The Modern Hotelier #80: Building Hospitality Technology with the 4 Key Stakeholders in Mind | with HotelKey
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Steve Carran: Welcome to another episode of The Modern Hotelier. We are coming to you from the Hotel Key booth at Hitech, and we're joined by Aditya Thyagarajan 
The garagian? Did 
Guest: You got that right,
yeah. 
Steve Carran: All right, great. Co founder and president of Hotel Key. Thank you for joining us, Addy. How is Hitech going so far? 
Guest: this is a great, great conference. You know, it's always good to meet clients, partners, friends. it's all sort of connections, the relationships, you see what is happening in the industry, what the brands and clients are looking for. as always, an exciting So 
Steve Carran: Addy, 
give us [00:01:00] a little background about you. How did you get into hospitality?
Guest: Yeah, so my personal background, you know, after I finished my, uh, grad Santa Barbara, I worked for a company called Yardi, which is world leaders in property and asset management software.
And then my co founder, Fareed, and I knew each other since 2004. Fast 2014 15 when we were looking to do a startup. Uh, we were thinking of various ideas and, uh, that's when we sort of looked at the hospitality industry with Fareed's experience at IBM and my experience building a property management software. you know, we dived into bringing innovation with a cloud based technology, into the and that was the genesis of, uh, HotelKey. Which, uh, started as a property management software, but now constitutes an entire [00:02:00] property management platform, where we have our PMS, we have our channel reservation system, which is CRS, our point of sale system called RetailKey, our payments offering called PaymentKey, and many other ancillary 
David Millili: So was there one moment when you remember that when the two of you were like, you've got to do this and you were like, okay, let's launch HotelKey. We want this to be a cloud based system. Was there like that one moment where you're having drinks or out to dinner or something? 
Guest: Yeah, actually what Fareed and I used to do, this was in, uh, San where, you know, all of us know a lot of amazing game changing, generation changing softwares have come from. So we used to go to a little office whiteboard, a bunch of ideas. So actually we had finished meeting. at an office, and we were actually in the parking so the goodbyes took longer, and during that time, we were like, we said, okay, you know, let's do something for [00:03:00] hospitality, and Farid said, okay, let's get the requirements, he will build the software, and I said, okay, I have a few friends in L.
A. who would love to pilot our product whenever we get it working. So that's really what happened. So. We had spent an hour thinking about many ideas and this was the fourth or fifth time we had met, but really the, the, the main, I still remember the decision to go with HotelKey happened in the parking lot while we were saying bye.
So it was like, 
David Millili: That's great, that's a great story. 
Steve Carran: story. 
That's great. So, what were, you know, starting a company isn't the easiest thing you could do.
What were some of the challenges that, kind of, you had in the early days of HotelKey and how'd you overcome those? 
Guest: Yeah, you know, uh, well, the challenges still exist, you know, are different, Different kinds, I 
think, now, with us supporting, you know, close to, uh, eight, you know, enterprises brands in America, probably, [00:04:00] in the U.
S., at least, from a software perspective. The challenges exist today. They're different. I think when we started, the many challenges, the first thing was, you know, we both were first time entrepreneurs, right, getting into an industry which, you know, historically adopts change a little bit slower than other verticals, it was all about, I think the biggest challenge, obviously, right, I mean, you know, in terms of finances, right, how do you the Finances in place to be able to get the right team to build the right, right product.
So, you know, initially it started off as month to month, you know, we were like, okay, you know, this month, this is what we'll try to accomplish. So I think, I think what we did, and if you think about it in hindsight, the good thing was that, you know, we had financial constraints. So we had a short So we said, let's build something and go live in six to seven months.
That I think was good. [00:05:00] As opposed to raising a ton of money and building something for two years before going out, right? I'm not saying that's not the right way to do it or the wrong way, but that's what helped us. So we were able to get in front of hotels very quickly, and then based on their feedback, we would do overnight, you know, code drops, fixes, and continue to learn from the hotels.
I think what happened with us was our challenges of, having a small team, Having constraints actually helped us to build something based on industry feedback so I think for us, it turned out to be the challenges led to a positive outcome. And even to date, we have our innovations track, a certain percentage of items come in from what we believe the market wants, but a majority comes in from what we are hearing from our large brands and about, you know, six to 700 independent hotels.
So. You know, in total, we are about 10,000 hotels [00:06:00] live, and another, I would say, 7,000 to 8,000 contracted So this is a really good, varied group of domestic and global hotels across, like, our smallest hotel would be 8 or 9 rooms, largest could be 3,000 A a lot of the innovation happens from what we hear from our clients.
And that, I think, goes back to the original question. The challenges of having to really get to market first, I think, ingrain that principle in us which is listen to our clients and be able to adapt and enhance our software based on client and market feedback 
David Millili: So I'm going to mix this one up a little bit. So what is your, you know, we're here at high tech. We're halfway on the midway point pretty much of 2024. 2025 is right around the corner. What is your vision for HotelKey moving forward? What are some of the things you'd like to see over the next 6 to 12 months? 
Guest: Yes, I think the first thing for us is, you know, that we have [00:07:00] an opportunity as I said, right, we have close to 10, 000 hotels live, but there are 2 to 3 brands which are still implementing with us.
These brands, one of them is large, you brand. So I think the first thing, you know, if you look at our 12 to 18 month But when we look ahead, you know, three to six years or three to five years, what we look at innovation track is definitely a flexible fintech offering where we are able to provide options such as merchant processing in the future, cloud issuing, Then it would be AI, right? So AI, we just don't look at AI as We want to bring AI first from a support perspective, you know, with sort of close to two million, two and a half million rooms [00:08:00] on our software where we do level one, level two, level three support. I think we want to bring And then we want to bring AI in at the front while. If a front desk agent is having a conversation with a guest, the system should pick it up. In that conversation, the system should understand, oh wow, they want a room ocean this upgrade, right? So I think we want to do that and then take that innovation into We know people move jobs between brands, between different verticals. Somebody from a McDonald's could come in and start working at a Motel 6 or a Red Roof. I 
want to bring in the innovation of being able to train them in a few hours. Instead of the two weeks. We want to bring that innovation in and uh, with the cloud technologies evolving, uh, you know, this entire thing around big, big data, right now we have all this data as we become a dominant player in the industry.
What can we do with that [00:09:00] data to help our says really, but in all of this, you know, we want to continue to keep our products simple, Keep the UI simple. Our mantra is not to over complicate I would say the big thing would be for us, if vision, execution, fintech, AI, and in all of this, we want to bring in material to our clients, which are the brands, their employees who and most importantly, their clients right? And end of the day. Whatever we do, the experience for the guest That is always our end goal.
Even though we may be working with many parties, between us and the guest. the brands, interface with. Whatever we want to do, I think we want to leave a mark in the industry that we made the traveler's [00:10:00] easier, better, more pleasurable. 
Steve Carran: Well, we appreciate you, uh, having us stop by your booth, Addy. I'm really excited to see what HotelKey does in the future and how you incorporate AI. Thank you for having us and, uh, 
it was great 
David Millili: great to 
see 
you. Thank you. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Thank you. 
Steve Carran: right.
Now we're joined by Fareed Ahmad, co founder and CEO of HotelKey. Thank you for joining us, Fareed. How is your high 
tech 
Guest: going? 
Very good. glad to be here. can 
Steve Carran: you tell us a little background about 
yourself? How did you get started in 
Guest: I would say luck. So, I've been a technologist since the beginning of time. I started as an engineer in early 2000s. And Addy and I got together. We started in
2015. Didn't know anything about the industry. And this industry is so helpful that they have taught me everything. And our goal is to teach it back and return the favor. 
David Millili: And how do you believe that cloud [00:11:00] based technology is Then what are some of the unique features of HotelKing? 
Guest: So I think of a cloud based technology is almost as prevalent as cars now, right? So it's like, it is the need of the hours, it's need of the 
day. So it's not more about technology anymore cloud based, it's how you use it.
And this is where we believe we are uniquely positioned and Primarily, we work with, uh, seven hotel chains, almost a thousand independent hotels. And uh, what we, uh, focus is to serving the four stakeholders. And I will go one by one on each one of them. One, number one being the brand that we may work with, right?
What are their goals, to get from a property management Second is owners. Essentially, they're paying the bills for the brands, what they can get out of the system, right? And the third part, [00:12:00] the staff members, they use a system day in, day out, how we can make their lives And lastly, the most important, who pays the bills for everybody?
Guests. Okay, so how they can be recognized more effectively, more efficiently, in a more personal manner. We believe this combination. makes us unique, that we focus on all aspects to make a system versus just staff members, versus just owners,
Steve Carran: So, the PMS is so critical to a hotel. What are ways that HotelKia is helping improve operations side of things on the hotel side, but also the guest experience as well?
Guest: So let's cover the operation part of it, the team members part of it. One of the themes, we are live in almost 8, 000 hotels as of now, and in the next few years we will be almost 20, 000 hotels.
So we have a lot of, lot of data in our hand, and we are not perfect, [00:13:00] okay? But what we have seen is that over user experience, over approach of deployment, over approach of product, has made training, has made training to cut down from multiple weeks, 40 hours, to few hours. So think of it, if you are given a tool and then you are told that you have to go to university to learn for 
two 
weeks, okay, it's like, I feel like you're in 
1970s, 
okay, 
you're opening manuals, right?
The tool needs to be useful within hours and we believe we are the only one who are making this happen. Now, did we make this happen in the lab? No. We learn from We go in the field. We are brave enough to make something new and learn and adapt. 
David Millili: my assumption is most of your clients are transitioning from one system to your system. So what have you learned from your clients during that process that you've implemented into your development and your kind of onboarding and [00:14:00] strategy as you develop moving forward? Very
good 
Guest: question. 
of the things is that human touch is always Okay, I could not and And this is where it comes under, we, we, technology is saying, Ah, we can get rid of all the humans, and we will automate everything, and everything will be happy.
Human touch is essential, So what we should not forget whenever transition occurs, there's a goal for brand, there's a goal for owner, we should not forget our team okay? How we can make it easier for them? Can we make the training, which can be start eight weeks before, in small chunks?
Because they're doing their job also, What can we do on a cut over day to provide them a support which is not only technology support, more emotional Okay, listen to them if they're having an issue, So that's what we have learned and incorporated in the product. And actually a product we call TrainKey, okay, which is in built help in the [00:15:00] application, is the result of that,
okay?
They said, okay, can you give me something where I forgot something? I don't want to go ask somebody, can you give me something that I can, within the application, learn something quick. They click on a button, it walks you through what's happening. So that's what's from the field, nothing else.
Steve Carran: that's incredible.
So, I want to get your opinion on some of the upcoming things that are happening in the industry. Where do you, what upcoming trends do you see that are happening? cloud based side or any trends in the industry that you think are gonna have an impact moving 
Guest: I think if you don't use the word of AI these days, you're not, uh, you're not thinking about upcoming.
I think AI 
is, think of it where internet was in 2000, okay, when I started in industry, Okay, there's so much potential, but as of now, there is so much hype also, So it's very, very important to, distinguish what is real and [00:16:00] what is unreal. And Unreal could be unaffordable technology. Unreal could be, solutioning something that does not matter to team members, owners, brand, and guests.
So you have to do something, at least where we play, those four stakeholders have to have a benefit. You You cannot do something for guests where owner's cost is increasing. You cannot do something for owners where guest's experience is declining. So you have to balance it So we believe we are dabbling in a lot of things, but we take an approach where we want to do AI stuff that is going to equally benefit the four stakeholders, because that's where we are uniquely advantaged against our competitors. 
David Millili: Yes, we talked about, you know, the stakeholders. What are some of the things that HotelKey is maybe doing internally to prepare for those trends moving forward as you grow? I mean. 20, 000 hotels is a big, big number. It's, it's not small. And you guys have [00:17:00] relatively come from a, uh, not unknown, but a smaller organization to really being well known.
So how are you internally preparing for those trends to move forward? 
Guest: move forward? So, 
a book called, What You Got Here Will Not Get You Somewhere Else, right? So we are a big fan of that book, because what got us here was technology, product, focus, and stakeholder. Now we are focused on recruiting. I call my chief recruiter officer.
Okay, okay. Now we need to get the people. Right. Okay, we, to build the organization because we can do it. Okay, and this is again part of our, our industry is so giving. Yeah. Okay, people come in, they join us, they give to the organization, they take the organization forward. So that's one thing. How do we hire talent, grow them, nurture them, make them better than us?
Right. Absolutely. Again, that's one thing. Second thing is specific focus on AI separate team. So the key thing is that what we should [00:18:00] not do is that mix up the main product with something emerging. It, uh, causes two issues. One is a resource conflict. Second is that you can be too early making changes to product, destabilizing your existing So you have to do very incrementally in a very logical manner. and not ignoring it also. So, that's the two things. Internally, we have separated out the Externally, we are focusing on recruiting the right 
Steve Carran: awesome. So everybody's talking about it. AI. Everybody, you know, it's a big topic. You're not talking about it, you're falling behind apparently.
So how specifically are you going to incorporate AI PMS? 
Guest: looking at the four stakeholders again. Yep. Okay, the angle, okay. Let's talk about staff members. most important stakeholder, right? If something takes them X time or X clicks to learn or do something, can we reduce that?
Okay, how do we do process of elimination? [00:19:00] Okay, reduce that. Can AI help If I reduce that, they will be happier users. And when they're happy, what happens? The server will guess constituents better. So they will be happy also. Okay, guess journey will be better. Greetings will be better. Okay, serving to guests will be better, So second constituent solved. After that, if staff members are happy, you can retain them. Meaning, owners are happy. They don't have a retraining cost, they're not recruiting people, and all that stuff, right? Lastly, brand is happy. Because, more guests are coming to your brand. Because it's easier to do business with, and all those So, all four constituents, anything to reduce number of clicks, or a process, Anything to make the guests find you easier and quickly, that's more Sierra side of it. anything to do where guests can be recognized more instantly, more personally, right? Anything to do where [00:20:00] the brand can create more avenue of revenue streams for the hotels, we are open to
David Millili: So looking ahead and looking at really the vision and goals for HotelKey.
What are some of those and what impact do you guys want to leave on the hospitality industry? 
Guest: Oh I
want 
to 
be 
here
in 
100 years, 
Steve Carran: You yourself? That makes 
David Millili: two 
Guest: two of 
David Millili: us,
Guest: Hopefully, 
okay. But uh, overall, I cannot tell you how thankful we are to this industry When we came here we knew nothing. we were taught by the industry, We want to pay it forward. Everybody paid it forward to us. We want to, whether that means hiring the talent, whether that means making it easier for team members, it means extra value for the brand, better services for the owners. Anything that will fulfill, make us go forward in that, we will do that that And our goal is to [00:21:00] basically focus on those four stakeholders and never forget about the most important stakeholder, our 
team members 
David Millili: Love it, love it. This was fantastic. 
Thank you 
for 
letting us stop by 
your booth and 
Steve Carran: talking 
David Millili: us. It is very 
Steve Carran: bright for HotelKey and we're looking to see what you guys 
David Millili: over the next couple 
of years. 
So thank 
you so much. 
This 
was 
fantastic.
Thank 
you. 
Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you