🚫 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! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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

Arlen Ritchie

MyTrailPals

My passion to work on products that impact human well-being led to MyTrailPals.

As the founder and CEO of MyTrailPals, I am the visionary and driving force behind our mission to foster a deep connection with the outdoors & create technology that enhances human well-being. With a deep passion for technology and a love for nature, I have dedicated myself to building a platform that merges these two worlds seamlessly.

At MyTrailPals, I wear many hats: product innovator, team leader, market researcher, and strategist. My hands-on approach ensures that every aspect of our technology is designed with the user in mind, making outdoor adventures more accessible and enjoyable for all.

I am committed to continuous learning and innovation, always seeking new ways to improve our offerings and better serve our community. My journey with MyTrailPals is driven by a simple yet profound belief: that technology, when used thoughtfully, can significantly enhance our quality of life and our relationship with the natural world.

CEO & Founder

Synopsys Inc

I drove a successful product displacement campaign at prime customers which led to multi-year customer partnership with increased yearly license usage by 10%, rewarded with stocks and spot bonus.

I led product engagements for multiple top-tier accounts from successful evaluations to adoptions, which resulted in revenue growth of 20% & collaborated with marketing on product competitive analysis, identifying feature gaps, and identifying the total addressable market which shaped the next version product roadmap.

I maintained a trusted relationship with customers which allowed me to get valuable feedback on product feature usage, and understand their pain points. I played a pivotal role in creating and automating product validation and testing methodology onsite at a customer which helped with proactively identifying customer-centric product issues and reduced the release turnaround time.

I put together processes in place to effectively triage and prioritize customer issues and worked with engineering to address them meeting customer schedules - resulting in a robust product, greater customer satisfaction, and reduced support overhead by 40%.

I designed & organized workshops and training, and delivered product demonstrations, across multiple customer sites both in-person and virtual. Resulting in increased awareness about new technology and wider adoption.

Sr. Staff Application Engineer

Staff Application Consultant

Atrenta

Responsible for technical engagements with customers to ensure successful evaluations, pre- sales, post-sales support and business. Worked closely with cross-functional teams to accomplish these goals for SpyGlass Platform (Lint, CDC, DFT, Power, Constraints products). Responsible for training customers on SpyGlass product platform (Lint, CDC, DFT, Power,Constraints products)

Sr. Field Application Engineer

Blue Pearl Software

I worked with customers to ensure a positive experience with Blue Pearl products, my responsibilities include, conducting product training, product demonstrations, answering technical inquiries, and assuring prospective customers that they are exposed to the full product capabilities and helping them incorporate the product into their existing workflows. I was responsible for logging bugs/enhancements, writing testcases for reproducers, and tracking and driving issues to closure with R&D.

As I became a product expert given pre-sales and post-sales support responsibilities for all accounts in the California region. Trained distributors in Asia which helped them close business internationally & started contributing to product roadmap leveraging customer feedback.

Field Application Engineer

IPextreme

- Provided expert support to customers during pre-sales and post-sales
- Managed complete projects starting with assessing requirements, studying design, updating product definition, fixing issues, preparing release packages, creating documents like app notes, product presentation for customers.
- Implemented RTL designs into FPGAs for application prototyping
- Worked with frontend ASIC/FPGA design synthesis, simulation tools.
- Implemented IPs like M8051EW microcontroller, Coldfire Processor into FPGAs for application prototyping. Assisted customers in integrating our IPs and resolving critical design issues in a timely manner.
- Debugged RTL Designs using Cadence, Synopsys, Mentor simulators. Automated synthesis flows using perl and tcl scripts

Technical Lead/Applications Engineer

Founder of MyTrailPals, a mobile app creating opportunities for everyone to connect outdoors. Empowers anyone to build their own wellness community. I am a product leader (B2B & B2C), and solution expert, passionate about products that impact any aspect of human well-being, be it social, mental, physical & professional. 

A community leader, passionate about bringing people together for the greater good as a way to give back to the community. Co-founded the women hiking community HikeQueen Buddies and am proud to say that as a community leader, empowered many women who felt stuck and held back to embark on a welness journey.

I worked in the Electronic Design Automation (EDA) & Semiconductor B2B industry as a customer solution expert for 16+ years and was fortunate enough to work with cross-functional teams. Worked from product discovery to customer adoption, from design specification, market research to product launch. Led many successful B2B product campaigns for top-tier customers, resulting in business growth. 

Let’s connect and explore how we can collaborate to make technology a force for good in our lives and the outdoors.

taplio

The Battle

Arlen Ritchie

Gunjan Utreja

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?