September 2020 is Huge

September is going to be the biggest month for F3TCH since we got going and began the process of incorporating and filing for patents. It seems a lifetime ago now. Why September? Because we expect the product to have advanced enough to test with third parties- e.g. PBX companies. We already built a Minimum Viable Product (MVP), but the development for September should include the Google SDK, work out the kinks and process for “check-in and check-out” and beef up the Hotel Portal (where hotels can self manage their data- e.g. name, logo, amenities and PBX codes, etc.) and User Portal.

This was what the first iteration of the Hotel Portal looked like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spo2PI2ULvE

Once these first tests are successfully completed, it will make F3TCH available across approximately 2,000 properties across all brands and management companies. From zero to 2,000 literally overnight. These initial PBX companies are Asterisk platform/ core designs. In other words they use the Asterisk platform to code their features. By testing with them, F3TCH should also be available to the entire Asterisk community. That is a lot of hotels and coverage. Unsure how much exactly, but it could be as high as 10-14% of the US market, no gauge on worldwide. That’s a great expansion rate for the ecosystem.

Our vision of making the hotel and guest communications leap frog to the 21st century is almost here. Without much effort hotels and guests can text, call, communicate via the smart device the guest brings. Guest experience will be enhanced in ways that will truly be exciting to witness. In-property amenity sales should increase and efficiency (cost reduction) should also improve. It’s like giving the industry a blank page on how they can serve the guest better and them letting them imagine a myriad of before impossible opportunities. We are definitely all geeked up about it.

So here is to September and making the industry safer (less equipment to clean) and more modern. It’s been a long, arduous process with little support from the industry, but that’s ok, we believe we can improve the industry and so far it has been a rewarding and humbling experience. We are so close.