BackSeekSherpa: Tour with a local guide
A platform that organizes personalized excursions under the guidance of a resident
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Seeksherpa (www.seeksherpa.com)
Past life
Sukhmani Singh and Dhruv Raj Gupta, both 23, are friends turned business partners. Both completed their B.Com (Honours) from Shri Ram College of Commerce, Delhi University, in 2011. As the final year was coming to a close, campus placements saw Singh being hired by consulting firm AT Kearney to work as an analyst for its communications and technology sections while Gupta auditioned for drama schools in New York. “I failed miserably," he says. Eventually, he joined Google, and picked up the nitty-gritty of data automation and mining while working in advertising there.
Eureka moment
Singh and Gupta are eager travellers. Whenever they travelled, together or otherwise, they would make it a point to interact with locals to get insights into their lives and understand the pulse of the place.
Their “moment of realization" came during a trek, to Triund, near Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh. Gupta describes how a stray dog began accompanying them midway and led the way to the top of a hill. “The trekking route wasn’t straightforward and if not for the dog showing up then, we were considering returning, before we got completely lost," he says.
This is when they realized that travellers tend to have a lot of queries that locals may have the best answers to. “The locals always offer clues and recommendations that one cannot find in a travel book or website. This incident with the dog got us both thinking, about how we can plug that gap—bring the travellers and locals in sync, to exchange information," says Singh.
Genesis
“We had an idea, but did not understand how to set up a business," says Singh.
Gupta says: “We did mess up (in thinking and implementation) a few times, but didn’t consider them as mistakes. We took them as learnings."
The next step, in 2013, was to create a presentation and send it to Nasscom, the information technology industry group, for its 10,000 Start-ups Initiative, which invites new entrepreneurial ideas and puts the selected ones in touch with investors. Singh and Gupta had a concept, and knew that the word “sherpa" would be part of the final name, but the finer details still needed to be sorted out.
What they had in mind were city-based walking tours, designed around themes like food, nightlife, shopping, arts and culture, with a local acting as guide. Their idea made it to the top 300, out of 4,000-plus entries, but that was not enough to get to the direct pitch stage.
“The second step was to pitch the idea to (New Delhi-based) 91springboard, a platform that works with start-ups and gets a direct audience with investors and mentors," says Gupta. At 91springboard, they spoke with at least a dozen mentors to fine-tune the idea and understand how the business of travel works. “Luckily, each mentor took care of a specific aspect, rather than too many cooks confusing us," says Singh. VentureNursery, a group of investors, was impressed enough by the concept to provide funds, says Gupta.
In early 2014, Singh and Gupta quit their jobs and started working full-time on the idea. That, Gupta says, is when the real roller coaster started. Once the money was available, the next step was to launch SeekSherpa and tell the world about it.
A Facebook page was the most cost-effective way of testing the waters, and they are using the feedback from tourists to fine-tune tours. The most popular ones are those with shopping and food themes.
They are also vetting the locals they sign up as guides, or sherpas. “Sherpas" undergo a verification process, including reference checks, and are briefed on tourism industry guidelines before being assigned tourists.
SeekSherpa now has a footprint in 50 Indian cities; at the moment, it is getting three transactions daily. It’s early days, so it has the largest number of sherpas in the metros—around 1,000 sherpas for New Delhi and the National Capital Region and more than 100 each in Mumbai and Kolkata.
When travellers book a tour, they are given details about it, informed about the start and end points, and told whether they should carry extra cash for food and shopping.
Each tour of a few hours can cost up to ₹ 3,000. The sherpas get paid within 12 hours of a tour ending, via a bank transfer. Of the total tour charge, SeekSherpa keeps 20%; the rest is the sherpa’s share.
It is up to each sherpa to decide how many tours he or she wishes to do in a day. Some are doing one tour; others, three-four.
SeekSherpa is already looking at entering “touristy" tier 2 cities and plans to go international next year.
Reality check
Singh and Gupta spent a lot of time debating what demographic the sherpas should be from. They thought only young people would be interested. But it turned out that even 40-year-olds wanted to sign up.
Secret sauce
“We have a very straightforward model. Anyone can do something like this. But what is difficult to copy is the strong community we have created, of sherpas and users," Gupta says.
Plan B
If this doesn’t work, they may get back to regular jobs, or study further.
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