Transcript
[00:00:00] Niko Karstikko: We have one-seventh of the employees of a comparable hotel making comparable ADRs, six-seventh is the tech, and that obviously translates into a lot more efficiencies, a lot less cost, and actually a better experience.
[00:00:24] Matt Welle: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another Matt Talks Hospitality. And I've been looking forward to this session because today, we have Niko Karstikko, who's the cofounder and CEO of Bob W. Niko has built and scaled companies before and came into hospitality with a builder's mindset rather than a traditional operator's mindset. That perspective showed up in how Bob W is structured today. They run Bob W with minimal staff on-site, which means that most tasks move through tech and not from desk; bookings, access to the rooms, housekeeping, payments, guest support, all of it is connected through integrations with 榴莲视频 at the core, and they now operate properties in 19 cities with close to 6,000 apartments around Europe. Welcome.
[00:01:04] Niko Karstikko: Thanks for having me on, Matt. Been looking forward to this too.
[00:01:07] Matt Welle: Can you maybe explain what Bob W is? Because the first time someone described it to me is, like, so it's like an Airbnb, or it's like a hotel, like an Airbnb, but it's actually something slightly different, and I think it's best explained by the founder.
[00:01:20] Niko Karstikko: Sure thing. I mean, Bob W is really the answer to the next generation of traveler, the answer to this Airbnb generation that's grown up. It's a hybrid category of hospitality that's the best of both worlds, best of the hotel experience and best of the short stay experience. So from the hotels, the branded consistency, the scale, professionalism, the legality, we're in the right kind of zoning. From the short stays, the utility and amenity of an apartment, which the independent travelers are now looking for these days and the flexibility that it brings, the local authenticity that feels like, oh, this is so Milan, and then finally, of course, that hosting, which is, again, the whole brand is built around the avatar of the perfect host, Bob W, who's just a fabulous dude and well educated, but speaks 10 languages, but super approachable, nice guy. And unlike a normal host, he鈥檚 not at a Muay Thai boxing class on Friday night when you're trying to check in and figure out how the key works. He answers your messages 24/7. It was a couple of minutes a few months ago, but thanks to AI, it's getting even shorter these days. And then, of course, under the hood, we're a tech company that operates hospitality. So, on the one hand, we elevate the experience by automating things and we have one-seventh of the employees of a comparable hotel. On the other hand, we actually elevate the experience of self-service apps. We are full service, but it's mainly a marketplace, breakfast, gyms, early check-ins, late check-outs, or virtual and real products, and that within the neighborhood, and then that amazingly empathetic Bob, who's just always there for you, and you can trust that the service works. And that's basically, it's our new hybrid category of hospitality. And if we look at it from a sort of hotelier or industry categorization viewpoint, I mean, we're a part-hotel that run on tech instead of people that were full service, not because we operate it ourselves, but because we bring the neighborhood to life, alive for you, and we've got design credentials, and we are a leader in sustainability in our sector, both in results and advocacy.
[00:03:22] Matt Welle: So, you take over a physical building, right? So, you come in, and you take over the entire building, all of the rooms. And so from that sense, it's like a hotel, but the way you operate makes it very different, I guess.
[00:03:33] Niko Karstikko: You know, I think our generation really saw that magic of the sort of Airbnb, the flexibility, the 鈥榳ow, this is so authentic鈥� and all those bits, but many of us got quite tired of it. And, you know, in reality, it's somebody's IKEA-filled apartment.
[00:03:49] Matt Welle: And I don't wanna message anyone, like, oh, I'm arriving, and then I'm late, and then, I just like, I wanna know that when I show up, I can just get in, and I don't wanna be reliant on a human that has to bicycle over to let me in.
[00:04:01] Niko Karstikko: Yeah. Exactly. And so, really, best of both worlds. I mean, the name comes from Bob W, who's this perfect host, but it comes from this concept. We were gonna call it Viking names like a Ragnar鈥�
[00:04:12] Matt Welle: You're like, I'm wondering how you got to Bob, like, was that a, is it an actual character in your life?
[00:04:17] Niko Karstikko: Well, sort of. I mean, ultimately, we were first like, okay, we wanna make it around that host because the host really makes or breaks the experience. Everybody knows I've done enough Airbnb's and booking.com apartments. It's like they really make the difference between amazing versus crap versus passing grade. And we were like, okay, 2018/19 when we were getting started, we're like, okay, Nordics as a culture is pretty cool right now. There's this Vikings program, and we're thinking like Viking names like Ragnar and Kari, and the trouble is that we were asking our foe and friends to pronounce them or write them in Google. They didn't know how to spell it. And you know, Ragnar or Karis, and then also somebody pointed out that, 鈥淗ey, I think the Vikings are more known for raping and pillaging than hospitality.鈥� And we're like, good point. Solid point. But then, a friend of ours pointed out that, 鈥淗ey, you guys keep referring that you're gonna create this best of both worlds concept, best of the hotel, best of the shorts. Best of both worlds, like, if you put it into an acronym, it's Bob W.鈥� We thought Bob sounds like a great guy. He sounds like he's, you know, solid guy. And it was free on free domain, or the domain was available. And it googled well, so we thought, hey, what the heck was wrong?
[00:05:35] Matt Welle: And the w?
[00:05:36] Niko Karstikko: Best of both worlds. So, Bob W.
[00:05:39] Matt Welle: Oh! Now it clicked in my head. Nice.
[00:05:41] Niko Karstikko: That's where it came from. And it stuck, and customers absolutely love it. I mean, it's amazing to still read, like the host, the amount of mentions. Like, oh, Bob is the best host ever. Oh, he's such a great guy. Guests know he ain't real, but he is real, if that makes sense.
[00:05:57] Matt Welle: Because I sent it to a friend the other day. They're like, oh, what is this Bob W? I was like, you should just go and see it, like, I can't explain it really well, but once you see it, it's great. If I explain to people, like, it's basically a hotel without humans in it, it doesn't feel nice. But she messaged me, and she's like, it was the nicest experience. Like, the engagement with the team had been so good. But, yeah, there wasn't a human. Like, there wasn't a bellman at the door. There wasn't a concierge desk in the lobby. There wasn't a receptionist who was checking me in. But somehow you've nailed the hospitality factor to it. How do you do that?
[00:06:27] Niko Karstikko: So, on the one hand, of course, we went into this solving the problem of what the modern traveler was looking for, which wasn't answered by the Airbnbs and wasn't answered by the three- four star hotels out there. And took a view of, like, let's solve customer problems as opposed to try to fit into some kind of mold. And then our general approach was like, okay, we're gonna infuse technology, which has great aspects to it because it allows things to scale. You have less human error if you get it right. There's all these positives around it. It's commercially more viable than a traditional hotel, which we've been able to prove, and through that, obviously, get close to a 100 million in funding. But also then, you know, we understood that or took this kind of approach, how do we create self-service that doesn't feel like self-service? How do we steal things from the five-star hotels, from the empathy, the personal recognition, this kind of, like, effort and bring it to the guest? How do we get, when you need a towel at 8 PM on a Friday night, how do we, A, first of all, hear that you need a towel and provide an answer for you right away? Even if that answer is, 鈥淵eah, sure, but hey, I can bring it to you tomorrow morning.鈥� Easiest is just you grab it from the pantry on the ground floor, and there's a beautiful little pantry that's nicely designed and feels good, and hey, problem solved, wasn't a big deal. So it was really about, in general, we were thinking how to take stuff from the fancier hotels, the higher echelon, bring it to a price point that's more accessible into this short stay rental world, and that's how we did all these things from, like, how do we create empathy? How do we feel like, because ultimately, people want you to feel like there's someone there for you, someone's listening to you. I'm in trouble. They get fixed. I mean, nobody wants to be stuck behind the door if it doesn't work. Like, you want somebody to answer right away. If not, you know, the experience is a fail. And so then we just started tackling these things from, okay, how can we be more responsive than a front desk of a traditional hotel? And, of course, everybody's got a phone in their pocket, chat-based. You could do it through WhatsApp, or our chat, or SMS, or email, and we're equally fast.
[00:08:42] Matt Welle: I do this now in, like, luxury hotels. I ask, 鈥淐an I get your WhatsApp number?鈥� Because when I lie by the pool, I don't want to get up and walk to the reception desk to ask for some service, so I just WhatsApp now. But the problem that I always experience in luxury hotels is that the response can take an hour, two hours because it's all human-led, and it isn't the experience I want. I want fast, I want efficiency, and I get that sometimes more in a tech-enabled brand than I would get in, like, these really fancy hotels because they haven't leaned into the technology aspect of it.
[00:09:14] Niko Karstikko: Yeah. So, yeah. And I mean, we've been working on this for six years. And I mean, today, half of the messaging is AI, delivered with AI, so actually, the two-minute reference was the human answering. But also, you inevitably will have a backlog. So, for example, we've built workflows and tech solutions so that if Matt, you're in the building or arriving today, you might be prioritized to somebody asking about an upgrade three weeks before they arrive. So, again, because it's so important when you're stuck outside of your door, and you can't get in versus, hey, can you guys sort me out an upgrade? And the expectation of answering is you can really create goodwill or bad will by not being on time. So, I totally agree with you. And we all have WhatsApp in our pockets. The friction is the least amount possible, and ultimately, you know, tech industry, we talk about friction all the time. How do we reduce friction, aka create a better experience? So, the path of least resistance is usually simple and beautiful. Not always so obvious, but I think WhatsApp is a very great example of the least friction. Who the hell wants to download a new app?
[00:10:23] Matt Welle: When WeWork came up, we all described like WeWork was trying to position themselves as a tech brand, but really, they were a real estate brand. It sounds like you've taken technology a lot further than they've done at WeWork, but are you more of a tech brand than you are a hospitality brand? Or, like, how would you describe it to investors, for example?
[00:10:40] Niko Karstikko: I mean, we're a tech company that operates hospitality. So, we're both. I mean, and that's not an equity story. That's the truth. I mean, we've got our in-house tech team. We build software every day. We're very careful with our build and buy decisions. So, like, we've partnered up with you guys because you guys do many things so amazing, why would we try to reinvent the wheel when you guys have spent so much time doing it? So, we really develop and focus on our core competencies as a tech company. We're also an operator. What's the difference between us, I mean, an an operator or a regular operator is that we take a very different view on how we run our business, and we have one-seventh of the employees of a comparable hotel making comparable ADRs, six-seventh is the tech, and that obviously translates into a lot more efficiencies, a lot less cost, and actually a better experience. We are ranked 4.6 out of five based on aggregated all public ratings. So, from booking.coms to Airbnbs to Expedia to TripAdvisors, etcetera, that makes us Europe's best-ranked international hotel chain even though we don't consider ourselves a hotel. But I mean, how do we do that? I mean, it's solving the customer's problems and specifically using technology to do that and to scale that so that people have this amazing experience consistently every time without fail.
[00:12:08] Matt Welle: You've raised significant funds for growth. You have grown tremendously. So, the thing I'm wondering in the back of my mind is, a dollar invested in Bob W, is it more valuable than a dollar invested into one of those hotel brands? Like, how do you compare the profitability of your concept versus the traditional hotels?
[00:12:24] Niko Karstikko: So, from an EBITDA profile basis on a market level, we are 2.5x more profitable.
[00:12:32] Matt Welle: That's right.
[00:12:33] Niko Karstikko: And from a GOP margin, so which is another benchmark within the operating industry, we are at levels that we haven't seen a single hospitality operator develop. And that's obviously technology, but that's also, you know, really hard work from us the last three years transitioning ourselves from a startup, which it was all about growth, and we all remember there was a lot more growth capital out there up until 2010.
[00:13:04] Matt Welle: Three years ago. Yeah.
[00:13:05] Niko Karstikko: There was, and really the investor base and in general the broader sentiment of investors was growth is the focus. And then 2022 happened, and money started, you know, disappearing off the market. So, we had to make that change as well. And a big thank you, my cofounder, my other better half, is sort of German stereotype on steroids, Sebastian. And he just, along with obviously having a great management team and company in general, we just managed to crunch it into understanding that we cannot be betting this company on getting future funding, but we need to turn it profitable. And that's exactly what we've done despite not quite doubling our size this year, but almost. So, it's been a hard school for the last three years. And be it our sector or more broadly the tech sector, there are a lot of casualties that didn't make it through this transition. So, we're super proud of that and super proud of our team for that.
[00:14:07] Matt Welle: When I look at what you guys do, it is so special that end-to-end journey well, from the moment a guest books to the moment that they check out, can you maybe talk through some of the touch points that you have along that journey where you do things differently than you would expect from a traditional bed and breakfast or a hotel?
[00:14:24] Niko Karstikko: I mean, first of all, you make a booking. You check in online. So, we have, I mean, to oversimplify a form and a marketplace where you give your legally required details and then you customize your stay - oh, I want breakfast, early check-in, late checkout, apartment upgrade - oh, my preference is I like quiet rooms, stuff like this. And then basically, Bob messages you, and you start, basically, you always have a chat with Bob. You can, of course, call him. And if there's a problem, you know, and you're in the building, there's a colleague around the corner in no time, so don't no worries, but basically, chat is the modus operandi. So, and you could literally ask, 鈥淗ey Bob, can you extend my stay?鈥� Bob will send you, like, 鈥淗ey, dude. Nice to see you. Nice that you're coming tomorrow. Hey. It's gonna be rainy in London, so I'd pack accordingly.鈥� Then you have a guest area that you can work with as well, and Bob will tone down or be more talkative depending on your behavior and your preferences as well. He's a smart guy. He's an empathetic guy. He's your friend in town.
[00:15:24] Matt Welle: How do you know? Like, is it really the way that I respond, it picks up on my level of responses, and then it responds? Or is it, you鈥檝e segment customers in different ways?
[00:15:33] Niko Karstikko: We have a sentiment score, which is based on, like, if you're grumpy, grandpa, you know, we're gonna answer things differently than if you're a bubbly emoji spitting, you know, teen lady or something like this. So, we do that. And then, so just on to that journey, chat-based again, you arrive through the door, we'll of course know. We check you in technically when you punch in your PIN code or use the slider to open the door. We know that you've checked in. Obviously, a great time for Bob to ask you is, 鈥淗ey, Matt, just checking, everything fine in the apartment? Are you having a five-star experience? You gotta let me know if not. I won't know if you don't tell me.鈥� And so, 83% of our guests engage in a conversation with Bob. I'm 17. If they don't wanna chat, that's absolutely fine too. But the the idea is to lower that barrier, and we've built a lot of smarts around that. And we'll be introducing that now with the advent of AI, we'll be introducing more and more customization parameters to that. It starts being a lot less labor intensive thanks to AI upfront work, of course, you gotta train it, but where we can really customize that experience to make you feel personally recognized. There's a difference between, you know, Matt, you mentioned you're coming to a nice hotel with a pool, and you know, you expect them to know you. There's a difference between, 鈥淗ello, sir. We hope you have a fine stay at our place鈥�, you know, versus, 鈥淥h, Matt, so nice to see you here. We know you love Negroni. So, Jack there at the bar, has been working on a few new recipes, and he said you should ask him for the summer Negroni. You're gonna love it. I know it. And I remember last time your partner said that they prefer very thick pillows. So, I got you a few extra ones, and then for your stay as well. Let me know if they're not perfect.鈥� There's a difference between personally recognizing you, Matt, versus, hey, 40-year-old male, certain income level, etcetera. And that is the human connection. That is that empathy, that caring, I care to know about you, and we can create that, and not just to repeating customers, but first time arrivals.
[00:17:46] Matt Welle: And how do you how do you deal with the digital non-savvy guests? Like, the people that don't check in online, that just show up at the door, how do they get in?
[00:17:54] Niko Karstikko: So, first of all, just about everybody is so tech savvy that they get in these days. You'd be surprised how, like, we have older clientele, and most people don't have problems with that. And again, if there was a big problem, we wouldn't have the review scores we did. What we have, sometimes, some of the very old school OTAs that don't really bend, are sometimes the problem when we don't get the right email addresses or鈥�
[00:18:21] Matt Welle: Phone number.
[00:18:22] Niko Karstikko: There鈥檚 some, yeah, technical issues of integrating and getting the right information to the guest. There we have also, I mean, we've basically built a piece of software where we teach in front of our front doors. We have a, 鈥榟ey, can't find your check-in?鈥� kinda thing, and there's a QR code, and we can very simply locate you. And again, Bob answers in less than two minutes to sort you out. So again, Bob usually is the answer there. You could, of course, do the self-service. We find your guest area, and you check in, and you get it. Now important to note as well, this is about like, we talked about you, like this, removing friction. We call it the last check-in ever. You check in with us once, we remember your credit card details, we remember your passport details, which in any other app or industry would be like, yeah, for the last ten years, of course, while still your favorite hotel asks you, Matt, is this the first time you're staying with us?
[00:19:21] Matt Welle: Yeah. Exactly.
[00:19:22] Niko Karstikko: It's like, no, it's my tenth, but thanks. That again, is that personal recognition? Hell no. That's the opposite of it. So, we remember that and record that. And so again, removing that friction point. And again, like, who the heck really likes a front desk? I mean, if you think about it historically鈥�
[00:19:42] Matt Welle: It's the area where you go with your problems basically, right?
[00:19:45] Niko Karstikko: Yeah.
[00:19:46] Matt Welle: It represents a barrier between you and the guest in some way.
[00:19:49] Niko Karstikko: Yeah, it's like, oh yeah, we have such a great front desk experience. I enjoyed the queue, then I liked refilling the paper, that of the information I already filled in when I booked the damn thing. Oh, oh, and oh, the key card printing, that's my favorite part. And showing the credit card, again, which I already showed during the booking. And so, for us, it wasn't like, oh, let's try to be on the cheap here, it was like, why the heck is there a front desk? We didn't come from the hotel industry. And then it's funny because then hoteliers were like, oh, well, let's get savvy now, so then they did the front, they were adamant about having the check-in kiosk. So, now the same person that they hired at the front desk is now teaching you how to use the kiosks or what have you, and you guys have a really intuitive kiosk thing, and a lot of 榴莲视频 customers, want that so I don't mean to knock that from that perspective. But we've had that technology in our pockets for ten years. So, it's really more of just the bravery of the hotelier as .
[00:20:48] Matt Welle: Did you know how we get the key? Just because hotels are not able to get people through the funnel to get them to use their own device to check in to the hotel because they haven't upgraded the locks in the hotel. And it's like that last mile thing, like, how do we get a plastic key in the hand of a guest? Whereas you don't need to, but you do need to upgrade your hardware physically to enable it.
[00:21:07] Niko Karstikko: That's a fair point. But then, like, again, so then the front desk, now there's, like, these virtual front desk thingamajig this, then the final frontier, I think, is hoteliers like, yeah, yeah, but we want that personal connection. Oh, the personal connection? I'm asking if it's the first time you're staying with us? Great. What a great personal connection. Like, if you really wanted to have that face-to-face hello, and I totally respect that, like some hotels, depends on the experience, if you go to the resort and you got all the time in the world, it's sometimes nice chatting with the chap, and maybe there's a place for that. But why not be like, 鈥淥h, hey, you must be Matt. Well, you're already checked in and everything, but I'm so glad you're here, you know, can I book you a restaurant? You want me to show you the room, or you were gonna go yourself? Okay. Cool. Cool. Yeah. Happy to show it.鈥� What better would be is that basically, if you want to keep the human resource there is get rid of the boring BS on the front desk and instead, spend the time having nice people connecting with peeps who are coming into the building for the first time, and doing it like that. That would be a lot more actually, like, empathy, connection, personal recognition.
[00:22:18] Matt Welle: The other day, you and I were in London, in our advisory board, and Kevin Machefert runs a group of hotels in Paris. And he said, 鈥淚've stopped hiring these hoteliers that are trained to input data into a system. I've started hiring actors who have personality, who can connect with an audience, and they create that kind of personality for the brand.鈥� And I love when he said that because I'm like, yeah, that's kind of the thing we need. We almost need people that don't know how to enter data into these systems because that's for you and I to solve. But how do you create that personal connection? That is not my skill. Like, my skill is technology, but, like, hotels should be about the experience and that hospitality kind of angle.
[00:22:55] Niko Karstikko: That's exactly it. And I think that's kind of going back to, you know, how we position us, and differentiate us, that even though we are, like, you could argue that Bob is a cold hotel, to use an old term, like technology and empathy and all of these can be scaled. Well, thanks to technology, empathy, the actual services, everything else can be brought into the experience without necessarily having the same amount of humans there as well, and I don't want to take away from our itinerary.
[00:23:29] Matt Welle: Like, if you think about how far, like, AI is now getting to, and we can automate the heck out of everything, but how far can Bob W take autonomous hotels?
[00:23:38] Niko Karstikko: I think we've only just scratched the surface of opportunity. We'll always have a human element as well. And nobody wants that insurance chatbot moment where it's like, 鈥淗ey, can you send me the invoice?鈥� 鈥淚 did not recognize your request. Please ask me again.鈥� And you're like, f*ck. And so we can't have that. And through that, we've got and all of that, but also, like, it's if we do the mix of real person empathy as well as personal recognition even if that's AI and unautomated. And, also, we're then able to solve the queries where in a way, you don't necessarily need empathy to it, you're like, you're asking for something on I can solve it for you right away. 鈥淗ow does the microwave work?鈥� Here's the answer. It would have taken a human ten minutes to figure out how that Phillips microwave works and then gotten you the notes, and AI created that in twenty seconds. I mean, or ten seconds, that's, you know we can take it very far. I'm super excited about personal recognition, super excited about having 100 different people come to the same apartment over different periods of time and having 100 different variations to the experience. And to me, that's one of the most exciting things with technology that that will take that sense of that customer, that thing that only just about the four seasons of the world, the six-star hotels of the world can do consistently because they have an army of people trained to do so. And I love that kind of experience. And I just think the attributes for that technology鈥�
[00:25:13] Matt Welle: You pay for that, right?
[00:25:14] Niko Karstikko: Yeah.
[00:25:15] Matt Welle: You pay insane amounts of money for this brand to hire all these people to research you, to then give that experience. Could you do that with less humans?
[00:25:22] Niko Karstikko: The answer is yes. And we're doing it today, but, like, I mean, call me nuts, but we've only scratched the surface. Like, there's so much cool stuff that can happen from just that creating that connection with the guest to actually doing the things that, like, you know, we can do a ton of things fully automated just because you're a light sleeper. I mean, we have a standard set of turnover. We have standard items in the building. One of those is headphone earplugs. If you're a light sleeper, 鈥淗ey, Matt. I know you're a light sleeper, so I left you some earplugs over there. And, oh, I put you in that quiet room because you liked it.鈥� And by the way, none of us like, no human had to do any of that. And, of course, our cleaners run around with our software so that they become the operational fulfilment layer. So, the chances of us screwing that up are zero, and it's just a dynamic to-do list which they get. So effectively, that was fully automated just because you're a light sleeper and we recognize that you're a light sleeper, and we can do it. So, that to me is super exciting and something we're working a lot on.
[00:26:32] Matt Welle: You talked earlier about the really fast growth that you've experienced with the company. How do you ensure that the service stays high, and how do you also make it local? Like, when I check into an Amsterdam hotel versus a London hotel, how do you guarantee that I get a local experience? Because the rise of Airbnb is because people wanted that local experience. Do you create that?
[00:26:51] Niko Karstikko: Yeah. I mean, Bob is, I mean, that's why we talked about best of both worlds. Airbnb, the initial magic of it, and of course, it still remains in many unique things that you can book there, and there will always be a place for the Airbnbs of the world. Is that sense of, 鈥淥h, this feels so Amsterdam. Oh, this is so Oosterpark, Amsterdam.鈥� And two things: one is the service side of things in terms of localizing. Bob is your friend in town. He is the local if you're going to Amsterdam to stay at Amsterdam, Bob W Oosterpark or Bob W Noord. So, on the one hand, there's the technology aspect of it. We have local recommendations, which by the way get adjusted depending on how on your profile, you like it, those are available in the guest area. You ask Bob, he'll spit them out for you to suggest things. And, again, it isn't really about the clich茅 touristy thing in Amsterdam. It's like because you're coming to the neighborhood, so when you choose Bob W Oosterpark, you're not just choosing the building, you're choosing a neighborhood, which is, factually, you know, what people in bigger cities especially like to choose. So we do the, like, the neighborhood secrets and the things revolve mainly around that area that you've chosen. So, it isn't the cliche Tripadvisor top 10, but it's actually the experience there. Then we have the marketplace, breakfast, gyms, etcetera. We have 33% of our guests buy breakfast, and we sell millions of euros worth of breakfast. And we don't have a single kitchen. We don't have a single spatula in the company, well, aside from the rooms themselves. So, breakfast is local partners, and we specifically choose interesting gyms. So, gym is always included in the price, and breakfast is you could get a bed and breakfast rate. And it's always two local restaurants slash cafes. So, we support the local community, and we specifically pick things which are genuinely local and authentic and quirky and interesting and independent, etcetera. And then the final piece is the room itself. So, we've won a bunch of design awards, by the way, Germany and Finland for hotel designs. You wouldn't think of it from, like, basically a three-star hotel price point, right? Usually, you associate that with the boutique hotels, four and five stars. I mean, we're like, if you put the rewards there, we're probably, like, you know, the most accessible in terms of from a customer perspective. Why? We built this, what we call the the sustainable local design narrative. That means that whilst Bob W is standardized for the good things, the kitchens have standard utilities, the lock systems are the same, the same amenities, utilities in the building are always available. On the other side of things, we've also standardized what we don't want standard. So, we will work with local interior architect designers to build a narrative of what inspired us at Bob W Amsterdam Oosterpark, what inspired an Oosterpark area for us to create this design? And the designer gets the color schemes, the finishes, and stuff like that. There's a story, oh, it comes from, you know, the body of water there and it's inspired by the park, and so and so. We pick local furniture brands. We always have local ceramists do coffee cups for us, again, supporting the local community. We always have local artists, and we then tell the story of these local artists. So, like, we used a guy called Don for our Amsterdam Noord property, for example, super amazing guy, super inspiring artist and designer, and we wanna support that local community. So, when the guest arrives at a Bob W, it's like, man, this feels like Amsterdam. There's a beautiful story behind it. And it's beautiful, and it's unique. You'll recognize a Bob W across the board. There are certain elements that repeat the positive stuff, but also it will be distinctly local, whether it's Berlin Mitte or Amsterdam Noord or Kampii in Helsinki or Kensington in London, they will have a distinctly local design story. And that's exactly what the customer was looking for. And the other side of the ball, big box hotel that looks the same anywhere you go.
[00:31:06] Matt Welle: Yeah.
[00:31:07] Niko Karstikko: And that's not really inspiring for the modern traveler that wants to live like a local and be a part of the community.
[00:31:11] Matt Welle: And you're experiencing this amazing growth, but you control a lot of it because you manage the properties yourself, whereas most of the brands have done asset lights. Is that a direction that you're thinking of taking Bob W, or you're thinking of making sure that you wanna control that entire experience end-to-end still?
[00:31:26] Niko Karstikko: We're in a sector of hospitality that doesn't have standards. We want to be a household name globally at the end of the day, let's start with Europe first. We're nicely underway in 11 countries and a bunch of countries signed. And so, we want to create that household name in this new category, hospitality. We need to be our own standard in a sector that doesn't have standards, and you know, that's what the Hiltons and the Marriotts did in the, I guess, 70s, 80s, and they built that. Right? And then everybody followed suit and became an industry standard. We want to do the same thing in our sector. And that's why I think if you look at sort of similar peers to ours, we have the most consistent experience because we appreciate consistency and because we know the customer appreciates and expects consistency. Managing our, so we have leases and management agreements, and that's our way that, you know, we work with some of the biggest landlords in Europe to deliver our standards, like 250 pages worth of standards into a property. Well, we will continue to do that, and that's to stay in control. Now, we have been, from our sort of software, tech stack approach, been approached by all sorts of big box hotel players and smaller ones and private equity that they would like to pursue it and push it onto other hotel brands. But at this point, we're like, okay, let's be in control of it now.
[00:32:50] Matt Welle: Yeah.
[00:32:51] Niko Karstikko: We might reconsider in the future.
[00:32:52] Matt Welle: Cause I鈥檇 imagine once you really go, like, massive and you've got tens of thousands of units around the world, investors will start pushing for an asset light because it is lower risk once you do asset light, right, so.
[00:33:01] Niko Karstikko: I think that's a natural progression that we will get there. I think we're reaching that maturity as a company, and we are the go-to option for the biggest landlords in Europe that already know and that signals the trust already. So, I think we will see that now. Is it 1, 2, 3 years away? We don't know. Right now, I follow this old startup sentiment or the saying, which is that 鈥渁 startup should do as little things as possible, and whatever they do, do 10 times better than anybody else.鈥�
[00:33:33] Matt Welle: Yeah.
[00:33:34] Niko Karstikko: And that's why we鈥檝e been, you know, tinkering with our, let's do a more luxury version, let's do a student version, let's do a budget version, let's do a hostel version of Bob W, and we just keep going back to this is the market is so huge. There are so many opportunities. Let's keep our focus, but we'll get there.
[00:33:52] Matt Welle: What is one thing that you're excited about next year?
[00:33:54] Niko Karstikko: I think we talked about before the personal recognition, like technology is in a beautiful state of creative destruction right now, and I think players like Bob W and softwares like 榴莲视频 are the best position to take advantage of this kind of not once in a century, let's call it once in a decade, I guess we've had internets and mobile devices and everything else. They'll be the next fad as well, and the next revolution that happens. But it's such a great time to be utilizing technology and hospitality, one of the largest industries in the world, and through that, we'll be able to create some kind of magic that the customers will benefit far and wide.
[00:34:40] Matt Welle: I've really enjoyed talking to you. And a few of the takeaways that I've taken from this conversation is, one, you can run a building not like a hotel, but like an aparthotel and be incredibly profitable, more profitable than a traditional hotel concept, guests are more tech savvy than you you think that they are, and you can make sure that a 100% of guests use their own personal smartphone and devices to get into the buildings, to engage with you. And whilst you do that, you can create better guest experiences, like, seeing these customer satisfaction rates that you have versus the traditional hospitality industry, being ahead of them shows that, actually, guests love great technology, but it has to be great. And I think it really means investing in the greatness of technology and then adding that human factor to it. It's been really, really wonderful learning more about Bob W. Thank you for sharing that with us.
[00:35:30] Niko Karstikko: Matt, thanks for having me on.
