Where it started
"Just give me a chance."
I'm a firefighter's wife and a mom. For about 16 years I built a salon, and I was proud of what I built. But I loved travel, I wanted to help more financially at home, and I wanted work that let me make my own money while actually being present for my kids.
I've always been the kind of person who says, "Just give me a chance. I'll prove to you I can do it."
Eventually I realized nobody was going to hand me that chance. I was going to have to create it myself.
So I left the salon I had built and started Discover the Magic Vacations.
The next problem
The tools worked. They just never wowed me.
As Discover the Magic Vacations grew, the next problem showed up. I used travel CRMs that did what they were supposed to do. They stored my information and helped me get the job done.
But not one of them ever made me think, "WOW. This helps SO much."
I started wondering whether I could build what I actually wanted. There were two small problems. When would I possibly have the time? And while I knew some coding and technology, going all the way back to MS-DOS, I was not a professional software developer.
So I started asking questions and listening. I was told what I really needed was a digital architect and a developer. Then I found out what that would cost.
I quickly realized I probably couldn't even sell a kidney for enough to build what I had in my head.
My whole life, when one door closes, I start pushing another one open. So I researched, experimented and started thinking about the problem differently.
The unconventional build
One AI as my architect. Another as my developer. Me as the one saying "no, not like that."
I decided to try something I honestly wasn't sure would work. I used one AI chat as my digital architect and another as my coding and development partner.
You can't just tell AI "build me a CRM." That isn't how it works. I had to design the business logic myself, challenge it when it got things wrong, test everything and keep pushing. I knew my business extremely well, and I knew enough technically to recognize when something was off:
- "No, those can't connect there."
- "That has to happen before this."
- "If you change that, you're going to break this."
I never expected it to work at the level it did. Within roughly four to six months, something I wasn't sure was even possible became KAE Travel Suite.
Then I realized something
The CRM wasn't the biggest problem.
Teaching someone to be a travel agent is not the same as teaching someone how to build a business.
Agencies can be very good at teaching suppliers, destinations, booking systems, policies and how to make a reservation. But advisors still come to me asking:
- Where do I find people to book?
- Why am I posting but nobody is buying?
- Why do people request quotes and disappear?
- What should I market?
- Am I talking to the wrong audience?
- Where is my business leaking?
- What should I actually work on next?
Those answers aren't the same for every advisor. And KAE was already holding the real information about each advisor's business.
So I started asking: what if the system didn't just hold the business? What if it could help the advisor understand it?
That became KAE Intelligence. It's being built around each advisor's real KAE business data and the same business-building methods I use to train advisors, with AI helping to interpret what the numbers mean. KAE calculates. AI interprets.
Your business provides the facts. KAE helps you understand what to do with them.
KAE Intelligence is in development
The problem after that
Good at something, and still hard to find.
An advisor can become incredibly good at something, like a destination, a kind of trip or a kind of traveler, and still struggle to be found.
KAE Discovery is being developed to help structured advisor expertise become understandable to AI-powered discovery experiences, so the right expertise has a better chance of being discovered.
It isn't about making every advisor look right for every traveler. It's about helping advisors have a better chance of being seen for what they're actually good at.
We're working through the approval and integration steps that takes. Until that work is finished, Discovery is in development, and I won't pretend otherwise.
KAE Discovery is being developed to help eligible advisors make their expertise understandable and discoverable through supported AI-powered experiences. Participation does not guarantee lead volume.
Why the price matters to me
I remember being the person who needed a chance.
There are parents, single moms, single dads and whole families looking for another way to earn an income and have more control over their time. Not everyone will love travel. Not everyone who tries it will stay. That's okay.
But the cost of simply getting a chance shouldn't be enormous.
KAE has real costs: development, hosting, security, support, AI usage and infrastructure. It has to be profitable and sustainable, or it can't keep serving anyone. This is serious business software, and it's priced to last.
I just don't want to forget who I was when I started.
God gave me my chance. I built something with it.
If KAE can make that door a little easier for someone else to walk through, that matters.
Kasey
Founder, KAE Travel Suite
Owner, Discover the Magic Vacations