Creating Hotel Software That Makes The Dream of Functional and Beautiful Enterprise Systems a Reality w/ Mews Founder Richard Valtr

Episode 4 features the Founder of Mews Richard Valtr.

We dive deep into the world of technology and its impact on the hospitality industry. Richard's goal was to create functional and beautiful enterprise systems for the hospitality space. As a former boutique hotelier, Richard knows first hand the struggles of managing tech, guests, all while creating a hospitable experience.

We talk about the future of tech, including how AI can help streamline processes and revolutionize the industry. As well as, discuss the effects technology has on business travel vs leisure travel vs bleisure travel. We also look at how tech affects different generations of travelers and how to navigate the future of hospitality tech.

We also talk about the deep connection that exists between the hospitality industry ... and humanity!

Tune into to hear more about Richard's unique background, his vision for the future, and a great discussion around technology and humanity.

Don't forget to subscribe and review!

00:00:00 Hospitality industry is for humans.

00:09:50 Growth mindset is essential.

00:12:20 Adopt a growth mindset.

00:15:12 Transformative technology for hotel experiences.

00:22:53 Technology as an assistance, not replacement.

00:29:07 Technology can transform guest experiences.

00:30:11 Growth mindset in challenging markets.

00:38:36 Embrace growth mindset for success.

00:41:16 Exciting future in AI innovation.

Connect:
Richard Valtr: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-valtr-79541410/
Mews: https://www.mews.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

Filmed at BelCham NYC: www.belcham.org

Creators & Guests

Host

Rob Napoli

Rob is the Global Head of Brand at Omniboost and US Commercial Lead. He is passionate about sports, travel, and where to find the best whiskey bar in Manhattan.

Guest

Richard Valtr

Founder of Mews

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

00:00:00:00 - 00:05:07:14
Rob Napoli
All right. We're back for another episode of Hospitable Hospitable is a podcast focused on discussing the leading challenges facing the hospitality industry and to explore latest trends, tech things of that nature. I'm really excited for this one. I know I say that a lot when I do this podcast, but I've heard a lot about you Richard obviously very well, so.

Rob Napoli
I've heard some stories. All good, I promise. Really? Yeah.

Richard Valtr
Well, then definitely lies.

Rob Napoli
And I love the fact that, you know, we have that Brooklyn connection and both of us, that being New Yorkers. We went straight to Brooklyn and we skipped the city phase and we had a good laugh out of that. So my guest today is Richard Valtr

Rob Napoli
He's the founder of Mews And I was looking at your bio and I love this you're an entrepreneur and recovering hotelier. Yes. Talk about that. Your story is really, really unique and you now you're developing technology to to help those hotels. But tell me a little about your story. How did you get into this hospitality industry in the first place?

Richard Valtr
Well, that was my mother. So she you know, so I'm Czech. I sound very English, but I'm Czech by birth and by everything. And so my mother, after the Berlin Wall came down, she was basically starting to develop a lot of projects in Czech Republic or in Central Europe. She was you know, she's got the entrepreneurial gene of the family.

Richard Valtr
My father was a programmer, I guess, basically kind of electrical engineer slash programmer, because that was what it was basically in the seventies and eighties. And then so I was always quite close to both of those worlds. And then I would spend, you know, my summer holidays essentially being a night receptionist, which is why the first thing that we did with news was to kill the night audit, because I hated that and I hated that joke.

Richard Valtr
But now I just really, yeah, I she asked me to kind of come back from England to help out with a couple of projects, and one of them was this project called the Emblem, which kind of became my baby. And I got to kind of foist all of my design ideas of how it should look, how I should run, what the staff should do, you know, the way that I wanted, the whole kind of feel of it to be.

Richard Valtr
And I thought, you know, I thought with that at the heart of it and that kind of guest experience, basically at the heart of every single one of those design decisions. And then I thought, okay, well, let's find a system that can actually kind of do this. And a half knew that there was no system that was who was going to do it.

Richard Valtr
So my idea was always to kind of Trojan horse my, my start up idea into this. And then that was basically the the birth of Mews. And then you had like six years of slogging away, trying to find product market fit because, you know, building PMS is the most insanely difficult thing to do. But then, yeah, I think, you know, now we're just, you know, huge.

Richard Valtr
We're over 5000 hotels in over 85 different countries and yeah, just growing like hotcakes this year and it feels great.

00:03:17:16 - 00:03:31:16
Rob Napoli
That's amazing. And it's kind of funny because, as you said, you have a mother that's the entrepreneurial brain. But then your father was as an engineer, a developer. It's like, okay, there's that, there's the process side of it, and then there's the crazy side of, yeah, like you've got a little bit of both.

Richard Valtr
But I always thought that I'd be a writer, you know, that's like the thing that I thought that when I was 13 or so. So I always will see myself as an artist rather than a a manager. Yeah, my dad was a great manager and I kind of I always like it was like not going to go into that kind of thing, but I'm not sure if I'm a good manager.

Richard Valtr
But like, I think that, I think generally I like to find really great people that I really, really love working with and then just making sure that I can support them, do the best work that I.

Rob Napoli
Mean, that's kind of the mark of a great leader, right? Hire smarter people to do the job for you and give them the trust and the support and the tools to go create.

Richard Valtr
So it's easier said than done, you know, because I think, like, it's also you have to know when to kind of push and when to kind of like stand back. And, you know, I think it's so difficult at the beginning because you're always going to have so many, you know, resource constraints and things like that. And you have to find people that just scale themselves really, really well.

Richard Valtr
And then you have to figure out like, how do I find the right specialists and things like that. So those are also like skills that you have to acquire as you kind of go through the of crazy growth.

00:05:07:17 - 00:10:20:24
Rob Napoli
I mean that's kind of the it's kind of the just position of being that. And I think, you know, being a founder is very artistic, right? Because you have so many different ways that you can more the business with new products, with the way you paint your team or grow your team to develop your team, especially if you're operating with 85 plus countries thinking about cultural differences.

Rob Napoli
Right? And then bringing in people to be able to work those markets and understand which is something I think you know, here in omniboost where we're in 70 plus countries as well kind of following some directory. And you know, we do a lot of partnership stuff together. You know, it's really interesting and I lived in Italy and all over.

Rob Napoli
And so, you know, seeing and understanding these differences and sometimes even the way you communicate little things to partners and clients can change. So it's quite interesting to see how you do that. And with that being said, how have you thought about with a global expansion and the global growth, you know, how have you what do you feel has been part of your success as you're learning to do this and growing the right team or putting people in positions to be successful so that it can scale?

Richard Valtr
I think there's, it's a kind of two part answer because on the first side it's, you know, by virtue of where we started. So we started in, you know, Czech Republic markets not really big enough to support a kind of a growing company or a company that wants to kind of get venture backed and things like that.

Richard Valtr
So, I mean, or at least it wasn't kind of back when I started. And now hopefully they'll still be a lot of companies even now in this kind of like tough funding environment that come out of, you know, smaller countries as well. But we've always had that as a kind of guiding principle. So we knew that we were not building it.

Richard Valtr
So the market that we're in. So I always kind of, you know, it's there's always pros and cons because you kind of you grow up a lot more resilient when you come from a small country and you're always looking outwards. Whereas, you know, if you for example, in America, like, you know, nobody's in America building for Ohio, you know, the same way that like in Europe, you know, if you're Germany, you're building for Germany first, basically.

Richard Valtr
And you got to figure that out first. Whereas just here it's it's easier that you're kind of building for a much more homogenized market so you can kind of see scale in every single thing that you do. So I think that especially as a European company, you kind of have to deserve scale first. You have to prove yourself out in kind of, you know, 20 different countries.

Richard Valtr
And then comes the big fish that, you know, you want to go over and conquer America. And that's, you know, that's another like 50 or so countries, basically, that you then have to kind of try and figure out. So I feel like scale is always this thing is of, you know, how do you do the how do you think about the platform?

Richard Valtr
How do you think about the thing that, you know, 20 x results can be built on and whether that's a people problem, whether that's a tech problem, whether that's a partnerships problem, you know, all of those things you have to think about from a really, really broad lens. And then you think about like, what's the shortcuts? What are the things that I can do now that kind of I know about?

Richard Valtr
They're kind of placeholders, but I can scale them a little bit later on. And I think those are the things that tend to kind of, you know, be difficult to think about. And I think it's also the same thing if you are a hotelier, you know, you think about I think most hotels that buy us as a system them mostly kind of growth orientated growth minded people they want to do more.

Richard Valtr
You know it's I think the point about basically going into an industry where the existing solutions are good enough, you know, like you buy Oracle because nobody's ever fired buying Oracle, you know, So you have to go into it with a promise that that there's going to be more that you can basically become more profitable, that you can do more things with the technology that you actually have, that you can actually grow your business because of the fact that you're working with great technology.

Richard Valtr
And sometimes that comes through, you know, building great experiences for your customers. Sometimes, you know, it's because you're going to be able to actually kind of, you know, talk to your customers more effectively. You're going to be able to, you know, get the right value for the rooms that you're selling, doing that, you know, on a, you know, per minute kind of basis rather than, you know, once a day kind of, you know, cycle or you're thinking about, you know, expanding into tools and activities, all of these different things.

Richard Valtr
But I think that that the first thing is that you've got to have that kind of growth mindset, you know, in all the things that you're actually doing.

Rob Napoli
And you know, some people talk about growth mindset, right? But what to you, what is growth mindset mean?

Richard Valtr
I think it's really I think you can kind of do this like really, really good exercise, which is basically that you kind of go, okay, this year I did this and next year I want to do this. And then you split it up and like, what are the things that are going to kind of, you know, create that?

00:10:20:24 - 00:15:38:14
Richard Valtr
So sometimes a lot of hoteliers basically will put out a lot of, you know, nice news as well. And you kind of like, you know, rising tide, you know, like you have this approach that a lot of hoteliers have because it's been basically the case for the last 30 or 40 odd years that, you know, there is more travel, there are more people coming in.

Richard Valtr
So even though we have, you know, more supply or historically in the last ten years, we've had more supply coming on with Airbnb and all of these different things, it's like it hasn't really dampened in most markets, like the actual demand, you know, in fact, actually like the pace of demand is really kind of gone on larger. So it's been a normal thing to assume that next year is going to be better than last year.

Richard Valtr
And that's like a really weird thing that and I think that sometimes hoteliers don't understand just how much like that just happens, not because it happens in every other industry, but it happens to us in this industry. And I think the growth mindset comes from, you know, being able to pass away like what happens because you're not directly affecting that.

Richard Valtr
So that's like a societal thing, like people who are traveling more have more disposable income. It's easier to travel to places basically, you know, post-pandemic at least. And generally, you know, people are working more. You know, that whole pleasure thing is like really starting to kind of catch on. So people are, you know, now traveling and working from hotels, working from their vacations.

Richard Valtr
They kind of melding all of these different things. People are not just, you know, working from one place anymore, they're kind of coming to see their teams a lot more and all of these kind of secular factors that are that are contributing to, you know, better travel outcomes. Yeah. So I think all of those things are really, really good.

Richard Valtr
But the growth mindset kicks in when you kind of when you go, okay, fine, that's one thing that's like a secular trend. One of the things that I'm going to do to really try and actually boost or the other thing. So, you know, it's like I've noticed that a certain type of person is coming. How am I going to replicate that and create 50 more of those people?

Richard Valtr
You know, how am I going to make sure that this one type of customer who's come here yesterday, you know, and spend, I don't know, like, you know, 5K yeah. On the actual kind of like trip, how am I going to replicate that. So that's not just one customer every single month, but that's 20 customers basically every single two weeks.

Richard Valtr
And I think the growth mindset is, is much more about trying to kind of figure out all the ways that you can grow rather than I think what especially hoteliers tend to fixate on is how can I kind of make sure that I can, you know, keep things the same? Because so much of what being a hotelier is, is trying to kind of, you know, navigate the chaos.

Richard Valtr
And the chaos is usually kind of born out through from the people. I think we have huge problems that we just get. So like, we have to constantly get people, we have to constantly train them. We have to constantly kind of show them the ropes. We have to basically maintain those standards because the last person who was able to do it really, really well.

Richard Valtr
Well, now that this new person is probably only going to stick around for six months, basically, but you still have to, you know, actually kind of make sure that they're doing the right thing. Yeah. And so a lot of it kind of feels like Groundhog Day. And to be able to kind of like lift yourself up from that, you know, reality of this is the industry and actually adopt that growth mindset is really difficult.

Richard Valtr
And it's actually something that, you know, it's always, you know, it's that phrase of yeah, it's really difficult. It's, you know, I am terrible at remembering the quotes but like the it's always a challenge to see past the end of your nose. Yeah. You know and I think that that that is the constant struggle that we have in, in hotels that it's just really, really difficult to actually do the things that generate growth and generate those types of outcomes.

Rob Napoli
You talk about the cars, right? And, you know, I my former life was in recruitment and I always joke when you see these industries, hotel is one of them, right? You have people on both sides, right? People running the front desk and, you know, giving a high level of service and you have the people coming in. So, yeah, people on both sides and people are inherently both crazy.

Rob Napoli
Yeah. So do you have crazy coming in from all different directions? It can be hectic. And you mentioned this whole pleasure trend, right? Business. Unless you're working from anywhere, that's different. When a hotel was set up for business travel. Yeah. Versus the business person who brings their family. Yeah. And you need to be able to have both there.

Rob Napoli
So how do, how do you adapt and change? So I love that growth mindset process and this leads into, you know, what your mission is for me is which I'll let you say it because you're going to say it more eloquently than me, but I really love the mission and what you're doing with your technology. So why don't you share with us what is the mission of Mews and why did you create technology for the space?

Richard Valtr
So the mission of Mews is to create transformational solutions for brands and remarkable experiences for their guests. And we really try and mix the two things together because we think that they're intertwined. You know, it's essentially a hotel. It is not just a room and the guest is not just ADR, you know, And I think that's, again, getting yourself out of that mindset is really, really difficult because, you know, the room is the main thing.

00:15:38:14 - 00:20:50:11
Richard Valtr
The person's buying, basically. And, you know, the room rate is main economic driver. Every single thing that you're going to kind of get and to get out of, how do I optimize for, you know, getting that head in bed and, you know, how do I optimize for basically kind of making sure that that's that that money is basically kind of in the bank.

Richard Valtr
That's a difficult thing to optimize for. And it's a huge amount of work basically to get to kind of get right. But I think that, you know, there is so much exponentially that you should be able to do with hotels, with hotel groups, with hotel brands like all of these things. So important to do and they're important to think about, you know, how am I going to stay relevant, How am I going to?

Richard Valtr
Because a lot of the times it's, you know, I think for the again, for the last 30 years, it's you know, you build a hotel in a good location and demand is something that happens to you. Yeah. And you don't think about, you know, maximizing all of that, maximizing the real estate, maximizing all of these kind of things.

Richard Valtr
Because, you know, you wake up, you know, next year and suddenly you get more hotel, like more people are coming to your hotel and you're like, wow, this is great. Like, it must be a vindication of the fact that I've done something right. So why didn't I just keep doing the same thing? And so our mission is more from, you know, on the one side, on the technology side, we really, really believe that, you can make technology more human.

Richard Valtr
You can make technology silent. We have this concept of user disengagement. We don't believe that people in hotels should be staring at a screen. And that seems kind of counterintuitive to a lot of people because they're like, well, but, you know, I need to check them in. I need to do all of these kind of like different things.

Richard Valtr
And when you say technology to most people, they're like, oh, kiosks or, you know, they think, oh, I'm going to, you know, have to basically talk to a computer or there's a robot or there's a hologram, you know, and that's how people think of technology. Whereas we think of it as like, no, make it silent, make the screen go away and try and use technology, whether it's, you know, A.I., whether it's, you know, artificial intelligence to make better decisions, basically, so that you don't have to kind of, you know, read through huge reams of profile information basically, in order to kind of go, okay, well, I think that this person this is all correct.

Richard Valtr
And they coming from this country and they like these kind of things, maybe this is the thing that I should recommend to that person is just like know that there's a super smart system. It's basically goes like actually from all of this, you know, whilst actually kind of working with you, talking to you hotelier, we have together thought that this is the next best thing that you should do.

Richard Valtr
And then thinking about, you know, how does the technology serve that up? So that's why we believe that, you know, the user interface should be so unbelievably simple because you should only have to look at the screen for a second. It's why, for example, we have such a sparse use of color. You know, when you, for example, like look at a lot of these systems, they kind of look like pride flags.

Richard Valtr
Yeah, I just and the new version of the Pride flags, you know, it's just like you have like every single color, every single shape, every single thing. And you're like, what? Like what is the the most important part of that? And that's why, for example, like in our system, it's mainly black and white. We use color to accent things that you need to action.

Richard Valtr
And you think about it basically from that perspective. So what we're trying to do is for you to look at a screen for the lowest amount of time possible, and there's a huge amount of design basically that just goes into that huge amount of neuroscience that goes into it. And we really, really try and, you know, do our best so that everyone can actually kind of really benefit from that.

Richard Valtr
And the point about it is, is that that happens on the front desk. Yeah, but we're really, really trying to do that every single stage at the hotel. So this is why, for example, like we're launching multi property product so that somebody can look at their entire portfolio of hotels and go, okay, these are the three things that I need to concentrate on today.

Richard Valtr
It's why, for example, you know, we have reports that work on these kinds of different multi property lenses so that you can actually kind of like really, really start to see, okay, these are the things that are really going on in the hotel. These are the these are the factors that are going to actually kind of move the needle.

Richard Valtr
So for me, it's about user disengagement, user kind of being able to trust the technology that it's actually just, you know, really, really good. In turn, it's kind of just bringing you like a notification, basically, because a notification is always better than a report. You know, if you're having to, like, read reams of paper to actually see like what the information is behind it.

00:20:50:24 - 00:25:53:09
Richard Valtr
And just like, you know, that's not technology doing its job. It's just an Excel sheet existing because it's an Excel sheet. Yeah, but you should be thinking about it basically is like, how do I make better decisions because of the technology? How do I make sure that I don't have to interact with the technology and I can actually kind of do my job because my job is not to analyze, Yeah, the computer's going to be better than that.

Richard Valtr
It's actually to kind of do the next basically. Yeah. Which ultimately should lead to better customer experience all across.

Rob Napoli
Hey you make a great point in like technology is amazing, right? And but it can be distracting and we know that with all of us having, cell phones that blow up notifications, I mean, even having an Apple Watch, right? Yeah. And well, it's nice to have like the colors and the those things that make it beautiful.

Rob Napoli
It's great when the goal is to be on screen, when your goal is to provide a great service. I love that that that that thought of keeping minimalistic and driving to that and then using technology to help analyze and move things forward so that, it's asking do what they do best and that's deliver exceptional customer service, make people feel welcome when they walk in.

Rob Napoli
That's why, sometimes Airbnb is kind of a fun thing to do, but sometimes you just want to go and walk in and that you're gonna be taken care of now. It's going to be done for you. You're going to feel like you're at home, You get that service and then you have a you have a bed to lay your head at, your head on and know that you don't have to worry about everything else

Rob Napoli
Yeah. Especially when you're traveling. If you're in a country you've never been to a stressful day, sometimes you just need that. Yeah. And it's such a you could tell when you have those experiences. Do you remember it? Yeah. It's memorable. Yeah. And so I love that you talk about technology that, doesn't distract, and that is honestly one of the fun things that I love about the job that I get to do.

Rob Napoli
I mean, here I am recording a podcast, working for a tech company, getting to talk about the customer experience, because, we believe in giving time back to people and everyone's like, Oh, technology time. You shouldn't use that as a selling point, but it's not just time. Yeah, what we want to give back is we want to allow humans to be their more creative self.

Rob Napoli
Yeah. And I think our mission so align on that. That's why I was so fun when I was reading and, looking at us like, holy shit, this is you know what I mean? And I think in this industry is why this industry, such a beautiful thing. So hotels with the whole hospitality. Yeah, inhospitable hospitality as a whole is such a cool thing.

Rob Napoli
And it's really something that I find really exciting, that there is technology to to grow it and scale it. And you talk about it in a way that the technology is meant to be an assistance in driving it forward and not something that replaces it because you don't replace the human element of talent.

Richard Valtr
I think like that's that's the most beautiful thing about our industry is that like it's literally an industry for humans by humans? So it's the act of being hospitable, that's like going back to, the birth of humanity. Yeah, Yeah. It's essentially, and I don't want to get into like anthropology and things like that, but like the first exchanges of value that you see is, people from another tribe going to tribe giving gifts.

Richard Valtr
Yeah. And this kind of like ritual gift giving that sometimes really escalate. Yeah. But it's the idea that I think most of us have ingrained within us this idea that you, you give a gift. And by giving that gift, the other party receives the obligation. And I think that that's really in evidence when you think about what you're doing, when you're traveling and when you're when you're coming to a hotel, you're basically you're giving the gift of, maybe your money, basically your your presence, your, all of those all of those different things that might be the data that you're carrying with you, that you're basically giving somebody access

Richard Valtr
to your life or your. But you expect something in return. You expect basically that somebody to, take that money and give you a great bet. Yeah. Yeah. You expect somebody to take that data and create a great experience based on that, but to also give you privacy, to also kind of give you dignity, to give you, a great way, a great home for for just the day.

Richard Valtr
And I think like those are so different, right? If you're Mark Zuckerberg and you're building something in the metaverse, basically, then you're saying is like, well, how can I make sure that this person doesn't need to eat because they basically, like will keep as much of their time on screen and, how do I become, get them to become a gamer who's going to actually kind of stay in that world for like 90% of their day?

Richard Valtr
Yeah, For us, it's like the complete opposite. We're basically like, how do we make sure that nobody. Yeah, like not just the guest. Yeah, that has to, like, fill out like a really, really infuriatingly, complicated form, because paper is also an interface and I think sometimes hotels forget that. Yeah. like paper is not technology because it comes out of a printer.

00:25:53:09 - 00:31:09:21
Richard Valtr
It's like it's also a technology. It just like somebody then has to like make somebody has read it, somebody has to analyze it. Somebody has to like write down all the different kind of things with it. And I think that it should be so much less about those types of experiences and more about the experience of a guest and a host.

Richard Valtr
if I could think about my like my perfect hotel, I'd basically almost want a 1 to 1, guest to host ratio. Yeah, yeah. Because everyone's going to be so unique, everyone's going to be so different. And, thinking about that kind of business model, how do you make sure that, you have 800 people coming in and you have 800 people to serve them, thinking about like, well, because we run a lot of these kind of thought experiments where we we think about, what's the ideal trip, what's the ideal way to kind of like look after people

Richard Valtr
what's the way to scale that? What's the way to kind of to actually make it real? And you think about all these different kind of permutations. It's the same thing. what's the ideal check in? And you realize that it's actually not a check in. It's actually a welcome. Yeah. So you think about what's the nicest welcome and what's the most trusting welcome, because most of what you're essentially kind of doing when somebody checks in the hotel, you're basically kind of saying, hey, fill out this like really, really difficult.

Richard Valtr
know your customer report basically, give me something that holds credit. Yeah. so that I can trust you to, to use the service and I can be nice to you. But if you think about that, like that would be amazing just if that distrust went away, you kind of just lead with trials and even down to basically thinking about, well, where does that moment of authentication where a person actually is the person that they're saying, doesn't need to happen in the lobby?

Richard Valtr
Could you just trust that that person has a reason to be there and then could you somehow automate it or make it at least silent, basically that it's happening some somewhere in the background, that the only real place that where you need to kind of authenticate yourself and maybe not even there is probably at the door. Yeah. when you're actually walking in and so you think about that whole like Amazon concept of just walk out, just walk in.

Richard Valtr
Yeah. I think about like, well, how could we actually facilitate that? How could that be a real thing that, you somehow will know instinctively to go up to room 601. Yeah. Yeah. And open that door and that's your room and you're like, Wow, that's magic. But that's how technology should feel. Yeah.

Rob Napoli
you have me so excited and just thinking about like I was envisioning as you're storytelling, what that could look like. And it just made me think of one of the worst experiences. One of the best experience when you walk into a hotel is when you get that warm welcome and it's super smooth and check in’s quick. And whenever the worst experiences are, when you get up and there's you get, there's a line and everyone's doing their best, but it's just a slow slog of a process.

Rob Napoli
You get checked in. It's like, why is there not a better mousetrap? Right? So I love that you share that vision. And I I'm excited to see. And that's where we wanted to explore, where this podcast is going to explore is what does technology, how does it really affect and effect? Yeah, the growth of the industry.

Rob Napoli
And that was such a beautiful picture of what it could be. I want to kind of switch gears on, as we kind of close out, because there are some really cool things that I know are happening in your world where, if I'm not mistaken, you’ll acquired hotel recently that you're feeling North American Research. Talk about that journey a little bit because you obviously moved to New York.

Richard Valtr
Three and a half years ago. Four years ago.

Rob Napoli
Yeah, yeah. So that obviously you moved here and you're really pushing for that. What's that been like in your founder journey?

Richard Valtr
I mean on the Americas, like I, I have to be like, I feel very truly Eastern European that like, all of us are like precondition to love America as soon as we arrived here. So I really, really like, I always find it funny that, saying that with a with an English accent but I do feel that that's there's something here which is, so growth minded and growth orientated and it’s really, the thing that you find that sometimes is lacking in Europe, but you find it in spades here, everyone's looking for how can I be better, how can I

Richard Valtr
actually grow? and so that's been really, really exciting. I think that it's also a challenge because, trying to actually kind of replicate success that you've had somewhere else is, is always going to be different. the way that we conquered, France is not going to be the same way that we conquer America.

Richard Valtr
And it is the most difficult, challenging competitive market that there is. So for me, the US is it's an incredible challenge and it's just great to actually kind of be here. And I think the way that we think about growth, we think not really about like growth at all costs, but we think about, well, how can we grow?

00:31:09:21 - 00:35:27:04
Richard Valtr
And we think about that process that I outlined before, like what are the levers that we can pull, that we can be a better or the thing that we mastered last year, but we then think, okay, well, how can we be even better? What are the new things that we need to do to actually kind of create that better growth?

Richard Valtr
Yeah, what are the new levers? What are the new verticals, what are the new ways that we can kind of, not just do the same, but speak to a different type of customer that maybe gets us a little bit more? How can we change the minds of, the customers that maybe weren't thinking that this is the thing that that was going to enable their growth because that maybe kind of thinking about it too, kind of downstream, they're like, oh, maybe it's a booking engine, maybe it's this thing.

Richard Valtr
Maybe we're trying to make the point that it's actually notes the platform that kind of enables you to grow, that that helps you build basically. And then working with other platforms like Omniboost, really thinking about, how does this, how does this ten plus ten equals 50, and thinking about those types of things.

Richard Valtr
So I think that, that's where, for example, the idea of of doing some of these acquisitions basically, utilizing some of the local knowledge that some of these, local players basically might have. Yeah. Which is, the great hotel team. And it's a team that we've really, really admired for a very, very long time.

Richard Valtr
But it's the same thing, just when you hire a person, when you're onboarding a new support person as well, you kind of want them to make sure that they can do things better than already the people that you already have in place. So always thinking about, just how can I add and add this thing that's actually a catalyst for more growth and more opportunity.

Rob Napoli
That's awesome. And it does make a difference being in those markets that you serve and spending time in and really taking the time to grow. And so you did something that I think is really kind of quite initially we were talking for show. she is the founder of Muse and it was founder and CEO which you you've given up that title embrace of it in which.

Richard Valtr
To be fair I never held it. So I think the good thing about starting a company is that you don't need to play by the rules. Yeah, because it's starting a new country, in America, nobody here was saying, Oh, we need to do this thing. at some point you need to kind of be, people need to know that you're building a PMS.

Richard Valtr
Yeah. Because you're like, What are you selling me? Well, I'm selling you a tool that helps run your hotel in an executive. Oh, PMS. Right. And you're like, fine PMS. it's more than that. It's an engine for growth. But it's a PMS. Yeah, and I think this is the same kind of thing.

Richard Valtr
I think that, as a founder, you think about, when you were talking about, how do you put these things together? I've always actually kind of thought about the analogy of building a company to actually a film producer. And I always, especially those kind of the older film producers basically that were kind of part producers, part directors, basically all if you kind of thought about them as as kind of creative executives.

Richard Valtr
Yeah. And I always thought that was, when I think about great directors like Billy Wilder and all of those basically that are able to kind of inject themselves in in all of the different kind of processes. But you also think about, how can I fund it? How can I make sure that it actually of exists and how can I put the right people in place to actually kind of execute on that, on that vision?

Richard Valtr
so that was my particular kind of journey. I think that I don't feel like I've actually kind of given up any responsibilities that I have for the company. I'm just like really, really cognizant of where my strengths lie and my strengths are not in running day to day operations with people basically, I think it's mainly about thinking about what types of things could I work on with the people that we've hired that are going to tenx the growth.

00:35:27:21 - 00:41:26:04
Richard Valtr
And that's what I'm good at, passionate about, and that's the company that I've built around myself.

Rob Napoli
I love that. I mean, coming back to being an artist, right? That visionary artist, the creatives direction, it's such a cool I've never had a loss like it's such a cool way to think about that. Right. And the fact of the matter is, is that where you excel and growing the business and being the visionary as well as selling the business as well as doing this, this and this.

Rob Napoli
But you also know where to get out of your own way. And that is something I think, having worked with over 500 founders and entrepreneurs in the last few years, really freaking hard today, Right? So she's like building it, right?

Richard Valtr
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, but I think that's the thing. if you want to go fast, like, go yourself. If you want to go far, you've got to do it through others. And I think that that for me is just general mindset that I that I have mainly because I know that I'm so crap in so many things.

Rob Napoli
Yeah.

Richard Valtr
And like, I'm really bad at so many things. I think that that helps me, I hate this kind of founder worship that sometimes people, when they look at companies that they get, that they kind of look at who's the most important person? Was the person who started it or has the idea. It's like, well, not really, because every single time you take somebody new, it's the same way that, for example, when you take an investor and stuff like that, you're diluting that one thing.

Richard Valtr
You're hopefully making the whole pie bigger. And I think that's essentially what happens with companies because yeah, so the idea of kind of staying a feudal lord and stuff like that, yeah, feudalism like, and enlightened dictators and enlightened kind of princes basically. yeah, that was a good model for how the world works.

Richard Valtr
But democracy is better. Yeah Capitalism is better. Yeah, I like the idea of fuzing those two things basically, and, and trying to kind of work it in and then having, spiky, intelligent, leaders that can take so many of these different parts of, of the organization so that it isn't just about you being a man mountain yourself, but you can kind of create this entire crown and tie kind of topography of just great, forward bearing juggernauts basically, and just somehow hope to kind of, be relevant to of that basically.

Richard Valtr
I think those that's how great things get built.

Rob Napoli
I couldn't agree more. I mean there's a book I recommended that to people especially founders is The hard thing about hard things by Ben Horowitz yes that was the people that were there to take you 0 to 1 aren't the same that take you to five or ten. But sometimes they are.

Rob Napoli
Sometimes, yeah. You're that person that takes you from 0 to 1. And then you have to realize I need to step out so that this can grow and that that's growth mindset, right? We talk to this whole kind of theme of the episode is growth mindset and how do we use technology for hoteliers to grow? Yeah, and then thinking about that as a core DNA of who you are is I mean, Muse has been growing like crazy.

Rob Napoli
I mean, one of the things I was going to say is, I think on your LinkedIn, you have like we're hiring, have you applied yet? Have you applied? I think it's like, why haven’t you applied yet? like it's so cool. And when you have that vision and growth mindset and you see the things that are doing it's building about a rocket ship, and you're taking people to the moon.

Rob Napoli
It's amazing to hear. And so I know that, I could talk to you for hours and hours, and I know that you got places to be. So I appreciate you stopping by. it's great to have you in New York City.

Richard Valtr
it's good to be here. Like, thank you so much for inviting me.

Rob Napoli
Yeah, I love having you in the office. And this is Belgium, which is where my journey with Omniboost started, meeting those guys. They got us program. So it's kind of fun to be on record here and have people, to talk through. So thank you for being a part of the podcast. We're excited for our listeners out there.

Rob Napoli
How do they how can they get in touch with you? You follow more about your journey, apply to Muse if you haven't already. Where do they find?

Richard Valtr
I think they can apply on www.muse.com. They can email me at [e-mail]. I try and get through my emails every single day, but it's incredibly difficult. Or they can just ping me on LinkedIn, something like that. I again try and respond within a month and something like that. Yeah, it's kind of difficult because you have to kind of go through like all the people that are basically offering you out social services.

Richard Valtr
Yeah.

Rob Napoli
Well, I’ll make sure to link all that in the show notes. So if anyone wants to, I highly recommend following along these journeys is amazing. And again, thank you for being here. And then obviously getting to this is not only just for the podcast, but as a partner and getting to interact with.

Richard Valtr
People like you and the Omniboost team. Just fantastic partners. And yeah, it's one of the main reasons why we started the whole open API, So that we could somehow hope to partner with other people that were thinking of scale, thinking of ways that they can actually kind of help our customers. Yeah, and we've just been incredibly lucky that you guys exist.

Rob Napoli
I appreciate that. And, I have a feeling that there is more amazing innovation that's going to happen in this space soon, quicker than people think. And I can't wait to be a part of that and to, hopefully have you back on the pod and and sometime down the road or we're talking about.

Richard Valtr
Like, well, we should probably do in like six months time when there's like, the world of AI. Yeah. And that's going to be really, really cool because I think it, we're on the second part of that chessboard, so things just get much quicker from here on in. Yeah.

Rob Napoli
I can't wait. Richard Once again, thanks, friend. Appreciate you. Thank you.