I Built A Ticket & Booking Platform & Got Acquired After 4 Years
My name is Renee Welsh and I’m the CEO of Booking Boss and Embed. In 2013, my husband Andy and I started Booking Boss, ticketing and booking management start-up. I have always been passionate about building businesses and transforming industries because I love innovation. I launched my first tech business when I was 27, and I’ll always be grateful for the relevant experiences I gained by joining prominent start-ups including lastminute.com, Wotif, Monster, and RedBalloon.
We must have done something right because four years later, the technology company Helix Leisure eventually acquired our start-up. I was privileged to be appointed CEO of both Booking Boss and Embed, an integrated cloud-based software solution platform for family entertainment, attractions, and amusement industries.
Helix Leisure has long been known for technology and innovation. I’ll be diving more into the Booking Boss story later, but now I just want to briefly share that a very important aspect of what we do at Embed is pioneering the tech transformation of the family entertainment industry. Embed’s award-winning Mobile Wallet is a testament to this – no one in the industry has ever come close to developing what Embed has, and we launched it back in 2019! On top of this, our Mobile Wallet is still the only non-banking, non-loyalty, and non-financed brand to sit in the consumers’ Apple Wallet or Google Pay – the only iOS and Android-certified solution in the business. It’s interesting because not everyone gets to partner with the biggest players in the tech industry. Our SaaS systems also operate on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform. To be able to achieve this in our 20 years of fuelling fun is a gift, as well as continuously developing breakthrough innovations like arcade debit game card readers, kiosks, wearable media, and more.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
Having worked in online tourism distribution for the bulk of my career, I noticed that a lot of tourism businesses were still on diaries and spreadsheet-based workstreams. The rapid migration of consumer purchase trends online, and the rising number of Online Travel Agents (OTA) were telltale signs that tourism businesses that stay on manual processes will struggle to keep up in providing a seamless booking experience. Conveniently, my husband is an enterprise software engineer! We eventually launched Booking Boss as a response to the need we’d seen.
The service is a cloud-based reservation software designed for tour operators, attractions, and activity providers. It has an in-built channel manager, which makes it a world first. It’s an all-in-one platform for ticketing, bookings, and capacity management streamlined to take more bookings, make more sales, and expand the business’ footprint. All while reducing admin workload!
Besides being the engine that runs and centralizes the ticketing and booking operations into one place, Booking Boss catapulted sales with a system that unlocked a world of opportunities because the Channel Manager feature connects directly to hundreds of OTAs and OAAs like Expedia, TripAdvisor, and Viator, including tours and activity distributors with a B2B agent portal and net rate management, so third parties can book, and pay and print tickets with ease.
We grew our team to over 20 staff including our development team coding wizzes, with a focus on hiring tourism professionals who have worked in similar businesses to our clients. This is so we can have a genuine understanding of our client's needs and hopefully help their businesses grow further.
Take us through the process of designing, prototyping, and manufacturing your first product.
We saw the gap in the industry and started by concepting our cloud-based solution. My husband quit his job to code all day while I worked 2 jobs to fund the additional coders we hired. Each day I’d come home to look at prototypes, drafts, walk-through iterations – you name it. We worked hard to make the Booking Boss platform as user-friendly as possible. It was a challenging time, but my resilience got me through it.
Describe the process of launching the business.
We launched the business without fundraising, paying for it ourselves. Never underestimate the power of sweat equity - we put everything we had into the business. It wasn’t until we had customers that we fundraised, so we could scale the business.
Do not just keep up with the times; stay ahead of them. And if ever you feel disheartened with challenges, bring your focus back to the very heart of what you do and why you are doing it. And if there’s an area of business you don’t understand, study, and study hard to get up to speed so you can help guide your team.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
To date, Booking Boss has thousands of customers around the globe and is enjoying success. Even at the time of COVID-19, we managed to keep our lights on, run the business, and enable our customers to survive and thrive during the pandemic.
Our operations and culture have always been customer-centric; in fact, this is the reason why we recently launched the Booking Boss Customer Help Center. This is a smart knowledge base powered by Zendesk and includes close to 400 help articles, guides, and videos, enabling our clients to DIY troubleshooting, reconfigurations, and set up their Booking Boss system.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
I’ve learned that politics and government have a pervasive impact on our industry. I never would have anticipated it to be this much.
As you grow and mature personally and professionally, you need varied advice and guidance. I have had many mentors throughout my career, and they present themselves at just the right time.
COVID-19 has been a great teacher with both the challenges and opportunities it presented. The challenges helped me realize that there is more we can do for our clients and that we can push the boundaries of the services we offer. We now see customer revenge spending since restrictions are slowly easing, but the way consumers want to do transactions now is different. These challenges also made me see opportunities to bring out the best in the cloud-based solutions we offer. We have officially witnessed the transition to the contactless and cashless era, and now more than ever, business solutions like ours should be able to exceed customer expectations when it comes to seamlessness and efficiency.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
We’re proud to partner with Amazon Web Services for our SaaS (cloud-based) solutions. We also take pride in working with Apple and Google on the Mobile Wallet; the only IOS and Android-approved solution in the family entertainment industry that enables family entertainment centers to add the arcade game card to a consumer’s mobile wallet. They can use it to play games and top-up the game card without ever leaving the game. The first of its kind, Embed is the only non-banking or loyalty brand to sit in the consumers’ mobile wallets.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
Embrace change. Advance just as technology advances. Do not just keep up with the times; stay ahead of them. And if ever you feel disheartened with challenges, bring your focus back to the very heart of what you do and why you are doing it. And if there’s an area of business you don’t understand, study, and study hard to get up to speed so you can help guide your team.
Innovate, innovate, and innovate. Companies that tell customers that they won’t change are almost promising stagnancy to clients. Advancement means you can bring your customers into the future with your business. The here and now is important, but safeguarding and future-proof your clients’ businesses are one of the most fulfilling parts of the job. Never lose sight of them and their needs so you won’t lose your way. Always keep a finger on the pulse of trends and set yours!
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
Those who are interested in becoming a part of our growing global team can check out our careers page. We’re not just looking for travel and hospitality enthusiasts – we want our team to be passionate about offering the best possible customer experience. We’re always on the lookout for great salespeople and amazing customer support personnel.
We have an electric start-up culture; everyone gets to contribute to initiatives that can have a huge impact on the business. It's this kind of diversity and opportunity to be heard that makes it a fun place to work. We also offer competitive salaries and flexible work conditions.
Where can we go to learn more?
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
