It’s no secret that 2020 was a year for the travel history books - and since then, technological advancements like generative artificial intelligence and geopolitical conflicts have contributed to the ever-evolving travel landscape.
Travel startups have been riding more than one wave since 2019 when PhocusWire’s Hot 25 Startups for 2020 were named.
As PhocusWire prepares to reveal our Hot 25 Startups for 2024 next month, we’ve been checking in with companies who made our lists over the past five years.
In our class of 2020, some list makers have gone through big changes - such as Pilota, which now exists as part of Hopper, and TravelBank which was acquired by U.S. BanCorp in 2021.
Others are on a similar path as to when they were named part of PhocusWire’s Hot 25 four years ago. We reached out to a selection of our 2019 Hot 25 including Placemakr, ConnexPay, Life House, Futurestay, Questo, Worktrips and Cruisewatch. Responses have been condensed and edited.
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Placemakr
Placemakr (previously WhyHotel) offers hotel-style apartment rentals that can be booked for short or long stays. Answers from CEO and co-founder Jason Fudin.
In the last four years, our company has … expanded our product portfolio to include permanent operations we call "Hospitality Living" properties. We have achieved over $100 million in annual bookings. Additionally, we've launched our proprietary software that allows us to operate unfurnished multifamily units and furnished transient units within a single property.
Looking back, one thing I know now that I wish I knew then is … that amazing talent exists all over the world. It's vital to build a company around finding the best talent, regardless of its location.
The biggest challenge we've faced since our founding … has been riding the wave of a post-COVID economy.
My advice for early-stage founders … is to target large markets with a product or service that can make a meaningful impact on the industry it serves.
For the coming year, our priorities are … to focus on growth and profitability.
ConnexPay
ConnexPay is a payments gateway that allows users to make and accept payments. Answers from founder and CEO Bob Kaufman.
In the last four years, our company has … been supporting many leading travel agencies, tour operators, and air and hotel consolidators. We continue to focus on travel while also serving other verticals that function as payment intermediaries, such as insurance and warranty providers, online media/advertising buys and event ticketing.
Looking back, one thing I know now that I wish I knew then is … honestly, I wouldn’t change anything about my ConnexPay journey. Sometimes I wonder whether I could have started the company earlier, but then I wouldn’t have had the decades of experience needed to succeed with the ConnexPay venture.
The biggest challenge we’ve faced since our founding is … whenever you are looking to disrupt the status quo, there will be pushback and a sense that a solution like ours is “too good to be true.”
My advice for early-stage founders is … fail fast. I get asked a lot about what major mistakes I’ve made or lessons learned, and like any company we have made plenty of mistakes, especially in our early days. The good news is I can’t think of any that were particularly major that I can then pass on to other founders. Overall, I am a firm believer in failing fast. We try lots of new things at ConnexPay all the time, and certainly not all of them work.
For the coming year, our priorities are …to grow. With significant investment under our belt and a huge surge in new customers, our immediate future is focused on growth. It will mean increasing our staff and reaching out to more companies in key industries and geographies to illustrate the value of the ConnexPay solution. We’re also keen to continue the debate around why traditional payments processes are the way they are — and how we can make them better.
Life House
Life House is a hotel management, branding and software company meant to make it easier to operate independent hotels. Answers from founder and CEO Rami Zeidan.
In the last four years, our company has … successfully continued on our journey to make independent hotels easy to operate and much more profitable, raising $50 million in 2021 for a Series C round of funding, partnering with Kayak and launching an award-winning revenue management and marketing system in 2022. We’re also on track to be profitable in 2024.
Looking back, one thing I know now that I wish I knew then is … more about generative AI's evolution four years ago. It wouldn't have materially changed our vision, but it would have changed and expedited our roadmap to get there.The biggest challenge we’ve faced since our founding is … the hotel industry and its constituents' general resistance to change and innovation and narrow mindedness. Experience and rigid mentalities seem to be highly correlated!
My advice for early-stage founders is … narrow your focus, invest in hiring the right leaders and getting them radically aligned on the vision and don't blindly trust anyone but rather create a system of motivations, incentives and guardrails that make it easy to trust.
For the coming year, our priorities are … improving our value proposition and continuing to expand our product line and ship new features to support our customers. Major priorities also include getting to profitability mid next year and launching some advanced features (including some practical AI applications) that can enable our users and customers to be more autonomous and hands-off. Additionally we're looking at some strategic merger and acquisition opportunities.
Futurestay
Futurestay is a short-term rental management software company. Answers from founder S. Philip Kennard.
In the last four years, our company has … taken the lead in democratizing tech for “rentalpreneurs” in the short-term rental industry. Prior to Futurestay, tech was a privilege exclusive to large and professional managers. We launched partnerships with Vrbo and Google Vacation Rentals to make connectivity accessible to everyone, including hosts with under 10 units that make up 70% of the short-term rental industry. We've served over 10,000 rentalprenuers since 2020.
Looking back, one thing I know now that I wish I knew then is … that the short-term rental industry is “drought resistant,” especially on the supply side. When COVID hit and our booking volume was dropping off a cliff, we started breaking records for supply growth. It turns out rentalpreneurs don’t give up easily. When times get tough, savvy short-term rental owners and managers seek out new technologies, new distribution channels and new ways to keep their business growing.
The biggest challenge we’ve faced since our founding is … learning how the needs of rentalpreneurs completely differ from those of professional property managers. Shoehorning new and amateur hosts into enterprise software results in a terrible user experience and doesn’t help them grow. That’s why we rebuilt our entire platform from the ground up, launching the industry’s first product designed to set rentalpreneurs up for success.
My advice for early-stage founders is … don’t just build solutions for today’s world. Create tomorrow's world. Much like travel's impact from COVID, and now AI, whichever industry you are in will transform over the next few years as new technologies intersect and macroeconomic events shift the playing field. Build the thing that precipitates or leverages tomorrow’s change and make the market react to you.
For the coming year, our priorities are … fully democratizing access to success in short-term rentals. Futurestay is launching our new product to ensure every rentalpreneur has access to the benefits of technology, without the barriers of cost or complexity.
Questo
Questo is a platform that hosts city exploration games. Answers from CEO and co-founder Alex Govoreanu.
In the last four years, our company has … gone from an idea to a global business. We are now operating in 250 cities from 60 countries and have already served more than 400,000 customers. We are now offering two main exploration products: 1.The quest, a game for travelers inspired by local stories and places; and, 2. the geogame, a game for locals inspired by popular stories.
Looking back, one thing I know now that I wish I knew then is … that the market for games in the real world is going to get even bigger than we thought.
The biggest challenge we’ve faced since our founding is … the pandemic. People not being able to walk outdoors was quite an issue for us.
My advice for early-stage founders is … to always follow your vision if you believe in it.
For the coming year, our priorities are … to scale, scale, scale. We are now in full scale mode.
Worktrips
Worktrips (previously Hotailors) is an AI-powered travel management tool focused on business travel. Answers from chief technology officer and co-founder Maciej Stopierzyński.
In the last four years, our company has … achieved several significant milestones that have had a substantial impact on both our business strategy and our technological solutions, including serving travel communities around Google products, winning an award at the Arch Summit in Luxembourg and securing a contract with Vodafone, introducing a single sign-on login and rebranding, among other feats.
Looking back, one thing I know now that I wish I knew then is … the importance of automating processes early on. Automation allows us to efficiently scale our organization without significantly increasing the number of employees, especially during periods of growth.
The biggest challenge we’ve faced since our founding is … the pandemic and securing funding during its duration. It was a time when flexibility and adaptability were crucial for our survival.
My advice for early-stage founders is … to listen carefully to their customers, conduct research and solve their problems by introducing the simplest solutions iteratively. New customers make the best early adopters and testers of new solutions. They will help identify what needs further improvement or expansion. It's also valuable to look for commonalities in customer responses, and if there aren't any, add configuration options to avoid maintaining multiple versions of the system.
For the coming year, our priorities are … expanding into new markets in Central and Eastern Europe, the United Arab Emirates and the United States. We also plan to further integrate with additional enterprise resource planning systems, enabling us to integrate our solutions with the infrastructure of new clients. Furthermore, we will continue to develop our mobile application, focusing on improving its usability and providing essential features that enhance convenience at every stage of travel.
Cruisewatch
Cruisewatch is an AI-based text and voice analytics service for contact centers in the travel industry. Answers from founder and CEO Markus Stumpe.
In the last four years, our company has … pivoted from a B2C-focused business with a tech focus to a pure B2B software as a service provider using AI with focus on text and voice analytics for contact centers.
Looking back, one thing I know now that I wish I knew then is … the unlocked power of AI and how to orchestrate different internal and external solutions properly.
The biggest challenge we’ve faced since our founding … was COVID and how to adapt our business approach during this time without significant customer feedback.
My advice for early-stage founders is … to create prototypes very early and test them on real paying customers.
For the coming year, our priorities are … growth in the fields of text and voice analytics for cruises, travel and beyond.
The Hot 25 Travel Startups for 2024
Join us at The Phocuswright Conference, November 13-16 in Fort Lauderdale, to find out who we've selected for the Hot 25 Travel Startups for 2024, sponsored by Allianz, and to meet some of the founders.