🚫 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 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

Strategic Solutions Co.

Full Desk Sales and Recruitment Rep

Comcast Business

Assists with the creation and delivery of face-to-face sales presentations that demonstrate knowledge of the latest Comcast products and services. Promotes the sale of bundled products to ensure the optimal solution for the customer. Sells with goals of exceeding departmental, financial and unit targets.
• Stays abreast of competitive landscape and emerging technologies to best position Comcast Business Services in the marketplace.
• Generates new leads with targeted businesses through various prospecting activities, including cold calling, canvassing, customer referrals and partner relationships. Focuses on goal achievement and is results driven.
• Assists with developing sales territory, including cultivation of local business partnerships and organizational affiliations.
• Retains customer base by delivering on the Comcast Credo. Ensures a superior customer experience. Maintains and builds customer relationships to drive customer retention; works with internal teams to ensure operational efficiencies and service levels meet and exceed customer expectations through strong customer service orientation and excellent follow up skills.
• Prepares sales and activity reports as required.
• Participates in out-of-the-office meetings with customers on a regular basis and demonstrates excellent verbal and written skills and skill in presenting, persuading and negotiating.
• Promotes the sale of bundled products to ensure the optimal solution for the customer. Sells with goals of exceeding departmental, financial and unit targets.
• Consistent exercise of independent judgment and discretion in matters of significance.
• Regular, consistent and punctual attendance. Must be able to work nights and weekends, variable schedule(s) and overtime as necessary.
• Other duties and responsibilities as assigned.

Sr. Business Account Executive

BADD Brand

•	Grew social media from zero to over 570,000 active followers, achieving up to 10 million+ (per month) active visitor-reach.
•	Grew BADD fashion brand Instagram page from zero to 60,000 active followers organically without any paid ads.
•	Created customer segmentation from email lists.
•	Public speaking at marketing event to teach marketing, business development, and technical marketing analysis to over 1500 guests.
•	Managed collaboration and curation of content from a community of influencers.
•	Created affiliate-marketing campaigns sending hundreds of users per month using Google Ads and SEO.
•	Management & implementation of posting schedule across key social platforms using marketing software including HubSpot, Buffer, Sprout Social, Sprinklr, Hootsuite.

Sr. Sales & Marketing Manager (Partner)

Comcast

•	Project management and implementation of marketing campaigns in over one hundred apartment complexes, maintaining high product penetration through strategic partnership.
•	Collaborated with property managers to blast marketing collateral to thousands of customers using email marketing and customer segmentation.
•	Extensive CRM operation for marketing analytics and data driven decision making using Salesforce.
•	Manage internal communications to ensure key stakeholders are updated on plans and results.
•	Executed successful campaigns from start to finish using analytical, organizational, project management, and time management skills.

SWEEP Sales Representative

DapperNapp Cuts & Coils

•	Drove marketing efforts by orchestrating local geo targeted marketing tactics and B2B advertising campaigns.
•	Created digital flyers for brand awareness using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.
•	Developed and implemented effective WOM strategies based on informed trends and media consumption behaviors that help achieve audience reach at both a local and locally geotargeted level.

Marketing Consultant 

Performance Equity Group

•	Conducted SEO audits as needed, including keyword research, A/B testing, search volume analysis, and overall site visibility and ranking using SEO tools.
•	Developed brand identity and Copywriting.
•	Managed all metadata creation, backlinking and internal link building strategy, and necessary day-to-day adjustments.
•	Provided effective marketing strategies, KPIs, and CTAs to ensure optimal performance results.
•	Developed and implemented SEO strategy to reach the company’s revenue goals.
•	Boosted site visibility with rich results using Schema.org and other third-party SEO software.
•	Incorporated Long tail and short tail keyword strategies for SEO growth.
•	Applied third-party marketing tools to crawl company website to identify and fix any found issues using marketing software including MOZ, Google Analytics, SEMrush.

Marketing Business Analyst

DEF[Y] Entertainment™

•	Actively promoted on social media sites increasing artist awareness.
•	Drove sales for music artists, engaging customers and provided sales support and brand awareness.
•	Developed awareness for live entertainment events and product displays for various upcoming artists.
•	Performed content production and copywriting for blog.

Brand Ambassador

Digital Marketing professional with proven experience in creative marketing growth campaigns and brand awareness across different marketing channels. Certified data analyst, experienced in CRO & designing conversion funnels with strong expertise in SMM growth strategies across social media platforms (TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, etc.). Experienced in Off-site & on-site SEO, email marketing campaign creation, and targeted conversion funnels to maximize ROAS & LTV to CAC ratio. Sales professional with a history of success in achieving customer satisfaction, retention, and referrals through continuous top-quality services and support. Strong analytical business strategist with creative thinking and communication skills to execute conversions in performance-based positions.

I believe in a growth mindset: an understanding that, as we learn, our brain literally changes and grows new neurons. These new cells are directly created through effort and practice, so I always choose the effort to continuously improve as a lifestyle.
The best leaders should always be great students themselves. Always striving to cultivate a creative culture of growth by relentlessly learning new things, as well as challenging others to learn and continuously improve.

taplio

The Battle

Arlen Ritchie

Brandon Francis

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