Applying the Silicon Valley playbook to hotel businesses

Good morning. Regardless of what you think of Silicon Valley, it’s undeniable the playbook for company growth that originated from tech companies there has been responsible for some of the most influential businesses in the world. Today, we’re learning from someone immersed in that world who applied this playbook to opening a new hotel there - and beat hotels in her compset doing so.

Applying Silicon Valley Best Practices To Hospitality

with Lauren Phelps

Today we're learning from Lauren Phelps about how company growth strategies that originated in Silicon Valley can apply to hotels and hospitality businesses. A few excerpts from our conversation:

“Running a hotel like a startup”: “We had to find product-market fit, and to do that, we had to be radically experimental.”

Hotel General Manager as “Chief Experiment Officer”: “You need to try things. See what hits. We thought the hotel would resonate more with men between the ages of 22 and 29. It actually resonated more with women 32 to 42.”

Continuous data analysis is key to this: “You have to be tuned into what the data is telling you and evangelize that mindset throughout the entire hotel.”

If you want to grow your hotel or hospitality business, I highly recommend you listen to Lauren today.

Listen to our conversation now

From our community

Hospitality Daily is a community of creators and doers. Some cool things for today:

• The admin team took over Zoku Vienna while the operations team had a day out.

• Chris Fletcher shares the pride and excitement of his son following his footsteps in hospitality and what it takes to retain new talent.

Stories I’m reading

• Tech: Infuriating, Overwhelming and Unwanted Smart Tech in My Hotel Room (By Amy Tara Koch for The New York Times)

• Business: Business and group travel demand is ramping up (by Trevor Simpson for Hotel News Now)

• Trends: Taylor Swift’s impact on hospitality (by Joseph Pisani for The Wall Street Journal)

• Commercial: IDeaS’ Klaus Kohlmayr on Helping Hoteliers Tell Their Data Stories (by Robin McLaughlin for Lodging Magazine)

• Design: Elder & Ash converts a private residence into an intimate 14-room retreat in North Carolina (by Alicia Hoisington for Hospitality Design)