Interviewer: How did you come up with the idea of your company? What was the process behind the creation of this company?
Mr. Narayan Mallapur: My Co Founder Vikas Khanduri and I, both have over 22+ years experience each in the travel domain, the last 15 years in leadership positions. Having worked in this domain for so long, we understand its working so well and also the gaps. Despite Online companies coming up in travel in the last decade or so, in the activities and tours even today, globally 80% is offline business, providing us a huge potential. The target market size is $ 110 Billion and growing @ 9% per annum( Phocuswright Research 2016)
We ourselves have seen DMC’s and travel agents pain points since we closely worked with them for several years. To address this problem, Innowayt was born.
We spoke and interviewed a wide range of DMC’s ( travel suppliers ) and travel agents from several countries so as to validate that we are addressing their pain points. We started with the development on November 1st with 7 Engineers and at each stage of development, validated and got feedback from the suppliers and agents, We registered the entity in April and recently received the Start-up Certificate from Start-up India. As the work demands, our team is growing.
Interviewer: What steps did you take to make your company stand out in this vastly competitive field?
Mr. Narayan Mallapur: We have received an excellent response since we did a beta launch on May 28th that’s primarily because we are addressing to the acute need of a good solution to the pain points existing in the tours and activities across the globe. We would continue with the development with feedback and validation at each stage to have the right product. We would come up with innowaytive solutions that mitigate the problems that the customers face today, making their life easier and simpler. We are about to introduce payments module which would enable the travel agent to make outward remittances sitting at their desk instead of a tedious process that need to adopt of going to their bank, handing over the documents etc- all this would be enabled through Innowayt platform.
Interviewer: What are your core values? what measures do you take to stick to your core values?
Mr. Narayan Mallapur: Our core values are to have transparency with everyone that we interact as well as do business with. Both, Vikas and me have known each other for over a decade and worked together and we ensure that this philosophy is ingrained in all the team members that we have and will have in the future. To do business ethically and being transparent in all our dealings.
Interviewer: What are your future plans in order to expand your company further? What new things do you plan to do?
Mr. Narayan Mallapur: We have started on-boarding the DMCs from various countries right from start, we first would be tapping the Indian travel agents network to begin with, followed by Europe, US and GCC countries. Fortunately, for us, being in this domain for decades, we have already been able to identify the people who would join us at an appropriate time and most of them is within our network and have worked together before.
We would also be providing the travel agents the options of travel insurance, Forex and others such travel related services to provide all services under one roof.
Interviewer: What advice would you give to the up and coming entrepreneurs and small business corporations in order to help them grow?
Mr. Narayan Mallapur: I would like to share a few points without sounding cliché:
Idea alone is worthless, unless you plan and execute it
There’s no ‘ right age” you can start at 14 or at 55, age is just a number ( while I started working at the age of 16, I turned entrepreneur at 55)
You do something, which is a passion for you, something you are good at.
Hire people who are better than you at work
Find a co-founder whose skills complement each other
Make something what people want
You really need to believe in yourself and what you are building, while everyone else may be naysayers
Don’t give up and take “ no” for an answer