Problems Solved
With three decades of experience and more than one hundred thousand room keys to date, Carl Kernodle launched Two Trout as a singular solution to the universal issues facing hospitality owners.
Building the Car While Driving
In an industry that attracts creative thinkers, travelers, and adventurers, it’s common for owners to want their property to evolve organically. But a project without a mission statement is vulnerable to competing biases and costly mistakes.
Two Trout works with clients to define clear goals, design and experiential non-negotiables, and a shared definition of success that serves as a North Star for the entire team.
Cross-Collaboration and Communication
Side chats, misaligned planning, and reactionary decisions are small missteps that routinely derail timelines and decimate budgets. The average project engages ten to fifteen multidisciplinary design professionals, often siloed in their individual scopes, speaking different languages and unaware of the butterfly effect a minor decision can have on the broader project.
Two Trout operates as an expert strategist—managing the big picture, closing loops, and identifying flaws before they become fatal—preventing owners from inadvertently becoming their project’s worst enemy.
Conscious and Subconscious Bias
Brand Bias
Meeting global brand standards adds a unique layer of complexity, especially when standards change mid-build or corporate shifts create costly compliance challenges. Knowing when to step up and when to push back is critical. With nearly two decades inside global brands helping define those standards, Two Trout helps franchise owners navigate the nuance, maintain sanity, and protect the bottom line.
Design Bias
Design professionals are passionate creators who care deeply about the projects they put their name on. They bring unique talent and perspective, and sometimes blind spots that narrow the vision. As an objective owner’s representative who speaks design, Two Trout identifies where a designer’s preferences impede project goals and brings the team back into alignment before time and treasure are wasted.
operator Bias
Operators are paid and incentivized based on hotel performance, which gives owners distance from day to day operations while motivating operators to excel. This structure can also create operational bias, with decisions skewed toward operator profit rather than the guest experience and the owner’s return. Two Trout serves as an objective expert, defining brand and operational standards that protect the owner, the vision, and the experience from a potentially misaligned operator.
Missteps
Hospitality projects present countless opportunities for waste, all of which impact the bottom line, time to profit, and investor interest. Most waste can be prevented through exceptional planning, granular budgeting, clear communication, and disciplined project management.
Whether a project begins on bare land or reimagines a struggling property, Two Trout oversees every step of the process, actively preventing waste through meticulous planning, sound judgment, and decisiveness earned through decades of local and global experience across every project type.
