Interview with Thynk's CEO
What is the primary mission that Thynk was founded on and has that mission evolved?
We believe the world has changed and that our industry needs to adapt to meet the needs of both hoteliers and their guests in this ever-changing new world. Thynk’s primary mission and the key to our success is empowering our customers with true business agility in their sales, operations, finance and management teams. As the first solution to serve as a centralized source of knowledge and processes for each of these areas—both on and above property—Thynk eliminates technological silos that sit within each property location or department. In addition, we aid hoteliers in addressing the needs of their guests at every stage of the customer relationship lifecycle, rather than just focusing on a single stay. We provide actionable data and seamless automation that leads to efficient guest service, allowing hoteliers to personalize their offerings the right way, at the right time, and within the right business context to guarantee maximum results and profitability.
Thynk enables the shift towards operations digitalization and the need to do more with less, due to staffing shortages. With everything now seemingly needing to be done at the last minute and taking place at a much quicker pace, Thynk’s ongoing mission will also be to provide hoteliers with effortless flexibility in managing their operations. With Thynk, our customers benefit from a future-proof core solution that keeps pace with increasingly hectic business environments and the ever-evolving preferences of guests.
How has hospitality changed in recent years and how do hotels need to evolve to stay relevant and profitable?
Technology has become a key asset in hospitality’s shift from thinking only about RevPAR to focusing on what is really important, which is actual profit margins. Digitalized and centralized solutions are now allowing hoteliers to drill down into the profit-generating potential of each guest in granular detail. This means that management teams can make the right decisions on what to promote and to whom to promote it at the optimum time to ensure the highest levels of profitability and success.
In our new world, there is also a need to create a new generation of services that take changing market conditions, such as the rise of Airbnb, into account. While older legacy solutions were designed around the industry’s traditional approach to selling individual assets, today’s hoteliers need more robust technologies that can accommodate an experience and package-driven approach tied to current demographical trends and individual guest preferences. They need solutions that can seamlessly achieve this consistently, instantly, and while using a brand’s own unique voice to maximize results.
From a hotelier’s perspective, what makes Thynk unique, and how is it different from other hotel solutions on the market?
Instead of leaving guest expectations partially fulfilled and revenue on the table for the hotelier, Thynk’s competitive edge lies in its ability to not just provide insightful data but also put it into instant action in a way that aligns with specific business and guest relationship goals. Using a process that’s fully automated from end-to-end, integrated, and operational out of the box, Thynk allows hotel businesses to engage with their guests using the right tone of voice, the right offerings, and at the right time to ensure both heightened satisfaction and profitability. Without increasing the workloads of overstretched hotel staff, Thynk automatically reveals the information that hoteliers need to adapt to a constantly evolving marketplace while activating the new opportunities that arise as a result.
How will the Series A Funding help further Thynk’s mission?
Using the latest funding, our goal is to further expand globally to ensure that more hoteliers are able to benefit from a core operating solution with a fully digitized ecosystem that aligns with their business strategies. With many of our customers coming from an enterprise level, we clearly see a need to gain a greater presence worldwide to ensure that they have access to our entire suite of services and support across their portfolios.
As a scalable and future-proof platform, funding will also be leveraged to build upon the core capabilities of the Thynk solution and expand its use cases. As hotel environments become increasingly interconnected, our focus will continue to be on enabling seamless integrations with the full spectrum of systems and services that hoteliers use. A top goal of this effort is to expand the set of actionable data analytics that hotels can rely on to make better and faster decisions that make the most sense for the interests of their business and guests. Going forward, our aim will be to serve as a seamless end-to-end operational ecosystem, with features such as payment processing included, in order to provide hoteliers with even greater flexibility in capitalizing on shifting market and guest trends.
What key factors do you think most attracted investors to Thynk and what makes it a good financial risk?
The Series A funding first serves as a very strong signal that what we represent is a tremendous opportunity for providing a core solution that addresses the industry’s slow march toward digitalization. While it’s true that many hotels have partially digitalized, it’s been done in a piecemeal way with multiple disparate modules and no centralized logic behind it.
Our investors recognize that we have the right technology and global team in place to finally resolve this major industry pain point. Our core personnel have a strong background in both hospitality and technology. Combined with the impressive results that we have already achieved in digitalizing hotel operations with a data-driven approach, Thynk has proven to be an ideal investment for savvy financiers who see the long-term potential for technological innovation in our industry.
What type of hospitality operation is best suited for Thynk and how does it benefit various operational areas?
The flexibility and comprehensive design of our solution means that Thynk can cater to owners, asset managers, management companies, and brands for a wide range of different use cases. For owners and asset managers, our consolidated data reporting is vital to revealing performance and how strategies need to shift to take new conditions, risks, and opportunities into account.
For design hotel owners and asset managers, Thynk addresses their desire to bring greater value to assets by centralizing the knowledge and efforts of their sales teams. This is especially important when attempting to trigger large corporate deals, with Thynk pushing such leads towards a brand’s assets and ensuring that they can see such opportunities through to a successful end result.
On the operator side, Thynk’s combination of sales operations and financial processes means that we can seamlessly consolidate information from various assets, regardless of whether they represent separate management contracts or contracts with different brands. In a multi-brand environment, Thynk provides effortless CRM management with the ability to instantly tailor package offerings, whether for groups, events, or long-stay guests. While optimizing the efforts of onsite staff by coaching them and empowering them with valuable data KPIs, the Thynk advantage also lies in the ability for businesses to configure and adjust the solution to align with how an organization seeks to manage its processes. This essentially means that Thynk can serve as a turnkey white-label platform that can instantly adapt to the priorities and goals of any hotel business, regardless of type, brand, or size.
What’s next for Thynk?
The success of Thynk hinges on our ability to support local operations for our global customers, who have a presence in various markets around the world. That’s why we will continue to place an emphasis on expanding our reach throughout key regions, including Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Asia.
Steadfastly focused on technology innovation, we will continue striving to provide hoteliers with advances in centralized data and unified operational ecosystems. The hospitality industry will continue to evolve and will inevitably require new solutions designed to adapt to that change and increased demand for more streamlined, faster, and personalized service. Thynk’s commitment to remain at the forefront of innovation will ensure that hoteliers can be the drivers of market change, rather than simply reacting to it—and give them the ability to fully capitalize on new opportunities as they arise.
In conclusion, Thynk's funding infusion is a significant milestone for the company and the hospitality industry. With a mission to empower hoteliers worldwide with data-driven business agility and operational excellence, Thynk is Re:Thynking the way hotels operate.
The funding will enable Thynk to expand globally and provide a fully digitized ecosystem that aligns with hoteliers' business strategies and by leveraging technology and data insights, Thynk will help more hoteliers make informed decisions for maximum profitability and guest satisfaction.
Our unique approach lies in its ability to seamlessly integrate data into actionable strategies, personalized to each hotel's brand voice. The funding will also support the development of seamless integrations with various systems and services, expanding the range of actionable data analytics available to hoteliers.
With a strong team with a combined experience of 250+ years in hospitality and technology, Thynk has attracted investors who recognize the potential for technological innovation in the industry. Moving forward, Thynk will continue to focus on expanding its reach, driving innovation, and empowering hoteliers to capitalize on new opportunities.
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