An Interview with Marius Donhauser, Founder and CEO of hotelkit
“You have to solve a real problem.” – Why is that important?
Looking back at my journey, that’s the key lesson: A company shouldn’t start with a cool idea. It should start with a real problem. Before hotelkit, I founded four startups that failed. Today, I can clearly analyze why: We had ideas. But we weren’t solving urgent, real problems.
hotelkit was born differently. It wasn’t a business plan drawn up on a whiteboard. It was a real problem in my own hotel. And that made all the difference.
How did hotelkit actually start?
I come from the hospitality industry. My parents were hoteliers, and I practically grew up in a hotel. At our kitchen table, we didn’t talk about football scores, we talked about staff schedules, guest requests, and maintenance issues.
In our hotel, there was a massive binder full of standards and processes. We started calling it the “monster binder”. No one could ever find what they were looking for.
So I thought: What if we made a hotel’s knowledge digitally accessible? For everyone. Anytime. Without chaos. That’s how the idea of an internal platform for hotels was born! Essentially a “Slack for hotels.”
Why was failure an important part of success?
Failure is part of the journey. Period. From the outside, founding a company often looks glamorous. Awards, growth, international expansion. But in reality, it means more rejections than approvals, doubts, financial uncertainty, and a lot of perseverance.
What helped me?
- I was young and had few obligations.
- I had inherited an entrepreneurial mindset from my parents.
- I was willing to learn from mistakes, not repeat them.
With hotelkit, we did many things differently than in my previous startups.
That made all the difference.
What does it really take to build an international company?
In my opinion, three things:
- The right timing:
When we started (2012/2013), cloud technology was just emerging. We were one of the first solutions that was not on-premise, but fully cloud-based. - The right team:
Today, we have over 100 employees in Salzburg and Dresden. Without this team, hotelkit would never have grown internationally. A founder alone does not build a scale-up. - Persistence:
At the beginning, you often don’t know what’s coming, and sometimes that’s a good thing. Internationalization sounds exciting, but it’s complex.
New markets mean:
- New languages
- New support structures
- Cultural differences
- Technical challenges (e.g., the China firewall)
How does a startup become a market leader?
As I mentioned before, by not just building software but by solving a real problem. hotelkit wasn’t created with the idea, “Let’s build hotel software.” It was born from a real operational need.
Today, more than 4,000 hotels in 85 countries use our platform. But the core has always remained the same: We simplify the daily work of hotel teams. Not for the guest but for the employees. And ultimately, that’s what benefits the guest as well.
What role do innovation and AI play in hospitality?
The industry is facing major challenges:
- Labor shortages
- High employee turnover
- Rising expectations
- Ongoing digitalization
AI is not a threat — it’s an enabler. We are currently developing an internal AI assistant that makes hotel knowledge accessible through conversation. An employee can ask a question in their own language and instantly receive the right answer. Knowledge becomes independent of individual employees. Processes become simpler. Teams become more efficient. That’s the future.
What advice would you give young founders today?
Building a company is not a sprint. It’s a marathon with many detours. But if it works out, every hurdle is worth it.
- Solve a real problem.
- Don’t build the product first. Understand the problem first.
- Keep going. Even when it hurts.
- Develop resilience.
About Marius Donhauser
Marius Donhauser is Co-Founder and CEO of hotelkit. His entrepreneurial journey didn’t begin in Silicon Valley, but in his family’s hotel in Salzburg, which he took over as a young hotelier. Faced with daily challenges around communication and team collaboration, he developed the idea for hotelkit from firsthand experience. A solution built by hoteliers for hoteliers. What started in 2012 together with three developers in “room 404” has grown into an international technology company with more than 110 employees. Over 4,000 businesses in more than 85 countries and 180,000 users worldwide rely on hotelkit. As CEO, Marius passionately drives the vision of making collaboration in hospitality simpler, more efficient, and more human.
