Week 1 | Sarah Weingust of HostelPass
Female Founders Weekly co-founder Sarah Weingust on how she started HostelPass
Hi, I’m Alex! This week I interviewed my wonderful Female Founders Weekly co-author Sarah Weingust. Sarah is a 25 year-old entrepreneur based in London, UK. She was born in Berkeley, California, and has since lived in Boston, Oregon, and Los Angeles in the USA, and Amsterdam and Utrecht in the Netherlands, before settling down (for now) in London. Sarah is passionate about travel, creating community, and women helping women. You can find out more about her company, HostelPass, here.
1) To start, we always want to get to the passion behind the idea. What motivated you to start HostelPass?
I was traveling alone across Europe after a study abroad semester in London. I was running low on cash, so I ended up spending the night at a cheap Airbnb. The Airbnb looked good on paper, but in reality it was a 40-minute walk from the city centre, had a creepy host who had thumbtacked cutouts of naked women on the walls, and (as I later found out) had bedbugs.
I ended up in that situation because I was a college student on a budget, looking for the cheapest option, rather than the best one, and I didn’t want to spend all of my time looking for something better when I could be exploring where I was. I also had no idea how to figure out the best location to stay in a new city.
I was traveling across different countries using an Interrail Pass (Eurail Pass, as we call it in the States), which let me get from one place to another by hopping on-and-off trains without worrying about purchasing individual tickets. I’d also been staying at a lot of amazing hostels (communal-style, budget-friendly accommodations).
While I was at that Airbnb, I thought about how perfect it would be to have a pre-paid, fixed-price pass for accommodation, just like my Interrail Pass, but at only the best hostels. This way, travellers would know that anywhere they ended up staying would be great, and the price of their stay would already be covered.
2) I love your story! So what exactly is HostelPass?
HostelPass is just that: a fixed-price, pre-paid pass for accommodation at the best hostels in Europe. You simply buy a pass for the number of nights that you want to stay at hostels during your trip, and then book your hostels on the go (or beforehand, if you’re a planning type) via our app or website. You can search for hostels based on your specific preferences as well, so if staying at a hostel with a female-only dorm and free breakfast was really important to me, I could make sure that I’m only shown results for hostels with those amenities.
The best part is that the cost of all of your hostel nights is included in the price of your pass, so once you’ve got your HostelPass and especially if you’ve also got your Eurail / Interrail Pass, all you have to pay for on your trip is food and fun.
3) How did you actually get going on the idea? Was there a moment that you thought to yourself “I’m starting this business”, or was it more gradual?
When I came up with the idea for HostelPass, I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. I didn’t have much of a plan for after graduation, and so I decided to go all in. When I went back to USC for my final year, I picked up an Entrepreneurship minor, and started using HostelPass as my project in all of my classes. I was able to create pitch decks, financial documents, business models, etc., all as part of my degree. I entered into various pitch competitions around LA, went to “Founder meet Funder” events, and found communities and resources for people who were in similar situations to me. I had that (false) sense of invincibility as a 21-year-old, and at that moment, I couldn’t imagine a better time to go all in on an idea.
4) What was it like taking the leap to do this full time - scary, exciting?
It took us a while to get built and it took us a while to get funding, so for the first two or so years I had been working on HostelPass as a passion project, while financially supporting myself by developing websites for clients. I’d taken a coding class in college, and taught myself to build Squarespace websites, so combining those two skills I was able to pay bills and make my monthly student loan payments.
A little over a year ago, I was lucky enough to be able to start working on HostelPass full-time, and it was such a relief! It has allowed us to move forward so much more quickly. Switching to full-time has also made me realise that you need to be able to give your all to something to see real results (or at least it really helps).
5) Now, an important question that doesn’t get asked enough. How did you fund your business when you started?
It took us a year and a half to procure our first round of investment. Up until that point, my business partner at the time, Meir Razzon, and I had been spending all of our free time contacting hostels, working with classmates from USC to get the technical side moving, and pitching in competitions or any investor meetings we could get our hands on.
I remember a few of my Entrepreneurship professors asking me “Why don’t you do a friends and family round?” which was always a tricky question to answer. I wasn’t in a position to do a friends and family round, and saying so always felt a little embarrassing.
We’d won a couple of pitch competitions, which gave us a little bit of money to work with, but it wasn’t until Meir was overheard talking about HostelPass to a friend in a cafe in Istanbul that things really changed for us. Someone at the next table had liked the sound of this HostelPass thing, and he became our very first investor.
We’d been able to get a lot done before getting funding, but investment helped us progress with the business so much faster.
6) What have been your biggest challenges? What motivated you to keep going?
Starting out as an un-funded 21-year-old founder, I made my fair number of mistakes, and that sense of invincibility wore off pretty quickly.
One of our biggest challenges was just getting the damn thing built. We went through three different development groups before finding the right developers for our project, and that meant blowing quite a lot of money (relatively speaking) and time.
There were moments when I felt so much imposter syndrome (I still do, sometimes), and making those early-on mistakes with hiring and budgeting only reinforced those feelings.
Having started out with little professional experience has always been a blessing and a curse. I came very close to quitting once or twice, but I’m so glad I’ve stuck with it. The amount I’ve learned from those mistakes has set me up so well to be able to tackle any future roadblocks or business ideas.
Whenever I was feeling down, I would just think about the number of people who had said to me “I wish I’d had that on my Eurotrip!” or “How does that not exist already?” and I’d remember that we’re really onto something. I knew that by the end, we would have created something that would truly make people’s travel experiences better.
7) How do you manage work-life balance? How do you spend your time when you’re not working?
I don’t struggle with work-life balance as much as most people, I imagine because I don’t have kids. My housemates have more traditional, full-time jobs, which helps me with my structure. I tend to try to match their hours. When they get home I usually treat that as my alarm bell that it’s time to stop for the day. I also try to take weekends off as much as possible.
Before the pandemic, I was going to a co-working space most days, and I’d meet my team there. Now, we’re all remote, and it’s working quite well.
When I’m not working I like to travel, go on hikes, spend time with friends and family, and work on projects. Recently, I’ve also been getting into bouldering (although our local gym is closed due to Covid-19).
8) Who do you lean on the most for support?
You, girl! It’s such a treat to have another badass female founder to share the journey with. There’s an element of “getting it” that people who have been through the startup journey have which makes it so easy to talk through business issues and successes with them. Having a network of fellow founders makes a huge difference.
I’ve also got an amazing network of advisors from the business school at USC, and my previous boss, Carrie Norton, has been a huge support and inspiration.
And, of course, my family and friends have been so great throughout the journey. I can always lean on them for support.
9) Ah, thank you! What has been your proudest achievement so far?
Launching the app on the app store felt like a real milestone. It took us so long to build the app, and there were days where I felt like it was never going to happen. Seeing it online and seeing that people were downloading it was a very proud moment.
10) And finally - what’s your best piece of advice to other women starting a business?
So much of your business success has to do with your network. Put yourself out there, surround yourself with positive people who motivate you and lift you up, and make sure you return the favour when you can.
Sarah, I am so very proud of you!! I get to say that because I knew you when you were in kindergarten and first grade. What an amazing and accomplished young woman you have become. I wish you great things as you move forward. lark