Alexander’s Blog – The Making of LetMeGo

I am pleased to announce that the LetMeGo team has just added a new Senior Developer, who will focus specifically on issues related to search engine optimization (SEO). Luis Betancourt, a veteran of the vacation rental industry, has agreed to add his expertise and enthusiasm to our organization.

Two years ago I took this picture of Luis at the Fitz Roy while traveling through Patagonia.

Luis and I have a long history of working together: he was a developer on Rentalo when I was working as the product manager of that service, and he was promoted into my role when I left that team. Eventually, he moved on to the position of online marketing manager, in which position he gained extensive experience in SEO and pay-per-click advertising (PPC).

Luis has spent the past year traveling around the world; as a side benefit of these journeys, he has enhanced his social networking skills. More specifically, he has become a “super user” (ambassador) of the CouchSurfing. This service is, after a fashion, a LetMeGo competitor, though given its focus on social networking and free accommodations, we should be able to coexist peaceably.

Welcome Luis!

My Best Kept Secret as a Blogger: Brett – An Awesome Copywriter My Secret (Blogging) Weapon: Brett, Our Professional Copywriter

This post, as all the other post I have recently published, is far from the way I originally wrote it. As is the case with all of my recent posts, this reads far differently than it did when I originally wrote it. It has been improved and proofread by Brett McCallon. This post shows how good he is at doing that and how much I suck at writing. I include his edits here both to show you his improvements, and to demonstrate my  shortcomings as a writer.

As the Product Developer of LetMeGo I’m responsible for writing the texts for all the screens that the users of LetMeGo will experience text that is used on all of LetMeGo’s user interface screens. I love doing it, but While I very much enjoy this part of my job, I have one major limitation: English is not my native language. That is why instead of just hiring a proofreader, I wanted to hire somebody that could drastically improve every sentence I wrote. For that reason, when it came time to hire a proofreader, I instead decided to hire a combination proofreader and copy editor—I wanted someone who could significantly improve every sentence I had written. After testing a few people, I decided to go with Brett. Brett has invested several months already improving Brett has spent the last several months reviewing and improving the copy of the almost used on each of the nearly 1,000 different screens that compose comprise LetMeGo. He is almost done now. He is, finally, nearly finished with this project.

Luckily for me, Brett’s skill at copywriting comes from experience as marketing strategies, including other online marketplaces. As it turns out, Brett’s skill with copywriting developed in conjunction with his work as a marketing strategist, whose past projects include other online marketplaces. His work is so good that we have hired him as public relation strategist to consult with us in this capacity, as well. As such, he is also working in on some kicking kick-ass ideas for our launch. As you know, we like to be secretive and our PR strategy won’t be the exception. Not that we can talk about these ideas yet: we like keeping secrets until the right time, and our approach to PR and marketing will be no exception.

Thank you Brett!

Alexander Torrenegra

P.S. In case you didn’t notice, my original text is colored in black. The text that Brett replaced or removed is crossed out in red. The text that Brett added is colored in blue.

Just to clarify that title, an IATA numeric code is an identification code issued by the International Airlines Travel Agent Network to certify travel agencies as being legitimate service providers.

Now, some of you may be confused at this: after all, LetMeGo is not an online travel agency, as we don’t sell travel. Instead, we are an online lodging agency. Still, being assigned an IATA numeric code is a very important step as we prepare to launch LetMeGo.

To explain: in spite of the fact that we deal only in lodgings, having an IATA numeric code marks us as a legitimate provider of lodgings. In fact, many hotels will not pay a commission to any service that does not have such a number.

Why am I making a big deal out of this? Well, it turns out that the process took more than four months of filing, compiling legal and financial documents, and extensive phone conversations with various IATAN representatives, so finally seeing that we have a confirmed IATA numeric code is something we’re quite happy about.

It has occurred to me that we couldn’t possibly be the first lodging-focused service that was forced to be certified as a travel agency. Perhaps it’s time to change the organization’s name to “International Airlines Travel and Lodging Agent Network”?

Alexander Torrenegra