How many of you have travelled long distance in Indian trains? Wouldn't it be great to order food of your choice online while booking your train ticket, so that it can be delivered at your seat in the train? That's exactly the service Travel Khana offers to train travellers.
The Idea Travel is a passion for the founders of Travel Khana and there is considerable work done in the Indian internet space in this sector. However, they felt, once a passenger buys a ticket, there is very little that technology has to offer in terms of the passenger's needs being fulfilled for food, local transport and local lodging. This is an even bigger problem for the train passengers and there is a huge gap between demand and supply. Being someone who has suffered several times while travelling, Pushpinder came up with this idea of capitalising on this opportunity. Travel Khana is a market place that connects passengers with several restaurants on the Indian rail network. It offers a variety of choices to a railway passenger, so that the passengers can order food as per their liking and at their price point while they are travelling. Travelkhana.com is a service for transforming the experience of the railway passenger. Travel Khana aims to solve a 'food-on-the-move' issue by making available fresh, tasteful food to 'Indian Railways' commuters. Travelling in India is plagued by inefficiencies and their mission is to remove those inefficiencies through operational excellence.
The Founder Pushpinder Singh, CEO and Chief Architect of Travel Khana has a Masters degree in Computer Science from BITS-Pilani and a B.Tech from IT-BHU. He has over 15 years of software and technology industry experience, particularly focused around the product industry, besides having played the role of CTO in 2 of his earlier successful ventures. Pushpinder was most recently the VP Technology and acting CTO for INCA Informatics. He has, in the past, provided sustenance, continuity and providing thrust to an existing world leading product (Quark Xpress). Creation and contribution has been a hallmark of his career and he has been instrumental in creating and taking to market multiple products of repute at Quark, ARI Labs and Aplion Networks.
Start-up and Growth We all know that Indian Railway is one of the biggest networks in the world. It's been a backbone of Indian transport for more than 50 years and will always be. There are new trains launched after every budget, along with new or extended train routes. 8 billion people travel in India by train annually and out of them 10% are premium users. The Travel Khana automated platform, tracks trains in real time across India and ensures that fresh food is delivered to the passengers as per their choice in real time. It also helps vendors and restaurants in terms of effective and efficient fulfillment. Additionally, it completes an entire fulfillment cycle right from the point of ordering to delivery, customer feedback and reconciliation. Travel Khana currently operates by offering a call centre interface as well as a web interface to passengers. The web version is currently in beta and still undergoing changes. These interfaces will be followed with a Mobile App and an SMS version. Travel Khana will take your order with a minimum of 1 hour of lead time before the train arrival at a particular station. The company tied up with travel agents who sell railway tickets. Travel khana.com provides them free paper to print their tickets in return for advertisement space on the back of the ticket. What better way to reach out to your target audience! Travel khana.com also offers each agent a login ID to the Travel khana.com website in case passengers want to book their meals while booking their tickets. Travel Khana currently operates in 30 cities and is rapidly expanding across the railway network. Now, they are looking at adding several cities across the Indian map and increasing the market size. They also plan to focus on acquiring the internet customer using a focused marketing campaign and to work along with vendors such that a delightful customer experience can be provided to the customers each time with reliable deliveries and excellent quality of products each time an order is placed. This will require efficient logistics as well as managing that the quality of food is consistent with each delivery. Travel Khana has tie-ups with about 200 vendors across 50 railway stations in the North and West and has plans to expand to other regions by pulling in venture capital. Once the rail business stabilises, Singh also intends to extend the convenience to bus passengers.
Funding
The founders have invested 20 lakhs (approximately), so far in addition to the accrued revenues from services. The promoters have further committed 30 lakhs to the venture. They are also looking for raising an angel round now and are at various stages of discussions with potential investors.
- Pushpinder Singh, CEO and Chief of TravelKhana, followed various stages in developing his project. Explain them by quoting the lines from the case study.
- Opportunities exist in the environment'. Do you agree?