NEW DELHI, Oct 26: The unsettling sight of soldiers travelling unconfirmed in packed train compartments while the aviation industry battled low passenger loads was the take-off point for udChalo, a one-stop platform offering the armed forces services ranging from travel solutions to ITR filings.
For Ravi Kumar, founder and CEO of udChalo, which quite aptly translates to ‘fly high’, the air tickets business gave wing to his dream of doing something to make life easier for the troops. The Pune-based entrepreneur, who relied on his keen business sense and technology to plug the missing link between crowded trains and empty planes, said it took years to convince defence personnel across ranks to be open about air travel (for their personal requirements).
“We started off by booking only about 1,200 air tickets in fiscal 2014-15, the first year of operation. So far cumulatively over last seven years in operations, we have sold over 10 million (1 crore) tickets with three million unique users on our platform,” Kumar told PTI.
The company’s app and site, aimed at the armed forces, veterans and their families and broad basing its offerings to include even gadget deals and assistance in buying homes, is a “market creator”, said Kumar. It has harnessed cloud technology with Amazon Web Services (AWS) providing a reliable security measure guaranteed to keep data safe and secure.
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Excerpts from the interview: Q: What is the story behind the setting up of udChalo? What has been the most rewarding part of your journey so far? A: udChalo’s vision and mission is all about ‘making lives simpler for our soldiers’. Travel is an integral part of this consumer segment, but they are often seen struggling due to last-minute leave sanctions. It is not uncommon to see the jawaans travelling with unconfirmed tickets in train in uncomfortable settings. At the same time, the aviation industry faced low passenger load factor.
It took us years to convince defence personnel to be open about air travel (for their personal requirements), irrespective of their ranks and designation. We started selling tickets in fiscal 2014-15 and sold 1,200 tickets in the first year of operation. So far, cumulatively over last seven years in operations, we have sold over 10 million (1 crore) tickets with three million unique users on our platform.
We have been in business for over seven years, and are still bootstrapped (an industry term that typically refers to entrepreneurs building-on a company with their own finances or the venture’s operating revenues). We broke even within first year of operations, and have been profitable since then.
Over the years, we have become a one-stop service for the personal requirements of our armed forces and their families. Multiple products and services such as real estate, electronics, travel and taxation services are on offer.
Within travel services, we have now incorporated bus, cab and train ticketing services as well. We have also started providing tailor made holiday packages to our customers.
Q: What is udChalo’s USP? How do you differentiate yourself from other players in the travel tech landscape? A: We are market creators. Rather than fighting for a pie in the existing market share, we have introduced a complete new set of customers in every business we ventured into.
For a very long time, the sector ignored the three million members of the armed forces, their families, and veterans. Not only do we serve this market, but we also work to dispel myths about the defence community by educating the consumer segment on various benefits that they can enjoy by being a part of the defence fraternity.
While we work with the defence community, we always want to keep giving back to them.
We are dedicated to four key initiatives at udChalo.
The Shradhanjali Initiative provides a free ticket to ‘next of kin’ or one person accompanying mortal remains of battle casualties. The Utkarsh programme empowers women from defence families and gives them an opportunity to utilise their time from the comfort of their homes. Given that soldiers have to move every few years due to posting, their spouses find it difficult to continue in a single job, and hence programmes like Utkarsh help them continue in a job from the cantonment they are posted in.
The Paraplegic Rehabilitation Centre’s initiative supports the paraplegic and quadriplegic members of the soldier community.
The JudChalo Initiative was created to spread awareness among troops regarding new leave travel concession rules or on how to avail LTC benefits using our platform.
Also, under the Sainik Schools Scholarship programme, udChalo aims to actively support students from economically weaker section. Currently, udChalo has tied up with two Sainik Schools for this initiative and plans to expand its reach in the coming years.
Q: What is your growth outlook over the next two-three years? A: We have now increased our market size and expanded offerings to sons and daughters of defence personnel above the age of 25, increasing our consumer base.
Our net income was approximately Rs 41 crore, and last fiscal end, we had a gross merchandise value (volume of goods sold) of Rs 850 crore. We are a company with over 250 employees headquartered in Pune. We are a bootstrapped company that has organically grown utilising its own profit every year.
Q: How are you leveraging analytics and new age technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning within udChalo? A: During the initial days, our consumers had to fill up forms where they could raise request for a flight ticket. We would take the request, make a booking, and deliver it to the customer. With increasing request for ticket bookings, we had to build a platform that could accommodate multiple requests. Within six months of inception, we created the platform that was based on a mix of AWS (Amazon Web Services) services with .NET at the backend.
On the tech side, our primary concerns were usability and scalability. We knew our customers, given their roles, would not only be pressed for time but would also have poor internet connectivity. So, the interface of the app was designed to be easy, convenient and user friendly. It also needed to be fast and low on memory footprint. Given this, we built our MVP (minimum viable product) off AWS infrastructure which gave us the flexibility to scale at will.
Q: How has cloud technology and AWS enabled you in your operations? A: AWS has been providing us the delivery of computing service including servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, and intelligence. We are witnessing exponential expansion and AWS has holistically been able to meet our growing demands.
AWS provides a reliable security measure that’s guaranteed to keep our data safe and secure. With AWS we can control where our data is stored, and who can access it. AWS made this possible by combining access controls with continuous monitoring. This ensures that the right resources have the right access at all times.
AWS has helped us improve our business performance as we rapidly scale our operations. The platform’s simplicity and support from AWS and the developer community has enabled us to explore new things, which helped us make services scalable and reduce cost.
Most importantly, even while our users have scaled, the cost of serving customers has come down significantly. (PTI)
