Munich Startup: What does your startup do? What problem does Myflexhome solve?
Kilian Ricken, Co-Founder Myflexhome: We offer a platform for anyone who regularly stays in hotels – from four nights per month.
Unlike other booking portals, our customers benefit from a radically simplified booking process and customer loyalty status with a fixed price from the first night. Compared to individual bookings, our customers pay up to 40 percent less with the hotel subscription and save themselves the time-consuming research and booking effort.
Our customers are private individuals, many in hybrid work arrangements or long-distance commuters, as well as companies with travel between locations or teams distributed across Germany with shared on-site days. We offer them a simple solution for their accommodation needs with our model.
Myflexhome: hotel subscription with a special booking process
Munich Startup: But that already exists, doesn’t it!
Kilian Ricken: Of course there are many booking portals. But negotiated rates have so far only been available to large companies. Our booking process, where you can book all accommodations at once with just one click, is unique in this form on the market.
Normally you also have to pay for each night individually at the hotel. With us, there’s only one monthly invoice – no waiting in line at reception on checkout morning and the billing address is always 100 percent correct with us.
Myflexhome customers also receive special benefits at the hotels, such as luggage storage between stays.
Munich Startup: What is your founding story?
Kilian Ricken: During Corona, we noticed that many people from our circle of friends and acquaintances moved away from Munich. Either because they moved back to their original home or wanted more space, which they couldn’t afford in Munich. At the same time, they kept their jobs in Munich, which wasn’t a problem during the mandatory work-from-home period.
But we asked ourselves what they would do once it was at least partially back to the office. Here we came up with the idea that a second home for just a few nights a week or month doesn’t make sense and hotels are the perfect alternative.
While we initially had a strong focus on hybrid employees, we have since also developed a special product for business customers.
First funding round in progress
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Kilian Ricken: We are currently working on our first funding round. We notice that this has become significantly more difficult than it was two years ago, even though we have already reached over 50 percent of our funding target.
Since none of us come from the hotel industry, it was initially a challenge for us to understand the hotel market in depth and build a network to find good hotel partners across Germany. By now we have strong partners with ‘Premier Inn’, Numa and other chains.
On the technical side, the challenge was developing the platform completely independently from scratch, as there was no software that could map a subscription model for hotels. The solution is still unique in the entire market.
Munich Startup: How is business going?
Kilian Ricken: We have now sold a high four-digit number of nights and more than tripled our revenue in 2023. At the same time, we were able to increase our margin and reach new target groups. Our goal is to reach the one million revenue mark this year, expand to more than 20 cities and offer a nationwide subscription model, especially for business travel.
Many Munich startups are already using our subscription for their employees in hybrid work models, as well as for team days, workshops and projects.
Exchange with others is invaluable
Munich Startup: How have you experienced the Munich startup location so far?
Kilian Ricken: Munich is, alongside Berlin, certainly the best location in Germany to start a company. We have had our office at Werk1 since mid-2023 and the exchange with other startups and like-minded people is invaluable.
The coaching from Baystartup has also given us important insights and helps us a lot with our first funding. The Bavarian funding opportunities, such as Start?Zuschuss!, have helped us a lot, especially in the beginning.
Munich Startup: Hidden champion or shooting star?
Kilian Ricken: We are certainly still more of a hidden champion at the moment. Through our bootstrapping approach so far, we have grown steadily, but we don’t yet have the recognition and size that we want and need. With our funding, strong expansion into more cities and the nationwide subscription for business travel, we want to develop into a shooting star.
