time-consuming to try to figure out how to sneak around each hotel, carrying a giant camera, without raising the suspicions of hotel staff. Blodget says there still might be some undercover work, but that the company would employ many different review methods going forward.
One of Oyster.com’s most popular features is its “Photo Fakeouts” slideshow. The company’s editors regularly compare the photos they take during their hotel visits with the photos the hotels post on their websites and in their brochures. Then Oyster posts the photos side-by-side, along with commentary.
The hotels can be pretty crafty, as Oyster has discovered. One recent Fakeout fingered Sofitel L.A., a chichi hotel that’s next door to a giant mall. Sofitel’s photo shows a tranquil, outdoor pool surrounded by a few quiet-looking condo buildings. Oyster’s photo, by contrast, reveals the ugly truth: The mall’s looming Macy’s store backs right up against the hotel’s pool.
The fakeout resulted in some saucy comments from Oyster’s editors. “We’ll concede that the giant mall is, in a way, a comforting presence; at least we know we’d be covered if a chick from ‘The Hills’ should happen to spill her $12 cocktail on the only swimsuit we brought,” they joke. “Otherwise, as we noted in our evaluation, the mall view is one of several pool-related disappointments.”
Seidman says the company is working on a set of tools that will make it easier for Oyster’s users to search for the perfect hotel, based on factors such as family-friendliness and type of décor. The company just hired a VP of marketing and is starting to consider TV and radio advertising, Seidman says. And the deal with Travel Channel will add even more exposure. “It’s a big honor to be associated with that brand,” he says.
Oyster’s management team has experienced the ups and downs of tech entrepreneurship before. In 2000, Seidman and Charytan co-founded Epana Networks, a company that sold telecom services. But after the tech bust, the company had trouble competing against bigger rivals, so the founders transformed it into a marketer of prepaid phone cards. Grupo Marcatel of Mexico acquired Epana in 2009.
Seidman “has seen it all,” says Ajay Agarwal, a managing director at Oyster investor Bain Capital. Agarwal first worked with Seidman in the late 1990s at a software startup called Trilogy. He was inspired to invest in Oyster not only because he felt it filled a niche in online travel information, but also because he had confidence that Seidman’s past experience would serve him well. “He survived the nuclear winter of 2000 to 2001,” Agarwal says. “He scaled up a company and took it through the Valley of Death. That creates seasoning, which is important in an entrepreneur.”
Agarwal says he’s not worried about the company’s business model. He believes revenues from both ads and bookings will increase as Oyster builds its menu of destinations and its customer base. What’s more, he says, it’s important that Oyster’s execs ensure the commercialization of the site matches its high-end feel. “We don’t want to create a site with thousands of pop-up ads,” Agarwal says. “The advertising has to be synergistic with the brand.”
Seidman says his history of entrepreneurship is informing every decision he makes about Oyster—and giving him the patience to ride out a few years of unprofitability. “It’s not about having an idea,” Seidman says. “You have to stay true to the mission. And you have to be able to withstand uncertainty for a long period of time.”
