Articles
Essays from building and operating hospitality businesses: hotels, travel, retail, parks and the software behind them. Each one takes a single problem and what we would try first.
RetailTourist sign-ups are the wrong way to bill merchants
In a destination loyalty program, sign-ups can grow while an individual shop sees little benefit. Per-store pricing gives merchants a price they can connect to what they are buying.
BusinessYour hotel software may be worth more inside your hotel business
In-house hotel software built for your own properties can be a real operating advantage. Turning it into a separate hotel SaaS business takes a different kind of evidence.
HospitalityThe middle is the problem
A hotel property management system (PMS) can get too complicated for a small operator and still fall short for a hotel group. Picking the segment comes first.
HospitalityThe room with the bad view deserves an honest listing
A flaw that rules a room out for one guest may not matter at all to the next. Honest hotel room descriptions let travelers make that call, and give search tools more facts to work with.
OperationsThe next demand signal may be outside your hotel
In hotel demand forecasting, bookings tell you what has already reached the hotel. Events, flight data and news can tell you what is about to arrive.
BusinessCompliance software has an urgency problem
A buyer can agree the risk is real and still put off the purchase. The commercial work is turning that concern into a funded piece of work someone owns.
ParksThe QR code is not the experience
A family and a couple can visit the same theme park and want very different days. Better routes and content that changes may matter more than another layer of technology.
Travel“Useful for guests” is not enough to win a hotel
A walking app can make a trip better and still be a hard sell to a hotel. What’s usually missing is the hotel’s own reason to take part.
HospitalityDay-use bookings don’t need a new PMS. They need better reporting
One room can host three day-use guests in a day. The trouble starts when occupancy reporting built around room nights tries to explain what happened.
ParksThe wristband is just a tool
The real opportunity is understanding, and improving, what guests do inside the gates.
HospitalityNot every hotel problem needs an eSIM
Better hotel guest communication does not need an eSIM. A useful add-on can be tested without turning it into a platform integration project.
TravelWhy corporate travel is still a three-way negotiation
In corporate travel booking, company cost, TMC margin and employee convenience rarely line up on their own.
RetailFrom a QR scan to a store visit: designing a better mall journey
A simple shopping mall customer journey could connect mall traffic, tenant foot traffic, sales and visitor rewards.
TravelWhy group travel is still surprisingly difficult to book online
Online travel made the one-traveler, one-room booking easy. Group hotel bookings for ten people are still a coordination problem, and that may be where the opportunity is.
BusinessPayment reminder email and demand letter for payment: how owners chase late invoices
Payment reminder emails to copy now, a five-message chase sequence, and how to prepare a demand letter for payment, including when to call a lawyer.
OperationsSometimes two numbers are better than an AI demo
A hotel breakfast buffet, two counts and one subtraction cut food waste by about 10 percent. Not every operational problem needs AI.
BusinessBuild vs. Buy in the Age of AI
Eight years ago, Build vs. Buy was a question for enterprise IT. Now almost anyone can ask it. How AI coding changes the economics of custom software for enterprises, small businesses and solo builders, and what to ask before you build.
BusinessWhich Business Tasks Should You Automate? Three Failure Patterns to Check First
A six-question small business automation checklist, built from about 130 owner accounts of silent stops, wrong sends and automations that should never have started.
BusinessAI orchestration solves the replacement problem, not the trust problem
An AI layer on top of a hotel’s existing systems is far easier to bring in than a new PMS. It still has to earn something harder: enough trust to be let into the data.
BusinessCreating value and capturing value are very different things
Software can clearly make a customer more money and still not get paid for it. What nine months of on-off testing with a grocery wholesaler taught us about value, attribution and price.
BusinessSmall businesses don’t buy “efficiency”
Saving an owner a few hours rarely closes a sale. Helping them make more money usually does. Why revenue is the better pitch for small-business software, hotels included.
OperationsBuilding a daily game on Cloudflare Workers: how we verify 5 questions a day
A daily quiz shows every player the same five answers, so one wrong fact is public all day. How we generate, fact-check and verify each set before it goes live.