Nomadly sets on a journey to redefine weekend getaways

Nomadly, India’s first mobile chat personal travel booking service, started its journey in August 2014. The basic segment that it targeted was the growing middle-class and youth, according to co-founders Rohan Ramadas Prabhu and Sharath Ramesh Iyengar.

The company came up with its website in July 2015, and has completed transactions worth Rs 45 lakh since then, with respect to bookings.

“During this time we realised that consumers we deal with don’t want to fill up a form.

Though, the form was very simple, customers were not that comfortable filling it. We realised, the pattern of app-based booking was picking up in the West. It took us three months, and we recently launched our mobile app,” said Iyengar. “Given the acquisition costs in the app-based model, we also offered the option of mobile site to bring convenience to customers,” he adds.

The company’s revenues are generated mostly out of commissions. “We have partnered with offline and online partners for accommodation, flights, cabs and self drive. We have also applied with IRCTC for the rail access. That takes about four weeks. So, we are expecting to launch rail services by the end of the May,” said Rohan Ramadas Prabhu, another Co-founder of Nomadly.

Nomadly is also planning to start subscription-based model soon. “We have done a study on the customer behavior, and learning from the trends in West we will be launching a subscription-based model soon. It will not only help us in our revenue streams, but also help us in increasing the customer lifetime value and reducing customer acquisition cost. We have done a quick study on this to realise that there is huge potential in locking in the customer and adding value to services,” adds Prabhu.

Based out of Bengaluru, with 200 app users till date, the company intends to expand to the other metros and tier-1 cities soon. “There is a potential of 50,000 customers from five metros, and we want to focus on them. Today, within 30 days of launching the app in Bengaluru, we already have 200 people using it,” Prabhu goes on to add.

The company has clocked transactions worth Rs 5 lakh in past seven days, according to the co-founders.

The company doesn’t see much of competition coming from other online travel portals, like Yatra and MakeMyTrip. “We are looking at the entirely different clientele right now.