Hospitality startup wins first place at first ever Entrepreneur 20x pitch competition at HITEC convention
Hospitality startup Whistle, led by co-founders Chris Hovanessian and Jonathan Rojas, won $5,000 by placing first in the Entrepreneur 20x pitch competition at HFTP’s HITEC convention this year.
accomnews was in attendence so stay tuned for more info on the convention from our industry reporter Mandy Clarke.
“The most valuable element of Entrepreneur 20x for Whistle has been the validation and exposure to industry leaders and professionals,” says Jonathan Rojas, Co-Founder of Whistle.
“Being the winner of the first E20X competition is definitely a very exciting accomplishment for us and it feels great! It’s an amazing feeling to find out directly from the industry experts that our hard work is recognised and paying off.”
HFTP, along with Capital Factory, debuted the 20X series: Entrepreneur 20X (E20X) as part of HITEC.
Whistle connects hotels and their guests via popular mobile messaging apps and SMS. Whistle operates on a single web browser tab. The service aggregates customer communications into minimalistic web and mobile admin panels. Whistle allows Hotels to respond or triage incoming messages via a real-time chat interface to and from the customer’s preferred app or SMS.
“We began using Whistle a couple months ago to allow our guests another avenue to allow us to serve them. We found that as we educated them, they prefer to text us their requests for towels, a drink at the pool, ordering a taxi or any other minor need,” says Michael Kapoulis, General Manager at Hotel MdR a Doubletree by Hilton. “At every interaction, Whistle has been eager to assist… Guests appreciate the quick turnaround and timely response as opposed to picking up the phone, waiting for someone to answer or being placed on hold.”
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