🚫 OTAs Suck ✅ Building a Book Direct, Decentralized, Open-OTA ➜ 🚀 Operators Get Direct Bookings ✈️ Travelers Get Rewards for Booking Direct 💰 Anyone Who Refers Travelers Owns Them & the Revenue Stream They Generate.

🐥 I'm a startup founder, launching a direct booking travel platform for the AI agent era.

Why? Today, Online Travel Agent (OTA) commissions are draining 10's of billions of dollars out of the travel ecosystem. They enrich "Big Tech" and "Big Travel", at the expense of everyone else. I know because I helped them do it. For years I was a super-affiliate of Expedia and other big OTAs. I fed $100m+ in hotel bookings to the OTAs, generating $10m in commissions, but adding little of value to the ecosystem.

Now, I'm building a new travel distribution platform and protocol that enables travelers and their AI agents to bypass the OTA middlemen and book direct.

👇 Want to be notified when we launch? Leave a comment in the featured post below titled "AI-powered community", or reach out and connect! 

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Previously...

🐣 I co-founded a venture studio. We launched 3 notable ventures:
 
1️⃣ 3Genius International. Network of travel booking websites. $100M+ in bookings and $10M+ in gross profit.

2️⃣ Moola.com. Multiplayer game. Grew virally to 450k community members, $7.6M economy. PCWorld's “Best Places to Waste Time on the Web”.
 
3️⃣ Locationary. Local data and community platform. Rewarded users for crowdsourcing local business data (eg. like for Apple Maps). $4.5M in funding. Acquired by Apple.

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🧠 Current Interests: AI, community, machine learning, travel, fintech, loyalty rewards, web3 / tokens / blockchain, creator & influencer economy, social commerce, marketplaces, network effects.

Arlen Ritchie

eGuarantee

Reporting to the Executive Chairman, I am responsible for setting up, growing and scaling the eGuarantee market delivery teams, which includes:

- Sales
- Customer Success and Service
- Marketing 
-Technology and Engineering 
- Finance

Executive Director, Market Delivery

In charge of setting up and building the eGuarantee sales and business development team. Additionally, building the company channel sales strategy.

Chief Growth Officer

Vizzy.Fm

At Vizzy, I embarked on an exhilarating adventure as a co-founder and CEO.  I helped to successfully drive the growth of our startup from an ambitious concept to a fully functioning product in the market. 

My technical acumen played a pivotal role in orchestrating the development of a cutting-edge cloud-based SaaS platform tailored for podcasters and audio professionals. This platform enabled the seamless integration of rich media content into audio on platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. 

Since its launch in November 2022, Vizzy has experienced strong growth, with over 250 sign-ups and more than 10,000 hours of audio uploaded across nine languages.

Founder / CEO 

Online Marketing Gurus

As the COO of Australia's largest independent digital marketing agency, I leveraged my skills in data analytics and business strategy to drive substantial revenue growth, projecting an additional $116 million annually. My leadership in rebuilding customer operations doubled employee retention in just three months, and I played a pivotal role in establishing an offshore operation and a new internal customer support team.

Chief Operating Officer

Prospa.

As Head of Customer Success for #31 ranked company on the KMPG world 'Fintech100' 2016, I became the bridge between our customer's voice and the business. My quest was to provide a seamless digital experience that customers love; with automation that provides scale, revenue, and outstanding internal UX

#Wins and Achievements

• 224% increase is revenue per sales agent

• 390% increase in department revenue

• Grew the team from 3 (smallest in the business) to over 30 (largest in the business)

• Maintained World Class NPS and Csat

1) Built the customer Account Mgmt and Retention Team from the ground up. Placing our customer and their needs first; solving their problems; building value for them and ensuring we are their trusted adviser throughout their life with us. 2) Creating and implementing robust, efficient, smart, data-driven systems to provide processes that exceed company targets whilst also allowing for scale in the business. 3) Curating powerful marketing content that reaches our customers at the right time and in the right medium to produce the best outcome for the company and for the needs of our clients. 4) Building, maintaining, and empowering Team Leaders that are focused on providing the highest quality results, in an efficient and compliance-focused manner. 5) Running data and analytical reporting to drive increasing efficiency; focus and visibility over targets and performance, as well as allowing for data-based decision making.

Head of Customer Success, Operations

As Head of our Customer Acquisitions, reporting to the CEO, I set up the framework for our front-end sales and operations teams. This was a team that was built from Zero to one.

During this time, we became Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Australia 2015. I was responsible for the efficient and effective delivery and distribution of our product to our customers. I was also responsible for building and establishing the processes that have allowed us to fund in excess of $80 million to Australian SME's by:

1) Setting strong targets and achieving them by building a strong sales culture that is collaborative, diverse, and well trained.

2) Building and implementing an exceptional sales operation; examples include adding data cloud telephony, state of the art CRM, and Tech Automation to drive efficiency and data collection for analytics.

3) Cross functionally collaborated to bring Projects and Products to life. Running product and engineering initiatives to support our sales and distribution processes. 

4) Reported directly to the CEO and worked closely with the C-level team. Custodian of reporting to CEO and Execs and board.

5) Delivered unprecedented scale to support 3000% growth during this period.

Other Achievements:

•Grew the team from 1 to 12, while Increasing the average transaction numbers by 20% per quarter •Set the standard of our communication style, sales approach, and method through sales training, •Major part of company Tech Projects, including the specs, development & launch of new CRM, sales underwriting processes/workflows, •Maintaining 85% or higher on telephone SLA for the team, as well as <80% NPS, •Maintaining 95% in CSAT

Head of New Customer Operations 

Responsible for turning leads and opportunities into sales and clients in the most efficient a customer-centric way possible; while keeping the company objectives and goals in mind.

Core Responsibilities

• Outbound and inbound telephone sales, • Prospecting clients, qualifying leads and opportunities, • Converting leads into opportunities and credit submissions, • Working with the credit team on tough deals to obtain favorable outcomes and increase approvals, • Maintaining high customer retention ratios, • Maintain industry-leading customer experience, • Built the workflows and processed for the acquisition team.

Core Capabilities • Highly Developed communication skills • Strong negotiator • Highly tuned listening skills • High drive to Succeed and Achieve • Maintain competitive personal/professional Targets.

Achievements • Exceeded budget month on month, 116% of budget minimum, on average achieved 125%, • Helped start and build the retention sales cycle, • Raised the volume and amount of settled deals by 300%, • Generated over $4m in settlements. • Implemented and generated sales training materials for new sales staff. • Generated and won the largest deal, to date, for the business. • On-boarded large partners that still produce customers for the business.

Business Development Manager

Canamix PTY LTD

•	Hired as Contract Manager in this manufacturing start up. 
•	Worked alongside Managing Director/CEO to ensure the strong rise of the product, and its delivery into the Canadian market.

•	Responsible for the maintenance of contracts acquired by Canamix, as well as acquisition and development of new contracts.

•	Drafting of tenders, proposals and company communications with clients.
•	Development of Marketing Strategy and Brand Awareness.
•	Extensive verbal, written and electronic communication with customers and third party partners. 
•	Supervision of product delivery and installation, as well as follow-up on customer satisfaction and product performance. 

•	Invoicing and payment database maintenance.
•	During my time at Canamix the company experienced steady growth and acquired around 10 new contracts, the last of which was worth over $1 million in value.

Contracts and Ops Manager

Dr. T.N Ivanov Inc.

•	Management, supervision and training of Medical Practice staff.  
•	Directly responsible for all billings made by the practice, processing of ICD9 codes and direct electronic submission to government. 

•	Responsible for the billing, communicating and liaising with all third parties used in the treatment and processing of patients; such as multiple specialists, Law Firms and Government Bodies.

•	General maintenance of the premises such as replenishing of perishable products, pharmaceutical stock and proper and efficient function of computers and telecommunications. 

•	During my time at the practice our patient base grew two-fold to roughly 4000 patient files. The practice was run smoothly and efficiently and was averaged 4.0 stars out of five by an independent online survey site by patients.

Medical Practice Manager

Forward-thinking tech executive with a proven track record of success in guiding companies from startup to scale-up. With over 12 years of experience, I specialise in:

- assembling cross-functional teams
- creating outstanding products
- implementing effective go-to-market strategies
- establishing precise performance frameworks. 

My passion lies in exceeding business objectives and fostering a sense of community within organisations.

Currently working on growing our digital lease bond to replace bank guarantees in the commercial property market. eGuarantee provides a faster, more secure bond without the need to tie up capital in a bank guarantee.

taplio

The Battle

Arlen Ritchie

Nicolas Ivanov

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