STARTUP STAGE: ModiHost is a hotel management system using AI and blockchain

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.