The Challenge
A travel tech startup needed to build a specialized CRM from scratch for tour operators losing customers to missed calls and slow response times
The founding team identified a critical gap in the market: Hawaii-based tour and activity operators were losing bookings because when potential customers called and didn't get through, they'd simply book with a competitor. The travel industry needed a specialized CRM that could handle two-way texting, integrate with booking platforms like FareHarbor, automate follow-ups, and turn missed calls into captured leads. No existing solution was purpose-built for the tour operator workflow—it needed to be designed specifically for their industry from the ground up.
The Solution
Partnered with the founding team to architect and build a complete customer communication platform from scratch using Rails and PostgreSQL. Integrated multiple third-party APIs (Twilio for SMS, Slack for team notifications, SendGrid for email, Magpie for phone systems, and FareHarbor for booking sync) into a unified team inbox. Created automated workflows for missed call recovery, scheduled reminder messages, quick reply templates, and an AI-powered chatbot trained on tour operator conversations. Designed a scalable multi-tenant database architecture to handle real-time communication across hundreds of operators.
The Results
Successfully launched a production SaaS platform now serving tour operators across Hawaii and beyond. The platform processes thousands of customer conversations daily, automatically recovers leads from missed calls, and has become an essential tool for activity operators to manage customer relationships. Deployed on Heroku with 99.9% uptime and real-time synchronization across all integrated platforms.
"Working with Dmitry was transformative for our business. He took our vision and turned it into a production-ready platform that our customers love. His ability to integrate complex APIs and design scalable systems was exactly what we needed."
FounderCEO, Chirrup