[00:00] - Intro and David’s Mobile Office
- David kicks off the episode from a unique location – his car in a campground in Michigan, explaining he's there due to a family event but still connected via satellite internet.
- Brief conversation about startup life, flexibility, and how to make work happen wherever you are.
[01:55] - Weekly Recap: Webinar Week
- Brad shares how intense webinar weeks are, packing all the work into the first half of the week. He is also back in San Francisco for the first time since 2020.
- Molly discusses personal highlights, including watching her husband’s soccer game with her daughter. She also reflects on the excitement of hosting a large-scale webinar and preparing for upcoming projects.
[03:54] - Behind the Scenes of the Webinar
- The episode shifts to a behind-the-scenes look at the webinar, which focused on unveiling Tern’s new agency features.
- Molly explains how the goal was to launch new agency features before the webinar. This involved lots of testing, documentation, and even launching a surprise feature (Trip Collaboration) just two hours before the event.
- Brad describes his role in preparing click-through demos and mock-ups for unreleased features, focusing on providing a clear flow for features like commission reconciliation.
[08:44] - Why Build an Agency Product?
- Molly explains that Tern developed the agency product after hearing consistent feedback from advisors and agency owners about fragmented systems.
- Agency owners and advisors had to use multiple platforms for commission tracking, reporting, and collaboration, leading to inefficiencies. Tern’s agency product was designed to streamline these workflows into a single, unified platform.
- Over a few hundred agencies signed up to the waitlist with minimal marketing, indicating a significant demand for an integrated solution.
[10:36] - What is Tern’s Agency Product?
- Brad breaks down the agency product into three key parts:
- Lower Cost for Advisors: Agencies can offer Tern at a reduced cost for their agents.
- Collaboration Tools: Sharing templates, email forms, and collaboration on trips across the agency.
- Commission Reconciliation: Allowing agencies to easily track commissions, log payments, and reconcile bookings.
[13:46] - The Power of Collaboration
- David introduces the concept of trip collaboration as a game-changing feature, moving Tern beyond the “single-player” paradigm to a “multiplayer” experience.
- Molly dives into the complexity of building the collaboration feature, explaining how permissions, security, and additional functionality (like two-factor authentication) had to be considered.
- The feature will allow agency owners to monitor and support trips in real-time, and future developments will enable collaboration with non-advisors like DMCs and tour operators.
[18:49] - Future of Collaboration & Agency Features
- Molly outlines future plans, including collaborating around tasks, automations, workflows, and contacts.
- Potential expansion into supplier collaboration, further integrating various stakeholders into the Tern ecosystem to end "PDF collaboration."
[19:34] - Supplier Payment Flow and Reconciliation
- Brad discusses the development of the supplier payment flow, which is designed to simplify commission reconciliation. It allows agency owners to log and track payments from suppliers, claim unlogged bookings, and ensure the right agents get paid.
- The new feature makes commission reconciliation smoother and more intuitive for agencies.
[23:53] - Currency Updates
- David announces that Tern has added support for 40+ global currencies, expanding from the original handful.
- Advisors can now select from a broader range of currencies when sending prices to clients, with daily conversion rates still being applied.
- This update came from advisor feedback and helps model real-world currency conversions more accurately.
[25:53] - Outage Discussion (TokenX)
- David briefly addresses the recent 18-hour outage with TokenX, a third-party vendor used for secure credit card storage.
- Molly explains Tern’s philosophy on "build vs. buy," emphasizing that Tern focuses its engineering efforts on unique features and relies on trusted partners for services like secure credit card storage or hotel content to move faster and ensure reliability.
[29:14] - What Are We Excited About?
- Brad: Excited about shipping many of the features the team has been designing, like flight updates, agent reporting, and commission reconciliation.
- Molly: Looking forward to flight status updates, especially as it’s been a top request. She's excited to test it next week and see it in action.
- David: Gearing up for Tern's next webinar on August 7th, where many of these new IC-focused features like flight status and AI updates will be unveiled. He encourages everyone to register.
Wrap-up
- The podcast ends with excitement about the upcoming features and a shout-out to David’s mobile office adventure.
- Don’t forget to check out the August 7th webinar on Tern’s website and register for a deep dive into the latest product updates.
These detailed show notes summarize the key points and discussions covered in Episode 2 of the Flight Path podcast, giving listeners a comprehensive overview of the content.
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