# 🎧 START pod: Gavin Brennen, Cofounder, Lance "The Future of Hospitality" Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/start-7171926/start-pod-gavin-brennen-cofounder-lance-the-future-of-hospitality Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/start-7171926/start-pod-gavin-brennen-cofounder-lance-the-future-of-hospitality.md Podcast: [START](https://stenobird.com/podcast/start-7171926) Published: 2026-03-18T19:50:24+00:00 Episode link: https://share.transistor.fm/s/27cd1529 Audio file: https://media.transistor.fm/27cd1529/e69655ca.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/start-7171926/episodes/start-pod-gavin-brennen-cofounder-lance-the-future-of-hospitality Duration seconds: 554 ## Resource Some hotel software is still DOS-based. Sometimes pen and paper (that's why guests are waiting 45 mins to get towels) Gavin's dad has worked at Marriott for the last nine years. When he showed Gavin the old software, that was the spark Lance builds AI agents that answer calls, handle back office operations, run sales workflows & more Started with voice, got inside the hotels, and realized how much more they could automate With coding agents one engineer acts like five Big contracts need custom solutions. Now they can deliver πŸŽ™οΈ Gavin Brennen, Co-Founder, Lance (YC W26) on Fondo START pod 01:02 The reality of hotel software 01:53 The insight that sparked the company 02:01 A better way to handle guest requests 02:46 Why Lance had to build desktop agents 03:08 The centralized dashboard layer 04:00 Why hotel problems are highly custom 04:32 One engineer can now act like five 05:51 β€œGo all in” ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/start-7171926/episodes/start-pod-gavin-brennen-cofounder-lance-the-future-of-hospitality/transcription-requests` β€” Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/start-7171926/start-pod-gavin-brennen-cofounder-lance-the-future-of-hospitality.md` β€” Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.