Rodeo Travel Tech Founder's Hrishabh Sanghvi Interview

If Your Rail Ticket Doesn’t Get Confirmed, What do you do? You Fly with Railofy!

Everybody knows that being waitlisted and waiting for your railway tickets to be confirmed is one of the most frustrating experiences ever. A team of innovative young professionals from IIT, IIM, and ISB has come up with a unique solution for this. They have launched a platform, called Railofy, which provides a “Travel Guarantee” to its users. This means that if your ticket does not get confirmed, you can be at your destination within 24 hours by flight.

If the passenger’s ticket gets confirmed, then they can proceed with their journey as scheduled. In case it does not, Railofy will provide them a flight ticket so they can still reach their destination within 24 hours. Railofy has partnered with airline networks to help provide passengers flight tickets that are similarly priced to Tatkal train tickets.

So, this week we invited the founder of Rodeo Travel Tech, Hrishabh Sanghvi, for an interview with Most Popular Stories to know more about his entrepreneurial journey. Let’s read more!

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey as an entrepreneur

I went down the commonly trodden path of studying engineering, followed by a management degree IIM Lucknow. Thereafter I embarked on an upward corporate career. For a long time, I was happy and content. So much so that even when my father offered to match my salary if I joined the family business, I turned him down. Repeatedly.

But after 8 years of working at some of the country’s top companies, I felt a sense of impatience & un-satisfaction setting in. Deep down, I always knew that I had the potential to do bigger things. I guess the time had come for me to really start doing it. Starting my own venture was a natural way of exploring that path.

Entrepreneurship is more about self-discovery than it is about valuations & funding. First and foremost, it is about recognizing and accepting your potential i.e your strengths & weaknesses. And then it is about how to effectively exploit them. When your actions are aligned with your potential, then achieving success is inevitable. Entrepreneurship is a by-product of this journey.

Why did you choose entrepreneurship over a job?

Like I mentioned earlier, for self-discovery and for realizing my own potential.

Furthermore, I am of the opinion that entrepreneurship is a culture that is deeply embedded in all levels of Indian society. At the heart of it is a concept that is very characteristic of our countrymen, something crassly termed as “Jugaad”. From the local chai wala to the Ambanis, each one is an entrepreneur in his/her own right. I, myself come from a family of business persons (being a Gujarati), where having your own “dhandho” is of utmost importance.

During the time of my corporate stint, the world was undergoing yet another industrial revolution, this time in the form of Artificial Intelligence and Deep Tech. In India too, it was slowly creeping in and it completely aligned with my skillsets. So, I chose this field for my “dhandho”.

What was the vision behind it?

India is a very price-conscious market. This is clearly reflected in our preference for travel by railways (90%+ of travelers) as the first choice for long-distance mobility. In India, there are 4 lakh people waitlisted every day in AC class trains alone (reflecting the huge demand-supply gap). Our vision is to help Indians travel to their destinations, at the lowest cost, without any uncertainty, by optimizing the mobility networks of the country.

Describe the services that you offer to your customers and in what way they are unique?

In order to achieve our vision, the first product that we have launched is a confirmed travel option for waitlisted railway passengers. If their train ticket doesn’t get confirmed, then we provide them with a flight at their train price. We are presently operational for every route out of Mumbai, however, we should be pan-India very soon.

What difficulties which you have faced or you are facing?

Being a completely new-to-world product, customer education is a big challenge. The customers who use our product, love us. However, we are working towards spreading greater awareness about railofy.com

How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?

For most first-time founders, their passion drives them to focus all their energy on their startup. We put in 12 to 16 hours at work daily for the most part. However, keeping time aside for your family, social life and fitness/hobbies is essential. At the times when work is suffering from drawbacks, then positivity from the other aspects of your life helps to replenish the broken morale.

What is one strategy that you believe has helped you grow as a person/startup?

Be humble, hungry and always be open, to learn from anyone and everyone.

How your company, Rodeo Travel Tech, is helping India to grow?

Indian railways are the backbone for long-distance mobility in India. It powers all our human capital. However, demand hugely outstrips supply.

The present experience of the anxiety of train travelers until the last minute was just not good enough. We had to solve this ubiquitous problem.

Railofy.com offers travel options to these stranded passengers. Moreover, to bridge this gap, we are tapping into other under-utilized mobility networks in the country, thereby making our transportation networks more efficient.

In your opinion what are the keys to success?

Passion, hustle, perseverance, and team.

What advice would you give to someone starting out as an aspiring entrepreneur?

My advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is:

a) Go after a large market opportunity – It is better to grab a smaller market share in a huge market than to grab a big market share and realize the market is too small to grow further.

b) Partner up – Single founder startups have had success, but for me personally the emotional toll is especially grueling being a sole founder. Find complementary skill sets in your co-founder and establish a common vision and outcomes.

c) Listen to all your stakeholders, but eventually go with your gut – There will be a lot of people who give you good advice. However, being in the trenches, nobody will understand the landscape as well as you do. So go with your gut after carefully considering all your stakeholders’ advice.