The Modern Hotelier #167: HITEC E20X 10 Year Anniversary & 2025 Winner
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Steve Carran: Welcome to an episode of The Modern Hotelier. We are coming to you from the HITEC Trade Show, sitting down with Entrepreneur 20X folks to discuss. What's happening with E20X and to celebrate the 10th anniversary, now we're joined by Lyle Worthington, the founder of E20X, and Jonathan Rojas, the first winner of E20X Co-Founder Whistle, and now the Global Director of Customer Growth at Cloud Beds. Thanks for sitting down with us, gentlemen. How are we doing today? All good to be here.

Lyle Worthington: Thanks for having us.

David M.: Absolutely. So, Lyle, can you tell us. How this all started 10 years ago. Take us through that.

Lyle Worthington: Yeah, I got elected to the board of HFTP with this idea to really grow technology. I mean, we've always had HITEC. It's a big show. It's a big thing that HFTP does, but I thought we need to do even more for the technology segment. And I've always been a startup guy. I started my career as a startup guy. I thought, how can we. Get startups in front of people in a, in a unique and fun way. And there was nothing like this in the industry. And, you know, HFTP, this was a new concept for them. So it took me about a year or so of, of, you know, haggling and, and, and pushing and nudging and, and whispering in ears and a lot of bourbon. And, uh, and 10 years ago we were able to launch it the first time in my home city, Austin, Texas, which was also really nice, because is really a sort of a tech hub in America as well.

David M.: Right. And Jonathan, what was it like being the first winner?

Jonathan Rojas: Yeah, I mean, for us it was pretty surreal. Um, to tell you guys a little backstory of our experience, uh, it was very scrappy, very like founder ish. We were bootstrapped a new company. We hadn't even actually incorporated yet, but we had a set of, uh, you know, 14 properties on our MVP.

Chris and I actually drove 20 hours from LA to Austin. We got into E20X. I think maybe three weeks before the actual like show, uh, I had just Googled online and I found like a small ad that, uh, that they had made that probably had Lyle's name on it and Frank Wolf and I saw, and I like Googled the company, HFTP found Frank Wolf's email and phone number I called them probably like 10, 20 times. Emailed them another 10 times, finally forwarded me over to someone that can help and was like, Hey, this guy really wants to participate at E 20 X. I think we were the only company that wasn't sourced by Capital Factory, which was their partner that year in Austin and then we ended up winning.

So very, very surreal experience. We were actually really surprised to be the winners that year as well. And then another thing to note was that Chris and I were a little bit unprepared. We had prepared to actually both go on stage. They didn't really. Prepare us in advance to tell us, Hey, only one person can pitch.
So we had both had our lines memorized for two people to pitch this. So right before we went on stage, we kind of just like Ro Shambo who would do it, and Chris was the lucky one that won and went on stage and actually presented that time and somehow we still pulled off the victory, uh, that time. So yeah, really exciting for us that year.

Steve Carran: That's great. Yeah. That's cool. That's great. So Lyle, you've been doing this for 10 years. It's the 10th anniversary. What are some of the best practices that you've seen or some companies that have done a great job of preparing for this event and, you know, what have you seen companies do that, do the best?

Lyle Worthington: Well, there's a couple of things. One is you've really gotta believe in what you're building. You know, a, a lot of people, they invest a lot more in the person than they do in the idea. They believe in the person a lot more than they believe in the idea. So if you come up on stage and you seem nervous, or like you haven't prepared and you haven't practiced, you don't know really what you're talking about you stumble around a little bit. You don't hit the times right? It just, it just comes across as, uh, as, as well. If you can't get this part right, how are you gonna be able to get the next part of it? Right? As being a startup is hard, most startups fail, almost all of them, statistically speaking, fail. And so what do I do?

I want to invest. Do I wanna put my money in my, in my reputation and my brand behind somebody if I don't think that they're going to make it? No. You, you. So, so what I always tell people when I'm in the mentoring phase of this is get your timings down right. Spend weeks, if you can, perfecting your pitch, getting the timing right, practice it in front of a mirror 50 times, and then practice it in front of people 50 times and then practice it in your sleep and practice it when you're showering because it needs to be muscle memory.

When you're up on stage, you can't be thinking about, what am I supposed to stay say next, or you're gonna trip over your own words and everybody is gonna see it. It is incredibly hard to do. Just like running a marathon is incredibly hard to do and you cannot show up to the starting line unless you're Barney Stinson and run a marathon on the first day.

You've gotta build yourself up to it. So, prepare, prepare, prepare, talk to as many people as you possibly can. Reach out to as many mentors as you possibly can. Take advantage of anything that anyone is willing to give you for free. Incorporate all of that in, and then just practice until your eyes bleed.




Steve Carran: That's great. Jonathan, any advice for maybe future participants in E 20 x maybe do's or don'ts for preparing?

Jonathan Rojas: Yeah, yeah, funny. So I actually got to be, I've been a mentor a few times actually for E 20 x. Gotta do it again this year. And I think the biggest piece of advice that I would give founders are, continue to give founders is find a way to stand out.

Right? I think one of the things that Lyle brings up and he remembers that we did on stage is we actually, and I have it right here with me, uh, as well, and I did it today. Um, we had this whistle. Obviously the name of our company was Whistle, and so we went on stage and literally blew a whistle when we first started, uh, our pitch and then we closed with blowing a whistle again.
What it did is really just captivated the audience, caught attention. People remember that moment. So what I tell founders to do is find a way that relates to you and resonates with your company and a story. And and really go out there and tell that and stand out. 'cause you got eight companies that you're competing against and many other startups out there in the world that you're competing against.
There's probably other products on the trade show floor here at HITEC that have a similar product. So what makes you stand out? Right? How do you stand out to the crowd? So I think that's super important. Um, and I think the other thing would be, uh, like Lyle said is preparation practice, practice, practice.

Right, unfortunately for us, we didn't get to practice 'cause we practiced it with both of us pitching. So we came a little unprepared. We got a little bit lucky, uh, that it worked out. My co-founder Chris did a great job on stage that year. Um, but yeah, those would be my really two takeaways right there to, to give advice to some other founders.
Lyle Worthington: I think that's a really good point, is be prepared for any kind of outcome as well.

Jonathan Rojas: Yeah. Yeah.
Lyle Worthington: You know, we do this in the sports world, but you do it in the boardroom as well. Yep. That you practice scenarios. What do we do if this person asked this? What, how do we answer this question? That's a part of the preparation piece as well.

Jonathan Rojas: Yeah, just to add to that actually, um, you know, during the mentor process this last time, the today actually, or sorry, earlier this week that we did with the startups, a lot of them were asking like, Hey, what should we expect from the judges' questions?

So helping them give advice on like, Hey, what is your go-to market strategy? Right? Having that teed up and ready to go. So if you get that question, you're not caught off guard, right? And you're able to answer that effectively, because I think that also contributes to the judges' scoring. 'cause maybe they didn't hear it in your initial pitch, but if you give a really good answer in response to that question, they're gonna be like, oh, okay.

That's really great. That makes your company investible scalable, X, Y, Z, right? That then contributes to their score. So yeah, that's great. Preparation in that as well is key.

David M.: So, Lyle, how has it changed 10 years now? How has really ex 20 changed, evolved since it first started?

Lyle Worthington: Well I think if you, uh, if you were there today, you will see that we had eight really good companies. It was a really hard decision. Um, but what you didn't see is that we had about 20 apply this year, and so it had to be narrowed down quite a bit. To get to that list of eight. So that's exactly what we're looking for. We're looking for, you know, for, for people to, to get inspired to start their own company because they saw it at E20X.

We're looking for people to get inspired to invest in companies or to, to maybe walk around the outside of the floor or go over to the E20X Pavilion and talk to these companies and say, yeah, hey. Give me the next step, like what can we do next? And then maybe get inspired to buy them, to put them in their hotel, to give them a shot, which is really all you could ever really hope for.

Like gimme a shot, right? Let me, let me show you how well I can do, and then maybe just maybe they're inspired to take that leap themselves and be a participant in the future as well.

David M.: That's great. Well, winning's always nice. After you won 10 years ago, how did your company change? How did things change for you?

Jonathan Rojas: Yeah. Um, you know, one of the things that I said is, I think E20X for us and winning, and even if you don't win, being on that stage and getting the visibility that you have, I feel like it compresses networking into like. Five years of networking into a four minute pitch that you get to do on stage right for us.

It opened doors that we may have not been able to open before, like we pitched in front of major brands. I know, um, you know, at the time one of the judges, uh, was part of Caesar's Entertainment. So we got a pitch in front of Caesar's Entertainment. I know Hilton was in the crowd, choice Hotels was in the crowd.

A lot of the big brands that we wanted to sell to were listening to what we were pitching. So it was a great opportunity for us to get visibility and then afterwards, it's really about leveraging that, right? And going out, making the phone calls, chasing the leads that you created, networking that to full extent, you know, and that was a big piece of advice that I also gave the founders is really leverage the moment that you have, leverage the time you have on stage, and then afterwards make sure you follow up.

Establish those connections, network with people and continue to grow your business that way. So yeah, it was a bit of a whirlwind for us. It opened up some enterprise deals, um, as well as for us. It opened up our first PMS integration talks.

We didn't have any integrations at the time. Uh, we knew automating and integrating was gonna be the next wave of the future. So it opened up talks with, uh, cloud beds, right, which we're now a part of today, which eventually led to, uh, acquisition for us. Um, it opened up talks for us with, uh, SkyTouch PMS at the time, which then opened up Choice Hotels for us, right? So it really did open up a lot of doors and it was us leveraging that moment that we had on stage and then working it to the showroom floor, working it to your kiosk in your booth that you get, and we continue to leverage. The HFTP, the HITEC for following years to, to come as well. And we showed up and we, you know, we've been here for a very long time now.

Lyle Worthington: Had a booth the next year as well.

Jonathan Rojas: We got a free kiosk the next year actually because I worked that, uh, I reached out to Frank and I was like, Hey, will you guys really want the founders back or the people that won again?

And they actually let us on stage again the following year. So we got the first five minutes that year too, and they were like, okay, we'll give you a free kiosk as well to be with the winners or the, you know, the people that were pitching that year. 'cause we didn't have the funds to spend on a booth just yet.

The year after that, we finally did have the funds. We had scaled and grown, had a raise around of funding. So we were able to have our own booth, which, you know, graduation moment for us to go from a kiosk to an actual booth. So it was great to, to experience that firsthand.

Lyle Worthington: This is really a differentiator and, and why we do this. We don't do this to make money. HFTP doesn't make money off of this. It, it spends money on this. And that's something unique. It is really about how can we grow innovation in the industry and how can we give startups a voice? How can we start that relationship, the relationship business. So we give people on stage, we start the relationship.




We give them a booth, we keep that relationship going. That's one of the things I love about HFTP and why I love this program.

Steve Carran: That's great. So Lyle, you've heard every pitch for the past 10 years on stage. What advice do you have for somebody that's gonna participate in E20X next year?

Lyle Worthington: What advice do I have besides the one, the, the, the answer earlier? Yes. About preparation. You know what questions the judges are gonna ask. So if you're trying to squeeze 10 minutes of data into four minutes, leave out the stuff that you know the judges are gonna ask because then you get an extra four minutes to present stuff. Narrow it down to the things that people are gonna remember except for maybe the numbers.

People in the audience, they're not gonna remember the statistics, but they're gonna remember that you came on stage and blew a whistle. They're gonna remember that feeling they got of why is this? A person blowing a whistle, and then they're gonna hear what you say and they're gonna hear that whistle at the end and they're gonna think, ah, and that's gonna stick with them and that stuck with me for 10 years, that whistle.

Steve Carran: That's great. And Jonathan, what about you as a former winner? The first one? Yeah. What advice do you have for startup CEOs? To help win E20X?

Jonathan Rojas: Yeah. I think what we said earlier and kind of what Lyle touched on right now is, is definitely gonna be preparation, but also making sure that you have something that differentiates you whether it's, again, a whistle that you're blowing on stage, or whether it's something that you're really driving home with your product, right? And building the value. Make sure that your pitch is concise, that people understand what. Pain point you're trying to solve in the industry. I think that's really important because if you go up there and you give this elaborate presentation and you're pitching all these statistics and numbers and data, but we don't really understand the value proposition or the pain point that you're solving in hospitality, it's gonna be really hard to win that specific competition.

Right? So I think really highlighting that pain point that you're solving and that you're solving a real need in hospitality, which at the time we were. Right. Uh, people weren't communicating with the front desk through messaging. It was unheard of at the time. People were like, what? Someone's gonna text me?

Right? And uh, now it's the norm. But back then it was a real pain point and it was a real solution. And we painted that one by blowing a whistle. Two, I think in our pitch, we were just like. You know, we did a little enactment of like, Hey, I called the front desk. Nobody picked up, or I got transferred, I got placed on hold a real frustration that a lot of guests have, and our solution was solving that. So making sure that you're highlighting that in your pitch, I believe is really important for a lot of these founders.

Lyle Worthington: Yeah, I remember you said, your guests are texting. Why aren't you answering?

David M.: Exactly.

Exactly. Yep.

Lyle Worthington: Yeah.

David M.: Well, as someone who's, this is my 25th HITEC. Wow. I appreciate HITEC. I appreciate what you guys are doing with E 20 X and congratulations on the 10 years and congratulations on your early success. And now you, now you've gone on to grow and do bigger and better things.

Jonathan Rojas: Yeah. Yeah.

Lyle Worthington: There's a message for anybody out there. Take the chance. It's a, it is a wild ride. It is, uh, it is terrifying. And it's supposed to be you, you risk losing everything, and that's how it's supposed to be. But take the ride. It's one of the most fun things you'll ever do.

David M.: Yep. That's great. Alright, well thank you guys for joining us.

We really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Steve Carran: And now we're joined by the 2025 E20X winner of the People Choice and Judge Award, CEO of AI Lagunas. Thanks for sitting down with us Al.

Al Lagunas: Of course, guys. Thanks for having me.

Steve Carran: Absolutely. So how does it feel after the big win.

Al Lagunas: I don't think it's like fully sunk in yet, you know, immediately after I was being pulled in a hundred different directions.

So, yeah, it hasn't sunk in yet, but I'm excited, it can already feel the effects of winning, like the positive effects and have the recognition beyond just the checks and the trophy.

Steve Carran: So for those of you that aren't familiar with Levee, can you give an overview of what you all do?

Al Lagunas: Yeah. So our focus on being a data platform for your frontline operations teams. We use Vision, voice, AI to get good info from your frontline teams, like your housekeepers, your maintenance teams, into your systems, whether it's a service optimization tool, your PMS, whatever it is. We've been really focused on how do we make it easy to get data into those systems from teams who might not, you know, be used to working with technology or know how to use it.

David M.: So there was 20 entries for the E20X only eight made it. How did you prepare to win both of these lovely trophies?

Al Lagunas: It was a lot of work. You know, I think the preparation started a year ago. I came here knowing no one. Came to HITEC knowing no one last year, and just talking to people, understanding what matters, what people care about, what's important to them.

And that really helped shaped, you know, what we're building at Levy. And by doing that, you know, it's like coming here in preparation for it. I've done a, a year of preparation in a way. It's like learning about the industry last night was the easy part, which was staying up late and practicing. Um, but yeah, you know, the preparation's definitely in talking to people who know the industry and know the problems that Hoteliers face.

Steve Carran: That's great. Can you tell us about the experience of E20X itself when you were on stage and what that was like?

Al Lagunas: It was awesome. So in fairness, this was my third pitch in three weeks. So like, I was used to the bright lights at this point. Um, but to get up there and then also share the stage with those founders that were up there and all their amazing products. There were so many times where I'm like looking at it and I was like, whoa, like are hotels buying us? If not, they should like looking at everyone else's pitches. So being up there with them and like hearing the passion behind what everyone is building.

That's what's exciting about E20X is, you know, we all work for a company or worked for a company at some point, but if be building something and you, it. You can see it just like coming out of all the people who were up there. Um, so working with them was awesome. It's inspiring and, you know, continues to motivate us and challenges us to bring that same energy that everyone else does.

David M.: So if you got stopped, you're walking outta the show floor and somebody stops you, someone who's gotten ideas, not yet, you entered the E20X, what advice would you give them?

Al Lagunas: Number one, do it. Do it a hundred percent, in terms of advice is, I would say. Again, I mentioned it a minute ago, but it's like, listen to what everyone cares about and make sure that your product is addressing a pain, that someone has, a challenge that someone has.

We all think that, I think we have like great ideas. Uh, great ideas aren't really that valuable unless, you know people are interested in 'em. People can, you know, Revinate, it resonates with people. Um, so I'd say do it and more importantly, do your research. Talk to people, talk about your product even before E20X.

Build excitement for it so that way by the time you get to E20X, everyone's like, Hey, I know those guys. I know what Levy is. Makes those four minutes, you know, a lot more informative when people have some sort of context into what you're building makes it a lot easier to condense your company's life story in four minutes.

David M.: And if you can let people know how they can get in touch with you, how they can find out more about Levee.

Al Lagunas: Yeah, definitely. So if you wanna get in touch with me, I'm easy to find on LinkedIn it's Al Laguna and then my email is al@levee.biz

David M.: Great. Thank you so much, and congratulations again.

Al Lagunas: Thanks. Appreciate having me. Thank you.