This software engineer turned entrepreneur revolutionizes hotel booking with an innovative solution for short-term stays. In this episode of SaaS That App: Building B2B Web Applications, Jared Lerner, co-founder and CEO of Nappr, joins Aaron Marchbanks and Justin Edwards to share how his personal sleep struggles led to a startup idea in 2014, and how he pivoted through brick-and-mortar nap shops, the pandemic, and into a scalable hotel marketplace.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to transform a personal pain point into a viable marketplace business model
• Why focusing on hotel vacancy periods creates win-win opportunities for both hotels and travelers
• How to build and maintain a lightweight tech stack for rapid marketplace scaling
• The "Direct-to-Hotel" integration approach for real-time inventory management and booking
• Why early customer feedback and proper developer vetting are crucial for startup success
• The importance of balancing technical perfection with market validation in early-stage startups
  
  

Jared Lerner is the co-founder and CEO of Nappr, a tech-driven platform revolutionizing how travelers book short-term hotel stays for rest and relaxation. With a background in software engineering and startup culture, Jared combined his technical expertise with his personal experience dealing with sleep challenges to create an innovative marketplace solution. After pivoting from a brick-and-mortar concept in 2014 to the current hotel marketplace model, he has successfully built a platform that connects tired travelers with available hotel rooms during off-peak hours. Under his leadership, Nappr has grown to serve hundreds of monthly users while maintaining a strong focus on company culture and work-life balance.

This podcast is brought to you by Delta Systems, your one-stop shop for front-end, back-end, and full-stack software development. At Delta, Justin and Aaron share the same philosophy when it comes to clients: they treat people like colleagues, not just customers. Maybe that’s why Delta typically spends years working with the same companies: how many software engineering firms can you say that about? So, if you’ve got a big SaaS project in mind but have no idea where to start, come and get a free scope and estimate from Delta Systems on their website.

Highlights and YouTube Chapters:

• [00:00] Introduction
• [02:36] The Sleep Problem That Sparked a Startup
• [04:52] From Developer to Founder
• [06:47] Startup Culture, Tech Pivots, and Passion
• [09:51] The Real Startup Timeline
• [12:36] Viral Marketing with a Mattress in Manhattan
• [14:27] How Nappr Books Rooms in 30 Seconds
• [16:17] Convincing Hotels to Monetize Daytime Vacancy
• [21:03] The Business Model Breakdown
• [22:37] Fast Feedback, Real-Time Fixes
• [26:23] From 10 to 250 Bookings a Month
• [28:30] Lessons for Technical Founders

Episode Resources:

• Jared Lerner on LinkedIn
• Nappr Website
• Aaron Marchbanks on LinkedIn
• Justin Edwards on LinkedIn
• Delta Systems Website

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