At just 22 years old, Ed spotted a critical inefficiency in how hotels managed their online inventory—bookings arrived by fax and were manually entered into systems, creating endless headaches for hotels. When his employers dismissed his solution, he quit on the spot in a "Jerry Maguire moment" and launched Easy Yield with just $1,000. Without any software development knowledge, he found programmers on an early version of a freelance marketplace and built what became the industry's first channel management platform, eventually serving 5,000 hotels across 98 countries.
Now as President of Flip To, Ed tackles hospitality's most challenging marketing problems, helping hotels capture guest information from 15% of website visitors (compared to the industry standard of 1%). He offers refreshing insights on why standard e-commerce principles fail in travel marketing—unlike retail purchases that can be easily returned, travel involves significant investment of time and money that cannot be refunded if expectations aren't met.
Find Hovr here:
gethovr.com
Find Flip To here:
www.flip.to
[00:00:00] The Power of Unexpected Mentorship
[00:08:11] From Circuit City to Hospitality
[00:14:26] Starting Easy Yield With $1,000
[00:29:03] The Industry's Content Problem
[00:36:20] Understanding Travel vs Retail
[00:47:20] Knowing Your Audience Is Essential
[00:53:10] Advice for Industry Newcomers