Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Pam, thanks so much for joining us.
Pam Martinez, SevenRooms
Thank you so much for having me today Keith.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
I'm excited to talk to you because we're going to talk about SevenRooms, which helps hospitality operators run their businesses more effectively. But also, at the same time, creating exceptional experiences for guests, which I know if I go to a restaurant, and I have a personalized experience, it really is magical. So how is SevenRooms making this all happen?
Pam Martinez, SevenRooms
Sure, yeah. And I'm glad that you know that you've interacted with SevenRooms. So SevenRooms is a technology company. We are like said a guest experience and retention software platform. So we help hospitality operators and restaurants create great guest experiences that ultimately should boost their profitability, their revenue should drive repeat guest visits. And effectively we help restaurants who are customers make more money, while providing a better experience than they might otherwise. And so the way that we do that is we help restaurants take and optimize reservations, bookings directly. So inbound, inbound reservations directly, we also help them if they want to, to take reservations through non direct channels, so maybe not directly on their own website. And we do that. So restaurants don't need to pay as much in commissions effectively to fill their seats. And so you can think about that, like revenue optimization, or book optimization, book management, kinda like airlines manage their revenue. And our system also helps pace reservations, manage reservations, it also helps restaurants if they want to take pre payments at the time that somebody is booking a reservation for events for guest experiences. And then our tool, like the goodness is that we function as a CRM. So we want the hospitality owners to have their own data, their customer data, and be in control of their own customer data. So with that rich CRM data for being you know, taking reservations, knowing who somebody is, and being connected to the restaurants point of sale system, we're not a point of sale, we connect to the point of sale, restaurants can then use our marketing tools with marketing automation tools, to follow up directly with guests to invite them back to invite them to events to send them targeted promotion if we've seen that they haven't come for 30 days or 90 days. And so we can help restaurants take control of their own data market to their customers and essentially, effectively drive more revenue and profits.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
After a long career at HubSpot, what brought you to SevenRooms? And what are you most excited about in terms of the company's future?
Pam Martinez, SevenRooms
Yeah, sure. So after eight, eight great years at HubSpot, you're running global financial planning and analysis there. You know, I took the next step and I became the CFO at SevenRooms. So I've been here for about a year and a half. And just a little bit about why SevenRooms and then I can talk about why I'm excited about it. SevenRooms just felt right to me after seeking you know, looking at different options, I found that SevenRooms felt like it was similar business model to what I had seen at HubSpot, and I could take that and add value. So SMB business model, somewhat similar ESPs, similar go to market. So I felt like I could take a lot of what I've learned and add up and add a lot of value to seven of them. So I felt comfortable with the business, the business model and the go-to-market motions. Number two, SevenRooms felt like it was the right size or the right stage for me. The company was serious B had Product Market Fit had invested a lot in a really great really, really great product, found product market fit and pre COVID had proven that the business model could work for unit economics could work. So right size, and kind of bright stage for me. In addition, the company was mission driven or mission that I can really connect with, which I think is important for a lot of you know, a lot of employees today wanting to work at a company where you can really connect to the mission and feel like your company is doing something good in the world. So I felt like there was a mission I could connect to a mission I could understand. And the company was still founder LED. And so I really felt good about that. And then lastly in terms of kind of the checkboxes for me was we had a really good mix of investors and kind of enough capital so the company has kind of a good mix of board members that would help support me as a first-time CFO, so I didn't want to get in somewhere over my skis. A good philosophy around growing but not growing at all cost unnecessarily and again, don't have a good capital position. So those were kind of the criteria for me of like, as a first-time CFO, a company I could connect with A great product, a business model, I was comfortable with a great executive team and board that would support me. And then just in terms of why I'm excited to be here, I mean, I think we're really feeling good. I know, you know, the market is, is feels like for most industries is experiencing a little bit of a pullback, a little bit of uncertainty. But for us, you know, some of the things that were headwinds during COVID, the industry has changed. And now our product, it really feels like we're at an inflection point where our product, our value proposition, is really, really well timed and well positioned to step on the gas and grow or grow to put on market with what is already a best in class product. So I feel like it's a great time to be in seminars.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
So let's talk about the current stage of SevenRooms. What's the size in terms of number of employees, and plans for growth ahead as it relates to hiring?
Pam Martinez, SevenRooms
Yeah, sure, I think we just actually crossed over 200 full time employees just a month or two ago. So we're just about 200 employees. And I think, you know, size wise, and growth trajectory wise, we're in a little bit of a different spot than maybe a lot of, I would say like venture-backed or startup companies are right now in the market where a lot are going through maybe a reevaluation period, or a pullback after several years of like frenetic hiring. So as a company we did, we were impacted by COVID, which had a large impact on restaurants. And so we did stay pretty flat, you know, pullback still stayed pretty flat, or moderately flat from a headcount perspective, 2020 through 2021, due to the impact on our customer base, so we kind of managed through that period and tried to keep our customers afloat gave us kind of offers to our customers to stay on the platform for a while without, without paying us some kind of fee holidays to try to, you know, keep our customers with us as long as we could, and then get to the other side of it. And so we saw, I would say we saw our unit economics, so our LTV to CAC, about a year ago, this time last year, I really returned. And so we've now really been starting to grow, the team again, started to see our revenue grow really strongly again. So while I would say, you know, we're growing in all areas of the business, and we'll definitely continue to invest in the product and engineering functions, to maintain kind of our best in class product. Really what the model is, and our metrics are telling us right now is that it's time to lean in and ramp up the go to market. So our unit economics are good again. And so we're ramping up our go to market teams. And we've seen a lot of success, not only in North America, but we've actually seen a ton of success in UK certain parts of AMEA, and have strategically invested in Asia Pacific. So Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong. So we're hiring, you know, I would say we're hiring across the board, pretty much all departments, but very specifically have started to ramp up or go to market teams globally sales, customer success roles, as we've seen our our metrics, and our KPIs kind of really, really returned to form strong demand. As you know, while we were impacted by COVID, on the front end, some of the you know, some of what we're seeing coming out of COVID are the new normal is that people have a higher bar for guest experiences, people have a higher bar for going out to a restaurant, they want to have a great personalized guest experience. And, you know, let alone the industry is also really strapped by, you know, staffing, labor shortages. And so there are a few things that are going on with our industry that now provide SevenRooms with some tailwinds that we did not have two years ago. And so that is coinciding to kind of stepping on the gas a bit on our global go to market teams.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
So in your opinion, what traits does the ideal SevenRooms employee embody?
Pam Martinez, SevenRooms
It's actually a pretty well timed question, because we've been going through a process internally to solidify our core values and the core attributes that we really celebrate and kind of not only tried to hire for, but also kind of infused into the organization, the things that we celebrate. So I'll just give, you know, one or two examples, but one of them is ownership. We are owners, we're all owners in this business. So what that means is that, you know, someone who has a bias for action, somebody who can take the ball and run with it, you know, we're at that size right now. We're, we're kind of between startup and scale up. You know, so folks who are able to come in, take ownership of something, maybe it's a new process, maybe it's a new motion. They want to take ownership of that accountability, run with the project, it kind of figure it out are super, super, super valuable. And then it's even better if those folks are able to kind of take ownership you know, Solve a customer problem, think figure out a project. And then if they're able to do even better if they're able to then successfully kind of document and complete the project document and create a process so that, you know, as we scale up, that thing is going to occur, you know, hundreds of times again, and so people who can then, you know, take ownership of a problem, and then create a process in their wake, so that we can kind of effectively scale up and do those things. So I think we go through a core values exercise, you know, again, just to kind of start to talk more about those types of traits that we really value in employees. But I do think it's a lot of the ones that, you know, we're not pure startup anymore. So, you know, we, you know, startup, you typically hire kind of generalists that can tackle any problem and just figure anything out, or at that stage where we're kind of between startup and scale up where we're mixing in some specialization. And this is true, you know, my team on the finance team, some data roles where you had kind of generalists before, but now it's time to, to have that mix of people who can, you know, solve any problem and are generalists, but also, there are some very specific roles as the company grows, that that requires specialization and some direct experience.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Now, what about diversity, equity, and inclusion? Like what is SevenRooms doing in terms of building? Or ensuring that there's a continued focus on building a strong and inclusive culture?
Pam Martinez, SevenRooms
Yeah, it's a really good question. And it's really important to me, and it's really important to SevenRooms. So we've been doing a few things recently, and I think we just introduced a handful of ERG s employee resource groups this year, and they've really taken off at really great reception. And so, you know, we have executive sponsors and the ERGs are starting to kind of make their own traditions with fireside chats, and real meaningful work so that we can make sure that our employee base is connecting really comfortable feeling like they can bring them their whole selves to work. So I think that's been really awesome to see, I think the other part is, you know, and apart where I'm directly connected, is, is kind of in gender diversity. And I'm really happy to say that, you know, our leadership team, multiple females, I'm now don't have the stats right in front of me, but I'm, you know, the CFO, our chief product officer is a woman, we have, you know, kind of a diverse executive team, a diverse leadership team. And I'm also really proud of our board of directors, which we do have, you know, two women on our board, diversity on our board. And I mean, I think we've all seen the studies that just show, and again, HubSpot was a model in this with, I think, three or four women on the board, multiple women on the executive team, now, a female chief executive officer, you know, just diverse teams. I very, very much believe diverse teams will perform better. And, you know, I'm a female at work. I'm a mom, I think, showing ourselves especially now, where a lot of us are remote or hybrid. You know, being able to share our lives and who we are, and balance work and life is really important. And so I think SevenRooms is definitely trying to do the right things here to hire a diverse employee base that looks like our customer base. And also, just because we believe that's how we're gonna perform best as a business.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Now, there are lots of opportunities out there for people to explore, which is a good thing. So why is now the ideal time for someone to join SevenRooms?
Pam Martinez, SevenRooms
Yeah, yeah, I think it's a great question we're really at and I kind of talked about this before, but we're really at an inflection point right now. You know, we were impacted by COVID. We've gotten our business model back on track plus COVID. And we're really starting to scale up now. And I think we can see, you know, the industry is changing right in front of our eyes, you know, based on the messages and the value add that our products been bringing what we've been espousing for years, you know, allowing operators, restaurant operators, hospitality operators to take control of their business and their customer data to drive direct bookings, to drive more revenue and profit to drive this great customer experience without necessarily needing to be really high touch or labor intensive. And I saw I think there are some really, really great tailwinds. Right now, they're happening coming out of COVID. A challenge that the industry is facing is really well aligned to the value proposition that SevenRooms really actually delivers for our customers, we can show them, you know, the value that we've driven, the savings that we've driven to them is, you know, the direct hard ROI is more than they are paying us in their subscription. And I think that that's really resonating. And so we're seeing that in, you know, multiple regions globally. And so now's the time to kind of join as we start to scale up or opening up new markets. And so to get in now, I think it's you know, it's a great time because of what's going on in the industry. But we're, you know, stable enough company. You know, with sound, you know, financials, enough capital to grow, that we're in a really good position.
Keith Cline, VentureFizz
Well, if you are interested in exploring opportunities at SevenRooms, you need to go to their company page on VentureFizz, which has all their job listings there. And as Pam mentioned, they are hiring very aggressively, go to venturefizz.com/sevenrooms, you'll see all their job listings there. Pam, thanks so much for taking the time to bring us up to speed on all the great things happening at the company.
Pam Martinez, SevenRooms
Thank you, Keith. I really appreciate the time.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
