Bugyal lets one find Trusted Service Providers recommended by friends for Vacation Trips. As one discovers a friend’s Trip Memoirs, it has a review of Activities undertaken like Scuba, Rock climbing, etc., thus building the Service Provider’s reputation among friends and the community. It allows you to seek inputs about the Activity from Destination-aware friends and even verify the Service Providers. In essence, it is a Blockchain implementation from one’s Travel Legacy.
It was Founded in 2014, by Sudhanshu Rathore and Shivendra Jadon and is currently based out of Pune, being surrounded by several Forts which are most visited by Trekkers whose growing community provided us the first inspiration for Bugyal. Pune, once known as a retiree’s paradise and its automotive sector is now becoming an important IT Hub.
Bugyal stands for High Altitude Alpine Meadows in the Himalayas, above 3200 meters. On a bright sunny day, it’s a picture-perfect vista which is a dream destination for almost everyone. Sudhanshu is an Electrical Engineer from MMMUT and has around 11 years of IT stint before starting Bugyal. Started his career with an Antivirus Startup, and later worked with GE Energy Service, his last 8 years have been with Amdocs, a US-based Telecom Billing Product company. His favorite pastime is tinkering with stuff, reading mostly related to Science.
While planning for his Trek he was unable to find the information from his Friend’s Network, while some of his friends were aware of the available options. Thus Bugyal was born in early 2014; Alpha Launch came a few months later, and soon after that Shivendra joined as Cofounder.
Shivendra has a passion for analytics, being a Comp Sc. Graduate from IIT Madras with an MBA from IIM Bangalore. After working for a few years in the Finance sector, he was looking for something interesting and exciting in a new sector and Bugyal beckoned. His hobbies include traveling and reading virtually anything and everything in Sci-Fi and Fantasy.
Bugyal is committed to letting one find trusted Activities and Service Providers based on the recommendations of their personal network of friends on Bugyal and to simplifying their logistical concerns with their products. Also in line with helping travelers, the Bugyal tool lets one budget their Trip including Travel, Stay, Attractions, and Food Costs. This helps the user to plan better and have a much more satisfying trip that is within their budget. Another tool lets one to find how much Foreign Currency to carry, the Forex/Travel Money one needs considering daily expenses. Yet another one lets you find where all in the world you can go given a budget.
Surprisingly, Bugyal also got quite a good response for the use of these travel tools from a variety of businesses who wish to highlight the costs of a hypothetical trip to potential customers and promote their own long-distance virtual solutions.
Bugyal is currently bootstrapped. However, Bugyal has been part of ‘Startup School’ by Y-Combinator, a virtual accelerator. That helped us in getting the Product fit right. It also led to building the traffic booster via its unique offering of Travel budgeting tools and also generates revenues from end users.
The Travel Budget Tools have recurring subscription revenues from diverse Business domains. Bugyal is on track to approach break-even in the next three quarters and looking for strategic investors from the Travel and Social Media domains.
Travelers who are planning to go on vacation trips are the primary customers. Bugyal also has some Business to Business customers, who use the Travel Calculators for Monthly fees.
Bugyal caters to Travelers who plan their Journey end to end, thus finding information about getting the right Hotel with the right Service. Considering a typical Family vacation, which needs to be planned in advance with all the Bookings in place, Bugyal’s vision is to aid such customers in getting the right fit considering their aspirations and budget while getting the shared experience from the community.
Bugyal core beliefs lie in users gaining from fellow Travelers’ knowledge; here the fellow Traveler happens to be a Friend or Friend’s, Friend. Letting a good service offering pass in the network, allows others to reap the benefit and the Sharer feels a sense of contribution. This starts to give benefits to the user, when users start finding their Friend’s Trip Legacy, seeking their input as they plan their own Journey.
Elaborately, the team has found that the Word of Mouth between friends in digital channels is limited to post-photo sharing. This provides little value to a person who in the Future will plan a trip; he won’t be able to recollect the say ‘Paris Post’ of his Friends. Bugyal is enabling discovery, where if you think of going to Paris, you find five of your Friends who have already been to Paris, you have their usable Trip Plans with hotels they booked, Tours they took, and ratings given.
You reuse that Memoir, choose a recommended Tour, and customize it with inputs from friends. You get a trusted plan, a friend revisits his good memories, feels a contributor’s pride and the service provider gets a repeat booking from his Client’s Network, netting a win-win to all.
Message From Bugyal Entrepreneurs…
“Currently, We read the reviews from strangers however we don’t even know the person’s taste. His/her ‘Good’ may not be good on our scale and vice versa. Instead of getting a review from a complete stranger, getting a review from Friends who have already traveled, is far focused and relevant to the user’s Vacation Planning, as we know our Friend’s Taste.
We believe in Travelers reaping the benefits from the experience gained by their Friends thus enabling richer and more engaging experiences, where those who have previously traveled also relive their memories as they share out the details”. Said, Founders
