The Modern Hotelier #143: Leveraging Hospitality Management Technology to Improve Operations & Drive Profit | with Samuel Zats
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Steve Carran: Welcome to another episode of the Modern Hotelier. Today, we are joined by Sam Zats, the co founder and CEO of Craftable. David, what were some of your favorite takeaways from this episode?
David Millili: Yeah, I really liked how Sam, you know, alluded to this fact of looking back at when he was a server at his parents cafe and, and, and keeping that in mind with what he's doing at Craftable and really also just embracing, AI and, and his vision of, of the company and where it's headed. And I, I thought it was a great episode Smart guy.
Steve Carran: Yeah, absolutely. And that was, that was my takeaway. He is an extremely smart guy. I mean, after college, went to McKinsey and company, did some consulting there and then started Craftable. And it's Awesome to see how he has grown this company over the past 10 or so years. And, uh, I think we're going to be hearing a lot more about craftable in the future as well. So we hope you enjoy the episode and let us know what you think.
David Millili: Enjoy it.

David Millili: Welcome to the Modern Hotelier, Hospitality's Most Engaged Podcast. I'm David Mililli.
Steve Carran: I'm Steve Carran.
Jon Bumhoffer: And I'm Jon Bumhoffer.
David Millili: Steve, who do we have on the program today?
Yeah, David, today we have on Sam Zats.
Sam is a technology entrepreneur and the co founder and CEO of Craftable. Craftable is a comprehensive restaurant management platform. Craftable's hospitality management software seamlessly connects purchasing, receipts. Inventory and sales with accounting to help operators drive traffic. Welcome to the show, Sam.
It's
Sam Zats: Thanks so much, Steve and David and John. Really a pleasure to chat with you guys today and share a little bit more about Craftable.
David Millili: All right, sounds good. So, Sam, we're going to go through a couple different sections. We're going to jump into a lightning round. We're going to go through your background, your career, and then jump into some industry topics. Sound good?
Sam Zats: Absolutely. Sounds great, David.
David Millili: All right. What was your first job?
Sam Zats: First job was actually working in my family's cafe serving coffee and, uh, waiting on tables. So it was, it was a great experience, um, growing up,
David Millili: What's something that you wish you were better at?
Sam Zats: being able to hold back my passion for the industry and for, helping folks be able to drive impact.
David Millili: What's a luxury you can't live without?
Sam Zats: I can't live without my iPhone or Slack and just being able to be in full communication with my team and our partners. Oh
David Millili: If you could pick a superpower, what would that superpower be?
Sam Zats: gosh, David, that's a, that's a tough one. probably being able to, to understand what other folks are, are thinking.
David Millili: What's a place you've never been to, but you most want to go to?
Sam Zats: really would, would love to spend some time in, in China, and the Asian countries.
David Millili: If you had your own late night talk show, who would you have on as your first guest?
Sam Zats: so I admire Barry Sternlicht, co founder and the starter of Starwood, Capital and then the Starwood Hotel Group. What he's done for hospitality has been really impressive.
David Millili: All right. This is the last one. So if you had a time machine and you can go into the future or back to the past, which way are you going and what year are you going to?
Sam Zats: So I'd love to see what would happen in about 20 years time, and be able to understand how hospitality changes with the advancement of technology, while also being able to understand how we continue to preserve the touch and the, and the relationships of hospitality.
David Millili: That's a good
Steve Carran: great. That's great. Well said Sam. So now what we're going to do is go into your background a little bit about where you grew up and what makes you tick. So you grew up around the San Francisco Bay area. How did that shape you into who you are today?
Sam Zats: I mean, Steve, when you, when you grow up in the late 80s and in the 90s in, in Silicon Valley and you're watching Pets. com and Webvan all around you, you realize how incredible technology, is for changing lives and you also see how not all of them actually build good businesses while they're doing that.
David Millili: You got your Bachelor's and Master's from UC Berkeley in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Then you got your MBA from Stanford. What made you go to those schools and choose those degrees?
Sam Zats: So having grown up in the Bay Area and seeing everything that Silicon Valley was doing and the ability of technology to transform lives really made me realize how I wanted to be part of technology and being able to speak, and understand the engineering side of it. but after that, I actually went into consulting as I wanted to also not just be able to speak.
to technology, but be able to drive change and influence how we, how we operate and how we, do business. And that's really what made me realize that I wanted to return back to business school. Oh
Steve Carran: Very cool. So you've been passionate about being an entrepreneur since an early age, like you said, growing up around, in the San Francisco Bay area, what were some of your first businesses that you started?
Sam Zats: my gosh, Steve, uh, it's actually pretty funny. You ask, uh, in junior high, I'd actually started a business where we're using. Back at the time of that's AOL instant messenger for some of you guys, if you're not familiar, and we actually built a custom mixtape business that we were deploying custom, uh, CDs and, uh, custom soundtracks that we were actually creating a network of ambassadors that would get, you know, I'm sure you remember junior high, uh, boyfriends and girlfriends would.
Gift mixtapes. And so, you know, in junior high, we were a pretty good competitor to Tower Records.
Steve Carran: Very cool. I thought you guys, I thought where you were going to go is you customized away messages for people on
Sam Zats: there, there.
Steve Carran: was, but yeah, anybody who grew up in those, that area knows what AIM was. That's great. So, well, now we're going to get into your career. How you. Co founded and became the CEO of craftables.
So after college, kind of like you said, you went to McKinsey and company and became a business analyst. What did that job teach you in the early days that you still take with you today?
Sam Zats: So it was an incredible experience where I was able to go around the globe and learn from different verticals around how technology is used to create business transformation. And it's actually quite funny because our last engagement that I had before business school was actually to advise a major ERP software vendor around the shift from on prem.
to cloud and perpetual. And that was really where I was able to get smart around SAS and around ERP, which, you know, I'm sure you're familiar with retrospective rationalization, makes sense that we would ultimately, ultimately create a hospitality ERP solution.
David Millili: So then in 2014, you started Beviger, which is now Craftable and really what kind of, what was the moment that really just led you to start the company?
Sam Zats: So I was in business school and we, you know, as, as most people that go to, business school probably know the whole point about going to business school is to start as many businesses as you possibly can in four semesters and to see how you, how you can take one of them to be the next Facebook.
And so as we were exploring different businesses, I kept getting attracted and reentered into hospitality. And one of the big aha moments I had as we were exploring, um, a CPG brand that was going to be delivered out to on premise and hospitality was that everything that hospitality was doing was ultimately being manual and then captured in a clipboard.
And so all of these day to day d data decisions were being, really being tracked, managed, and recorded on pen, paper, and clipboard. And that's really what the essence, so Beverager is really short for your beverage manager. And that's really because we realized early on that A, the beverage industry is a lot simpler.
Things only come in 750s and liters versus food or if you think about non food and beverage purchases. And then also in hospitality, profits are won and lost at the bar. And so beverage is absolutely essential from a business perspective. And that's really where we started about 11 years ago.
Steve Carran: Very cool. And now Beveger is a kind of one of the products under Craftable. Is that correct? So you didn't get rid of the name completely, right?
Sam Zats: That's right. So we, we actually incorporated under a different, moniker of F& B tech as we were just wanted to remain flexible. And so we started with Bavager as just a module. It became one of many modules. And then over time, we basically had determined that we now have essentially a portfolio or a suite.
that can help serve, hospitality across segments, whether it's restaurants, bars, hotels, or any other segment of hospitality. And so we've, we've essentially evolved from being just a platform to being an entire portfolio under the Craftable name.
Steve Carran: those of our listeners that might not be as familiar with Craftable, can you give us an overview of what you all do?
Sam Zats: Yeah, absolutely. So. Essentially, what we've started over the over the first five to six years, we really started in restaurants and bars, and that's really where we wanted to replace the clipboard to help you be able to manage your purchases, manage your inventory, manage your menu over time. As you mentioned, Steve, we started in bars.
That ultimately progressed into kitchens, and then all of a sudden, about five, six years in, we started to realize that our restaurants were actually inside of hotels. and then we had connected with a lot of our hotel partners who actually came back and actually shared with us that, you know what?
This is incredible. But food and beverage is just one department. And the insight in the aha moment that we had was that if you can manage the ERP of food and beverage, then you can support the entire hotel, in its operations. And so today. in 2025, we essentially come to market with three core solutions for the hotel industry, and that's essentially our food and beverage for operations, P2P, or procure to pay, for all things supply chain, and that includes our AP automation and our payments, as well as our BI, which does things like forecasting, menu engineering, and tracks your sales versus your labor.
David Millili: The American Hotel and Lodging Association released the state of the industry report. What stood out to you in that report? And how can Craftable help with some of the findings?
Sam Zats: So the report came out, it was incredible, and it really shows that the gains in the REVPAR, which are about 2 percent year over year, while that's helpful in terms of the gains of the REVPAR, margins, as we know in inflation, is up at least double, and in some areas and segments, up higher. So what that really mean is, means, is that the findings is really that the hotel operations continues to get squeezed in the middle and the rev part that we can continue to actually capture does not grow in line with what our costs are growing at.
And that's really where Craftable really spends its time is to understand how do you actually manage that P& L and how do you manage the difference between your, top line and then your bottom line.
Steve Carran: got to ask, how did you come up with the name Craftable? 
Sam Zats: So it's really funny. So one of our early advisors and a mentor to actually our co founder and our CTO, Max, was actually, the former CEO of LinkedIn, Jeff Wiener, and, um, he, he's been a part of the story and he's involved with, he was involved with Intuit and other, back office software solutions.
So it, it lent itself very nicely, and really. we had a meeting with him, and this was back in Mountain View, about five, six years ago, probably seven or eight at this time, and we were going through, and we were basically like, look, we've created Beviger, it's this, you know, leading platform for bars, we've created Foodager, which is this leading platform for, for kitchen and for food management, we're now getting into hotels, we're now doing AP automation, we're now doing all these other things, and he really, you know, challenged us to think bigger, and to instead of try to, you know, Build an acronym or be able to build a name that we come up with to really think to the essence.
And so we had been tinkering with a lot of, words and a lot of creative ways to put, you know, multiple words together. And at the time we had actually found, craftable. And the idea that. That we had in terms of the mission statement is nobody gets into hospitality because they want to be doing back a house or being able to do the admin work, right?
And so the idea of craftable is that we're going to be the technology. We're going to be a partner in technology. And the goal is to help our operators get back to their craft, get back to the table. Because that's what's going to drive the guest experience and most importantly, that guest experience is what makes people keep coming back, which as you guys know, the recurring rate and the frequency rate is, all that matters in the hospitality game.
David Millili: yeah, do you have a craftable client success story that sticks out to you whenever you think about like one of those moments you're like, wow, we really helped a customer.
Sam Zats: My gosh, there's so many that stick out to me. We've, we've had a number of customers where we can come in and we can solve them in finance and we've done turnaround, turnaround opportunities where, we started with, the town group who actually works very closely with a lot of Marriott hotels and others with franchise agreements, we were able to reduce their financial team and their back office efforts by three quarters.
Um, and that was in six months, just by focusing on finance. most recently we partnered up with pyramid global hospitality and we were able to automate a lot of what they're doing in the P2P space and procurement. Control by partnering with their G. P. O. By partnering with a procurement team and be able to take everything and be able to provide them real time availability, real time pricing.
And that was really what they were employing to individual procurement managers to literally be doing this and managing the vendors and managing the prices. And they weren't able to do it at scale for 160 to 180 hotels they were managing. So really, it's about how do you create technology that automates and then scales as we do more with less?
Steve Carran: That's very cool. Are there any specific types of hotels that Craftable works best with?
Sam Zats: So, we're actually pretty flexible in terms of the type of hotel that we work with. What we've realized is that we actually, um, have two slightly different, offerings for hotels if you think about more limited and select service versus full service and resort. So, in the select service and in the limited service, we're able to do a lot of automation.
So we're able to look at your forecasts and your budgets were able to suggest orders and replenishment orders. So it becomes a velocity type of opportunity to leverage automation. When you look at the full service that they've got multiple departments, they've got multiple food and beverage outlets.
That's where we have complexity. Where we're able to make it intuitive to be able to manage all those different department dynamics where there could be requisitions, a storeroom, a commissary, and there could be very complex order approvals and routings. And so really the exciting thing and what we've been very fortunate to partner with a lot of third party managers that have select service all the way up to full service and resort is to be able to configure Craftable for the type of operation and the sophistication that you need.
Steve Carran: I have one more question before we move on. What is your goal for craftable and where do you want to see craftable in the next three to five years?
Sam Zats: so we want to be serving on the entire hospitality industry and being able to make it a little bit easier and a little bit more profitable again, going back to kind of the name and as we think back to our mission, it's all about guest experience. The macro forces aren't going anywhere. They're only going to continue to challenge the hospitality industry.
And really, as we think about every night. where do we want to go out? Or when we're planning a trip, where do we want to stay? It's going to continue to drive to exceptional customer experience. And we want to be those that help. We want to serve those that serve. That's really our internal mantra.
and so the, if we're trying to help those that serve and serve them to do it better, how can we help them be able to serve the best? And that's really what our goal is.  
Steve Carran: now we're going to get into industry thoughts. So, in today's economic environment, you know, we're hearing a staffing shortages that we've been hearing about for a couple of years. How can hotels really do more with less? That's
Sam Zats: majority of the conversations that we're having with a lot of our hotel operators and executives is really starting to step back and think about. All the different departments, all the different stakeholders and all the different layers of operations and finance that are going to be a part of actually running a successful hotel.
and so when we, when we look at that, it's starting to leverage technology in a couple of different ways. The first one is how can you take technology that's going to span cross department? And be able to create efficiencies and integrations and make individuals and departments more productive.
So that way the entire hotel operates better. So productivity is going to be a big one. The other thing that we continue to see, and you mentioned this before, is the staffing shortage, right? There's also, what we find, is there's also a domain expertise shortage. So the more that you're able to leverage technology, not just to be more productive, but be able to ramp.
Folks better to be able to surface better, insights and decisions around running a better business. That's where technology can actually process far more than any human can. And we can be able to partner with the operators in order to provide the best operations and drive the greatest profit for the businesses.
David Millili: All right. And here's the loaded question that everyone's talking about. What role can AI play in hospitality operations?
Sam Zats: so I get, I ask this question quite a bit. I think AI is fantastic, but I also think that, the answer is not AI. I think that the answer is going to be, what are you trying to accomplish and how do you take a look at those processes and what type of experience you're trying to deliver to the guest experience?
Cause again, everything comes back to the guest experience. And then as you look at your delivery. mechanism for that guest experience. That's when you can start to ask yourself, where can a I be able to provide? So start to breaking that up. So what does that mean? So that means a I can read data, process data and generate insights much faster than anyone can, no matter how many analysts or how strong you are analytically.
So it's gonna be a data analysis. Opportunity. And then secondly, similar to what I was saying before, is that if there's going to be some operational efficiencies, that's also where AI can help deliver automation as well.
Steve Carran: That's great. And we talk about AI a lot on here. But one thing we talk about correlating with AI is the data that we get from AI. So with all that data available, how can hoteliers best harness those actionable results?
Sam Zats: Yeah, absolutely. So a couple of things. The first thing is data is everywhere and it's only going to continue to increase. And so it's really important to hoteliers and operators to really step back and start to think about what are the KPIs and the metrics that are going to drive the guest experience and drive the economics and financials that they're looking for.
Absolutely. So step one is going to be figuring out what are we really trying to achieve as a goal or an outcome, and then there's this huge opportunity with A. I. and data to start to figure out what's keeping you from getting there. But it's really important because I think sometimes we think that A. I.
can solve everything, and we forget to really step back and think about what's the outcome or the destination that we really want to make sure that we're traveling towards.
Steve Carran: Have you seen a hotel kind of, kind of just do a great job at using AI driven person to drive personalization successfully? Totally. Mm hmm.
Sam Zats: Yes, there's a number of our hotel partners that are leveraging it fantastically, but it's being done in subtle ways that it complements the guest experience, and you may not even realize that you have a I happening. You know, things like when you're, looking at a room reservation and it's already starting to identify based off of your prior, experiences, what are the types of rooms that you prefer or what are the types of experiences that you'd like?
And so it's curating and leveraging what's available in the market. And what that hotel can offer. And then what have I been, appreciating in the past and being able to do that kind of matching and that recommendation engine really well. we see a huge opportunity in driving revenue and again, an increase in that guest experience.
Cause it does feel a lot more personal. I'm sure you've been persuaded by a few of those upsells, uh, on the last few stays as well.
Steve Carran: Absolutely. Absolutely. I've been persuaded by a few of them on Instagram as well. So
David Millili: So alongside craftable, What other new technologies are really having an impact in your opinion on the guest experience?
Sam Zats: So there's just a lot. To be candid, you know, we were, we were just chatting recently with an AI company that's looking at compliance and brand standard. And so being able to ensure that we're meeting a certain level of, of a brand standard, there's a lot of growth that's happening in AI around financial, opportunity and financial automation.
So they're making sure that you're actually, optimizing your profit and making sure that you're not layering in a lot of excess costs that you can take out. there's also a lot that. Similar to what we were talking about that we're seeing in terms of the recommendation, and understanding the guest experience.
we see a lot, especially in, in the gaming and in the fine dining, you know, companies like Seven Rooms that are working very closely with hotels and restaurants to make that more curated experience.
That's great. So I have a question for you kind of about OTAs here and AI. So how do you see the relationship between OTAs and hotels evolving through AI? 
I think OTAs and AI are going to continue to evolve and be able to provide a better customer experience and be able to be able to do it faster. I'm sure you guys have seen a lot of the latest releases with operator and a lot of the other AI. Agents that you no longer actually even need an OTA Because you're gonna be able to actually leverage AI to actually go either direct to the source or even power or drive through the OTA I don't know if you guys saw the Amazon, announcement earlier this week with Alexa+. But you can now book your entire hospitality experience with Alexa+ without even looking at a device.
Sam Zats: It's pretty impressive what's happening and it's all about AI that's driving a lot of the existing systems out there and being able to service them and have a better understanding of of the customer and what they're looking for.
David Millili: And do you think, you know, what are some of, in your opinion, some of the biggest misconceptions just around hoteliers and leveraging technology and leveraging AI? It seems like there's a lot of, in some cases, just fear about accepting new emerging technology or leveraging AI.
Sam Zats: Yeah, absolutely. I think that, and we see this with hoteliers. We see this with the hospitality segment. Historically, there's a there's a consideration that the relationship between the guest experience provider and the customer is going to get farther apart. because AI is going to displace that relationship.
And I think the biggest myth here is it's not going to displace it, but there's a lot of really easy ways to enhance it. And so it's not about, replacing the individuals that are going to be at the front office or when you step into a hotel and they're welcoming you. It's about making sure that, as they're welcoming you, they know your name.
they know your, your room preference type. maybe a AI agent in the back had already recognized that you're up, you're going into the elevator and you're approaching and using some basic facial recognition, they're already running a check in process. I'm sure you guys saw the lines in, uh, Las Vegas that just hit seven hours.
I mean, there's a great experience where why do we need seven hours of manual, checking in when a lot of that can actually be leveraged through technology while still keeping, the magic of hospitality alive. And so I think that's the biggest thing that over the next few years, we just need to be able to understand how it can create more magic and not displace the relationships.
Steve Carran: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I've mentioned this before. Like every time I go to Vegas, I don't know what it is, but I always get stuck in those huge lines and I never, I can't check in mobily or anything. And it's just like, I always end up waiting for 30, 45 minutes in line for those. So
Sam Zats: Yeah, and it seems like it's not getting any better and it's just it's just so difficult. There's a lot of travelers. again, there's a labor shortage there as well that we find. And so it's, it's exactly everything that we're talking about around how that's impacting and how technology can really drive better guest experience at the end of the day.
Steve Carran: absolutely. And you and I were chatting a little bit before this, about kind of something similar? What are some emerging technologies or have you seen an emerging technology that's coming out? that you've seen recently besides craftable, uh, that has really blown you away.
Sam Zats: I mean, there's a lot that we continue to see across all different parts of hospitality, and I really step back, and I don't think about it being just a single technology, but it's really going to be about a group of different technologies that you start to put together, and it's all about the use case, and I think, Steve, you know, I I'm glad to go through and kind of rattle off a whole bunch of different, AI providers.
But let me, let me tell you this. I think at the end of the day, it's about how do you, deliver that experience and be able to put all of those various technologies together in a harmonious way. And so you're orchestrating that through these different technologies. And whether it's, you know, booking those reservations or, checking in or being able to understand your guests better, those are all different technologies that have just Continuously will continue to become better, but all need to be integrated into your modern hotel stack.
Steve Carran: Absolutely. I think that's been something, I think that's been on top of mind for hoteliers is, you know, tight integrations, open APIs for years. So, um, I, I agree with you a hundred percent on that one.
Sam Zats: Absolutely. It's a very exciting time.
David Millili: So based off your experience, what advice would you give to a future CEO?
Sam Zats: Oh gosh. Uh, you ready? Strap in. Um, I think that there's two advice that I would give to, to someone who may be starting or, or considering being an executive, I'm going to assume that they're going to be a founder CEO, David too, cause that's something. You know, 
I, I've only really had one professional, job in my life.
So I can't give too much advice, uh, from a track record here. but I think that there's a couple of things. I think the first thing is, and with everything we've discussed, I think AI allows you to evolve and develop, opportunities that historically would require a lot of infrastructure and a lot of resources.
So I think the speed of evolution can now be a strategic advantage. That historically, you know, all the big guy, all the big tech companies would actually, be ahead of you. And I'm jealous for a couple of, founder CEOs right now because they're able to start fresh and they're, they don't have that technical debt or, or, or that legacy stack that they need to worry about.
the other thing that I would, I would encourage, and this is something that we believe, is that we don't believe in building products and then seeing if the market accepts them. Everything that we've built in Craftable has been in partnership with at least three to four of our partners, and we really try to study what is the current use case, where are the inefficiencies, and how to do it.
And so, I encourage that founder CEO to really deep, deeply lean into how do I understand my user and what kind of product should I be building to make sure that that user is really going to be able to maximize the impact and the opportunity that that technology provides them?
David Millili: Yeah, that's
Steve Carran: Absolutely. That's great. So, Sam, this whole time we've been asking you the questions, we're going to turn the tables here and let you ask David and I a question.
Sam Zats: Yeah. What's the, what's the toughest question that you guys get that, that you're still trying to determine the answer for in our
Steve Carran: Who's our, who's our favorite guest?
Sam Zats: Is that right?
Steve Carran: We get asked that a few times, we've got asked that a few times, and it's like, I guess we learn different things from every, every guest that comes on. So it's like every guest has their own kind of unique space. It's like asking me like, who's your favorite child, you know, they all have a special place in my heart.
Sam Zats: There you go. And a very well politically, uh, fueled answer too. So I, I, I love that. I love that. how about a topic that you don't talk about as often that you think needs more attention or focus?
David Millili: you know, for me, I think it's really just the industry as a whole and just the, you know, we, we talk about it, but not enough, just the, the lack of adoption and embracing technology. Yeah, we kind of alluded to it in some of the questions, there just always seems to be this fear that technology is going to take something away and I don't know about you, but when I travel, I don't always really, or most of the time, I don't really have these great service experiences.
It's usually just kind of cut and dry. You know, uh, you checking in and, you know, kind of your credit card, you know, uh, what would you like to order? I'm, you know, I'm Bob, I'll be taking care of you tonight. Like there's not this kind of pure, pure hospitality. I think everyone kind of romanticizes about, and therefore they're afraid of losing something that isn't there when technology can really step in and really fill a void.
And some of the points you made about helping with, with staffing and things of that issue. I mean, just think about what. You said, I mean, it's 2025, a seven hour line to check into a hotel. I mean, it doesn't matter. I mean it, you know, it doesn't take you seven hours to, you know, get through customs in most cases.
So it's, it's 
pretty, 
Sam Zats: I just flew in, uh, from, from Chicago and I scanned my driver's license and then within about 10 seconds, TSA put a green checkmark and knew which plane I was boarding and had cleared me. So, I couldn't agree with you more. I think that there's areas where it's creating friction. And, and I think that friction can be completely eliminated.
And then, you know, to your point, then you can focus on the areas where there really can be that romantic and that magic part of hospitality.
David Millili: yeah. Agreed.
Steve Carran: I'm going to add on something here. I really think we need to talk about how we get more younger folks in hospitality, and change the perception that hospitality or even hotels isn't a job. It can be a career, right? If you like sales, you can do sales in hotels. If you like marketing, you can do marketing.
So there's like. We don't think of hospitality as a career over in the United States as much, and like in other countries, people do see it as a career. So, I think changing the focus of kind of everything and the opportunities that are available in hotels and hospitality itself. So, that was great.
So our producer, John has been sitting and listening the whole time. So we're going to kick it off to him for the last question, and then we're going to get you out of here, Sam.
Jon Bumhoffer: You mentioned that your first job was serving in your family's cafe. I'm curious, how did, how did that inform what you're building? Like, are there any pain points you vividly remember experiencing, thinking like, Oh, I wish on the back end we had this to solve that problem. And how, how did that kind of happen?
Sam Zats: If I said the word everything, would that be, would you believe me and think it's an understatement or do you think it's, it's fairly realistic? So, I think a couple of things. So I think it created a little bit of empathy and a realization of where the industry is. And to say, you know, that the industry has materially changed, in the last 30 years, it really hasn't.
I think we're still on the cusp of a lot of innovation that is to come. but a lot of what we do is really taking a look at how do we take the manual And automate it. And how do we make the manual enriched and a better experience? And it sometimes may not even be guest facing. It could sometimes be internal, like a lot of what we do at Craftable with the back office.
But at the end of the day, it's all about, ultimately being able to do a lot, deliver that better experience.
David Millili: Well, that does it for another episode of the modern Hotelier, Sam. This is where you can let people know how they can get in touch with you, how they can learn more about craftable. So plug away.
Sam Zats: Yeah, thanks so much, David. So, head to craftable. com to learn more, and we're excited to be serving hotels of all shapes and sizes. And, um, we work across procurement, finance, food and beverage operations, and we really take a partnership approach. To understanding technology, understanding your, your stack, understanding your operations, and really trying to help align those departments and create a better experience and a more profitable business.
So would love to hear from all the hoteliers that, that could be interested in learning more.
David Millili: Well, that does it for another episode of the Modern Hotelier, Hospitality's most engaged podcast. Whether you're watching or listening, we appreciate you and we hope to see you again soon. Thank you. Thanks, Sam.
Sam Zats: Thank you, David. Appreciate it.