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Each episode of GAIN Momentum focuses on timeless lessons to help grow and scale a business in hospitality, travel, and technology. Whether you’re a veteran industry leader looking for some inspiration to guide the next phase of growth or an aspiring executive looking to fast-track the learning process, this podcast is here with key lessons centered around four questions we ask each guest.
GAIN Momentum episode #46- The Choice to Scale After the Product Is Ready and Tested | with Omri Shalev
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Adam Mogelonsky: Welcome to the Gain Momentum podcast, focusing on timeless lessons from senior leaders in hospitality, food service, travel, and technology. I'm joined here with my co host, Jason Emanis. How are you?
Jason Emanis: Good, good.
Adam Mogelonsky: Always good. And our special guest today is Omri Shalev, founder and CTO of Ricoh. Omri, how are you?
Omri Shalev: Pleasure to be here. Thank you.
Adam Mogelonsky: Great to have you.
And our podcast is structured around four key questions that we ask all guests to get the conversation started, but also to really focus on scalability and lessons in growing a business, whether there is a bad or good. So, Omri, we're gonna get started with our first question here, which is, when it comes to scaling a business, what is the single piece of advice you would give entrepreneurs from [00:01:00] your perspective as a professional in hotel and hospitality technology?
So
Omri Shalev: I think that if I need to give only one thing and it might sound a little bit obvious, but good product. when we are talking about software as a service, uh, technologies, you have two verticals. You have the vertical software as a service. And you have the horizontal one. So when you're focused on horizontals, for example, you have Salesforce or Slack, which is a software that goes sideways, means that it goes to all industries.
It can be in the hospitality, but also it can be in the finance or whatever it is. And when you're focused on the vertical SaaS, which is the same as Rico, where we are focused only on hospitality and the product that you need to release, or the MVP, the minimal viable product that you are launching.
needs to be different. So my tip of advice [00:02:00] for entrepreneurs who are trying to scale their product is to really focus on what is their MVP. Because as I mentioned, with horizontal SaaS, you can make, let's say, a small tool for salespeople to summarize their calls. And it can be very, very small. You take a couple of dollars per user, and then you do that in Cross selling to all industries.
In the vertical SaaS, you need to be, to come up with something a little bit more robust. Something, for example, with Reeco we spent about two years just developing our purchasing module, because this was where the, Most kind of, money savings and time savings were, and it was very difficult. I mean, connecting buyers and suppliers in one place, it's not an easy thing to do.
So we started with that and then we kind of move on to other products and then we felt comfortable enough to scale. So we started testing for about two, three years, just with 10, 20 hotels [00:03:00] to make sure that we got it right. And after we got the product, right. We felt ready to scale. So my tip of advice is to really focus on the product market fit, as we call it, make sure it's not only about the good product, but also something that is good enough for the industry that you're in.
Jason Emanis: How did you go from minimal to the next step per se? Cause like I have a, like I have a client in particular who has, created a new category, software that hasn't existed before. And, it's solid. it like solves, a problem. But as you know, you get into hotels and there's independent hotels and then there's small management groups and then there's medium sized chains and, you know, it's like they have different needs.
And, um, you know, so the, the development, investment, and thinking, into, okay, minimal, And now we've got to sell the minimal [00:04:00] while we develop the next because in six months, eight months, we better have the next to keep going and you know, to keep funding the business.
Omri Shalev: Yeah. So I think with the minimal one, you need to, first of all, come up with a, with something and then get the first initial feedback. That's why at the beginning, The first customers are design partners, because they understand that they are the first one, they might get the product even for free, just to make sure that they build the product with you.
Um, with Reeco I come from a heavy technology background, and my partner Henrik is a hotelier, so he knows a lot about hospitality, so together we managed to build something that will be A good enough solution to start with, but we learned so much from the feedback that we got. Now, it's a lot of iteration and trial and error that you need to make sure that you're building stuff that are actually needed because you can just go sideways and build so many features that no one is really going to use.[00:05:00]
And so to your question, how do you make the MVP to the next level? is only if you walk step by step with the design partners and then with more customers and then they ask for integrations. And you need to make sure that you're not building custom features only to one specific target audience but you actually consider Let's say one year, two years in advance, the other customers that will join eventually.
So if, for example, I'm doing an integration with an accounting software, obviously this is going to be something good for the rest of the properties that I have. But if I'm focused right now on building something very specific inside the approval flow of a PO, then it might not be something that I will be able to scale.
So at the beginning of your journey, I'll say. You must be very picky with the things that you kind of take as a feedback from your design partner. But at the same time, you need to kind of be in the boundaries of not letting them down [00:06:00] because they will just leave you. So it's not an easy thing to do, but again, it's, it's very crucial that you do that with the customer and not by yourself.
Adam Mogelonsky: it was two years, you mentioned, two years for your core product from starting to MVP. Is that correct? That's correct.
Omri Shalev: Something like this. Yeah.
Adam Mogelonsky: How did you decide on that moment where you're saying, okay, we're ready?
Omri Shalev: Good feedback. So before that, it was like, Oh, you know what? It's great. But well, you know, I wish I had this. I wish I had that. And then eventually we just started to hear good feedback from customers. And I remember the first email that I got like, wow, guys, you guys, you did a very good job. I really like it.
You guys saved me time. You guys saved me money. So then you start to feel it. I mean, as someone who leaves the business on an hourly basis, not even a daily one, because. you're in a roller [00:07:00] coaster of emotions all the time. Believe me, you know, exactly when the moment arrives and you get that positive feedback from the customer.
So, you know, you're not only in the MVP, but you're reaching product market fit. And it can be in different modules. For example, we have four different modules. So we have. The purchasing and the receiving, we have accounts payable, we have inventory and recipes. Now product market fit can reach on different stages for each module depends on when you develop that and how big it is.
So to your point, the two years was just for the purchasing and the receiving piece to reach to its product market fit and the rest were developed alongside that. But yeah, good feedback is a good place to start.
Adam Mogelonsky: So one more follow up, uh, we're talking about lead user innovation or having some sort of company to take your product and be a partner in design. And it's a little bit of a catch 22 because most hotels will come back and say, we want to rent, we want to, [00:08:00] we want an MVP, we want to finish product, and they're willing to pay for it.
And how do you convince a hotel to really take a chance on you when you are still in that beta or alpha stage?
Omri Shalev: Yeah, so beautiful eyes don't really help here. Uh, because at the end of the day, it's all about the bottom line and how can you actually improve the business. But you always have those tech people who always want to be in the front of the line and they want to make sure that they are the most advanced.
Obviously, it's being a design partner in early stages, not for everyone. Uh, so usually I remember one of my employees used to say, you recognize them if they have Apple watch. So if the, the general manager has Apple Watch, maybe he likes technology a little bit more. And if he goes around with bottom up with suits, maybe he's not going to be the perfect match right now.
And maybe we should keep him for later stages. So sometimes you need to [00:09:00] kind of find them in small places. And I would also say that at the beginning we were door knocking and trying to find Small properties, mom and pops, every single one of them who could actually give us an opportunity. Today, we don't go door knocking anymore in Miami Beach to find properties.
Actually, I don't even go on single properties. If it's not a management group with over 10 or 15 properties, it might not be a good fit for us. But in early days, you need to really kind of flip every stone and find those Apple watch people.
Adam Mogelonsky: Wow. Omri, we're going to move into our second question here. Maybe there's some Apple watch in this as well. What are some of the common pitfalls or failures you have witnessed that business owners should look to avoid when scaling their business?
Omri Shalev: So the first point was good product and you got good product. You got good feedback from your customers, but this is not enough for you to scale because [00:10:00] sometimes companies build products that are not very efficient, that their unit of economy doesn't really make sense. So. It can be a beautiful product that makes lots of sense for the hotel, but when you move to 100 or 300 properties, it's not going to be very scalable because if the onboarding takes six to one year, six months to one year, then you're not ready yet to scale.
So product market fit is not only good feedback from the customer, but actually knowing that you can have 200 properties right now to deal with. And he starts with the onboarding process and there are companies. Actually, they've been around for about 20 years and their onboarding process still takes six to six months to one year and even more.
And this is horrible because not only they hurt. The property, they heard the entire industry because once they get a chance from let's say a management group and they give them a green light to go, they, the management group, they were promised it will take a month, then it takes [00:11:00] 12 months. The person who approved the deal is so scarred with the process that is not going to replace the technology after they finish.
And he's not going to be willing to hear about new technologies that are way more advanced than what they offer. So we're in this vicious cycle where companies are. Who has big marketing and sales budget, just push wrong products into executives. And we are in a position where they're not willing to change that tax stack for about five years.
So the biggest kind of people or failures for those companies is. Focus on efficiencies. Focus on making sure that you're ready to scale with your onboarding process, with your customer service, because there is a phrase saying, a good technology is a technology that you can replace quickly. So, that's probably be my two cents on that.
Jason Emanis: Yeah, I like that because that, you know, That can be a real issue. and I [00:12:00] see technologies working towards self service, you know, a lot of it, very basic, super user friendly, basic instructions, people get up and going and they'll get a month down the road. And then maybe they've got like a really in depth complicated question, but it, you know, it's a month down the road.
And so, okay, then they involve support. And if you've got that support there, there you go, you know.
Omri Shalev: Yeah, I agree. I think that, uh, at Ricoh, it takes us seven days, seven business days to do the onboarding, and we don't like it. We want it to be less. We want it to be 24 hours, and we want it to be self serve. As you mentioned, the caveat over here is that if you need to do integrations with other platforms that are not very efficient, then it postpones your kind of onboarding.
This is why, by the way, it's seven days with us because we need to communicate or connect with your suppliers that some of them are not very technological, but this industry is going in the right [00:13:00] direction. So hopefully we'll be able to get to 24 hours and then self onboarding.
Adam Mogelonsky: So you mentioned that previous technologists at the hotel maybe have a bad experience because something was promised on a one month timeline and it took 12 and it It leaves them with a little bit of a grudge against other players who are coming in and they don't really believe you. How do you make them, how do you make them believe you that you can deliver as expected or as promised?
Omri Shalev: I think that, especially with management groups that run, let's say 50 properties, you can always start with a pilot. give me one property. I know that you being sold the dreams and you're living the nightmare with the other software. But as an executive, same as, as myself, You always need to look five years from now and if I'll ask you guys in five years from now Do you think people are gonna do an inventory management [00:14:00] with pen and paper?
Hopefully your answer is gonna be no so if you understand that it's five years from now, you're not gonna be in that position where you're doing stuff with pen and paper and You really want to see an improvement in those areas with technologies. Give me a Pilot, one property, one case study to show you what can I do, how quick it is.
If it's seven days, great, right? You have minimum risk, uh, the subscription that you're going to pay. is a typical subscription that you pay for, for any software, uh, in a couple hundreds of dollars, per month. And at the end of the pilot, let's decide if you want to move forward with the rest of the property, either this year, two years or three years from now.
But at the end of the day, you need to think about five years from now and where you want to be. Because as a management company, if you're not efficient, then what's the value that you bring to the owners? and if the rest are [00:15:00] implementing AI and other great technologies that make them more efficient and improve their bottom line, then you're going to be irrelevant and you're not going to get enough business.
So you need to talk to their common sense, ROI, show them some case study, pilot. Those are the kind of thing that help us penetrate even though there is a bad technology in there.
Adam Mogelonsky: know, and you mentioned where we're going to be in five years. That's the perfect segue into our third question, focusing on the future. So Omri, what do you see as the key opportunities and challenges for hotel technology companies in 2024 and beyond?
Omri Shalev: So I think hospitality is an incredible industry to be in, especially right now. There is so many inefficiencies in so many departments and areas. I can only speak about the back of the house because this is where we live and spend most of our time. But I'm sure the front of the house Also has a bunch of inefficiencies.
So the amount of opportunities is incredible [00:16:00] from, as I said, inventory to recipes, uh, AP automation, purchasing. There is so many things that you can do over there. However, the biggest challenges for those coming years. And then the last two articles are as I mentioned, education, because if you have roughly, let's say 70, 000 properties in the US and only 10 to 15, 000 of them use software, any software, even a bad one, then we're talking about another 40 to 50, 000 that use pen and paper.
So, Education is going to be a crucial part here because some management groups think that spending 100, 000 per year on technology is a lot. But you have to spend money in order for you to make money. And this is a big challenge that requires education. And I find myself more and more in podcasts and conferences.
talk to people and try to explain them why they should use technology, not even AI, just a simple software [00:17:00] to do their purchasing or inventory or whatever it is. So the amount of opportunities is just incredible and I welcome every vendor, every tech vendor out there to join the efforts that we do at Ricoh because every education is Education costs a lot of money, but every company that will help us do the education and explain hotelier is why they need to invest in the back of the house.
I know only in the front of the house, uh, I think we'll make a good change in the industry.
Jason Emanis: Yeah, those Apple watch wearing early adopters, case studies, ROI, time savings, man, the more data you get there, the more compelling it is for those lagging behind that just lay love that pen and paper. But it's after a while, it's like they hear 12 stories of how efficient somebody is on something like Rico.
It's like, ah, what are we doing?[00:18:00]
Omri Shalev: Exactly.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, you know, there's something that I got to bring up because we were all at high tech, uh, or Omri, were you at high tech? I think we were, you were off as somewhere else and then I was looking for Henrik and I couldn't find him because he was jet lagged or something like that. Were you at high tech? I forget.
It's been, it's been two and a half weeks.
Omri Shalev: No, actually I was high tech and then I had to do, I had to travel. So, I missed high tech this year.
Adam Mogelonsky: Ah, well, I'll have to catch you in down in Miami at some point, but I bring this up because. There seems to be a very fine line between education and just noise. And I believe, you know, I'm, I'm still learning from Jason because Jason, you know, not to boost your ego too much, but he does great education as marketing, as a sales tool, as, as a something to broadcast.
But a lot of people just put noise out there thinking that they're educating, but they don't go specific enough. [00:19:00] And because they justify it with something like, oh, we don't want to give away our secret sauce, or we'd rather discuss that at the demo stage. And it's like, well, you're not going to get the demo unless you tell them how it actually works and how what the benefit is and, and actually educate them.
So have you ever encountered that internal obstacle? And how do you really focus on Delivering education without giving away too much, so, or, too little. How do you find that line?
Omri Shalev: I really try to educate at least our customers with the things that we do behind the scenes because I can say AI or I can go deeper and tell you a little bit about vectors and embeddings and how can you compare 700 dimensions in one vector. Uh, and making sure that couple products can match in our catalog and I can go very deep and techy, but I don't think this is what hoteliers really need because they're [00:20:00] business people and they want to stay as practical as possible.
And like ChatGPT, I mean, we all feel that AI is taking over the world right now, but it's been here for so many years, but it was just for the first time brought to the public audience. So actually people can use it. The great stuff that AI can offer you, right? So I totally agree with you that people use AI as buzzwords and you have to use AI in your AP, you have to use AI in your inventory or whatever it is, but they don't really go and explain how to do that just because it's a little bit too complicated for.
Every person who ever asked me, I do explain how does he works behind the scenes. And yeah, we do have our secret sauce and how we build Rico, but I think, and I'll be honest here, that the hospitality is stuck somewhere in 1999. In terms of technology, [00:21:00] so bringing them to AI is like taking them to 2050. So I think that we should stop first at 2020 with user experience.
Uh, some of the softwares out there has terrible user experience. And when you bring new technology into your organization, you should ask yourself, first of all, as I said before, if it's a good technology, it's a technology that you can replace easily. But more importantly, you should ask yourself. Would I use this type of software in my house?
To place an order, to do inventory, even though you should not do inventory unless you have 10 kids, but would I do that? Would I use that type of software in my house considering how it looks like? So before you can even bring AI to the table. Make sure that your software looks smooth and nice and easy to use, and that every user, whether it's a technophobic chef, or housekeeping manager, or a controller, or a [00:22:00] GM, or a VP level at the corporate, they all can enjoy The basic stuff like data and insights and things like this.
And once you have that, you can bring the magic of AI, which usually should work behind the scenes. You should not be kind of doing anything to do with AI if I give you the right user experience. So I'm not sure if he answers your, to your questions. Cause I touched a bunch of points, but, but yes, I think that's the reason why people just scrape the area of AI from the top and not really go.
deep,
Jason Emanis: That was good. I mean, user experience, because we've all had smartphones for quite a while. So if your user experience on a desktop or a phone, let's say your application, you know, you're, back in the stores, take an inventory, you know, uh, of the kitchen or whatever. And if it's similar. Somewhat similar to the apps on your phone, [00:23:00] you know, somewhat similar to Word or Outlook or, you know, Gmail, Yeah. It doesn't matter if it's AI or whatever. It's like the outcomes are really what, like, what do I, okay, what am I gonna get out of this? You know, make that clear. This is what's going to happen.
It's like chat GBT. I use it for a number of things and a lot of people are like, they don't still don't get it, but. the very best thing I use ChatGPT for, and see, so it's, I'm going to talk about outcomes. It's going to be like, it's practical. When you do a podcast, when you do a video interview, you're going to create a transcript.
You take that transcript, you drop it in a ChatGPT and it'll summarize it just like that. They don't have to be creative. Just summarize the thing for me. Okay. Now I can use that summary for a LinkedIn post. I can use it for a YouTube description of that video interview, just instantly, you know? So outcomes and user experience.
It's great.[00:24:00]
Omri Shalev: And I see software trying to bring AI. When the user experience is horrible, how do I even get to a point where I do something and interact with their AI behind the scenes if the user experience itself is so bad? So I would suggest companies to kind of, first of all, make a nice makeup on their software to make sure that it looks good. It works good.
It's practical. It's, there is so much inefficiency over there just by making it nice. We'll make their life much easier and they will make money out of your efficiencies or kind of software
Adam Mogelonsky: So one more follow up. You mentioned people who are using the software who maybe are tech phobic. You know, they're somebody in the kitchen. They're a restaurant manager, something like that. Therein lies a classic problem for hotel technology is that you're not just selling something that is for an automation tool or for the guests to use.
You need to have customer support [00:25:00] and that can be expensive. how have you approached customer support at Rico? and obviously the user experience helps to limit that because you do great, great UI helps to reduce the amount of hours, but what's your approach for. Customer service at Ricoh.
And where do you see customer support going for the hotel technology industry?
Omri Shalev: I have a podcast called Hospitality for Hospitality. And the reason it's called this way is because what we try to do is to give the hospitality industry, the hospitality. vibe Because at the end of the day, my customer success team, they need to make sure that the same experience you give to your guests, I give to you.
And this is the standard that we need to keep. And the way for you to do that, first of all, is that you don't just hire 100 customer support people to make sure everything works fine. You hire engineers to make the life more efficient and the user experience, as you mentioned, good. So [00:26:00] whenever you add more properties, you don't need to, in a linear way, add more customer support to the equation.
Because one customer success can manage 100 properties In an efficient way and still make sure that it gets the right attention. So first we tackle the problems that we have in a technological way. This is very important. but second, we have different divisions based on the users or the customers. So I have the visions for suppliers because they're also my customers.
I cannot neglect them. I need to make sure that the sales rep that I work with or the, Owners are happy because a distributor is the oxygen of this industry, he's the wheels, he's the one making sure that the product will reach from one location to the other. So it's very important that in the equation we take.
Good care of our suppliers. On the other side, in the hotel, you have different type of people. So you have the customer and you [00:27:00] have the user. The customer might be the general manager or someone even higher level in the corporate who sits in, I don't know, Maryland or Virginia and the properties in Florida, so you need to make sure that you have someone for management.
Who gives them the right insights and the things that they want to see. And you need to have someone for the day to day. So one of the things that we do at Ricoh is that, for example, when you place an order and the apples are rotten, you can easily call us and we have 24 7 ordering center that can help you find and mitigate that issue.
Same with Uber Eats, right? When you have a problem with the restaurant, you don't call directly to the restaurant, you send a message to Uber Eats and they help you with that. Because we have the great technology in the back of the house to help you and find better resolution. So you as a chef can go back to the kitchen and do what you love, which is cooking.
You're not here for ordering or doing inventory counts. So all the things that we do with the users, with our [00:28:00] customers, And this is the motto that we have.
Adam Mogelonsky: Omri, we're going to move into our fourth and final question here. What are the key things innovative leaders and entrepreneurs should prioritize to focus on to gain traction for their business?
Omri Shalev: So we talked a little bit about product market fit, which is very important for them to kind of reach. Second of all is to be more efficient. Right? Your unit of economy needs to make sense. And the third part is to Sales. So, how do you sell to the industry, to the hospitality, or to any, um, enterprise selling kind of approach?
So, cold calling is not a good approach here, and sending lots of emails is not a good approach. Now, there is a phrase someone told me, if you want to sell to one hotel, you need to sell to its neighbor first. Now, how do you do that then? It's like a chicken and egg problem. [00:29:00] And the way to solve that is with relationship.
Now, I know it sounds trivial to a certain generation, but not to every generation. Some people, and we used to have sales people that I told them, go to the conference and talk with that person. And it would be like, you know what, I'll just send them an email. But like, don't send an email, go to the conference physically.
And tell them, Hey, I'm looking only for you. And I would love to invite you for a coffee or something to talk. And people are so afraid of relationship because they're so used to be at their house or just sit in the office in front of a computer that they just lost some of those skills. And you see that the biggest deals that are being closed in this industries are done with.
Experienced or older sales persons, just because they're all about relationship. They don't care about putting everything on Hotspot and making sure that everything is organized and doing automations and bots and stuff. They take their bag and they just go to every single [00:30:00] location, every conference in the US.
They travel all the time. They're on the plane. They meet the people, they have a drink with them. And this is how you do business in this industry. You need to, I know it's not very scalable and it kind of contradicts with the first point, but eventually it becomes scalable because if you build enough, a good network of people around you that enjoy not only your product, but you as well, this is the way for you to grow.
So. What should you be focused on as an innovative leader? You should be focused on building relationships.
Jason Emanis: Great point. That's a good one. I don't know how to back that up because it's so, it is difficult scaling. Those good salespeople are expensive. They generally have been around a little longer. They're more expensive. and you gotta, be able to track, I like your comment about HubSpot because so now you're kind of dipping into my world where it's like, uh, do we know what we're doing?
Do we know who's talking to who? And when it's [00:31:00] so This is one thing that I've always tried to do because I've built two marketing departments from the ground up, is to have a, a strong project manager that knew CRM, um, that was tech savvy, and they could keep things running through the tech to help, The CFO and the CEO and the VP of sales understand what's happening.
you know, so it's all because it's, it all bakes in that, in those systems and one or two systems, right. which have nothing to do with what you just explained, those salespeople going out there. Like I, I've had the privilege of working with salespeople that it always amazes me and Adam brought up high tech.
So some of these salespeople go into high tech and they fricking know everybody and they know the nuance of. That guy in that role in that hotel. Oh yeah. And two years ago when he was at that management group and they only use this technology and they don't use that technology and they [00:32:00] won't use that technology.
And my head's spinning, I'm going, what? So he has a very good point. Get yourself, get yourself one or two, little older, sharp relationship builders and watch it go.
Omri Shalev: And if you like it, I mean, at the end of the day, people look at it as if they need to suffer. But if you think about the typical joke that all the big deals are being done in the golf course, right? If you think about it, this is the fun part of the work. Meeting people, talking with them. Going to dinners, playing golf, it should not be something that annoying.
And again, younger generation, including myself, by the way, I came from Microsoft and I used to sit in front of a computer for so many hours every single day that I lost some of my gifts and interactions with people, but luckily my mom gave me a beautiful gift, which is I'm able to talk with people and, I have great sense of humor, at least in Hebrew.
I'm not sure about that. The English one, but I think that people should use that gift a little bit [00:33:00] more and talk more. And just build relationship and enjoy it and not to take away from the importance of managing everything on Hotspot and staying very organized because at the end of the day, there is a certain amount of data you can keep in your head.
I always tell my wife, after 30 days, I start to clean up names of people that I don't meet again. I mean, both are very important and I think relationship is stronger here.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, Jason mentioned, you know, you get one good salesperson and they're expensive. And then you also mentioned Omri saying, okay, I'm going to go to a conference and I'm going to email this person and say, Hey, I'm going to this conference just to meet you. Let's let's meet. Let's meet. That doesn't necessarily guarantee the sale on the spot and it'll develop a good relationship.
They'll be, they'll take the meeting. This is a lot of expenses and we're looking at scale ups who have to decide on which conferences to go to for ROI, uh, what the travel budget is for their salesperson. [00:34:00] What advice would you give for companies that have a limited budget, either sales or marketing, to figure this out and draw the line, uh, so it doesn't go into the red?
Yeah,
Omri Shalev: as a vertical is some, is a place that you need to have a lot of money. We are backed by very strong VCs and very high income, Family offices, so you cannot disrupt the market unless you have a lot of money. there are plenty of other industries that you might do that cheaper, even though nowadays it's pretty expensive everywhere, right?
Uh, even the software, just a subscription to HubSpot or all those can cost a couple thousands per month. So unless you're building something that is not in the software industry, you are a vendor or something like this, I would not suggest go without money. [00:35:00] if you really want to make a change, yeah, unfortunately that's, that's my only piece of advice.
Go raise money and find good investors because if you want to change something here, you need to have kind of enough time to make a change because. You need to first build, as we said, product market fit and it takes time. I mean, you need to, I can text a chef, hey, do you like it? And he's going to respond in a week from now, because he was so busy, he had an event for 300 people and he just didn't see my WhatsApp, for example.
So all those things add up, right? I want to talk with the management group, but the person that I need is traveling right now to three conferences, to a hot tech, high tech, bi tech, and Everything with tech and then he's going on a vacation because after one month of conferences he needs a vacation So it will take me another month and a half until I'll be able to meet him And then he wants to meet in person, so it will take another two weeks, so it takes time.
You need to be patient here, [00:36:00] and you need money. Yeah,
Adam Mogelonsky: I think that's a very real, very sobering thought, but it's the truth, and we see that all the time. Omri, Jason, any closing remarks?
Omri Shalev: had a lot of fun. I think that, uh, you guys are doing something incredible. Sharing stories from entrepreneurs, how to do things better. I think this industry should have more and more I saw statistics saying that currently there are about 900, tech vendors in the hospitality industry, which is, it just, it sounds a lot, but I think we should have way more considering the, the education that we all need to do to some of the groups over there.
So yeah, those are, it's, a great time to be in and I had the pleasure to be on your podcast.
Adam Mogelonsky: Awesome. Well, Omri, thank you so much for coming on. Jason, thank you as always.
Jason Emanis: [00:37:00] Yeah, you bet.