What was your first job in the hospitality industry?
I had some connection to the industry from an early age because of my parent’s business. However, I had other plans and pursued a PhD in financial mathematics. After graduating, I spent fifteen years developing trading algorithms for hedge funds.
If I were to ever fully transition into a hospitality role, I’d love to work in bars. I’ve always been drawn to creating a community and engaging in meaningful conversations with people.
What triggered you to start your company?
Creating technology for the hospitality industry was the last thing on my mind. At least until I saw how my father sometimes struggled to secure bookings for his independent hotel on the Isle of Wight. I drew from my understanding of trading and building algorithms to realize there should be better ways for his property to compete with others in that destination.
I initially searched for existing products to meet his needs but discovered nothing but their absence. I went on Facebook and asked if anyone knew any hotel owners I could talk to about the issue. Those conversations with hoteliers helped me better understand their approaches. I also discovered the reality of the hotel revenue management industry: existing solutions were too complex and costly for smaller properties like my father’s.
What is the story behind your company?
When I saw my dad’s hotel struggling, I felt like I had an opportunity to help him out. I recognized that I could leverage my background in trading algorithms and use those skills to price room rates more effectively. That proved to be the inspiration for RoomPriceGenie.
Instead of relying on complicated algorithms that needed tons of historical data, which he didn’t have, I had to think about what other data options could be used by independent hoteliers like my dad. That’s when I realized that competition data was the perfect basis for a solution that could then be improved on with internal data.
I saw that creating an algorithm that analyzed a property’s position versus the competition based on room rates would bring several advantages. It would also be an easy way for hoteliers like my dad to understand how to update their rates to maximize bookings and revenue. In 2017, I met my two co-founders, Marvin Speh and Jörg Siegel. They’d join me in building RoomPriceGenie.
Developing the algorithm was the easy part. Making it accessible and user-friendly was the real challenge. I wanted RoomPriceGenie to be intuitive enough for anyone to use, even if they weren’t experts in revenue management. We needed to put ourselves in their shoes and design a simple yet powerful solution. Before we signed our first clients, we offered the solution, at no cost, to different properties to obtain feedback on possible improvements.
It took about a year and a half to get everything up and running. With the help of experts like Gianluca Marongiu from Swiss Hospitality Solutions and Scott Dahl, a professor of revenue management at the EHL Hospitality Business School in Lausanne, we were able to fine-tune RoomPriceGenie into the game-changing tool it is today.
What does your company solve?
At RoomPriceGenie, we’re all about solving one of the biggest challenges independent hoteliers face: setting the right prices. For independent hoteliers like my dad, who don’t have a background in revenue management, pricing rooms can be a real headache. However, getting a machine that can reliably automate what you want is difficult, even for people with significant experience in revenue management.
Our system automates the pricing process, taking the guesswork out of the equation and helping hoteliers maximize their revenue without all the additional work. It’s designed to be so user-friendly that non-experts can use it easily, and experts can have all the necessary flexibility. We’ve worked hard to ensure that our pricing suggestions aren’t just accurate, transparent, and easy to understand.
At the end of the day, we want to make life easier for hoteliers so they can focus on what they do best: providing amazing experiences for their guests. Or take their well-deserved holidays without worrying about setting their room rates.
What challenges did you face while developing and launching your technology? How did you overcome them?
Attracting the first client who trusted our solution. We didn’t have any customers for the first year and a half. And all the financial burden rested squarely on our shoulders. Looking back, my initial timeline for success was way off. It took longer than I expected. I had moments of doubt and existential worry during that period. And just when things seemed to be on a good path, the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
One thing remained constant: faith in the potential of our solution. I knew that it would work out if we stayed the course. In these moments, you can’t quit – you need to see it through. Securing investments was a turning point. Our team and early clients shared my optimism, providing invaluable support and encouragement along the way.
Who were the people who have been the most helpful in getting you to where you are today? How did they impact your life and your success?
I’m grateful for so many people. Many gave me responsibility, sometimes where it was a big leap of faith, and that shaped my outlook and belief in what’s is achievable. I can’t list them all but my parents had a huge impact in this respect. There were teachers at King Alfred School in North London, and its ethos was My PhD supervisor, my first real boss, and many more.
My experiences shaped our ethos of shared leadership. We want everyone in the company to feel the same sense of trust and ability to take risks that I felt growing up: making mistakes, learning from them, and feeling ownership of their job and life. I hope that one day, they look back on their time here and think that it gave them a little extra confidence, helping them to achieve their goals in life.
How do you balance the traditional touchpoints of hospitality with technology?
RoomPriceGenie empowers hoteliers to dedicate more time to enhancing the guest experience and attending to their needs by taking pricing decisions off their shoulders. This doesn’t mean replacing traditional hospitality practices. It complements them by streamlining operations and freeing up resources.
Our solution may not directly involve traditional touchpoints like customer service, but its impact is felt throughout the guest journey. RoomPriceGenie indirectly enhances the future guest experience by increasing revenue and optimizing pricing. Our goal is to provide hoteliers with the tools they need to succeed in an increasingly competitive industry.
How do you stay up-to-date with the latest trends and advancements in the hospitality industry and technology? How do you incorporate them into your product roadmap?
We engage industry partners in ongoing dialogue to exchange insights. As for the product roadmap? We prioritize client communication, actively seeking feedback on their experiences with our solutions. We can make the biggest impact by understanding their requirements and tailoring our product development to their needs.
How will technology change the hospitality industry over the next five to ten years? Where do you see your company fitting into that future?
More hospitality solutions will increase accessibility, scalability, and efficiency by transitioning to cloud-based platforms. Integration between hospitality systems will grow thanks to a proliferation of open APIs. Solutions like property management systems (PMS) will consolidate with larger players to gain prominence due to brand recognition and market dominance. This consolidation might result in reduced diversity in solutions compared to the current landscape.
As for RoomPriceGenie, our future goals are to continue simplifying the solutions, offering more and better functionality, and ensuring that our pricing remains as high-quality as possible no matter how the market evolves. That’s our raison d’être, and because of that singular focus, we can give our clients the most ROI possible on an ongoing basis.
