In this episode, join hosts Steve Carran and David Millili at HITEC 2024 in Charlotte as they interview a diverse lineup of hospitality industry leaders and innovators. From established executives to emerging startups, guests share insights on the latest hotel technologies, industry trends, and their experiences at the conference.
The episode concludes with a lively discussion on whether anyone will hit a home run at the event’s batting competition.
Join the conversation on today's episode on The Modern Hotelier LinkedIn page.
The Modern Hotelier is produced, edited, and published by Make More Media: https://makemore.media/
Episode Links
Jasmine Seliga - Founder & CEO Affixify
Chris Green - Former President of Remington Hotel
Ashley NeQuent - Application Consultant, Springer-Miller Systems
Zach Fullen - Enterprise Sales, Visiting Media
Anthony & Noe
Susan Springsteen - H20 Connected
Raymond Martz - Co-President & CFO at Pebblebrook Hotel Trust
Al Lagunas - Co-Founder & CEO, Levee
Michael Cohen - Managing Partner, GAIN
David Millili
Steve Carran
Steve on LinkedIn
The Modern Hotelier
Transcript
Automatic Transcription - please excuse any errors
Steve Carran: Alright, now we are joined with Jasmine from Affixify. Welcome to The Modern Hotelier, live at Truist.
Jasmine Seliga: I'm honored, yes.
Steve Carran: How have the first—you got in Sunday.
Jasmine Seliga: In Sunday.
Steve Carran: How have the first couple days of HITEC been so far?
Jasmine Seliga: So good. Actually, so this is my ninth HITEC, but my first obviously in E20X and working with Gain. Yeah, so, I think this is the best yet. I also do think I've lived 20 lives in 24 hours or 48 hours. So, you know, but typically as a vendor in the past, we would just come in and arrive Tuesday. So coming in Sunday and doing all the stuff Monday has actually been really great. Really great.
David Millili: Is this your first time to Charlotte?
Jasmine Seliga: You know, no. Not my first time. If the airport counts.
David Millili: In like 1-7, right? So it depends, yeah. Depends on how you look at it. But first time to really—
Jasmine Seliga: Experience the city. Yeah.
Steve Carran: Was there anything at HITEC that you saw that was like, oh, this is cool, like this is something that is maybe the next level in hotels?
Jasmine Seliga: Okay, so a couple things. Well, other than the hotel magician across from us, right? No, seriously, there's a company called Rico that's doing really cool stuff, and I'm not in the food and beverage side at all, but they're just—they really interested me. And then actually another competitor, but we love them, Yippee, also a Gain client, Standards Management. I think, from my opinion, that's a game changer. I really do.
David Millili: Tell us what's happening tomorrow morning.
Jasmine Seliga: So tomorrow morning at 8:15 a.m. we will be competing in Entrepreneur 20X. So we will take the stage at 8:32, a very specific time, and get four minutes to pitch our platform along with seven other competitors, so eight of us total.
David Millili: So when this airs, we'll already know the results, but we wish you the best of luck and all the success.
Jasmine Seliga: Thank you.
Steve Carran: I do have to ask, what was the coolest magician trick that you saw?
Jasmine Seliga: So I really didn't. I just watched from a distance, you know, I didn't expect you to throw—
David Millili: And we're very happy, we don't know if the camera gets you, but you're wearing gang colors, which—
Jasmine Seliga: Yeah. And that, I am. That's not a magic trick. So, yes. Yes. Yes.
David Millili: That's funny.
Steve Carran: Well, this was great. Thank you for stopping by and have a great rest of the time.
Jasmine Seliga: Yes!
David Millili: Yeah, have—
David Millili: Thank you so much. Thank you. Okay.
Steve Carran: Alright, now we have on Chris Green, advisor for Hover. Welcome to the show, Chris, and thanks for stopping by.
Chris Green: Glad to be here. How are you doing?
David Millili: Doing—
Steve Carran: Doing great, doing great. So, Chris, how is Charlotte so far? What is—what's one thing you've seen that you've really liked?
Chris Green: Other than the heat. It is hot here. It's an incredible city. I love the action downtown, the vibrancy. I actually am, uh, just really, really engaged with what's happening in the marketplace. Charlotte's really growing, the downtown hotel market. They've got some product here that I haven't seen before, which is nice. I went over to the Grand Bohemian today. I was at the HITEC conference. Just a lot happening. And I love where the energy around hospitality in this year, right? We're back to a normal year, which I'm really excited about because we've spent these uneven years the past couple years. And now we're back to work. And to me, it feels like that. I don't know if it feels like that to you, Dave.
David Millili: Hot Topics podcast. We're talking about HITEC. And I really think this is gonna be, this is gonna be the first HITEC in probably a decade that people are like, wow, like leaving this place going, this was amazing, amazing events, uh, amazing new companies like Hover, amazing turnout. I mean, the amount of people—
Chris Green: Look what we have here. I mean, we've got a couple thousand people here.
David Millili: It feels like it. I mean, we really, and you know, we were out there and I'm looking at the furthest hit balls. Nobody's hit a home run yet. Uh, but so tell us, is there, is there anything, you know, like me, we're older guys, we're veterans. Anything you've seen like that kind of like sparked your interest? Anything different about this HITEC? Any companies, any other products? Outside of Hover?
Chris Green: Well, yeah, sure. I mean, other than Hover, I will tell you that what's really amazing is how companies are coming together. How people are really realizing what verticals they need to have in their product to be able to be successful. Because, listen, as an operator for 35 years, I would get pitched by 25 different companies, all of them providing a piece of what I needed. And now companies are bringing the products together and delivering answers. And that's, like, for example, Hover. Hover's taken a product that we all needed, engagement, on the customer journey, and moved the bar four steps forward. It's just incredible. And I know you guys are doing amazing things. That's the thing I like, is that we finally had to figure out, if I back up a step—through the pandemic, we're saying, okay, how do we use technology to enrich the lives of hoteliers? Because we know we're going to be short on staffing. We know we're going to struggle with retaining and attracting talent. So how do we use technology without losing the service, the hospitality part of our business? And now companies are seeing it and doing it. And that's what I see. Smart companies giving solutions because as hoteliers, we are incredibly busy. We have less people. So we need great solutions like the ones that we're seeing here at HITEC.
David Millili: That's great.
Steve Carran: So, you recently retired in April, right? As a president from Remington Hotels, so congratulations on your retirement. And now you're advising a company, two, three months later, what made you pick Hover to advise? What really excited you about what they're doing?
Chris Green: So one of my key leadership traits my whole career has been curiosity, right? So I think curious people make a big difference in your environment. And I've always loved to hire them. And so I've met Jason, the CEO of Hover at a conference. And I had these meetings and I would visit people and I would see interesting technologies, but I was just blown away by what they've done. They've taken what we did as hospitality marketers in the commercial space, bringing the key data that you don't have to leave the main page. You can see video, live video, and take action there. And, and listen, any company that has a hundred percent retention is a pretty good company. So if you ask me why I'm involved, it's because I believe in it. I, I, I want to make our industry better, even though I'm retired. I love this business and I think we can do such great things. So when I see a product or an offering, that's going to make things better, yeah, I'm happy to put my name behind it. And people that know me know that if it's not a good product, I won't. Right. So.
David Millili: So final question, Hover is giving away a bat to whoever hits the furthest baseball. I'm looking out in left field right now, which is the furthest spot. It looks like it's about not even 300 feet. You think anyone's going to hit a home run?
Chris Green: I think anybody's going to hit a home run. That is incredibly difficult to hit a major league baseball out of a park. I mean, I think they're pitching them at—
David Millili: Yeah, you can ratchet it up or bring it down.
Chris Green: We'll see.
David Millili: Yeah, I just don't, maybe over the left field wall. It's like—
David Millili: Jon, our producer, is a ringer. He might go out there and we don't know.
Chris Green: Well, he might be mad now.
Steve Carran: Player there. Yeah. All right.
Chris Green: We should ask him. It's hard to hit a home run, isn't it, Jon? Yeah, so I think it's a great job. You guys are doing a great job. It's a great conference. The energy, I always gauge how the business is doing. I've been going to conferences for 30 years. I always gauge how the business is doing is by this, what you hear up here, the engagement, the excitement, right? And it's easy. Listen, we know development's off right now. Growth is off a little bit in transactional stuff on the side of sales, but driving and running hotels is now what we're doing on the commercial side. It's more important than ever.
David Millili: Important. Yeah, I agree. Appreciate—
Steve Carran: To have you on, and I'm excited to see you go—
Chris Green: Alright, I'm gonna—
Steve Carran: Excited. I'm excited. All right.
Chris Green: Awesome.
Steve Carran: Alright, now we are joined by Ashley LeQuent from Jonas Hospitality. Thank you for stopping by, Ashley, and welcome to the show.
Ashley NeQuent: Thank you for having me. Happy to be here.
Steve Carran: When did you get into town, and what's the coolest thing you've seen in Charlotte since you've been here?
Ashley NeQuent: Uh, oh, that's a really good question. So I got in on Sunday. Nice. Got to our booth. Everything was already ready to go. I mean, honestly, that was kind of the best thing because my team did my job for me, which was fantastic. But you know, I think just being able to go around the showroom this week as a vendor and see all of the new tech that's out and available and seeing where, all of the different things that we are bringing to the table from our Jonas Unified perspective, from the perspective of all of these AI tools coming out, that's the coolest thing I've seen so far. I haven't gotten out, right? I mean, this is beautiful, the stadium's gorgeous, but all I've seen so far is inside the showroom.
David Millili: So a little bit of a two-parter. Is this your first HITEC, if not how many?
Ashley NeQuent: This is my third HITEC.
David Millili: Third HITEC. Is this your first time to Charlotte?
Ashley NeQuent: It's not my first time in Charlotte. I've lived in North Carolina for a couple of years. I was in Asheville for a couple of years. I was in Highland for a couple of years. So, yep. Been here, mostly to the airport. But, you know, not my first time.
David Millili: Okay, great.
Steve Carran: So Jonas Hospitality, what are you guys releasing? Are you announcing anything new while you're here? What is the big news coming from the Jonas corner?
Ashley NeQuent: So the big news with Jonas Hospitality is our Jonas Unify product. It's a centralized data platform, but there's a lot more to it, right? We know that everyone has the choices of what systems that they'd like to utilize in all aspects of their resort, right? And that could be from a single resort perspective, could be from maybe a multi-site perspective too. So you have these choices, and you have this dreaded integration part, right? How do we take all these systems, and get them to actually have a source of truth? Actually have these things roll up. Get the data out of that program so that you can understand where your guest spend patterns are coming from. Make things easy for the guests to be able to go online and book everything they want in one foul swoop. Have a unified itinerary that's live, right? And be able to kind of enjoy their stay, enjoy all of the offerings that that resort has or that multi-site kind of vibe has. And then we can create organic relationships with the guests, right? So, that's what we have going on today. If y'all wanna come to the booth and show, I'll show it to you whenever you want, so—
David Millili: Alright, so I want to, one, as chairman of GAIN, thank you for being a partner for this event, which has been fantastic. And two, is anybody going to hit a home run tonight?
Ashley NeQuent: Ooh, that's a good question.
David Millili: If you look out in left field, you can see that someone's got somewhat close by the Hendrixcars.com. So it's got to be a yes or no, will there be a home run tonight?
Ashley NeQuent: I think a yes. I think somebody will do it. Yeah, I mean, I think we've got some, some people who have experience, right? I'm not personally one of them, but you know.
Steve Carran: You're not hitting, you're not hitting any dingers?
Ashley NeQuent: Maybe one. We'll see. We'll see.
David Millili: Go up. Go opposite field. It's easier. Okay.
Ashley NeQuent: I don't know. I played, I played baseball, softball in high school. So, you know, I'm not great, but you—
David Millili: Alright. Well, we'll we will be watching and we hope your prediction is right.
Steve Carran: Awesome. Well, thank you for stopping—
Ashley NeQuent: By.
David Millili: Thank you so much. It was great. Thank you.
Steve Carran: It—alright. Now, alright. We're here with Zach Fullen from Visiting Media. Thank you for stopping by, Zach. So this is your first HITEC and HSMAI strategy conference.
Zach Fullen: Your first—
Steve Carran: What are your first impressions?
Zach Fullen: Great week. A lot of people here. Um, lot of buzz. So I think a lot of innovation, uh, this week. So it's just really exciting to be here and see all that's new.
David Millili: That's great. This is your first time to Charlotte?
Zach Fullen: Yeah. First time in Charlotte too. A little warm, but—
David Millili: You think, though? It's pretty, it's a pretty cool, small city. It's a very, got a lot of, it's actually pretty busy for being a small city.
Zach Fullen: Yeah. I was really surprised actually at all that that's down here. So great downtown, uh, and the ballpark's awesome. So it's a fun time.
Steve Carran: For you guys? What are you promoting at HITEC? What do you, what do you—
Zach Fullen: Most folks know Visiting Media from TrueTour, um, which was kind of our flagship product, is really an enhanced virtual tour kind of sales enablement tool. And we've since sort of evolved into how do you use immersion throughout the sales and buying process for a customer, whether that's group or, uh, even just transient guests. So, that's what we do. We've evolved a lot over the last couple years, learning a lot throughout this process. And of course, just as we grow with our customers, learning what, what they're wanting out of us and those sorts of tools.
David Millili: Learned here in front of—
Zach Fullen: I think so. I saw Jason from Hover hitting some, some pretty big swings out there. Um, a lot of, a lot of misses, but I think somebody—
David Millili: Right, good. So we're hoping that when this airs, we'll be able to reveal at the end, not only was there one hit, but who hit it. Or maybe there'll be multiple people. You never know.
Steve Carran: Cool. Well, thank you for stopping by. We appreciate it. Have a fun rest of the night.
David Millili: Of the night. Yeah. Enjoy it. Aimless.
Steve Carran: Now we're here with Daniel Montellano from Shift4. Thank you for stopping by, Daniel.
Daniel Montellano: Thank you so much for having me, appreciate—
Steve Carran: You bet, you bet. So, Daniel, is this your first HITEC? How many, or how many have you been to?
Daniel Montellano: 24.
Steve Carran: How does this HITEC compare to the almost 23 that you've been to?
Daniel Montellano: It's humid.
Steve Carran: Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
David Millili: All right, give us some good stuff. What else is good? What's good?
Daniel Montellano: All right, so what's been good about it is, like, for me, HITEC is my high school reunion. I see people, I've seen them for years, I've seen them for years. What's different for a lot of it is a lot of us, there's a lot more gray hair going on, which I started out as a young crew, I'm like, wait, when did I get to the senior group? This is a little different, but a lot of buzz, a lot of excitement, people are here, we're having a good time. A lot of flow for the, when you're at a booth, it's great. So, it's pretty exciting. And HITEC's ever been in Charlotte, so we were kind of going what are we going to expect? Is it going to be quiet? Are bars gonna be closed by nine o'clock on Sunday? And is it gonna be humid? That all happened. Monday was—
David Millili: Was better.
Daniel Montellano: Yeah. So is this your first time to Charlotte?
David Millili: This is, uh, yes, my first time. What do you think so far?
Daniel Montellano: I live in Vegas, so this is like quiet in comparison.
David Millili: But I was a little surprised that it was as active as it is for Charlotte. Okay, very clean, everybody's nice.
Daniel Montellano: Very nice town. I haven't had a chance to really experience moving for like about six blocks of a circle, so, okay.
David Millili: That's fair.
Daniel Montellano: Yeah, fair.
Steve Carran: So, tell me about what Shift4 is doing. Are you guys announcing anything at HITEC, or are we here to visit your customers and, you know, get new customers?
Daniel Montellano: Uh, so, Shift4, when I started this organization, I was a tech firm. There was 22 of us. I think we're over 6,000 people.
Steve Carran: Wow.
Daniel Montellano: We've been doing a lot of acquisitions. I think we're probably around the largest food and beverage point of sale provider in the world now. But, uh, our biggest thing is our globalization. So we've been moving to other countries. We went from U.S., U.S. Canada, parts of the Caribbean. We bought a bank on the other side of the world and now we're UK, Europe, and our whole thing is just telling our partners of, we were this small company, so now we're like, massive, and they're like, oh, you're this company. Like, we didn't know you did this. I'm like, oh no, we're, we're big. And so it's just kind of like, expanding identity. And then walking to all our partners, like Joan has been, they are an awesome organization, to say what do we do for you to help you guys become bigger, and how do we work in other geographies better? And, uh, it's something I've been wanting to see for a long time. I've been always saying if we can get international, we'd be awesome. I was saying that 19 years ago.
Steve Carran: And now—
Daniel Montellano: Here. And now I'm like, all right, I'm getting on calls. It's happening. It's 5 a.m. my time, forgot about that, because I'm on the Pacific time, and they're like, hi, we're in this country, I'm like, hi, I'm not on—
Steve Carran: I'm not on—
Daniel Montellano: Out of bed, so, so that's the other side of it, you get what you wish for, but uh, it's a fun time. This, these are my people, I love HITEC, look forward to it every year. My wife's like, you're going on like a vacation, I'm like, yeah, I am.
David Millili: Alright, so last question. Is somebody gonna hit a home run tonight?
Daniel Montellano: I have no idea.
David Millili: Is that a good answer?
Daniel Montellano: Sure. Is that a good answer? Sure, yeah. I'm nobody—baseball? No one has yet. I'm like, it is hot, and I don't even want to swing and like be the guy that hurts himself like, oh. So, uh, it's not going to be me, and if somebody does, go to them.
David Millili: Alright.
Steve Carran: Not going to be us.
Steve Carran: Awesome, well for stopping by, we appreciate it. Now we are joined by two friends of the show. We have Noe Shroy from LodgIQ and our old friend Anthony Melchiorri. Welcome back to the show.
Anthony & Noe: Thank you!
David Millili: We have to share.
David Millili: Alright, it's a big surprise that Anthony's on our podcast.
Steve Carran: It's a shocker.
David Millili: We're mentioning him. Okay.
Steve Carran: So guys, how many high-techs have you both been to?
Anthony & Noe: I've been to, I want to say four or five at this—
Steve Carran: Four or five?
Anthony & Noe: I've been to three—
Steve Carran: Three?
Anthony & Noe: Three.
Steve Carran: How does this compare to the other high-techs that you've been to?
Anthony & Noe: I love there's a great flow. Definitely a really good flow. Ever since post-COVID, you can see the energy continuing to grow and grow and grow. So that's been a lot of fun, and I like the location. I actually am enjoying Charlotte a lot.
Steve Carran: Sneaky awesome.
Anthony & Noe: I would say I really liked the keynote speaker this morning. I think the person that opened up the show was fantastic. What do you—
Steve Carran: Fantastic. Glenn Houseman.
David Millili: Yeah, I heard, I heard, Glenn killed it.
Anthony & Noe: I heard he was amazing. He was—
David Millili: Who was he with?
Anthony & Noe: A guy, a little guy named Anthony.
David Millili: No—
Anthony & Noe: Um, actually Glen and I met at HITEC in 2011, and I think this is my third HITEC.
Steve Carran: Nice.
David Millili: You were there 2012 with Pegasys and me.
Anthony & Noe: You guys ask really good questions.
David Millili: You guys are good at this.
David Millili: Well, we tried. You're the number one podcast.
Anthony & Noe: Oh, no, that would be my podcast.
David Millili: Well, we can check the numbers. We'll check the numbers after this airs, but anyway.
David Millili: Alright, so, I'm trying to think, well, we asked everyone, we'll just keep going because this is fun, but, so, the question is, will somebody hit a home run tonight? The furthest so far is out there, left center. Do you think someone's going to hit a home run?
Anthony & Noe: I'm looking at the line. I'm looking at the line. See here's the problem is that we're getting later in the night and the ball's gonna get fuzzier and and you'll see a few more. There's gonna be a few extra balls. There are gonna be a few more balls. Yeah. I think the question is who's most likely to hit a home run. And I think it's that guy, with the gray hair. Is uh, what color is that? Right next to the guy with the white shirt? And maybe it's a gray shirt? The bluish gray? Yeah, yeah, he looks like a guy that can hit a home run.
David Millili: A home run. Alright, we'll see. We'll find out who he is and we'll let you know. I hit it over the shortstop. That's pretty good for like a fifth grader, but congratulations. We're really happy that you did that.
Steve Carran: Tell us what's new with LodgIQ. Anthony, you're doing great, don't let him get to you. What's, let's hear what's new with LodgIQ, and what's new in the world of—
Anthony & Noe: Melchiori. Well, what's new in the world of Anthony Melchiori is that I get to tell people that I've been friends with him for 28 years, David Millili, and as long as I tell him that I'm friends with David, I get to be his friend, I get to text him, that's all I need to do. That's all I need to do.
Steve Carran: I'm putting this bait out here for you to talk about hotel all-stars, and you're just giving it to David—
Anthony & Noe: Just talking about David. Because I love David. We love David. Okay. Look at those eyes.
Anthony & Noe: So, I have two things to announce. I'll announce the first thing, or the second thing, that no one's heard of yet. But Hotel All Stars on YouTube just passed 200,000 views. So we're going to be hopefully getting a third and fourth and fifth episode in the second season. And tomorrow on LinkedIn I'm going to announce that I've become Chief Strategy Officer of a company out of Massachusetts called Cohen, which has 43 hotels, and they're growing. So I'm really excited about that.
Steve Carran: Breaking news on the—
Anthony & Noe: He knew. He's the only one that knew. I don't know. You knew.
David Millili: Noah, you can tell us a little bit—
Anthony & Noe: Podcast. That's why, how do I top that? Why did I have to give second? That's hard. You didn't even do a follow-up question. Like, you just completely, like, I don't—
David Millili: That was it. I thought you were gonna hit it to at least the outfield, not over shortstop.
Anthony & Noe: Anthony has left the building. Anthony has—
Steve Carran: Rails. Go ahead—
Anthony & Noe: No. What's new at Logic Integrations? AI. AI. What do you do with AI?
Steve Carran: Let's talk about AI.
Anthony & Noe: Talk about AI.
Steve Carran: AI topic here—
Anthony & Noe: At HITEC. Everybody's talking about it. Everybody's doing it. What is LodgIQ doing with AI that's really standing out that's gonna help—
Anthony & Noe: We're taking away all the administrative work, the time that it takes to crunch numbers. Really all of that, all of the stuff that a machine can do. Take that away from a human so that the human can actually do strategy. Let the machine do its job. Analyze all of the data. Humans, go strategize.
Steve Carran: Well, Noe, thank you for stopping by. We appreciate it. And go check out LodgIQ.
Anthony & Noe: It's awesome. Thanks so much.
Steve Carran: Alright, and now we have on Susan Springsteen from H2O. Welcome to the show, Susan. How are you doing today?
Susan Springsteen: I'm doing great. What a great event. Boy, Gain, you are knocking it out of the park.
David Millili: Many high-tops in the first—
Steve Carran: That's a word on the street. So Susan, how many HITECs have you been to? Is this your first—
Susan Springsteen: This is my first one. I'm an E20X participant. I got, I got invited here to pitch my company in E20X. So we have the pitch competition tomorrow. And it's just been so great. We've met so many people and it's a really good fit for us.
Steve Carran: Good luck tomorrow. This will be released after, but, well, maybe you'll be the winner. Hopefully you'll be the winner, right? Maybe. I'm going to—
Susan Springsteen: Maybe I'm gonna work hard.
Steve Carran: So, is this your first time to—
Susan Springsteen: Yes, it is my first time to—
David Millili: Any impressions? Everyone's kind of had this like it's a little bit of a surprise that it's kind of a pretty busy city. That like people weren't expecting it to be like as like moving as it is. How about you? How—
Susan Springsteen: No, I—what I like about it is it's got its charming points. I'm staying in a very charming hotel nearby and I like the charm and then you come down here and it's all bustle and busy and you know so it's it's really a great city I'd love to come back.
Steve Carran: So Susan, tell us a little bit more about H2O. What are you guys doing? How are you disrupting the industry? Tell us a little bit more about you.
Susan Springsteen: H2O Connected. I'm the co-founder and president of H2O Connected. So we help hoteliers save water and save money and increase their maintenance efficiency because we make a smart device that goes in their toilet tanks and tells them every way their toilet could be wasting water or running up their water bill. So we send a text message to maintenance for urgent issues. We send work orders once a week. We quantify everything, tell them what's wrong, so maintenance knows exactly what to go and fix. And, uh, we can give a positive ROI in 10 to 14 months.
Steve Carran: Wow, that's a—
David Millili: David loves sustainability and toilets. He has—
David Millili: The funny story is, so we met through the Montgomery County Incubator, Accelerator, and I had to interview, lack of a better term, all the different companies, and then they said, which company do you want to work with? And I was like, oh, I want to work with H2O Connected because I'm like, this one, I'm like, I like the founder, she knows what she's doing, and I'm like, and it makes sense and I'm like, it's very funny to be sitting here saying, I like something that has to do with toilets.
Susan Springsteen: And something I've never told Susan is every time I hear my toilet run, I think of her.
Susan Springsteen: Which is true. It's actually really true.
Susan Springsteen: That's called brand recognition.
David Millili: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So we got one final question for you. We've been asking everybody, do you think someone is going to hit a home run tonight? Right now, the furthest is left center. Do you think someone, one of these people in the line behind you is gonna actually be able to hit the ball out of the park?
Susan Springsteen: Well, I'm an entrepreneur, so I think anything's possible.
David Millili: Right. Good answer. What a great answer. What a great answer. Well, Susan, thank you for stopping by. This was great, and good luck tomorrow.
Susan Springsteen: Thank you.
Steve Carran: Yes! Thank you, Susan. That was great.
Adam Tuttle: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
Steve Carran: Now we have on Adam Tuttle, CEO of Yippee IO.
Adam Tuttle: IO!
David Millili: O.
Steve Carran: Welcome to the show, Adam. How are we doing today?
Adam Tuttle: Fantastic. This is awesome.
Steve Carran: This is great. So, how many HITECs have you been to? Is this the first one?
Adam Tuttle: This is number two.
Steve Carran: Number two?
Adam Tuttle: Yeah. Last year we went to Toronto just to check it out, to show up and say, what's going on? What is going on in the industry? Learn from the attendees there and say, gosh, how can we make this better? Yeah. Yeah.
David Millili: First thought, what's your thought about the second one? Better than the first?
Adam Tuttle: So much better. So much better. Attendees all around and being a part of E20X is really awesome for us. Really awesome.
David Millili: Is this your first time to Charlotte?
Adam Tuttle: Second time. The first time was just a stopover. So it's really nice to see the city.
David Millili: See the city. Alright, good. And, I know you're busy, but you're walking around. Is there anything that you kind of are like, oh wow, that's kind of interesting? Maybe, you know, not a competitor, obviously, but is there anything you see that you're kind of like, oh, that's kind of cool, it seems like these guys might have something?
Adam Tuttle: I saw so much today. On just a little bit of walking around, there were a couple of companies that were doing like digital print art that would come in and not, and not like you could put your customized name on it. And it was no backlit. That was amazing. And just seeing the revenue technology that's out there and thinking, this is incredible stuff. It's solving real hotel problems, making hotels better. But this, this is, it's overwhelming when you walk in and you see all of the companies dedicated to making our industry better. That are truly saying, we can elevate this industry, elevate the owner experience, the brand experience, and the guest experience. That to me is amazing.
David Millili: That's a great way to look at it. I've never heard anybody say that. That's a really good way to look at this event and what's happening here. That's a really good, positive, very positive way to think about it and I think that's why we need new people in the industry, right? It's like, we've HITEC how many times, and I've never thought about it that way either. A fresh perspective always helps.
Steve Carran: Yeah.
Adam Tuttle: I was a hotelier, like myself, right? And I remember dealing with just like, why are we doing it this way? There's no way we can deal with this. And to look at it being, no, we are moving this industry forward. It is getting better. That is amazing.
David Millili: That's awesome.
Steve Carran: So, for those that might, you're getting a little sign—
Adam Tuttle: For Yippee! Hey!
David Millili: For—
Adam Tuttle: Those that might not be familiar with YIPPEE, what do you guys—
Adam Tuttle: We're a new segment of technology. We call ourselves Standards Management Software. And really what we focus on is helping a hotel get out of the cluttered mess of binders and SOPs and trying to keep track of, okay, what am I supposed to do over here? And what is that accolade responsibility? And what did my general manager want me to do again? And we have one digital source where you can put all of those standards and expectations into one digital home. We create simple SOPs or workflows as we call them that you can inspect in real life. It's not this huge monumental lip. Go in. How was the check in? How was the valet arrival? And then the important part is getting the data, the observational data, which we can aggregate from how, how are you doing in your job, Steve? You know, I can sit down with you and I can say, over the last year, this is how you're doing. Hopefully great—
Steve Carran: Not great.
Adam Tuttle: But I can also do that on a complete brand level. I can look at my entire global operation and say, where do I need to focus? Is it the arrival experience that, uh, facilities, the service, um, our restaurant experiences across the brand, or keep track of if you're managing multiple brands, right? You're a management company saying, gosh, I've got three different brands here. Oh, how do I, how do I know what's happening here? Happening there. Go get me the binder for this property, for the Marriott, for the Hilton. Pull up Yippee, select what property you want, there's every standard you'll ever need to know.
David Millili: Good news, bad news is that your buddy got in a vote for us. That's the good news. The bad news is this isn't live and it's not going to be aired after the competition.
Adam Tuttle: You know what, vote for Yippee. It makes for a very good podcast. So, our final question we're asking everybody—
David Millili: Is somebody gonna hit a home run tonight? Do you think?
Steve Carran: Right. Have you seen, have you seen the talent?
Adam Tuttle: I don't know. There's a lot of talented people out there.
David Millili: A lot of people in line.
Adam Tuttle: There's a lot. There's also more beer in them the later we go.
David Millili: So, I'm feeling a no, nobody's going to hit a home run.
Adam Tuttle: You know what, I'm gonna call if somebody can at least hit the wall. We're gonna hit the wall. A little grounder.
David Millili: That's the first out, out, out, out of the way. We're going to—we don't know what we'll do, but we'll get somebody whoever predicts this right. We'll get some merch because people are saying no.
Adam Tuttle: Listen, they're gonna hit the wall. Uh, uh, uh, right there, under the boot camp, to the right. It's happening. Yippee, called—you're calling—
Steve Carran: I'm calling the shot!
David Millili: And that's deep. That's deep.
Adam Tuttle: Great Bambino here.
David Millili: That's almost four—that's a—it's over 390 yards, that's for—
Adam Tuttle: Feet.
David Millili: Feet.
Adam Tuttle: Yeah, 300 yards, what—yeah, yeah, it's fine. Nobody's kicking field goals tonight. There will be no field goal contest, but—
David Millili: Great basket. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Adam, thank you for stopping by. Oh, thank you, to hear how you do in E28.
David Millili: Yeah. Best of luck.
Adam Tuttle: Thank you so much.
Steve Carran: Thank you. Thank you to see what more comes from Yippee.
Adam Tuttle: Yeah, thank you.
Steve Carran: Now we have Ray Martz from Pebble Brook stopping by the table. Ray, how are we doing today?
Raymond Martz: Doing awesome. Thanks. Thanks for having me.
Steve Carran: You bet, you bet. So Ray, how many HITECs have you been to? I'm assuming this isn't your first one.
Raymond Martz: This is my first HITEC. Frank Wolf reached out to me because we just completed the newest edition of the You Sally book. And he reached out, so I came out here, and it's been a lot of fun. And Charlotte's a great place to have it. I'm glad they did it here. It's a lot of microbrews here, a lot of fun things to do. So, great place in Charlotte.
Steve Carran: Awesome.
David Millili: Tell us, you've been to Charlotte, you know, you like Charlotte, but tell us about, you know, Pebble Brook, obviously is connected to Curator Collection. Maybe just tell people like what are the benefits and why should hotels think about or talk to a curator about joining the collection?
Raymond Martz: Sure, it's a couple of things. One, it provides for an independent owner and operator an opportunity to join into a much larger platform, similar to what you would get if you joined a brand. So you get a lot of those cost savings, but in addition to that, we have a digital marketing side that we're working on, so it provides you with other access to other venues there to grow revenue. So it's a way where a lot of the smaller owners and operators don't have the scale or the infrastructure to do a lot of the things that a large management company has that Curator does for you. And look at Pebble Brook. We benefit from Curator. We and effectively are also our R&D group for a lot of the technology. They test out a lot of technology. Some work, some don't. Actually a lot of those those suppliers are here at HITEC, which we spend a lot of time with, so it's been a good relationship. So it's multifaceted, but it's something I think a lot of the smaller operators find as a way to survive versus having to join a larger brand.
Steve Carran: So, have you—your first HITEC—have you seen anything or heard any speakers that you were like, wow, this is awesome stuff, this is game-changing stuff for the hospitality industry at all?
Raymond Martz: Uh, I haven't. Unfortunately, I was just being carted around to different sort of booths today to talk to people. So I didn't get, I, I didn't really—so I met a lot of people and shook a lot of hands, which was great. A lot of really impressive people, but I didn't have a chance to attend any sort of other events. But from what I hear, the buzz is very good. Attendance is up over last year, which is a good indicator about the importance of technology in hotels, which, which as we know, it's kind of silly in a way to actually look at technology separately. It's a part of everything we do, right? So technology is a part of every operating side. It's how you book the room, how you check the guests, how you operate it. So this is all integrated, like every business is going through right now.
David Millili: Alright, so we got two final questions. We're asking everybody, do you think anybody in this group behind us is going to hit a home run? The furthest is like left center, and I'm not batting, so I know if you that would happen—
Steve Carran: There, you'd—
Raymond Martz: Well, I would—well, I would have expected you, Dave, because I know, so Dave's history, he played baseball in high school. He was a very good baseball player.
Steve Carran: I have heard quite a bit.
Raymond Martz: He was, he was inspired to be Mike Schmidt, and I think it's actually awesome how you decided today in your jersey to wear number 22, which is, you know, Emmitt Smith, the greatest running back for the—of all time, a Dallas Cowboy, the fact that you wore that. So I, I think if anyone here could hit a home run, it'd be you tonight.
David Millili: I agree 100 percent and the second part of my question is, you've got some great kids, got three boys. Were any of them alive to ever see a Cowboys win a Superbowl?
Raymond Martz: Uh, absolutely not.
David Millili: Okay, not. And what makes things even worse is Ged, who's his team is.
Raymond Martz: Who's your team?
Steve Carran: Packers.
Raymond Martz: Ah—
David Millili: You're sitting, you're sitting between the Packers and an Eagles fan. Yeah, bad—
Steve Carran: But what do you—you can't be upset. Like my whole growing up was in the 90s when Troy Aikman, Michael Irvin, Emmett Smith just kind of tore apart Brett Favre and my Packers. So. I think you got the upper hand in the 90s, but I think, uh, I don't know, Jordan Love might bring us back.
Raymond Martz: But you go from Brett Favre, Aaron Rodgers, and now potentially Jordan Love, so you have nothing to complain about.
Steve Carran: I do not, and Jordan Love is going to be the best out of all of them, okay, we'll see, we'll put it on the record on the—
Raymond Martz: He's only got to win one just for the record.
David Millili: That is true. Yeah, and it actually sucks. I mean, 22 is my roulette number. But what happened was, everybody else on the Gain team kept taking my numbers. They kept taking, they took 27, which is my baseball number. Then I wanted Mike Schmidt, which was 20. Somebody took 20 and then somebody took Howard Carmichael, 17. And so I was just like, you know what? My roulette lucky number is 22, believe it or not. But, and Steve took 22 too. So—
Steve Carran: We're matching. Well, very much—
Raymond Martz: Thank you very much for having me today and good luck in your conference. It's been a great event. You guys have a great webcast with the Hotelier, so Modern Hotelier, so keep it, keep it up and good luck here.
Steve Carran: Thank you for stopping by, Ray. We appreciate it.
Raymond Martz: Yeah, thank you.
Steve Carran: Lagunas from Levy. Al, thank you for stopping by. How is your first day, I guess, first, second day of HITEC going so far?
Al Lagunas: Hospitality industry. Everyone's talking a lot. Everyone's lovely. Everyone's been great. But yeah, really enjoying it.
David Millili: So have you been to Charlotte before? What do you think of the city?
Al Lagunas: I've never been to Charlotte and, uh, yeah, I mean, I definitely would come back now if you're being here for a couple days. Definitely love it. It's got a lot of the big city features, but at the same time, I can tell that I'm not in a massive, massive city. I can get around easily.
Steve Carran: Yeah, so for those that might not be as familiar with Levy, tell us a little bit more about what Levy does.
Al Lagunas: So we're a computer vision AI company focusing on quality control data and analytics for back of the house operations. So where you never think of, where you never look at, we're focused on bringing good data from the back of the house to the front of the house, being able to make good decisions based off of it, knowing what's going on within your walls, knowing what's going on within the hotel.
Steve Carran: That is so cool, so if you don't know about it, go check it out.
David Millili: Yeah, so tell us, it's your first HITEC, I'm assuming you've walked the floor a lot, your feet are probably a little sore, you've noticed when somebody has padded carpet and they—
Steve Carran: By the food court.
Al Lagunas: By the food court. You noticed that, that's what—
David Millili: You notice that, that's what happens when you, you know, you've done this for twenty something friggin years, you're like, get the padded carpet, carpeting, you idiot. So, was there anything that you saw that you were kind of like, oh, that's kind of cool. Or that's kind of interesting. Or I didn't really expect to see that here.
Al Lagunas: I mean, uh, one of the interesting things is, again, from not—I don't come from the hospitality industry. I come from the tech world, but the interesting thing is just, like, from the entertainment perspective, like, I never really thought of how much work goes into making sure that you have X amount of channels in the room, or like, that your on-demand programming is this, or all that. I never realized that, like, Dish Network, I don't know if we can name names on here, but, like, Dish, DirecTV, all these people, I was like, oh, like, I didn't realize that like a place within the industry and again, I'm a, I'm a novice in the world. So it's really cool seeing how everyone is fighting for this awesome space, this awesome industry, and like trying to bring the best experience to guests in the hotel world.
Steve Carran: So, kind of a newer to the industry, you're walking around the trade show floor. Did you see a booth or a technology where you're like, oh, this is, this is some cool next level stuff?
Al Lagunas: Which one. I mean, honestly, there wasn't anything that blew me away. I'll be dead serious. I'll be dead serious. There was nothing that blew me away and that's why I got excited about working in the hotel industry. Our team is all ex-Google, ex-Amazon guys, really, really brilliant guys. And I see what's going on in the world and like coming here to the hotel industry, there's so much opportunity, so many awesome things to build, where for me it's exciting to be like, hey guys, there's a lot of white space here. Let's bring in all this talent. There's so many talented people in the nowadays, especially with Google, Amazon, everyone like laying off all this, all these talented people. It's like, hey, let's bring in these brilliant people to this space where there's already brilliant people that understand the industry and let's just ramp things up. Let's take things up to the next level. So seeing everything going on in the trade floor was awesome. But at the same time, I'm like, everyone is ready. Everyone is ready for more. Let's take it up a notch.
David Millili: Alright, so two things we're going to end with. One is Dish Network, if you see this, hello at TheModernHotelier.com for sponsorship opportunities. You were plugged for free twice tonight. That's not going to happen again. And second, is anyone going to hit a home run tonight? It's getting late. We got one—
Steve Carran: I saw you batting up there, and I—
Al Lagunas: There. Can we cut that? Can we cut that?
David Millili: Yeah. So—
Al Lagunas: So, is anyone going to hit a home run? No? You'd be surprised how hard it is to hit a home run. Or actually, would you be surprised? No, it's hard.
David Millili: Alright.
Al Lagunas: Alright, yeah. Well, I knew no one was going to hit a home run, but then a couple people were like, I used to play ball back in the day. I'm like, listen, buddy, you're seven Coors Lights deep.
Steve Carran: You don't play—
David Millili: Tonight.
Al Lagunas: You used to play ball back in the day. You don't play ball tonight. Alright, I promise you that. But no, no one's going to hit home run. It's been an awesome experience getting to meet everyone in person. And again, from my perspective, it's like the hospitality industry is great. Everyone's been very hospitable, which is like fitting. But overall there's a lot of good things going on and there's so much more innovation coming to the space. It's just ready for it. Everyone's ready to take advantage of it. There's so many opportunities that are ahead of us. So yeah, it's been awesome.
Steve Carran: Thank you for stopping by, Al, and make sure to go check out Levy. Alright, now we are privileged to be joined by Michael Cohen, managing partner of GAIN. People are calling you the magic man because you put this all together. Michael, this is one of the coolest events I have ever been to and there is a ton of buzz going around about this before, during, and I'm sure after as well. How did you decide to pick this venue and kind of where did the idea come from for this?
Michael Cohen: Well, it's obviously all Millili.
Steve Carran: That's what they say!
Michael Cohen: Obviously. No, but, all joking aside, David and I, we're really good at ideating, we're good at vision, and you have to be able to execute. And this is an industry all about hospitality, obviously, and that really means about people, about interaction, about a comfortable location to dialogue, to spend time talking about real things, but not in a pressure full commercial environment. Also, HITEC is a gathering of the world's hoteliers, the world's vendors. So when we were really ideating and thinking about this, we obviously look at different cities, we look ahead. We usually work on an 18-month schedule ahead. We've already booked incredible activations for Indianapolis in 2025. That'll be under wraps for a while. You guys will be the first to know. Um, so the process was walking the city, trying to find something that's different, but familiar. Being another same old, same old, that's fine. You can throw money at things and have incredible F&B of course, but it doesn't really drive memories. And that's what we were trying to do here.
Steve Carran: You've done that already. It's awesome. Yeah, so,
David Millili: A lot of people are here tonight. Yes.
Michael Cohen: Yes.
David Millili: Has there been any interaction, anything that someone said to you that you've just been like, kind of like, wow, that really kind of sums up, and that really, that really just hits home for the effort that you've put in, we've put in, the GAIN advisors, the group have put in.
Michael Cohen: What's the right word? It's nice to be liked. It's nice. It's like if, you know, when you have consistent, incredible, positive feedback, that is, um, what's the right word? Open and easy for people to share, like people aren't trying to make us feel good or make me feel good by any means. They're also not trying to avoid and not be, you know, if they're critical, they should be critical. But it is a wonderful experience when you nailed it and the general theme or general feedback is people are, they're not surprised anymore about what GAIN can do in these types of networking events, but they are excited about what's next. They want to know how they keep, say, our sponsors are already potentially talking about next year's sponsorship. And that's, you know, people, they vote with their, they used to say they vote with their legs, they vote with their dollars, and that's really what they're doing here. So what's, I think what's lovely is the different constituencies of people in the industry that are coming to our events and that are interacting with other areas of the industry that they normally wouldn't. That's really the most endearing of all this.
Steve Carran: So, GAIN is working with a lot of the E20X companies that are competing, I guess, tomorrow for top startup. What is, I know they're all cool, but is there one that really sticks out or a couple that stick out where you're like, wow, they're changing the hospitality game?
Michael Cohen: So how many kids do you have?
Steve Carran: Absolutely zero.
Michael Cohen: And how many kids do you have?
David Millili: I've got two and they're both equally as fantastic and have
Michael Cohen: Two children and I love them both equally.
David Millili: Yeah. Give them a name drop, give them a name. No, look, I mean, the reality is that we are very fortunate that some of the most intelligent founders and emerging technologists have chosen to work with GAIN to grow their businesses. So we have the good fortune and the luxury of being able to, frankly, to choose, uh, equally to work with the best of the best in regards to emerging companies and companies that are scaling.
Michael Cohen: And now, enterprise and corporations who are far, far more established, but they're looking for a deeper, uh, more impactful analytical growth partner, so they've chosen GAIN.
Steve Carran: Love it.
David Millili: So before I ask you the final question, I want you to take a moment.
Michael Cohen: Here we go.
David Millili: No, take it all in because as you're talking, I'm looking back there and there's people taking selfies. You can see there's couples that have come here. There's co-workers. They're taking selfies with each other, with the background, with the vendors. So take a moment, take it in, well deserved because I've, I've helped, but you've done the heavy lifting along with people like Vincent and yes, and many others. So the question we've asked everybody is, is anybody going to hit a home run?
Michael Cohen: Absolutely.
Steve Carran: Run today? Absolutely not.
Michael Cohen: Didn't even have to think about that. Now of course I did in batting practice before everyone showed up, but other than that,
David Millili: There's no video to support that, but we, one person said they think they will, somebody will hit the wall, but maybe.
Michael Cohen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I have to say also that the facility has been great, I know we're all, we're supposed to say the event organizers were great. The event services staff at Truist Field in Charlotte have been spectacular, and we're in the hospitality business, and it's business is about people, and these are great people. So we highly recommend for anyone else who wants to do an event, this is an amazing space in a great city.
David Millili: Highly recommend for anyone else who wants to...
Steve Carran: Awesome. Well, thank you for stopping by, Michael. We appreciate it, and great event.
David Millili: Thank you.