Happy Sunday!
Welcome back to Founders Feature, a weekly newsletter all about the journeys of young startup founders.
For this week's edition, I interviewed Francois Gouelo, Co-founder of Enso Connect, a Canadian-based prop-tech startup that empowers hospitality businesses to know their guests.
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Here’s what Enso Connect is all about:
🏠 The Basics
The Problem:
Rapid growth and professionalisation of the short-term rental market attract large Amazon-like players willing to invest massive resources into the space. This puts at risk property managers and hosts, who need to keep up with the market sophistication and guests’ demand for hotel-like experiences. In order to stay relevant and grow, operators have to combine multiple software and spend more time and money on personalising their offers and delighting their guests.
The Solution:
Enso Connect is a single operating system that helps short-term rental operators to differentiate themselves by creating guest experiences and building guest relationships. Leveraging AI and smart home technologies, the platform allows to automate up to 80% of guest communications, as well as provide seamless check-in /check-out experience and upsell added value services such as airport pick-ups, food delivery, etc.
Enso Connect is also a smart CRM tool that gives operators real-time details on their guests’ habits and preferences, allowing them to craft highly tailored offers and win return customers, all in a few clicks.
The Team:
We are two co-founders driven by our passion for tech and travel. I did my undergrad in Computer Science and Cognitive Science and my Co-founder and CTO, Peter Sorbo, studied machine intelligence engineering science also at the University of Toronto. Our team is constantly growing, having expanded from just two of us to more than 10 people in one year. We have recently hired a marketing manager, a UX designer, and two more developers. We are always in search of talented people to join the Enso Connect team.
We also have a very supportive and experienced advisory board that helps us navigate through our entrepreneurial journey.
🚀 The Journey
How did you come up with your startup/solution?
Enso essentially started as a class project at the University of Toronto as part of the Department of Computer Science Innovation, where we had to come up with a solution to an entrepreneurial problem with a robotics focus, so I decided to focus on smart home devices.
Around the same time, a friend called me up and suggested we go on a ski trip. I agreed, and we booked our Airbnb as an instant book on the way there. Since it automatically gets approved, we received an automated message saying the keys would be under the doormat, which they were, but frozen under three centimeters of thick ice. We managed to unfreeze it with lighters and a lot of effort, and when we finally got into the unit, we couldn't figure out the heating system and it was freezing. Throughout the stay, we asked the host questions like "Where can we buy our ski passes?" but never received an answer, which was very frustrating. To top this all off, we received a message from the host 5 days after checking out saying we left one of the kitchen windows open, the kitchen pipe had frozen and we owe him $5,000 in damages. Luckily, Airbnb took our side on this, so it all ended up fine, but we realised how easily this all could have been avoided with a smart sensor in the kitchen, which would have flagged that temperature drop.
This all kickstarted the idea, and so for our class project, we ended up building a small proof of concept of a smart lock that could be used to smooth the check-in process.
By the way, the door that we used to present the solution in class, is still in our office. It has become a symbol of Enso Connect and by our tradition, every new team member leaves a signature on the door. (See the picture below)
Why is this the right time for this problem to be solved?
While travel is ramping up again post-covid and the industry shifts towards professionalisation, short-term rental operators are looking for ways to stand out, build their brands and create communities of loyal guests.
Also, people are increasingly relying on reviews to inform their purchasing decisions, and guest experience is not a nice-to-have, it's a quantifiable metric that increases STR revenue. Guest Experience is one of the six pillars of Airbnb reviews, which drive higher search engine ranking, and thus higher revenue for hosts.
What is a recent success you are proud of?
The most recent success I'm proud of is closing another fundraising round. It's a lengthy and difficult process because it involves reaching out to hundreds of people and facing rejection. Founders need to develop a thick skin and stay motivated until they find support. And when you meet people, who believe in you and your business as much as you do, that's what makes it all worth it.
Also, I'm proud of how fast we're growing. We recently got past 12,000 listings in 18 different countries!
What is a recent challenge you have faced?
My biggest challenge was fundraising and I am happy we've overcome that part. My current focus is building a great company culture. Now when we're scaling it is important for me to build a strong team that is driven by the same values of collaboration, forward-thinking, and passion for tech and hospitality. I also want to make sure that while achieving our goals together we are enjoying the process and having fun as a team.
What do you wish you knew before you started and is there anything you would have done differently in hindsight?
Honestly, everything. From fundraising to growth, to spending money, we could have probably done what we did in a year and a half in just 6 months with the knowledge we have now. But especially as first-time founders this is just part of the experience of building a company.
For example, on the product side, we sometimes focused on opportunities that weren't crystal clear at the time, that ended up being dead ends, but they were also part of the R&D and essential in how our product has pivoted over time.
Being surrounded by the right people, our team, our advisors, and our investors, has really helped us navigate those uncertainties.
🧠 The Lessons
What is the best advice you have been given recently?
Ask an investor for money, and you will get advice, ask an investor for advice, and you will get money.
When you approach potential investors, pitching how great your business is and how much they can benefit from the investment won’t be enough. All startups do this and you can end up being one of a million similar opportunities. What you need is to have them really understand the problem and get emotionally involved in solving this problem with you. People engage much more when it becomes a personal experience.
What advice would you give to other young founders?
Focus entirely on your customers. Understand your users, what they want, what pains they have, and how you can solve their problems. It's very easy to get distracted by a lot of cool things you could do that have no significant importance for your customer.
Start with a problem, not an idea. Don't build nice to haves, build things that answer people's needs.
What is the biggest lesson you have learned so far?
I have learned that people and relationships are crucial for success. It’s not just about networking, but about genuine human connections, support, and faith in what you do. Having people who believe in you and your ability to solve the problem you are working on is priceless. Your team, your customers and your investors put their trust in you and this is the reason to wake up and grind every day.
I also didn't realise how challenging hiring was until I actually started hiring. In a startup, you're looking for people who are self-starters, who share your passion. But self-starters usually like to walk their own paths and are therefore hard to find.
✨ The Inspiration
Who inspires you?
There are a few people who have become advisors to me. For example, Andrew Kitchel knows how to explain things that are fairly complicated in the most simple ways and this is a skill I admire. Daniel Dubois, also a mentor of mine, has this contagious passion, drive, and entrepreneurial spirit that he brings to everything he does.
My co-founder, Peter, is a daily source of inspiration to me. He plays a huge role in the success of Enso Connect. We get along really well and perfectly balance each other in our day-to-day.
What book do you think everyone should read?
Never Split the Difference - Chris Voss
The Lean Startup - Eric Ries