Who and what are you (including personnel and backgrounds)?
Yoplr is backed by two promoters, Deepankar Biswas, and Raja TN. Deepankar Biswas is an industry expert in technology and product management with over 15 years of experience. Deepankar also has been a co-inventor in six patents and sole inventor in one patent filed in the US.
One of his papers on multi-modal Presence and Availabilty was selected for presentation in the ICIN Conference in France in 2003.
Deepankar brings along rich experience in blending technology with business, and being an avid traveller, contributes to Yoplr both in terms of technology and in terms of product strategy and direction.
Raja TN is a seasoned industry expert with over 14 years of experience in customer operations and technology. Raja has been a co-inventor in one patent filed in the US.
Raja has rich experience of working across customers, partnerships, and brings a lot of value in terms of operations to Yoplr. Raja handles the partnerships and operations and drives the content strategy for Yoplr.
What financial support did you have to launch the business?
We bootstrapped ourselves, and used the FFF channel (family, friends and fools) and a few consulting assignments to run the business until now.
What problem are you trying to solve?
We are trying to solve the problem of multi-modal travel planning. This is also known as making door-to-door tours, which cover all the components of a holiday or a travel.
This includes flights, trains, buses, hotels, transit, and sightseeing options. Our solution empowers users to make multi-modal tours in a flash using strong technology at the backend. This is a highly scalable solution which can cover any travel vertical and holiday experience.
Describe the business, core products and services?
Our revenue model relies on direct to consumer fulfilment, and lead generation for affiliates. Since the service went live only a month back, we are yet to bring these up on the site.
Yoplr works on a core software algorithm, which churns out multi-modal tour itineraries not only for transportation, but across hotels, transit and sightseeing options as well.
Since we are starting with religious tourism as a niche, we also work on the modalities of the worship timings etc of the main diety or the lord the user is visiting.
This completes the holiday and the tour need of the user in full. Moreover, it also allows the user to customize and change his options on the fly and arrive at a refined plan. Technology-wise it is a LAMP stack solution.
Who are your key customers and users at launch?
Our key customers at launch were the consumers (demand side) using the service. Going forward, our customers would be essentially on the supply and aggregation side.
Demand Side customers: Geographically – anyone in the world wanting to visit or make a tour for one of the destinations we can help with.
Supply Side Customers: Currently working on India-based suppliers
Did you have customers validate your idea before investors?
We showcased in Echelon 2010, Singapore, in June this year, and had a lot of investor attention.
We have not had the opportunity to showcase it to investors officially so far. However, we are looking for investment to scale up this solution and make it realize its potential, and hence looking for potential and like minded investors, who understand this space.
What is the business AND revenue model, strategy for profitability?
Our revenue model relies on direct to consumer fulfilment, and lead generation for affiliates. Currently since the service got live a month back, we are yet to bring these up on the site.
In the customer fulfilment cycle, we connect the consumers directly to the suppliers and not to any intermediary. We do not sell travel.
Our lead generation model for affiliates also has an API/Widget model, by which the tour operators and travel agents would get a very interesting solution from our end, thereby making us profitable in a short span.
SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?
Strengths:
The software, its algorithm, and content.
Weaknesses:
Lack of an industry expert in the team.
Opportunities:
a) Domestic and International destination tour planning – 'From any city in the world to any tourist attraction in the world'.
b) Other verticals like adventure, exotic etc.
Threats:
Mindset
Who advised you your idea isn't going to be successful and why didn't you listen to them?
Along this journey, a few people told us: "It's tough, it will not work. Nobody's doing it, so why are you? Why hasn't somebody done it before?"
I strongly believe this is revolutionary, brings about a paradigm shift in the way tours are planned, gives more leeway and control to the ever bargain-hungry consumer and gives more freedom to the suppliers.
What is your success metric 12 months from now?
For the consumer - if you want to make your tour/plan your travel there's nothing more customizable, fulfiling and trustworthy as Yoplr.
For the travel supplier - we get a better lead-to-conversion ratio. The traffic that they bring is serious, genuine and trustworthy.
TLabs Showcase focus on startups featuring India-based trip planning web service
Yoplr.
Who and what are you (including personnel and backgrounds)?
Yoplr is backed by two promoters, Deepankar Biswas, and Raja TN. Deepankar Biswas is an industry expert in technology and product management with over 15 years of experience. Deepankar also has been a co-inventor in six patents and sole inventor in one patent filed in the US.
One of his papers on multi-modal Presence and Availabilty was selected for presentation in the ICIN Conference in France in 2003.
Deepankar brings along rich experience in blending technology with business, and being an avid traveller, contributes to Yoplr both in terms of technology and in terms of product strategy and direction.
Raja TN is a seasoned industry expert with over 14 years of experience in customer operations and technology. Raja has been a co-inventor in one patent filed in the US.
Raja has rich experience of working across customers, partnerships, and brings a lot of value in terms of operations to Yoplr. Raja handles the partnerships and operations and drives the content strategy for Yoplr.
What financial support did you have to launch the business?
We bootstrapped ourselves, and used the FFF channel (family, friends and fools) and a few consulting assignments to run the business until now.
What problem are you trying to solve?
We are trying to solve the problem of multi-modal travel planning. This is also known as making door-to-door tours, which cover all the components of a holiday or a travel.
This includes flights, trains, buses, hotels, transit, and sightseeing options. Our solution empowers users to make multi-modal tours in a flash using strong technology at the backend. This is a highly scalable solution which can cover any travel vertical and holiday experience.
Describe the business, core products and services?
Our revenue model relies on direct to consumer fulfilment, and lead generation for affiliates. Since the service went live only a month back, we are yet to bring these up on the site.
Yoplr works on a core software algorithm, which churns out multi-modal tour itineraries not only for transportation, but across hotels, transit and sightseeing options as well.
Since we are starting with religious tourism as a niche, we also work on the modalities of the worship timings etc of the main diety or the lord the user is visiting.
This completes the holiday and the tour need of the user in full. Moreover, it also allows the user to customize and change his options on the fly and arrive at a refined plan. Technology-wise it is a LAMP stack solution.
Who are your key customers and users at launch?
Our key customers at launch were the consumers (demand side) using the service. Going forward, our customers would be essentially on the supply and aggregation side.
Demand side customers: Geographically – anyone in the world wanting to visit or make a tour for one of the destinations we can help with.
Supply side Customers: Currently working on India-based suppliers
Did you have customers validate your idea before investors?
We showcased in Echelon 2010, Singapore, in June this year, and had a lot of investor attention.
We have not had the opportunity to showcase it to investors officially so far. However, we are looking for investment to scale up this solution and make it realize its potential, and hence looking for potential and like minded investors, who understand this space.
What is the business AND revenue model, strategy for profitability?
Our revenue model relies on direct to consumer fulfilment, and lead generation for affiliates. Currently since the service got live a month back, we are yet to bring these up on the site.
In the customer fulfilment cycle, we connect the consumers directly to the suppliers and not to any intermediary. We do not sell travel.
Our lead generation model for affiliates also has an API/Widget model, by which the tour operators and travel agents would get a very interesting solution from our end, thereby making us profitable in a short span.
SWOT analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats?
Strengths:
- The software, its algorithm, and content.
Weaknesses:
- Lack of an industry expert in the team.
Opportunities:
- Domestic and international destination tour planning – 'From any city in the world to any tourist attraction in the world'.
- Other verticals like adventure, exotic etc.
Threats:
Who advised you your idea isn't going to be successful and why didn't you listen to them?Along this journey, a few people told us: "It's tough, it will not work. Nobody's doing it, so why are you? Why hasn't somebody done it before?"
I strongly believe this is revolutionary, brings about a paradigm shift in the way tours are planned, gives more leeway and control to the ever bargain-hungry consumer and gives more freedom to the suppliers.
What is your success metric 12 months from now?
For the consumer - if you want to make your tour/plan your travel there's nothing more customizable, fulfiling and trustworthy as Yoplr.
For the travel supplier - we get a better lead-to-conversion ratio. The traffic that they bring is serious, genuine and trustworthy.
TLabs Showcase is part of the wider TLabs project from Tnooz.