Reservamos SaaS is an AI-informed eCommerce system that powers everything from website search to ticket generation for bus companies across Latin America. In 2023, 20 million travelers used their software, through Reservamos’s partners, to book trips spanning Mexico to Brazil. Ten years ago, Reservamos actually started as an Online Travel Agency (OTA). Through relentless experimentation, the team realized they could address an even more core need of bus companies and added the SaaS business unit, which has now become the company’s focus.
The Reservamos team is no stranger to change, and this year, the team made another big change: they migrated their infrastructure—including a 1.2 TB database—to Render, with less than 10 minutes of downtime.
Previously, their servers had been split between Heroku and AWS. By migrating to Render, they upleveled their infrastructure platform to be scalable and secure by default while remaining easy to use.
We sat down with Elías Matheus Camacho, who leads the 50 engineers at Reservamos SaaS as CTO, to learn more about their journey:
- Why they chose Render
- How they handled the migration, and
- The engineering culture that helps them win in some of the fastest-growing markets in the world.
Improving the lives of everyday travelers in Latin America
Render: Tell us about your mission at Reservamos SaaS. Who do you serve?
Elías: Our mission is to lead in online bus bookings through our specialized technology. We started as an online travel agency (OTA), and have shifted to building SaaS tech directly for bus companies. Our software handles everything from smart pricing to bus tracking and ways for bus drivers to communicate with passengers.
Bus travel is huge in Mexico and the rest of the region, with more people using buses than planes. According to data from the Cámara Nacional de Autotransporte de Pasaje y Turismo (CANAPAT), more than 90% of travel in Mexico is by bus. In Brazil, bus routes connect cities and regions that do not have airline coverage, making this service a fundamental pillar of tourist transportation. In addition, many of the region's most popular attractions are not located near major airports, making the bus the best option for travelers.
Our end users are often price-sensitive, and many have not had access to modern tech before. We improve the online experience of everyday travelers.
Recently, we broadened our mission: we’ve adapted many of our innovations in the bus industry to serve sports ticketing. Now, we improve the ticketing experience in other parts of life too.
Bringing security and innovation to the bus industry
Render: What sets Reservamos SaaS apart from the competition?
Elías: As a SaaS provider, we offer a rare blend of skills:
- Speed and innovation:Our engineering team is designed to be nimble. In choosing our tech stack, we choose tools and design patterns that empower each engineer to build any feature themselves, which helps us move faster. We’re always learning about new tech: for example, recently, we’ve integrated generative AI into an external feature, and we’re experimenting with several AI tools internally.
- Operational experience in the bus industry: We’ve been partnering with bus companies for over ten years, including through some of the toughest times for travel. We deeply understand the pain points for both travelers and bus companies.
- Focus on security: Security is a high priority for us. We now serve large customers with millions of users, and we take the responsibility seriously. Security was one of the reasons we started looking for a new infrastructure provider.
Render highlights: security, scaling, DX, and friendly support
Render: You recently migrated your infra from Heroku and AWS to Render. What were you looking for in a new platform? What stood out about Render?
Elías: Yes. Before we started looking for a new provider, our infrastructure was hosted on Heroku. We recently had to move some services to AWS to support web requests that required a longer response time, because services on Heroku have to begin a response within 30 seconds. On AWS, though, we didn’t like how much time we were spending configuring our infra.
We liked how Render blends good developer experience with good security. Here’s what we found most compelling:
- Private networking & DDoS protection by default: Security was our top concern. We wanted our platform to have security features and a security mindset. We liked that on Render, it’s easy to set up infrastructure securely because private networking is offered as a default option, not a paid upgrade. We also liked that we didn’t have to set up our web application firewall—DDoS protection is built in by default. This default simplifies operations for us because setting up a firewall can otherwise require some back and forth with our customers.
- Good developer experience for product engineers: We wanted to preserve the good developer experience that comes from a Platform as a Service. We want our engineers to be able to stay focused on the product and spend less time managing infrastructure.
- Autoscaling & service health checks: We liked that Render makes it easy to autoscale services. We especially like that autoscaling is available to any instance type. As a comparison, on Heroku, we could only scale large instance types, but we would rather autoscale using smaller instances. Render services also support health checks, and that made our lives easier too. We have some services that can occasionally die when overloaded, and by setting up health checks, we don’t have to manually restart them.
- Customer service & evolving product: Finally, we liked working with the Render team, over calls and in Slack. As ongoing customers, we like that the product roadmap is open. Render also recently added a feature we requested. These things show us you’re listening and improving.
Migrating with the help of Render engineers and Blueprints
Render: Tell us a bit about the migration process to Render. What were the main challenges?
Elías: The biggest challenge was migrating our databases. Our biggest one was over 1TB. We had a tight timeline, but we worked closely with Render, and the Render engineers provided a lot of support. The migration process worked so well, it was like magic. There were no errors, and we were only down for 10 minutes.
Other parts of our migration were more routine. We began by testing servers in a sandbox environment and then prioritized which servers to migrate first. We A/B-tested service response times by sending traffic to servers in Heroku versus Render and found no significant difference.
We saved a lot of time by using Render’s Blueprints feature, which is Render’s Infrastructure as Code. We offer dedicated hosting, and that means some of our customers each run on a separate deployment of our SaaS product. These deployments all use the same system design. We were able to adapt one blueprint and use that to programmatically create the infrastructure for each of these deployments.
Experimenting with genAI in chatbots and eng tools
Render: Have you found any interesting use cases for generative AI at Reservamos SaaS?
Elías: Yes. We love to experiment and stay up to date on new technologies. We’ve found genAI to be helpful in support and chat use cases. For example, we launched a WhatsApp chatbot, which can be integrated into the eCommerce platform of any bus company. This chatbot interacts with travelers, helping them search for trips using natural language and generating a direct purchase link to the bus company’s online sales channels. This enables travelers to connect directly with their preferred bus company, receive results tailored to their needs and preferences, and streamline the booking process, while also providing 24/7 customer support service.
Staying motivated, from employee #1 to CTO
Render: You’ve been with Reservamos SaaS since the very beginning as employee #1. What’s kept you motivated through all these years?
Elías: At Reservamos SaaS, I know we're making a positive impact on millions of people across the region, and that’s exactly what I’ve always aspired to do. I've always wanted to create solutions that address real problems, especially for those with lower incomes. It excites me when I talk to people here in Mexico or read online feedback, and realize that they’ve benefited from the products I’ve helped build.
The team at Reservamos SaaS also keeps me going. On the engineering team, we’ve hired people who love to code, who have high empathy, and who want to make software that makes a difference. We also pride ourselves on being resilient. That’s what helped us survive the many challenging times we’ve faced as a company. I’m proud to say that almost all the engineers who were with us through our most challenging years are still with the company today.
Render: Thanks so much Elías! Where can folks find you if they want to get in touch or learn more about Reservamos SaaS?
Elías: You can find out more about Reservamos SaaS on our website, and feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn.