ModiHost
ModiHost
is a hotel management system that uses artificial intelligence to personalize
the guest experience and blockchain and smart contracts to build in
transparency and efficiency for hoteliers.
Based in
Singapore, ModiHost launched in 2019 and currently has 15 employees.
What is
your 30-second pitch to investors?
ModiHost is a new platform for hotels that uses
artificial intelligence to offer a better hotel management system, centered
around personalization of the guest experience. In turn, we aim to drive
increased spending and brand loyalty. We feel that we have cracked the code
that many hotels haven’t, offering a solution for remembering guest preferences
and anticipating their needs that most hotels wouldn’t be able to employ on
their own.
Hotel management is a complex and convoluted
industry. It is also a highly inefficient one. The need to operate multiple
systems, integrate different booking systems and process reservations via
mediums ranging from email to fax, have made hotel management hopelessly
complicated. Those of us who stay in hotels regularly already have a sense that
this is the case, even without much industry knowledge. It is often surprising
how little the average hotel gets right in terms of making any given guest feel
valued – when in reality, it doesn’t take much to make a big difference.
ModiHost’s goal lies in creating an advanced AI that
can maximize hotel revenue, boost occupancy rates and increase guest
satisfaction. It will drive greater efficiencies for hospitality providers,
ranging from small motels and boutique hotels to larger chains. This will
enable us to compete with the leading hotel giants as well as sharing economy
services such as Airbnb.
Give us
your SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis of the
company.
ModiHost’s cloud-based hotel management
platform solution (HMS) integrates cognitive computing and native voice
recognition to deliver advanced services to hotels and their guests. While most
HMS products are subscription-based, the ModiHost platform will operate on a
flexible pay-per-access model meaning that hotels only ever pay for services
rendered. Using Big Data analysis, ModiHost will derive insights that can be
used to boost efficiencies, reduce costs and increase revenue.
Through the
integration of blockchain, the ModiHost platform will allow all revenue streams
to be monitored and billed in real time while creating a tradable marketplace
for anonymized hotel data. The AIM token built on EOS will be used to provide
payment for services acquired through the ModiHost HMS, while giving token pool
operators an incentive to lend tokens to hotels. Businesses will be able to
earn a discount on fees due to ModiHost by using the platform while staking AIM
tokens. Through a token generation event, ModiHost will create a distributed
community of pool operators, who will provide work on the network, enabling the
efficient provision of tokens to cover operational fees.
Funds from the token
sale will be used to perfect the ModiHost HMS, with the goal of creating an
advanced AI that can maximize hotel revenue, boost occupancy rates and increase
guest satisfaction. It will drive greater efficiencies for hospitality
providers, ranging from small motels and boutique hotels to larger chains. This
will enable them to compete with the leading hotel giants as well as sharing
economy services such as Airbnb. The archaic hotel management system has long
been in need of an overhaul. ModiHost’s HMS will bring the industry into the
21st century, through an intelligent solution that works for the benefit of all
participants. Anyone
can participate in the pool lending system by purchasing AIM tokens. The tokens
are forecast to increase, if this does happen then it would be hugely beneficial
to investors who have purchased tokens.
What are
the travel pain points you are trying to alleviate from both the customer and
the industry perspective?
The guest experience is critical to the success of
any hotel, so we started with a deep analysis of guest profiles. We examined
every subset of travelers we could think of. We looked at why they were
traveling, the countries they come from, age groups and what their varying
expectations are from service providers. We developed loads of guest personas –
loads of them, from backpackers to business travelers to high-end, five-star
travelers who only use private jets and penthouse suites.
We’ve
designed the system to make the guest feel like royalty. Every detail of the
guests' stay will be remembered. From the moment the guest makes the booking to
the time they check out, their profile will be augmented with meta-data about
things like favorite beverages, dietary preferences, appointments that were
logged, facilities used and questions the guest asked Watson.
Voice
recognition means you only have to speak and ModiHost will recognize you and
access your profile, along with all your preferences and records of your
previous interactions. The same applies to other users of the system. So, suppliers,
managers, staff members, investors and service providers will all have active
profiles in the ModiHost system where the history of their interactions will be
accurately recorded and instantly accessible.
So
you've got the product, now how will you get lots of customers?
Through promotion and advertising on various sites.
Tell us
what process you've gone through to establish a genuine need for your company
and the size of the addressable market.
ModiHost is designed for the future,
which is all about flexibility and giving people access to what they need, when
they need it. Our solution was to accommodate business expansion or shrinkage
without addressing the issue at all.
Businesses use what they need without
being tied into a “Plan A” or “Package B.” The full suite of services is
available for everyone and they can use what they need when they need it. This covers everything from basic housekeeping
functions to the full-blown IoT, robotics and AI functions we provide.
As mentioned, the crazy pace of tech has
forced us to change how we think about life and how we approach challenges. If
anything is a signpost to the future, it’s blockchain technology. It’s
redefining how everything is done, from processing and storing data to how we
deal with data privacy and security. It is also redefining how we access
services, conduct business deals, make contracts and guard ourselves against
bad actors. ModiHost is the future of PMSs. Its design and operation are
completely based on blockchain – you could say blockchain is its DNA.
We are breaking new ground in the global
hospitality industry with this package. It works seamlessly with AI, robotics,
the IoT and any technology based on these areas, and it’s designed to work with
and fully utilize the power of big data processing technology.
In short, it’s designed with the future
in mind - you could say it’s future-proof.
How and
when will you make money?
The main idea of making money is to charge a fee whenever a hotel owner
upsells a premium service.
What are
the backgrounds and previous achievements of the founding team?
- Stephan Radwitz - Several
iconic construction projects such as the Carl-Benz Stadion, multi-purpose
stadium in Mannheim and the Gläserne Manufaktur in Saxony, Germany.
- Krish Mahajan - UPI
(Unified Payments Interface) for the National Payments Corporation of India
which is handled over 150 million transactions in its first month of operation.
- Fiona Yalcin - With a
background in human resource management and development in the hospitality industry.
HMS incorporates a number
of cyber disciplines including AI, Big Data, blockchain, IoT and robotics. To
ensure that every element of the ModiHost solution is of a professional
standard, ModiHost has taken on dedicated teams of expert engineers and
developers in each of the above fields.
What's
been the most difficult part of founding the business so far?
The number one challenge is
always around planning for uncertainty, yet it’s the one thing that most
companies, especially in their early stage, ignore. They rarely run enough
“What if?” scenarios and consider what they will do as an alternative. This coronavirus
pandemic is just another example. Who would have thought? Yet, smart operators
think in terms of catastrophic events and work on scenarios in case they come
true.
So much of a founder’s role is
to think far ahead and weigh the probability of those challenges coming true.
It’s addressing issues such as running out of money, too fast or too little
growth or not having a company that appeals to investors, or a cap table that
is the barrier to raising money.
Generally,
travel startups face a fairly tough time making an impact - so why are you
going to be one of the lucky ones?
With any new product, trying to look into the future and design for it is
always a huge challenge. You never know when something will be developed that
will impact your product, so you have to have rock-solid team members who can
anticipate, react and build on anything that comes up. This means they must
have built an adaptable, expandable system in the first place.
What is your end-game?
(Going public, acquisition, growing and staying private, etc.)
Going public.
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