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In this episode of Hospitable we dive into the independent hoteliers space.
Our guest this week is CEO and Co-Founder of RoomRaccoon Tymen van Dyl. Tymen shares his mission to empower independent hoteliers around the world with a complete and innovative management system. He believes that powerful software should not be exclusive to those with deeper pockets, but accessible to anyone in the industry.
We talk about the parity of running a company with your partner, both in business and in life, and how his journey into creating software solutions for the boutique hotel space came to be. We also discuss how to manage teams across the world and why strategic hubs are important and impactful. Tymen emphasizes the significance of adopting a forward-looking approach and prioritizing future growth when starting a company and the importance of avoiding fixation on the past and instead focusing on what works best for the future.
Our guest this week is CEO and Co-Founder of RoomRaccoon Tymen van Dyl. Tymen shares his mission to empower independent hoteliers around the world with a complete and innovative management system. He believes that powerful software should not be exclusive to those with deeper pockets, but accessible to anyone in the industry.
We talk about the parity of running a company with your partner, both in business and in life, and how his journey into creating software solutions for the boutique hotel space came to be. We also discuss how to manage teams across the world and why strategic hubs are important and impactful. Tymen emphasizes the significance of adopting a forward-looking approach and prioritizing future growth when starting a company and the importance of avoiding fixation on the past and instead focusing on what works best for the future.
Don't forget to subscribe and review!
Timestamps:
Timestamps:
[00:03:39] Supercharging hotel operations.
[00:06:56] Leveling the playing field.
[00:09:55] Independent hotels and customer experience.
[00:14:07] Starting a business with your partner.
[00:17:22] Balancing work and family.
[00:23:05] Splitting time and international growth.
[00:24:07] Remote work and office camaraderie.
[00:27:55] AI advancements in language.
[00:32:23] Dangerous city centers.
[00:35:35] A galloping herd of game animals.
Shownotes:
00:01:51 Empowering independent hoteliers through technology.
00:06:59 Leveling the playing field for independent hotels.
The timestamp in the podcast where it starts to say "Entrepreneurship with a partner" is 00:14:07. Entrepreneurship with a partner.
00:18:20 Importance of spending time together.
00:24:07 Importance of being present and connected.
00:29:37 Technology should enhance human experiences.
00:34:30 Thrilling horseback safari in Africa.
Connect:
Tymen van Dyl: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tvandijl/
RoomRaccoon: https://roomraccoon.com/
Omniboost: www.omniboost.com
Rob Napoli: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robnap/
Show Produced by: Niranjan Deshpande (Nick), Broken Frames Studio, www.brokenframesstudio.com
Creators & Guests
Host
What is Hospitable?
Hospitable is a podcast that discusses how to make hospitality MORE human through technology.
Hospitable focuses on discussing the leading challenges facing the hospitality industry and to explore the latest trends, technologies, and best practices that are shaping the industry. Each episode features interviews with hoteliers, restaurateurs, chefs, industry analysts, and other experts who share their insights and experiences on topics such as customer experience, sustainability, innovation, staffing, and more.
Hosted by Rob Napoli
OmniBoost_EP 08_Tymen Van Dyl_Transcript
00:00:00:06 - 00:00:31:21
Tymen Van Dyl
Yeah. Ultimately it is about the customer, right? I mean, the happy guest is running a successful hotel business basically. We believe that very powerful software to supercharge hotel operations should not be exclusive to those more technologically advanced and maybe with deeper pockets to to purchase should software but to anyone.
00:00:31:23 - 00:00:55:15
Rob Napoli
Hey, how are you doing? We are back again for another episode of Hospitable. Hospitable is a podcast where we explore how to make hospitality more human through technology. And today's guest is one I'm excited to chat with Tymen you know, I had a chance to meet your partner in New York City when I first learned of RoomRaccoon
00:00:55:17 - 00:01:05:04
Rob Napoli
Unfortunately you didn't get to of she got that to come to the trip and you had to stay and around the business but Tymen Van Dahl
00:01:05:06 - 00:01:06:03
Tymen Van Dyl
Yep.
00:01:06:05 - 00:01:28:05
Rob Napoli
Plus that I struggle with pronunciation as some of the Dutch names. He is the CEO and co-founder of RoomRaccoon and he is on a mission to empower independent hoteliers around the world with a complete and innovative management system. So Tymen thanks for joining the podcast, my friend. I'm really excited to have you on. And unfortunately we didn't get a chance to do this in person.
00:01:28:05 - 00:01:39:22
Rob Napoli
We were trying to coordinate back in time in the Netherlands, but with you kind of switching back and forth between South Africa and me being in New York, kind of going back and forth, we couldn't get schedules. Alliance, I appreciate you still making time.
00:01:39:24 - 00:01:41:05
Tymen Van Dyl
Absolutely.
00:01:41:07 - 00:02:03:03
Rob Napoli
So, Tymen why don't you let me start this? You know, I, I really love this story for RoomRaccoon And so why don't you just tell us about like, what this, is it's that's the business to you. It's a true mission to empower independent hoteliers. Right. And you could have created a system for these big chains that you wanted to go boutique, you wanted to go independent, you wanted to help these.
00:02:03:03 - 00:02:13:16
Rob Napoli
Where does that passion and mission come from? Talk to me from beginning. What got you into this phase? What drove you into this this independent space?
00:02:13:18 - 00:02:38:06
Tymen Van Dyl
Yeah, because independent hoteliers are very much kind of well, they're are passionate and it's very much in our DNA. Nadia and I started RoomRaccoon in about seven or eight years ago, and Nadia was an independent hotelier herself. She got into to this industry. She was running the most beautiful boutique, all suite design hotel in the center of our hometown.
00:02:38:06 - 00:03:07:11
Tymen Van Dyl
And she was doing great. I mean, the business was doing good. She had like the best Booking.com ratings in the wide area and all of that. But me coming from a very tech backgrounds, I was starting to get a little bit allergic towards, I don't know, some very manual operations that she was doing. She was home every morning at 3 a.m. or so because after the guests went to bed and everybody was kind of, yeah, sad and pampered.
00:03:07:11 - 00:03:30:10
Tymen Van Dyl
Then she was starting to do her admin, preparing all of the planning and the pricing, the reports for the staff in the morning, the invoices confirming the reservations that came in today. And they just all seemed to me so old school and so manual and when I also I declared our for crazy a couple of times she challenged me and she said like, hey, why don't you just fix it for me?
00:03:30:12 - 00:04:05:18
Tymen Van Dyl
And yeah, to be honest, I was, I cleared my diary for a couple of days, and I said, you know what? I'm going to find some kind of an all in one Saas tool that you can plug into, and it's going to supercharge your operations because surely there must be, a dozen arounds and there was not anything that was that's really would match our quite basic requirements to automate our processes and to kind of leverage technology to improve the hospitality business.
00:04:05:20 - 00:04:31:14
Tymen Van Dyl
So we just decided to create something ourselves and that went beyond our wildest dreams. And today we are servicing about 2000 hoteliers in across 55 countries with a team of hundreds raccoons, as we call ourselves. And yeah, we feel we're just getting started because as I think we started pretty small in terms of our ambitions.
00:04:31:20 - 00:05:01:11
Tymen Van Dyl
We just wanted to still fulfill kind of a basic automation need for independent hoteliers. Today, we just quickly evolved to what it is today really enhancing pricing risk bar competitive stances upselling yeah the whole housekeeping function for hotels up to about 100 rooms.
00:05:01:13 - 00:05:17:16
Rob Napoli
Yeah. So you know, it's interesting and I love that, you're part of Nadia and just like fix it for me. Like if you're going to call that crazy, like, do something about it. And he did. And when were looking for that, you know, there's so many because there are tons of systems out there that automate processes.
00:05:17:18 - 00:05:35:08
Rob Napoli
Why was it so hard? Why do you think it was so hard from a basic function standpoint for the independent versus like the chains? Is it because a lot of the technology was set up 400 plus hotel chains with like large systems or what do you think the kind of issue was?
00:05:35:10 - 00:06:10:05
Tymen Van Dyl
Yeah, it's pretty much dead. I mean, we there is a lot of hotel technology, right? And travel tech. We were definitely not the first hotels in the world to start adopting technology in our processes. But indeed the software vendors that would be very good and recognized into building hotel technology that would be big software companies delivering these software products to big hotels and mainly to chains, because they would kind of in the old days, they would be able to afford on premise complex software stacks.
00:06:10:05 - 00:06:53:21
Tymen Van Dyl
They would have their own integration teams. They would have they're CIO, you know, building this whole tech stack and cherry picking all of these different software products from vendor BMS their general manager, upsell system, dynamic pricing system, housekeeping management system, you know, all of these different systems from the different providers and build their own tech stack and I guess that just really eliminated the opportunity for independent hoteliers for many years to tap into that and to create a competitive operations towards these big chains that would have the power to adopt that technology which we were on a mission to change.
00:06:53:21 - 00:07:15:04
Tymen Van Dyl
We want to level the playing field. We believe that very powerful software to supercharge hotel operations should not be exclusive to those more technologically advanced and maybe with deeper pockets to purchasers should software but to anyone.
00:07:15:06 - 00:07:33:14
Rob Napoli
Yeah so and when you think about that and we think about leveling the playing field, what does this do for independent hoteliers and boutique hotels like having these systems and having this ability to automate and move quickly, What does that really do for them and how does that improve their quality of the quality of the hotel, but also the quality of the customer experience?
00:07:33:16 - 00:08:13:16
Tymen Van Dyl
Yeah, ultimately it is about the customer, right? I mean, the happy guest is running a successful hotel business basically. I think everything that, you want to probably use technology for the higher needs to create efficiencies so there can be cost efficiency by automating pricing to advertise in the right channel at the right time. So seven Commission costs, it might be efficiency elsewhere to save time, for instance, automating well, accounting connectivity, for instance, as you guys well know, that just saves people in that value chain so much time and therefore money.
00:08:13:18 - 00:08:41:00
Tymen Van Dyl
It can be creating extra opportunities such as offering the right room upgrades, the right time to your guests to that and at the same time also increases enhances that guest experience by showing what you got and also making it easier for the guests to book making it easy for the guests to check in, making it easier to checkouts, maybe making it easier to make their payments too.
00:08:41:02 - 00:09:03:04
Tymen Van Dyl
So just to create a system where anything interacts with each other on autopilot, where the hotelier can set it up, can set their stack and their automation up very simply together with us, and then, yeah, enjoy the efficiency, the extra revenue opportunity and the enhanced guest experience from there on.
00:09:03:06 - 00:09:25:20
Rob Napoli
I love that. You know, I think that's really, really impactful because as you said, you know, to get this is doing your job right. And, you know, the hospitality industry has changed a lot. And depending on where you're going, whether you're going for business, are you going for pleasure or pleasure, it changes your expectation. And I think is really interesting is that people who like to stay at kind of your independent and boutique hotels are a little bit different.
00:09:25:20 - 00:09:50:03
Rob Napoli
Niche, right? Like I think if you look at the client tell that want to stay at a larger chain are because they've been there their whole lives. They love that consistency. Right. Whether you're in Japan or the Netherlands or the U.S. you're going to have a similar experience. Everything's going to kind of look and feel the same versus you want something very off the beaten track or are unique or whatever.
00:09:50:05 - 00:10:15:06
Rob Napoli
So from an independent hoteliers perspective, I think it's really impactful and important for them to be able to compete at that stage to attract those people and be seen, be known, but also create that great experience. So from your experience, you and your partner running an amazing little boutique hotel, you know, did you notice, like so little idiosyncrasies about, like your clientele being different from like those big chains?
00:10:15:06 - 00:10:30:09
Rob Napoli
And did that come into play as you thought about the technology being built for that? Were you thinking about, you know, you're a part of the big building event? Were you thinking about that customer experience and how did that really affect you and your thinking of building the tech?
00:10:30:11 - 00:10:56:06
Tymen Van Dyl
Yeah, I guess a little bit. I mean, yes, smaller businesses maybe are more kind of adventurous, right? There may be more risk takers. And that is, I think also why we were allowed to yeah to come into this place and to have the trust of many hoteliers in a very early stage to kind of start adopting our software together and make it better.
00:10:56:08 - 00:11:23:08
Tymen Van Dyl
But at the same time we also I think the fact that maybe we we never we don't come from a corporate hotel space, we don't come from any corporate space both of us. And I think that also really helped us to create this. Yeah, this product that revolves around independent hotels without any, you know, without any preconceptions or so of like, how should this work?
00:11:23:08 - 00:11:47:21
Tymen Van Dyl
We didn't have an opera or any kind of standard in our minds, like, hey, this is how apparently a property management system should work and obviously there are some basic concepts, right? Some mechanics that you can't ignore and financially or accounting wise or in the mechanics of how different booking channels interact with each other or so.
00:11:47:23 - 00:12:09:22
Tymen Van Dyl
But other than that, I think it really benefited us to have a much more blue sky approach into like, Hey, what do you guys just really need? And also looking forward without maybe looking at, hey, how things shouldn't be like, like the way they are because they used to be like, that's right. Yeah. Things should be because this just works best for you looking forward.
00:12:09:22 - 00:12:12:13
Tymen Van Dyl
And I think it's really helped us to look forward only.
00:12:12:15 - 00:12:33:02
Rob Napoli
That's awesome. And that's really kind of really unique perspective, right? Thinking about future growth and how to drive and the adventure, the kind of adventure spirit. I think that that goes hand-in-hand with becoming an entrepreneur. So when you and your partner were sitting there and, you know, she's like, help me out. Did you know that you wanted to start your own company?
00:12:33:02 - 00:12:51:18
Rob Napoli
Like, what were you doing prior to coming from a tech world? Like, did you know that you wanted to be an entrepreneur and running a business? Or was this kind of by chance of just like, well, she asked me to help her out and this, like, led us down a path like, tell me a little about like, how did you get into, like being a co-founder and building a business that spans multiple countries and continents?
00:12:51:20 - 00:13:20:00
Tymen Van Dyl
It is one month from now, I'm celebrating my 20th anniversary as an entrepreneur. I am now. I've started my first small business 20 years ago in web development and server management and application web hosting. I've done that for many years up until the point that I felt that I was yeah, I was looking for something new, exciting.
00:13:20:00 - 00:13:45:10
Tymen Van Dyl
I was looking for an opportunity to maybe capitalize on everything that I had done in in those years of my career and, maybe see if I could build something bigger and more impactful and more meaningful in the world with it. And I think exactly with that, maybe already a little bit in the back of my mind, I yeah, I bumped into this adventure together with Naida
00:13:45:10 - 00:13:57:05
Tymen Van Dyl
And I decided very quickly to yeah, to go all in. And I sold my previous businesses and I use everything that I collected before to fuel RoomRaccoon startup.
00:13:57:07 - 00:14:25:20
Rob Napoli
I love it. And that's really cool. So, you know, starting a business with your partner because it sounds like an adventure in itself. So what's that been like for you and Naida? And there's been a couple articles written out there I, you know, doing some research before now. It's been talked about before, but, you know, would love to kind of hear from your perspective, like, what's that experience been like for the both of you and, you know, how have you been able to kind of balance work like work and your personal lives together as a couple?
00:14:25:22 - 00:15:02:18
Tymen Van Dyl
Hey, it has pros and cons. I think the big pro for us is we're both workaholics and we love to build design and to chase our dreams in that regard and to yeah, to really get our hands dirty every day. And it really it's super practical, right, to do this together. It's also we celebrate our successes together and we you know, take the hits together and everything we do, basically everything we do in our life when we go to work or when we come home, then it's all run written and that's super productive.
00:15:02:20 - 00:15:31:13
Tymen Van Dyl
And also, I don't know, like for me, this is I'm so passionate about this that I also can't imagine to come home after work and to have dinner with my wife. And then, I don't know, maybe she would be an accountant and she would be telling about I don't know how she consolidated some figures today and I would be I don’t know I would be probably struggling to be as passionate about that as maybe Yeah.
00:15:31:13 - 00:15:55:15
Tymen Van Dyl
What Nadia's you know what's kept her. Yeah. What's more what she comes home with to share. So I think that really it really creates an energy that's really both that really works for us that we're super strong team and obviously while we're together already since I don't know since 17 years or so.
00:15:55:17 - 00:16:21:09
Tymen Van Dyl
So we are a team. We trust each other, we know each other. We so I think that really helps. I'm not sure if I could say that. I mean, yeah, probably there's less candlelight dinners tonight, but we're, yeah, we are aware of that and we're finding our own balance. Yeah. And also we're finding the balance in terms of role division right.
00:16:21:09 - 00:17:01:02
Tymen Van Dyl
Because at home you are equal, you are private partners and there is maybe there are some answer so that you might agree with in a relationship that are you're responsibility. But obviously is very different when you're building a business that the size that RoomRaccoon is becoming now. So very important I think for us to have found our ways and the early years of RoomRaccoon to recreate our own responsibilities and not be charged ways and also respects that you are, you know that maybe you're saying or acting with a coming from like being in a different role one moment to another.
00:17:01:02 - 00:17:24:05
Tymen Van Dyl
So I think to be able to separate those roles, that's challenging I guess, for any kind of, yeah, partnership like private partner in your company or family business, I'd like to think that we found our way in that regards. So yeah, focusing on the successes that we're celebrating together now we are a family.
00:17:24:05 - 00:17:52:14
Tymen Van Dyl
We’ve got a little one of one year olds that's a new challenge of our lives. We like our workaholic lives so we had to take it's a small notch down not we also one that drives I mean, we really enjoy being parents and enjoy spending time with the little one. Yeah. And then, yeah, we have our business that is split across several countries and our biggest office is in Cape Town, South Africa.
00:17:52:16 - 00:18:20:01
Tymen Van Dyl
So what we're doing now is just kind of a bit of a moving circus. We pack up all of our stuff with the whole family and and the nanny and we pack it up and we go to Cape Town for a couple of months and then we pack it up again. And then we stay in the Netherlands for a couple of months and they had this is how we make it work that hey, we are definitely needs a little bit of dedication, but it's a lot of fun.
00:18:20:03 - 00:18:39:19
Rob Napoli
I love that. I mean, I think it's really important too, because I think every couple, every partnership has its own way of working. And you can't you know, it's hard to put in boxes. That is amazing that you can kind of find those things. And I laughed because you made a joke about like, you know, coming home like, and like talking to her about it.
00:18:39:21 - 00:18:59:21
Rob Napoli
She has a count. Like for the longest time I have and I've been together for nine years, married for five now, up until recently, like, she's doesn't know really what I do. Like she knows what what I do, but not really. And so coming home is not as hard out of those conversations. And now that I'm like Omniboost and the hospitality, say she is a interior designer, we have a lot of like the hospitality kind of word to talk about.
00:18:59:21 - 00:19:21:15
Rob Napoli
But it's kind of funny because you find those you have to find those balances in a relationship. And when you work with that person and do all that, it's a it's unique challenge. I think it's really important for for people out there listening to that, to find your own relationship vibes or like find those different channels that you can enjoy the successes and have a long time.
00:19:21:15 - 00:19:38:22
Rob Napoli
And when do you disconnect from work, getting to travel back and forth. This creates also some really cool adventures. And from what I know, you know, having spent a little bit of time in New York with Nadia, you two love kind of adventures and you like kind of that movement of creating, building and being on the go is that, you know, it works for you.
00:19:39:00 - 00:19:58:23
Rob Napoli
So that's really cool. And I love that I've, I've met a couple other and interviewed a couple other like has a wife combos and partner combos and brother sister combos of running companies. And it's always unique to hear that story, what it's like around the dinner table I'm sure you're one year old. At some point it's going to be like, Stop talking about RoomRaccoon.
00:19:59:00 - 00:20:03:10
Rob Napoli
I'm tired. Like, you know, But when she's like seven or eight or whatever. But hey.
00:20:03:10 - 00:20:08:04
Tymen Van Dyl
I don't know, she needs it. It's like we need to teach her ropes sooner or later.
00:20:08:06 - 00:20:28:23
Rob Napoli
So she can take over the business from me, you guys can retire on an island somewhere. So, you know, you talk about splitting time between the two offices, You know, what's that like? Is your building kind of RoomRaccoon and looking at it going global and, you know, the amazing kind of opportunities that you have. Why is it so important to split the time?
00:20:28:23 - 00:20:40:12
Rob Napoli
What is you know, why do you dedicate three months to three months on back and forth? And how has that really affected the business for better or for worse?
00:20:40:14 - 00:21:06:06
Tymen Van Dyl
Well, maybe it gets us to take a step back. When we started building the RoomRaccoon team, then we had acquired international ambitions form early on. I mean, the Netherlands is a small country as a whole markets. And then first we actually built a team like we rented a bigger office space and we set up a whole team and we hired people from all over the world, basically, and flew them into the Netherlands.
00:21:06:06 - 00:21:30:08
Tymen Van Dyl
And we started kind of making our first markets expansions from the Netherlands. We quickly found out that we just really needed to be closer to the hotels to kind of build to establish those relationships, to build the trust, to be closer to the action. We needed our own boots in the grounds of the markets that we were wanting to service.
00:21:30:10 - 00:21:52:14
Tymen Van Dyl
So then we started building these a lot of these remote teams. One of them escalated in, I guess in what it is today in Cape Town. And then we also quickly found out like, hey, because initially we wanted to have the team close to us because you could spend time with the team. If you're a startup, if you're growing fast, then you're learning so quickly.
00:21:52:14 - 00:22:24:03
Tymen Van Dyl
It's all about learning to to grow basically. And learning is all about sharing these learnings and chatting with each other and creating a space where I think being co-located to meet with each other in an office just can maybe spark that that energy and creativity so much more than over a kind of a scope teams meeting or so suddenly we decided to switch it around and we started traveling a lot and we continuously were spending time with our people in these remote offices.
00:22:24:05 - 00:22:50:09
Tymen Van Dyl
So that is, I guess, where we learned how important it is to to spend this time with a team and that is just Yeah, that you can really replace that by Yeah. By only collaborating online with each other and definitely the whole goal of its periods was obviously extra challenging for that's. Yeah. We, well we did a lot of tests and we sat in a lot of empty airplanes of these PCR tests.
00:22:50:09 - 00:22:50:19
Tymen Van Dyl
I mean.
00:22:51:00 - 00:22:51:17
Rob Napoli
Yeah.
00:22:51:19 - 00:23:23:01
Tymen Van Dyl
Anyway challenging times but now yeah, we were over the past years our Cape Town team grew so much that's there are so that we really need to be there ourselves I think to be part of that action. First of all, for us to really understand the team, you know what keeps them, you know, really concerned or what can we help with to open up all of our senses being on that shop floor ourselves.
00:23:23:07 - 00:23:46:05
Tymen Van Dyl
Yeah. But also for them to, for us to have the opportunity to, to remove that scope like, hey, this is, you know, this is all of our work and this is why we do what we're doing. And we can keep kind of elaborating on that. The contexts why we're doing what we're doing all day, every day, and also in little informal kind of settings.
00:23:46:05 - 00:24:05:04
Tymen Van Dyl
And that is that is invaluable. That is that is so essential. That's that we said it's just to yeah, to, get a house there and to spend half of our time there to be as close as possible at all times towards the team that is really making this happen for the hotel.
00:24:05:05 - 00:24:28:18
Rob Napoli
It's actually important, you know, I love this, the fact that we can live in a remote world and we can have remote work. That's so cool. But I know that me specifically, I love being an office with other people. There's something to the energy and having that camaraderie and stuff. I think, you know, as humans, our basic need is, is to have connection, right?
00:24:28:20 - 00:24:45:07
Rob Napoli
And so we sometimes forget that. And it was great to work remote, like having those different places. And also, you know, I think from a cultural standpoint, when you have offices in different countries being able to be there and experience the culture and understand what keeps you up at night, what excites them, what they're looking to do, what the impact they want to make in their role.
00:24:45:09 - 00:24:59:02
Rob Napoli
Because everyone joins the company at different stages, places or whatever. And, you know, I talk to entrepreneurs and leaders like this all the time where you have to understand that everyone that comes in organization is not going to be with you forever as much as you want to think they're going to be ride it out with you forever.
00:24:59:02 - 00:25:17:10
Rob Napoli
They might be there for a year. They might be there for two. They might be there for three. So how do you make them successful in that time? How do you get the most out of them and give them the most out of you? And I think that's the mark of a good leader. And so by being there and being present in those different markets really helps you expand and grow and create those leaders within the company.
00:25:17:10 - 00:25:34:09
Rob Napoli
You need to kind of get out of the business a little bit, right as you and Nadia continue to expand and do your thing, setting up the right people in places to take on more of the day to day so you can work on that in the business, right? So I think that's the way to kind of start to really build that foundation.
00:25:34:11 - 00:25:53:05
Tymen Van Dyl
Yeah. And once you get everything, you know, all, all the kind of the cogs running in the right speed and you've got to get everything figured out and then maybe that is less essential. But we're building something here right now. We're bit where we've got every quarter we introduce several new roles that we're kind of figuring out as we go.
00:25:53:07 - 00:26:13:04
Tymen Van Dyl
We're fine tuning so much process and every process that you implement and that you think you get rides and improve itself is going to be just 90% different next year. Once once that function has tripled in size or or is required to. Yeah just as you scale things continuously adapt.
00:26:13:06 - 00:26:36:13
Rob Napoli
Yeah and I love that. And that's kind of part of building a business and building something. And so, you know, I always love to kind of, you know, we talk about the, the underlying theme of this podcast is, is making hospitality more human through technology. We talk a lot about how RoomRaccoon does that and really gets, you know, in it for the hoteliers the ability to be more efficient so they can make their customers happy.
00:26:36:15 - 00:26:57:00
Rob Napoli
You know, there's this whole world of AI coming up and it's obviously a big topic, you know, being on the tech side of things, building products, how do you see A.I continue to affect the hospitality space and are there any things that y'all are testing with and or things that you, you know, you have your eye on as far as future of hospitality in A.I.
00:26:57:00 - 00:27:23:10
Tymen Van Dyl
We're monitoring all of the developments very closely. Obviously, it's very exciting. That's what that's yeah. That there are some really major breakthroughs and developments over the past few years and more recently. And we all know that A.I is going to form the world for a while. Reshape help reshape the world.
00:27:23:10 - 00:27:55:06
Tymen Van Dyl
Right. Is going to have a material impact on our lives and our businesses.We are not yet at the stage that we are. We see a game changing kind of market ready value for AI to be applied at this moment to our hoteliers. I think the biggest opportunity probably that we would be very excited to do starts implementing is in with regards to content generation where AI is also developing very quickly.
00:27:55:08 - 00:28:34:21
Tymen Van Dyl
What we see, however, is ads. We still think that's kind of AI and content generation is very, very advanced in a few very big languages, mainly English. However, most of our businesses, our hotel business that we support, they are in all across Europe in languages where those A.I developments are far less mature at this stage. So that is what I'm particularly excited about to do, starts helping the engagements between hoteliers and their guests.
00:28:34:23 - 00:29:03:18
Tymen Van Dyl
Yeah, with yeah, with much more natural and easy to use content generation appliances. And that's also very much into theme that you described rise of all of the podcasts. It is all about the interaction. Technology only serves humans right. So it is about the human side and making technology more human and also making the technology work for humans so they can have their hands free.
00:29:03:18 - 00:29:26:08
Tymen Van Dyl
That's also why what we said when we started RoomRaccoon literally what I just explained about, you know, what that situation that we were in with the hotel and Nadia I wanted to implement and create technology that would free up Nadia's hands as a hotelier to be there for the guests that she should be not, you know, sitting behind a computer doing admin stuff as a hotelier for hours every day.
00:29:26:08 - 00:29:49:05
Tymen Van Dyl
She should be there and harnessing you like being hospitable, pampering guests, being there for them. So technology is an enabler for humans to rest assured, let the technology work for them in a in obviously a human way as possible.
00:29:49:07 - 00:30:08:23
Rob Napoli
Yeah it's really exciting and it's something that, you know we kind of monitor as well you know Omniboost you know, being a partner of yours and some of the stuff that we work on together and where we help automate and do things, you know, we're always looking at, you know, what the future of technology looks like and data and automation and how do we leverage that and how do we leverage AI potentially down the road.
00:30:08:23 - 00:30:32:01
Rob Napoli
So I think it's really interesting to see where this thing could go and what it can actually help us do and create and be better at versus taking away. It's like to think about not from taking away from something but how to improve the human element. So I like how you said that. Tymen it’s been amazing to chat with you a little bit about RoomRaccoon and the impact that y'all are making.
00:30:32:03 - 00:30:51:20
Rob Napoli
Before I let you go, though, I always like to ask every guest this question, you know, as we're in the hospitality space and we love to travel and, you know, you're not in a lot of planes, what is the worst travel experience like that? When I say this, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Was the worst the best travel experience that you've ever had?
00:30:51:22 - 00:31:19:21
Tymen Van Dyl
Yeah, as I say, not in I consider ourselves adventurers and I think most of our hotels are as well. I think well, actually let's stick with South Africa has nothing to do with our today's endeavors in South Africa and our relationship with the country and the team there. But about 15 years ago and we're Nadia in I weren't together for that long.
00:31:19:23 - 00:31:46:03
Tymen Van Dyl
We were still studying and she was doing an internship in Cape Town. And then I would visit her after office hours for a month and that was when I mean, we were young. We didn't have much kind of intercontinental travel experience. We traveled quite a bit in Europe. So what do you do when you're in Europe? And I think our listeners from South Africa will probably laugh at us now.
00:31:46:05 - 00:32:02:09
Tymen Van Dyl
What do you do in Europe? You go to the different cities and you go to the city center. You want to be as close as possible, like right in the center of this town as possible, because that's where the old town is. That's where, you know, the old market square, the shops, the restaurants, the cathedral, you know, all of the landmarks.
00:32:02:11 - 00:32:23:05
Tymen Van Dyl
So with that in mind, we booked our trip and I started, you know, Nadia was just like, Hey, just take me wherever. Not really a planner. I wanted to plan some things out, so I planned our whole trip, going to the city center of every South African town that I could find. And books the hotel is a center as possible.
00:32:23:07 - 00:32:40:04
Tymen Van Dyl
What we found out is that not the way to go in South Africa. You want to stay away from the city center as far as possible, because the worst place to be. It is dangerous. It is not well not look after. It is not the place you want to be. So, yeah, it took us, but we booked everything already.
00:32:40:04 - 00:32:57:04
Tymen Van Dyl
So the first time we arrived there and we literally arrived in a car and we're looking outside of the windows like, Oh, where are we? Right, Where did we arrive? Did are we in the right place? Did I make a mistake? And we kind of just grab our bags and run into the hotel because I don’t know was a lot of was a very dodgy place.
00:32:57:06 - 00:33:19:24
Tymen Van Dyl
And then we started chatting with some people and they were laughing at us like, No, no, no, you need to basically cancel all of this. And he says, well before booking that government and whatever. So I ended up calling all these in these hotels and I took counsel and just going country sides. Yeah. And that day, 15 years later we, we now well kind of call south Africa our second home.
00:33:19:24 - 00:33:21:05
Tymen Van Dyl
So we came a long way.
00:33:21:07 - 00:33:40:15
Rob Napoli
Yeah that's awesome. I love that. You know, it's funny how those kind of things come full circle, right from something that was not a great experience, but an eye opening experience that sets you on a path four years later to really be even more ingrained in that culture. And having it as your second home. So I think that's pretty cool.
00:33:40:17 - 00:34:06:05
Tymen Van Dyl
Yeah, exactly. And I think while it was May maybe at this at that same trip, that was an experience that had I was amazing that we never had something like that before. Nadia was into horseback riding and while she was doing the internship and I wanted to impress her a little bit you know new girlfriend. And then I was doing some horseback riding lessons back in the Netherlands for me to when I would go there and we planned like, Hey, we're going to do that.
00:34:06:06 - 00:34:30:23
Tymen Van Dyl
I'm going to show her that I can do some horseback riding together. And we did. So we were somewhere at a game reserve at a smaller one without predators. And then we found it there was kind of a horse riding like a ranch or a stable or so that we could do that. So the then safari style, so we went up on these horses and went with the tracker and into the forest, and he was trekking a little bit.
00:34:30:23 - 00:34:50:13
Tymen Van Dyl
And after a while we kind of came out to the open and it was this big savanna as far as you could look. Just Savannah, open fields. And then this herds of animals like wildebeests and zebras and all of these animals just standing in herds everywhere. And the guy, the tracker, he looked around us and he said, You guys good?
00:34:50:15 - 00:35:17:01
Tymen Van Dyl
Are you ready? I was already okay. What's for sure? Let's go. What are we doing? And he started galloping. And then the our horses. So we were like three horses and we started galloping, just crossing those plains. But what happens then is that how herds to behave If a few animals start galloping, all of the animals start joining and started forming this huge group galloping across these cities plains.
00:35:17:01 - 00:35:42:15
Tymen Van Dyl
So we were galloping and these are now dozens and dozens of these wildebeests and zebras and all of that. They started joining us. And that feeling of being just that force and dust to to cross these planes with such a huge herd of these part of this herd of galloping gain animals, Well, it's still like I don’t know
00:35:42:15 - 00:35:44:21
Tymen Van Dyl
I got goose bumps right now. And I'm telling it again.
00:35:44:23 - 00:36:07:16
Rob Napoli
I love that. That sounds like one of the coolest experiences ever. And just that's got to be intense, exhilarating, scary a little bit. All the things which just it's why it's so much in your memory. You'll never forget that even 15 years later. So Tymen I appreciate you for coming on the show, for being a part of it, for being a part of Omniboost, you've loved getting to work with you all and continue to strengthen our partnership.
00:36:07:18 - 00:36:13:22
Rob Napoli
How can our listeners find you, learn more about what you're doing in RoomRaccoon and how do they get in touch.
00:36:13:24 - 00:36:40:12
Tymen Van Dyl
roomraccoon.com PTFR goes on you. All of our websites is a good place to start. Drop me a message on LinkedIn if you want to chat about something. Entrepreneurialism topic. Yeah, please do. Thanks a lot for having me speak to you guys soon. Keep on. Yeah, keep on mastering the partnership together and good luck with it.
00:36:40:14 - 00:36:42:22
Tymen Van Dyl
Yeah, with the whole podcast.
00:36:42:24 - 00:37:03:00
Rob Napoli
Yeah I appreciate it, my friend. What I'll do also, listeners, if you want to get in touch, I will link with RoomRaccoon website and Tymen’s LinkedIn so you can click it out of the show notes, get in touch, follow along. They're definitely doing some cool stuff and if they ever get a chance, that or maybe have Nadia next time and hear the story from her side.
00:37:03:00 - 00:37:20:13
Rob Napoli
I think that'll be kind of fun to do in the future some. Tymen thank you so much for those listening. This has been another episode of hospitable make sure that you like subscribe, follow or every listen to your podcast. Be a tier one subscriber, get involved, Let us know who we should be talking to, what you want to hear, and until next time, stay will y’all