AssetTech Pioneer Pepper Names Romi Mahajan as President

To read the full release go here

Q: We just saw the announcement. Congratulations on joining Pepper as President.

A: Thanks Paul. I am thrilled to have the trust and faith reposed in me by the Founding team at Pepper, specifically CEO Pulak Sinha. Pepper is an important part of the AssetTech ecosystem, and has in fact been a pioneer in the space so I don’t take this mantle lightly.

Q: Tell us a bit more about Pepper’s plans- how is 2023 shaping up?

A: Pepper has been commercially active for a short time only- just a few years. The platform was developed to de-risk customers, partners, and investors. CTO Jaskaran Singh is a world-class architect and technologist and CEO Pulak Sinha knows more about the industry than I will ever. They tailor made the platform for Asset Managers, especially in Alts, Secondaries, Private Markets, and so on. They built it in conjunction with some large customers and now we’ve unleashed the Kraken. So 2023 looks, well, very buoyant.

Well we are super excited to see where you take Pepper from here!

We caught up with Min Alexander, CEO of PunchListUSA.

Marketing Darwinism: Min, you are the CEO and Co-Founder of PunchListUSA. Tell us more about your mission there.

Min Alexander: We have a mission to make homeownership possible for as many as possible and to empower homeowners to maximize the value of their investment throughout the home-owning life-cycle. For us, the inspection report is a font of knowledge, from which we can derive a lot of information not only about the house in its current state but also in its future state. Helping homeowners understand this and, further, provide a tailored roadmap of ownership– for proper maintenance, repairs and improvements is our mission.

Marketing Darwinism: So for you the inspection is the pivot point for homeowners?

Min Alexander: Yes, it is. It’s almost like a “23 and Me” for a House. We utilize the current condition of the home, materials used for construction and ages of the major systems, among 400+ other data points to help homeowners to better understand, plan and manage the requirements to preserve and grow equity.

Marketing Darwinism: How does this fit into the crisis of home affordability in the US?

Min Alexander: Home affordability is a multi-pronged problem. Part of it is of course wrapped up in rising house prices, rising interest rates, and the need for high down payments. But part of it is also the ongoing cost of maintenance, which is roughly $4,000 each year for an average home. These routine costs do not include emergency repairs and replacement of major systems like HVAC and water heaters. We are here to help homeowners manage and plan for the full needs of their home. This solves part of the problem to ensure that homeownership is sustainable.

Marketing Darwinism: For our Marketing audience, how do you think about Marketing in general as you develop PLUSA’s plans?

Min Alexander: We very much believe in Marketing and it is a core competency for our retail business– as an emerging home services marketplace. First of all, our reputation and brand management are paramount. We are a technology in the business of repairing and improving people’s homes. This is a personal experience built on trust. Second, our omni-channel marketing strategies reflect both digital and analog components of our business. Sourcing, acquisition and ordering are online with field marketing and delivery at a local level. Third, personalized journeys and customized content based on the needs of each home will continue to be our focus. We are constantly learning and adding services and we need to stay in the circles of influence to test, refine, and excite.

Marketing Darwinism: What is your prognosis for the Housing Market?

Min Alexander: We’ve had years of unprecedented gain. Even with a slowdown, economic conditions and market conditions make it hard for many people to manage. Housing is a key industry and has to be figured into regulatory planning. We also need to help people find financial pathways to homeownership.

Marketing Darwinism: Any parting thoughts?

Min Alexander: Homeownership is simple to dream but complex to manage without stress. We love and invite feedback on our technology and offering for continuous improvement. Let us know what you think

In an earlier article, Marketing Darwinism spoke to Pulak Sinha, Founder and CEO of Pepper.  Since we spoke with Pulak, the company has done some incredible things.  We enjoy watching the evolution and growth of those we’ve covered before.  

Marketing Darwinism:  Pulak, some amazing things are going on.  Tell us a bit about developments.

Pulak Sinha:  Thanks Paul.  There are many things to say but I’ll restrict it to three.  First of all, we couldn’t be happier with our customers.  They are amazing “partners” in the business and tell us that they are realizing real value very quickly from the Pepper platform.  As they take on new workloads, they are able to do so seamlessly and get to ROI in record time.  Nothing makes us happier.  Second, we are happy to announce that as of January 2022, we have over $6 billion on the platform, which is testament to the efforts of our team and the intense partnerships I referred to above.  Finally, we are happy to be able to announce our “Pepper Inside” campaign with you.  Please look for our ads on LinkedIn and elsewhere and check out our website for our benefits statement- how Asset Management and related companies can benefit from “Pepper Inside.”

Marketing Darwinism: Superb updates. Congrats on the $6 Billion.  What’s next?

Pulak Sinha: We are focused like a laser now.  We want to get more companies on our platform but also to deepen our footprint/partnerships with existing customers.  We built a platform for a reason- not to just offer one point solution and then be done.  We are talking full life-cycle, cross-workload stuff- truly a platform.  2022 is the year of the platform and “Pepper Inside.”

Marketing Darwinism: You’ve helped coin the term “AssetTech” as a sub-area of FinTech.  Tell us more.

Pulak Sinha: Paul, the numbers are just staggering.  PwC estimates that approximately $120 trillion is managed world-wide by Asset Managers.  $120 trillion!  This area dwarves so many others that get more “respect” and focus.  We want to change that. We want to help steward a new era of technology and trust in the world of Asset Management, an area of enormous importance.  Thus, the term “AssetTech.”

Marketing Darwinism: How do you see 2022 as compared to 2021?

Pulak Sinha: 2021 was a strange year.  People went through a lot.   Death and health issues were everywhere. Commerce pulled up.  Investors focused on different things than usual.  Tumult was a constant.  Our team worked hard to stabilize, to be optimistic, and to serve customers.  We more than doubled the business in the year and are very proud of that.  But there is so much more to do- that’s 2022!

Marketing Darwinism: Tell us about “Pepper Inside”

Pulak Sinha:  We as a team conceived of this campaign after a realization:  When we are “inside” an organization –which is to say when Asset Managers run the Pepper platform, the level of stewardship – of money, data, assets- goes up and investors can rest assured that their money is going to be handled with an eye towards high ROI, risk management, and so on.  Trust.  Pepper Inside is about trust and results.  When we realized that, we knew we had to go big with this campaign. 

Marketing Darwinism had the Opportunity to Meet Up with Jeremy McCarty, Co-Founder and CEO of Valligent Technologies.

Marketing Darwinism: Jeremy, the Real Estate Technology/PropTech space is, simply put, “on fire” as of the last few years.  Can you comment on this and on Valligent’s place in the mix?

Jeremy: Indeed, Real Estate as a sector and RE Tech specifically are buoyant and exciting.  It is important to remember that residential real estate is the largest “industry” in the country. US homes in aggregate are worth upwards of $35 Trillion collectively and this year almost 7 Million houses will be bought and sold.  The application of technology to this space is key to its future and we’re fortunate at Valligent Technologies to be at the heart of this.  While our valuation an appraisal business has been healthy for years, we saw huge potential in virtual appraisals and low-touch valuations and skated to where that puck was going.  We now have the most innovative virtual appraisal offering in the industry and the regulatory environment has made massive scale possible in this space.  All in all, we don’t feel like we have a ring-side seat; instead we feel like we are on the field playing the game!

Marketing Darwinism: Tell us more about the changes you see in the space?

Jeremy: There are so many changes, manifesting daily.  Some of these changes are “disruptive” and others are just natural extensions or evolutions of what existed.  On the former side, take the notion of house appraisals.  House appraisals are very much about the verification of valuation.  In the home buying process- still a lengthy procedure—the valuation of the house is the centerpiece.  From what loan you get all the way to the cost of insurance, the valuation pops up a dozen times at least in the process.  Now imagine being able to get an accurate valuation with technology, in less than an hour.  No long waits for appraisers and white-knuckling the results.  No costly and repetitive services to be subjected to.  Now, imagine further.  Of the circa 7M houses that will sell this year, 40% of so are eligible for waivers on the standard appraisal.  Enter virtual appraisals.  Such speed and scale are a sea-change in what is otherwise a slow moving industry.

Marketing Darwinism: We see a lot of VC, PE, SPAC, and other investment dollars going into this space.  Is there a bubble here?

Jeremy: As in all spaces, this one will have winners and losers.  There is a certain amount of rhetoric and exaggeration in the space, especially with regard to “dressing up” old business models with new “language.”  We see technology buzzwords abounding but when it comes down to it, many companies still rely on analog and traditional methods to transact.  We understood this and have partnered with leading technology players like Quantarium and have developed cutting-edge tech capacity of our own.  So, yes, there are bubble aspects but in reality we are just beginning to see this industry transformed by the combination of technology, regulatory change, innovation in business process, and highly capable and educated consumers.

Marketing Darwinism: Tell us about your Marketing work?  After all, we do care a LOT about Marketing!

Jeremy: Marketing is key to Valligent’s success.  We are big believers in participating in the industry community and in doing our part to promote the industry as a whole. We have been pleased to receive multiple awards in the space and that notoriety has helped create a flywheel of engagement, advocacy, referral, and growth.  Marketing is and will always be core to our company and we feel very strongly that we back up our messaging with a product and solution platform nonpareil.

Marketing Darwinism: Any parting thoughts?

Jeremy: We continue to be excited about Valligent’s growth in the new world of Real Estate and about the space in general.  We believe that top talent will be drawn to RE Tech and that the addition of smart, driven, and innovative people will help the industry mature into a fully tech-enabled and dynamic part of the economy.  It’s already the biggest part of the economy but we want it to be seen as cutting edge.

Marketing Darwinism chatted with Pepper’s CEO Pulak Sinha on progress since last time we spoke.

Marketing Darwinism:  Pulak, how has progress been since connecting six months ago?

Pulak:  I appreciate the question around progress since in fact that is the key determinant of a company’s success.  We’ve made enormous progress on a variety of fronts, most significantly around customers, product, and team.  We’ve expanded and deepened our customer connection; over $5B runs on the Pepper platform today- doubling in 6 months.  Produce-wise we’ve introduced a variety of new modules and connectors and have launched a low-code orchestrator for our customers.  And we’ve expanded our team, with two solid executives joining over the last quarter.  Miles to go still of course but real velocity in the right direction.

Marketing Darwinism: Remind us again about your “raison d’etre” and your core target market

Pulak:  We built Pepper from the ground up to offer simplicity, ease, success, and ROI to Asset Management and Portfolio Management teams.  That Asset Manager with a new fund or one that is seeking optimization of data to improve outcomes in a current fund, the portfolio manager who wants to harness data- across investment and asset classes- to drive customer value, the data-drenched Asset Manager who is looking to at once increase returns while simultaneously complying with the varied regulatory frameworks in the industries and geographies that government his/her investments—these are the people for whom we’ve built Pepper.  We believe we are the leading data platform for ROI optimization in the space.

Marketing Darwinism: As an entrepreneur, how did you land on this space and why does it continue to animate you?

Pulak:  Great question.  The numbers are striking.  Asset Managers have been given $120 trillion to manage on behalf of clients.  Such staggering numbers can overwhelm.  Of this, over $15 trillion is invested in alternatives.  Making sense of all these investments, optimizing current portfolios, and analyzing the benefits of new investments in a data-driven fashion – these are all areas we support.  I got into the space because when I was deep in the industry, I needed a “Pepper.”  Such stories to me are the essence of the journey we are on.  We’ve been successful so far but are humbled by the possibilities ahead.

Marketing Darwinism: Recent articles have emphasized the connections between great Chief Information Officers, Asset Managers, and Chief Investment Officers.  Can you comment on that?

Pulak:  Every time one of the articles comes out, it is great for us.  We’ve built an enterprise-class platform that would align all of these roles- a SaaS platform with low time to value, cloud-native and extensible apps, integrations, and ease of use—we believe that we are a crucial piece in the alignment of Asset Management ROI and technology.

Marketing Darwinism: What is your customer success strategy?

Pulak:  This relates back to our mission. Helping customers harness the power of data is never a one-off, point-in-time “task” but is instead a process.  While our platform is very easy to deploy, we make sure to connect with our customers regularly to ensure that they are prospering and getting what they need.  There’s nothing better than seeing them succeed but also getting their feedback and rolling it into the product.

Marketing Darwinism:  Dharmesh you’ve been on our pages before, welcome back.  Tells us about the progress at Advaiya.

Dharmesh: Thanks Paul.  2020 has been a year of massive amplitudes.  In society, there are many people who are suffering and have lost loves ones and jobs. In the business world, companies of all sizes have been jolted into a new state of being; many have realized that all of the earlier talk about sustainability, disaster recovery, and- frankly- agility was real.  Black swan events happen and will happen and companies need the digital infrastructure and a corresponding culture to manage through them.  We’ve been very fortunate to be able to help a variety of organizations through this process this year.

Marketing Darwinism:  Can you give us more specifics? Can we move away from “Digital Transformation” as a one-size fits all approach?

Dharmesh:  We agree.  The details and nuances are the nub of the matter.  We believe very strongly in a vertical contextuality not just a patina of “understanding” that is really in practice superficial.  I can’t help a Financial Services company create a digital backbone if I don’t understand its customers, its regulatory environment, and the changing landscape in the space.  Similarly, we’ve seen the healthcare system buckle under lack of capacity because earlier consultants thought of them as “any old” industry and convinced them to be “just in time.” In reality, they are a social service that requires a peak load view not a base load view.  These snapshots of vertical insight differentiate us often.

Marketing Darwinism:  In a WFH or now Work-From-Anywhere context, how do organizations need to think about digitization?

Dharmesh:  We have believed in WFA and SFA (Source from Anywhere) for a long time.  We have understood that the best talent for the job can be found anywhere and that our customers themselves are not fixed in time and space.  We believe that in a WFH and WFA context, the “silicon” isn’t the full solution- people and culture are a big part of the equation.  Technology infrastructure and applications need to enable them to uncover new scenarios and act on them.  That is the heart of real innovation and progress.

Marketing Darwinism:  How is Advaiya’s growth orientation?

Dharmesh:  Over the last 5 years, we’ve had a continuous, secular growth trajectory.  Q2 of this year was a hiccup as we all adjusted to the new reality of Covid.  But as companies sought change and wisdom and frankly help in Q3, we’ve seen our growth return.  Right now, we are focused purely on customers and partnerships; growth will persist if we maintain that focus.

Marketing Darwinism:  You work a lot in aiding marketing organizations.  How is that going?

Dharmesh:  In our incarnation as an agency- for content, digital assets, analytics, visualization of data, and so on, we attempt to be an organic part of the teams we support.  Marketing teams have been wonderful to work with- at times we are simply a human-being extension and at times we are developing markets together.  None of our offerings are atomic- they all connect to a larger marketing reality.

Marketing Darwinism:  What’s next?

Dharmesh:  We have a lot planned for 2021. We are continuing our big push with applications and infrastructure but also with our “last mile” customer work.  As we grow in both North America and Asia, we’ve been able to bring on some exceptional talent.  As with everything, they’ll help us define what is next!

Marketing Darwinism: John, tell us about Zact.  We love it when founders tell their stories.

John:  Thanks Paul.  Zact was born of a simple idea- that Expense and Payment Management – core to the success of any organization- should not be an area of constant frustration and deficit.  We built Zact with three things in mind- 1. The Integrity of the process whereby accounting reconciliation is inherent; 2. Driving harmony between the employees and the Accounting and Finance Department; 3. Helping customers spend their time and capital on growth and not on the error-prone minutiae that often hampers them.  When I look at what our small team has accomplished in record time, I’m really very proud.

Marketing Darwinism: So Zact is an Expense Management system?

John: That and much more.  Zact is a true platform for Expense and Payment Management.  Our innovative business-design win is manifested in a product called “The One Employee Card” which allows for Managed Autonomy- spending within guardrails and easy reconciliation.  It is also very much about democratization- all employees are part of the growth story for the organization.  But we didn’t stop there; instead with our App, our backend, and our native Cloud-based reconciliation, we emerge not as a point-solution but as a platform.

Marketing Darwinism: Would you classify yourself as a Fintech company?

John: Absolutely.  Fintech, and the sub-category PaymentTech, is a burgeoning area that we are thrilled to be in and associated with.

Marketing Darwinism: So, as a Marketing professional, I have to ask you about the Expensify CEO’s email to his customers and community asking them to vote for Biden.  What are your thoughts?

John: Each entrepreneur does what he or she sees fit for his or her business. Interestingly, this particular email brought attention to a space – payments and expense reporting – that is often relegated to the arena of “necessary but not sexy”.  I hope this email draws customers’ attention to innovations that are happening in this space to drive financial and operational efficiencies while enhancing reporting integrity – three attributes fundamental to the Zact narrative.

Marketing Darwinism: As a startup CEO, how do you think about Marketing?  Do you plan to invest further in the space?

John: I believe in Marketing.  Ultimately, Zact is all about current and potential customers; we feel, very humbly, that the more we scale, the more we’ll drive real satisfaction to our customers and real value to all elements of the ecosystem.  We also believe that a core driver of that process of scale and speed is marketing.  It is an area that we plan to invest in heavily going forward.

Marketing Darwinism: Any parting thoughts for MD’s readers?

John: Indeed, we hope that our solution(s) are highly relevant and fundamentally useful to all of our customers and ultimately their employees, partners, and customers too.  The journey so far has been exhilarating.  We know that each road has potholes but are determined to keep the faith, to drive hard, and to always focus on our core mission.  Anything less would be an abdication.

Marketing Darwinism: Manish, Advaiya has been going strong for over a decade now.  Tell us about your evolution.

Manish:  Paul, you used the right word here- evolution.  Our company has grown and evolved a great deal since it was just an idea in our minds years ago, to now being able to list in our roster or customers and partners over 100 companies and over 500 individuals as ongoing customers.  We are at once proud and humbled.  Advaiya started as a Microsoft partner, focused on Enterprise Project Management, and has evolved into a full-service Application Developer, Integrator, and Implementer and a full-scale Digital and Content Agency.  Under one roof, we connect to and service some of the world’s largest companies hailing from North America, Asia, and Europe but also innovative startups and what are deemed “traditional” companies in the manufacturing and services spaces.  We are having a blast.

Marketing Darwinism:  Big Tech has grown into the most powerful economic force in the world.  How do you see that as it relates to Advaiya’s growth?

Manish: We are lucky in this regard in two ways.  First, we have very good relationships with companies that constitute “Big Tech” and continue to partner with them actively.  In fact, many of our outbound efforts are conducted jointly with large companies.  We feel very lucky in that regard.  Second, and maybe even more importantly, the notions of Digital Transformation are real and we are able to offer a layer of know-how, IP, and process on top of the amazing platforms these companies build- we offer them to a slew of customers of a variety of sizes and across verticals.  Companies that many deem as “old world” are in fact embracing Digital Transformation with a speed and vigor that would surprise all the naysayers.  So, again, we have a twofold win here- as customers and as value-add partners.

Marketing Darwinism:  Okay so you said it.  Digital Transformation. Unpack that for me.

Manish: We all know of the clichés and we all know about hyperbole.  But what’s lost in all that are real stories of learning, transformation, growth, culture change, and yes mistakes too.  Digital Transformation is not about rhetorical shifts but about profound changes in the actual processes and products/services an organization uses to engage, operate, and execute.  Isn’t that the goal ultimately?  Digital Transformation implies something deeper too- an ongoing, persistent commitment to honing, improving, and creating efficiencies.  We work with amazing companies that are discovering the mind-bending results of say well-implemented CRM solutions, Data visualization and effective dash-boarding, implementing an effective data strategy, building engaging digital artifacts, and so on.  Being even a small part of that is heady.

Marketing Darwinism:  What do you tell prospective customers to get them to want to work with Advaiya?

Manish: We approach these conversations with a clear view that we must put our best foot forward with all customers.  We have to be able to understand context, culture, as well as the business needs in order to truly be effective.  Even when we were a small team, we were working with some of the world’s largest corporations on critical projects.  There was no room for anything but our A+-game.  Though we have expanded our personnel and our footprint, there is no different in our attitude or our execution.  This is in our view attributable to 4 elements:

First, we are very picky about hiring.  About a third of the company has been with us since inception.  Another third has been with us for over 5 years.  We love growth but it has to be done in a way that does not diminish results.

Second, we have incredible customers who understand that long-term partnerships produce the best results. We are not here just to transact.  We are here to build together.

Third, we are a constant-learning organization.  This applies to the latest technologies, the latest processes and certifications, but also a fundamental dedication to listening.  Learning is key.  Our Chief HR Officer is really our Chief Learning Officer.

Fourth, when we falter, we correct quickly.  We cannot be caught up in the ego and pretensions of being right always.  We are not.

If these factors make sense to you, then please work with us.  Else, let’s just be friends!

Marketing Darwinism:  Any parting thoughts?

Manish: The new technologies and applications, powered by AI and ML and built for customer engagement and improvement are worth looking at. We have a breadth of expertise and the curiosity to learn how to quickly apply these technologies to real scenarios.  We love to listen.  And then to go about making real contributions.

We caught up with Samir Saluja, who we’ve covered before when he started DeriveOne about his new venture, Ahrian LLC.

Marketing Darwinism:  Tell us about Ahrian, your new firm.

Samir:  Thanks Paul.  Ahrian is a boutique consulting firm that will take on a limited number of deep customer partnerships this year.  We work on audience development, innovation and innovation processes, channel empowerment, and market development.  Underpinning these concepts is data, research, and technology.  I’m as excited about Ahrian as I have been about anything else professionally.

Marketing Darwinism: Ahrian – great name.  Tell us more.

Samir:  Well, I must admit, Ahrian is the name of my son.  Just as he’s the light of my full life, this company is the light of my work life.

Marketing Darwinism: You were at Microsoft for a long time.  How does your experience there inflect your work at Ahrian?

Samir:  At Microsoft, I was surrounded by really driven, smart people who thought about speed and scale.  When I co-founded DeriveOne, we wanted to combine speed and scale with actionable insights for companies that were seeking outside help to validate hypotheses and understand their customers, and then with our Project Simile joint venture we have been applying recent advances in machine learning to help customers measure metaphor resonance for brand and communication strategies. With Ahrian, I am synthesizing all my past experience- even my experience in International Trade, to bring to bear the entire panoply of services to my customers.

Marketing Darwinism: You openly say that you aren’t seeking any and all customers, just the right ones.  In fact you call these customer partnerships.  Please walk us through that logic.

Samir:  Deep relationships are partnerships and the only way to truly serve customers is my discovering, exploring, and building together.  I do not want to add only a thin-layer of value but to be considered a real team member, just with a different email address.  Without that depth, you miss context and nuance and without complexity and attending to nuance, you cannot create lasting products and solutions.  Ahrian is my ode to that concept.

Marketing Darwinism: Are you focusing on particular verticals?

Samir:  Yes and no.  We do a lot of work with technology companies and with their ecosystem.  We also work with Fintech and other adjacent areas.  We do so from the vantage point of data-driven growth combined with wisdom and experience.  Ahrian is a prescriptive company but never is it implied that we know better, only that we have an alternative point of view that should be considered.  That has resonated very well in these sectors and will hopefully elsewhere as well.

Marketing Darwinism: What are you most excited about?

Samir:  Building a true boutique firm.  A McKinsey of sorts without the baggage and overhead.

Second, I want to be friends with all my customer partners.  It’s not worth doing if you can’t enjoy your time with people.  If the pandemic has taught us anything it is that life is short, and all solutions start with investing time in people that inspire and fulfill you personally and professionally.

Marketing Darwinism: Steven, it’s been a while since we caught up but I know you are doing something very interesting and relevant now. Can you tell us about your new project?

Steven: Thanks. The last 15 years have been very interesting for me and have culminated in the new stealth startup I’m building. As you know, I cofounded Ascentium and we grew it from zero to 90M in a little less than 7 years. Our entire focus was technology in context and a relentless focus on customer needs. We build the entire company around the customer in our “surround” strategy. When we sold it, I moved into an area that always fascinated me- hospitality, where I partnered with some of the most incredible technical talent to build and nurture systems for hotels, casinos, and other hospitality ventures. My new startup is connected to that space.

Marketing Darwinism: Isn’t the timing for that, well, awkward given the 80% decline in hotel stays and the pandemic situation in general.

Steven: On the surface, yes. But when you dig deeper, you see that when the industry recovers- even if not 100% or even close- it will need flexible systems that can elastically throttle up and down. In addition, as assets get repurposed and value is derived from new modes of business, the currently rigid systems will have to flex. That’s the key to a post- Covid 19 scenario.

Marketing Darwinism: Fascinating. When you talk about repurposing, in some ways that is the key. Transformation, Pivoting, Repurposing….these are buzzwords. Is there something more to them?

Steven: It’s a great point. For many, the “pivots” they’ve announced are hardly interesting. I mean going from serving a sandwich in a closed environment to offering it for pick-up is necessary but not super-innovative. But imagine converting a hotel into a hospital or into temporary work space? Imagine a physical business that transforms itself into a digital, ether-based business. These are the sorts of things that deeply vertical solutions will have to accommodate going forward.

Marketing Darwinism: So, given that, what is your focus now?

Steven: We start with the customer. Customers have been telling me for a long time that they need modular solutions that allow them to scale up and down and don’t require a complex and impacted process or culture curve to adopt. My goal as a technology builder is to start with these needs, to deeply contextualize myself in the culture, and only then to architect the technology. So, as we launch, we will be sure to continue to give you, Paul, the exclusive insight into our plans!

Marketing Darwinism: Steven, how does Marketing fit into your new startup’s plans?

Steven: I’ve always been a big believer in Marketing. All effective companies must communicate clearly and often, and I believe Marketing is the key here. Products are great to build but they can “sit on the shelf” without an effective strategy to win influential people to avail of their benefits. While I am a technologist in the first instance, I am a Marketer in the second; I’ve never built a company without a superb Marketer in the first 3 hires.

Marketing Darwinism: Any thoughts about the future of hospitality and hotels?

Steven: I believe that the industry will find its footing. While we cannot say that this pandemic came out of nowhere, it certainly caught many industries flat-footed. But in the past 2 months I’ve seen story after story of positive transformation – as I alluded to before- and have seen that the entire ecosystem that supports the industry is ready to retool. As such, I think that our job as technologists is to enable and accelerate the processes by which this reinvention takes place. I don’t necessarily believe we’ll be back to the “glory days,” but I’m clear that the new scenario will not be as bleak as was thought in the first waves of this pandemic. Success will be had again!