Co-founder
@Pickyourtrail
. Co-producer - Diya & Arjun. Contributor for The Hooked by Nir Eyal. consumer behaviour PHD aspirant. 34 countries and counting.
Im perennially dis-satisfied.
Im eternally grateful.
This balance between wanting to do more and being thankful for what I have has been a great process of self discovery.
Not sure of the authenticity. But this is one of the reasons I don't holiday during the year end or long weekends. The whole idea of a holiday is lost in the crowd and prices are high too.
Early in
@Pickyourtrail
journey (at about 10-15 bookings a month kinda scale), one of the VCs who we had met liked the idea, team, tech roadmap but felt customised holidays is a lifestyle biz, difficult to scale. They felt getting to 100 pax a day would be challenging 1/n
There was a pedestrian path way. And a cycling zone. Much before smart cities projects. Really wish we could just organise roads better. So much efficiency improvement for a city. And surely s must for tourism inflows to increase
Singapore government announces plan to make it easier for visa for indians. Its been 10 years of
@Pickyourtrail
and there has been never this kinda red carpet for Indians from short haul markets. Singapore was the last major market to bite the visa free/visa online bullet. 1/n
I bought this in may 2007 from my first internship salary in hong kong. Its been 12+ years and my mom still uses it. No battery changes, it just works. Why am an
@Apple
fanboy :) second photo was me trying to be all senti & personalise it.
Most high growth startups focus on m-o-m growth, I try to remind them...
50% annual growth for 10 yrs is 58X
60% annual growth for 10 yrs is 110X
Most founders don’t put enough emphasis on 3/5/10 years out, on making choices today to sustain compounding
#PowerOfCompounding
That point in your org journey when you got to know and momentarily worried that the biggest player in the country is trying to find out your daily volumes. 🤞🏽
we are beating them hands down in maldives and cant wait to replicate across geos.
@Pickyourtrail
[workaction deal] Would you be interested?
- 7 nights in goa
- 25k for two adults
- breakfast and dinner included.
- 4⭐️ hotel
- 2 way airport transfers included. - 4.5 star rated on trip advisor.
@Pickyourtrail
DM for details. RT if you think this is fake deal :)
2 to 200 - Somedays you wake up feeling on top of the world and on some you just want to quit. Despite best intentions, outcomes are disastrous. Read on to know how it has been. Thanks a tonne to all of you - customers, partners, well wishers and advisors
A monumental month
1️⃣ Revenue milestone
2️⃣ 150k followers on social.
3️⃣ beta launch of three apps. One of them in the works for over 2 yrs.
4️⃣ We now have an office in Delhi.
🙏🏼 for all your support,keep it coming
#gradatimferociter
@Shankar_Srinath
@Pickyourtrail
@shyamsek
Looking for 2 folks to join our founders staff team
@Pickyourtrail
- the ideal candidate is a generalist with 3-4 yrs work ex. High agency, excellent comms & execution skills. Best suited for someone who wants to startup/become PnL owner in 2-3 years time. Location-MAA.
Pls RT😀
We started writing welcome letters to folks who we interview. Now most managers do that for their team members. A great way to get the ball rolling in the right direction. And personalised too, like all our itineraries :)
@Pickyourtrail
@thundubeedi
@Shankar_Srinath
@lubnah10
The next three months are the best to discover tamil nadu on roadtrips. Amazing weather, breeze and so many quaint properties you can stay along.
Maa > chidambaram > trichy > tanjore > karaikudi > madurai and then either go to kodai or down south to rameshwaram.
Customer lead date - 6th dec 11:55am.
Customer books a trip - 6th dec. 12:11am.
*16 mins is all it took*
Deal value - 1.9L. 6Nights, turkey, 2 ppl.
Stoked to have a massive opportunity to get folks to book vacations online. :)
@Pickyourtrail
@Shankar_Srinath
Fools at
@Pickyourtrail
-
☑ Take 50%+ pay cuts
☑ build products without clarity of launch
☑ hear out peers & parents amidst all the gloom
The pandemic was not kind to many of us. Stoked to share the ring side view of what it felt like!
in our internal slack channel, there is this new ritual where one collegue of mine posts one message a day. Today's post was by far the best. its amazing to be part of a team that is having each other's back in these tough times..
@Pickyourtrail
@Shankar_Srinath
It was heart warming to see
@chennaipolice_
get kids from lower income households to experience the final days play. They also ensured that they continuously took care of all their needs. Icing on the winning cake :)
#thoughtful
#gesture
#kids
#IndiavsEngland
⏩ to Today - for the first time in our history we have 1000+ pax travelling with us on many days in Dec 2022. It feels surreal right now.
its not been easy but its also been enjoyable. huge shout out to all of you who have been supportive and 5/n
Age catches up with you, certainly. As you age, you need good friends/family to just sit and talk, laugh, cry.
Don’t let work get in the way of maintaining relationships. Family. Friends. Spouse. Partner. Kids. Make relationships count.
TN did 28.4 lakh vaccinations today! Sunday is when mostly vaccinations dip. To organise the entire government machinery, door to door campaign at zonal level and state wide push is surely commendable.
@mkstalin
@chennaicorp
@vijay27anand
#covid
#chennai
#tn
[PSA] If you get an offer from a travel Co, take it. Why? - biz is going to explode. Tech disruption is happening. companies that have survived the pandemic have the best peer group to work & grow with. The market is ripe for disruption in India. Yes - we are hiring too :)
Sitting with the two largest brands of japan - HIS and JTB -
Only 20% of all Japanese have passports. And their outbound is about 20Mn trips a year and a 3Bn market. India is just at the cusp. Only 2% of people have passports but almost a 5Bn outbound market. Crazy stats.
i once applied to be a PM and was politely declined as they felt that I won't do well given I was a sales guy (too tactical). And lo and behold am now responsible to chart growth for the
@Pickyourtrail
product :) maybe a blog post on this sometime soon.
#NeverGiveUp
[on chennai]
Others -- not the most densest talent. No flashy events round the year. Not the greatest of story tellers, sweltering summers. Hindi is a problem. No night life.
Me - beach please.
#chennai
#pun
Work anniversary -
@lubnah10
completes 5 years with
@Pickyourtrail
. Our first trooper - we had to move out of our house into a co-working space cos she joined. copy says - "from zero to five and beyond. PYT is Lubna". Very apt memento that reminds us we are nothing without ppl.
There was this company that raised $ on the premise of visas. One of the VCs wanted to chat to understand my POV. It was a catch22 - as a founder i understand how much these ref checks mean. At the same time i needed to be candid about my understanding of d market. That story 1/n
Three batchmates in this photo. So glad that I have had the opportunity to work with all the three of them
@InMobi
. The batch of 2009 of
@IIM_Bangalore
is a great example of how tough times lead to great opportunities 13 years later :) here is the story of why. 1/n
It was 2014 Dec, me and
@Shankar_Srinath
had hired 7 folks from our Alma matter. We were just 5 ppl startup then. I still vividly remember that night calling
@bikashchowdhury
and sharing this exciting + nervous news and asking if we had done the right thing. Now in 2019
Oh boy!!! What an evening it was. reliving the journey of last 18 months & celebrating the last three months. Nervously excited about whats in store. Huge shout out to all the folks on TL who have cheered and rooted for us.
@Pickyourtrail
@Dwaraka04
Revenge travel is real - 100+ trips to MLE between 15-22nd july with
@Pickyourtrail
(as of now). july reopening has been faster than oct + nov combined. And looks like we will end up almost near pre covid levels very soon. 🤞🏽🤞🏽
After meeting my boyfriend, I have stopped doing humdrum tasks like booking flight tickets, doing a web check-in, carrying ID proofs or cancelling tickets. It’s outsourced to him. I just show up at the airport and trudge along. Truly liberating
Happy family.
Professional success.
Healthy body.
Less stressed mind.
Time for Hobbies.
Working marriage.
You cant have it all. You are seeing ppl post parts of these and wonder why ur not able to. Remember - they also dont have it all. Prioritise and look inwards.
#gyaan
The joy of building a brand - Nothing comes close to creating an entity that is non existent till folks hear the name & suddenly a plethora of emotions rush in as they hear it. It's magical. Ain't it? Puma. Porsche. Pepsi. Prada. Pink Floyd. And soon,
@Pickyourtrail
@shmunday
The adrenalin rush of getting a shout out from a brand You love and a leader you look upto, crazy max... whistle podu wonly :)
@Shankar_Srinath
@SunOfGan
@deiowner
Even thala dhoni likes the mountains, what are you waiting for? Here are 4 curated staycations for you at jaw dropping prices.
Kodai -
Coorg -
Nainital -
Mussoorie -
@HariPyt
SEO
@Pickyourtrail
, a thread - First the results - ~15x increase in sessions and leads over 3 months.. Sharing some things that I think helped us..
1. Interlinking - getting our products - guides, blogs, other pages to talk to each other 1/n
Took a metro from st thomas mount to teynampet. No route maps at any of the platforms. There is a route change at alandur metro station, you get down and ask folks which platform. The good ol indian way :) pls put up more sign boards and route maps.
@cmrlofficial
With every passing day my conviction grows stronger that having that stellar person in each function defines success. Hiring is key. Getting that one person who knows how to solve, collaborate, balance process and pace, and getting that person at a senior level
#gold
if you are a founder and you are struggling to hire - get yourself a Naurki login! beats linkedin hands down. esp for biz, support and even tech roles. and you get so much data that its crazy! i am not going to ever agree that its difficult to hire anymore :)
The 3 most emotional moments of parenting till now:
1) the satisfied look on their face after food
2) the accomplished look when they repeat something they learnt/were taught.
3) the calm look when they just about fall asleep in your lap.
Heart melts, feel choked all the time.
PSA - if you haven't booked a trip yet for Nov/Dec, pls dont bother. You are paying almost 30-40% premium bare minimum. Start planning hols 3 months ahead!
1. couple - Plan for valentine's day weekend
2. Family - dubai expo in Feb/Mar | swiss in Apr
3. Europe in march/April
the largest leisure travel brand from India. We have a long way to go but am sure that with the team and culture we have, we have a great shot at it! Thanks for reading thus far, if you are looking for a trip/curious check out -
#GradatimFerociter
One of things we wanted to do when we moved into the newer space was to host more events. Can't thank the ecosystem enough, bootstrapping for 5 years was not easy. And providing infra for such events is our attempt at helping many more like us :) today at rocketship 1/2
rarely do personal and professional goals align. 9 years back i was lucky to start something in travel. Fast forward to today - 2023 is going to be the year of *Muscle Building* both professionally and personally.
2022 was all about velocity, the market was just coming back 1/n
So the Mrs is taking me on a surprise getaway. She said we were flying which I didn’t believe. But now that we are the airport - am actually surprised. 😱 am plugged in to avoid announcements. Going to play along. Planning to go blindfold like those Olden day movies. 🙈
Happy Deepavali to the twitter fam.
May the coming year be as enlightening as the past.
Twitter continues to be the best place to build connections and learn new things.
#FestivalOfLights
#Diwaliwishes
#HappyDeepavali
honoured to be invited at the srilankan tourism board event and sharing the stage along with the tourism minister of SL. We at
@Pickyourtrail
are kicked about the possibilities of improving traveller experience and improving local economy over the next few years.
#UnwrapSriLanka
Annual day scenes for DnA. From the first one where they were apprehensive, scared, anxious to this one where they are confident of themselves, having conversations on what kodava means or Portuguese eat - its been a great experience. Cant wait to see them perform.
It’s been two years since we moved into this office & we are about a month Away from moving into a new one. lots of gratitude for journey so far, And as we breach the 100 ppl mark - people & culture continue to be central to what is ahead of us. Know someone? We are hiring :)
With the CEOs of thomas cook and SOTC.
When you are an outsider ppl often don’t “give bhaav”. But travel as an industry has been kind to us. We have learnt & grown thanks to the giants who chose to guide us. the past few days were no different ♥️
#gratitude
#GradatimFerociter
Systemic problems - overcharging. We are quite infrequent to the beach but are aware that parking in
@chennaicorp
is 40rs. Being a long weekend it was crowded and we finally found parking. The lady comes and says no upi, GPay not working - only cash. It was suspicious. 1/n
More developing leaders are challenging the “narrative” of many years. Data led (hoping the data is right). Something i believe india set the tone with. 🙏🏼🙌🏼
13 countries have announced start of tourist visas. Europe continues to open up faster than I had thought.
15th June:
1. Austria
2. Germany
3. France
4. Italy
5. Spain
6. Portugal
7. Norway
8. Poland
9. Iceland
10. Coratia
11. Solvenia
1st July:
1. Cambodia
2. Greece
Largely a post pandemic phenomenon, Indians now can travel to
1. Vietnam - online/visa free
2. Maldives - visa free
3. Thailand - free
4. Bali - on arrival small fee.
5. Srilanka - visa free
6. Dubai - online. 5yrs.
7. Iran
8. 5 stan’s - kazak. Usbek. Etc. - visa free
2/n
Juding people quickly both a boon and bane for a manager/leader. What has helped me is willingness to change opinions with new info. And a key component for that to happen is to swallow ego.
veshti to the resuce - When you are locked down and deseprate to brainstorm on white boards and then take photos to complete that office wala feeling.
@Pickyourtrail
John buchanan who led australia - 16 consecutive test matches, ICC champions trophy, and three consecutive worldcups - talking to us about what it takes to bounce back. “What you control is how you respond”
#MondayMotivation
@Pickyourtrail
@Shankar_Srinath
1/n
Why holidays biz? Many folks ask me this. My thoughts
1. Massive market
2. Highly fragmented
3. Low service (currently)
4. Near zero tech penetration
5. Proven biz model
6. (-ve) working cap
7. Multiple adjacencies
The BUT - people led + no big winner till date.
enter, PYT.
Folks, PYT is looking for someone who has their way with words! (ideally between 4-6 years of experience).
key Job responsibilities
1. product copy - web/app + all customer comms
2. mktg copy - ad copies
This is a high impact role with a huge canvas! Pls RT? Remote works!
This is really brave by India. (Source not confirmed, but from mumbai airport). Putting out stamps on ppl who have to be quarantined with voter id ink (indelible ink for a few weeks). This is amazing thinking - jugaad as we call it. PS - love the copy.
@startupdaemon
@tapak7
some stats on PYT org
1. 36% of all ppl are female.
2. 56% of all sales folks are females - an eye-opener!
3. 66% of the org are less than 1 year - thanks to the pandemic, the rebuilding is real
4. 11% of org is from pre-covid. the core is intact
5. 40% of org is outside MAA
6N 7D europe, 2 adults. including flights, stay, transfers - 1.04L total. 😇 price discovery powers of
@PickYourTrail
in full flow. icing on d cake? 100% automated bookings. cant wait to take this to the world!
@gcmouli
@SunOfGan
@outofofficedaku
@tnooz
They were on the path to IPO. 😔😔
During B-school, I got my summer placement in 2008 done in less than 20mins with an investment bank. In 2009 final placements, few of the top 10 of the institute were without a job till day 3. I somehow managed to 1/n
So
@srikrishnang
said the biggest thing I learnt as a second time founder is - “marketing & distribution beats everything”
They started pre-flight community much before prod launch & built great buzz.
But series A announcement rap song izz too cool 🙌🏼 congos team
@RocketlaneHQ
When you are growing fast - Very easy to lose sight. Moderately easy to realise that. Extremely difficult to stay focussed. Meditation has helped me stay in the moment. Being in the present, hugely helps focus and execute.
corporate job is a rat race, build your own company - said a wise man. IMO, Entrepreneurship is also now a rat race.
Do you have day zero interview == are you speaking to VCs.
How many day zero offers == how many termsheets.
Salary == valuation.
#ironical
@IIMBAA
@peegeekay
This is something I shared with the org on the back of the recent Thomas cook UK collapse. These are testing times and at
@Pickyourtrail
we hope and pray that folks return back safely from their vacations. happy to help in any little way possible.
I read books not to learn, but to be inspired. Someone just as human as I - turning around companies, winning wars, outwitting competition. What stops you? Is the only question I ask myself. Most times the answer is - THE MIND. We are limited by our imagination.