My first startup is still surviving but on a Ventilator

Back in 2017, I was writing for many travel blogs. Blogs that were mostly working on brand building and their only tool was ‘content’. Content that could take you places, to a world that you haven’t traveled yet. Content that makes you crave to travel more and the content that would ignite the wanderlust soul of a person whose only purpose on this planet was to binge watch Netflix.

While writing, I realised that the ‘travel market’ is amazing. Everyone here is selling almost the same thing at a different price and is still surviving. So, it is all about who reaches you first and who gives you a better picture of the world you wish to travel.

But, wait a minute, there was a lot more science into it, from digging into the best prices to getting the best possible accommodation to finding the right and the most economical transfers, the technology has been building around quick booking mechanisms, better UI, easiest navigations and the lead conversions. The new funded players like Travel Triangle and Tripoto were connecting Travel agents to the customers. They have actually been sharing leads in a more filtered and genuine approach.

But then, what about us? I don’t just want to sell holiday packages and make no value addition to the industry. I have to find a solution. And before that, I have to find the question — the pain point.

Marathon Decision Making

We have this law of deciding quickly and acting wisely. This came from my previous corporate learnings. The more time we took in decision making, less were the chances of it turning into a real product or a feature.

We developed a filtering system framework. We would fragment the understanding overnight and spill the ‘assumption’ flashcards’ the very next morning. Then we would pick the problem, split it into multiple questions and work tirelessly over them.

Metrics → Hypothesis → Experiment → Act

Collect the data, experiment, execute and decide the path forward.
This really works for any organisation. This would help you understand which information to pick from the flashcards and which one to put your bet upon.

Let’s find out the product that I should build?

Like every other entrepreneur, you have to start visualising the future. Make more assumptions, create hypothesis and work around your thought process to narrow down the questions as to reach the pain point and then finally working on one product idea.

And since I have always worked in the B2B segment, I was more interested in understanding the pain points of the Travel Agents.

We narrowed down the problem statements and came to the conclusion that it is the ‘land transfers’, that nobody is talking about. And the ones who are talking about it, have not actually capitalised much in this segment.

Takeaway — Folks, if you are looking to find your first product to work upon, your question should be ‘What products are there in the market, and how could we solve the problem better?’

Market Research to know the road less traveled

We were already half way in reading the market while deciding the product but then there are certain aspects that are always critical when it comes to understanding the market.

1. Know your market — Valued at over 50,000 crores, tourism is the largest service industry in India, with a contribution of 6.23% to the national GDP and 8.78% to the total employment in India. You cannot doubt this market.
2. Check on the competitors and their approach. Know how they have turned the tables around and where they are still struggling to keep up the pace.
3. One thing that we focused on was how big they are today and how huge a brand value they capture in the market.
4. To know the scale of their business, you can actually check on how much funding they have received or how many companies have they acquired, their market valuation and their market capture as of today.
5. Check on customer’s willingness to pay. Travel specifically comes under luxury but most of the travellers are economical who are always looking for cheaper options with higher values.

We decided on doing customer(Travel Agents) surveys.

But how do you do that?

We hunted down few of the cheapest suppliers, worked upon our areas, and created holidays that could be sold in wholesale. We targeted only the cheapest available with us and went to the ones which were not technically sound or were having a very small team as they were willing to hear us out and make time for cheaper products.

What are their pain points?

Assumptions — the current transfer suppliers(gettransfers.com, bookyourcab.com)didn’t have the real time cab location, driver ratings, driver IDs and vehicle health confirmations. They neither have a proper support system. Most of them are non-technical aggregators that connect with local cabs on receiving a call.
And then there is a language problem.
Assumption testing — I personally went onto meet or at least talked with almost 50 TAs in the beginning, just to know what they are actually struggling with.

And this is how we knew, that we have the real problem with us and we know the solution too. It is time to do get this started. It means, a marathon decision making on technology, resources and fundings and of course deciding the success metrics of each phase.

THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE

For any startup, the biggest challenge is not deciding upon the idea or planning of the product but the real challenge is managing the resources with all that small investment that you could afford within a limited time frame.
And this is why, we decided to grow offline-sale, selling wholesale holidays.

The survival plan?

We grew in communities and networks around. We focused on local advertising and SEO for our website. When we started making money out of it, we invested in digital marketing and advertised brand -building ads and lead generation campaigns only through facebook. The first phase was tough but then this advertising proved as a boon for us, as our sales went from 20lakhs INR to a spiking high of 90lakhs INR.

Building the product

But, remember growing in offline sales was never the focus. We wanted to build the SaaS product. I had already started working on it. By the late 2019, we had built a system that could connect the suppliers with Travel Agents. And our major focus was foreign places where transfers for Indian TAs was a major concern. We traveled to Dubai and Thailand to get more suppliers onboarded with us. Where Dubai was easy, Thailand was tough as the drivers could not understand the language but fortunately we managed to find Indians operating cab services there too. We were connecting with local Ubers and trying to get their APIs integrated. Our network was growing slowly and gradually. The offline sales helped us reach the corner of these countries and built connections in order to stand tall and the cheapest among the competitors.

But, when you are a startup, this can’t be an easy ride. The market hit too low, and we went bankrupt.

When the market went down?

You cannot always rely on offline sales, as our focus shifted towards development and integrating more suppliers with us, sales started dropping off. And then, there were lot of distractions, as we hired too many salesperson too early. You see why? Because we were making money. And this is where we started losing money too. What we once thought could be our backbone until we build our first MVP, the boat started sinking.

Takeaway — Never hire too early. Never hire too many. And never hire interns when you have just started building up a product.

Asking someone to leave the system whom you have trained enough is the most heartbreaking moment. I could not sleep for nights because of this, but such is a journey of an entrepreneur. We were not able to afford the office rent anymore.

Focus Shift on ROI

The major focus should always be on ROI, but when you are building a SaaS product, the customer acquisition happens a little late and you have to evaluate on the basis of the long run. So, we needed to redefine our success metrics and we decided that we go the pirate way — AARRR.
Our focus was now all on getting more supplier activations with us across the targeted countries. And before Covid hit the industry in March 2020, we were continuously experimenting on making it better. We changed the onboarding process from multiple forms to one, we brought off the driver’s IDs mandatory uploads fields, and a lot many changes. We took more reviews and offered no cost services to TAs to get onboarded with us. The product which already had a 40 suppliers from different countries including India, had a lot to go before coming live. The Covid has taken the finances away from many local suppliers in countries like Bali and Thailand. They are all struggling, asking them to get onboarded with us was sounding like a salt on their wound.

Question is — Are we failing?

We failed a dozen times, but we never had this thought of quitting it now. We went from making enough to going bankrupt. On somedays, I would be failing at marketing and on the other days at handling the finances, and then on the other day, it might be just finding the right resource.

The thing is that you will fail a zillion times until you decide to fail for the last time.

And we? We had to stop it, but we are still surviving.

Learning is a process

We learnt that relying on a second revenue source was not a wise decision. It was the major distraction and we got delayed in building something remarkable. But this offline sales has also created a network of customers that are a continuous sales channel for us, and these are the customers who will be in the funnel first when we will be up and running.

And, when you are into your first startup, you happen to make decisions that would not always go your way. But then this is why we have more learnings in our knowledge.

Takeaway — If you are building a SaaS product, focus on giving that aah moment to the customer when they first interact with your product, and then focus on retaining them into your loyal consistent customers.

My idea of building a product is to simplify it and keep questioning it. Keep a track on your success metrics and believe in it. Because if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it — Peter Drucker!