ILC Cultivate Winner: You Shouldn't Have to Pay For Bad Weather

The Modern Hotelier - Episode #14 === Mark Bruno: I was actually working at Google when I had the, the true realization, the project I worked on, we had a budget that allowed us to lose 10 million a month. We could just spend and looking at it. And it's like, this is not a real business. This is not how business should be done. And so I left and joined a five person company with absolutely no money. And it's like, yes, this is how business is done. And this is way more exciting. And this, these constraints are good. These constraints allow us to do better. Welcome to the, The Modern Hotelier you're presented by Stayflexi. I'm your host, David Millili. Steve Carran: And I'm Steve Carran. David Millili: Steve, who do we have on the program? You Steve Carran: David. Today, we have a returning guest, Andrew Benioff from the independent lodging Congress. Andrew is gonna be announcing the winner of the, indie cultivate seed round. David Millili: Welcome Andrew. Andrew Benioff: Thank you, David. Appreciate it. David Millili: So could you give, uh, everyone a reminder and, uh, background of ILC and how that was started and what it's all about? Andrew Benioff: Sure. The independent lodging Congress started about 10 years ago. Uh we're we're a, a, uh, event and media platform that celebrates independent hotels. Restaurants food and beverage outlets and everything that is, connected to them. So pieces that are tangentially part of the independent hotel experience, including art design, technology, fashion music, and all of those things that go into making a great independent hotel. Steve Carran: both David and I have been to those shows and they're both fantastic. How did you specifically come up with the idea for the cultivate, concept. Andrew Benioff: So we, were thinking after we had been running, ILC for a number of years, that it would be great to celebrate, new startups, new ideas and innovation in hospitality and travel. In some way, shape or form. So we came up with the idea of cultivate marrying sort of two different conferences, our regular. Get together where we have panels and, indy talks and so forth discussions on all aspects of independent hospitality, as well as a startup pitch event where new startups come together and pitch their company idea to VCs, other investors, and people in the audience to figure out, you know what, what's the best new idea. Can it get funding, et cetera? We put those two things together and we came up with indie cultivate, which helps to. support Innovation and startups in hospitality and. travel Steve Carran: That's awesome. and Andrew, can you please announce and introduce the growth round winner? Andrew Benioff: Yes, of course. Steve, uh, the growth round winner was, a company called sensible weather. Their VP of product mark Bruno came and, and, and pitched. Sensible weather is a climate risk technology company that de-risks weather for both travel partners and consumers. They offer a partner, branded weather guarantee, service sort of like insurance that automatically reimburses travelers when bad weather impacts their in trip experience. And I have to say, when I first heard about this, when he started to pitch, my first thought was, this is crazy. Who's gonna use this. And by the end of the pitch, I was fully on board and just thought it was an amazing idea. And add to that. I'm going for a few days to Rhode Island next. And I was thinking, gosh, if it rains on one of these days, I've already promised my kids that we're going to the beach, then what are we gonna do? And I thought, wow, maybe I should have bought one of those policies with sensible weather and it would've solved the problem. Pretty cool. Fantastic. David Millili: Welcome to the show, mark. And congratulations on your victory. I was there in Brooklyn and I, I thought you did a great present. Mark Bruno: Thank you. I appreciate. Steve Carran: Yeah. So to kick things off, mark, you know, where are you from? What's your background? Mark Bruno: Yeah. I'm from a pretty rural place between Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia. Um, but I spent most of my career in New York and so yeah, related people tend to David Millili: That's so funny, cuz yeah, we just, yeah, we had, not that we had, uh, Josh had from course who won the seed is from Philadelphia. And I was, if you watch that, I was saying it's people at high tech were getting frustrated, cuz they kept saying, how do you Philly people always find each other. Cause I'm from Doylestown is where I grew up. Mark Bruno: I literally live a block and a half off main street in Doylestown. That's David Millili: so you can go stop by my parents' house. Both Steve Carran: Okay. So how did growing up in Pennsylvania, you know, shape kind of who you are? Mark Bruno: Yeah, I, I think growing up, particularly in a rural area, I had a lot less exposure to a lot of what the world was. Uh, my first job, I was 12 working on a farm. and I, through that experience, I had like a very simple life, but I think then getting exposed to New York later in my life and my early twenties. It was almost just this entire crash course in what it means to be in it with everyone. And while I wish I had gotten that exposure sooner, I think getting that exposure for the first time in my twenties made it easier for me to kind of understand the world and experience like this is really special and there's something really great here. And so it was a steep learning curve, a little late in my life. I think. Steve Carran: I, I actually had the same thing I grew up in Wisconsin then moved to DC after college and it. Kind of the same learning curve for me. So, you started sensible weather, for the people that aren't familiar. Can you, uh, tell people a little bit more about sensible weather and what you're, what you're looking to accomplish? Mark Bruno: Yeah, so sensible weather. We are a climate risk technology company. But really what we do is we offer a product called a weather guarantee. And so this is a product for, consumers of outdoor travel, outdoor events, having an outdoor experience. And it's all about the idea that bad weather is not something you should have to pay for. And so we work with hotel owners, hotel operators. We also work with resort operators like ski resorts and. For our partners, it's about one being able to make a little bit of additional revenue, but two it's really about the guest experience. And so we focus on brands that understand that guest experience and are really trying to focus on what did the guest and how does weather have a negative impact on can we do to remedy that for them? Steve Carran: Awesome. Awesome. So Steven, I have done several, um, couple ILC events. Um, I've been to many of them. What, what really made you get involved with ILC? How'd you find out about it and what really drove you to, to be part of that? The group. Mark Bruno: I was made aware of it actually by someone on the team, Pete who leads our business development. And the thing that stood out to me is just the, the vibe of it. I, you know, I'm a experienced, driven person, but I. Work in product design. And I'm always sort of thinking about the brand and the emotion. And as soon as I landed on the website first, I was like, oh, this feels like something I need to be like aware of and sort of next to. And then being there, I, I just, it was exactly on everything I wanted to be a part of. And I, I love the conversations. I love the getting to meet people and everyone in the room seems to understand what a relationship really is. It's not a business relationship. It's sort of an understanding and a mutual appreciation for the human experie. David Millili: And I think I tell people once you've gone to, especially when you attend your second one, you feel more like you're part of a, a community or group, or you're like a member versus going to a. Traditional trade show. I mean, there's no booths. You kind of, there's a lot of breakout sessions. You can really just talk to people in a natural format where you don't feel like, you know, if you're the guy trying to sell, you don't have to be as salesy. And if you're the person who's, getting the pitch, you, you feel like it's much more comfortable. it was, it was a good event, well attended in Brooklyn. Um, Did you, how did you feel going in? I mean, I've done presentations. Did you feel that you were prepared? Did you feel like you were ready? Were you nervous? What was it like that, that day? Mark Bruno: Yeah, I was a bit nervous. I'll say, just because I'm a little bit of an outsider to the industry. I'm a tech person I've sort of entered hospitality about four years ago. It's a industry I love, but I was coming from building technology and I just had a, I was nervous because of the respect I have for people who really handle those in person interactions. The, the actual hospitality of it, nervous, intimidated is a little bit, but I think that for me, There's one thing that helps quell my nerves is like the words that I'm gonna say the presentation of it that's one piece, but if it comes from actually understanding what you're trying to accomplish, and if you really know what you're trying to talk about, the actual presentation becomes a lot easier. Right? So all of the insights and understanding about, travelers and the experience they're trying to have building just sort of this understanding of hotel operators and what their day to day actually looks. And then just telling a story on top of that knowledge. And so that was kinda the approach I took was just make sure I understand what I'm talking about and the story will. Steve Carran: Absolutely. After after the presentation, did you feel good about it or were you like, oh, that went terrible or how how'd you feel after? Mark Bruno: I felt good about it. Uh, I felt good that I was done. I was ready to just talk to people 1 0 1 um, and I would say that, uh, I. The Q and a was actually very exciting for me. I, I really appreciate, and, and thank you to judges involved because being able to engage with people in one-on-one questioning is a great place to about the, having people really question the business and people really question the experience is exciting to me and that energizes me. So I, I enjoyed that portion a lot kind of ended on high. Steve Carran: Oh, that's awesome. so mark, have you always wanted to, to have, like, be involved in startups, you mentioned you have a tech background. Um, was this something that's kind of always been planned or, or not really? Mark Bruno: Yes, I think it's always been planned. I, it grew up sort of in a entrepreneurial sort of mindset. And then I was actually working at Google when I had the, the true realization, the project I worked on, we had a budget that allowed us to lose 10 million a month. We could just spend and looking at it. And it's like, this is not a real business. This is not how business should be done. And so I left and joined a five person company with absolutely no money. And it's like, yes, this is how business is done. And this is way more exciting. And this, these constraints are good. These constraints allow us to do better. Steve Carran: that's so funny. David Millili: So was this your, is this your first startup? Mark Bruno: No, I'm fortunate. I have been a part of teams that have gone from five people in a coworking space to hundreds of employees a couple of times, but I will say that, uh, sensible is unique and it's really this opportunity to take all those learnings of the six startups I've worked at full time. And the number of companies I've worked with in part-time capacity. To build the right type of culture. And so the insights and that understanding I was talking about, um, that's something I'm passionate. David Millili: Is this your first time being in growth mode with a company that's yours or you've done that also in the past, Mark Bruno: I've done it in the past, uh, before it always takes a different flavor. And so I'll say, uh, our founder CEO, I lead product brings the knowledge to the table. So he's a scientist trading weather deriv really understands the climate risk aspect of it. Then I focus heavily on sort of the experience aspect of it. And so in growth mode, what it looks like to be really focused on experiences, understanding. The overall experience, but also like how do you actually identify the people and problems you need to solve now in order to access your market? This is the, the typical tech problem. This is the typical any company problem is that, understanding what's most important right now. And it's hard and it's nervewracking, but it feels really good when you get it right. Steve Carran: Yeah. What you, you spoke about the guest experience a little bit. Do, is there anything you see, as far as a guest experience that needs to be changed or, you know, we're gonna see a change in the next couple. Mark Bruno: I do. And it's sort of tangential to the guest experience. I, and it's this. Coming from my position as a, a technologist. So when I, I touched a lot of different markets in my career, a lot of different industries and expected entering the hospitality industry challenge was surprised, fragmented, David Millili: Right. Mark Bruno: difficult. It is for. People actually operating who focus on the guest experience. That's what they should be focusing on. But instead there's a lot of people focusing on how do I connect my systems? How do I get my distribution out there? How do I just handle my, my base systems? And so I think that in order to improve the guest experience from the position I'm sitting in is focusing on reducing the amount of work that people who can actually focus on the guest experience have to do with their technology. And so I'm hopeful that that's the change that we'll see. I think. There's headwinds, there's barriers to that happening. Um, but if we all, we all know this unheard. David Millili: Right. Yeah. Steve Carran: It, it was so funny. Uh, David and I were at high tech with, with Stayflexi and we talked to so many people and they said the exact same thing. They were. We are so tired of integrations. Like if we get 'em connected, like they're great. But then if something goes wrong, they point fingers and it's just like a headache and they're like, we're just we're done with it. so I think you're exactly right. Like one of those all in one systems just to come and do everything. So. Mark Bruno: Yeah. Well, and I'm sitting here as a guy. a is trying to pitch integration. it's hard position for in is. David Millili: Yeah. Steve Carran: Yeah. Well, I think, I think, you know, you're talking about the guest experience and how often is the guest experience ruined by. Um, often I would say, and this is one of those integration that's like, can save the guest experience. It, it can not only increase it, but save it. Uh, and that can, I think if I was at a hotel and I'd say, I booked a outside happy hour and it got canceled, you guys refund it, you know, I'm gonna write the hotel and be like, this is awesome. You know? So I, I love what y'all are doing over there at sensible weather. So David Millili: Maybe give us a couple examples. I mean, is there anything. You know, past 12 months where there's been a weather event that, you know, and I guess in, in your case, sometimes you're hoping that there's always good weather so that they, they don't have to collect on the insurance. So was there an event or something that happened that you guys are like, wow, that was really amazing. We had X amount of people who had the insurance and were covered and, and, protected. Mark Bruno: Yeah. So I actually love seeing people get paid. Our financial models are financial model and that's what we're good at is understanding that. So if people had a rainy day or have it was too cold or there was wasn't snow. I wanna pay those people. I wanna give those people a reimbursement for their experience. Uh, and I think what I'm loving is every single day, there's a really, I see people getting reimbursements. And so it's not just like, oh, there's a major rain event coming across the Appalachians. And like a whole bunch of people got moved around. It's more just like all of these things happening all over the country, all over the world at the same time. but I will actually tell you a story. Sort of the opposite of what you asked, which is have I done and seen anything that didn't go well? our very first launched second weekend after we've been live and this is over a year ago now, I actually was managing customer support, you know, we're seven people at that time. So I'm on customer support. Somebody emailed in a couple days ahead of the weekend. They're like, Hey, it's supposed to rain this. Uh, and this is a water park. should, are we gonna get a reimbursement for our water park tickets? And I was like, well, what'll happen is the day of the forecast. We'll check for you. And we let you know if it's great going to rain and then you'll get a reimbursement, but don't worry. If you get a reimbursement, you actually still get to go the water. It gets to be a free day for you, which is really cool value proposition, except that it was a category for a hurricane coming down. And so telling. This guest that like, don't worry. Just go to the water in the category for hurricane no problem learnings, right? Like we need to be, and we've solved that. Steve Carran: do people believe you when you tell them that? If somebody told me like, oh, you still could go to the water park, but you're basically going for free. I'd be like, what's the catch? You know, like, do I, you know, am I gonna get there and be stopped or something, you know, like, do what, what's the response. When you tell people that. Mark Bruno: The response often is too good to be true. And so we actually have an initiative inside of our company is to say, it's not too good to be true. It's very true and great. And so we wanna figure out how to flip that phrase. but what we also see is that we, we are able to point's reasonable for, so we see a lot of say like, oh, I, but it's I'm they're and we can deliver Steve Carran: Absolutely. and how long have you guys been around? Mark Bruno: We were founded in 2019. Uh, we, I actually joined right before COVID, uh, hit. And so we went very heads down for two years, very quiet and stealth building out our climate platform and really focused on our climate analytics. We officially launched the weather guaranteed product at the beginning of 2020. So at the beginning of this year, Steve Carran: Very cool. And how did that idea come? Mark Bruno: The idea is really interesting. So, uh, Nick, like I said, our founder CEO, he had access to platforms like this, for more B2B use and not the same type of platform, but the ability to look at this information and he's an avid skier. And so he's sitting in New York, he's going to the west coast to ski. He has this flights booked to Colorado. But is there better snow in Montana? Should I switch my flights? And so he is like, what if something could pay me money to switch my flight? And that was the initial aha moment of how do I get the best snow that I can get. and when I met him and he sort of told me that story and told me about the scientific side of it, oh, this is a brilliant, let's go build a ton more insights and understandings and just build this product out for. Steve Carran: very. David Millili: I guess I'd be curious, uh, you know, kind of putting in my business development hat. So how are people finding you? Are they finding you? Are you on websites? Are you on the booking engine? As far as the booking path, how are they finding, service to be able to take advantage of it? Mark Bruno: We really believe that the context is extremely important. Uh, we are not trying to educate the entire world that they can buy weather guarantees. That's an extremely expensive thing to do, but also. People are trying to book experiences. They're not trying to go figure out weather details. And so the context of being in path in the booking S you're saying is our best way to integrate. We have other ways. Uh, so if you booking, you can get an email afterwards to add this weather guarantee. And you can add a weather guarantee up until two hours before the event actually starts. So we do see people, starting to recognize like, oh, five days beforehand, it looks like it might rain. I wonder if I should add a weather guarantee to my trip. And, and it's a really good, way to sort of engage people in that conversation about the weather. Steve Carran: When you book, um, what's the cost? What's the cost compared to. Like the insurance for an airline ticket. Is it similar or is it more expensive? Mark Bruno: I would say that it's similar. I don't know exactly how airline ticket, uh, insurance pricing works, but we generally, uh, we have a number of levers we pull our goal is to create the most useful and the most affordable weather guarantee. So every weather guarantee is created custom in real time for each user's trip. And we look at what is the typical weather in this location? What is this person trying to do? Then we determine this will be the most useful for them and something we can offer at a reasonable price. Typically somewhere between seven to 9% of the total cost that they're. Steve Carran: You have a lot of people buying the same. I'm just thinking if I'm going to a music festival and I see like, oh man, it's supposed to rain today. Can I add that weather protection on that same day? Or does it have to be a certain time out in advance? Mark Bruno: So, this is actually a brand new feature for us as well. Uh, we used to only offer weather guarantees up till five days before the event. And now with a lot of scientific work we've done to integrate some deeper forecasting and some, just some really interesting modeling and, um, machine learning we're able to offer up to the moment. What's interesting about forecasts is that sometimes when it says it's gonna rain, it's very uncertain of when it's gonna rain. If it's gonna rain, how much is it gonna. Sometimes when it says it's gonna rain, it is going to rain with certainty. And so there isn't always a weather guarantee option available based on the forecast. There are times when it will absolutely rain and we can't offer weather guarantee, but there's a lot of times where what you're seeing on your phone in that forecast is really deceptive of what the actual chance of rain might be. And so we're able to help people feel less anxious in those moments when they don't have clear visibility into what the forecast actually means. Steve Carran: So you've been around for a couple years. What's been the biggest challenge you've had or, or I guess even the biggest success that you've had as well that you wanna talk. Mark Bruno: Let me think on that one for a moment. Steve Carran: That's a tough one. That's a tough. David Millili: Take your time. Mark Bruno: Um, so I'll tell you the biggest challenge that we've had is that we find a lot of partners. Say yes. And a lot of consumers say yes. So on the partners that we're working with, we see attach rates from 40 to 60%, which is a very wild number. It exceeds our expect. And we think we can do much better. Actually. This is a very unoptimized world that we're in. We've launched recently. We have a lot of partners say yes, but going from a partner saying, I want to offer weather guarantee to a partner, offering a weather guarantee. We run those technical hurdles that we're discussing, right? The fragmentation, the need to integrate. And so my team spends a lot of time focused on how can we make. Easy as possible for our partners. How can we provide them all of the assets? How can we do the work for them? That's why we have a customer support team. On our side. We handle all the support for our partners. We don't want our partners to do anything for this. We want them to just be able to offer it, to improve the guest experience and move on. That's aspirational. Like we've said, there's a lot of. Technical challenges in making that happen, but I'm very excited because we are to work more and more platforms. Steve Carran: Yeah. David Millili: Great. Steve Carran: Very cool. Very cool. You mentioned culture before. Obviously culture has become a much larger thing over the past 10, 20 years or so. How, how have you built the culture, uh, inside, inside sensible? Mark Bruno: It starts with hiring. First of all, uh, there, you have to hire people who truly care about other people. So that's, that's one thing. Second thing is open conversations. Uh, so it's sensible. We spend a lot of time talking about our culture. We ask this question, why do we like working together? And then we really dissect that and really identify and really spend a lot of thoughtful time together. Just sort of, uh, you know, you can think of it as like holding hands in a circle, but we're, we're a fully remote team. So holding hands on a zoom call, um, and really thinking through like what makes us enjoy working together so that we can also do really good work. That's one piece. The other piece, though, Elevating the stories of real humans, making sure that everyone on the team really understands what it's like to be a guest. What it's like to work in finance at a hotel, what it's like to work in operations at a hotel, so that we can really think about who these people are that touch our product and empathize with them. And that gets a little bit buzzy. So there's the buzzwords of empathizing with your users and all of that, but there's a big gap between wanting to do that and making it real. And I think making it real. Really honest and open and vulnerable conversations with the team. David Millili: So I've got a question for you and hopefully getting honest answer, so on our, our standard podcast format, uh, one of the questions I ask is if you had a superpower, if you could have a superpower, what would it be? It seems like you guys kind have a superpower with predicting the weather. So do you guys use that internally? Cuz Doylestown that that's a, that Northeast area is an area where you don't know what's coming. you don't know if it's gonna be humid, it's gonna be perfect. It's gonna rain one moment, the snow, you know? So do you guys use that internally? Do you have something where you're like, oh yeah. Today I'm gonna have to bring an umbrella or bring a jacket. do you guys use it Mark Bruno: We do. And so we, uh, the first thing we ever built was this thing. We called the answers widget, which was where are you going? And when are you going? And we'll give you the answer. And I remember it was, it was a very rough MVP. We were just experimenting and never really like went anywhere, but we used it a lot internally. And I remember when we, uh, deprecated it. Nobody really told Nick our CEO that we were gonna stop supporting it. And then one day he's like, it's gone. I use this every day. Like, I don't know how to plan a trip anymore without this tool. And so it was really funny cuz there's so much powerful data and I'm so excited about like, yes, we can reimburse you if it rains. But actually what sensible is, is the ability to provide insights and understanding for guests as well. What should I do on a day when it rains? What should I pack when I'm leading up on my trip? Where should I go in August? If I wanna. XY Z activity. And so the real power of sensible will come, but for now we're very focused. David Millili: It must be annoying. You probably got family members texting you and saying, Hey mark. You know, I'm, I'm gonna go to ocean city today. Should I, should I go or should I just stay in Philly? Steve Carran: So that's really cool. You mentioned like, uh, I, I'm just thinking of like tropical islands that have like hurricane season, you know, and some people might not do their research before and all of a sudden they're in this great resort and there's a hurricane outside. So like you'll tell guests like, okay, you know, this is not the right time to go to that resort or now is a great time to go to this area and stuff like that. Is that kind of what, we'll, what you'll be having. Mark Bruno: Yeah, and we need to explore and understand that better to make sure we're adding a lot of value, but we have the data available to do that. I think in that same vein, one thing I'm actually really excited about is that, uh, think about shoulder season. Sometimes you have beautiful days in shoulder season, right? As. Hotels were discounting those days significantly, but, and we have less utilization as well. But if by offering a weather guarantee, you could actually say to your guests, like, no, if isn't you'll money back, but still try it out. I think that's really cool value to change behavior and really sort of allow both guests to have a great vacation and for owners to manage their property in a better. Steve Carran: And, and stress free. For both. the owners getting their guests in and the, the guests is like, Hey, if it does rain, whatever I'm gonna get reimbursed. So lot more relaxing vacation. Very cool. Very cool. So, uh, what what's next? What's what's next here for sensible weather? Any, any fun updates coming out, any cool things happening? Mark Bruno: Yeah, I'm I can't announce the exact names yet. Um, some cool partnerships coming up. Of course, we're very excited about, uh, but the other piece is this, this technology piece I'm talking about. And so working with these platforms that everyone knows the name of and making this available really easily is a huge focus for ours. And so I think that's what really changes the game and makes it just that simple. David Millili: right. So. I think we covered everything. Is there anything that you wanna, uh, plug anything you want to, you know, uh, where can people find sensible weather? Where, where other than the website, you know, what's the best way to get in touch with you guys? If, if there's a hotel you're listening or a management company ownership group. Mark Bruno: Yeah, we're always looking for brands and flags that really care about this experience to work with. Um, I'm easy to get ahold of it's M Ark, sensible weather.com. our website, of course, as well. But I think that. if anybody were listening and were interested in this product, either from something to offer or just wanna, wanna talk and understand, definitely reach out to us because, we are of course, looking at different markets and different places that we could use this information. and of course we're always hiring as well. So. Steve Carran: Awesome. David Millili: Okay. Yeah. And feel free to use this as a resource because we it's, it's funny as. , more and more podcasts and met more and more people. It's, it's funny how, well, one, there's a huge, a Philly area connection to a lot of our guests and also just in the company. So, you know, we had, we had Jen from the curator collection, which is a great connection for you. And so feel free to say, Hey, I, I met Steve and David and was on the podcast and saw, saw you and saw what you did, cuz I think that there's a. Of good synergies, between a lot of our guests and, uh, we like that. So it's good. So, Steve, anything, any final questions from you? Steve? If not, I'll, I'll wrap it up, Steve Carran: all good. I, I appreciate you hopping on mark. I know you're busy, so I appreciate you hopping on the, The Modern Hotelier. It was great, too. Great to meet you and great to learn more about sensible weather. Mark Bruno: Yeah, this was, this was fun. And I appreciate everything you guys are doing and bringing together just this, this community is awesome. David Millili: Yeah, thank you, mark. And that, that wraps up, uh, the, The Modern Hotelier you're presented by Stayflexi. We really appreciate your time and wish you all the best in your new venture and, uh, that growth round. And, please, uh, keep us updated. Mark Bruno: Sounds great.