LetMeGo Story
Learning from Past Successes
The LetMeGo story begins with our parent company, Torrenegra Labs, which has created several companies in the past.
The most successful of these, Voice123, is the world’s leading voice talent marketplace.
It was in engineering the technology needed to create the 2.0 version of this service that Alexander Torrenegra,
the company’s founder, developed a number of ideas for new technologies that could be applied to any of a number of industries. » more...
The industry that seemed most ripe for the innovations that Alex had in mind was
the travel and lodgings market. Alex had extensive experience with this industry, having worked with the vacation rental startup Rentalo.com
for several years, first as a consultant, and then as a product developer. Analysis of the current state of online lodging marketplaces,
combined with his and his employees’ love for travel, convinced Alex to make the huge investment required to bring LetMeGo to life.
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Learning from Past Failures
While Torrenegra Labs' experience with Voice123 was valuable, the company's development of the moderately successful
Language123 and the failure of its Casting123 venture were just as vital to the genesis of LetMeGo. » more...
Because the company had made mistakes in entering industries that had little need
for online marketplaces, they were forced to go back to basics, educating themselves about the theory that underpinned the development
and deployment of successful marketplaces. In a sense, they had stumbled into success with Voice123—now, they needed to learn why it had
worked in the first place. By learning why their later businesses underperformed, they learned more about why Voice123 had succeeded.
And when the time came to create a new venture, they were able to combine their experience with
success and failure into a potent new business, setting their sights on revolutionizing a much larger industry.
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Big Ideas for Small Lodgings
When the time came to begin developing LetMeGo, the team had one big idea: they knew they wanted to bring the reverse auction
transaction method to the lodging industry. Travelers would enter the details of their itinerary, and lodgings would bid for their business. » more...
Not only would this approach benefit travelers, but it would also benefit many small
lodgings that are underserved by existing marketplaces. A semi-opaque system, by which lodgings present real-time information on pricing while
able to view each other's offers, would level the playing field, allowing small owners to compete with hotel chains without having to invest
thousands in customized pricing software.
Travelers would gain access to a much wider range of lodgings, tailored to their needs, and lodging owners would gain flexibility,
basing their prices on the booking date, capacity, and the bids that other lodgings offered for the same itinerary.
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The Focus
One of the earliest questions the team had to answer as they designed LetMeGo was this: should they expand the service to
compete with the largest companies in this sector? Should they attempt to build a service that offers one-stop shopping for travelers,
including flights and car rentals, as well as lodgings? » more...
It quickly became clear that dividing their attention among numerous service offerings would
not allow them to create their vision of the world's best lodging marketplace. By retaining a relentless focus on every aspect of the core
business, and devoting enormous resources to serving the customers who use it, they believed they could create something truly revolutionary.
After all, their goal is not to be the biggest player in the travel industry; rather, they want to be the best, most trusted service
for finding the right lodging at the right price.
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The Immersion
Once the team knew precisely what it was they were seeking to build, they got to work. But LetMeGo was an enormous project:
requiring more than 14 times the effort involved in the launch of Voice123. »more...
And while the team’s extensive planning had prepared them for much of what was to come,
unforeseen complications began pushing the completion date farther and farther into the future. Finally, in February of 2009,
Alexander brought the team together and made a bold proposition: for the next three months, they would live and work together under one roof,
building LetMeGo during every waking moment. Thus, the LetMeGo Immersion was born.
It was a grueling test of dedication, will, and interpersonal skills, but the
Immersion also turned out to be a success. The project was back on schedule. By the time of its launch, LetMeGo had absorbed more than
28,000 man-hours by the most talented, dedicated professionals in the business.
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