Climber
It is a software of hotel management which does the automatic management of the prices that the hotels need to sell the rooms, maximizing the profits.
The story told by two friends, Mário Mouraz and João Pedro Feliciano.
1. How this idea came up?
The Climber is my third company. When I had my previous company, also a software for hotels, I realized that the hoteliers lack an automatized tool that made decision for them, since was in that area that we save them a lot of work hours.
When we looked at the market, we realized that the solution that we wanted to implement was not democratized, was not accessible to all the hotels, only to the big ones, the multinational ones. We decided than create that tool, but with a new crew.
2. Which is the business?
The Climber is a software of hotel management, which does the automatic management of the prices that the hotels need to sell the rooms, maximizing the profits. The smart software of Climber analyses the demand and offer of the market and changes in a dynamic way the hotel prices, allowing it to take better advantage from the high demand and offer periods.
3. Which is your vision?
Our vision is to democratize the Revenue Management software, meaning, we all be happy when all the hotels in the world have access to this kind of tool. We are growing very fast at European level, particularly in Germany, Poland, Switzerland and France, but we also have clients spread from all over the world, from Thailand to Argentina or even in China. We wanted to be a global solution since the very first minute of Climber’s existence.
You claim that one of the biggest asset is being surrounded with a very committed team, aligned with the company’s culture.
4. How did you get financing?
We did a little of everything. We started with our own money, around 25.000€. Later we did an opening fund raiser via crowdfunding to friends and family and to individual investors, in a total of 100.000€. We also took national and European funds, we asked for a bank loan and recently we closed up a round of venture investment in a total of 350.000€.
Having money to keep the doors open was a very long and difficult process and one of the main activities of the founders of the company. At the end of the day we have to make sure that no matter what happens the company has to have the opportunities to keep growing and make a mark in the market and that takes time.
5. How did you face the initial uncertainty?
My way of leading with that is to mitigate everything that’s possible, through several plans (Plan A, B, C and sometimes D) for wen things start to go south. But there are also situations that plans won’t do it and it is at that time that you need to face it with strength and passion, which I have for this project and in the people, that believe in us.
6.Which is you client acquisition strategy?
My focus is on the product and I ask myself several times during the day, “which value can I bring to the client?”, “How can I make it more simple and fast?”, “How can I improve it?”
Some piece of advice that Mário and João leave for those who are starting right now:
Don’t look back, take a chance, talk to people who already been there (mentors, advisors, other founders), because you are going to save a lot of wrong steps.
Set your business vision from the beginning. Which are your golds to achieve. It has to be a huge gold, with a lot of motivation, apparently hard to achieve. If not, it won’t worth the fight for it and life is too short to think small.
Mário Mouraz
Be surrounded by people that brings value to your dream, that believe in it, people that you go along and that they are mature enough to admit that sometimes we fail.
João Pedro Feliciano