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 interview, we talk to Erik Tengen from Oaky. Erik co-founded Oaky in 2013, alongside Lars Jonker and Tako Paddenburg. He has since helped to grow the company into a market leader in hotel upselling solutions. Oaky helps drive incremental hotel revenue and enhance the guest experience through targeted upselling messaging.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I am a father of two boys. I am from the southern part of Sweden and am married to my amazing half-Italian, half-Dutch wife. After high school, I dove into a five-year dual career as a professional poker player and DJ. It was a roller-coaster lifestyle; it felt actually similar to the early days of entrepreneurship.
After this period, I moved to The Netherlands to study at Hotelschool The Hague. During my last internship in Kuala Lumpur, I met Lars Jonker.
We became good friends and were determined to start a business together. Back in Holland, I was introduced to Tako Paddenburg, who had studied together with Lars. After freshly graduated, me, Lars and Tako started Oaky.
What was your first job in the hospitality industry?
My first job in the hotel sector was one that I got after I lost all of my money playing poker. I had gained experience working in food and beverages, and in restaurants. My first internship at Hotelschool The Hague took place at an incredible golf resort in Scotland — Gleneagles. It was around this time that I got my first job working in a hotel.
What triggered you to start your company?
Everyone in my family is an entrepreneur, so it was just a matter of what I would start, rather than when or if. I needed something to do. After finishing college with Hotelschool The Hague, I met Lars, who is one of my co-founders, at my last internship in Kuala Lumpur. We just decided to start a company together. That was the trigger.
What is the story behind your company?
The story behind Oaky is that we started as a real-time feedback solution for hotels, enabling guests to give feedback during their hotel stay. However, very quickly — within the first couple of years — we realized that it’s very hard to sell a solution that generates low or no tangible return on investment.
So in 2017, three years into the company, we pivoted to become an upsell solution, in order to provide a tangible return on investment. And that was a complete game changer for us as a company, propelling us to where we are today; as a market leader in upselling for the hotel industry.
What does your company solve?
Our solution is meant for revenue managers in hotel chains who care deeply about maximizing profit. Oaky is an automated upsell solution and, unlike alternatives, we are 100% scalable and automated. We are built for hotel chains, so we have multi-property functionality. We offer hyper-personalized upselling across the full guest journey.
What challenges did you face while developing and launching your technology? How did you overcome them?
There are frankly too many to count, but the biggest challenge, I think, in general, that we faced was the daily roller coaster of going between feelings of terror and ecstasy while living the life of an entrepreneur.
You are only really in those two modes. Everything is either absolutely incredible or horrible. The challenge that we faced continually, which was certainly not unique to us, was how to overcome these feelings. This was particularly challenging in the early years of being an entrepreneur, when the lifestyle is fairly new to you.
How did we overcome them? By always having a mindset of never giving up.
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?
There are probably too many to mention. Our first initial angel investor was instrumental to us, not just because he funded the first part of our company, but because he was also there when we ran out of money time and time again in the early years.
Having early investors and early mentors is absolutely critical — both in terms of teaching you how to be a good entrepreneur and business person, but also how to create balance and an overall lifestyle that matches the needs and values that you have as a person. Without mentors like the ones I’ve had and still have along this journey, I would certainly not be where I am today.
How do you balance the traditional touchpoints of hospitality with technology?
In my view, the traditional touchpoints of hospitality are enabling and being proactive to meet the needs of guests, no matter where they are or how they are. Traditionally that is, of course, offline in the hotel.
What we do is we take that incredible offline experience that you have in many hotels, and we turn it into a digital, proactive experience that is relevant and personalized, and smooth. We bring that across the full digital guest journey, from the point that you book, until the point that you depart.
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?
Speaking to as many people as you can, about as much as you can, is probably the most important thing here, and the most important people to speak to are our customers. We conduct hundreds of customer interviews every year and that informs how we see their needs and how we anticipate those needs evolving in the future.
We can then create a product roadmap that will meet the needs of our customers. This is combined with the vision we create for ourselves by cherry-picking things other people say about the industry — about trends, technology, or behavioral science. Putting those things together allows us to form our own vision about the future.
How will technology change the hospitality industry over the next five to ten years? Where do you see your company fitting into that future?
I think when it comes to the future of upselling, we envision virtual reality glasses that customers can put on and experience any type of tourist hotspot. This will also include hotels and hotel rooms, allowing you to truly experience them as if you were there. Really it’s all about how well-designed the content is.
I think this type of AI-driven virtual reality experience that you consume from the comfort of your living room will be included in the overall hospitality experience. This will be the starting point for choosing where to travel next.
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