STARTUP STAGE: Folio creates custom digital guides for rental properties

Folio

Folio offers a self-service tool so property managers and short-term rental hosts can create interactive apps for their properties, with details about property and its amenities, local recommendations and messaging. 

Property managers and hosts pay a monthly subscription fee for each app created on Folio, with different pricing plans depending on the features needed in the app. 

What is your 30-second pitch to investors?

Folio is a digital front desk solution powered by artificial intelligence that automates guest management for the short-term rental industry. Our self-service platform allows property managers and hosts to create interactive apps that guests use as a digital front desk, optimizing the entire guest experience from booking to checkout and beyond.

Describe both the business and technology aspects of your startup.

Property managers and short-term rental hosts use our guided, self-service tool to design interactive apps for each of their properties. Each app serves as a digital front desk, sharing information about the property and amenities, providing curated recommendations for things to do in the area, sending automated messaging and responses supported by conversational AI and more. Apps are shared with guests with a unique link or a QR code - no downloads are needed. Property managers and hosts use our dashboard to update their apps and those changes sync immediately. We charge a monthly subscription fee per active app, with pricing tiers depending on the features and support needed.

Give us your SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of the company.

• Strengths: Our product was designed with the needs of both the host and the guest in mind, providing a singular touchpoint for all guest management needs.
• Weaknesses: The current focus is on domestic U.S. travel since we launched during a time when international travel was limited. As restrictions lift and we expand to international markets, we need to be mindful of how those needs might differ.
• Opportunities: Further product development and introduction of new features to achieve the dual goals of 1) supporting property managers who are leveraging technology to automate more and more of their operations and 2) elevating the guest experience to that of a branded, hotel-like stay.
• Threats: The landscape of tech solutions for short-term rentals is fragmented with no clear winner, leading to uncertainty around who will ultimately dominate the space.

What are the travel pain points you are trying to alleviate from both the customer and the industry perspective?

As a Cornell University hospitality professor says in a recent New York Times article, “high tech is the new high touch.” For property managers and owners, we automate the manual and labor-intensive aspects of guest management - sharing amenity information, giving recommendations for local food and activities, repeatedly answering the same guest questions - saving them both time and money and allowing them scale their operations at a fraction of the cost.

For the broader travel industry, as the line continues to blur between hotels and short-term rentals, Folio offers a consistent guest experience for travelers regardless of the type of accommodation they choose.

So you've got the product, now how will you get lots of customers?

Our customers love our product. We’ve experienced 50% growth over the past five months based on word-of-mouth alone. We’re now ramping up sales and marketing efforts, which include forming partnership with other service providers in the short-term rental and hospitality space.

Tell us what process you've gone through to establish a genuine need for your company and the size of the addressable market.

Folio was created to address the shifting needs of the short-term rental hosts and property managers as a result of COVID-19. We started with a pilot group of eight properties and iterated on product development based on their feedback and those of their guests. We just launched an upgraded platform with more self-service features to streamline the setup and maintenance process of the apps.

Property managers currently spend over $10 billion a year on tech solutions to help them operate their business. That number will only grow as the overall market grows at 15% a year and property managers increasingly spend more on technology.

How and when will you make money?

We charge a monthly subscription fee for each app created on our platform, with different pricing plans depending on the features needed. Despite launching less than nine months ago, we are already supporting hundreds of properties and on an exponential growth curve. We also have plans to capture additional revenue from ancillary services in the near future.

What are the backgrounds and previous achievements of the founding team?

Folio’s founder and CEO, Amy Tang, is a Columbia Engineering PhD, data scientist and recent winner of the inaugural Phocuswright Startup Program Mentee Award. Prior to starting Folio, she spent more than five years as a data science consultant, leading teams to design and implement AI-enabled tech solutions for large, multinational companies.

How have you addressed diversity and inclusion within your business?

As a company started by a female, immigrant founder and a remote-first team, diversity and inclusion are embedded in Folio’s culture and core values. Additionally, we encourage property managers on our platform to consider the different needs of guests staying at their property, for example, calling out any accessibility features in their homes.

What's been the most difficult part of founding the business so far?

We’d like to ship new product features faster. We have a very engaged set of users giving us great feedback and ideas for additional features and future product expansion. Recruiting engineering talent these days has been quite challenging!

Generally, travel startups face a fairly tough time making an impact - so why are you going to be one of lucky ones?

We’ve had a hard time keeping up with demand - our solution provides immediate and real value to property managers looking to automate more and more aspects of guest management. Our focus on designing the best experience for both hosts and travelers makes our product an integral part of any short-term rental operation.

A year from now, what state do you think your startup will be in?

Over the next year, we will be laser-focused on increasing the number of property managers and hosts we support and introducing new product features to help them provide an elevated guest experience to their guests.

What is your end-game? (Going public, acquisition, growing and staying private, etc.

Our end-game is to leverage technology to help property managers and hosts provide exceptional guest hospitality. Whether that involves partnerships, acquisitions or going public, we will continue to build the best-in-class technology to support the growing short-term rental market and the increasing number of travelers choosing them.