A montage of quotes: customers don't know what they want, only the paranoid survive, building a business is like a road trip, my wife's never forgiven me, at the end of the day it's your gut, take a leap of faith. You didn't even have 2 months of income or rent. You're worried for the people who put their faith in you. That is what keeps you up at night. Then you're not meant for entrepreneurship. I get scared, I can't afford to fail. A lot of people would have given up. What kept you going? I learned it the hard way, 18 guys quit, I became thick skinned. You had a great business, it will come back. So we added that extra killer feature. If you could live through that, it always comes down to people. During our toughest period for 18 months I didn't draw a salary. You find something you love, too many people give up too early.
Thank you so much for giving us the time. We were so excited for this episode.
No, I'm sorry it took a little longer. That's perfectly fine. The schedules were fluid. I went non-executive two years ago. Now I come in only when Rajesh wants me. Today we were doing some sustainability stuff. I wanted to do this here, not at home. The setup is so much easier here.
Great, it's funny. We walked in here and I was telling him how it reminded me of a quote from my college days. We were on a road trip and the guy driving said, building a business is like a road trip. The detour and unplanned stops are what make the journey memorable.
So true, so true. It's always about enjoying the whole process. I call it a TR. You have to enjoy the journey because the end thing, yeah, okay.
Where do I look? Whoever asked the question, I look wherever you want to look. Great, all free flowing. So let's start with where your journey started. You raised two million, had a website in two months, but people in India weren't comfortable paying online. So you had to pivot. My question: one advice is to do market research and validate the problem; another is customers don't know what they want. Where do you lie on that spectrum?
Great question. The answer is a bit of both, but there's a third thing. You need deep customer insight, not just research. Use a snorkeling vs. scuba diving analogy. Probe deeply. For example, a Gujarati family might love group travel, Bengalis smaller nuclear groups. My wife never forgave me for a New Year's in Goa 2005 where we stayed in a cheap homestay for 1,200 rupees while my bike hire cost more. That need for homestays wasn't articulated by customers, but market forces were already there. At the end of the day, you have to trust your gut. 25% of neurons are in your gut. You take a leap of faith. We've seldom built a product without validation, but we tweak and improve. Get 70% right up front. A/B testing is crucial. So it's a mix of research and gut.
That's a great answer. Two things: you mentioned trusting your gut and taking a leap of faith. When you're early on, how do you build that confidence? In that podcast with JVRJ, you said MakeMyTrip didn't have two months of income or rent. How do you take that leap of faith when you're in your twenties?
Hindsight is 2020. When your back is against the wall for 24 months, it's scary for the team. But you come up with better solutions. You need just the right amount of resources. Too much money spoils you. The most underestimated metric is repeat business. Unit economics and repeat are key. If those improve, you're on to something. You have to trust your gut because no one else will validate it. If you wait for a VC, you're not cut out for entrepreneurship.
There's a quote from Suits: 'If your back's against the wall, break the goddamn wall down.' You mentioned how people delude themselves. Don't you think a level of delusion is needed?
Delusion has a negative connotation. I'd call it overwhelming self-confidence or stubbornness. There's a thin line between resilience and stubbornness. The biggest qualities are resilience and self-esteem. Self-esteem drives you to succeed, but ego makes you ignore market signals. AI is a watershed moment. If you ignore it, someone else will eat your lunch.
I love how you touched on resilience. You IPOed in 2010. Here's the stock chart. It took 22-23 years for exponential growth. What kept you going?
We had a choppy first five years. After 9/11, our VC pulled out of all internet investments. I learned the hard way. I had conviction because NRIs loved the site. 18 guys quit, we shrunk from 42 to 24 people. We moved to a tiny mezzanine office. Those were the best formative years. I took VC money again from Elevation (Sequoia) and we IPOed in 2010. Stock price is only relevant when selling or raising money – otherwise a vanity metric. COVID pushed us to the wall again. We were down 96% revenue. We cut costs, variabilized, and emerged leaner. The team voluntarily took salary cuts. Culture saved us. We built features like price lock using machine learning. It took a year to break even, but we focused on customer love. If founders and core team are buying, you know the best is yet to come.
This might be off topic, but you mentioned AI features. I'm currently creating AI agents at an OS level so they can do...
Whatever you can do on a computer, do you think that'll actually be valuable in the future or do you think companies like MakeMyTrip will automate everything on their end anyway and so instead of me getting my OS agent to book a trip for me, you will do that on your end anyway?
