EP17: {Aloke of IXIGO} 170 million users and a 14 year journey building the Google for travel

EP17: {Aloke Bajpai, Co-founder & CEO of IXIGO} On the episode I chat with Aloke Bajpai, CEO of IXIGO, a business that can be called a Travel industry veteran. Aloke & Rajnish have been in the travel ecosystem since the time they graduated from IIT in 2001, first jobs working at the Spanish travel major Amadeus and then building IXIGO as a travel search player in India even before flying was commonplace like it is today — at least prior to COVID19. ------------- > Don't forget to subscribe to the Newsletter via stars.substack.com so that you can receive future podcast releases delivered to your inbox! They’ve been building IXIGO for over 14 years, frugally. Hacking their way through many industry & business cycles and have created an ecosystem of apps that have become leaders in their space to serve 170 million users. In this conversation, Aloke shares his journey starting up, getting through previous cycles and lessons that can help navigate the current situation. Aloke says their mantra to garnering 170 million users:  never benchmark against competition and stay close to customers would help understand what products to build The muscle they spent a lot of time building that would help in a downturn is their “frugal mindset” & “marketing without money.” Additionally while navigating a downturn, Aloke recommends over communicating with employees & suggest offering an upside (ESOPs) for those who stick around. Aloke, can be found on LinkedIn & Twitter. They’re hiring! In the 14 year journey, they have raised total capital of 35 million USD and have some marquee investors including Sequoia Capital India, Fosun Kinzon Capital, SAIF Partners, MakeMyTrip Ltd. & Micromax Informatics Ltd. apart from some angel investors from their early days. { host is @varunvummidi } Timeline: 02:10 — Joining the IIT’s 05:35 — IXIGO and raising cash in a downturn 07:10 — Amadeus and the origins of IXIGO 11:15 — the first year for IXIGO and fund raising 15:10 — the Google for travel 22:21 — Scaling to 170 million users 27:41 — Company culture 33:33 — Encouraging entrepreneurship 37:02 — Coming out of a downturn — learning from the previous cycles 40:51 — Raising funds from MMT & SAIF Partners? 44:19 — Solving for utility as a growth hack to becoming the largest partner to IRCTC 50:40 — Surviving the downturn