#35 Douglas Solberg - How Much of a Hotel Can AI Actually Run? Inside the YC-Backed Startup Zaplar

You book a room in seconds. What does it take to make everything behind that booking work? Our new episode with Douglas Solberg, Co-Founder of Zaplar is out. Douglas joined us to talk about the YC-backed startup rebuilding the software hotels run on, from bookings and guest communication to housekeeping. The ambition: give AI agents enough context to carry out work across the hotel, while the team stays in control and has more time for guests. But first, you have to convince a hotel to trust a startup with the systems its business depends on. We talked about winning over skeptical customers, his journey from UChicago to Y Combinator, and choosing the right investors. The founding team has already packed a lot in. Douglas started his first business at 14. His co-founder Jon was working as a security software engineer at 17. Alongside their technical backgrounds, the team brings first-hand experience working in hotels and restaurants, giving them a practical understanding of the problems they’re trying to solve. We also got into finding the people you want to build with, committing for the long term, and knowing when to go all in. And when in times like these code gets cheap, what actually makes your company hard to copy? Douglas’s answer: “It’s not about code. It’s about taste.” Thanks a lot Douglas for joining us!!! EP35 is live everywhere now!