VRWS Leadership Interview of the Day

How would you describe your career path and what led you to start Losjitech?

“The decision to start Losjitech came out of a few reasons. I started in the vacation rental business purely by “accident”  in 2008. in the beginning we had to create work arounds with software that was clearly designed with hotels in mind. Despite searching for years to find more suitable software that could bring our STR MGMT business to the next level, we were unable to find the software we deemed necessary to scale the business in a sustainable way. So the last and only solution was to build it ourselves. Luckily Dharma had employed a Full Stack developer since 2016 and he had a good understanding of what it would take to build what we are now launching in the next 6 – 9 months. Another valid reason was that we simply saw a business opportunity and we all agreed that we, as an STR MGMT company with 15 years experience, were in a unique position to build great software due to our vast experience as operators. 

“I am glad that we might be past the stage where any Tech enabled person or group of Tech oriented people think they can just raise a bunch of money and succeed big time in this space”, your last LinkedIn post says. What does it take to be a successful entrepreneur in the startup landscape and why do most youngsters fail? 

“I do not know if I am in a position to discuss all the traits that are typically needed to be a successful entrepreneur, but I think there are some very important human qualities needed to build a real business and many of them are almost never talked about. One thing that is very important is basic wisdom acquired from real work and life experience and that is where very young people can be at a disadvantage because they are young. It is also important to have a big network and many young people do not have that. But many young entrepreneurs also succeed and so I think we cannot say that most youngsters fail. “

Let’s say for the purpose of the interview that Losjitech is exhibiting at an in-person event. A property manager approaches you to find out more. How would you describe the benefits Losjitech provides?

“LosjiTech’s Operations Platform is designed to provide quality hospitality service in a front desk-less and contactless world. Our platform will enable operators to manage their hospitality business based on real business intelligence and administer first-class guest service from anywhere in the world.”

VRWS 22 is about to land in Porto. What do you expect from the overall experience?

“This is my first time attending a VRWS event in Europe and so I am very excited and to be honest I do not know exactly what to expect. But if it is anything similar to what we experienced at the Scale rentals event we attended in Barcelona in May earlier this year, I expect to meet and talk with a lot of experienced and sophisticated vacation rental professionals. Because one thing is clear, the European market is in many ways ahead of the US and this industry has been around for a long time in Europe. But now times are changing and technology is becoming more and more important and the US has an amazing opportunity to bring some of the American entrepreneurial spirit it has deployed in other industries to the vacation rental and alternative housing market.