Oscar Rubio, Lodgerin

850 Meetings Before His First Sale Paid Off

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Episode Summary

Oscar Rubio held 850 meetings before closing his first sale. He flew from Spain to the US, drove college to college without appointments, and slept in motels and his car - all to prove that founder-led sales could work for a SaaS product nobody had asked for yet.

In this episode, Oscar reveals how he pivoted from a traditional relocation services business to a SaaS platform during COVID, taught himself how software works as a non-technical founder, and grew Lodgerin from zero to seven-figure revenue by doing things most founders refuse to do.

Oscar Rubio is the founder and CEO of Lodgerin, a SaaS platform helping organizations manage housing and relocation services for students and employees moving abroad. The company has grown to over 1.2 million euros in annual revenue with a positive EBITDA margin of around 14%.

Before building software, Oscar spent eight years running a traditional relocation services business in Spain. When COVID shut down international travel overnight, his revenue vanished completely. Rather than shut everything down as his COO recommended, Oscar made the bold decision to pivot to SaaS - despite having no technical background.

He spent months in an empty office, taping paper to walls and digitizing every process he'd built over eight years of service delivery. He taught himself how software development worked, built a small team, and launched a bare-bones MVP.

The first version was essentially an Airbnb for students - a marketplace where they could book housing through the platform. But a critical mistake almost killed the business before it started. They didn't build an availability calendar, so housing owners kept cancelling bookings. In the first quarter alone, they lost revenue from thousands of requests because properties weren't actually available.

Then came the truly hard part - founder-led sales at an extreme level. Oscar powered through 850 meetings before landing his first paying customer. He flew from Spain to the US, drove from college to college, knocked on doors without appointments, and slept in cheap motels and even his car to keep going.

His first customer, Comillas University in Madrid, initially ignored him for months after he visited their office. Then they called back - not for the housing marketplace he'd pitched, but to solve a different problem: managing incidents and emergencies during student stays. That one conversation opened the door to a customized project that became Lodgerin's first real contract.

After landing those first customers through relentless founder-led sales, referrals started compounding. The university sector is tight-knit, and satisfied clients recommended Lodgerin to peers at other institutions. Oscar grew from 171K euros in 2022 to 420K in 2023 to 1.2 million in 2024 - all with positive margins.

Topics: Founder-Led Sales|First Customers|Bootstrapping

Key Insight

Lodgerin founder Oscar Rubio held 850 in-person meetings - flying from Spain to the US and visiting universities door-to-door without appointments - before closing his first customer. Eight years of manual relocation services validated the problem before he wrote a line of code, and the deal that launched Lodgerin came not from the product he pitched but from a pain point he discovered during outreach.

Key Ideas

Conducted 850 face-to-face sales meetings across Spain and the US before closing a single deal - cold emails and phone calls were ignored
First customer (Comillas University) called back months later requesting a solution to a problem Oscar hadn't originally pitched
MVP lacked an availability calendar, causing thousands of cancelled bookings and lost revenue in the first quarter
Grew from 171K euros (2022) to 1.2M euros (2024) with 14% EBITDA margin, driven by referrals after initial traction
Raised 400K euros only after 955 investor meetings and proving the model worked with real customer revenue

Key Lessons

🤝 Founder-led sales can unlock markets that cold email never will: Oscar Rubio held 850 in-person meetings across Spain and the US, showing up without appointments and sleeping in motels to prove demand that digital outreach consistently failed to surface.
🛠️ Launch your MVP knowing it will break - the real learning starts there: Lodgerin's first product lacked an availability calendar, causing thousands of cancelled bookings in one quarter. That simple missing feature would never have surfaced without real users hitting the product.
🎯 Your first customer may want something different than what you pitch: Oscar sold Comillas University on housing, but they returned months later asking for incident management during stays. Listening to that unexpected request opened the door to Lodgerin's first real contract.
🔄 Manual service delivery builds unbeatable product knowledge for SaaS: Eight years of running relocation services gave Oscar firsthand knowledge of every pain point, which meant Lodgerin's SaaS wasn't based on assumptions - it was digitized expertise from hundreds of client engagements.
📉 When revenue vanishes, your domain expertise becomes the real asset: COVID destroyed Oscar's services business overnight, but the processes and relationships he'd built over eight years became the foundation for a SaaS platform that was more informed than any startup built from scratch.
💰 Bootstrap to positive unit economics before approaching investors: Oscar grew Lodgerin to 1.2M euros with 14% EBITDA margins before raising 400K euros. Real revenue and profitability attracted aligned investors after 955 meetings and gave Oscar negotiating leverage most first-time founders lack.
🚀 Referrals compound fastest in founder-led sales within niche markets: After proving value with early university clients, Lodgerin grew through word-of-mouth in the tight-knit housing management sector, with each satisfied customer reducing the next sale's cost to near zero.

Watch the Episode

Chapters

00:00Introduction

02:33Favorite quote and what Lodgerin does

03:46How the multi-sided marketplace works

04:58Starting as a relocation services company in 2013

07:06Serving universities and corporations as the same ICP

08:13Customer-centric expansion of services

09:12COVID hits and revenue vanishes overnight

10:50Digitizing 8 years of processes on office walls

12:00Bootstrapping without investors or a co-founder

14:46Revenue growth: 171K to 420K to 1.2M euros

16:22The dark period during COVID and staying resilient

18:32Building software as a non-technical founder

22:05Validating with customers before building

24:39The first MVP and the availability calendar mistake

28:12Founder-led sales: 850 meetings and knocking on doors

31:24What kept Oscar going through 850 rejections

35:42Landing the first customer at Comillas University

38:41Raising 400K euros after 955 investor meetings

40:31Lightning round

Episode Q&A

How did Oscar Rubio use founder-led sales to land Lodgerin's first customers?

Oscar flew from Spain to the US and visited universities door-to-door without appointments, knocking on office doors and sleeping in motels and his car. After 850 meetings, his first customer (Comillas University) called back months later asking him to solve housing incident management - a different problem than what he originally pitched.

Why did Oscar Rubio pivot Lodgerin from services to SaaS during COVID?

When COVID shut down international travel, Oscar's eight-year relocation services business lost all revenue overnight. Instead of shutting down as his COO recommended, he spent months digitizing every manual process into software, recognizing that technology was the only way to scale beyond physical presence.

What went wrong with Lodgerin's first MVP that nearly killed the business?

Oscar built a student housing marketplace similar to Airbnb but forgot to include an availability calendar. Housing owners kept cancelling bookings because dates were already taken. In the first quarter, Lodgerin lost revenue from thousands of requests because of this single missing feature.

How did Lodgerin grow from zero to 1.2 million euros in three years?

After landing initial university clients through extreme founder-led sales outreach, Lodgerin grew primarily through referrals. The university housing sector is tight-knit, and satisfied customers recommended Lodgerin to peers. Revenue grew from 171K euros in 2022 to 420K in 2023 to 1.2M in 2024.

How did Oscar Rubio build a SaaS product as a non-technical founder?

Oscar spent months learning how software development works - not writing code, but understanding architecture and product decisions well enough to hire and guide a technical team. He treated technology like any other business skill a founder needs to learn and focused on recruiting people who knew more than he did.

Why did 8 years of manual service delivery help Oscar validate Lodgerin's SaaS product?

Running relocation services for universities and corporations gave Oscar deep knowledge of customer pain points, existing relationships, and credibility. When he pivoted to software, he already knew exactly what problems to solve and had contacts who trusted him enough to try his product.

How did founder-led sales outperform digital outreach for Lodgerin's early growth?

Oscar discovered that physically showing up at university offices from another country created immediate trust. Decision-makers who ignored emails and phone calls would take meetings when someone appeared unannounced at their door. The personal effort signaled commitment that digital outreach couldn't match.

How did Oscar Rubio raise 400K euros after 955 investor meetings?

Between August and December 2023, Oscar met with 955 potential investors before closing four. Having real customers and growing revenue made conversations productive. The investors who joined have since supported Lodgerin's expansion into the US, UK, France, and Dubai.

Why did Oscar Rubio bootstrap Lodgerin to seven figures before raising outside capital?

Oscar believed in validating with real customers before taking outside money. He wanted to prove the business model worked with paying customers and positive EBITDA margins before giving up equity. This gave him leverage when he eventually raised and let him keep control of the company's direction.

Book Recommendations

Zero to One

by Peter Thiel

Links

Lodgerin: Website | LinkedIn | X
Oscar Rubio: LinkedIn
Omer Khan: LinkedIn | X

Full Transcript

Omer Khan [00:00:09]:
Welcome to another episode of the SaaS podcast. I'm your host Omer Khan and this is a show where I interview proven founders and industry experts who share their stories, strategies and insights to help you build, launch and grow your SaaS business. In this episode, I talked to Oscar Rubio, the founder and CEO of Lodgerin, a SaaS platform helping organizations manage housing and relocation services for students and employees moving abroad. For nearly a decade, Oscar bootstrapped a traditional relocation services business, solving complex problems manually for clients like universities and corporations.

Omer Khan [00:00:45]:
The business grew steadily, but scaling was difficult since everything depended on people and physical presence. Then Covid hit. Overnight, his entire business collapsed, mobility stopped, borders closed, and his revenues simply vanished. With no investors and no co founder, Oscar was alone. He pushed back against the advice to shut down everything and instead made a critical pivot from services to software. He spent months in an empty office taping paper to walls and transforming years of know how into digital processes that could become a SaaS product. But he didn't stop there.

Omer Khan [00:01:22]:
As a non technical founder, he taught himself how SaaS products worked, built a small team and launched a bare bones MVP despite not being able to write a single line of code himself. Then came the truly hard part. Sales. Oscar powered through 850 meetings before landing his first customer. He even flew from Spain to the us, Drove college to college around the country, knocked on doors without appointments and slept in cheap motels. And even his car ought to keep pushing this forward.

Omer Khan [00:01:50]:
Today, Lodgerin is a thriving SaaS company, generating over 1.3 million in ARR and expanding into global markets like the US and Dubai. In this episode, you'll learn how Oscar transformed a collapsed services business into a SaaS product during a global shutdown. Why he chose to bootstrap for nearly a decade before raising outside capital and what changed how. How he persevered through 850 rejections to finally close his first customer. We talk about what went wrong with their first MVP and the simple fix that unlocked real revenue.

Omer Khan [00:02:22]:
And how Oscar kept moving forward despite burnout, fear and financial uncertainty. So I hope you enjoy it. Oscar, welcome to the show.

Oscar Rubio [00:02:33]:
Thank you.

Omer Khan [00:02:33]:
Oscar, do you have a favorite quote? Something that inspires or motivates you that you can share with us?

Oscar Rubio [00:02:38]:
Well, I always say that I try. I like the quote of Edison who says I tried thousand times over to do it wrong. So at the end I make it right. So something like that.

Omer Khan [00:02:55]:
Yeah. Sweet. So tell us about Lodgerin. What does the product do, who's it for and what's the main Problem you're helping to solve.

Oscar Rubio [00:03:02]:
All right. Lodgerin is a digital ecosystem who digitalize and make easy the mobility ecosystem with this. I mean people who is moving abroad for medium term, let's say four or five months through our platform, they have the possibility to get all the services that they may need from housing to lawyers, banks, insurances, and then make all the processes that they may have to do during this stage through our technology, check in, checkout, rental payments, documents, exchange with these service providers, everything just in one platform.

Omer Khan [00:03:46]:
Got it. And then so you serve organizations who maybe have employees moving to a different country and helping them make that move, connect with the services. But then you also have universities where students may be moving across countries and you're providing a similar service there, correct?

Oscar Rubio [00:04:09]:
Exactly. Basically what we do is to provide to organizations and into organizations we consider companies, corporates or international universities who send people abroad, helping them with all these services through technology. Great.

Omer Khan [00:04:26]:
And you were explaining this to me a little bit earlier that it's basically a multi sided marketplace where on the one hand you've got these organizations like companies and universities, you've got the service providers who deliver on those services, like you said, bank services or whatever, housing and so on that people may need and then you have the actual users who could be employees, students, whoever. And it sounds. It just blows my mind thinking about just the dynamics of something there. But it's going to be great to unpack that a little bit.

Omer Khan [00:04:58]:
But what I think is interesting here with your story is that the SaaS business really was the result of a pivot back in 2022 which formed this business. But you were kind of running a services version of this business from what, since 2013, correct, correct.

Oscar Rubio [00:05:19]:
I started as a relocation company so after I got some traction with customers, I realized that the issues wasn't where the people get the service of having the house or having the lawyer or etc. The problems still comes when they arrive with the housing provider or during the stay with several incidents, etc. So at the end what I did is throw the customers I had. I was validating the issues they may have during the stays. So at the end I make longer the service providing until I get everything they need during the whole stay.

Oscar Rubio [00:05:58]:
So basically it was learning from customer experience what they need. I try to solve every aspect they may have during the stage and that is how I start as traditional relocation company that later on I expand in other business for property managers. So at the end I was making everything traditional until Covid. And during those I Think it was seven, eight years of experience. I learned perfectly fine what the customers need, the providers need and how to make it. The only difficulty that I got on that time, it was the scalability of the business.

Oscar Rubio [00:06:44]:
It was traditional service providing. So at the end, to escalate the business, I need more employees, more people, more employees. Be physically in the locations where I was providing the service. And that was difficult or capital intensive, let's say. So at the end, that was the challenge in that moment. Right.

Omer Khan [00:07:06]:
Were you serving the same types of customers before with this relocation business or was it universities and businesses and all of that stuff?

Oscar Rubio [00:07:15]:
Yeah, yeah, basically the same. Basically the same, same organization, same I mean, type of customers in terms of corporates and universities and in the other side, housing managers or property managers and banks, insurances companies, that kind of stuff. Same kind of customer. Yeah.

Omer Khan [00:07:38]:
So for anyone who's listening to this and who's been told the mantra about one icp, one ideal customer profile, their head is probably exploding right now thinking about how you would even go about getting started when you've got so many different potential customers and users and service providers. So how did you end up in this place? Was it just accidental? As the opportunities came along, it just grew organically or was it more of an intentional thing?

Oscar Rubio [00:08:13]:
At the beginning it was analyze what the customer needs and try to solve it. So it's like when you are pulling on a strip, so you start to pull the strip and at the end you see the whole picture. So we start with housing and then we realize that the people need or ask for services and lawyers and services with the bank account or with the city hall registration or with that kind of stuff. So, so we start to expand the portfolio of services through partners. So it was simple at the end.

Oscar Rubio [00:08:54]:
What we did is coordinate and try to solve the situations on the problems that the customer have. So it's customer centric idea, basically. You analyze what they need and try to solve it and make it cheaper for them or cheaper in a good way to do it.

Omer Khan [00:09:12]:
So you're running the business, you know, seven, eight years, it's growing organically. You know, you mentioned some of the scalability issues that you need to keep hiring more people to keep kind of growing the business. And then Covid comes along and then what happens?

Oscar Rubio [00:09:31]:
And then shock, shock in every way. Mobility, close barriers or frontiers between countries, close, flights, cancellations, everything closed. So imagine that you have been growing during seven years, being sustainable financially and operationally and everything. And suddenly one day to another, everything stops. My mind blow up. I mean, it was a shock for me. I didn't know how to act, how to react.

Oscar Rubio [00:10:08]:
My operations chief operations officer, which is the actual chief operations officer at Lodgerin, he said men, fire everyone, including me and save all the money that you can and start over when this storm has passed away. So in that moment I was so blocked to react. So I kept the business in the same way. But I start to think how to solve the situation, how to pass the situation. And the only idea who comes to my mind it was make more processes, be more international, be more scalable.

Oscar Rubio [00:10:50]:
So there is when the idea of lodging, which at the end is digitalize processes and provide the platform and our expertise that we have got during eight years to the customers and the. And the service providers, etc. Put it into a technology part. So during COVID what we were doing and at the office, imagine 150 square meters empty office full of tables, my chief operations officer and me putting papers on the walls, digitalizing every process that we have been doing during eight years. So that was the.

Oscar Rubio [00:11:31]:
The first idea we had and is how everything start over after Covid being more scalable and being more digital, becoming a traditional company into or traditional companies into digital ecosystem, a technological company.

Omer Khan [00:11:49]:
And because we didn't mention this earlier, but the additional challenge was that you were bootstrapping this business. You didn't have investors or a whole bunch of, you know, money to in the bank.

Oscar Rubio [00:12:00]:
No, not even, not even co founder to cry. No, it just me. I'm luck because I have a really good family, really good wife who helped me during those difficult times. As I said, I have a chief operation operation officer who was with me in some part of that hell. But yes, it's tough. I think that there is two kind of entrepreneurs.

Oscar Rubio [00:12:41]:
The ones who need somebody to launch and grow and they need it because his personality needs somebody and the other ones who are like me, who it's difficult to manage with more people, more co founders to get the final result that you want. So at the end I'm coming from business degree as well and I consider businesses as sustainable way and they must have dividends and they must have positive financials in order to grow strong.

Oscar Rubio [00:13:20]:
So my idea, first idea was to validate the business, validate the service and get my financials with my customers, not with money coming from outside and then saying what you have to do or not or et cetera. Now it's true that we are in a moment that we are rising funds, we rise numbers. December 2023, 400k as cds and now we are looking for cdsa. But we are in a moment that we have validated the market, we have validated idea, we have traction.

Oscar Rubio [00:13:58]:
We have been increasing the multiples on the company during three years in a row. So now I'm feeling that I'm in the possibility to grow in a strong way. So that is why we are looking for invest. But people, when they start business, they are always focusing in getting money and then validate and create the technology and etc. So at the end, first start and get validation with your customers, not with your ideas, with your customers. And afterwards you can start to think in getting investors.

Oscar Rubio [00:14:35]:
But first of all you must validate the idea in real market with real customers. That is my idea, that is my thoughts about it.

Omer Khan [00:14:46]:
Yeah, and it paid off. I mean, you told me about the revenue, the growth trajectory. Can you just run through that in terms of how you grew from 2022 to where you are right now?

Oscar Rubio [00:14:57]:
Sure, sure. I mean we are still not Microsoft. We, we will do at some point, but we start with 2022. First year it was 171,000. 2023 we close with 420, something,000 in revenue. And this year 2024 we close with 1.2 million with every year with an EBITDA positive margin around 14%.

Omer Khan [00:15:30]:
Is that euros or dollars?

Oscar Rubio [00:15:33]:
Euros. Euros. Yeah. We just opened the company here in US so basically we have a holding with the companies in Spain and us and we are opening Dubai during, during this year. So yeah, at the end, the holding before that it was in Spain. So that is why it's in Euros, the revenue.

Omer Khan [00:15:57]:
So the last three years, obviously, you know, you've turned things around, gone from that, that very difficult period in, during COVID to getting to the first million in ARR and continuing to grow beyond that. Tell me what it was like when you're during COVID when you're kind of going through this dark period where it looks like there's no way out for this business. Everything has come to a halt.

Omer Khan [00:16:22]:
You know, you talked a little bit about how you eventually figured out what you were going to do and to look at the processes and automation and eventually move towards a technology or a SaaS business. But a lot of founders get into this space where things look really grim and it just feels like this hole is getting deeper and deeper and it feels like harder and harder to climb out of it. So what was that like for you? And then how did you kind of pull yourself out and start moving forward again?

Oscar Rubio [00:16:54]:
I think One of my best things is the resilience that I have. I'm not the smarter guy, the smartest guy in the planet. I'm not the, you know, but I like so much and I believe so much in what I'm doing. And at the end during COVID it was always the belief of this is going to pass, this is going to pass, this is going to pass.

Oscar Rubio [00:17:17]:
So what we did to to try to survive is to find other source of revenues according our business to, to try to keep it at least in 0 or net, let's say, right? So we have for instance people who abandoned the houses, right. But they left everything in the house. So we start to coordinate the get their stuff and send it back home. So with that we get a revenue source, for instance, or we have another people who says I want to get a report about numbers and et cetera.

Oscar Rubio [00:17:54]:
And we have a lot of data on our platform, et cetera, right. So we start to create reports. So when you have needs, your brain start to have ideas from everywhere and if you have that resilience of trying to survive, you find a way. You always find a way. It's true that it's difficult and it's tough and I'm not gonna lie, you I thought to quit several times during that process, that process. But here I am.

Omer Khan [00:18:32]:
So not only, but you're a solo founder, you're also a non technical founder. So once you decide that, okay, I've got these, this is the direction I'm going. I'm going to build a software business, a SaaS business. A lot of people will say, well, I want to do this, but I need to find a technical co founder first or I can't do this for whatever reason. That didn't hold you back. How did you get around that? Because you still don't have a technical co founder but you're still building the business.

Oscar Rubio [00:19:06]:
There is always a way. There is always a way. If you want to make it, there is always a way. So on my end, the first step that I did is what I want to create what I need to create this. And I start to learn myself about how to create it. Not of course to write code, right. But yes to, to how everything is. It's, it's working in that, in that area. Right.

Oscar Rubio [00:19:32]:
But it's happened the same if you don't know about marketing or you don't know about finances or you know, I know a lot of entrepreneurs who are CEOs, they don't have business background and at the beginning they don't know how much they are paying for Social Security or how much they are paying in taxes or what is a balance sheet or why the amortization on an asset, right? Or if the technology that they are doing it's amortizable or not, right? So at the end is I think every aspect on life you can learn about it.

Oscar Rubio [00:20:06]:
You have to spend hours, you have to have a plan. You must get people who knows more than you. Because at the end, when you don't know something and all the people have something that they don't know, it's find a way to learn it. So on my side, what I did, first of all it was learning about how to do what I want to do and afterwards find the right people in the team to execute the plan. It's easier than it looks.

Oscar Rubio [00:20:42]:
So at the end, for people who say, no, I don't have the technical ideas or I don't have the technical knowledge, or I don't have the marketing knowledge, you can solve everything. The first thing you must do is start and validate and validate the idea and get the customer and make mistakes and be flexible and adapt yourself and adjust everything that you must adjust to get to the point. You know the expression paralysis by analysis, right?

Oscar Rubio [00:21:15]:
We, the human being, it's always analyzing and thinking and 80% of the things that you are thinking don't happen, don't make an end. So at the end, I think that that is the biggest issue that you may have. It's true that you must have something learned before, but it's easy. You find a way, you find the people who can teach you and that's it.

Omer Khan [00:21:46]:
So before you started building the first version of the software or the mvp, you talked about validating the problems with customers. But in many ways, hadn't you already done that for like eight years before? Like, weren't you like, okay, I know this, I'm going to jump into building the software now.

Oscar Rubio [00:22:05]:
I always have meetings with the customers. Even if now that I'm CEO, I have salespeople, I always like to know about what are the clients concerns. And I always, I'm showing and I'm sharing my ideas. I'm creating this. How do you feel about it? And make prototypes, I'm creating this. How do you see this possibility for your customer? Do you see interesting or not? With this, with these small questions, these small interviews, these small meetings, you are validating already the customer.

Oscar Rubio [00:22:41]:
And then the most difficult part, which is validate if what you are delivering they are willing to pay for it, which is important. So at the end, it's a process, but as soon as you do it one time, your brain make it automatically. So it's always the same process. It's about processes at the end. So when we are launching a new functionality at our software, or we are launching a new product or whatever, we always follow the same steps.

Oscar Rubio [00:23:15]:
Validate first with the customers, show my ideas, collect the feedback, and then start to make it according what the customer needs. It's true that we all have ideas, really good ideas. I want to create this app or this software or this. At the end, you need to create something that people wants to pay for it and need it because it's the way that you are going to sell. So if you create something that you think it's important, but it's important just for you, or the market is so small, you are not going to success.

Oscar Rubio [00:23:55]:
So at the end, in our site, it was simple, validate with the customer.

Omer Khan [00:23:59]:
So you're learning about building software, something that's new to you. You're building a vision of what this product is going to do and you're having conversations with customers about just validating, getting feedback and seeing how much interest there is. You start hiring people, building a team around you who can build the software or execute on this vision. What was the first version of that product? How much did it do? And how long did it take you to close the first sale to prove that they would pay for it?

Oscar Rubio [00:24:39]:
Do you know what I do, what I'm still doing? I keep each version of the product that we are launching. And I have still the first version of the product we Launched, it was 2022. It was Marketplace of housing where students can make the reservation of the housing in the website. Right kind of Airbnb for students. If you see the user experience, the product itself, it was my gosh, I remember that nobody understand how to make a reservation. It was so complicated, so complicated the process of creating a property into the software.

Oscar Rubio [00:25:26]:
It was super difficult, super difficult to understand, super difficult. So at the end, the first version doesn't matter what clear you have your ideas, it is going to be difficult. But you must launch and you must test and you must receive feedback because the margin of improvement is unlimited always. So if you wait to have the perfect product, it's never going to happen.

Omer Khan [00:25:58]:
Did anybody pay for that first version or did you have to go back and start making it better at the beginning?

Oscar Rubio [00:26:04]:
At the beginning, we got money or revenue from complete reservation. So we, we didn't make a Process where the housing owners has the availability of their housing updated. So we received thousands of requests for the housing that we have in our platform. But as we didn't have the availability, housing owners were cancel, cancel, cancel, cancel, cancel, cancel. So we lost in the, in the first quarter, we lost a lot of money that we could have and we didn't have because that simple mistake. Have a calendar to update the availability.

Oscar Rubio [00:26:46]:
So afterwards we start to improve that part, et cetera, and we start to get the revenue that we were expecting.

Omer Khan [00:26:52]:
Okay, wait, so, so the business model at the time was you would get paid if somebody completed a reservation, like

Oscar Rubio [00:27:00]:
a student with the technology, it was like kind of Airbnb for students.

Omer Khan [00:27:06]:
Right. And so people were booking and then you were realizing that there wasn't availability for a bunch of these properties. And so the money that you thought you were going to get, you weren't. Because the calendars on the, on the property owner's side weren't up to date.

Oscar Rubio [00:27:20]:
Exactly, exactly. Exactly. Simple, simple mistake. We were, we were making everything regarding the housing owner in terms of pictures, information, housing conditions, contract conditions, everything. But we didn't realize about availability because we said it's going to be available. I mean, it's thousands of housing right in there, it's going to be available. Dates? No, this date is not working well because we have a group who is coming in two weeks. So that part, which seems simple and understandable, it was a tough part of the technology. And that was the first mistake.

Oscar Rubio [00:28:02]:
After that mistake, another 10,000 mistakes, let's say, during the process. So it's like that you are learning from mistakes.

Omer Khan [00:28:12]:
So then you go back, presumably, and you fix the availability problem so they can update and so on. What was the next piece? Because I know most of the growth that came wasn't from these transactional things. It was from going out and doing direct sales. And so how did that come about and how did you find those first, you know, say the first 10 customers?

Oscar Rubio [00:28:37]:
Well, at the end we, we always said that what we try to do with Lodgerin is to solve problems. So when we start to, to make the sales to organizations such as corporations or universities, we analyze what are their problems regarding the international mobility where they were suffering more. Right. So at the end we realized that the housing was the main pain.

Oscar Rubio [00:29:06]:
And then the incidents that happened during the stays regarding the housing, I don't know, humidity or they make the check in and the housing is not what it looks like in the pictures or to make the payments the housing owners wants to make. It by wire transfer, but they want to pay by card. All the issues that they may have that at the end were received by the organizations, by the companies and the universities. Imagine sending people abroad and receiving.

Oscar Rubio [00:29:38]:
My landlord is not giving me this or I have to change, but I don't know where to look. So at the end we start to customize all the project with these organizations to provide them aside the technology and all these issues they may have, providing them the solution to these issues. So the first customer, it was coming to us instead us coming to them. We were making. I remember entering in the office of International Mobility in Comillas, which is a university in Madrid, selling the service, the product, everything.

Oscar Rubio [00:30:19]:
And I never heard about them in three, four months. And then I received a call and they told me, Oscar, we don't need the housing, but we need this issue that we have with emergencies that happen during the stays with the housing. Can you provide this? And that is how it starts to solve a process and a problem making an customized project for them, including the housing. And that was the first customer. And then it's true that in our sector, in our market, referral works really well. And it's a small sector.

Oscar Rubio [00:30:59]:
So universities and companies talk each other and recommend Lodgerine as company to use for these issues. And that is how we start to generate the first 10 customers. But to be honest, to get 10 customers before the first customer, I made like 800 meetings, 850 meetings, something like that.

Omer Khan [00:31:24]:
850 meetings with potential customers.

Oscar Rubio [00:31:28]:
Correct. And you imagine entering with no appointment because they didn't answer the phone or they didn't reply the email or things like that, going directly to the office, knock the door and say, hi, I'm Oscar, I'm coming here to sell you this. But not just in Spain. I take a flight coming us and going university by university with my car, sleeping in motels and doing like that. That was the beginning of, of this story. Wow.

Omer Khan [00:32:06]:
You know, it's like, I think a lot of people just wish that they, they hear this, they see this stuff on X or wherever and it's like, so I just build a landing page and then run some Google Ads and customers find me. But the, the reality is you often have to do a lot do things that most people are not willing to do. And what you just told me there, I would say 99% of people, I don't know if they would ever do that.

Oscar Rubio [00:32:40]:
It's resilience, resilience and adaptability to change, to get the customer. That's it. That's it. When I always tell this story, people say wow. It's not wow, it's simple. Is quite simple to be honest. Everyone can do that. But you must have the resilience to don't get paid for long term, be in a car, be far from your home, going, knocking doors and do that.

Omer Khan [00:33:12]:
But what kept you going? I mean, how many times did you need to be rejected before you say okay, enough.

Oscar Rubio [00:33:16]:
I believe it, I believe it. You know how I start all this? Because I was studying my degree in Leads UK and when I was there I have a lot of issues with the housing and I saw a lot of people with a lot of issues with housing, changing houses, problems with the housing owners, having problems with the Social Security to get the Social Security number, open the bank account. And I said if one company for a small money was in this business, I will hire them.

Oscar Rubio [00:33:44]:
Because at the end it's suffering a process that should be super good process, you know, or super enjoyable process. So I believe on this since long term. So I think my believing my, my first, first person experience was the, the, the key to keep there. And then to be honest, it's a matter of personality as well. I mean I always like build projects and run businesses.

Omer Khan [00:34:16]:
So it sounds like the, the thing that kept you going was a lot of the times founders will, you know, talk to 10, 20, 30, 40 potential customers get nowhere and eventually the energy fades out or they decide this is the wrong thing to do. And the thing that kept you going was, from what I'm hearing, is that because you had experienced this personally, you are absolutely convinced that this was a painful problem that needed to be solved and they just needed to understand how this solution could help them.

Oscar Rubio [00:34:52]:
Exactly. But as well, I know it, I knew it, that they have that issue as well. The only thing is that everyone is so busy with their daily task and they don't focus on how to solve those issues because they are focusing in their own stuff. So when somebody comes to sell, always says no because I don't have the time to focus on you. But when they start to listen and they realize, oh right, all right, I'm gonna use it. So at the beginning it's like that.

Oscar Rubio [00:35:24]:
I mean you are going to receive a lot of no's. And again, I'm not gonna lie, it's tough, it's tough to keep going. But if you believe it and you know it, not believe it, you know it just keep going.

Omer Khan [00:35:42]:
So after those 800, 850 rejections, what happened? Tell me about the time that somebody

Oscar Rubio [00:35:50]:
said, yes, the first customer I had, as I told you, the comillas, I remember on my family, my brother saying, congratulations, you did it. And no, no, no, I didn't did it. I just closed one customer. And now is when, when the fun begins. I remember the guy at the university who was managing what we were doing, suffer two heart attacks in several years, coordinating all the staff of housing arrivals, etc. So at one point somebody at the university says, wait, you are not here for this. We must standalize this.

Oscar Rubio [00:36:33]:
As we were the ones who were knocking doors and saying, I have this service, I have this to provide you. They said, all right, let's go with them, let's try with them. So after I remember it was super painful. It was like six months negotiating the contract, insurances, everything into the contract, we close it. And afterwards, when you think that you have it is when everything starts. Because you start to receive problems from every site.

Oscar Rubio [00:37:05]:
And then you must start to recruit people and you must have an operations team who get formatting during the process of learning. So it's quite complicated at the beginning. You need time to learn and to implement new features, new processes, improvements. But if the customer is loyal and they see on you that you are there to make it done well, they trust on you. Because the alternative maybe is more expensive, or maybe it's not there, or it's not willing to do what you are willing to do when you are starting.

Oscar Rubio [00:37:47]:
Because when you are starting, you are willing to do everything they need to solve the situation. And that is what gets you more customers and improvements and everything.

Omer Khan [00:37:58]:
Let's talk a little bit about fundraising. The original relocation business, it was bootstrapped for at least a couple of years. When you pivoted and started to build the SaaS business, you continue to bootstrap the business. You got to seven figures in ARR. What was the driver for you? Because I know you talked about saying, hey, building a sustainable business that I can scale is important. So what eventually drove you to raising money? Because you raised, what was it? €4000-004004-00000.

Oscar Rubio [00:38:41]:
Same story that with customers, it was here, it was 955 meetings with potential investors from August. I have the list. I have the list from August 2023 to December 2023 to get four investors for those 400,000. And it was crazy at the end. The reason of rising money is growth and expansion, but big plans of expansion. So now, after the rising on 2023, which it was difficult, etc. I must say that I got the right investors because because they support a lot. We multiply per three all the KPIs.

Oscar Rubio [00:39:36]:
I show them that the business plan is possible. Now we are opening another investment round for the end of this year and the actual investors are making follow on on this invest to keep the growing plans that we have at the end. Now we were established last year in US because we were in Spain even if we were operating in Italy, Portugal and Spain. Now we are operating aside Spain, Italy, Portugal, France, uk, Dubai and US. We have a plan of expansion that is going to be really, really strong, really really capital intensive.

Oscar Rubio [00:40:25]:
So that is why we are rising funds but basically and why we raised funds one year ago.

Omer Khan [00:40:31]:
All right, we should wrap up here. So let's get onto the lightning round. I've got seven quick fire questions for you. You ready?

Oscar Rubio [00:40:40]:
Let's go.

Omer Khan [00:40:41]:
What's one of the best pieces of business advice you've received?

Oscar Rubio [00:40:44]:
Every problem has a solution.

Omer Khan [00:40:46]:
What book would you recommend to our audience and why?

Oscar Rubio [00:40:50]:
From 0 to 1 million of Peter Thiel. You realize about adaptability and how to change to get that figure but make this lean startup way of of getting.

Omer Khan [00:41:09]:
What's one attribute or characteristic in your mind of a successful founder?

Oscar Rubio [00:41:13]:
Oh, resilience, of course.

Omer Khan [00:41:18]:
What's your favorite personal productivity tool or

Oscar Rubio [00:41:20]:
habit running at morning? I think it provides you all the strength that you need for the day and liberate your stress or on your head so you can start fresh every day.

Omer Khan [00:41:36]:
What's the new or crazy business idea you'd love to pursue if you had the time?

Oscar Rubio [00:41:40]:
Kind of. Omg. For entrepreneurs who don't have resources from Africa or some other areas. They don't have the resources or the education but they have the ideas and they have things to be successful, but they don't have the people around to do it.

Omer Khan [00:42:05]:
What's an interesting or fun fact about you that most people don't know?

Oscar Rubio [00:42:09]:
I refound the receipt of my mobile line to ask my wife to marry me to buy the the ring. I refound the the invoice of the phone because I didn't have money in the account.

Omer Khan [00:42:26]:
Wow.

Oscar Rubio [00:42:27]:
I refunded. I refund the invoice because I was expecting a payment of another client. So in the meanwhile. So I do it in that way. So yeah, 2014.

Omer Khan [00:42:41]:
Love it. And finally, what's one of your most important passions outside of your work?

Oscar Rubio [00:42:46]:
My family. My children. The best. The best.

Omer Khan [00:42:49]:
Oscar. Thank you. It's been a pleasure talking. Just. We often hear about resilience and how important it is for founders. But some of the numbers that you just gave me and this list that you've been tracking about the number of rejections before you got your first customer, the. The number of hundreds of founders, investors you had to talk to, I mean, that is a living, breathing example of resilience. And, you know, now that I'm, you know, I'm in, I'm in Florida now. Right. So I'm just a few hours away from you.

Omer Khan [00:43:23]:
If I ever want to improve my resilience and get better at taking rejection, I'm just going to drive down to Miami and hang out with you for a while because it's, you know, as

Oscar Rubio [00:43:33]:
I told you, every problem has a solution. And at the end, if you enjoy what you are doing, you will get it after or sooner, but you will have it. As I told you before, I mean, everyone wants everything now. And you must be patient at some point.

Omer Khan [00:43:54]:
Love it. All right, so if people want to find out more about Lodgerin, they can go to Lodger. That's L, O D g.

Oscar Rubio [00:44:04]:
Exactly. Exactly.

Omer Khan [00:44:05]:
Lodgerin.com and if folks want to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Oscar Rubio [00:44:10]:
Well, LinkedIn is where I'm more active, is where I'm receiving everyday messages and connections, and I think it's the best way to connect with me.

Omer Khan [00:44:19]:
We'll include a link to your profile in the show notes as well so people can find you more easily. Awesome. Thank you, my friend. It's been a pleasure and I wish you and the team the best of success.

Oscar Rubio [00:44:28]:
Thank you. Thank you very much. You pass by Miami, let me know.

Omer Khan [00:44:31]:
I will, definitely. Okay, cheers.

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