HelloTel – Marc Lewis
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About the Episode
There seems to be a trend in the mobile space about building social networks based on your location, but I believe many are doing it all wrong until I spoke to today’s guest. Listen to why he decided to build a social network on top of hotels and why that’s allowed him to get massive press which includes a mention on the Jimmy Fallon show.
Marc Lewis is the CEO at HelloTel and Sochule Inc.
Show Notes
Hotels as a Niche Market
The niche market is the easiest opportunity to seed and generate people on an app that has a social networking component. Why not do this as a check in for everyone? There are plenty of niche markets that we can tackle but hotels have so much more than just being hotels. Events, for example, happen here. Hotels have additional check in businesses other than just being hotels. An app therefore,that links people who are already in the hotel to other people with the same interests or purpose in that hotel is extremely useful.
What to Do Right to Get Massive Press
First, Marc got the networking right. Marc definitely started and had firmly established contacts through networking before he tried building an app. Then, his app got compared to Tinder. Unintentional but nevertheless it happened. The massive press that he got for HelloTel was an unintended avalanche of opinions that got picked up by Jimmy Fallon. Though definitely not part of his plans for HelloTel to be viewed like Tinder, the press that it generated because of this was astounding.
Show Mentions
– Fav app: HotelTonight: (iTunes | Google Play)