"One piece of advice I wish I had received when starting a business is to be prepared for failure."
Alpa Patel grew up in the hospitality industry and brings more than 16 years of experience in business development and marketing from the hospitality and print industries.
She’s the Founder & CEO of 9th House, an experience design studio providing hospitality design and branding services to the hospitality industry. We are passionate about people and our planet and work consciously to bring more meaning to and humanize travel experiences.
Alpa has a passion for all things hospitality design, technology, marketing, and innovating to help hoteliers increase room rates, occupancy, and revenues and guests have memorable experiences. Alpa holds an honors degree from the University of Texas at Arlington in Management Information Systems.
She is also the founder of 1+1, a community of dreamers, doers, leaders, and innovators of purpose-driven ventures doing well by doing good.
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Table of Contents
In the past year, what is the greatest business achievement you’d like to celebrate with your team? Please share the details of that success.
Alpa Patel: In the past year, the 9th House will have successfully launched a new program that pairs hoteliers to our container F&B brand, The Local Spot which creates hyper-local experiences for guests and locals alike.
Through “The Local Spot,” hotel guests will enjoy locally sourced coffee, beer, and wine paired with seasonal foods cooked by local chefs. Additionally, the program will host Sunday funday pool parties and local happy hour events to bring the community together.
This program will humanize the travel experience for guests and the local community. It’s an achievement we’re looking forward to celebrating. We are launching “The Local Spot” with six proof of concepts across the US with one hotel developer this summer.
We launched The Local Spot to inspire locals and guests coming into a city or town to support local small businesses to keep local economies strong and vibrant.
Building a sense of community and giving memorable experiences has been a great achievement through this brand and we’re very excited to share this and inspire more people to shop local and with small businesses.
What advice do you wish you received when you started your business journey and what do you intend on improving in the next quarter?
Alpa Patel: One piece of advice I wish I had received when starting a business is to be prepared for failure. Starting a business is a risky endeavor, and not everything will go as planned.
It’s essential to have a plan B in case things don’t work out as expected, but more importantly, it’s crucial to learn from failure and use those lessons to improve in the future.
Another piece of advice is to build a solid team. No one can build a successful business alone. To me, the very definition of a company is a group of committed people working towards a common vision and a mission and surrounding yourself with the right people makes or breaks a company in my opinion.
Make sure you hire individuals who share your vision and are passionate about your business, and have the skills and experience needed to help you succeed. In terms of what to improve in the next quarter, it depends on the specific goals and challenges facing your business.
However, some areas that are generally worth focusing on include improving customer experience, enhancing marketing efforts to reach new audiences, streamlining operations to increase efficiency, growing and scaling The Local Spot is definitely in the books.
We’re a socially conscious and impact-driven brand. We are a part of the 1+1 community which pledges and invests 1% of our topline revenues from The Local Spot to nonprofit organizations tackling hunger locally such as Feeding America to supporting quality and highly reputable global nonprofit organizations such as World Central Kitchen and World Food Programme (WFP).
WFP is one of the largest UN agencies helping 86.7 million people in around 83 countries every year, delivering food assistance in places of emergency, as well as working with communities to build resilience and improve nutrition.
Overall, starting a business is a challenging but rewarding journey, and it’s essential to continuously learn, adapt, and grow to achieve success.
Here is a two fold question: What is the book that influenced you the most and how? Please share some life lessons you learned. Now what book have you gifted the most and why?
Alpa Patel: The book that has influenced my life the most is called “The Life Divine” and it’s from a philosopher and spiritual yogi in India, Sri Aurobindo. I am a very curious person and my biggest question I wanted to know the answer to was “Why am I here? What is the point of all of this??
I found my answer in this book and learned more about Integral Yoga. It has helped me become a better human being, business person and I feel I tend to operate my business and choose to look at the business from multiple perspectives. I believe that there is an abundance of opportunities for everyone to all do well and do good.
The book taught that life is verily filled with Duality and without pain, one can’t enjoy the peaks of bliss or happiness. How can we have a day without a night? So, this book has brought me closer to my faith in people, the planet and myself.
I have gained great insight what my true reality is all about and my truth which is experienced is that we’re beings of light and energy having a physical experience, not other way around. The Life DIvine taught me to make my life divine. To live a Divine life is to live a life of constant progress and growth. I am here to experience.
I have verily chosen my experiences and am here to grow, learn and seek eternal truths. For me, it becomes eternal truth when I have experienced it for myself and The Life Divine has taught me
I’ll share another great book, “The Alchemist” which is a story of a shepherd boy named Santiago who embarks on a journey to fulfill his dreams. Through his journey, Santiago learns valuable life lessons about the power of perseverance, following one’s heart, and trusting the universe to guide him.
The book teaches readers to pursue their dreams, no matter how daunting they may seem, and to trust in the journey and the lessons learned along the way. Ultimately, the books that influence us the most and the books we choose to give most often depend on our personal experiences and preferences.
Still, both “The Alchemist” and “The Life Divine” have resonated with me the most and on a personal side, I love reading and occasionally writing poetry as well and enjoy reading Sufi poets like Rumi.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as THE real challenge right now?
Alpa Patel: The real challenge for me is to grow to scale my company and gain first mover advantage. I feel it’s important as the opportunity can be great at helping hoteliers make more revenues.
Things have been rough for them lately. 30-35% of their topline revenues are gone to hotel franchisors and online booking sites such as Booking.com, etc. That leaves little profits left after paying for rising labor costs and costs of goods for hotels, restaurants and bars.
The Local Spot which we’re launching gives a great opportunity for hotel owners to generate ancillary revenues from selling quality breakfast, lunch and dinner foods while supporting local small businesses and giving great experience to guests by activating public spaces of hotels and bring guest and locals alike
To be frank, the challenges are there and will always be there but when challenges are overcome, the feeling I experience is priceless. Real growth happens when we overcome obstacles and gain new insights and we grow most from these experiences. I embrace the challenges and see it as greatest opportunity for growth and earning.
Businesses must navigate these challenges while maintaining their core values and staying competitive in their respective markets. They must find ways to leverage technology to improve efficiency and create new opportunities for growth while still prioritizing human connection and customer experience.
It’s a delicate balance that requires constant innovation and flexibility.
Another critical challenge is creating a diverse and inclusive workplace that values all employees’ contributions and perspectives. The world is becoming more diverse, and companies that fail to embrace diversity and inclusion risk falling behind their competitors and losing top talent.
Businesses must make a conscious effort to create a culture that values diversity and actively works to break down barriers and biases.
In conclusion, the real challenge for businesses right now is navigating the rapidly changing business landscape while maintaining their core values and creating a diverse and inclusive workplace that fosters innovation and growth.
In your experience, what tends to be the most underestimated part of running a company? Can you share an example?
Alpa Patel: In my experience, the most underestimated part of running a company is the importance of building relationships and building authentic and ‘real connections’ with everyone you work with.
I feel my superpower is building relationships. It has opened doors for me in places I could only dream of. I am a very strong communicator and feel it is more organic or natural to me to want to build a connection or relationship with someone i want respect, admire and share same values.
Communication is huge as it is how I share my vision and paint the picture for my team of where I want to go and my ability to build a connection with another person enables me to make things happen. Communication skills and ability to build a relationship are the superpowers that have helped me get here with $0 to start my company.
For example, suppose a company is launching a new product or service. In that case, effective communication between the product development team, marketing team, and sales team is crucial to ensure that the product is developed, marketed, and sold effectively.
If there is a breakdown in communication, the product may not meet customer needs, the marketing message may not resonate with the target audience, and the sales team may struggle to close deals.
In conclusion, building real and authentic connections starts with me. I have to be truthful, transparent and my team trusts me because they know me. They know what I”m all about and I continue to be inspired by my team as much as perhaps I am of them.
On a lighter note, if you had the ability to pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Alpa Patel: If I had the ability to pick any business superpower, I would choose the power of persuasion. The ability to persuade and influence people is a valuable asset in business, whether it’s convincing investors to fund a project or persuading customers to buy a product.
I feel to some extent, I do this because I have built an incredible group of humans with great energy who are so dedicated to serving our mission to democratize design and make it accessible and affordable as well as give back to the local and global communities.
The purpose or our ‘why’ is something we’re very clear about. We want to do well by doing good. My team works nights and weekends to get projects done without us asking them to. They take ownership of the work because they work like it’s also their business
With the superpower of persuasion, I would put it into practice by using it to build strong relationships witty clients, stakeholders, and partners. I use persuasive language to communicate with honesty and negotiate fair deals, present ideas, and motivate my teams here in the US and India.
I would like to leverage my persuasion skills to amplify my voice and inspire more companies and entrepreneurs to do well by doing good. People, planet and profits – all three are important, not just profits to us.
I feel it’s so important to use the power of persuasion ethically, with high morals and a sense of great community when it comes to our brand, The Local Spot. It’s crucial to persuade people based on the merits of the argument rather than manipulating or deceiving them.
The power of persuasion should be used to build trust and credibility, not to exploit or take advantage of others. Persuasion can be used for good or bad like most superpowers. I want to leverage these business superpowers for both work and personal life as I feel that both integrated is best way to live.
In conclusion, the power of persuasion is an invaluable business superpower that can be used to achieve success and build strong relationships. As long as it’s used ethically and responsibly, it can be a valuable tool in the business arsenal.
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Alpa Patel for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Alpa Patel or her company, you can do it through her – Linkedin Page
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