Transcripts For KNTV Press Here 20130825 : vimarsana.com

Cities and counties and states are under tremendous pressure to catch up with the rest of the world with data and mobile. San francisco is the world leader in civic data. The city makes its Restaurant Health Inspections publicly available in easy to read data bases. This allows yelp to take that information and display it next to restaurant reviews. The city has started to publish building and Home Inspection data as well. And the real estate site trulia is then able to display that right alongside the house price. Maury blackman one of the people working to bring Government Data online in San Francisco, new york, and washington, d. C. Reconnecting the government for the people to the people. Joined by j. P. Mangalindon of fortune, lena rau of tech crunch. 55 billion market value in government tech. Thats a huge market value and very few players. Thats right. Well, the total budget for government spend is 55 billion. And theres a limited amount of players in this space because you know, for a whole host of purposes people kind of shy away from government contracts because it has a long lead cycle theyre a pain in the neck. Thats right. You said it. Long lead cycle and at times theyre tough to do business with. But its been my passion and what ive done for the past 15 years and we feel were pretty good at it. I named three cities but of course youre involved with more than 500. Oh, sure. We have 500 cities. Cities and counties. Many states here in the u. S. We have an office in dubai and one in melbourne. And we serve those governments overseas as well. So explain to me what it is you do. Weve seen things where people are publishing to government, the white house petition is a good example of it. You may or may not do that. To be honest with you, im not interested in that. Whats revolutionary is the City Government coming out of the city and into the hands of the people. Well, thats exactly right. Our mission in life is to bring the government to the people so people dont have to go to city hall, they dont have to go to the county offices, they just basically transact with their governments online. And you know, theres very simple processes that take place, you know, like registering a complaint, buying a getting a drivers license but then theres also very complex processes as well like building a very large commercial building. The stadium thats going to be done in San Francisco here pretty soon. And its a complex process that needs to be regulated and permitted by the local government. So these are long transactions that take place. Its not always so simple. It could be a very complex process. What are some of the security challenges that you face . Because you know, a lot of Government Faces security challenges when incorporating other technology, fire hoses and companies. So how do you mitigate that . Well, i think the biggest thing that we deal with is credit card processing and the security around that because that obviously is no Government Agency thats kind of like the would be the kiss of death for them to be hacked and youre talking about when i pay a fee to the city for a permit or Something Like that . Thats right. Or you want to set up a business, you get a license. Thats always the central focus for them. Theres other pieces, its the data itself. Its securing it. Thats public data, though, isnt it . It is. But just kind of a very basic example. If you complain about your neighbors barking dog i dont want my neighbor to know that thats right. Thats a legitimate question, isnt it . That we can find out where j. P. Lives if we go up to the city, county records and find out where he bought his house in strSan Francisco. Hed probably prefer we didnt know that. And kind of the only barrier stopping us is we have to go up to the county and its going to be a pain in the neck, but if we could just type it in, its not private data. Thats right. Its just inaccessible data. Thats right. And also here in california we protect public officials. So you know, the Government Agencies and the software that gets installed there has to be able to block those particular people out. You can look up a private individual, but i think that what Government Agencies try do is they try to make it so its just not so simple to do that. Right. I think its exciting whats happening with this, though, is data and the yelps a good example because everybody can kind of get the hang of it. Not only do people like the restaurant, its a clean restaurant. Its the data coming out of the city that powers that. Is this proprietary data or is this something that can be open and some kid in the dorm room can do better than you did with it . Well, it certainly is an exciting time because what youre seeing is youre seeing the merger between a private company like yelp who is publishing, you know, restaurant reviews and then taking public data from the local governments, the people who are regulating them and bringing them into view. Thats public data, but when it goes through accela are you doing something to it that makes it your data, or can a kid go into the data bases that youve created at the city of San Francisco and there was a comma separated value or comma delineated. Thank you. And say i can use this data too and im going to make an app that is so cool using public data or did accela put some sort of stamp on it zm i think whats really cool i think youre saying yes, we put a stamp on it. No, we didnt put any stamp on it. The Government Data is their data. Really what were doing is providing the software that powers the operation. The data itself owned by the Government Agency and the public. But whats so exciting is that a lot of Government Agencies are going through what they call open data. Its an open Data Revolution where theyre making this information available. So what do you he see like longer term . What do you see as the potential with what you guys are doing . Well, i think what were seeing is were seeing kind of the Movement Towards this and you know, a lot of the open data thats out there today is pretty stale. Its not current. So what were seeing through our software and through our initiatives is that the data and services are going to be made available in realtime. So for example, when the restaurant inspector goes out and inspects that restaurant and updates the file, its immediately available. At the same time when i have to pay a parking ticket in San Francisco, that will remain secure and private. Thats correct. I think the other thing thats going to be exciting, we just have a minute left, is going to be when x meets y. Nobody ever thought, and im just making this up at the top of my head, taking dog walking permits and compare them or crossreference them with parking tickets. I dont know why in the world youd want to do that. Obviously im not a startup entrepreneur. But theres going to be some sort of app created with this open data that kids werent able to get kids in the dorm room, my fictional kids in the dorm room, that just changes everything, that nobody thought to do that. Well, i think one of the most potential values is to revolutionize the way contractors interact with their local governments. Because thats one of the most highly regulated areas in any city huge pay point. Yes. And to be able to provide contractors with mobile technology that allows them to work from their job sites and from their trucks instead of having to, you know, go behind a pc or make that visit to city hall is going to be transformative and its going to really push those local economies forward. All right. Maury blackman, were excited by whats happening in City Government. Its pretty cool. Thank you, scott. Thanks for being with us this morning. A Venture Capitalist hands out money, no strings attached, to Smart College students. The guy with the money, when press here continues. Welcome back to press here. Theres been a lot of talk lately of organizations taking advantage of college kids looking for a leg up by offering them a summer of hard work unpaid. My next guest is doing the direct opposite. Not only is he paying, he expects nothing in return. John vrionis is a Venture Capitalist at Lightspeed Venture partners, and hes willing to give a select group of young people money and office space to work all summer at whatever they wish. People like these stanford students given money to start a company, no strings attached, no equity given up, just give it a try. Theyre putting together a product for swimmers called lap shark. And down the hall more companies, all young people, mostly from stanford, paid to do pretty much whatever they want. John spent his summers in college driving Japanese Cars off boats and onto trucks. Then a path through harvard, university of chicago, and stanford put him where he is today, partner at laightspeed venture partners. Lets get this straight. No strings attached. They get money to start a company. They get office space too. Youre not taking part of the cut. No. Absolutely not. Its you understand how Venture Capital works, right . A little bit, yeah. Why . Why . So we basically started the program because a number of the partners at lightspeed like myself spent their summers in school, undergrad or grad, basically moonlighting as entrepreneurs. We took regular internships you were driving cars off boats. For toyota, as a matter of fact. In long beach. Because there werent great opportunities to pay the rent with entrepreneurial ideas. So when i got to lightspeed in 2006 we started this program to basically give kids a chance to spend their summers getting paid what theyd get at a normal internship working on their entrepreneurial idea. And they can do what they want. You are 99 there. You may advise them, but this is their company. They can do what they want. They apply, they give us a rough sense of what they want to work on that summer and then a lot of them pivot to be honest during the course of the summer. But yeah. We meet with them weekly or biweekly, basically to help advise them on what theyre doing. You had a rather famous pivot. You started with doing medical technology of some sort. Tell that story. Ben silverman, the founder of pintere pinterest. Like most entrepreneurs in the program, they realize not all ideas theyre exposed to earlier in their life are the ones that are going to end up building the next great business. But ben learned a lot of lessons i think along the way. And became very valuable because he creates pinterest because he discovers what he was going to do wasnt a great idea. I have to jump in because youve been doing this for a while but youre seeing more and more vc firms Engaging College Students whether that be through studentrun vc firms or fellowship programs. Whats the broader strategy . Is it trying to get access to the talent early on . I think so. I look at the number of accelerator accelerators, incubators, boot camps just in the last seven years and its an exponential increase. The money that goes with them has also increased at the same rate. I think in general its a very positive trend. More money for entrepreneurship is a good thing. Startups face two critical programs. They have to learn how to scale and find product fit. So if you can expose those young entrepreneurs to people who can help them solve these problems early, its only a good thing. The challenge is some of them are being run as standalone forprofit entities. And since most of these ideas dont work out, they end up having to take a big chunk of equity in every startup so that when the one winner happens it pays for the whole program. And if youre an entrepreneur that really knows what youre doing or has a clear vision and an execution plan, you basically get charged an exorbitant tax to participate in these programs. For all the ones that dont. Right. From a Student Perspective do you encourage these kids to finish school . Certainly there are other fellowships and internships out there that actually encourage students to drop out to follow their dreams. Yeah, you could argue about this one. My view is and lets do. You know, its sort of like professional sports. You know, there are very few select players that make it all the way. So getting a degree, its not a bad decision. So take baseball. Theres 700 roughly professional baseball players. You get drafted out of high school, you can get a nice signing bonus but your chances of actually making it all the way are pretty low. So why not go to school, finish, get your degree . The major leagues are still going to be there. The opportunities typically for entrepreneurs are still going to be there. In fact, the more problems theyre exposed to, the more likely it is theyll find the problem that solves that ends up being one of the big companies. Has anyone ever dropped out from the program to start that company . Yeah, its happened a couple times. The goal of the lightspeed program, just to be clear, is we try to get people to learn a certain set of skills in the program. The feedback that what theyre working on really is a good idea and something they should do, and in a couple cases people have dropped out. Weve also had people continue their company while in school the following here. Thats happened a few times, actually. Primarily stanford students . Just based on proximity. Berkeley, stanford, carnegie mellon, m. I. T. , harvard, princeton. Its actually grown. We had over 300 applications this year for seven, eight spots. The kid thats going to apply next year, what are you looking for . Is it viable product . Not necessarily. Because they dont know if its a viable product. Thats the whole point. Entrepreneurs are born, not made in my opinion. Theyre problem solvers. So how many problems have you been exposed to when youre 20 years old . Couldnt get a date could a kid come out of university of i cant think of a good st. Louis or something we dont think of as being entrepreneurial and certainly not m. I. T. Or harvard or stanford or i mean, you see what im saying. Arkansas state. Think of it as engineers. Engineers is a degree in problem solving. The program is biased heavily toward engineers because they can iterate thats where they come from. Thats right. So it doesnt matter what school. We look for people who have shown a strong record of success. Typically, in engineering or Computer Science because in a tenweek period they can actually accomplish a ton, scott. Its amazing. Thats whats amazing about these young kids. The program sorry. The program so just curious, very few spots. How many kids actually apply . And whats the ratio. How many do you turn away . Oh, gosh. So we took about 30 this year. Nine teams represent 30 kids. 300 apps. So if you take two or three average, i dont know, about 600 or 700 kids apply. Okay. Im sorry. No, no. The program has been going on now for seven years. Entrepreneurship has changed. Technology has changed. How have the students changed . Have you seen any difference in their enthusiasm, the knowledge that they come into the program with . So yes and no. I graduated from college in 97. I parked cars as jobs. You know, these kids, what theyve accomplished already in college, its amazing. They built apps that have been downloaded millions of times. Theyve written books. The kids are so successful and accomplished already. At the same time theyre still being exposed to the same problems that 18, 19, 20yearolds do. Its kind of what i was saying. They want to find dates. They want to know where to eat. They want to know what to look for online. So a lot of the business plans, theyre the same year in and year out. I have heard criticisms of that, that were solving lots of sort of young upwardly mobile bu because thats what they are. Thats what they know. Thats totally fair. John, thank you for being with us this morning. Its a Great Program and we look forward to hosting many of your kids as they come up and do this more successfully. All right. Well be back in just a minute. Welcome back to press here. If you dont know where youre sleeping tonight, youre one of two kinds of people. One, youre homeless. Or two, youre a Hotel Tonight customer. Hotel tonight is a cuttingedge travel discount company. Once a day at noon the app, and its only an app, lists hotel rooms available for that night, rooms at a steep discount. Founder sam shank honed the app down to the point where booking a hotel for the night takes just eight seconds. Thanks for being with us this morning. My first reaction to this is somebodys trying to shake up the travel industry again. This has been shooken a lot. I mean, expedia and priceline pricelines got to be 10, 12 years old now, right . 15, yeah. 15. Is this a space that needs some more shaking . I think it always does. Its an enormous market. Hotels are the largest category of ecommerce. The most profitable category of exhert. And it always needs new innovation so that people can get the best deal or the best value or the most convenient access to hotel inventory. And the opportunity we saw was in mobile. In mobile there meeds to be a way to book a hotel and we jumped on it. It is only mobile. Thats the thing. And its very straightforward. Here are five hotels. Pick one. Good to go. Thats right. The idea was that if the other guys are coming from a web orientation building apps from that mindset and with a team that only thinks about the web we could really innovate and be better than they are with a mobilefocused development team, mobile focused product, and way brand that stood for just mobile. Thats the only place you can get it. That means were the best at it. So how much demand is there . I imagine there are still a lot of people who like to book their hotel rooms in advance. What kind of traction are you seeing with regards to users . Were seeing a lot of traction. How much is a lot . Were growing 300 year over year. Were in our third year. Its off of a fairly large base at this point. But the overall market for sameday Hotel Bookings is 15 of Restaurant Health Inspections<\/a> publicly available in easy to read data bases. This allows yelp to take that information and display it next to restaurant reviews. The city has started to publish building and Home Inspection<\/a> data as well. And the real estate site trulia is then able to display that right alongside the house price. Maury blackman one of the people working to bring Government Data<\/a> online in San Francisco<\/a>, new york, and washington, d. C. Reconnecting the government for the people to the people. Joined by j. P. Mangalindon of fortune, lena rau of tech crunch. 55 billion market value in government tech. Thats a huge market value and very few players. Thats right. Well, the total budget for government spend is 55 billion. And theres a limited amount of players in this space because you know, for a whole host of purposes people kind of shy away from government contracts because it has a long lead cycle theyre a pain in the neck. Thats right. You said it. Long lead cycle and at times theyre tough to do business with. But its been my passion and what ive done for the past 15 years and we feel were pretty good at it. I named three cities but of course youre involved with more than 500. Oh, sure. We have 500 cities. Cities and counties. Many states here in the u. S. We have an office in dubai and one in melbourne. And we serve those governments overseas as well. So explain to me what it is you do. Weve seen things where people are publishing to government, the white house petition is a good example of it. You may or may not do that. To be honest with you, im not interested in that. Whats revolutionary is the City Government<\/a> coming out of the city and into the hands of the people. Well, thats exactly right. Our mission in life is to bring the government to the people so people dont have to go to city hall, they dont have to go to the county offices, they just basically transact with their governments online. And you know, theres very simple processes that take place, you know, like registering a complaint, buying a getting a drivers license but then theres also very complex processes as well like building a very large commercial building. The stadium thats going to be done in San Francisco<\/a> here pretty soon. And its a complex process that needs to be regulated and permitted by the local government. So these are long transactions that take place. Its not always so simple. It could be a very complex process. What are some of the security challenges that you face . Because you know, a lot of Government Faces<\/a> security challenges when incorporating other technology, fire hoses and companies. So how do you mitigate that . Well, i think the biggest thing that we deal with is credit card processing and the security around that because that obviously is no Government Agency<\/a> thats kind of like the would be the kiss of death for them to be hacked and youre talking about when i pay a fee to the city for a permit or Something Like<\/a> that . Thats right. Or you want to set up a business, you get a license. Thats always the central focus for them. Theres other pieces, its the data itself. Its securing it. Thats public data, though, isnt it . It is. But just kind of a very basic example. If you complain about your neighbors barking dog i dont want my neighbor to know that thats right. Thats a legitimate question, isnt it . That we can find out where j. P. Lives if we go up to the city, county records and find out where he bought his house in strSan Francisco<\/a>. Hed probably prefer we didnt know that. And kind of the only barrier stopping us is we have to go up to the county and its going to be a pain in the neck, but if we could just type it in, its not private data. Thats right. Its just inaccessible data. Thats right. And also here in california we protect public officials. So you know, the Government Agencies<\/a> and the software that gets installed there has to be able to block those particular people out. You can look up a private individual, but i think that what Government Agencies<\/a> try do is they try to make it so its just not so simple to do that. Right. I think its exciting whats happening with this, though, is data and the yelps a good example because everybody can kind of get the hang of it. Not only do people like the restaurant, its a clean restaurant. Its the data coming out of the city that powers that. Is this proprietary data or is this something that can be open and some kid in the dorm room can do better than you did with it . Well, it certainly is an exciting time because what youre seeing is youre seeing the merger between a private company like yelp who is publishing, you know, restaurant reviews and then taking public data from the local governments, the people who are regulating them and bringing them into view. Thats public data, but when it goes through accela are you doing something to it that makes it your data, or can a kid go into the data bases that youve created at the city of San Francisco<\/a> and there was a comma separated value or comma delineated. Thank you. And say i can use this data too and im going to make an app that is so cool using public data or did accela put some sort of stamp on it zm i think whats really cool i think youre saying yes, we put a stamp on it. No, we didnt put any stamp on it. The Government Data<\/a> is their data. Really what were doing is providing the software that powers the operation. The data itself owned by the Government Agency<\/a> and the public. But whats so exciting is that a lot of Government Agencies<\/a> are going through what they call open data. Its an open Data Revolution<\/a> where theyre making this information available. So what do you he see like longer term . What do you see as the potential with what you guys are doing . Well, i think what were seeing is were seeing kind of the Movement Towards<\/a> this and you know, a lot of the open data thats out there today is pretty stale. Its not current. So what were seeing through our software and through our initiatives is that the data and services are going to be made available in realtime. So for example, when the restaurant inspector goes out and inspects that restaurant and updates the file, its immediately available. At the same time when i have to pay a parking ticket in San Francisco<\/a>, that will remain secure and private. Thats correct. I think the other thing thats going to be exciting, we just have a minute left, is going to be when x meets y. Nobody ever thought, and im just making this up at the top of my head, taking dog walking permits and compare them or crossreference them with parking tickets. I dont know why in the world youd want to do that. Obviously im not a startup entrepreneur. But theres going to be some sort of app created with this open data that kids werent able to get kids in the dorm room, my fictional kids in the dorm room, that just changes everything, that nobody thought to do that. Well, i think one of the most potential values is to revolutionize the way contractors interact with their local governments. Because thats one of the most highly regulated areas in any city huge pay point. Yes. And to be able to provide contractors with mobile technology that allows them to work from their job sites and from their trucks instead of having to, you know, go behind a pc or make that visit to city hall is going to be transformative and its going to really push those local economies forward. All right. Maury blackman, were excited by whats happening in City Government<\/a>. Its pretty cool. Thank you, scott. Thanks for being with us this morning. A Venture Capital<\/a>ist hands out money, no strings attached, to Smart College<\/a> students. The guy with the money, when press here continues. Welcome back to press here. Theres been a lot of talk lately of organizations taking advantage of college kids looking for a leg up by offering them a summer of hard work unpaid. My next guest is doing the direct opposite. Not only is he paying, he expects nothing in return. John vrionis is a Venture Capital<\/a>ist at Lightspeed Venture<\/a> partners, and hes willing to give a select group of young people money and office space to work all summer at whatever they wish. People like these stanford students given money to start a company, no strings attached, no equity given up, just give it a try. Theyre putting together a product for swimmers called lap shark. And down the hall more companies, all young people, mostly from stanford, paid to do pretty much whatever they want. John spent his summers in college driving Japanese Cars<\/a> off boats and onto trucks. Then a path through harvard, university of chicago, and stanford put him where he is today, partner at laightspeed venture partners. Lets get this straight. No strings attached. They get money to start a company. They get office space too. Youre not taking part of the cut. No. Absolutely not. Its you understand how Venture Capital<\/a> works, right . A little bit, yeah. Why . Why . So we basically started the program because a number of the partners at lightspeed like myself spent their summers in school, undergrad or grad, basically moonlighting as entrepreneurs. We took regular internships you were driving cars off boats. For toyota, as a matter of fact. In long beach. Because there werent great opportunities to pay the rent with entrepreneurial ideas. So when i got to lightspeed in 2006 we started this program to basically give kids a chance to spend their summers getting paid what theyd get at a normal internship working on their entrepreneurial idea. And they can do what they want. You are 99 there. You may advise them, but this is their company. They can do what they want. They apply, they give us a rough sense of what they want to work on that summer and then a lot of them pivot to be honest during the course of the summer. But yeah. We meet with them weekly or biweekly, basically to help advise them on what theyre doing. You had a rather famous pivot. You started with doing medical technology of some sort. Tell that story. Ben silverman, the founder of pintere pinterest. Like most entrepreneurs in the program, they realize not all ideas theyre exposed to earlier in their life are the ones that are going to end up building the next great business. But ben learned a lot of lessons i think along the way. And became very valuable because he creates pinterest because he discovers what he was going to do wasnt a great idea. I have to jump in because youve been doing this for a while but youre seeing more and more vc firms Engaging College Students<\/a> whether that be through studentrun vc firms or fellowship programs. Whats the broader strategy . Is it trying to get access to the talent early on . I think so. I look at the number of accelerator accelerators, incubators, boot camps just in the last seven years and its an exponential increase. The money that goes with them has also increased at the same rate. I think in general its a very positive trend. More money for entrepreneurship is a good thing. Startups face two critical programs. They have to learn how to scale and find product fit. So if you can expose those young entrepreneurs to people who can help them solve these problems early, its only a good thing. The challenge is some of them are being run as standalone forprofit entities. And since most of these ideas dont work out, they end up having to take a big chunk of equity in every startup so that when the one winner happens it pays for the whole program. And if youre an entrepreneur that really knows what youre doing or has a clear vision and an execution plan, you basically get charged an exorbitant tax to participate in these programs. For all the ones that dont. Right. From a Student Perspective<\/a> do you encourage these kids to finish school . Certainly there are other fellowships and internships out there that actually encourage students to drop out to follow their dreams. Yeah, you could argue about this one. My view is and lets do. You know, its sort of like professional sports. You know, there are very few select players that make it all the way. So getting a degree, its not a bad decision. So take baseball. Theres 700 roughly professional baseball players. You get drafted out of high school, you can get a nice signing bonus but your chances of actually making it all the way are pretty low. So why not go to school, finish, get your degree . The major leagues are still going to be there. The opportunities typically for entrepreneurs are still going to be there. In fact, the more problems theyre exposed to, the more likely it is theyll find the problem that solves that ends up being one of the big companies. Has anyone ever dropped out from the program to start that company . Yeah, its happened a couple times. The goal of the lightspeed program, just to be clear, is we try to get people to learn a certain set of skills in the program. The feedback that what theyre working on really is a good idea and something they should do, and in a couple cases people have dropped out. Weve also had people continue their company while in school the following here. Thats happened a few times, actually. Primarily stanford students . Just based on proximity. Berkeley, stanford, carnegie mellon, m. I. T. , harvard, princeton. Its actually grown. We had over 300 applications this year for seven, eight spots. The kid thats going to apply next year, what are you looking for . Is it viable product . Not necessarily. Because they dont know if its a viable product. Thats the whole point. Entrepreneurs are born, not made in my opinion. Theyre problem solvers. So how many problems have you been exposed to when youre 20 years old . Couldnt get a date could a kid come out of university of i cant think of a good st. Louis or something we dont think of as being entrepreneurial and certainly not m. I. T. Or harvard or stanford or i mean, you see what im saying. Arkansas state. Think of it as engineers. Engineers is a degree in problem solving. The program is biased heavily toward engineers because they can iterate thats where they come from. Thats right. So it doesnt matter what school. We look for people who have shown a strong record of success. Typically, in engineering or Computer Science<\/a> because in a tenweek period they can actually accomplish a ton, scott. Its amazing. Thats whats amazing about these young kids. The program sorry. The program so just curious, very few spots. How many kids actually apply . And whats the ratio. How many do you turn away . Oh, gosh. So we took about 30 this year. Nine teams represent 30 kids. 300 apps. So if you take two or three average, i dont know, about 600 or 700 kids apply. Okay. Im sorry. No, no. The program has been going on now for seven years. Entrepreneurship has changed. Technology has changed. How have the students changed . Have you seen any difference in their enthusiasm, the knowledge that they come into the program with . So yes and no. I graduated from college in 97. I parked cars as jobs. You know, these kids, what theyve accomplished already in college, its amazing. They built apps that have been downloaded millions of times. Theyve written books. The kids are so successful and accomplished already. At the same time theyre still being exposed to the same problems that 18, 19, 20yearolds do. Its kind of what i was saying. They want to find dates. They want to know where to eat. They want to know what to look for online. So a lot of the business plans, theyre the same year in and year out. I have heard criticisms of that, that were solving lots of sort of young upwardly mobile bu because thats what they are. Thats what they know. Thats totally fair. John, thank you for being with us this morning. Its a Great Program<\/a> and we look forward to hosting many of your kids as they come up and do this more successfully. All right. Well be back in just a minute. Welcome back to press here. If you dont know where youre sleeping tonight, youre one of two kinds of people. One, youre homeless. Or two, youre a Hotel Tonight<\/a> customer. Hotel tonight is a cuttingedge travel discount company. Once a day at noon the app, and its only an app, lists hotel rooms available for that night, rooms at a steep discount. Founder sam shank honed the app down to the point where booking a hotel for the night takes just eight seconds. Thanks for being with us this morning. My first reaction to this is somebodys trying to shake up the travel industry again. This has been shooken a lot. I mean, expedia and priceline pricelines got to be 10, 12 years old now, right . 15, yeah. 15. Is this a space that needs some more shaking . I think it always does. Its an enormous market. Hotels are the largest category of ecommerce. The most profitable category of exhert. And it always needs new innovation so that people can get the best deal or the best value or the most convenient access to hotel inventory. And the opportunity we saw was in mobile. In mobile there meeds to be a way to book a hotel and we jumped on it. It is only mobile. Thats the thing. And its very straightforward. Here are five hotels. Pick one. Good to go. Thats right. The idea was that if the other guys are coming from a web orientation building apps from that mindset and with a team that only thinks about the web we could really innovate and be better than they are with a mobilefocused development team, mobile focused product, and way brand that stood for just mobile. Thats the only place you can get it. That means were the best at it. So how much demand is there . I imagine there are still a lot of people who like to book their hotel rooms in advance. What kind of traction are you seeing with regards to users . Were seeing a lot of traction. How much is a lot . Were growing 300 year over year. Were in our third year. Its off of a fairly large base at this point. But the overall market for sameday Hotel Bookings<\/a> is 15 of Hotel Bookings<\/a>. A lot of that is walkins or phone calls. So thats now being moved to mobile devices. Its just a more efficient experience. You got those 15 already. Now you can push into the rest of it because you can convince people this is an okay thing to do, to literally not know where youre sleeping. Yeah. And a lot of it too is half of the demand that we see, and this is based on our surveys, are people who would have not picked a hotel otherwise. Were replacing the drive home. Were replacing the can i crash at a friends place . Were growing demand for hotels in addition to just moving people from phone calls and walkins to booking. For example, you know, im somewhere and i want to book a hotel. How are you tapping into inventory . Are you actually buying blocks of hotel rooms or are you accessing what their reservation system is . So it works a lot more like a marketplace. So the hotels come to us every day with the rooms that theyre not going to sell, and thats about 40 of all the rooms in the United States<\/a> and the world. Every day are empty. So they come to us with their rooms theyre not going to sell. We ask them how many rooms that is and what do you want to sell them for and the best deals that day, its sort of like a competition and auction and the best deals that day get onto the app. We send a reservation directly to the hotel, youre ready to check in right after the bookings made. But that direct relationship with the hotel makes sure we have the best inventory, the best rates. And we also can pick and choose the best hotels to work with. And do you make money by shaving a bit off the top . Its a very similar model to whats already been established even before Online Travel<\/a> agencies, which is a commission model. We take about 20 . What makes you cheaper in the sense that im going to be very and i havent used ive played with the app but i havent actually booked a hotel room. If expedia, if i look and say the hotel has the same exact price as expedia and kayak and 100 other ones. I get that the idea that its a lastminute booking is going to make you cheaper. Have you found that the hiltons and the doubletrees and the whatnots are giving you a cheaper price than theyre giving the expedias and the kayaks and whatnot . Overall we do have the best prices. And youre going to we have a guarantee that youre going to not be able to find a better price anywhere in terms of Hotel Tonight<\/a> and our rates. One of the ways we do that is by having this competition for the limited shelf space on the app. Youre encouraging the price downward by saying you may not even appear on the app. If you want to sell your rooms, if youre motivated to sell this inventory thats going to be empty otherwise, that we want to give you that incentive to give us the best possible deal. And it just depends. The hotel has full discretion over do they want a discount at all, do they want to deeply discount, and if they do they get rewarded with more rooms. There are definitely some more competitors that have emerged for you guys. You were doing this in the beginning. Now youre seeing other travel companies try to do this as well. How do you stay competitive with these other players . Its really through focus on the mobilefirst orientation of what we built. We wake up and think about how do we help people that need a hotel right now get into a hotel, on with their life . We still have the eightsecond, threetap bookings. And one of the best things we do is we help people with the Hotel Discovery<\/a> and choice by only showing you a limited selection of great hotels. That youre aware of, too. Youve sent people to these hotels. Weve sent people to these hotels in many cases but we also then monitor the quality. And instead of showing you like the big guys, do they show you a list of every hotel in the city and say buyer beware, you figure out for yourself which ones they are. We say its not worth sending you to a hotel where we know wur going to have a bad nights sleep. So we dont work with them anymore. There is a lot of copying in this industry, though. This kind of goes to your question. Is Adam Goldstein<\/a> has sat in that chair from hipmunk. And he saw other travel agencies copy his timeline that was so clever that made hipmunk what it is. Hipmunk i understand is copying some of what youre doing with the get a Hotel Tonight<\/a> sort of thing. Its a feature. Its a thing that can be copied. Is it your relationship with the hotel that makes you unique . Is it the mobileonly . In other words, how do you stop expedia from just ripping you off . Well, its the focus that we have. So expedias a brand, is a service, is an app. Stands for a lot of different things. You can get a cruise, book a flight. We only do one thing. You turn on the app, we show you the best deals, better rates than anybodys going to give you and we make it simple to book. Nobody is doing that in the market like we are. And were staying ahead of everybody else in terms of what were bringing to the table, in terms of customer reviews. We have this feature where people can take photos of their hotel room, which is something only we offer and you can see what it looks like from other Hotel Tonight<\/a> bookers. We have something thats unique and we have something thats a big advantage. And were just going to stay laser focused and make the best product possible. Do customers skew younger as it i mean, i feel like the head my dad would not be like well figure it poupt. I want to use Hotel Tonight<\/a>. If i want to spend the night in napa, for instance. But i would like to think im 30. I would like to think im young outside of Silicon Valley<\/a> although ive been told im already old here. But yeah, i mean, it feels like its more the impulsive set, you know, and this impulsive set may be younger, in their 20s or their teens. It started that way. Our target market initially was the publications you write for and the 25 to 35 we call them impulse bookers, people that are spontaneous and thats a big portion of our bookings too but we also move to a mainstream audience. It was a big deal a couple months ago when my mom emailed me and sent me her booking receipt and said i booked. Now they live outside of d. C. And they went my mom and dad went in for a night in d. C. It was a big moment and it was emblematic that we have customers of all different price points, different age ranges at this point. Whats your Favorite Hotel<\/a> in San Francisco<\/a> . Thats really tough. The zetta just opened across the street. Great hotel and lobby. Theyve got a plinko machine in the lobby just like the price is right. Sam shank from Hotel Tonight<\/a>. Thank you for being with us this morning. Back in just a second. 3w4r. Thats our show for this week. My thanks to my guests. Im scott mcgrew. Thank you for making us part of your sunday morning. Hello and welcome to comunidad del valle. Im damian trujillo. And today well have some veterans doing their thing at san jose university. Plus some amazing entrepreneurs on your comunidad del valle. We are going to begin with those veterans here on comunidad del valle. Theyre trying to form their own Veterans Resource Center<\/a> at san jose state university. With me are damian bramlett, the veteran, and also omar teutle. Did i pronounce it correctly . Yes. Briefly tell me about your military service before we get into the needs there that you feel you ed","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia803000.us.archive.org\/23\/items\/KNTV_20130825_160000_Press_Here\/KNTV_20130825_160000_Press_Here.thumbs\/KNTV_20130825_160000_Press_Here_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240619T12:35:10+00:00"}