For later stage companies the biggest problem to scaling is fragmented market, complex industry structure (ie. always a different buyer) and low customer education. But for startups the single biggest problem when trying to scale (or even just trying to survive) is different--for startups the biggest hurdle to overcome with prospects is lack of trust, confidence and brand familiarity. Hoteliers are notoriously scared of working with startups (as they should be) because if they choose to implement your solution and then you go under (as 99% of startups do...) its their reputation on the line which is why its safer for them to just choose an established provider. Hence the saying, "Nobody ever got fired for buying a Xerox."

Hotel Tech Report is uniquely positioned for determined startups to overcome these hurdles. The value prop for startups to have online visibility and discoverability while building your reputation through the voice of your customers on a trusted 3rd party platform combined with the benefits of being able to leverage your HTR profiles and reviews as social proof in sales outreach is massive INVALUABLE.

The listing fee is in place as a low hurdle to scare away fake listings or pre-product ideas to protect the user experience and maintain trust with our audience of 49k+ monthly hoteliers. In the hotel tech space there are startup ideas left and right and in the early days of Hotel Tech Report we found dozens of new profiles being created for products that weren't real products which put hoteliers at risk and decreased their trust in Hotel Tech Report by pointing hoteliers towards risky businesses to partner with that hadn't even committed to building a product yet.

As a result, we implemented a low 1-time per profile listing fee that is easily accessible for startups, but also is enough to scare away people trying to create fake profiles.