Oscar Rubio, the Founder and CEO of LodgerIn, shares his inspiring journey from overcoming 850 rejections to launching a successful SaaS platform for managing housing and relocation services. He discusses the challenges faced during the COVID-19 pandemic and the pivotal shift from a traditional service business to a SaaS model. Oscar emphasizes the importance of customer feedback in product development and illustrates how resilience and strategic learning drove his business to seven-figure success while simplifying the relocation process for students and employees.
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question_answer ANECDOTE
From Services to SaaS
Oscar Rubio started a traditional relocation business in 2013, later pivoting to SaaS.
He expanded services based on customer needs, starting with housing and adding lawyers, banks, and insurance.
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Diverse Customer Base
Rubio's initial customer base consisted of corporations and universities, along with housing managers, property managers, banks, and insurance companies.
This diverse customer base grew organically as he addressed client needs.
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COVID Pivot
COVID-19 shut down Rubio's traditional relocation business, forcing a pivot.
He and his COO spent months mapping their processes, turning years of experience into a digital platform.
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850 meetings. Sleeping in his car. Flying from Spain to knock on doors without appointments. Oscar Rubio's founder selling journey proves that extreme persistence can validate demand that digital outreach completely misses. Founders will hear how Lodgerin grew from zero to 1.2 million euros in annual revenue through startup sales grit.
Oscar reveals why 8 years of manual service delivery was the best validation for his SaaS product, how his first customer came back asking for something completely different than what he pitched, and the founder-led sales approach that turned university referrals into a compounding growth engine. His early-stage sales lessons show why physically showing up beats cold email every time.
Lodgerin is a bootstrapped SaaS platform helping universities and corporations manage student and employee housing. Oscar grew it to 1.2M euros with 14% EBITDA margins before raising 400K euros after 955 investor meetings.
🤝 Founder selling can unlock markets cold email never will: Oscar held 850 in-person meetings across Spain and the US, showing up without appointments and sleeping in motels to prove demand that digital outreach failed to surface.
🛠️ Launch your MVP knowing it will break: Lodgerin's first product lacked an availability calendar, causing thousands of cancelled bookings in one quarter. That missing feature would never have surfaced without real users.
🎯 Your first customer may want something different: Oscar pitched housing to Comillas University, but they returned months later asking for incident management. Listening to that unexpected request opened Lodgerin's first real contract.
🔄 Manual service delivery builds unbeatable product knowledge: Eight years of running relocation services gave Oscar firsthand knowledge of every pain point, making his founder selling pitch far more credible than any startup built from scratch.
💰 Bootstrap to positive unit economics before approaching investors: Oscar grew to 1.2M euros with 14% EBITDA margins before raising 400K euros. Real revenue and profitability attracted aligned investors after 955 meetings.
Chapters
Introduction
What Lodgerin does
Starting as a relocation services company in 2013
COVID hits and revenue vanishes overnight
Digitizing 8 years of processes on office walls
Revenue growth: 171K to 420K to 1.2M euros
Building software as a non-technical founder
The first MVP and the availability calendar mistake
850 founder selling meetings and knocking on doors
The SaaS Podcast - AI, Growth & Product-Market Fit for SaaS Founders 
