In the series hospitality influencers, we provide insights into the future of hospitality through interviews with inspiring individuals actively shaping the industry. These thought leaders share their stories and provide industry perspectives, challenges, opportunities, and innovations. Join us in exploring the future of hospitality.
In this article, we’ll interview Adam Harris, the CEO and co-founder of Cloudbeds. Adam has vastly simplified the typically complicated world of OTAs, payments, reservations, and reporting so hoteliers can spend time on their most important job – taking care of their guests.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I’m the co-founder and chief executive officer of Cloudbeds, the hospitality management platform powering lodging businesses around the globe. Cloudbeds is a natural extension of many of the things I care about.
I grew up traveling all over the world with my father, and entrepreneurship was a driving force in my career. I had numerous businesses in tech before founding Cloudbeds. And before that, I worked on Wall Street. San Diego is home to me, my wife, and our two young kids.
I serve as a member of the executive board for the San Diego startup incubator Connect when I’m not spending time with my family at the beach. My duties include mentoring and advising entrepreneurs in a city that is quickly becoming the new epicenter of technology. I’m on multiple boards, including La Jolla Youth Soccer League, Zesty, and C2K. C2K, in particular, is an awesome non-profit organization focused on recycling and refurbishing computers and providing affordable access for the technologically underserved – check them out!
What was your first job in the hospitality industry?
Even after 11 years in this industry, I still feel like an outsider. I’ve never spent more than one weekend behind the front desk of a property. But I ultimately see that as an advantage that can help me bring new ideas and fresh approaches to hospitality – which I love. However, that one weekend behind a desk is quite the story. I was working in a hotel as a General Manager for the night. That happened to be the same night a swinger’s party bought out the hotel. As the hotel manager on duty, I was responsible for everything. And let’s just say I saw things that I cannot unsee, even to this day.
The night it culminated in getting blown up by security regarding a naked woman dancing on top of the bar. That was never on the list of things I thought I’d be dealing with as GM that evening. It was over the top. Of all the nights! But I’m sure that’s just a dose of what GMs deal with regularly. Our hospitality professionals really are the heroes of this industry. They see it all, and it’s why our team is so passionate about our customers. We show up every day to make their jobs more efficient and enjoyable by providing technology they don’t have to worry about.
What triggered you to start your company?
Our idea for Cloudbeds came from a little problem we encountered while traveling through Brazil. A posada wanted us to wire money for “someone affiliated with the property” to hold our reservation. Aside from being super sketchy, it didn’t resemble the modern guest experience most travelers have come to expect, even internationally. Frustrated by this disconnect, we dreamed of a better way. Of a platform that would allow any property to run its lodging business successfully no matter its size, type, or location.
It was a back-of-the-napkin idea that has become the platform that powers hospitality – enabling tens of thousands of lodging businesses, in more than 150 countries worldwide, to grow and thrive.
What is the story behind your company?
From when my co-founder Richard and I founded Cloudbeds in 2012 to today, we’ve raised 250M and are a series D company with a worldwide team. We work alongside a fully remote, distributed, workforce of 700+ people in more than 40+ countries. And we’ve generated billions of dollars in revenue for thousands of properties. Cloudbeds has amassed awards for culture, product, and innovation. These include Forbes’ America’s Best Startup Employers, Inc.’s Best Workplaces, and EY Entrepreneur of the Year.
What does your company solve?
We like to describe Cloudbeds as a box that slides across the table, with everything a hotelier needs to run their lodging business successfully. We simplify the complicated world of OTAs, payments, reservations, and reporting so our clients can spend time on their most important job – taking care of their guests. We enable properties to compete alongside the biggest brands in hospitality, no matter their size, through our software suite.
We’re passionate about connecting people worldwide to create more meaningful travel experiences. Experiences between owners, operators, and their guests. Amazing hospitality isn’t just reserved for five-star hotels. We are available to our customers 24/7/365 and provide continued training and resources to educate the next generation of hoteliers and hosts.
What challenges did you face while developing and launching your technology? How did you overcome them?
Entrepreneurs face all kinds of challenges when developing and launching their technology. Rich and I were no different initially as we sought to get Cloudbeds off the ground. Reid Hoffman has a great quote, stating that if you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late. Figuring out your minimum viable product can be a huge challenge because you don’t want to do it wrong and lose the customer forever.
But you also don’t want to go too far and lose the opportunity to learn and iterate. Because in that scenario, you might have overcommitted and built the wrong thing. So it’s a fine balance. You overcome that by setting many milestones for the product. And then iterating and iterating and iterating. You’ve got to be super agile.
With a product-led growth mentality, it makes sense why you want to iterate and launch. There’s a certain amount of calculated risk that you’re taking each time. You’re deciding to either go for it…or not. As my co-founder Richard Castle says, “Risk tolerance is one of the most important traits any entrepreneur can have. Without it, you’re rarely successful.” Don’t fall in love with your idea or perspective; otherwise, you’re done. Managing emotions is your best asset in making the calculated risks that have incredible outcomes for your business.
Who were the people that have been the most helpful in getting you to where you are today? How did they impact your life and your success?
Nothing is more motivating than an individual trusting in you to build something. My friends and family were so supportive. They took risks on my behalf and helped me do the same. They wrote checks. But the second group of people to do that, to take an exorbitant amount of risk for Cloudbeds, is our early team, who joined the company when we had much to prove.
Members of our investment community have been unbelievably important to our success, too. All three groups of people – family and friends, early team members, and our investors – have been there for our ups and downs and battles. There are too many people who have been integral to Cloudbed’s success (and mine) to name them all.
How do you balance the traditional touchpoints of hospitality with technology?
Traditional lodging business touchpoints can be summarized by a few things: property, location, amenities, service, and the humans that work for them. Technology can’t change a property. It can’t move its location. It can add or impact the service level and the ease of accessing amenities. Technology can also stifle or augment a human’s ability to provide incredible guest experiences.
We should innovate and move hospitality forward by unlocking that humanity, which makes hospitality so special. Our job in building technology for the industry is to optimize those traditional touchpoints so that humans don’t have to do the mundane. They should be untethered from their devices to instead deliver exceptional guest experiences.
How do you stay up-to-date with the latest trends and advancements in the hospitality industry and technology? How do you incorporate them into your product roadmap?
We pay attention to what’s happening in our community of partners, advisors, and customers – both within hospitality and travel and beyond it. This allows us to set the pace for those advancements. Our team sits on industry advisory boards that set the pace for the future. We also work with the most forward-thinking customers and partners in the industry. In doing so, we’re able to access a wealth of product knowledge, insights, and expertise. We can funnel that back into our product roadmap and the greater Cloudbeds community.
Ultimately, listening to and understanding our customer’s needs helps us envision and create the future of hospitality tech.
How will technology change the hospitality industry over the next five to ten years? Where do you see your company fitting into that future?
When we set out on this journey a short eleven years ago, one of our goals was to have a seat at the table to ensure innovation. We wanted to make sure this industry kept moving forward. In 2012, we didn’t know where the table was nor which players sat around it. That’s changed in the last decade. Now that we’re an industry-leading technology provider, we strive to set the industry up worldwide. To continuously scale and serve lodging businesses no matter what micro or macro events (like COVID-19) affect them.
Technology is accelerating – just look at how far we’ve come and how quickly with advancements in Artificial Intelligence. Studies show that 40% of our workforce will have to rethink their skills because of what AI can do in the future. This will likely overlap with the world of hospitality, which is uniquely human-to-human.
Technology will drive far more unique human-to-human interactions and less manual tasks. The administrative burdens of hospitality will be automated in new and interesting ways. And this automation will allow hoteliers to take their hands off the keyboard.
Humans will be unburdened by the admin bogging them down. And people will get to focus on the things only humans can do, like lending an ear to a guest so they can quickly solve their problem. Today, Cloudbeds commands a seat at the table. And I believe it will usher the industry forward in new and exciting ways.
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