You can also listen to the interview in the audio version.
In the beginning there was the convenience of company founder Richard Valtra. As a young man, he worked part-time at the reception desk of his father’s Prague hotel, and the constant rewriting of data from paper to the computer bothered him so much that he invented a system that would simplify the operation of the hotel.
Today, its software is already used by 5,000 hotels worldwide, among them the Scandinavian hotel chain Strawberry. More clients are added. “Growth is planned to be high, last year we grew by 60% and this year we plan to continue with similar numbers,” says Josef Starýchfojtů, product and technical director of Mews, in the program Agenda SZ Byznys.
However, double-digit growth is, as is often the case with startups, at the expense of profit. Even following 12 years on the market, the company is not profitable and invests all the money back into development. According to Josef Starýfojtů, profits are already in sight. “Certainly. Investors also want to see that the business is doing well and that it is a healthy business. If we said to ourselves that we don’t want to grow further, then we can simply get into profit.”
Mews has not yet published its financial results, but is now becoming more open. Last year, the company earned 100 million dollars, i.e. roughly 2.3 billion crowns, SZ Byznys Starýchfojtů confirmed from the company’s management.
Photo: Michal Turek, Seznam Zpravy
Josef Starýchfojtů has been working at Mews for six years.
The company’s valuation jumped over 1.2 billion dollars and the company of Czech origin confidently entered the ranks of the so-called dollar unicorns. Only Tomáš Čupr’s Rohlík and Hubert Palán and Daniel Hejl’s software company Productboard managed to do this before it. “We didn’t celebrate it, we’re still working,” comments Josef Starýchfojtů’s success.
Reception as if there was none
What does the system, which is still being developed especially by Czech Ajťacs, help hotels with? With reservation management, room pricing, cleaning organization or accounting.
“Technology has damaged the hotel industry a little. When you come to a hotel, you are often just looking at someone looking at a computer, which is not a hospitable activity. You have to stand in line, show your ID, fill out some papers, sign something, and then you get a hotel card. But you would like them to welcome you, recommend restaurants, ask how the trip was,” explains Starýchfojtů.
Mews offers queue-free check in and check out using automatic kiosks. Those who want can also check in online in advance. “At the same time, there is price setting. Determining what the right price for a room is at some point in the future is a very challenging discipline. When, for example, they suddenly announce a concert right next to your hotel, you want a higher price,” he describes the practice of Starýchfojt in an interview for SZ Byznys.
A Czech programmer can ask for more money
Recently, the product has attracted a number of investors and well-known names such as Kinnevik, Revaia, Goldman Sachs Alternatives and Notion Capital, the new investor is the venture capital fund LGVP. Together, Mews has already received 335 million dollars from them, which is 7.8 billion crowns. The last investment that sent Mews among the “unicorns” was $110 million.
Hotel systems
- Hotel software is a specific field because it can differ fundamentally in what it can do and what services it provides.
- In addition to Mews, Cloudbeds, Previo, Better Hotel or HotelWin also offer some services.
“A lot of money goes to my team to develop the product. A major digitization era is currently taking place in the hotel industry. Now is the moment when many hotels are changing systems. We have a customer who told us: We have a computer, but we don’t know where it is. So when it breaks, everyone starts looking for it,” the product manager describes how the company intends to use the money.
“We are hiring a lot of people in my team, we have regarding 150 positions open this year, we are hiring a lot of programmers. A lot here in the Czech Republic,” says Starýchfojtů. Czech labor is still cheaper than in the West, but the situation is changing.
“Even a programmer in the Czech Republic claims to have more money today than, say, five years ago. At the same time, there is huge talent here. That keeps us here a lot. The company was built on talent here in the Czech Republic. Mews has its roots in mathematics,” says Starýchfojtů, himself also a graduate of the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics.
When on the stock exchange, then in America
The company is described as global because it employs people from dozens of countries around the world. It still has the largest number of employees in the Czech Republic, the largest offices in Prague, another in Amsterdam, where its co-founder and managing director Matthijs Welle is also based, and London. However, Mews also operates in Australia and Asia, but most of its energy is currently directed at “conquering” America. Earlier this year, it absorbed Frontdesk Anywhere, the leading US hospitality cloud platform. It was already her eighth acquisition.
The United States is a way for Mews to get into large hotel chains. But the market is specific, Starýchfojtů admits: “In America, the tip makes up a large part of the salary in restaurants and hotels. It is perfectly normal to give 20-25%. As a result, they have high standards for technological solutions as well. Because they know that if they don’t work, the tip won’t be as big. And the tax office is very strict there, they want all the numbers to be perfect.”
At the same time, the company is also starting to look at the New York Stock Exchange, even though listing on the stock exchange is not currently on the table. “At the moment, we are more focused on expansion, but of course we have the ambition to enter the stock exchange at some point in the future. The one from Prague is probably not in the game. Our eyes are currently on the American one,” says Josef Starýchfojtů.
You can watch the entire interview in the introductory video.
Agenda
A quarter of an hour regarding business first hand. Interviews with top Czech business leaders, company founders, experts.
From Monday to Thursday on SZ Byznys and in all podcast applications.