🎧 START pod: Gavin Brennen, Cofounder, Lance "The Future of Hospitality"

🎧 START pod: Gavin Brennen, Cofounder, Lance "The Future of Hospitality"

From START by Fondo

March 18, 2026 · 9 min · Episode 51

About this episode

Gavin Brennen discusses the challenges and innovations in hotel software and automation at Lance.

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 🎙️ 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 “Go all in”

People in this episode

Guest: Gavin Brennen

Topics covered

  • hospitality
  • AI technology
  • hotel software
  • automation
  • entrepreneurship

Keywords

  • hotel software
  • AI agents
  • automation
  • guest requests
  • Lance

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Lance, Marriott

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