SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
Proof you can build a $2m SaaS in any Niche (even with big competitors!)
25 Jan 2024
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Guys, room checking was launched back in early 2017, broke a million dollars of revenue shortly thereafter, call it right around 2020, right before COVID. Then COVID obviously took the business almost to zero, $100,000 of revenue in 2021. Last year in 2022, they broke a million.
And this year, 2023, they're finishing with $2 million of revenue because 600 different hotel chains with an average of 130 rooms each pay him about $275 per month. That equals $165,000 per month in revenue. And on the 2 million of revenue this year, they'll profit about 17,000 a month or $200,000 total this year.
They're building this all basically bootstrap with a team of 20, 15 engineers trying to differentiate themselves from the big players with custom cleaning solutions, automatic allocation of cleaning resources and task iteration, again, for folks trying to manage their hotels. Hey folks, my guest today is Jonathan Wiseman. He's building a company called Room Checking.
After coming from the consumer and electronic world, he's headed some R&D teams both in France and Israel. Again, now building this business, which is housekeeping and maintenance solution for hotels. Jonathan, you ready to take us to the top? Yeah. All right. What got you into the hotel world? No, I'm not coming from the hotel world, but I've learned now. We've so many years now in the business.
That's what I'm asking. What got you into it? Why are you interested in hotels?
Actually, I met someone who was in the business. Then we started the business together, totally by chance.
Okay. It makes good sense. Give a customer story. How is the customer using you today? I mean, for three reasons.
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Chapter 2: How did RoomChecking achieve $2 million in revenue despite competition?
So it's mainly a communication and productivity tool.
Is this only internal communication with the hotel manager and the cleaners, or is it also communication with the people staying at the hotel, the guests? Yes, two, both, yes.
But that's two different things. I mean, there is a productivity side where we allocate correctly the cleaning order, the cleaning rooms, the right people. And there is also all the inventory, lost and found and everything. And on the other side, there is a communication with the guests that can interact with the team.
Now, I believe the last time we spoke was all the way back in 2018.
Chapter 3: How did COVID-19 impact RoomChecking's business model?
You told me you had about 240 customers at the time. Where are you today? How many customers? Now we have 600. Wow. Okay. Where did most of that growth come from? Direct relationships or partnerships? Or how do you get customers?
Yeah, I mean, in our field, it's a me-too industry. I guess that people living from one hotel to the other, they bring with them the tools. So we are like an internal growth, like people are traveling and moving from one company to another and bringing the tool with them.
Okay. And what do these customers on average pay you per month to use your technology?
Yeah. So we price per room is $3 per room and per month. And so the average customer is $400 to $500.
Okay. $400 to $500 per month. Yeah. Okay, so that would be what, like 133, 134 rooms on average per hotel? Yeah. Okay, interesting. And how many sort of unique hotels are you in? 600?
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Chapter 4: What unique solutions does RoomChecking offer to hotel owners?
Yeah, I mean, because we do have chains, I mean, small chains. But I don't know, actually, we have 600 totally.
And yeah, but some of them belong to the same chain.
okay but could i take 600 individual hotels times 133 rooms on average and say that you're in about 80 000 different rooms you can say yeah you can say right in there okay okay great and tell me more about the the team today because i think when we last spoke again in 2018 you had only raised i believe an angel round about 800 or 900 000 have you raised any more or have you stayed bootstrap no we stay bootstrap ah that's great are you profitable today yeah we do ah mate can i ask how much what do you profit per month
Yes.
So today we reached 2 million revenue and we're doing 200K profits. In 2023? Yeah, 2023. Yeah. Wow. Congratulations. That's extremely exciting. Thank you very much. How did you get there? Did you have to cut a bunch of people or did you just grow with what you had and as revenue grew, profits grew?
Okay, so we got one of the very interesting things that we get bigger clients now. So instead of reaching one client after the other, we get bigger chains with many more hotels and then it's easier to get bigger contracts.
so when you get one big contract that brings you like 20k per month so it's really like uh it's breathing you know a lot like getting one of three 200 euro or 400 euro a month so you get a bunch i mean a very good mra from one customer and so we got very big brands like um club med in france like a balustrade and many many other like big brands and those uh brought easily i mean easier like uh more money with the same team
That's impressive. Now, if you're at 2 million run rate today, where are you exactly one year ago? So we can calculate a growth rate.
Oh, I was 1 million because the COVID was there. Don't forget the COVID was there. So we lost customers. I mean, we were very affected by the COVID. And I think during the year of the COVID, we went to close to zero, something like that. I mean, it was 100K. And so we jumped back from 1 million to 2 million.
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Chapter 5: What strategies did RoomChecking use to grow its customer base?
That equals $165,000 per month in revenue. And on the 2 million of revenue this year, they'll profit about 17,000 a month or $200,000 total this year.
They're building this all basically bootstrap with a team of 20, 15 engineers trying to differentiate themselves from the big players with custom cleaning solutions, automatic allocation of cleaning resources, and task iteration, again, for folks trying to manage their hotels. Jonathan, thanks for taking us to the top. You're welcome. Thank you very much.