mom, my grandmother and my aunt. And yeah, brand new country, didn’t speak the English, you know, didn’t have the language.

obviously culture, everything, right? So like, she just took this huge risk and her dad was an American soldier during the Vietnam War. And after the war, they didn’t have contact with him. And so I think still to this day, we don’t know who he is.

So after the war, he left and so my mom grew up in Vietnam, had a really rough childhood. You know, I think like poor in Vietnam is another level of poor, right? And so she didn’t, she couldn’t go to school. So she dropped out of school in third grade, went to the markets and helped my grandmother sell whatever they were selling in the markets. And so when my mom had the opportunity to come to America, she took it. And so came here, we landed in Atlanta. And if y’all, many of the audience will remember this,

Atlanta had the big blizzard in 1993, which was our first winter in America. You know, in Vietnam is not, we never, they’ve never seen snow. And not only did we see snow, we saw the blizzard. And so I have pictures where the snow was up to my chin. And so that was, was, know, that was, we all got sick and it you know, it was, it was fun, but also chaos. So anyway, so growing up, single parent household, I have two younger siblings. And so, you know, as the oldest child,

Chris Feild (17:01)

You

Tommy Nguyen (17:23)

you kind of like take on extra responsibilities, you know

When I was a teenager, she took the opportunity to, well, she had to actually. was an opportunity that was forced upon her. She worked at the Levi’s factory in Knoxville, which was cool that we had that, but then of course Levi’s decided to move the operations to Mexico, wherever it is they make jeans now. So she didn’t have a job or education, so she ended up

really, really fighting really hard to get her nails tech license or license to do nails. And so she did that and then eventually worked at a few nail salons. And so yeah, so shout out the nails industry, which is it’s stereotypical. A lot of Vietnamese people fall into that industry and my family was the same. It kept us, it helped my mom buy her first house.

And then her second house and and eventually Chris like you said she ended up starting her own little salon where she owns her own little business and Yeah, she’s still crushing it out there. She lives in Knoxville where we are so I’m still very close to home and still very close to her and But yeah, I think the the what I learned from her is like, yeah, you gotta have grit You know what mean? Like what because there’s no choice, you know, I mean like when you come to a new place

Chris Feild (18:39)

Yeah.

Tommy Nguyen (18:40)

whether or not you speak the language and if you don’t it’s even harder. You gotta have grit. There’s no other option, right? There was not an option, let’s go back to Vietnam. That was never on the table, right? So I think grit was like ⁓ growing, watching and observing that. But the second thing was like, yeah, ⁓ you just gotta figure it out. And I think that was really cool. I’m really glad I was gifted that.

I was able to observe that from my mom. It’s like, yeah, we just got to figure it out. And so that’s bled into every facet of my life, including storage pug, where one of our core values is we make it happen.

I’m, you know, I’m a, because of her, I’m able to do all of those things. And yeah, just very happy and proud to be here.

Brian (19:19)

Tommy, what’s the Vietnamese word for grandma?

Chris Feild (19:20)

I mean that, thank you.

Tommy Nguyen (19:22)

⁓

so noi or ngai is the official term. But we call it Grammy, it’s easier.

Brian (19:26)

Nice, nice.

Andrew Rockoff (19:29)

wrist.

Chris Feild (19:31)

Thank you for sharing that story, Tommy. It’s terrific. And you mentioned the American dream and really without those pictures of men’s ankles, that’s kind of the cherry on top, I think, for the whole situation, ⁓ which is great. It’s great. So you guys made it to Knoxville as a family, ⁓ Knoxville is a large up and coming area in Tennessee.

Tommy Nguyen (19:55)

Knoxville is sneaky in the, we’re home to a lot of really cool companies. For a long time we were the headquarters of Regal Cinemas, headquarters of Pilot of course, which most people know, Clayton Homes, ⁓ Discovery, or Scripps Network was based here in Knoxville before they were gobbled up by Discovery and whatnot. And so there was a lot of cool things happening in Knoxville that,

that I think created a talent pool for really cool people, right? And for the longest time too, cost of living was historically, relative to the rest of the country, very low. I think that’s changed. I think people have figured out Knoxville. The last two or three years, lots of people have moved here. Actually, probably the last five years, our population growth has increased and traffic has increased with it. And supposedly we’re on like the number one or two.

as far as like spots for people to move to in 2026. So y’all should move to Chattanooga by the way. Chattanooga is a great town. So y’all should move there. ⁓ No, kid, ⁓ So yeah, so yeah, right, right. ⁓ No, but I think from a business perspective, I think that’s the, Storage Pugs point of view.

Chris Feild (21:00)

Yeah, you don’t want the carpetbaggers coming down to Knoxville.

Tommy Nguyen (21:15)

yeah having access to to really smart people and in tours and and talent has been a big part of of our growth to get here and so yeah so i i think first foreseeable future if not forever ⁓ on top of that our first official professional soccer team won the champion this sunday this past sunday one knock soccer club yes we

Chris Feild (21:36)

Congratulations.

Tommy Nguyen (21:37)

Yeah, I think this is our third year in the league and we already we do we do. Yeah, they approached us to be a potential sponsor and a couple years ago and we’re like, heck yeah, this is something that we’ve always would love to do. And you know, one of things that I love most about what they’re doing is they have completely reshaped youth soccer in the Knoxville area. They’ve made it affordable. They’ve they’ve made it more organized. And so

Chris Feild (21:37)

You support them pretty heavily, right?

Tommy Nguyen (22:03)

you can’t beat that, right? So now you’ve got really cool extracurricular programs for children from I think as little as three. My daughter, they call it One Knocks Monsters. So she played soccer, played ⁓ is loosely there, but she played soccer this past year. And I think it’s really, really cool thing that they’re doing. So that was easy for us to sponsor and be a part of. And the fact that they won the champion, the finals was a little cherry on top.

Andrew Rockoff (22:12)

Mm-hmm.

Tommy Nguyen (22:30)

Noxo’s got little cool things going on.

Chris Feild (22:32)

Yeah, you you mentioned the culture earlier at Storage Pug. You guys have been named one of the best places to work in Tennessee before. I know your involvement in one Knoxville sporting club is huge and also the Love Kitchen. You guys spend a lot of time there in Knoxville. ⁓ Where did, who’s driving the culture for you guys? And.

How often do you make a choice of culture and your fundamentals over business?

Tommy Nguyen (23:06)

that’s a good question. think that first part of your question is I think it’s everyone, you know, I think like from day one, of course, so much of the culture is is the personalities of the founders, right? Like that’s just how it is anyone who starts a business or anyone who’s part of a young growing business. ⁓ The lines are very gray and murky between personal and business, right? So like, how I choose to run my day is how I choose to run the business, right? And so

We realized that there were a lot of commonalities between Matt, Richard and myself, but also differences. And so we agreed on what was common and we embraced the differences. so, you like I mentioned earlier things like we make it happen was a core value. It makes us happy to make you happy is another core value. But these are just things that that’s just how we lived our lives, you know? So like that was it was easy to create those corporate values because that is just who we are day to day. And so there’s not like a

We didn’t have a board meeting where we sat around the board table and said, what’s going to motivate people? And I know this is actually who we are. And we hope it motivates people. That’s great if it does. But even if it doesn’t, this is who we are. This is how we choose to run the business. Right. So that bleeds into, think, the second part of your question is like, how often are we making decisions that are culture versus business? And I think life for us, the culture piece is the business. You know, we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have people who believed in the way that we believed. And we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t feel like

Chris Feild (24:25)

Hmm.

Tommy Nguyen (24:31)

that we didn’t believe on taking care of people ⁓ one of the cool things that we chose to do when we sponsored one knocks is like you know what what’s our slogan right as you know you imagine right the audience the who people who watch the the soccer games very likely not storage owners know right real very likely not our target demographic however well i’ll get who is gonna watch and so we decided to go with love where you work as the slogan on the thing so

someone sees that in their interest that they Google the purple pug and they find storage pug and they find their journey to us. And I think that that was a very conscious decision that we made. And so we wanted to create a work environment that where people, yeah, they felt, of course they feel respected, they feel loved and they feel cared for. And if they feel that way, then they can provide their best work, whether they’re in marketing or sales or support or product development design.

They can, you we want this to be a place where we can foster our people’s energy and foster creativity and foster an environment we all cared for each other and our clients and the product, right? And so to me, yeah, we have, the culture decisions are business decisions. There’s never a situation where I think like we would choose money over anything else. In fact, we probably have…

not taken on. I think there probably been, I can count on at least one hand, where there were monetary decisions we made that didn’t add to the bottom line because it was against the grain or it was against what we believed in.

Andrew Rockoff (26:05)

love the testing of something. I always love testing something new from a marketing standpoint, but your ability to recognize that a soccer team probably isn’t gonna go directly to storage owners, but to still make it engaging by saying, love where you work, or some kind of a tagline that speaks to the masses and still drives interest and has people

intrigued about what this might be about like that was that’s that’s cool. That’s very cool. We did our

Tommy Nguyen (26:34)

Yeah, no, I’ve had

multiple people ⁓ email me and text me that they saw that and they loved it and even my doctor I saw my doctor yesterday and she was like hey I saw your I saw y’all’s game on TV because it was it was I guess was on ESPN Which I think is kind of cool and she said yeah, we saw I saw storage bug and I saw y’all slogan and she loved it So so yeah, I think to your point. Yeah, it’s getting out to the masses and it’s a different message

It’s not one that’s going to help us grow our business from a revenue point of view, probably, but definitely one that’s going to help us attract really cool people

I think honestly, I’ll say this, we don’t, and y’all know this, cause y’all run, you know, y’all been part of access for many years and you don’t often have time to reflect on the current state, right? So much of our energy is like, what’s next? Or, shoot, what happened last quarter, right? It’s like, you’re caught between the future and the past and you don’t really get to like savor the present. I think this version of StoragePug is the first time that I actually got to like savor and like appreciate what we’ve built.

Right? Like the last quarter, the last three months, it’s just been really cool to kind of sit back and say, yeah, we got really cool processes. We got really cool people. Our product is super solid. And like we actually get to like enjoy it and appreciate and savor it. Right? And that gets me so gung-ho and excited for next year and what we’re about to roll out and, you know, new cool features and product lines and initiatives and all these kinds of things. And yeah, but this is the eight years in, this is the first time where I got to like

Slow down enough to like smell the roses as they say. And ⁓ so yeah, that part has been a personal joy for me. Honestly, yeah, it’s really just this last three months that things have slowed down enough for me to appreciate it.

Andrew Rockoff (28:10)

it

Brian (28:10)

Absolutely.

So which of those exciting new things on the horizon for next year do you want to highlight for us? What are you excited about for the next version of Storage Puck?

Tommy Nguyen (28:28)

Yeah, so there’s no-

The

next big thing is, and I can’t announce it here, so I can’t drop the exclusive with you, Brian, but I’ll give you all the details. I’ll give you all the details around it. ⁓ There’s gonna be a backpack and there’s gonna be a pug, but we’re rolling out a brand new education platform. And I think it’s awesome. Hopefully y’all will have me back when I’m ready to announce it. I can do an exclusive announcement right here.

Brian (28:41)

All good.

Andrew Rockoff (28:41)

Come

on, Tommy.

Somebody jot, we’re recording. We got it. Okay. Exclusive, exclusive drop right here.

Tommy Nguyen (28:58)

⁓

Brian (28:58)

Awesome.

Tommy Nguyen (29:04)

Exclusive driver here, but no, I’m excited. ⁓ But what we’re gonna roll out, think, is hopefully ⁓ change the way that operators learn to operate their businesses. So, so much of the content out there, and y’all know this, is geared towards development and investors, right?

Here’s how you get in the industry, here’s how you build your first facility, here’s how you buy your first facility, here’s how you raise money. So many, I don’t say gurus, but so many tools and platforms out there that help that part of the audience. There are very few limited options for someone who just wants to run their business better. How do I get more reviews for my business? How do I do collections better? How do I train my managers, right? There’s not a lot of programs out there

for that kind of operator. And so now, it’s not that they don’t exist, it’s just they’re not totally accessible. So we’re hoping to make it totally accessible. So we’re gonna do premium free content where we partner with industry players who know how to run, who know how to do their stuff. And so for example, and I’m gonna pitch this to Access eventually, so I might call up Andrew and say, hey Andrew, can I find my film crew out to Access to one of your stores?

and actually learn how y’all operate. So we can create a course. Now you follow me, right? So can we create a course from this is how Access operates. And so now it’s a course that’s out there and I don’t want to put Access on the spot, but how cool would it be to contribute to other people running their business better, right? And so that’s our whole idea is we want to help 10,000 storage operators run their businesses better. And we want to do so when we start with education.

In early 2026, we’re rolling out a brand new education platform.

Brian (30:54)

think it’s awesome that you guys are doubling down in that direction. ⁓ I wanted to bring it up today at some point in the course of this conversation and mention that I just really love what you guys do with the Gab Focus and not even just those sessions that are recorded for people to tune into and participate in, but also on your website, all the available free resources that you have for folks to just improve their operations.

Started my career myself in operations running a single property and you know have have grown to lead teams of managers and I just think you have so many resources available that I I’ve pointed multiple managers in the direction of your

library, so to speak, of information. you know, and I regularly will send out links to your gab focus sessions and be like, Hey, this is a great topic. ⁓ You know, everybody can use a refresher, even if you’ve been in the business for 20 years, or, you know, you’ve got the newer hires on board, we’ve got, you know, managers that have been with us for not as long that I think tons of great takeaways, great exposure to people who know, you know, who have been successful who know what they’re talking about. So

Kudos to you guys for investing the time and energy, right? I know that that’s not directly monetized for you guys. You’re not charging an entrance fee to your Gab Focus sessions. And I just think it’s an awesome thing that you guys do. And it really, to me, is so in line with the generosity of the storage industry of information, right? People are really willing to share their knowledge. And I think that that’s a great thing that you guys are doing.

Tommy Nguyen (32:30)

Dude, heck yeah, that is so spot on and that warrants my heart so much, everything you just said. Our thoughts is like, yeah, if everyone is running their business better, everyone’s gonna win.

Over the years, over the last five years, we’ve had over 2,500 individual people show up to Gap Focus, which is a really cool stat for us.

And that doesn’t include people who listened to it and watched replay. We’re talking 2,500 people who attended a live episode. And our goal with this new program, this new initiative is, we want to reach 10,000 operators and even go from there. So, but Brian, everything you said is awesome, man, and I appreciate you sharing that.

Andrew Rockoff (33:08)

And did I hear a new piece of merch? Did you say backpacks?

Tommy Nguyen (33:14)

Yeah, so there’s a backpack and a pug somewhere that’s going to be involved. We call it backpack pug and that will make an entrance at some point in early 2026.

Andrew Rockoff (33:28)

Can I place a pre-order?

Chris Feild (33:29)

There is

no way that you’re gonna get one of those backpacks at the SSA show. You would have a better time trying to get a one-knox jersey with the bug on it. There’s no way that they’re giving that away to you.

Tommy Nguyen (33:37)

Ha

Andrew Rockoff (33:39)

Now I’m gonna get it.

Tommy Nguyen (33:46)

I love it. love it. I love it. Just teasing it out there.

2026 is going to be a big year for hopefully for storage bug, but I think it’s gonna be a big year for the industry. think I think people have grappled with, you know, the post covid demand, right? That golden era. I think people have grappled. This is what the is what it looks like now. And I think people are finally okay with it. You know, it was like the several stages of grief and where

And we’re like, okay, you know what? This is the new normal for us. In fact, the new normal is still better than it was in 2018. we should be, you so I think people are finally coming around to this is what the environment looks like. I think, you know, on one hand, it’s challenging, but on the other hand, the challenge is fun because now the people who operate well are going to stand out. It’s going to be really obvious.

Andrew Rockoff (35:09)

So for the people who may not know StoragePug, and correct me if I’m wrong, Tommy specializes in websites, Google business profiles. You guys offer a beautiful dashboard that makes everything really easy to understand. Is there any?

thing that I’m missing from that, are kind of like your specialty areas, right?

Tommy Nguyen (35:30)

What? Yeah,

you know we are hiring for sales. Andrew, if you want to come and do demos as a living. ⁓ That was perfect the way you described it. Yeah, so yeah, so we build we build websites. You know what I like to say for storage operators is we make you look good and we help you rent units. That’s it. Everything in between is all is all the details for an operator that matters to you. But ultimately those are the two deliverables.

Andrew Rockoff (35:38)

Well…

Hahaha

There you go.

Tommy Nguyen (35:57)

I’m gonna make sure that your website represents your business and makes sure you look awesome. And then number two, when customers find you, I wanna make it so easy for them to rent that they, would they go anywhere else? One, it’s gotta be as easy as Amazon. And so that’s what we hope to have built.

You know, the current version of the platform looks quite a bit different than it did in 2017, as you can imagine. And it’s kind of cool to see that progression, right? Because at every stage, I always tell Ana, who’s my director of design, like, whoa, this is awesome. Right? But then she does it again six months later. And we’re like, yeah, this is awesome. That was trash. No offense. Right? But like, you know, it’s that continuous improvement. And so was really cool to see.

what we’ve done there. And then yeah, to your point, we have an insights dashboard where basically, how I like to explain it to folks is it’s like Google Analytics, but just for self storage. And a lot of operators don’t have either never logged into Google Analytics or too scared to log in because there’s so much going on. We kind of like make it so simple. like, these are the metrics that you should actually care about. Your conversion rate, what units people clicked on.

How long they were on your website what you know what device they came from? What pages were important to them and we kind of distill that down to the it to help you focus on what matters at the end of the day and so we think that’s that brings value and I think the other component of work with storage plug is Sure, we give you a website that looks good helps people rent units But we also want to be your partner in the sense that most of my clients don’t have an in-house marketing person The vast majority of my clients don’t have an Andrew rock off

who lives and breathes marketing, right? And so most operators actually depend on StoragePug as their marketing person. And so we want to be a good guide and a good steward ⁓ and point them in the right direction and get them set up for success.

part of working with storage. Probably, yeah, you actually get an expert now who can steer you hopefully in the right direction for all things marketing.

Andrew Rockoff (37:54)

Yeah, and your team does an awesome job of even working with another, in our case, we have another agency that offers the other services that you guys don’t. And you’re able to have those so you can see paid coming through in your dashboard. You can see all these other things. And it’s all in one place. And it is, like I said, very easy to understand. So it’s been awesome. And you had just mentioned

Tommy Nguyen (38:01)

yeah.

Andrew Rockoff (38:22)

website design before and that was my next question is, you know, where do you, and you also mentioned Amazon, so it was a perfect segue. So where do you see website design and functionality moving in the coming years? what are your thoughts on that?

Tommy Nguyen (38:38)

Yeah, so what’s cool, kind of funny is Alex, you know Alex, right? Alex is our senior product specialist and he’s been with us for going on six years. But he sent me this video that we recorded in 2017. And in that video, my call to action was to convince storage owners to offer online rentals. That was the main thesis of this video was like,

y’all should offer online rentals. We promise it’s going to be worth it. That was only, I know, right? That was eight years ago. And so now, obviously, I think today our industry has very much adopted online rental capabilities, right? So heading into 2026, that’s is not going to be the trend. I think what will be the trend is easier online rentals. One of the things that we’ve noticed over the last few years of doing this is as more operators have taken their business online,

Brian (39:09)

how far we’ve come.

Tommy Nguyen (39:35)

What they’ve done is they’ve actually made it harder for consumers. They’ve added more steps to the process. And again, I’m gonna call out one of the REITs, Extra Space. Now, they’re very successful, don’t get me wrong. I have no qualms about them as far as how they run their business or anything like that. My specific commentary is with their online rental flow. Check it out if you haven’t done it in a while. If you’re an audience member, if you’ve not rented from Extra Space, it.

I think Extra Space can rent more units online if they simplify their process. Now, I understand why, from a business logic, why they do it that way. They collect a lot of information, there’s legal stuff, there’s compliance stuff. They also want to streamline the process for their managers. But this is why I think independent operators, so Extra Space, you can stop listening now. This is where I think independent operators have the advantage here. If we make our online rentals process easier.

It just means there’s a little bit more work to do on the manager side. Well, we can do that. We can train our managers because we pay our managers better. We take care of them. We train them. We got them going on. And so if I make the rental process easier for customers, I’m going to get more customers. Period. That’s a very simple hypothesis. And we’ve tested it. We have clients today who rent a unit online with a credit card with only name, email, phone number, nothing else. And the rest of the information happens after the fact.

Right? So I’m sharing some secrets here, but I think I would love the industry that to follow suit is like, why not do that? Right? So compare your process with the REITs and I picked on extra space, but public and Cuba the same way. It’s a very complicated rental process, complicated in the sense that they require a lot of information from the buyer. Our hypothesis is that if you ask for less, you’re going to get more.

Andrew Rockoff (41:24)

Chris or Brian, you want to do, you want to go through our lightning round?

Brian (41:29)

We’re all waiting on Chris’s lag here. seeing, you’re doing all right, Chris? You’re doing okay? That’s all right.

Chris Feild (41:30)

Yeah, yeah, sorry about that. Yeah, I’m hanging in

there. hanging in there. All right, Tommy, you ready? Here we go. What’s morning beverage of choice? Caffeine.

Tommy Nguyen (41:41)

Let’s rock and roll, baby.

You know, this week has been ginger tea, but usually it’s just a glass of water.

Andrew Rockoff (41:54)

That’s it? You have this kind of energy with a glass of water?

Chris Feild (41:55)

Fair enough, fair enough. Water, very pure, easy.

Tommy Nguyen (41:56)

Dude, caffeine makes

me jittery. can’t drink coffee. I get so jittery all day. I don’t like that feeling. So yeah, all this energy is all natural.

Andrew Rockoff (42:07)

Next.

Brian (42:08)

Yeah.

Andrew Rockoff (42:10)

Next time we see you in person, we’re gonna get a cup of coffee. I wanna see what this looks like.

Brian (42:10)

Awesome. That’s awesome.

Poor guy.

Tommy Nguyen (42:15)

See what this looks like when

we caffeinate it, yeah.

Chris Feild (42:17)

Sounds like a terrible idea.

Andrew Rockoff (42:20)

I’m

Tommy Nguyen (42:21)

I’ll say this, on road trips, on road trips, like if I’m driving for six hours, I might grab like a Monster, just so can stay awake. But yeah, so my morning beverage though is glass of water, but this week I’ve been drinking ginger tea, because I’ve got some kind of bug thing for my kids.

Brian (42:40)

winter thing happening

here.

Chris Feild (42:42)

Gotcha,

gotcha. All right, so holidays are coming up. Favorite holiday song and favorite holiday movie.

Tommy Nguyen (42:50)

Ooh, favorite holiday song and movie. It’s from the same movie. ⁓ Elf is the favorite holiday movie. And I love the Will Ferro and Zoe Deschanel, I think that’s how you pronounce it, maybe it’s Code Outside rendition, one of my favorites. So that specific rendition of that song is my favorite holiday song. Yeah. Yes.

Chris Feild (43:05)

Yeah.

Brian (43:06)

Yeah.

good one good choice sung in a bathroom that’s the way to do it

Chris Feild (43:13)

Great choice, great choice.

All right, ⁓ first concert ever attended and most recent concert.

Tommy Nguyen (43:20)

Hahahaha

mmm first concert I think I was in sixth grade no I was in fifth grade maybe fish they came into Knoxville and I did I was not I know I was not a fish enthusiast I I was you know barely listen to music at that age but my neighbor’s dad my neighbors my neighbor was my friend his dad took him to a concert and took me along with them and it was fish I was called Knoxville had a concert series called sundown in the city

Chris Feild (43:35)

Yes!

Tommy Nguyen (43:56)

So that was my first concert ever. I didn’t remember much of it, but it was Phish. And the most recent concert, I want to say, was Amos Lee. So it’s been a while, but he came to Knoxville and played at the Bijou Theater, and I think that actually is my most recent concert. It’s been a minute since I’ve been to one, but Amos Lee was the last one. I’m fairly certain that was the last one. no, no, I take it back. We saw Ed Sheeran. I took my wife to see Ed Sheeran in Nashville, Tennessee.

uh… so it’s sharing those most recent uh… that was such a show i was a heckin show uh… dude i mean the man is a one-man band he makes all the sounds himself uh… so you have you never seen it here live where you like his music or not i think you would have a fantastic time at a show uh… cia ed sheeran was actually the most recent

Andrew Rockoff (44:28)

He was my most recent too.

Chris, I got one real quick. All right, so before you’re going up on stage to speak at a conference, what is blasting in your AirPods? What kind of music do you have getting you ready to do this? Aside from a glass of water, which I don’t even understand, what’s happening here that’s ⁓ getting you going?

Chris Feild (44:50)

Nice, nice, I’ve heard, yeah go ahead.

Tommy Nguyen (45:01)

oooo

Yeah.

Brian (45:09)

Hahaha

Tommy Nguyen (45:10)

Yeah, so there’s a song I’ve

been listening to non-stop. ⁓ And if I were, you in Snowmass, it’d probably be the song, it’s by Callie Uchis. ⁓ And the song’s called All I Can Say. And I don’t know what about it. It just feels so retro, it feels like a 50s song. ⁓ And I didn’t even know who Callie Uchis was until the song dropped. And so,

Right, and I’ve just been listening to that song like non-stop. ⁓ Yeah, so I would say Cali, that one will probably be what, I anticipate that my, you know, in January, my older version, we’ll probably still listen to that one. Let me see, and then if it’s not that, ⁓ I do have some oldies and some classics that I always go to. So something that I, Jesus Etc. by Wilco.

Andrew Rockoff (45:42)

I still don’t know who that is.

Tommy Nguyen (46:08)

is another one that like is I always go back to that one. I’m looking at my playlist now. Some Bonnie Vare, nothing wrong with that. And then if I’m really trying to get hyped up Bonnie ⁓ The like the disco band back in the late 70s 80s. So my mom had a cassette tape of Bonnie in ⁓ growing up and that’s what we had. That’s what we listened to.

Chris Feild (46:15)

great album.

Tommy Nguyen (46:35)

And so that yeah, if I’m trying to get jazzed up Bonnie is probably what I’ve got blip on my AirPods.

Chris Feild (46:41)

Nice, nice. Great answer. Great question, Andrew. The last question I have, according to your bio, you were a neighborhood nerd. So my question is, once a neighborhood nerd, always a neighborhood nerd? And just to follow up, know, a neighborhood nerd, correct me if I’m wrong, is someone who will come to your house and fix your IT problem. So if you are, for the folks out there who need a neighborhood nerd,

Brian (46:41)

Love it.

Tommy Nguyen (46:46)

Great question.

Yes.

Chris Feild (47:10)

You may have a CEO, that’s right, yeah, like internet, like my internet, I’m calling them right now. You may have a future CEO at your doorstep coming to fix your issue, right? Do you owe a lot to the neighborhood nerds, Tommy?

Andrew Rockoff (47:10)

like internet.

Tommy Nguyen (47:27)

I love that. I love that. love that. Yeah. Once a neighborhood nerd, always a neighborhood nerd. That is very true. However, I have hung that cape on the wall. I will not be coming to your house to fix your printer problems or your internet problems.

Brian (47:40)

You

Tommy Nguyen (47:42)

⁓ But I’d love that question Chris

Brian (47:49)

Perfect timing, I think he just fully dropped off. It’s done, it’s just done.

Tommy Nguyen (47:53)

Hahaha!

Andrew Rockoff (47:56)

Maybe one more Tommy for old time’s sake. Give him a visit.

Brian (48:00)

Maybe just one more

go go help our friend Chris. He needs a hand clearly

Tommy Nguyen (48:01)

Yeah.

Yeah, I’ll hop on the next flight to Pennsylvania. ⁓

That’s crazy. Yeah.

Brian (48:09)

Alright Tommy,

so ⁓ where can our listeners find you? Where’s the best way to reach storage bug?

Tommy Nguyen (48:14)

I’m pretty easy to find. I

respond to emails, Tommy at storagepug.com. I respond to text messages, 865-406-8773. And I’m on LinkedIn, Tommy Nguyen. Last name is spelled N-G-U-Y-E-N. Or you search for storagepug, you’ll see me. For better or worse, storagepug has put me as the face, and I continue to be so. So you will find me there.

So yeah, text me, I’ll answer, email me, I’ll respond and find me on LinkedIn.

Brian (48:47)

Awesome man, well ⁓ like we said earlier, know, ⁓ every industry I think can be, you know, has its stuffy elements. So thanks for doing what you do and being the exact opposite of that. ⁓ You are a breath of fresh air. You’re a fun person to hear speak and talk to. Your energy is contagious. So ⁓ I appreciate you taking the time to join us today and look forward to seeing you at the next one.

Tommy Nguyen (48:58)

Mm-hmm

Thank you guys. Appreciate your time.

Brian (49:14)

Thanks a lot, Tommy,

Andrew Rockoff (49:15)

Thanks,

Speaker 2 (49:15)

Thanks for listening to No Vacancy. If you liked what you heard, our episodes are available wherever you find your podcasts.