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By Andrea Britt

Theresa Emerick, founder of NightsBridge, a cloud-based property management system in the hospitality industry, shares her top five principles behind her success – valuable advice for budding women entrepreneurs aspiring to build a sustainable business in a highly competitive space such as the tourism and hospitality industry.

• Focus on one solution

Select your niche and focus on where your solution can add value within a supply chain. We chose smaller, independent accommodation providers as our target market because booking a Bed & Breakfast (B&B) in South Africa at the time was a slow and manual process. There were software solutions for the big hotel chains and resorts which were expensive and complex, but nothing B&Bs and guesthouses could afford. We designed a simple tool to bring their paper calendar online so that guests could book instantly. That was the one link within the travel supply chain we focused on relentlessly: adding the possibility to book online in real time.

• Get to your market quickly

Once you have chosen your market, launch as quickly as possible with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that solves a major pain point for your potential clients. To gain (and keep) momentum, quick feedback enables you to iterate fast, so start with the simplest version of your solution. Bear in mind though that the startup stage is where reputations are made. Keeping it lean means you can build to the service standards you expect to maintain over the coming years. People never forget that first impression. We knew that if we wanted our solution to stand the test of time, it was vital that we solved the first core need and get it accepted in the market. This is why many clients who joined in year one are still with our company today.

• Begin with the end in mind

Many businesses fail before they even start, because founders don’t put basic operational systems in place from the outset. We had our accounting package and customer relationship management software (CRM) in place before we launched.  Managing cash flow and client satisfaction is key. Even as a small core team doing everything initially, we had the vision of how the business would grow and which roles we would need. Following a “turnkey strategy” means most roles and tasks are mapped out even before hiring so that anyone coming into a team or a project can easily see what is needed from them.

• Build for the long-run

When shaping an SaaS business for the future, it’s crucial to prioritise value creation over short-term gains. Don’t be greedy. It pays in the end. We chose to build long-term relationships with many clients, with a reasonable monthly service fee, instead of inserting ourselves into the booking commission loop. Maintaining a steady stream of recurring revenue from annuity income ensured sustainable growth. While it’s essential to recognise your worth, it is a balancing act to ensure pricing isn’t a barrier for your market. Setting your ultimate goal as acting at scale means the long term gains will soon outweigh the short term hardship. 

• Make your unique selling point (USP) genuine

I was very fortunate to be mentored early in my career by an American entrepreneur who pointed out that you could make any business in South Africa a success by providing customer service. It doesn’t even have to be an exceptional service, just keep promises. That became our goal: under-promise and over-deliver. Keeping our customer support system up-to-date for every interaction meant that any member of the team could assist any client who called in.  We can still look back on client notes from our very first calls. Responsive customer service became our most distinguishing feature, enhancing the great software we built.

A business is more than just what your product is or does. It is how it makes someone feel when they interact with you. Perhaps that’s the secret to business longevity.

Theresa and Neil Emerick co-founded NightsBridge, a leading software solution in the South African hospitality market that is uniquely homegrown and powered by world class technology.

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