Improving how hotels buy and sell
Going from idea to Rails MVP in time to onboard the first paid customer
Challenge
Launch MVP for pilot customer and establish product foundation
Outcome
In less than a year, the startup developed its product, is serving hundreds of hotel clients, and hired a technical team.
Hotel clients were frustrated by using multiple systems and manual processes to manage their business.
Folio set out to create a single, user-friendly app that bundles buying, selling, and payments. Partnering with thoughtbot for technical expertise and MVP development, Folio landed close to 200 hotel clients within six months of its launch.
“We chose thoughtbot because of their team’s deep experience in bringing quality products to market. Reputation really matters.
Co-Founder, Folio
The Challenge
How does a startup develop a complex niche marketplace app while meeting tight deadlines set by a premiere pilot customer?
Through her own travels, founder Kate Adamson realized that hotels were desperately underserved from a technology perspective and that inspiration grew into Folio, a marketplace that connects hotel suppliers with buyers.
The vision was to streamline the buying process, allowing buyers to see real-time price comparisons and to access approved suppliers, while also expediting payments all in one singular interface. Suppliers would gain customer visibility and insights on spending and buying behaviors.
Folio co-founders began with research and confirmed it was possible to integrate billing, pricing, and other features into their product. Through conversations they landed a premiere pilot customer. The pressure was on to get to market quickly which led them to bringing on thoughtbot to help.
What we did
Folio chose thoughtbot to develop the MVP because of our reputation for responsive communication, experience planning complex integrations, and our ability to help Folio hire and train its own in-house team.
The range of features in the Folio app required a fully-hosted solution using Ruby on Rails, thoughtbot's specialty. It was a strong choice for Folio given the out of the box conventions and documentations built into the framework.
“thoughtbot was the one partner that really spoke to building the right MVP and walked us through their hand-off process. That gave us confidence that we could have flexibility until we were able to hire the right people.
Co-Founder, Folio
The Results
From 0 to 200 hotel clients in less than 1 year
Folio launched the app and began testing orders. Three months later, they went fully live with their first hotel. After another three months, Folio’s client base mushroomed when their pilot customer rolled them out across their portfolio for select purchasing needs. In less than a year, Folio developed its product, which serves hundreds of hotel clients, and hired a technical team thanks to thoughtbot’s partnership.
One year later, Folio went on to raise a $14M Series A to power profitability in hospitality.