ExploreOuting - An App That Travels With You - Scoopearth : Startup Story | Startup News | Trending Business News

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Image Credit/ Source: Exploreouting (Left Mr.Vipul Jain and Right Mr.Amit Mittal)

Gabbit founders have a passion for travelling and have travelled across the globe. But when it comes to travelling within India, it is different. There were two instances which really made us started thinking –

(a) Andaman Trip: Few years back we thought of going to Andaman and looked for options at major online travel agencies (OTA). There were a lot of options available mostly taking us to well-known points only. We tried to call customer service for details but didn’t get much help from the call center. Then using some personal references, we found a travel expert who is based in Andaman. He worked out a plan that was much way better and much cheaper than others. We did all the bookings through him and had a wonderful trip, with he taking good care of us throughout the trip over the phone.

(b) Kedarnath Disaster (Flash flood) – It was a natural disaster in which several thousand people lost their lives. This could have been avoided with the use of technology. We approached Government and found that even though there was a weather warning, there was no way to reach out to travellers in short span of time. This also happened in Tsunami of 2004 where information could not be sent out to people in time.

” Above two incidents motivated us to develop something for Indian travel market. What followed this was a multi-month exercise to study the market, different stakeholders (mainly travel industry & Government) and their roles, how they work etc. Finally, we zeroed-in to a product “Explore Outing” and started filling the gaps”, says Mr. Vipul Jain Co-Founder and C.E.O of Explore Outing.

What is “Explore Outing” – India is a tourism-rich country and almost every destination provides a unique experience in terms of natural beauty, history, heritage, culture & traditions, cuisines, local art & craft, adventure activities etc. The best source of getting correct information, right experience with right pricing is from people who are actually providing that experience. To get the best vacation as per your choice, it requires a person from the travel industry, who either is based at that location or has good knowledge about it. – Gabbit’s product is using location-based technology to achieve this via its product – “Explore Outing”.

Video Credit/ Source: Exploreouting

Explore Outing (www.ExploreOuting.com) is a location-based aggregator for travel & tourism services. Travel related services are provided by both the private sector (most of them are offline) and government (responsible for tourism promotion, tourist safety and also holds many tourism assets). We are aggregating all of these, using a simple mechanism to provide online booking for offline services. Travelers interact with the system using a Mobile App “Explore Outing” on Google Play Store. For travellers the service not only provides an overall view but also online booking – even for those services which are usually offline.

The system provides a Win-Win situation for all three stakeholders by the following value adds

Travel service providers & offline travel agent – These people are good at travel services, but most of them are not tech-savvy. reaching out to travellers in these digital marketing worlds, and providing web/mobile booking is a real challenging task for them. Explore Outing not only market their services, but also provide a way to online booking for these offline people.

Travelers – Explore Outing is an app that virtually travels with them like a personal guide. based on tourist’s location, it not only provides details about various place of attractions, things to do etc, but also book them online. Tourists also get useful information like live road & weather updates (in collaboration with Govt agencies). Tourists can consult with other fellow travellers who are either at that place or have been there recently and get reviews/feedback/guidance. Since the system is also connected with the government they also get reliable updates and timely information about travel

Government – A unique way to promote state tourism to travellers across the country directly on their cell phones. Also, a unique way to address tourists safety, and an easy to use public address system.

Gabbit already has an association with Ministry of Tourism Uttarakhand, where the system is being in-use for Safe & Secure Char Dham pilgrims. It was launched by Minister of Tourism (Uttarakhand Government). The system takes data inputs from various government and private agencies (Tourism Board, Police, District Magistrate Office, Weather, Border Road Organization, Disaster Management Cell, GMVN, private hoteliers etc) about current road, weather, crowd condition, analyse it intelligently with location data of pilgrims to provide necessary information to state administration, travellers. The system is also working like an intelligent “Public Address System “ providing road & weather updates, warning & alerts. You can find us on Uttarakhand Tourism Official Website, GMVN (Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam Limited)

Gabbit has also won “Times Travel Award – 2018” for the innovative technology solution for the travel sector.

Gabbit has two founding members –

Image Credit/ Source: Exploreouting (Left Mr.Amit Mittal and Right Mr.Vipul Jain)

Mr. Vipul Jain (CEO) – Passionate Traveller. Travelled (Mostly Self-Drive) lot in India, US & Canada, Europe, UAE, Israel, 21 years of experience in Management, Sales & Business Development and Engineering, Worked at GlobalLogic for seven years, Started & Headed Embedded Vertical, Grew it to $11M. Worked in Silicon Valley Start-up Companies. Xsigo Systems (acqd by Oracle), Topspin (acqd by Cisco), First Virtual Communications(acqd by Radvision), Sequent Computers (acqd by IBM). A US Citizen with 2 Patents

Dr. Amit Mittal (COO)– Passionate about Self Driving Traveling. Travelled (Mostly Self Drive) in India & Europe, MBA from FMS Delhi and a Medical Graduate, Co-founder at Kalyaan Diagnostics – a Multi-Specialty Lab, 16 years of experience in Operations, Planning, Hospitality & Business Development, Started Operations as Career with Apollo Clinics. Also written publications in various national and international journals on Vedic Management

Gabbit is funded by its founders and also a small angel investment. We are following two approaches –

(a) In the starting – Building the credibility of the system is more important even if it means at the cost of revenue (Patanjali is a very good example of this)

(b) The famous saying in Startup culture of Silicon Valley (US) – “Spend every dollar as if it is your last one”. It only means to spend only when it is necessary.

Now the system has built its credibility in the market, our focus is majorly on scaling up the system. This has four aspects –

(a) Business Development – Bringing more & more quality partners (from travel fraternity and Government). Currently, we are using reference as the model, but are open for more options

(b) User Acquisition & Marketing

(c) Increasing Revenue – Although the system provides many avenues for revenue, and we are adding them one by one.

(d) Scaling up – We are scaling up state by state – considering North India first (because we are Delhi-NCR based), and then go further – wherever there is tourism, there is scope for Explore Outing.

Soon, we will be looking for further funding, but we want to achieve a couple of milestone before that.

Advice to founders – In a startup, you eat, drink, breathe your idea, concept or product. Then only it will get materialize. Rest everything comes second. I still remember a couple of years back we had an extremely busy day in Dehradun Secretariat (for presentation & discussion with Govt). From morning till 7:00 PM, we had only a quick breakfast. We had another meeting at Mussoorie with a vendor at 8:30 PM. It was raining, and there was absolutely no time for dinner as well. In that time we actually gate-crashed a wedding (it was a big fat Indian wedding), had dinner in exactly 7 minutes and reached Mussoorie on time.

Our advice –

(a) Focus on business, product, and its quality. Lots of tech-savvy founders try to talk about technology in details. Just remember technology is just a tool, should be given the importance accordingly.

(b) Funding is not an achievement, it is one of the many important things that you need.