Kick‘start’ your trip
Meet the men behind these local startups that are making it possible for people to plan their trips well and enjoy their holidays
By : namita gupta
Update: 2015-07-16 00:56 GMT
It was all about passion that drove these youngsters to take the plunge and join the entrepreneurial bandwagon. Their love for travel is what inspired them to make life easier for adventure travellers and enable them to plan their travels effortlessly. We speak to the people behind three startups from the city, who were inspired by the wanderlust and wanted to innovate research processes to overcome the problems that they themselves faced, on how they get an edge over the others.
Shiju Radhakrishnan: This Bengaluru-based techie-turned entrepreneur, Shiju Radhakrishnan (34), started iTraveller.com as he wanted to create itineraries for holiday destinations that would allow online planning with reduced costs.
Shiju who has an engineering degree and an MBA from SP Jain Institute of Management & Research, decided to become an entrepreneur, after working for Wipro,
Cognizant and others.
He shares, “I had planned a trip with my wife to visit Himachal, but I had to research on my own and that took all my time. Half of the things that I had planned were not delivered. That’s when I got this urge to set something right in the unorganised travel sector. We connect users directly to native suppliers and since there are no intermediaries, there’s a distinct price advantage as we are able to get the best rates, being in the travel marketplace. Whenever I wanted to travel I would miss customising my holidays online, that’s why I decided to design an online travel platform that allows users to customise every aspect of their holidays.”
Renil Komitla: He runs Paxterra Software Solutions, started YatraGenie.com in Bengaluru, and has gained enough travel experience from his stints at Cisco, Stoke, Wichorus before beginning the journey as an entrepreneur. “Despite being a techie, I wanted to give back to my hometown, Nellore, in my own way. After completing my education, I worked in the US for few years and then started my venture. I decided to get into this online bus-ticketing holiday sector. Middle class travellers also need a place to plan their tours where they get hassle free, low cost customised travel packages; and can look at discovering more tourism spots,” states Renil (39).
Varun, Vikram and Suren: Bengaluru-based Varun (25), Vikram (27) and Suren (25) hung out together at various treks and hackathons and got the idea for Headout.com on a trip to Europe. “We hopped across a bunch of European hotspots and every single place the same question surfaced: what’s the best way to have fun here? We grappled with tourist brochures, information centers, hotel concierges and travel guides and decided to overcome challenges that travellers face with on-demand mobile marketplace for local experiences in any new city,” says Varun.