While every industry has been hit hard during the coronavirus pandemic, hospitality and travel industries seem to have been hit the fastest.
While everyone remains on lockdown, companies that provide help with flights or accommodations are put on pause.
For startups, being put on hold can become a slippery slope to never recovering. But for five local startups in those industries, they're doing what entrepreneurs do best: taking a step back and pivoting when needed.
After coronavirus began to spread to the U.S., ShortStaf, which provides on-demand servers and bartenders, had 30 hosts cancel their events, save for one rescheduling.
Founder Christina Reynolds immediately pivoted: she knew servers could work other no-contact jobs like window washing or online tutoring. Then, the lockdown came into place.
"It was a kick in the gut," she said. "We were scared and hopeful that the pivot would change the game for us, help get people an opportunity to do something else, and then it just crashed down with the total shutdown. And that was the first time we were like, 'We are in a standstill. Let's reorganize.' And at that point, we planned for 0 income."
She is now focused on fine tuning her website, which she was not able to do before due to the amount of use it received, and getting creative with her marketing tactics.
"A lot of people that are at home are searching online, but we didn’t want to do marketing because no one is doing events," she said. "How can we let the community know we're here and will be here when we get back? So we started getting cool recipes from local bartenders and been making videos for our audience. We're trying to give them something to do at home and when this is all over, they can hopefully have a party and keep us in mind."
She is receiving loans from her current pool of investors on a month-to-month basis as needed and has cut down her expenses from $40,000 per month to $25,000. In the meantime, she is looking to pivot yet again: going beyond homeowners and working with hotels who may be hesitant to hire employees right away.
"We think we will have a huge opportunity to give them on-demand staff opportunities because they won’t be ready to hire for awhile," she said. "We started building relationships and asking questions. Our plan is to come out strong, so when we get through this, we will widen our hosts, users and job positions. From a tech entrepreneur standpoint, I'm really looking forward to growing five times over as soon as we get back. I think this pivot will be great and it wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for COVID-19."
Robert Geller put it bluntly when discussing the virus' impact on his business, a platform that lets rental properties list itself as LGTBQ friendly.
"Hospitality was the first industry to feel the effects when travel just stopped," the founder of FabStayz said. "For us, revenue came to a halt. April will be $0 and we're forecasting the same for May."
Geller was only able to pay his three full-time and one part-time employees on the 15th, thanks to the stimulus check he received the day before. But he does not plan to become defeated and has been spending the quieter period focused on doing what he previously could not during busier times.
"We had the opportunity to step off the carousel," he said, of an explosive growth from 100 hosts to 1,500 in less than a year. "To do all that, we were going and going. It was just crazy. So, how we're utilizing this time is to build the foundation we never had the opportunity to build. The whole crawl, walk, run (progress) — we had skipped all that."
Geller is completely revamping the company's website and changing the messaging on social media, from promoting his properties to inspirational travel and eventually giveaways.
"It's been less about a pivot and more re-evaluating," he said. "To change social media (postings), proceeding to make them better and thinking what it's going to look like when we emerge and what we can anticipate."
He understands the challenges ahead: even when restrictions are lifted, he understands people may be hesitant to travel far from home. But he says he's ready to change along with the travelers' habits.
"When we come out of this we're thinking, 'How can we make the most of it?'" Geller said. "We will travel again. The LGBTQ traveler travels twice as often, so our segment will be the first out of the gate when it's okay. The visitor bureaus, all of us are trying to predict what will happen, and what we're hearing is road trips will be more popular, staying closer to home. So, we will put our drag queen flight attendant (mascot) in a convertible."
Logan Clemens, the CEO and founder of WanderSeat, immediately stated he would be in a much different situation if his startup, which offers discount airline tickets on last-minute flights, had launched.
"We're fortunate we haven't launched yet," he said. "If we had, it would be pretty bad for us."
But while Clemens' app release has been put on an indefinite hold, he's using the time to continue to further improve the platform and what he says is most important: maintaining relationships in the industry as others crumble.
"Keeping my relationships going with the carriers I know is really important," he said. "They're not trying to furlough anyone, but I know some carriers have done that. So we're making connections and reminding them we are still going to be there when this ends."
He believes his app will become more pertinent than ever when launched, not only because users will most-likely be strapped for cash, but airlines will be looking to fill seats as cautious travelers continue to stay home.
"With their inventory, they will need us more than ever for people to get familiar with flying again," he said. "So it's a nice little way for the airlines to recapture some of the travelers."
While his pre-coronavirus hopes were to a launch by the end of the year, as well as close a seed round and hire more employees, it's become a waiting game.
"We definitely wanted to launch at the end of the year, bring on new people, do an official seed round," he said. "But we have to figure out what makes sense and stay focused on things we can control: focus on the product, the morale, make sure everyone's excited and continue building those relationships."
Terri Shapiro, the founder of airstream rental company GuestWings, originally wanted to offer a place for loved ones to stay without intruding in a home but still staying close for comfort.
After coronavirus essentially halted the fourth-year business, a serendipitous turn of events occurred.
Eric Berryman, a Pinellas-based family medicine physician stumbled across GuestWings on social media. Remembering his mother-in-law used and loved the service two years earlier, he decided to rent with a different purpose: keeping his family safe.
“I can still interact with the kids and keep far enough apart and I would be home when I’m off,” he said. “And if I got really sick, my wife could help me in ways that I couldn’t get in a hotel.”
Shapiro is now looking to pivot to more first responders, who are being encouraged to socially distance as they work the front lines of the pandemic.
“For us, it was a miracle,” she said.
For GuestBox founder Shuchi Vyas, the pandemic is a way to connect with industry officials she otherwise would have tried to snag in-person meetings with, or from afar on stage during a panel.
"While there may not be that much revenue, it's helped us make deeper ties with hospitality professionals within our network of folks that have been laid off or furloughed," Vyas said. "And this has given me a chance to really connect with people on a national level that would have been limited to in-person meetings or attending panels and not seeing their vulnerable and open side of exactly what’s going on."
GuestBox, the bootstrapped Tampa-based startup, is a box filled with goodies that boutique hotels and vacation rentals offer to guests during their stays. However, as the hospitality industry is hit, Vyas is considering other avenues to diversify itself, from its offerings to customers.
She is considering everything from changing the contents in the box to more sanitation-focused items, to expanding to sell directly to consumers as well as expanding to corporate gifting.
"The perspective early-stage companies who can weather the storm will have, I don't think any big companies had," Vyas said. "Now we know to plan for a crisis. We know to include a plan to help for two to three months, to take care of (employees') health. That's a big one, budgeting in a way versus the hire and fire flow."
Plans for funding, hiring and expanding have all been put on hold, but Vyas said thanks to bigger deals closed at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020, the company will weather the storm.
"I'm not in the position where I have to lay off or furlough anyone, so it's good for company morale," she said. "And for future employees, we will have this amazing story to tell and make us aspirational, to make it through something like this and win."
