Outdated or worn-out furniture can make even the most stylish room feel shabby and uninviting. Furthermore, old furniture is often less comfortable and functional than newer pieces.

When looking for a place to stay, hotel guests often look for unique experiences and value for their money. That’s why you need to meet their needs and provide them with excellent hospitality services. 

Upgrading your hotel furniture regularly is a wise investment that will pay off in the form of happy guests and increased bookings. 

In addition to attracting new guests, new furniture can create a more positive working environment for your employees, leading to improved morale and service. 

Also, you don’t have to have a huge budget to upgrade your hotel furniture. If you know where to look and how to choose a partner supplier or manufacturer, you can have functional, stylish, and comfortable furniture within a reasonable budget.

Ultimately, investing in high-quality hotel furniture is an investment in your business that will provide lasting benefits. 

Here are just a few of the many reasons why upgrading your hotel furniture is a wise investment: 

1. Better guest satisfaction

One of the most important aspects of running a successful hotel is ensuring guests are happy with their stay. Upgrading your furniture is one of the best ways to guarantee guest satisfaction. 

When guests are uncomfortable or unable to use the furniture in their room, they’re likely to have a negative experience and give your hotel a poor review. 

By providing guests with comfortable, stylish furniture, you’ll ensure they have a positive experience at your hotel and are more likely to return in the future. Customer retention is much cheaper than trying to attract new customers.

2. Increased profits

When guests are satisfied with their stay, they’re more likely to leave positive reviews online and recommend your hotel to others. This word-of-mouth advertising is invaluable for bringing in new business and boosting profits.

3. Brand personality

Upgrading your furniture allows you to design your hotel to reflect the brand personality that you want to impart. Brand personality is essential for leaving a great impression on your guests and making them remember your hotel.

Hotel guests will likely book again with a hotel brand they know, like, and trust. That’s possible when you make their stay memorable.

4. Connection with customers

The way you design your room allows you to connect with your customers. Customer preferences and needs evolve, so investing in new furniture to meet those factors helps your hotel stay relevant.

5. More efficient use of space

Aside from the room’s aesthetics, it also matters to customers that they can utilize the furniture optimally. Modern furniture pieces aren’t only stylish; they’re also highly customizable so that you can fit them strategically and efficiently in hotel rooms.

6. Improved staff productivity

High-quality furniture can also lead to increased productivity among your staff. If your employees are comfortable and have everything they need at their fingertips, they’ll be able to work more efficiently and provide better service to guests.

The bottom line

Upgrading your hotel furniture unfolds many benefits beyond the aesthetic appeal of hotel rooms. It allows you to provide a better and unique customer experience, improve your brand, boost profits, connect with customers, and improve staff productivity. In addition, you can upgrade your furniture without hurting your budget, and it will be a wise investment that will pay off in many ways.

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Today, Walker leads TSMA. The company was formerly known as The Social Media Advantage. Currently, the company’s moniker is The Social Media Agency and has experienced meteoric growth over the last decade since he founded it. As one of the pioneers in the influencer economy, TSMA quickly gained notoriety amongst the celebrity crowd. Walker’s agency quickly emerged as a global leader in social media management. Influencers liked the perks and financial remuneration. And developing economies like Argentina were receiving tens of thousands of dollars per month by bringing international followers to celebrities’ social media platforms. Indeed, TSMA had found the path to the triple win.

Grit Daily queried Walker about how TSMA manages to stay one step ahead in a very competitive market. He explained, “We incentivize the creator community with giveaways and we’ve leveraged that influencer economy for a long time, even before it was trendy to do so. TSMA is the first and only firm that uses the creator economy.”

Social media is constantly changing

Of course, TSMA’s success wouldn’t be possible without two critical components. One, a focus on developing the talent within. And two, a lot of hustling and hard work. When asked how social media has shifted since TSMA launched, Walker had this to say, “Prior to the pandemic, we didn’t anticipate a large boom and pivot to e-Commerce. That high influx led to new departments and adding a dozen new hires which was a boost to our social media community.”

Along the way, they’ve also had to make adjustments to evolve in parallel to how consumer habits were changing. “We’ve seen a massive shift in how people consume content and how individuals and businesses use it, and the strong desire for education in this space,” Walker said. He continued, “What I’m most proud of is the educational content that we’ve created. We’ve seen the impact that education can have.”

Maintaining compliance with ever-changing policies on social media platforms is an essential hallmark of the TSMA brand. “We’re always compliant so that we can attract the level of client base that we have.” However, one effort maintaining social media compliance threw them for an unexpected loop. “Back in October, 2019, Instagram made a wide-sweeping shift that wasn’t well documented publicly. They changed the way they allow third-party software to access their back end. Automated actions changed the way our clients were getting engagement literally overnight. Each account went from say a thousand likes to just a few hundred. Billions of actions per month went away which put a lot of social media agencies out of business. And engagement levels have been been lower ever since.”

What consumers want

Consumers want fresh, quality content. Short-form video content around 30-seconds at a time, “TikTok style,” is being voraciously consumed. In fact, TikTok is the fastest-growing social media platform. Stock imagery is no longer resonating with the audience. People want authentic material; videos in particular. Each day, more than one billion hours of video are consumed on YouTube alone.

Walker shared his thoughts on how social media was likely to shift over the months and year ahead. “Short-form video content isn’t going to go away anytime soon.” To hear more insights about social media management and the grit required to build a massively successful company, tune into Grit Daily Like a Boss podcast. As Season 2 wraps up next week, we’ll soon be launching Season 3 under a new podcast title, “The Grit Files: Startup Stories.” Listen to the episode featuring Ryan Walker anywhere that content is streamed.

The post Taking Social Media to the Next Level appeared first on Grit Daily News.

The Series A funding round, which was led by Corus Entertainment with participation from Gaingels, will allow Struum to expand its content library, improve its technological infrastructure, and expand globally. Doug Murphy, President and CEO of Corus Entertainment, referred to the firm’s participation by stating:

“Struum is at the forefront of innovation with its unique credit-based subscription service, backed by a talented team of senior executives with deep experience in the subscription video and content space. We are excited to be a part of this highly differentiated streaming product as both a lead investor and as Struum’s exclusive launch partner for the Canadian market.”

Struum was Founded in 2020 by senior-level Disney and Discovery executives Lauren DeVillier, Eugene Liew, Paul Pastor, and Thomas Wadsworth. The startup is looking to become a global entertainment hub by bringing multiple streaming services to a single platform.

With a monthly subscription of just $4.99, the platform offers shows and movies from more than 60 services. As a result, users will no longer need to go through the hassle of dealing with multiple platforms and subscriptions to access limited catalogs. Paul Pastor, CBO of Struum, said in this regard:

“Our core mission with Struum is to help content owners get their content discovered and help viewers discover great content. The investment from Corus, Gaingels and our other investors will play a pivotal role in enabling us to further build out a world class user experience that enables us to over deliver on our mission and establish us as a key player in the streaming industry.”

According to Allied Market Research, the global video streaming market is expected to reach over $149 billion by 2026. As more people use subscription-based services, the model has become the predominant force in the industry despite the increasing inconveniences they represent for users. With most major media companies opting to launch their own on-demand services, users are being forced to subscribe to multiple services to access their favorite content.

Having to subscribe to multiple video streaming services doesn’t only result in increased costs but also in dealing with multiple applications, low-quality content, advertisements, and uncertainty on which platform will offer their favorite service. By aggregating these services, Struum is aiming to bring back the main benefit that made streaming appealing to consumers: simplicity and accessibility.

The post Struum Raises $7 Mln to Bring Video Streaming Back to Its Roots appeared first on Grit Daily News.

Today, Burton guides mission-focused leaders on journeys in ethics, equity, and accountability. She enlightens people on how to drive meaningful change. “It all begins with respect,” she said, “And trust.”

Tell me your story

Burton is highly adept at connecting with people. Attentive listening and a deep commitment to help others are part of her ethos. She has both incredible insight and honed ability to uncover what’s really going on. Her approach doesn’t sound all that complex – until you realize that creating a safe space is anything but simple. She connects with people by inviting them to “tell me your story.” Her mind and heart open up to whomever she’s speaking with to let folks know that she can hold the space for them. That trust extends with an invitation to keep sharing, “Tell me what support you think you need.”

At the core of all relationships, is trust. Without it, it’s hard to move beyond an agenda that only serves one half of the relationship. “It’s not about power. It’s about full respect. Full recognition. And me being responsible to reflect that,” she mused unequivocally. Burton isn’t afraid to “do the work.” In fact, she openly embraces the work that she needs to do on and within herself to grow.

Equity is about the trust factor. It’s about recognizing that I don’t have power over you and you don’t have power over me. It’s not about power.

~Carole Burton

A model for holistic equity

Her holistic equity model is as elegant as it is plain. Three rows (I / Us / We) by three columns (Transaction / Transition / Transformation take the learner on a journey of enlightenment. Even Burton herself, a practitioner in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space identified areas for improvement by working her way through her own model. She believes that the combination of adapting and equity drives change – real change.

As the podcast host of Radiance Realtalk, Grit Daily flipped the tables by having Burton on as a guest on our podcast. She’s actively guiding leaders in adaptive communication. To learn more about Burton’s passion and life’s work, tune into the podcast on Spotify or anywhere that content is streamed.

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Back in 2012, Belveal and his team were amongst the first in the world to create connected cars. Via mobile phone, rental, measuring the gas consumed, unlocking the car, and so on, was possible. Silvercar simplified the car rental experience for the business traveler. One make, model, and color of car (silver Audi A4) and one rental price standardized across the US quickly made the company a business traveler’s favorite. By the time there were buying thousands of silver A4s in 2015-16, Audi took notice, too.

His first exit

Audi invested in Silvercar then later acquired it in 2017. Following that exit, Belveal decided to take on one of the lowest tech industries around: public laundromats; but he did his research first. “It [public laundry] hasn’t even advanced as far as the parking industry,” he lamented when citing some of the surprising statistics. “One in six households, which is more than 40 million Americans, rely on public washing machines. And 80% of the 26,000 plus laundromats are operated with quarters.” Belveal decided to change things up.

With a multi-million investment in a technology platform to uplevel the experience from quarters to smart phones, Belveal quickly grew the business. Washlava already operates with two business lines: college residences and laundromats. “We’re already on ten campuses,” he said, “Campuses are rapidly moving towards mobile credentialing, but laundry is still way behind.”

In August, 2021, Belveal was one of the VIP panelists at the Grit Daily Congressional Startup Day in Tampa, FL. Around that time, he stepped away as Washlava’s CEO to take on a Board Emeritus position.

Advice for entrepreneurs

On the topics of startups and entrepreneurship. Belveal has a lot to say. “You need to understand the difference in philosophy of beginning a startup that’s designed to scale fast and a small business. Startups get a little too much hype but there’s a lot of failure, more than in small business. You have to believe in the idea almost more than you believe in yourself.”

When it comes to investment decisions, he quipped, “I’ve never bootstrapped any idea – it’s too slow. It didn’t take long to get the seed round for Silvercar once I assembled the right team. You need help to impress the right investor.”

A friend of mine who does startups a lot calls them “oscillating psychodramas.”

~Todd Belveal

He emphasized the grit and tenacity that entrepreneurs needs. “Once you take other people’s money, you can’t quit. You might fail because your business fails but you can’t quit for any reason. It’s a thing that people don’t understand – it’s not like a job. You can’t quit until you’ve exhausted every option to generate a return. The research shows that it takes 7-10 years for any liquidity event so you’d better be prepared for that.”

When Grit Daily asked Belveal if things have always been easy and gone his way. His response was an emphatic no – and a deep chuckle. “All that you’re doing as a founder is raising money. I’ve been sued by people who didn’t have the right expectations, I’ve had nasty things written about me in the paper. And you have your own struggles: the stress that it puts on you and people can underestimate the risk and the constant accountability what that can do to a person. Acknowledge burnout and acknowledge when you’re behaving badly. When you are the founder of a startup, you’re going to take a lot of shit from all sides. Get your funding round done, go out for dinner to celebrate, then start planning to do your next round.”

To hear more, tune into the Grit Daily Like a Boss podcast anywhere that content is streamed.

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The series funding round was led by Chicago Ventures with participation from existing investors OCA Ventures and Origin Ventures. This brings the total seed funding raised by the startup to $6.85 million. Rob Chesney, Partner at Chicago Ventures, referred to the firm’s participation by stating:

“A global pandemic and a never-ending series of natural disasters have taught us the importance of preparing for the unthinkable, and Prisidio helps ease the stress that comes with the chaos of locating and organizing important assets. Chicago Ventures is excited to help create a product that will help everyone at all stages of their life. We’re excited to partner with Glenn and Paul again as we believe they are world-class entrepreneurs and are working to address an important global need.”

The startup was founded in 2020 with the mission to change how people store key documents and information while also sharing them with family and advisors. The digital vault platform developed by the startup will offer its users an effective and secure way to ensure documents like wills, mortgage deeds, tax documentation, and other essential data are safely stored and easily accessible to trusted parties at any given time.

Prisidio CEO Glenn Shimkus and CMO Paul Koziarz, the two series entrepreneurs with more than 50 years of combined experience in document management who founded the startup, believe that tracking vital information has become an unnecessarily difficult process. Despite the important role such information plays in the lives of millions of people, no solution seems to have taken advantage of today’s technology to facilitate the process. Shimkus said in this regard:

“Tracking down vital personal information and documents is time-consuming and frustrating, especially when you need to find them fast – and that’s if you can even remember where to look. Prisidio changes all of that with a centralized, secure solution for individuals and families to store, organize, and share their most important personal documents and information in order to collaborate and be prepared for whatever the future may bring. Our platform makes it easy to, for example, snap a photo of your watch or grandma’s pearl necklace, and add a video note about why the item is important to you.”

The rise of cloud computing and storage solutions has made it easier than ever to easily store and access information from any location and device. However, existing solutions don’t provide a secure way to grant access to trusted parties or to efficiently organize the data itself. Prisidio is looking to be the first to provide an effective solution to this problem, providing millions of people with a way to be prepared for the unexpected at a time when many have realized they were not.

The post Prisidio Secures Additional $3.5 mln In Seed Funding To Revolutionize How You Store Essential Data appeared first on Grit Daily News.

The seed funding round was led by Ambac Financial Group and TigerRisk Partners’ Applied Financial Technologies subsidiary. Dan Abrahamsen, Cover Whale Founder and CEO, referred to the round by stating:

“This funding round is an exciting time for the Cover Whale team. The support of such sophisticated investors has been a significant show of commitment to our vision. This level of funding enables Cover Whale to invest further in our technology-enabled proprietary platform, as well as continue to attract a team of top industry talent.”

Cover Whale was founded in 2019 with the mission to revolutionize the insurance industry by harvesting the latest technologies in data collection, data analysis, and machine learning to facilitate access to commercial auto insurance coverage. The platform developed by the insurtech startup can be used by owners, agents, and brokers alike, providing them with a dedicated account representative and specialized staff to oversee day-to-day maintenance.

Cover Whale makes use of great volumes of real-time data to allow it to intervene when negative driver behavior is detected, allowing the reduction of loss ratios and insurance costs by instantaneously correcting such behavior. Claude LeBlanc, President and Chief Executive Officer of Ambac, said about the startup’s approach:

“Insurtech platforms like Cover Whale, that are able to use data driven underwriting to quickly and profitably bind coverage within minutes of a submission, are market leaders in providing innovative distribution solutions in the commercial auto space.”

According to IBISWorld, the commercial auto insurance industry in the United States represented $51.5 billion in 2021, up from $39 billion in 2016. This increasing demand has allowed the platform to experience a fast rate of growth over the past year, with its team expanding from only 5 employees to more than 80 employees and contractors. Now, the insurtech startup is aiming to become a major player in the industry by helping those who require commercial auto insurance during all stages of the coverage process.

The post Cover Whale Raises $15.5 mln in Seed Funding appeared first on Grit Daily News.

Having graduated from Vanderbilt back in 2019, Pawlicki has plenty of experience in the entrepreneurial world. Over the years, she has held leadership positions in several startups and growth-stage companies like InQuicker and Healthcare Bluebook. In addition to its major in sociology, the new Director has also received her coaching certification before founding Nessa Leaders, a company that provides coaching services to executives and managers in varied industries. Pawlicki, who will be working with Faculty Director Michael Burcham, referred to her assignment by saying:

“There’s tremendous opportunity to build upon the foundation that’s been created at the C4E, from supporting current students to being a resource for alumni wanting to start a business, to those who have started businesses, and the Vanderbilt investment network.”

The announcement was made as the C4E enters its sixth year of existence after being founded to boost the growth of an in-campus entrepreneurial ecosystem to foster new and innovative businesses. The center offers programs and resources to young entrepreneurs, allowing them to continue their education in programs offered by the university and third parties. Pawlicki said in this regard:

“What’s amazing with Vanderbilt is that the community spans beyond just Nashville; so we will ask how we can build amazing things with the community in Nashville but also outside, to help our students and alumni as they venture into the startup and investment space.”

Now, the new Director will be aiming to help the Vanderbilt community gain awareness of the opportunities the center represents in terms of support for potential and new businesses. She has also shared her belief that the future of the center should include trans-institutional collaboration, allowing its expansion beyond the campus community.

With her entrepreneurial and coaching experience, the Center for Entrepreneurship is sure to expand its relevance in the community, helping the next generation of entrepreneurs get their startups and businesses off the ground.

The post Vanderbilt University Names Stacie Pawlicki As New Director Of Center for Entrepreneurship appeared first on Grit Daily News.

“Digital twins are a reflection of you,” explained the AI expert. “Our professional baseball player clients often get hurt, so we advise their recovery. We look at the physical, mental, and emotional state for about five minutes per day. Then we give them a list of suggestions on what they need to do to optimize their performance.”

The path to personal wellness

Grit Daily probed Tran on the impetus behind Amplio. “People don’t know how to interpret their data or what to do with it, but people strive for wellness. Amplio figures out where you are normally (your baseline), then we figure out the changes you need to make to perform well. There’s a lot of rules for wellness like drinking a gallon of water per day, sleeping eight hours, and so on but they don’t make sense for everyone. But there is more than one pathway to wellness: it’s about what you can commit to.”

Those incremental improvements and regular encouragement are precisely what people need to stay motivated. The effort required is all about the goal. Too often, people get derailed with their own unrealistic expectations. Tran calls this the “January-February Effect.” Grit Daily asked him to explain further, “People go into the new year thinking that they are going to lose 100 pounds in a month. Then they burn out and give up when they don’t hit that unrealistic goal. Amplio provides incremental steps to show you that you are improving. This motivates people to keep going.”

Advice for entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurship sounds glamorous. However, those that have founded a startup or launched a retail shop know that most days are tougher than you’d thought they’d be. As a serial entrepreneur, Tran has tremendous advice for founders. “With startups, there are going to be ups and downs. Things are generally not going to go the way you planned. The entrepreneur path is like a roller coaster – you have to be prepared for the ups and downs.”

Mindset of the entrepreneur cannot be underestimated. Burnout manifests itself in multiple forms – that’s why Amplio creates a digital twin to monitor and assess the whole person. Continuing with his advice for other founders, Tran added this, “Be in love with the problem – not the solution. Always move forward. Don’t get discouraged or think you could have done better. There’s a lot of things you can’t control.”

Amplio is currently fundraising. With only a week left to go on their campaign, they are already at 480% of their goal. When asked about his experience with securing investments, Tran’s response was pretty typical for any founder. “There is nothing fun about fundraising. It’s like speed dating – you need to prepare yourself for a lot of rejection. Everyone is ready to tell you how you’re going to fail when you’re trying to do something innovative.”

There’s not much time left to invest in this round with Tran’s company, but you can tune into our podcast at any time!

The post Your Digital Twin Knows You’re Burnt Out appeared first on Grit Daily News.

Google is not the only tech company undergoing a loss of trust among its employees and consumers. Facebook and Amazon regularly suffer similar fates. All three are routinely criticized for misappropriating the data they collect and who they share it with, creating “filter bubbles” without their users knowing it, and producing discriminatory AI algorithms. All of this happens against the backdrop of younger generations putting their money where their values are while the CEOs of these companies testify before the U.S. Congress. Indeed, on June 15, 2021, in a rare moment of bipartisanship, the Senate confirmed Lina Khan in a 69-28 vote to lead the Federal Trade Commission. Khan is a leading advocate for greater enforcement of antitrust and consumer protection laws against big tech.

Why can’t big tech solve their ethical problems?

Surely it would be better for them not to play public relations defense every day while bleeding consumer trust and fending off regulatory investigations. Why hasn’t Facebook’s oversight board saved them from avoiding embarrassments instead of creating them? Why did Google’s AI ethics board get dissolved in less than a week after its formation was announced? How did Amazon not know that having their drivers pee in bottles due to a lack of breaks is both ethically and reputationally (not to mention aesthetically) odious?

Two reasons why these companies find it so difficult to be better

The first is an issue of sheer size. Turning around a large ship is difficult, even when the desire is there. Think about how much time and resources have to go into righting the ship: creating a culture and infrastructure where these issues are taken seriously (and so built into product development, deployment, quality assurance, etc.), assigning ethics-related responsibilities to existing and newly created roles, ensuring that financial compensation packages are aligned with the ethical goals of the company, and so on. It’s a big lift.

The second reason is that their respective business models incentivize (if not require) ethical breaches. Facebook, for instance, is driven by its ad revenue, which requires that they collect massive troves of data about their users, resulting in violations of privacy. They also need to keep people on their platform for as long as possible, leading to the kinds of manipulative technologies detailed in the recent documentary, “The Social Dilemma”.

Tech startups can and should punch harder than their behemoth competitors

Startups are small ships. So long as their founders and senior leaders take issues like data privacy and AI ethics seriously, they can transmit that to the team as a whole and build it into their products, which number in the single digits. It’s also easy for them to build their ethical credentials into their marketing campaigns and their sales pitches to their potential (enterprise) clients who need to work with companies they can trust not to mar their own reputations.

Their business models are also far more flexible than those of big tech. For instance, rather than adopt an ad model and all the ethical troubles it entails, a subscription model is a straight cash-for-service transaction and doesn’t require exploiting user data. In fact, it even opens the possibility of financially compensating users for their data, which stands to benefit users and businesses alike. Facebook can’t do that without taking on board a tremendous amount of risk.

Startups are beginning to take advantage of this ethics-first approach

Google has seen competitors touting their ethical credentials vis-a-vis respecting privacy, most notably Duck Duck Go and Neeva. Another example is the recently announced Bizconnect, a global B2B search engine. Google’s practice of having companies bid for sponsored keywords means that massive corporations routinely purchase highly coveted top spots in search results, leaving smaller businesses pushed down the search results page. On Google’s model, the rich get richer in an unfair playing field. On Bizconnect’s no-bid model, everyone pays the same and ranking in search results among sponsored keywords rotates in a carousel fashion, giving every company – large and small alike – an equal opportunity to be first, second, and third in the search results. (Full disclosure: I serve on the advisory board of Bizconnect).

Startups should think about how they can turn the bad news for big tech into good news for themselves, their users and customers, and society as a whole. They should think about how to get their ethical house in order early on, and in a scalable way.

Start by not collecting as much user data as possible

More specifically, they should collect what is needed and not more, and be transparent with users about why their data is being collected.

Sometimes ethical problems only occur at scale. YouTube serving one person a video containing disinformation about the illegitimacy of an election is not so bad. Serving it to hundreds of millions is a big ethical problem. Startups should think about what their brand’s ethical characteristics look like if they’re wildly successful; that will improve not only how they think about their products but also how they think about their business model.

Most importantly, startups should stop thinking of their users as “users”. Instead, they should think about them as people with whom they have a relationship. They should ask themselves, “how can we operate in a way that will justify the people we serve as thinking of us as trustworthy”? That’s not the same thing as ‘how can we cause our users to trust us?”. Part of this should involve talking to people outside their immediate circles about their business model and practices. It’s particularly important that those conversations occur with people who do not stand to benefit if their startup is successful. Financial interests can blind even the best of us, and before you know it, like Google, you quietly drop your commitment to “don’t be evil.”

The post Tech Startups Have an Ethical and Reputational Edge Over Big Tech appeared first on Grit Daily News.