Nov 12, 2022
Social Impact Tech: Amit Jaipuria of Postcard On How Their Technology Will Make An Important Positive Impact
The idea behind Postcard is simple. We are building the world’s largest collection of local stories of people and places. We have the content created by authentic voices on the ground, those who are serving their local communities. Every traveller that books a tour or hotel with any of our partners directly contributes in supporting the local community. And as we scale, we grow our impact and help uplift communities around the world.
In recent years, Big Tech has gotten a bad rep. But of course, many tech companies are doing important work making monumental positive changes to society, health, and the environment. To highlight these, we started a new interview series about “Technology Making An Important Positive Social Impact”. We are interviewing leaders of tech companies who are creating or have created a tech product that is helping to make a positive change in people’s lives or the environment. As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Amit Jaipuria.
A serial entrepreneur for the last 22 years, Amit Jaipuria has started multiple companies across industries such as consumer tech, retail, agri tech, fine art and travel. He is passionate about creating and empowering communities to bring about change in the status quo. He founded Postcard when, as a traveler, he found it difficult using conventional channels to find luxury hotels and tours that promoted responsible tourism. He believes responsible travel starts with building empathy and educating people about the people and places they visit.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory and how you grew up?
I’ve always loved daydreaming. Coming up with ideas that I would think about for days. I grew up in Bangalore, and went to college in the US where I studied Entrepreneurship and Finance as I wanted to work for myself. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon University in 1999, I returned to India to work on my first startup. It was along the lines of social networking. But due to market conditions and lack of experience, I wasn’t able to build the startup. After that, I started companies in different industries to find a way to make a positive impact. But none of them scaled. After 20 years of working, I decided to take a break to re-energise myself. I wanted to travel. As I was researching online, I found it hard to find hotels and tours that were supporting the local community. That’s when the idea behind Postcard was formed.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
While I was working on Postcard in the initial days after launching the alpha version, someone introduced me to the Transformational Travel Council. I read up on them and found deep alignment with what they stood for and their values, as a community builder of brands that advanced travel for personal transformation. Listening to the community speak about change and the challenges they were facing, I decided to pivot the product to help them succeed. Postcard is what it is because of the people we met at the Transformational Travel Council.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
There have been many people in my life who have guided me. My mother has taught me the power of spontaneity and always encouraged me to follow my path. And my dad has taught me discipline and focus.
My inspiration though have been Richard Branson and Walt Disney. I have loved reading their stories and being inspired by how they built their companies with FUN as a core value.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“You do not inherit the earth from your ancestors, you borrow it from your children”. — Unknown
This has shaped the way I think about my work and the way I choose to live life. I always felt this way but this quote helped me materalise my thoughts and empower me to look at building businesses that serve the community and contribute to a better future. It has also given me purpose to think of finding ways to make the world better for my children and their children.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Dreaming — I have always been a dreamer and love losing myself in my work. I love imagining the future and what it could look like.
Resilience — Over the last 22 years, I have started five companies across five different industries. From social media to retail, and then agronomy to fine art, I have burnt my fingers many times. I jokingly say I know more of what not to do than what to do. Through all the challenges faced, I have found inner strength to get back up. I have to credit my parents for making me this way.
Intent — Every startup that I have worked on has been with the intent to serve society and make it a better place. I have introduced families to home gardening, empowered Indian farmers to earn more, art helped local artists to earn better. With Postcard, I hope to inspire the world to be more mindful.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about the tech tools that you are helping to create that can make a positive social impact on our society. To begin, what problems are you aiming to solve?
I feel many of us are living uninspired lives. This is because we are caught up in their day-to-day lives and aren’t taking time out for ourselves. Routine work and a consistent environment become mundane. Inspiration is sought through mainstream and social media. But those, too, aren’t always inspirational. My vision is to use storytelling to awaken the global society to the amazing world we live in.
At Postcard, we are building a media and representation company for mindful travel. As a representation company, we bring together a global collective of hoteliers and travel designers and invite them to showcase themselves through local stories of people, culture, history, food, nature and wildlife. We showcase these stories to our global community of mindful travellers and inspire them to book with our partners.
For global travellers who wish to travel mindfully, we present these inspirational stories through our website, blog, hotel & tour directories, newsletter, podcast and social media channels and invite them to connect with the companies behind them. We give them an easy way to discover authentic local hotels and tours that support the local community and promote responsible tourism.
How do you think your technology can address this?
Postcard has been designed around the idea of storytelling. We partner with hotels and tours that support the local community and promote responsible tourism. We invite them to join the platform and give them the publishing tools with which to write their local stories. We then showcase these stories to our global community of mindful travellers and invite them to book with our partners. By connecting global travellers with authentic local hotels and tours, we uplift local communities and help advance the mindful travel revolution.
Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?
While taking a break from my previous startups, I decided to travel for a bit. I wanted to travel in a mindful way, staying at hotels or going on tours that supported the local community. However, I found it difficult to find these companies. Search engines were algorithm-driven and showed listings that were best at SEO. Social media was noisy. I felt there was a need to bring together a global collective of hotels and tours that supported the local community and promoted responsible tourism.
I then joined the Transformational Travel Council and was exposed to some incredible people that were doing work to make an impact. I noticed that these people were finding it difficult to reach their customers as they were using conventional marketing channels to get the word out.
I also learnt that there was a global shift in consumer demand for more mindful travel as was reported by leading media outlets. In one report by Booking.com, it was said that “83% of travellers think sustainable travel is vital, three quarters believe they have to act now to save the planet for future generations.” Another report by Amadeus mentioned that “68% of travellers want the money they spend on travel to go back to the community”.
This further validated my assumption that there was a need for a global space for mindful travellers to connect with hotels and travel designers that supported the local community and promoted responsible tourism.
How do you think this might change the world?
The idea behind mindful travel is still niche and the space is an emerging industry — accessible to only a small portion of travellers that are more spiritually aware and awakened.
But how do we scale the idea and make this movement mainstream?
We believe it is by showcasing local stories of people and places as they are relatable to everyone…Local stories can help build empathy, And through it we can celebrate our diversity.
This, when done at scale, can lead to changes in global perspectives, which could then help overcome discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, politics and more…
THIS could lead to a more inclusive world!
Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?
The idea behind Postcard is simple. We are building the world’s largest collection of local stories of people and places. We have the content created by authentic voices on the ground, those who are serving their local communities. Every traveller that books a tour or hotel with any of our partners directly contributes in supporting the local community. And as we scale, we grow our impact and help uplift communities around the world.
Furthermore, we believe that if we find a way to awaken the world to be more empathetic to the local communities, we will influence changes in policy and action to reverse over-tourism and other negative issues facing the industry.
We therefore don’t see any drawbacks to this technology.
Here is the main question for our discussion. Based on your experience and success, can you please share “Five things you need to know to successfully create technology that can make a positive social impact”? (Please share a story or an example, for each.)
Start with intention — Set a clear intention on how you wish to positively impact the world. Write it down and share it on social media to show your commitment to your cause.
Build for a passionate community — “Do what you love and you won’t work a day in your life” — surround yourself in a space and with the people where you feel safe and empowered.
Listen to their stories and build a personal connection — Talk beyond work and learn more about them and why they do what they do. Pick up signals on what will make their lives better and design a product around it.
Get your messaging right — The most important aspect of Impact Entrepreneurship is Messaging, and it’s important to create emotional messaging that is authentic and visible.
Think beyond the market — Most importantly think beyond the market. Build for impact and build for scale. Demonstrate your impact and use it to build brand loyalty and natural evangelists.
If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?
Change your perspective. We are living in an amazing time and in an amazing world. However, as a business society, we are driven by our egos to celebrate market valuations and corporate structures. But we also have the opportunity to be Impact Entrepreneurs, driven by our hearts and looking to change the world for the better through our work.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)
Richard Branson because he gave me the power to dream and showed me that building businesses should be Fun. I absolutely loved his story and the role his mom played in shaping him into what he is. My mom also played a similar role.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
https://m.facebook.com/postcardtravelstories/
https://www.instagram.com/postcardtravelstories/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/postcardtravelstories
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success in your important work.
