How Deep Kalra Built India's Biggest Travel Brand - MakeMyTrip | The Living Pod | University Living

Deep is fine. Anything but Mr. Kalra. You can call me anything else, okay. So, thank you, Saurabh, for having me here and especially on this special day. So, firstly, congratulations to everyone in the University Living family. Nine years is no mean feat. Many startup companies don't get to see this and I firmly believe if you get over the first three, four, five tough years, after that things get better and better and from what I've learned things are really looking good. So, congratulations and wish you much success. So, I'm Deep Kalra, founder and chairman of MakeMyTrip and it's my absolute pleasure to be on this special podcast.

Pretentious or is it a pattern which I have seen among all the successful startup entrepreneurs or all the personalities? So, I really can't speak for others and I'm not sure who all you've met, but I can only speak for myself and tell you whatever it is, it's very genuine because I think first generation entrepreneurs, particularly those who have built businesses in the internet economy, IT economy, have typically done it on the back of what they've learned, what they've seen, their experiences and willy-nilly they treat everyone in their own company, people who they meet at a fundamental level as equal. I don't think there's any other way the culture is built and this is very different from past generations where you had family businesses. So, in the earlier generations, I think the young generations are quite egalitarian, but in the older generations, willy-nilly they had a kind of a different kind of rapport and even I think people who worked for them gave them that kind of pedestal. So, I think it works both ways today. You treat people as equal and they also treat you at a fundamental level everyone's equal and it really doesn't matter who they are or what they're doing.

No, I think a little bit of word smithing happens, and that is when HR people and others get creative. But, let me tell you, let's talk about the biggest C of them all, which is culture. I think culture, and you can call it by any other name, you can have compassion and creativity, and collaboration. All of these are very typical qualities. But, at a fundamental level, I think culture is the invisible glue that holds an organization together. Culture is what you feel when you enter an office, when you are working there, without it having to be spelled out. So, imagine you're a fly on the wall in a company, and that same fly on the wall can go to different companies, and later come back and give its report. Fly on the wall means you're an invisible observer. That is the best way of sensing culture. So, if you can go and spend one whole week in an office, you can be in the meeting rooms, where two or more, or 10, or 20 people, you can be in different discussions, and you're invisible, you will pick out culture. So, I think I've yet to see a great company being built without great culture. Cultures can be different, but there are some fundamentals. And the fundamentals typically are like I said collaboration. So, it's always if we win, it's a team effort. If things go wrong, we will sink or swim together. But, a good manager will always deflect the glory when something goes well. So, you get some big award, you reach some big milestone. Any good manager, when I say manager could be a CEO or it could be a CXO or it could be a VP, will instantly say it's due to the team. It's a natural reaction. It's not something which he or she has rehearsed. And when something goes wrong, a good manager will put his or her hand up and say the buck stops at me. And you know, it didn't go right because of me. So, I think that is a wonderful feeling for the team members. It's very empowering for team members to feel that way. And these are few of the elements. The other element which I think a lot of people don't talk about often is the building of trust. The building of trust with your team only happens when you are straightforward and honest. And I can tell you character gets tested only in tough times. So, when you're going through a really tough time as all startups will and you're having near death experiences, how honest and transparent are you with the team? That things aren't going well. We are going to go through a tough ride, but trust us, we'll still come out on the other side. I think it comes down to that. And I don't know if everyone is doing that, but I can tell you companies who do that genuinely win the loyalty for a long long term time to come. So, I'm really proud of the fact that a lot of our people have stayed with us for really long decades, multiple decades. We've had people with us for the entire now 25 years. In 3 weeks time we'll be 25 years old and there are so many people who started with me in the beginning of the journey and are still there and have done really well. Many people stayed with us through the toughest time, went through till IPO in 2010, after that chose to do something else. And many people have joined recently, but if we find someone good we seldom let them go because we hold on to them because finding a good person in this very competitive world and a good person for me is a mini entrepreneur is really hard.

Okay, it is a deep question. I think what I didn't mention, Saurabh, and I should have, that culture is actually another way of describing culture is it is a reflection of the founders or founding team's values. And that's what it is. So, when you say culture of a company, it has to be from the top. It has to be top-down. People have to feel that only if founders genuinely believe that or the founding team believes that. And then every person you add to your team should add value to that culture. And for that means you should firstly believe that we are not already perfect. No one is. And everyone who comes in can add their own value, their own style of working, their own best practices, how they attract more talent. And so, I learn a lot from a lot of the new people who have joined the company for sure. Coming back, I guess two parts of the question. The second part is the easy part. I think keep it simple, keep it straight, keep it honest so you don't have any pretenses. So, you are who you are. And truly, I think that's the only one I know. I learned recently about another young company or in the startup phase, someone joined us from that company and said there were three sets of accounts. Obviously, I won't name the company. And one set of accounts was for the board. One set of accounts was for IT. And the third set of account was the real story, which was only for the founder or founders. And I said, 'That's crazy. I would go mad even trying to manage three sets of account. One is hard enough.' So, I think it's a reflection of how you like to lead your life. Do you like to complicate things or do you like to keep them simple? And keep it simple when I'm interviewing people, I genuinely try after assessing them and I'll tell you what I look for in an interview. I genuinely try to de-sell the company. And people say, 'That's crazy.' No, I want to tell people the bad part of the company. You know, there are bad things and I want to tell them. There are some things which you better be ready for. This is how we are. So, if this doesn't work for you, it's better you know it now. Because when people join and they're not the right fit, the company also loses out. We think only the person joining loses, both sides lose. Typically it takes about 6 months to realize this person's not right. Then you spend another 6 months trying to make it right because you are the one who's hired so you try to make it right. You try to fix it. So you lost a year. Then you part ways. So also one of the biggest problems that happens is the ripple effect. So by getting the wrong person in you have upset a lot of people in the company. You pissed them off. They said what kind of guy have they got? Who's the boss? And then that person leaves. So you have caused a lot of disruption in that company by getting a wrong hire. So try to get it right. And the way you can only try to get it right is multiple interviews. Test for the right things. Test for fit. Test for culture. Never ask things on the CV. That's a given. How will you ask someone who's done that? There's nothing you're going to gain from that. Never do a ref check with a reference who's been provided. That's silly. Obviously they're going to say good things. So do it in a smarter way. And let people know that there are things in your company which they may not be aware of. Let them know. Let them know that there'll be times when they'll be required to work nights. And if there is a crisis everyone is here together and there will be crisis that will come. So I think let them know that this is the culture in terms of even grooming people, and we do expect leaders to spend a lot of time in mentoring and bringing up people. And I think you'll get a good sense also when you meet people multiple times and then multiple people interview them and then you compare notes without biasing each other. That's your best chance of getting to know you're right the person. You had another question Saurabh I think I forgot.

In last 25 years? Well not personally so many for sure. As a company, yeah, we are now if you look at all our group companies we're probably about 5,000 people. I've obviously only hired some, but initially I used to be involved in hiring everyone. Now, I'm only involved in hiring senior people. Even now as non-executive chairman, Rajesh calls me in whenever we're looking for a senior-level hire. We have someone joining just around the corner. And I spent a lot of time hiring that person, doing ref checks personally because I want to make sure because I think that's one of the biggest decisions you make in companies. That and typically product prioritization. What are you going to build first? And we'll talk about maybe what consumers and customers can teach us. But hiring is key. Hiring is huge. No amount of time is too much time spent on hiring.

So Saurabh, it's a great question, and the reality is that hiring when you're bootstrap is very, very hard. Who wants to join a bootstrap company? Think about it, right? So fundamentally you want to hire someone who's really good. Someone who's really good by definition has many choices. So they have many choices in the companies they can join. They also can do their own thing. But let's say they've decided they don't want to take the big risk and do their own thing. They want to join a company. Typically good people will join very good companies because they are good at it. They can command that kind of position, that kind of package, whatever. So, you will not get the typical hire. So, be very clear, and I think sort of the chat we were having before the podcast, I think you understand that because you hustled yourself, you found how you can attract good talent. So, you have to look for hustlers, too. So, you have to look for people who are entrepreneurial. And very often that has nothing to do with that degree. So, be very clear, you're not going to get the blue chip degrees up front. That's fine. It really doesn't matter. Some of the biggest contributors to our company have not had any blue chip degree. They had a good degree, but if you're technical, everyone had some good computer science degree or engineering degree or they learned on the job. But if you are non-technical also, we are not fussed about IIMs. In fact, almost we don't want to hire only from IIMs or only from IITs. Reason being the next level of institutes, typically people are hungrier. Also, something which very few people realize is that there's a very fine line between a top blue chip university and the next level. The fine line is how that person felt on the day of the entrance test. And we are not testing our entrance test, please bear in mind, do not test for intelligence alone. They test for intelligence and speed. While the first one is very important, speed at work is not that important. Whether you take 1 hour extra, 1 day extra, even 1 week extra to build something spectacular, does not matter. At the end of the day, it's more important you build something great. So, actually the right way of testing is open book kind of exams because today all the resources are available to you, and that's why a lot of colleges in the west and even some of the more new age colleges in India are often saying, 'This is your assignment. Take 1 day. Take 2 days. It doesn't matter, but come back with original thought and come back with something which is very unique and apply yourself to this problem.' That's the real world. So, find people who are street smart, find people who don't freak out in the face of adversity, find people who are collaborative, who are willing to work with you together to build something special, and who are excited about your dream. As a founder, you'll have your dream. They should be excited and they should be able to add to it. I think if you find that kind of person then you're much better chance of attracting that talent in the early days. And why should it change just because you got money? So, obviously it became much easier for us when we got venture funded after 5 years in 2005. Post IPO, actually a funny thing happens. Post IPO, a certain kind of person doesn't want to join you because obviously the best of wealth creation has already happened, they feel. You can still keep creating wealth and if I look back, I think our best year or the best 2 years have been post COVID. So, actually it happened in year 23 and 24. Who knew? But that is the time when everything came together. The company reached a certain scale, a certain market share, a certain brand appeal, and economies of scale started kicking in. So, you got growth plus profitability together and that took time. But post IPO, a lot of people who have one eye on the wealth creation, nothing wrong with that, that's why you join a startup, they actually feel that listen, maybe I'll join a company pre-IPO. People do it all the time in the West. A lot of people take pride in saying, 'Oh, I joined Amazon before IPO. I joined Facebook before IPO. I joined Google before IPO.' I know some people who have timed it so well that they've joined two or three companies, got stock options, made a lot of money, and then they're doing something else. So, I think you'll find a different kind of person to come in post IPO. Of course, it's easier, but don't change the fundamental of who you're trying to hire. Suddenly don't get into the mode except in some functions I should call out. I think in certain functions like finance, you don't want very adventurous people. You want smart people, but you want people who play by the book. So, you want solid people. Also, as you scale up, you need specialists. So, when you need specialists like you don't even think about a position like an internal auditor earlier. Post IPO, you'll get a new position which is investor relations. Then your corporate communications team, suddenly you'll have one person, then that person as senior will want to hire more people. Also, when you reach a certain scale, you'll actually need someone to look at government affairs, something which only founders do initially. You also do later, but you want someone with you because it sucks up a lot of bandwidth. So, I think these specialist positions will come later. But your real the guys who create the magic, the product people, the marketing people, the tech people together, the business people when an idea is really born and how do you take it from ideation to launch, those people I think you want to still get people who are hustlers and want to create something special all the time.

So, I'm very clear there is no work-life balance in the initial phase of being an entrepreneurial company. If you say there is, then I think you're mistaken. Yes, you can get flexibility of timings, but you'll have to put in. I think why 90? I think there were many many months in a row, maybe years where we were talking about actually we worked six and a half days. So, we had half day off on a Sunday. And when it's survival, it's survival. And I think if we didn't do that, we wouldn't have come out. So, God knows how many times we put in 100 hour weeks. So, when Mr. Narayan Murthy, who I respect a lot, is being beaten up on social media for saying 70 hour week, I think people have not understood it. They've not understood there's a time to do that. And I do feel a lot of people are too fussed about work-life balance too early in life. I think the 20s and 30s is all about busting ass. And it's totally fine if you have to do it if you want to build something special. If you like work-life balance, it's fine. Find the right kind of company that gives you that work-life balance. But, if you want to build something special, it's not going to come easy. I don't think or you want to be part of something special which you're building from zero, I don't think work-life balance really exists in the early days. Later on, of course. And how does that come? That's the other term we talked about, delegation. That comes when you start growing and you're saying, 'Yes, I do want better work-life balance, but guess what? I'm willing to delegate. I'm willing to let people run with the ball.' Then you are able to get it. So, I would say first five, dare I say even 10 years of a startup, there's very little work-life balance.

Sure. Now things have changed a lot. So in 2010 I can tell you even then it was a big decision. And it's one of the rare things where my board was split down the middle. So when we decided to IPO obviously everyone got excited. In fact, it's a funny story and it might happen to you. So sitting in a board meeting of Jan 2010, Sanjeev Bikhchandani was on our board then and is a dear friend, philosopher, guide. Naukri is actually one of the absolute amazing people I know. So Sanjeev told us guys he looked at the numbers and typically he says you guys are ready to IPO. We said what? We were shocked. Rajesh and I were shocked. Rajesh was CFO, I was CEO. Said seriously? He's saying yeah. This is the kind of level we used to report both in dollars and rupees because we had some international investors. He says this was the level at which we IPO'd three years ago or two and a half years ago. So you guys should consider IPOing. And what was that level? So we were 400 million in gross revenue going to 600 growing 50% and in revenue terms our commission was about 40 million going to 60. And that time the dollar was probably only about 50. So obviously a very different kind of time. 2000 crores or whatever. So I said really and we looked at it and he said yeah, we called a meeting in Feb and in August we went and listed. And he said it would so first the decision was kahan karna hai list. Half the board said India and half said US and I was totally confused because I really did not have a point of view on it. And you know, I think I can smooth talk like you said, I can when required, but when I don't know something I say I don't know. So I said guys I really don't know and I need one week. Let me do some research homework. Let me come back. So I took a few days and I spoke to six or seven people who had experience in listing in US and India. So all kinds. I reached out shamelessly. I just reach out whenever. And someone I reached out to Nandan who I knew vaguely then Nandan Nilekani. Now I know very well again one of the most incredible people. So Nandan put me on to Mohandas Pai. Mohandas Pai was CFO when Infosys went public. I'd always admired Infosys as a great company. So Mohandas spoke to me. I didn't know him and now again I know him well and I always call it out. He was so kind with his time. He gave me 20 30 minutes and told me pros and cons. I spoke to a classmate of mine who was on the board of Bharti Airtel, the pull up Chandan Prasad, India's top investor Nalanda Capital. So that time I said pull up tell me and he gave me his experience. I spoke to OnMobile which doesn't exist now, but they had listed overseas. So I spoke to a bunch of companies. I reached some other foreign company also case experience and came to the conclusion that in India we won't get value. Very few internet companies were there. Actually it was only Naukri. Interestingly Info Edge also was not pure e-commerce at all because their money they got by sales people getting checks. We were their customer and their sales people would come we would sign up. That time individuals were not paying them much because they were taking services for free. So we realized that e-commerce B2C market's not ready, we listed overseas. So much has changed in these 14-15 years. Today, since the past 5 years, Indian market has really opened up. One of the biggest benefits you get from IPO is definitely branding. So, today a company looking to list, I would say definitely India gives you the full listing. And the Indian market has also matured. People realize this growth model is very different from the traditional model. For the longest time, the same analysts who cover IT were covering in e-commerce, and there is very little in common. IT is enterprise. IT has more in common with manufacturing. Because it's that kind of thing, right? You prepare a product and then you sell those product or services. E-commerce is a very different animal. So, I would rather compare it with retail than something else. So, I think now, yeah, but delisting is not easy. We are also getting great value in the market we are. Of course, this is after Mr. Trump, things have changed a bit. But, these are cycles. But, our CFO keeps evaluating it and seeing does it make sense. One thing I can tell you having dual listing is very hard. Painful, lot of time, lot of money. So, dual will not happen. We'll have to then do one. But, that is their decision to take. I chair the board, and when they bring me the proposal, I'll evaluate it. But, right now, I'm on the board to say, 'Okay, you're questioning more now. Yeah, so let's see. Yeah.'

I think it depends on the timing. I think it will depend a lot on what percentage of your revenues are coming from which market. If you are getting an overwhelming percentage of your revenue, let's say it stays at about 35 or whatever, then there's a good case for Indian listing. You get great branding here. India listing is cheaper. You're also your center of gravity of your organization is in India. Managing, really it's Bombay and here and you'll be able to do it quite easily. But if your aspiration is truly that listen, if I pull the string 10 years, what will we look like? And let's say you can list in 3 to 5 years. I don't know, I'm just assuming. Then at that point you say, 'Okay, but what will we be later?' And you realize that no one country will give more than 15-20% of our revenues. Then you have a very good case for listing overseas, too. But keep in mind, it's tough. Expensive physically, too. I can tell you for the first 8 years of listing, actually almost right up to IPO, 32-33 quarters or whatever it was, Rajesh and I were physically present. We went maybe we missed one quarter here or there, but we went physically for a brutal road show to the US. It also distracts you from the business, like it or not. So, I think keep all those factors in mind. Not so easy. So, I think India is a very exciting option. It'll get only better.

Okay, let's start from the beginning and we can talk about corporate travel. So firstly, I absolutely absolutely love travel. I love seeing new places. But I love travel when I'm on leisure. I don't think business travel is something. Initially, there is a high and listen, I started off as a banker and when you have your first job as a banker, we have in common. I also started as a banker. Nice. So I started off as a corporate banker. I was with ABN Amro and the one thing they do is corporate banks, they treat you well. You're a foreign bank. So I think very early in life you got the fancy travel. So our trainings were in Bombay. We were put up at the Oberoi Towers or whatever in the early days. So you're a 23-year-old, you're put up there for weeks. You have what I tell people, it can spoil your mind a bit. Your monogrammed letterhead waiting for

You in your room, monogrammed matchboxes because I think the lobby managers known to one of my colleagues in ABN Amro. And you travel comfy, sure it was economy. You don't even dream of business, but you live so well and you get used to that. But that charm wears off very soon. There's no charm left after that. And I cut to much later, the IPO kind of travel or the road shows, they are brutal. They're brutal because you do eight to nine meetings a day of 1 hour each and you're speaking non-stop. A meeting is 45 minutes or an hour, you're speaking for 40 minutes, some questions are coming, then your CFO is speaking for 15-20 minutes, you're answering questions. The sad part is you're saying the same thing again and again. So you only learn one little thing from some investor who asked you some interesting question. But it's also monotonous, boring, and tiring. You need to be in high energy all the time. It's exhausting. Most of the time we had some small in with us or Kanthil with us because you got parked speaking so much and just sipping hot water. You eat your lunch in a car. You leave your hotel at 7:30, start at 8:00, end at 5:00-6:00, then go to the airport to catch a flight to the next destination. You probably sleep at midnight and you're up at 6:00 a.m. You do that 5 days non-stop for 2 weeks. It is exhausting. There is no fun left in it at all, I can tell you.

It's a job. I used to often say there's only one part of the job I don't like, and I would tell my investors when they got to know me, which is investor marketing. Not because I don't like you, but because it's a waste of my time. I'm boring and I wish we could record this and just play it and take your questions. And today I think that dream has come true because maybe I wished too hard. In COVID we were doing it remotely, and after COVID a lot of investor marketing has moved virtual. Now everyone says this is great, don't waste your time, don't waste your money, just be effective. We've seen you once, we don't need to meet you again each time. So COVID has also helped. Now coming to the good part of travel, leisure travel. It's been a passion long before MakeMyTrip started, and it's a shared passion between me and my wife. That keeps us going because we love exploring new places in India and overseas. Of late, the most amazing experience for me was Mahakumbh. Wait, you went? Oh, absolutely. I wanted to see it for myself. You need to feel that energy. I went right after the stampede. We were there on Maha Shivaratri day, no, on Basant Panchami day. Big day for the snan. I'm not very religious, I'm God-fearing but not religious, but I was still curious. So we went and enjoyed it. Last year in November I went to Banaras for Dev Deepawali, another experience. In India there are amazing experiences, and I want to do more of them. Overseas also there are great places to see. I love learning about new cultures and people, seeing for myself. The beauty of travel is that it is technology-proof. No matter what happens, you can't take that experience away. People say with augmented reality, it will wet your appetite for more. You'll really want to go there. Till you're not breathing that air, eating that food, talking to that local, it's not the real thing.

Because even there I said the smart investor says we have met once, after that why are we wasting your time? It can be more efficient. Also there's no chemistry, you're not absorbing the atmosphere. You'll be sitting in the same meeting room with wood paneling. But when you go for travel to new places, the one-on-one connection is different. Like you and I now spend good time. We met at some conference, now we're spending good time. Next time we can do it on the phone or virtual if inconvenient, but once you strike up a rapport, then after that you can do it. So great efficiencies in business.