iTraveller: Connect with Hotels Directly ; from Bookings to Check — Out
A report on FB Live interaction with Mr. Shiju Radhakrishnan — Founder CEO, iTraveller.
iTraveller is a travel technology business with two flagship products — iTraveller Hotel Direct & iTraveller Holidays.
iTraveller Hotel Direct is a place where hotels & users are connected directly, from bookings to check-out. It helps users discover hotels of their choice, chat, ask questions about the destination, discover trip ideas, negotiate best prices and book them online, directly with the hotels. By being connected directly with the hotels, it provides a holistic experience to the users with seamless automation — booking, web check-in, room services, till web check-out.
iTraveller Holidays is a marketplace for holidays, connecting travellers and native wholesale suppliers. Users can customise & book trips online whereas at the back end, iTraveller functions like a travel ERP for destination management companies.
How the idea of iTraveller originated?
Started around 2011 in a rudimentary way without any experience or exposure of how to set up a business. The basic idea was to create a product which will give people an option to book trips online, and which could be customized by the people according to their needs and which will give them a much better vacationing experience. The basic target audience was the group of people who like to travel more often.
The seed capital source of iTraveller
Initially the source for seed funding were friends, family etc…due to lack of surety. It was in 2013–14 when they actively started searching for the funding.
Team structure of iTraveller then and now
To start with the founding team had 3 people namely, Shiju Radhakrishnan (CEO), Chitra Parija (COO) and Nisanth Kumar (CTO). The organization structure is flat with negligible hierarchy, comprised of 20 member team partly in Bengaluru and Kochi. The founders believe a smaller team is easy to manage and more communication exists in the company which is very fruitful.
Opinion about Kerala Start-Up ecosystem and what can be done better?
According to the founder, there is a huge difference between the scenario between 2011 & 2017. During their initial years there was a scarcity of industrial mentors and also capital which would help the project to scale up. But now there is an active involvement from Government with initiatives such as Kerala Start up Mission providing holistic support to the seed stage start-ups. Various initiatives to bring in participation from the reputed VCs from the rest of the country will enable long term impact to the ecosystem, “VCs act as a nervous system for the start-ups”, providing the much needed vital nutrients — the mentors, industry connect & capital.
Talent availability in Kerala
Talent and skill sets remain nearly constant between now and then, but in the recent times, candidates also come with a well rounded maturity on what could be expected from working with a start up. Such aptitude levels were missing few years back and also there is an increased affinity towards working in the start-ups in the recent times. The government initiatives must have helped in enabling this abundance of talent, which can now compete with that of any other Tier- 1 city, while incurring lower cost to company.
Would you advise a startup to start up in a robust place like Bengaluru than Kochi to get an early advantage?
According to the founder this may be decided based on the nature of business — for example, an Operationally Intensive business with large number of employees Kochi is a better place as the overall cost of operations will be lesser as compared to cities like Bengaluru. However, a business which is Technologically Intensive with less number of employees, a city like Bengaluru could prove better as their dynamics of scale is independent of people & operational overheads.
Adoption of Technology based products for users in Kerala
Such products can be divided into two
1. Products which are available to use for free (Facebook or Whatsapp)
2. Transactional products where cash transactions happen (eComm Apps) — Such products broadly have a limitation when it comes to adoption. The total available market in India for transactional products are less than 50 Million, leading to a much lower number, if it’s confined to the boundaries of Kerala (possibly less than 1–2 million users). This must be considered while building the product because one might hit the scalability challenges, leading to failure in long term.
It is better to develop something with a scope of being placed nationally than within the scope of Kerala which will be financially viable at times
Identify fake investors who aim for free stakes
It is not an easy thing to identify fake investors. Getting mails from prospective investors are very exciting. It is not possible to ask them directly whether they are fake, so it is better to ask indirect questions or search websites or look for references in market. Reputed VCs have quick references in the market compared to individual investors. It is better to stay away from individual investors who hasn’t invested before. There can be cases were VCs are just doing a due diligence on you, it is better you mask or keep certain factors confidential in such cases.
What happens in the backend of iTraveller when a customer demands for a service?
According to the nature of the service demanded, a set of workflows are triggered in the backend which contains both offline and online components. Depending on the nature of requests, there will be automated solutions or specific offline support that will be triggered.
Usage & scope of BlockChain in iTraveller
Blockchain technology is not yet explored to be put in use at iTraveller. However, there are various initiatives kicked off on machine learning, especially around prediction algorithms & natural language processing.
1 Million Fund raising Experience
Having worked with the investors and raised one institutional funding round, the team has a decent exposure to the fund raise process and the nuances around it — be it working on the term sheets, due diligence SHA & SSA or employee agreements.
Fund raising is not a cake walk. It involves a gruelling cycle testing ones endurance and sometime consume couple of years at one stretch. Convincing VCs take a good amount of selling skills, in addition to having great product, traction and team. The founder says despite spending over 4 years into fund raising, he’s still in the learning phase because there always exists a difference in the way an entrepreneur looks at his business and what VCs expect it to be.
Fundraising for iTraveller was started in 2012–13. The first round was through ah! Ventures & Letsventure, which were smooth experiences of raising fund. Within 2–3 weeks they closed 2–3 crores. Getting VC buying was relatively easy back then, owing to a booming market & the traction which iTraveller had built.
The overall documentation took approximately 6 months — term sheet takes about two months, followed by two months for due diligence and lastly SHA & SSA take about two to three more months.
Due Diligence shall be in two areas — one financial & two legal. As an outcome, Due Diligence will highlight the compliance issues, if any in the business. Depending on the complexity of the lack of compliance, the flags will be raised for each of them.
- Red flags — the ones demanding mandatory closure
- Yellow flags — the ones which are less complex, but good to close, if possible
During legal DD, background checks of the founders along with the employee agreement execution will be complete. Receipts of funds occur post the above process, usually within a fortnight of closing the SHA & SSA.
Plans to get merged?
Market is not that conducive for a meaningful M&A and the current idea is to focus on what they are building right now. iTraveller Hotel Direct product is disruptive which can hopefully make a change in the global scene. The team doesn’t foresee a scenario of getting acquired in the immediate 24 months horizon.
Future Expansion Plans
The team is ambitious to go global with Hotel Direct product and right now working with the growth stage VCs to raise the required capital. If the timelines go as planned, iTraveller will expand to markets like Singapore, Dubai, Maldives, Thailand & Bali in addition to India, before entering into US around end of 2018.
The FB Live Video is provided below.
