Michelle Seiler Tucker sits down with Yannis Moati to examine how booking flexible hotel stays disrupted legacy hospitality systems. Most founders face major roadblocks when pitching institutional investors, yet real staying power comes from execution rather than early approval. Yannis shares how Hotels by Day survived rejection on Shark Tank and scaled to twelve million dollars in sales through steady organic traction. You will learn why solving technical hurdles one bite at a time protects your margins and builds durable customer loyalty. Scaling an enterprise takes patience, empathy for your team, and deep alignment with what your patrons actually need. If you want to turn an overlooked industry bottleneck into a profitable, defensible venture, you can’t miss this conversation.

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Hotels By Day With Yannis

Welcome to another episode of the show. You know what I say every week. It is going to be a fast and bumpy ride. Fasten your seatbelts and get ready. Because, like every other week, I bring you the best guest with the most golden nuggets. Golden nuggets are what we call our chapters in my book, Exit Rich. It is going to be no different. We have Yannis joining us, Yannis Moati. He’s a special guest, and he’s here to talk to you about his business and his experience on Shark Tank.

He’s really created, I think it’s a unique business. The sharks are going to stay differently, but guess what? The sharks can tell you one thing from Shark Tank, but the numbers never lie. All you say, do not get mad. Get the stats. When you hear his numbers from the first time he was on the Shark Tank stage to what he’s doing today, I think the sharks should go swimming because they are now fish bait.

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Welcome to the show. Yannis, it’s great to have you on.

Love it. Welcome, and thank you very much for welcoming me in. I really appreciate it. Thanks.

I’m happy to have you here. We’re going to bring the energy. It’s going to be an exciting show. Fasten up, everybody. It’s going to be like drinking from the water hose. Here we go.

“Next into the tank is an innovation in the travel industry. Sharks, my name is Yannis Moati. I’m the CEO of HotelsByDay. I’m Brian Dass, CTO of HotelsByDay.”

HotelsByDay, I love the name. You know what? I’m going to tell you right now, it serves a great purpose worldwide. Go ahead, Yannis.

It’s a name that describes the product. We’re very happy with that because it’s uplifting the marketing. It’s helping us with the marketing and targeting.

Wonderful. I love the shirt.

Reinventing The Daytime Hospitality Model

“In $750 in exchange for 10% of our company.” “Sharks, our company is reinventing the hotel stay. How many times have you or someone you know traveled to a city just for the day? You get into the City at 8:00, and you have a meeting at 1:00 PM. What do you do in those hours in between?” “There is a massive gap in the market, and that is why we’ve created HotelsByDay.” “Jimmy, roll the tape.”

I will just tell you this. This is a huge need for this in the marketplace because I cannot tell you how many times I’ve flown overseas, specifically Russia and Korea, and you got an eight-hour layover. Who wants to stay at the airport for an eight-hour layover? I’d rather get out of the hotel room, take a nice shower, take a nap, and sleep for about five hours. If I have to go back through security, I do not care.

You have amenities and exactly, and you’ve got a plush bed and luxury surroundings.

This is a great concept in my opinion.

“Our website allows our customers to book a day room.” “If you arrive early at your hotel, you check in early, you relax in your room, you order some room service, refresh, own your meeting, and close the safe. Our model is a paradigm shift in the hospitality industry. It generates revenue for hotels. It gives guests flexibility, and it closes the loop on the customer journey.” “Sharks, who’s ready to check in early with HotelsByDay.”

Well done. Well branded. Wore branded shirts with HotelsByDay. Love that Lori must have got the memo because she’s wearing the same color. Very good. Let’s see what they have to say.

“Why does it feel like a Saturday Night Live skit?” “How does it work? Tell me the pricing.” “On average, it’s six hours that are being provided by the hotel at $90.” “I have one question that could settle this in either a great way or it could end badly.” “Please, go ahead.” “Why in the world would not all the other sites that already exist in a really cluttered, competitive space simply add this feature?”

You have got to admit that that’s a really good question. Going to play it back, but that’s a really good question. As an investor myself, I would have asked the same question, Yannis. You probably knew you were going to get that question, right?

Correct.

Let’s hear your answer.

Why Outdated Software Defends Niche Operators

“Right now does not allow any of the majors to go into this space.” “Yannis, hang on a sec. There’s a technical reason why the other people cannot offer this on a block hour rate.” “Yes.” “I’m dying to hear this. Why?” “Most hotel property management systems cannot handle a day room booking. It does not work like this. Does it charge check-in rates all the time unless you’re able to negotiate out of it? Let’s use a chain name, Marriott. I say, ‘Look, I’m not checking it up to 4:00.’ I’m sorry, there’s an extra $80 charge for that.” “You just mentioned that there’s an analog process. You call the hotel, you email the hotel. Before we move on, how have you solved that technology problem with your own?”

That’s right. As far as an individual, there is an analog process. You have a partner. What’s his name?

His name is Brian Dass.

Is he still a partner?

He’s more passive than active, but he’s still around.

He’s still around. You get this question. What were you thinking about giving it away, because this becomes quite contentious?

Let me just say that I was not thinking. I was like, just on robot mode when you’re facing a TV set with TVs that are just crisscrossing you, like the cameras rather just crisscrossing you for minutes, and it does not portray very well here on TV, but they’re asking you questions all at once. It’s very hard to take those questions one at a time. You’re being bombarded. You’ve got the cameras rolling around you. You’re not thinking. You’re barely thinking straight, and you’re just reacting out of pure reaction, basically. That’s what I was looking for.

All those Shark Tank guests, there’ve been a lot of Shark Tank guests that I’ve interviewed. They all say the same thing and that you’re just being thrown all these questions. My suggestion for everybody going on Shark Tank, and I know you did this, Yannis, is to prepare and prepare because when you get up there, you cannot think. The more prepared you are, the more it’s going to come to you, and it’s going to be natural. It’s going to be in your conscience.

Correct.

“We’re actually connecting to what is called a channel management system that actually connects to the availability rates in inventory. There is a way that we’re connecting to get the rates to be able to set the rates up. How are you blocking out? Can I step back?” “The central reservation system does not take in day bookings. It’s a 30-year-old technology. Any booking that goes into the CRS, the central reservation system, is factored in as a night stay.” “I accept that.”

Is that still true today? It’s 30-year-old technology, and it’s back-scratching?

Not so true because now it’s 40 years old, and it has not moved.

They keep the coin, and they keep going backwards. You know what the other thing I always say, Yannis?

Tell me.

In business, the number one kiss of death that is destroying all companies, no matter how good your business is, is lack of AIM. Lack of AIM means always innovate and market. That’s why toys always run out of business. That’s why some of these companies run out of business. That’s why the hotels have so many issues and customer service issues because our technology is 40 years old.

Absolutely correct.

Now it’s 40-year-old technology.

“You can do a great job of explaining. If their internal technology cannot do it, how does your external technology fix or supplant or override or bypass their internal technology?” “Let me tell you. We are taking a fraction of their inventory that is sitting empty between 9 and 6, and we’re selling it to the customers with the workaround technology that Brian has created.” “What is that technology? Is it actual technology or is it just the half?” “It’s technology. I’ll tell you why. It’s because we’re connecting to a channel manager. Instead of going through the CRS, we’re connecting to a channel manager, going straight into the hotel. That is something that we are provisionally patented.”

This is where we’re getting confused, John. This is how the show ends on this note, is that technology is not being defined by how unique it is. Were there any patents on this?

The Hidden Risks Of Premature Patents

Yes. We did place a patent. We deposited a patent. We had a provisional patent, basically. We did not go all the way through because we realized afterwards that even with the technology that we’ve built at the time that we were presenting at Shark Tank, it was not the perfect solution. We had to rebuild it.

You had to rebuild.

Yes, we have rebuilt.

You have a patent pending right now?

No, we let it go because whatever the patent was pending on, we just decided to let it expire.

This is a very important lesson for entrepreneurs because our last guest, it was  SCOTTeVEST. Scotty talked about not getting a patent. He went and got a patent. It’s very expensive, and it gives you a right, and it gives you the legal wherewithal behind you to fight these copycats. At the end of the day, he did not think it was worth it. Now I’ve got some patents and filed for some patents, but you have got to be a smart entrepreneur.

Yannis realized pretty early on, wait, this offer is not going to get us from where we are today to where we want to go in the future. It’s like the book that you should read, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, only after you read Exit Rich. Yannis decided not to move forward on that patent. There’s so much conversation about patents out there. Always pick up the phone and call me if you have a question about patents.

It’s a double-edged sword. The patent can protect you from competitors, but it also can put you in a rabbit hole of a technology that is not absolutely perfect. In our case, we felt like we were tied into something that was not pleasing to every hotelier and every hotel that we work with, and the more hotels. Basically, here’s the thing with patent technology. It is not recommended that you patent any technology until you have at least five years in the business. It’s because you’ll see how you’ll have to remodel the technology, and once you patent something, then it’s a long process.

You also cannot patent something that’s already public out there.

Of course. Yes.

If it’s already out there, you cannot patent it. Do not want to get the listeners confused. That’s why you do a provisional patent, right?

Yes.

You have a year to see if it’s worth moving on and filing that patent.

A year in hospitality is not enough because it takes almost as much time for a brand to decide to work with you. When they decide to, it actually takes 3 to 5 years for a brand like Marriott or Hilton or Wyndham to decide to work with you based on traction, based on who you are, based on your team.

Get them on the sales cycle.

It’s a very long sales cycle. By the time you’re there, you’re looking back at the technology, and they say, “No, you need to integrate here. You need to connect there, and the two need to connect and flow this way, not that way.” We decided to let it go, especially considering the limited resources. We’ve only had seed funding in this company.

Wait, now give it away to yourself. Yannis made a great point. He made several great points. Know your industry. Know if it’s worth following that path. Know your sales cycle. Know if it makes sense. Especially software and AI, because it’s always changing like that, which is very difficult to patent.

“Be proprietary. Let’s take Kevin to the travel site. He hires a CTO that can develop it. You didn’t write the software.” “Anyone can duplicate technology.” It’s not a barrier. It’s a hack.” “It’s just the first-to-market advantage. How many hours have you rented? What are your margins? How many customers?”

Do you agree with what they said when they said it’s a hack?

Yes.

I like that. Full transparency. They are saying what’s true. We’re calling it correctly. Optimums are sometimes taken personally and get offended by it. It is true. You went out there, and there’s something about it. We’re going to talk about that beyond the tank.

“We are at 6,500 bookings. All of the year of 2015, we generated about $127,000 in gross booking revenue, of which we’re taking 14%. That’s our cut. It’s low, but it’s reasonable. It’s a starting point.” “Do you have a deal with big hotel chains?” “Yes, we have signed every single brand out there individually, 300 properties.” “Get back to why don’t the big guys crush you like the cockroaches you are?”

I do not like it when they refer to you guys as cockroaches. However, as an investor myself, as an intelligent guy, as I know you are, Yannis, the first question we would all ask, how did a big hotel chains, Hotel.com, not the big hotel chains, but the big hotel platforms, not just do this themselves? What do you say without giving anything away before we go back to the video?

Surviving The Cockroach Phase Of Growth

I would say that I appreciate being called a cockroach. It survives nuclear bombs. It survives nuclear bombs, supposedly. We’re surviving multiple bombs. We’ve survived multiple wars. Look, it’s been eleven years, and the big OTAs, the online travel agents like Expedia and Booking.com, have not done it for the simple reason that it’s a much harder nut to crack than selling night stays. Selling night stays is a commodity. Everything is connected. Everything flows correctly. Selling day stays is like building an airplane while it’s flying. It’s extremely complicated. At a fourteen percent margin to those guys, they have a lot to lose by getting into it. For us, it’s all upside from here.

Let’s see what they say.

“They cannot connect. They cannot waste their time. They are only wasting more time trying to connect to CRS that does not work.” “What you’re doing is you’re selling somebody else’s product, and you’re telling us they’re incapable of selling it and that you have some hacks to get to it, but you’ve done a really poor job in explaining why that hack is so hard to make or why it’s defensible or why it’s proprietary to it all.”

“Do you agree? Do you think you guys did a poor job in explaining that?

I would agree because when you’re not from the industry, it’s hard to understand what are the barrier of entry. Once you’re in the industry, you understand that it’s time and it’s commitment. Those are the barriers. I was just two years into this thing. I just could not understand it myself.

Knowing what you know now, you would have probably come in with a much clearer, crisper presentation, maybe some graphs and charts to explain.

I’d like to think so, but I probably would flunk it again.

At least you’re transparent. There are a lot of Shark Tank guests that we get ready to go on Shark Tank. I want everybody to be super prepared before you go in because it was not articulated correctly. That’s because you had just been in it for two years. If you went back on, I do have faith in you. I think you could articulate much better now.

“Do not be shocked that there’s a lot of doubt on this side of the room.” “First of all, the hotel cannot sell day rooms. They have not created a system behind it. Two, the technology and the protocol they’re missing. It takes time. It takes investment.” “Guys, I do think it’s a problem you’re trying to solve. That said, every time I tried to ask you what technological, defensible, proprietary approach you have here, I could not get a straight answer back from you guys. I do not actually think there is something there. We’ve also filed some, like a cobbled-together hack.”

“No, before you go on, we’ve had conversations at the majors. They think it’s really interesting.” “Those conversations have not ended up in a sale because you do not have anything to buy. Your competition is not the big hotel chains. It’s the software layer that already rides on top of them. If you came in here and told me you were reinventing the entire management system the way OpenTable reinvented the booking platform for a restaurant, I’d be interested. You’re not. The quickest way to double your money in this deal is to fold it over, put it in your back pocket. I’m out.”

Back there, have you gotten to an OpenTable scenario yet?

No, we have not. We have essentially created the technology on a case-by-case scenario based on what the hotelier wants. Essentially, look, it’s a very hard pitch to a Shark Tank investor for the simple reason that they want something that scales immediately with one solution. That has not been our path. Our path has been something that scales to a certain limited amount. It kind of progresses, but only to an ecosystem of hoteliers that is essentially limited. You cannot scale it to every hotel because every single hotel has a different technology.

That’s just business in general, honestly, because businesses do not start out doing one thing with one solution. It’s going to scale. We all learn along the way. Should get advice from experienced entrepreneurs who have been down the same path. I want to travel. I’ve never thought there’s a one way, one solution to scale. You guys are doing it the right way.

Correct. Thank you.

One more question. Before you came into the tank, did you have a preconceived idea, you and your partner, of who you wanted your investor to be?

We didn’t know that Chris Sacca was going to be there because that was the guest that was, like, the secret guest, actually, yes. The one shark that we really wanted was Barbara Corcoran because she was in real estate, but it turns out she was the only one not there. I’ll also be transparent in telling you this. Besides her, we did not want any other shark, to be very honest.

We didn’t really care for them because we knew that their track record in the hospitality industry was not something that was going to help us out so much. As a matter of fact, just so you know, the show that you’re seeing here is in its second year in business. The first year we were invited to come in, and we refused because we thought it was going to be a circus that was not going to help us in terms of branding, in terms of image, and in terms of investors. Did not want a Shark Tank investor in order for us to be able to progress into the other steps of investors.

Not one of the Shark Tank investors.

No, because they come in and they’re too sharky in their contracting. They are not experienced. They’re from the hotel industry. It was not going to help us scale with other investors saying, “I’ve got a Shark Tank. Why don’t you put in half a million?” That was not going to be a good objective for us to get a Shark Tank investor into the company.

Besides Barbara Corcoran, who was really targeted in real estate, anybody else would not have been a great fit for us. Now, Chris Sacca, which I learned later, once I understood that he was there, would have been a really good investor because he actually invested in a small company called Google. He invested in a small company called Uber. It turns out he would have been a great investor, but he was the first one to go. Also, we were not technically prepared to pitch to them.

That makes sense. Why would you go on a show when Barbara’s not going to be there?

We didn’t know.

They do not tell you who the show came to you get there. You tell the day you go on, right?

Until the day you go on, a few hours in, they tell you who that person is. Even then, I do recall that the information kind of passed through. We were not even sure who we were going to pitch to. I later found out who Chris Sacca was after the show.

It doesn’t hurt entrepreneurs to know how to pitch because you always want to customize your presentation to who you’re talking to, obviously. Did you go on there to get a deal, or did you really go on there for brand awareness and to get hotel bookings?

It’s the second option. We went there for brand awareness. We didn’t go in to get a deal.

If Chris Sacca would have offered you a good deal, you probably would have taken his if it was in alignment.

We made sure with our offer that we were not going to get a deal because we offered too high.

The structure is starting to get smart about who goes on there that wants an actual investor, or who just wants brand awareness and sales.

They did warn us before we came in, said, “Listen, we want an entrepreneur that really wants to make a deal.” We’re like, “Sure. We really want to make a deal.” We came in with something that was on the high side. It could have been done. Turns out if they did accept that deal then, it would have been profitable for them to exit today.

Cool.

“Just so you know, up to last May, we’ve generated 300,000. The model is accelerating twenty percent month-to-month growth.” “Yes, because you work with tiny numbers, though. That’s why.” “The challenge is, how big can it be?” “Just to give you an idea. We’ve seen how many people log into our site from New York who convert into a day stay in New York. It’s eight percent. If we were to run eight percent throughout the top cities of visitors to our website, we’d already be at 12,000 bookings.” “Let’s say you do that, right? You get the 12,000 bookings. Yeah, easy. That’s $200,000 gross revenue. That’s $28,000 a month. That’s not enough. I’m out.”

Let’s think about this before you give the number away. You’ve exceeded what he said you could do right here.

Correct.

We’re going to talk about that in a few minutes.

“Guys, it’s a great idea. I do this all the time when I travel. I show up at eight in the morning. We always have to book two nights of hotel rooms. There’s no question that there is a market there. I just think that you’re a proof of concept for one of the bigger players. If you prove the market, they’ll do it. There’s nothing proprietary that you have. I’m out.”

They have not done it yet. It’s been twelve years, you said.

Correct.

“Thank you, Robert. Thank you. I’d like to reassure you that the majors will not play this game. They cannot get into it. Never build a strategy on the stupidity of your competitors. If there’s a market there and you’re proof.”

I like that line. I never build a strategy around the stupidity of your customers. Your competitors.

Actually, it’s a good line. It’s not necessarily true. You actually can get a little bit of leeway there on the stability of your competitors. That’s a whole different podcast, I guess.

“Mark and they’re doing it. It is for us to grow it. Either way, I’m out, Mark’s out, Chris is out, Kevin and Lori are still in.” “Let me tell you what I think. I see your product as like a big puzzle, and there are so many missing pieces for me that I’m up.” “If I thought that there was a cockroach strategy and there’s nothing wrong with being a roach, be the best roach you can be. At the end of the day, if you can survive because nobody else wants your tiny market, that’s great. That’s not what you said. $750,000. If you had made this maybe 150, 250, I rode with the roaches for a while, figure it out. I like the space, actually. I cannot do that. You’ve made it impossible to invest. I’m out.”

You’ve lost them all. That was okay with you. You crashed them on sight. You got home with the fuckings?

Turning Pitch Rejection Into Organic Revenue

On that day specifically, I do not remember. All that I remember is that we kept on having spikes of traffic that left any other day completely in the dust. Basically, we had Everest mountains every year because we loved it so badly. It was such a contentious episode that the good news is that it turns out that they kept on repeating it and repeating it.

A contentious exit?

A contentious interview or pitch.

It’s not the worst I’ve heard, though. Scottie Vest is the worst I’ve ever heard as far as being contentious.

I have not seen that one.

It’s much more contentious than yours. Let’s talk about life after the tank. Let’s go back because I did have some truth. They just say a lot of truths. There were things that they said that you completely proved them wrong. They said that this is really not that scalable. They said it will always be a small business. When you were on the show, you had done a hundred-something thousand, but then you were having twenty percent growth month over month. They got you to over 300,000. Now what are you at today? What are you comfortable saying?

Last year we did twelve million in sales.

They did twelve million in sales. Everybody should be clapping at that. Do not let somebody tell you whether it’s a Shark Tank judge or rather it’s anybody. Do not let somebody tell you that you cannot do this or this or this or this. Many people have been proven wrong. Not always. There are a lot of companies that should go out of business, pack up their bags, and shoot their idea behind the bar, not this one. You’re twelve million now. How many bookings on average?

Look, all that I know is that we’re growing. Three years ago, we grew ten percent. Two years ago, we grew fifteen percent year over year. Last year, we grew twenty percent, and right now we’re at 22%. The number of bookings that kind of loses track. We’re in the hundreds of thousands of bookings at this point.

Now that’s not the number to track. The number to track now is the revenue and the EBITDA. I assume you’re making a prop here. EBITDA is earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization. I’m sure you’re making some money.

We are now a team of 40. It’s quite an investment in resources because it’s not just the team. It’s also the technology, all the software that you need to purchase, all the marketing that you need to invest in. All of that requires a tremendous amount of money. I’m being hesitant in giving you an answer because I know that some people might think, “It’s technology. It’s highly scalable. They’re making bags of money and laughing all the way to the bank. It’s much harder than that. Yes, we are profitable.

Say we’re profitable, and what most business owners do not understand at those expenses, the money being invested back into the business is not capitalized. That is an ad back. It’s on the expense column, and it is an ad back because it’s non-recurring. Software, not so much, because software always has to spend so much money. There are a lot of non-recurring items on an expense sheet that are not capitalized on the balance sheet.

You did a lot of things since that show, and you proved them wrong on lots of different levels. You got much bigger than Mark Cuban ever thought you would get, number one. Number two, they said the big players, once you started showing up, that they, like Hotels.com, Booking.com, all of those platforms would now do what you do. Are they doing it?

No, they’re not.

They’re not. Why? It’s because the technology, the cost, the well-with-all, that’s not their core company, core competency. They’re staying in their lane.

Absolutely. The squeeze is not worth the juice in that sense. The juice is not worth the squeeze, rather. That’s the expression. It takes a tremendous amount of resources, dedication, and passion to build new protocols and new technology in the hospitality industry that is fractured. If you were to sell to an airline, they have the same protocol pretty much everywhere, and they have the same technology. It is highly scalable.

Once you’ve got one airline, you could technically or theoretically at least get them all. With hotels, you’re going from big brands to medium brands to boutique brands to individual properties to motel chains. Honestly, everybody has a different protocol. In a way, the shark was absolutely right. When I came in that day to pitch it to them, we were not ready, and they were right. We were not experiencing a J-curve for the next five years. It took us a long time. We were growing organically, so I’m pleased with that.

We did not get any investors’ money, so we kept on growing organically. The line of growth was like that. It is only in the last, I would say, 4 to 5 years that the line is picking up with a lot more speed. They were right. If they wanted to make an investment in order to get a return within the next five years of that investment, we’re a terrible company to invest in. Now is a better time. I’ll just wait for a second invitation.

They were right. You did prove them wrong on a lot of things, and the hotel technology still is 40 years behind. Ever catch up on my night care about catching up because, as you said, the juice is not worth the squeeze.

With AI, we have a lot of hope, even though that might be a pirate victory of getting AI to come in and to change things. Maybe we’re going to be completely displaced altogether, or even humanity in that sense.

Talk about that. Let’s talk about what you did to upgrade and update your software to make you able to scale and get up to twelve million dollars and continue to grow at 15%, 20% every year. Let’s talk about that. What did you upgrade in the software? How did you change? As you said, you were way premature back then. That was twelve years ago.

Eating The Operational Elephant One Bite At A Time

It’s a lot more cavalier. Not cavalier. It’s a lot. It’s not rocket science. We were just solving one problem at a time. We were just trying to.

That’s it. What did he just say? He’s solving one problem at a time. How do you eat an elephant? One bun at a time. Many entrepreneurs, Jan has tried to solve all these problems. I know I’m an entrepreneur. I know a bunch of different businesses. I’m going to try to solve a lot of different problems at one time, one problem at a time. Go ahead, sir.

You’re absolutely right. That’s the way you eat the elephant one bite at a time. The passion and the mission have not changed. We wanted to create flexible hotel stays. We understood that checking in at 3:00 PM and having to leave the very next day by 11:00 AM. That rigidity was anachronistic to modern society because nowadays we’ve got flight schedules, train schedules, car schedules, bus schedules, whatever schedule that do not fit with the idea of traveling during the day only and then staying the night.

Especially with all the airline delays.

Correct.

If somebody’s delayed eight hours, you’d almost spend eight hours in the airport.

Essentially, you need a modular stay. We understood that we solved a critical guest problem, a problem that the public needs. That problem, by the way, grew because we understood afterwards that the idea is not just to sell a day room, a day pass. As a pool pass, a cabana, the idea of daycationing is becoming something worse than it was ever thought. You could daycation at a hotel, at a resort nearby where you live.

You’re only 10 miles away. You come back home. You spent a great day. Now, with the fact that you can work nomadically and you’re remote, spend it by the pool. Use our services to book a daycation and the day pass or day room altogether. Have your conferences, have your meetings, then go back home. Essentially, the model has grown, and it has grown because we are seeing that the public needs this modular, flexible stay, and they do not have a place as good as a hotel. \

Duty of care, cleanliness, strong Wi-Fi, security, great amenities. We understood that we needed to solve that problem. How did we solve the technology afterwards? We didn’t have a good plan for solving the technology. We just had a mission that we needed to get to. With every single problem that we faced, we solved it.

I like that. We didn’t have a good plan to solve the technology. We had a mission. Every problem we had, we solved it. How did the mission play into the solving of the problems?

The commitment to having a great guest experience, that’s the mission. If you look at our reviews, you will see that most of our customers love it. We’re rated 4.6 stars out of 5 in general. It’s not perfect all the time, the perfect state, but it’s been a darn good one, especially.

I got it.

It didn’t exist.

What I’m interested in right now is these golden nuggets for entrepreneurs, not so much in the hotel space. We’ve got a few minutes left. What I liked is some of the things you said. You’re saying them very nonchalantly. Some people do not really pick it up as it’s an important fact. Lots of entrepreneurs and business owners lose sight of their mission. They completely, a thousand percent, forgot why they went into business in the first place.

Completely forgot that they even had a mission. If you stay focused on your core values and your mission, you will find a way to solve that problem one bite at a time. What other three big go-to nuggets can you give our audience that put their business to the next level? There are three go-to nuggets real quick, not necessarily in the hotel industry, businesses in general.

I would say empathy with your customers, with the problems that they’re facing, and empathy with your team. There are a lot of recommendations out there that you should essentially get rid of the first friction that you have with your staff, and that they have to be within the culture. I found it to be the opposite. You need to be patient, and you need to mold your staff towards your culture and towards who you are as a person, as a CEO, because then you shape the culture of the company. When they see that you give them a second chance, then people stick around.

Second or third chances, I am absolutely a thousand against. Fourth, fifth, tenth.

No, it’s a repetitive problem. Yes, of course not. When you see that the person’s heart is in the right place, they have faith in life conditions, life conditions that sometimes are challenging. Children sometimes have to go to the hospital, or the situation with the house, financial, whatever. You need to be present. You need to be empathetic. That’s right. That empathy creates solidarity.

You show empathy with your employees, and also with your customers.

Yes, absolutely. Facing a problem like check-in, or not having the room that you expected, or not having the experience that you expected, you have to take it seriously, and you cannot be cavalier about it. We are taking every single complaint or every single issue that our customer might be facing, which is a very small fraction of all the overall bookings. We’re seeing that we are 0.4% of potential issues. Again, technology does not always flow very well. Also, the hotel industry has a big turnover.

The front desk staff sometimes can be a little bit clueless about the experience that you would like to have in the captioning because they’ve been checking in all those night guests, then suddenly you’re coming in at an odd hour, and you want to leave at an odd hour as well. They could create a little bit of confusion there. Anyway, empathy creates stability, stability of that staff and that team and the customer base and the repeat because they know that you care. They come back, and they come back again and again. The great service, of course, they come back for that, not just because there was a problem.

Building Foundations For A Healthy Exit

That stability creates, essentially, you should have a vision. In my point of view, you should not have a long-term vision of not wanting to necessarily, I’m sorry, maybe I’ll be a little bit contentious here based on the title of your podcast. You should not be seeking to exit quickly. You should be seeking to exit healthily, like in a way that you’ve grown a business and you’ve built a business that has strong foundations. That is based on real KPI. That is based on customers that are happy and staff that are happy, and the bottom line, that is, essentially your P&L being black.

I will tell you, Yannis, exit rich. If you truly want to exit rich, nobody’s actually quick. You have to build that solid foundation on what we call the six P’s in my book, Exit Rich. Go ahead, Yannis.

Here’s the thing. In the startup industry, in the startup ecosystem, you’re being pressured to exit all the time, quickly, because the VCs that back you or that interview you want to return on their investment of like 20X to 100X within the next three years. VCs are pressuring you. The media is pressuring you because there’s always the story about this incredible company. Before it was AI, it was cryptocurrency.

Before it was cryptocurrency was some other crazed-up thing that people were just running behind. The media, the ecosystem, the environment, the bubble, the Zeitgeist that you live in is all about making a quick buck as much as possible, very quickly. You have to have a core inside of you to understand that whatever the buzz is just that. Forget about it, move on. Do not compare yourself to others. Just do what your customers want you to do. Do what your team is expecting you to do and try to walk that line as best as possible.

None of my exit quick. Most of the business owners we exit have been in business for ten years or longer. Any last-minute thoughts? We got to wrap it up.

No, just to stress what I just said, which is try to essentially, when you go into a business, you should do it because you have a sense of passion. There’s an Italian expression that says, chi va piano va sano e va lontano. Who goes slowly, goes healthy, goes far. Have a hundred-year vision for your company. If you make it any time before, good for you.

I think about a hundred years. I will say it’s taking you twelve years to get where you are today. There is no such thing as get rich quick or exit rich quick.

You’re an overnight sensation. It took twelve years to do it. We have to be aware of that because, again, in the startup industry, you tend to think that you need to make millions within the first year.

Let me tell you what startups need to do, because we’re speaking the same language. Startups need to build a solid foundation from the minute they start their business to build a sustainable, scalable business that is sellable one day when you are ready to sell. That’s a big mistake that all startups make is that they come to me, and they do not have the infrastructure in place. They do not have a team. Without them, there is no company.

They have one product that they get paid on. They have zero processes. It’s all in their head. They have not protected any proprietary assets, the federal trademark, proprietary software, transferable contracts. They’ve got customer concentrations to the customer numbers of the occasion. Guess what? Just because you got high revenue does not mean you have high profits. That’s what startups need to focus on.

Furthermore, I have to tell you that I’ve seen some businesses fail because the executive team is spending too much time trying to please the investors and the VCs and trying to pitch it to them, and they’re forgetting their business altogether. It’s like, it’s essentially the world turning on its head where you need to just forget the noise, focus on your team, focus on your customers, and be happy with what you build slowly but surely.

I appreciate all your go-to nuggets. I appreciate all your feedback, and thank you. You are a great guest, Yannis, and guess what? My audience. I kept my promise. I brought you another great guest with great content. Some great lessons in here, so make sure you go back and tune in to it again, because as I said, it’s like drinking through a fire hose. Make sure you share this content, this podcast, with your network. What does Michelle Seiler Tucker always say? Your network equals your net worth. Get this message out there. If you have not already, make sure you subscribe to the show. Thank you.

Thank you.

Important Links

• Yannis Moati on LinkedIn
• Exit Rich
• HotelsByDay
• SCOTTeVEST
• What Got You Here Won’t Get You There
• Hotel.com
• Booking.com