redBus.in is an interesting service that e-enables bus ticketing across major states in India. I must say that redBus.in is a gutsy attempt to e-enable a low-margin service which is highly fragmented as well as offline (how many bus operators know about Internet?)
Here is presenting our interview with Phanindra, CEO/co-founder of redBus.in. What’s really amazing about these guys is that the entire founding team is very young and have taken up a huge challenge (and I am sure this interview will inspire those who are still wondering whether to startup or not!)
If you have questions/comments/feedback for Phani, please leave them in the comments section.
Please tell us more about RedBus.in and the services you offer.
redBus is India’s first organized bus ticket booking service. With services in 15 states, sales offices in 6 locations and daily departures in 2800 routes, we are India’s largest aggregator of bus tickets.
Below are our USPs.
- Customers can choose their seat – facility which is unique: none of airliners / railways offer this facility.
- Customers can book return tickets – facility not available at the traditional brick and mortar agents.
- Multiple bus operators.
- Standard fares.
Please tell us about the founding team (educational background/work-ex etc. )
redBus is founded by 3 of us. Sudhakar, Charan and me.
Sudhakar – 26, B.E (Hons) EEE from BITS-Pilani, 4 yrs exp. at IBM, Bangalore.
Charan – 27, B.E(Hons.) EEE, M.Sc (Hons) Physics from BITS-Pilani, 3 yrs exp. at Honeywell, Bangalore.
Phani – 27, B.E(Hons) EEE from BITS-Pilani, 4 yrs at Texas Instruments, Bangalore.
Why did you pick the bus ticketing domain (given that airfare/train fare is relatively cheap – and the online reservation is primarily done by IT crowd (with surplus cash)). Do you see this as a huge volume business?
redBus is an organized bus ticketing service provider. We are not just OTAs. We have other channels like home delivery, ticket distribution partners like Sify iWays etc., We are working on improving the customer experience while he books a bus ticket – an industry which has never been considered seriously by anyone till now inspite of bus being an everyweek necessity.
Given a choice, people (IT as well as non-IT) will opt for convenience – especially if it comes at no extra cost! Infact we are seeing that the customers started demanding eg., if the response to a ‘customer request’ is more than 4 hours, he cribs. This is very encouraging J
As people get used to convenience, the volumes will grow. It is definitely a huge volume business with 1+ billion customers – considering that all Indians travel by bus atleast once in a year.
Even bus service providers (like KSRTC) have their own outlets (and sites) – where do you see RedBus has a differentiator.
KSRTC going online is not competition to us. We are not a OTA. Our website is one of the options we have for our customers. We provide a whole new ticket reservation experience to our customers including multiple bus operators (KSRTC as well as private busses), a variety of departure times, fares etc,. which gives us competitive advantage.
What’s your target market?
I know I can’t say that we are targeting everyone J ! But we receive very good sales from IT crowd on the web. Most of the calls at our call center are from home makers and elderly who look for predictable quality of service. And the sales through our partner networks cater to business men who travel by bus on business trips.
How do you guys get the real time seat availability information from service providers?
Most of the bus operators are not computerized. Hence there is problem in getting real time inventory from them.
Our model is similar to that of hotel inventory. We block about 10% of the inventory in all busses of our partners till 1 hour before the departure time. Some of our partners are computerized now and we are taking webservices from them.
What are the challenges you see with the current state of the Industry?
The misconception of low entry barrier in what we are doing seems to be a problem. After we started, a lot of other people also started similar services – may be with the understanding that all it takes is just a website and partnership with bus operators. Today you can find atleast 25 websites offering bus tickets in India!
Some of them have been undercutting prices, doing variable pricing, changing the commission structure etc.,. The absolute commission per ticket being very small, it is really a high volume game. Without reaching a critical number, any of these undercutting does not work. It would just be sprinkling the VC money in the market. I personally feel that the industry is not ready for any such things right now.
These are some of the temporary yet painful challenges.
Please share some of your future plans. What are your plans w.r.t PAN India presence?
We are looking at 3 more locations by the end of this year. These locations will put us PAN India pretty much. Currently, with our offices at 6 locations we cater to about 15 states.
In future, do you see RedBus having an offline ticketing system/kiosk?
Yes. Very much. We are planning it out.
Please share a few key learnings/experience after starting up.
It is completely a different world we live after we start on our own. Things change everyday and we have to keep up with every change. One of the key learning that I have had is that it is a must to have a well experienced advisory board, atleast for first generation entrepreneurs. I am surprised at the number of occasions where we could have made wrong decisions otherwise. Today where ever we stand, it is because of the timely mentorship of our mentors and investors.
You guys started up at a very early age: your tips to wannabe entrepreneurs who are still holding back?
I would say that entrepreneurship, unlike any other traditional profession does not need a definitive skill set. What I mean is, to get into TI (my prev. company) one needs to know about transistors, voltage, current etc., similarly to do software, one needs to know oracle, java etc,.
But for entrepreneurship, one just needs to have a strong will power and a good advisory board J I have met so many entrepreneurs who just wanted to do what they want to do and they get every other skillset in the market. It is not necessary that one needs to know internet technology to start an internet based company.
So go head and start your venture. Everything will fall in place, if you have the will power.
tags: redbus.in, indian startups, bits pilani
Very interesting and inspiring interview..Yeah, even I am surprised that why should one get into such a market? What’s the reason? How scalable in bus ticket booking?
But if they get the operators locked into their service, they have a winner!
All the best to these guys!
Ashish, You are doing great job to inspire indian entrepreneurs.
Keep up your hard work. Interview is very inspiring and touching.
I’d like to ask them a few qns:
a. Given the offline nature of the operator business, how do they plan to have a PAN india presence?
b. Phani says they plan to have kiosks/outlets as well – aren’t they competing with KSRTC sort of operators? Moreover, do they plan to have self-service kiosks or booking offices?
I look forward to the reply from redBus guys
How will you deal with bus drivers that race eachother to the next
stop in order to get more passengers ?
As long as you are trying to overhaul the industry ….. I think
driver vs. driver competition needs to be dealt with.
P.S. I am also a young entrepreneur (age 26), I am building software to play Online CounterStrike Tournaments. Unfortunately, I have found India’s broadband infrastructure insufficient to have online tournaments there yet. India will have to stick to the LAN center tournaments for now. Luckily your bus-ticketing system won’t require as good connections as a graphic intensive game like CS:S. Maybe if your bus-ticket system (and many other e-ventures) are successful India will start to have better broadband infrastructure and I will bring my platform to you from our home in Mumbai. If you are really interested check out: http://www.GetGosu.com
Cheers.
Let me try to answer a few of the questions raised:
Sameer’s Q1:
- Well you have got the answer right. You have to get the bus operators to buy into the concept. With all other transport modes going electronic – train and airlines – operators too understand that Indians have started looking for convenience. So the faster you can have your tickets available in this format, it’s only better for them. They can book their tickets faster than before. Also, the market that buys tickets online and that buys tickets offline are mutually exclusive. At least most of it. So the bus operators don’t look at online travel agents as competition to their current travel agents network.
Q2 from Sameer:
- Scalability: Well, the initial phase is all about getting the buy-in of bus operators. Once you have that, your partnership is long-term. So, there is an initial investment of time, but then it’s there to stay.
Q 3 from Sameer again:
- Kiosks: The idea is to bring convenience to those who buy tickets offline. For them we tie-up with branded cyber cafe chains. For instance we have tied up with Sify. So people can walk-in to the nearest Sify outlet and purchase a ticket. So, as you can see, we don’t plan to have our own kiosks. That’s not our core competency. We like to pen partnerships that allow us to bring the convenience through our partners, thus adding value to their business too.
Q4 from Jordan:
- Well, the phenomenon that you are talking about exists in more disorganized buses. We sell tickets way before the travel date. This way the bus driver knows the seats that have been occupied by redbus passengers. Sure, he may compete to fill the seats that are not-yet-occupied. But that has nothing to do with redbus passengers. They are still assured of the seat they have booked.
I hope this was helpful.
You should look at Singapore’s mass transit ticketing system. It is very efficient. It uses one system for both train and bus, so it is convenient to the user.
I was following the redbus since its launch, since I am also a BITsian. As I read the interview, the redbus team is picking up on volumes, but not there yet… Its very surprising to understand you patience as an entrepreneur, since there are many more ideas/options to realize the success much faster. I am sure the growth is happening in rapid fashion, but I couldn’t understand the equation between, your efforts before start up, now and on on-going basis Vs the name, fame and returns. Its also important that as entrepreneur you can’t switch gears/ideas/opportunities in such establishment.
another website also to book bus ticker through online at http://www.ticketgoose.com
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What do you think about VC funding that one of your competitor ticketvala.com receive? Is this too early for VCs to jump in a completely unchartered territory?
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There are loads of challenges in this model, especially the awareness among customers and operators. There are a few other sites that have also started on the same lines and almost at the same time. Check out http://www.ticketgoose.com if you are travelling in Tamilnadu. I believe they are offering better options and services than the other portals in Tamilnadu
I think you guys have started going places…looking at the other postings, i would like to mention here to stay focussed on giving customer an good experience and look for more Tier II and Tier III cities through low-cost penetrations. Are you guys looking only travle operators or even tourism operators since the same too has requirement of travel by road.
I have had bad experience with travel operator affiliated with RedBus, and infact I complained it to RedBus and I got an assurance from them for some action against the travel operator, but when I search on the site I still find the name of the travel operator. Now I understood why this happened, you guys are young entrepreneurs and you need affiliations at any cost. (even if it is dis-comfortable journey for your customers)
Very bad…… in fact you are loosing your customers by not acting on it.
Merely writing terms and condition like “RedBus is not responsible for the service by operator” doesn’t let you free of your moral responsibility and ethnicity, which are prime factors in great businesses.
Courage, Courage, Courage and able to handle difficult situation, and come out as a winner without compromising goals and loosing focus, that the basic criterion on a successful entrepreneur.
With Warm Regards
sir my name is P Sathish Kumar working in Indian Navy posted in Mumbai and i went on leave to Hyderabad from there i took an online bus ticket from redbus.in in AP Tourism travels Volvo A/C my ticket No. TBBN83529784 seat no R7, journey date on 26 Oct 09, boarding point is from Nampally but i have informed on 9395346867 about my boarding point from Amir Pet (HYD) and present at that point at 09:30 PM and confirmed from that no. about the reaching time to Amir pet he then replied me he will reach at 10:30 pm at Amir pet then inbetween i confirmed several times from him and the place where i was waiting at then at 10:30 PM when again i called him he relplied that he had crossed KPHB colony bythat time and he could not do anything about myself and left me irresposibly.
So i again tried many times to help in some or the other way but he refused so i have to catch another SAHIR travels at a cost of 1200/- for the sofa seat located at the rear side of the bus which was very uncomfotable and even filthy.
So can u pls tell me who is responsible for the agony and trouma which i was suffered and the loss of money and time and the physical harrasement which i have gone through. As iam working in Indian Navy i have to reach at any cost by 1400 hrs on 27 Oct 09. pls tell me who will be responsibe for all the sufferings which i had gone through and how will u rectify ur mistake so pls take this mattet very seriously and reply me with in 24 hrs or else i have to approach CONSUMER Court and on the very next day even i have send mail to your support @redbus.in but they have not replied yet and the they have not even tried to reimburse my amount.
So can u pls tell me who is responsible for the agony and trouma which i was suffered and the loss of money and time and the physical harrasment which i have gone through. As iam working in Indian Navy i have to reach at any cost by 1400 hrs on 27 Oct 09. pls tell me who will be responsibe for all the sufferings which i had gone through .My mob no. from which which i have made calls to that service is (9849404783) and presently iam holding no. is (09869969034)
regards
Sathish
When I initially saw their web site a few years back, I thought to myself. Why would you want create a business just around bus ticketing. Why not create a brand for any type of ticketing – like ticketmaster.com? I guess the narrow targeting probably worked in your favor so far. If you need to expand beyond just bus tickets, will your existing brand recognition be a barrier? Any thoughts from Phanindra?
According to Malcolm Gladwell’s book “outliers”, one needs to spend around 10,000 hours to master any skill. I’ve also been thinking how that theory would be relevant for entrepreneurship. Phanidra seems to think entrepreneurship doesn’t require any specialized skills, which is an interesting idea. I tend to think entrepreneur needs a set of soft skills to be successful. May be the issue is that things like “will power” we don’t think as a skill but something we are born with. Anyway, the story of redbus is inspiring. Good luck to you guys!
Good observation
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CAN ANYONE LET ME KNOW THE ESCALATION MATRIX FOR REDBUS OR CEO E-Mail as These people are cheating Customer.
Repeatedly I am sending mails to support@redbus.in — No response
Please help me out
They took my money and did not book my ticket… I am very much helpless..
Waiting for reply….
I AGREE TO YOU RUMPAM.
its easy to say great things like – all it takes to be an entrepreneur is just passion… however, its tough to live up to the true definition of entrepreneurship.
it takes more than finding need-gaps and filling them up. especially in service industry. you need to deliver promises.
i respect your courage and initiative mr. Phanindra, as an entrrepreneur. but let me tell you – Your Services Suck. your people just fool around customers. wrong and insufficient information is their tool to sales.
my sincere advice to you – kindly review you delivery levels keenly. increasing list of unsatisfied customers like me might land your organisation in a situation where you would not find anybody to take such interviews, even if you pay them. i am sure you would know only 20% of indian entrepreneurial ventures succeed.
if any body has email ids of any of the founders mentioned above, kindly provide it to me.
you can write to me at ceo (at) redBus.in. I would like to learn the problem faced by you.
- Phani
Dear mr.Phanindra,
It was great to read your interview and the vision you have on taking further the the redbus.in. But, I would like to state here that many of the local offices of redbus.in at various places are colluding with the local travel agents in fleecing the passengers especially during the vacation holidays. Whenever, we seek for bus tickets, the offices tell us that the seats are full and direct us to contact the local trvale agents who charge 1,5times to 2 times the declared ticket charge of the said bus trip. On one sch occasion when i ask for any date the bus ticket is available, they tell me to contact after a week so that by that time they again tell me that the seats are full or unavailable.
I request & expect that you will do something about this. The servcie which you had started is not happening the way you had planned out.
Anyway best of luck,
with best wishes,
R R Kamat, Pune
the idea of online bus reservation is good but my experience with redbus has not been particularly good as the website did not allow proper booking. several telephone calls were necessary before the booking could be done. the staff was very helpful but this defeats the concept of online booking. ticket delivery is not satisfactory. the service will have to improve, at least match other service providers like ezeego and others.
Not the right forum – But i hope Phani see this
I was in a opinion that Redbus is trying to build a new wave of technology and are solving some real issues., Looks like you folks are just cheating customer or your partners/service providers are taking you for a ride cheating customer.
Had one of my worst experience of life time.
I have booked below ticket and had plan of spending good time with freinds and family at home. Reached the bus stop couple of minutes early and When the bus arrives, Kesineni tours and travel representative tells me that my ticket has been cancel. They ask me to get in touch with Redbus. You folks don’t have customer support to check at this hour. I dont have a choice rather than to come back home.
I logon to redbus and check my ticket status online right now – It SHOW THEM AS VALID.
What do you expect me to do ? Knock consumer court ? Naahh !! I would tweet and blog how disgusting your service is till you prove other wise. You are cheating customers and looting them.
I can see that my ticket has been sold in black. I hope you guys do respond to customer, let me see what your response is.
BTW, i also have a vision to build a technology startup, and had very high regard for you Phani. Looks like you got bunch of corrupt people or systems.
I have never booked in redbus.in due to bad feedback from friends. I was just checking their website for Bangalore to Chennai, they were featuring 3rd rate bus operators and the prices were crazily high. You can get best Volvo buses from top operators like KSRTC or KPN Travels for much lower cost. Ofcourse such good operators do not sell in redbus.
Once I tried booking a ticket thru redbus and the site returned ticket unavailable. I booked another one successfully. Later I realized that I was also charged for the unavailable ticket that I tried to book.
I wrote to support about this and they promised me refund but, no refund was made. I had multiple follow up emails on this (even copying Phani [ceo@redbus.in]). Nobody even cared to get back to me. Totally UNFAIR.
Phani, I am not sure if you’v been charged for an unused service, promised refund for it and finally shown the mid-fing? I am sorry to say that your support sucks.
My experiance with redbus can be understood if you look into the below chain mails . i am putting the actuall email chain with out any change ..
Can some one read this mail please .
I had mentioned in the mail itself the exact sentences of the reply what i will get .
Even then i got the same reply without even a change in single word ..
— On Fri, 1/4/11, redBus Support wrote:
From: redBus Support
Subject: Re: [CaseID#10139598] redBus ticket cancelled (TIN: TD3363299298)
To: “Ajay J. Mattam”
Date: Friday, 1 April, 2011, 10:56 PM
Dear Customer,
Greetings from redBus.in!
Thank you for contacting redBus.in. The reversal of amount Rs.765/-has been completed from redBus. Will get in touch with our merchant and will make sure the credit would reflect in your account within 2 working days. Request you to co operate with us till this is completed.
Best regards,
Rakesh U,
redBus Support Team,
Phone: 394-12345 (FYI-12345 on your mobile keypad)
04/01/2011 21:50 – Ajay J. Mattam wrote:
I cancelled the ticket on 21- feb and i am yet to get the refund .
And i had sent you mails atleast 5 times ,with one week gap between each .
And for all the mails i am getting a reply with the same content .
“”"The reversal of amount Rs.765/-has been completed from redBus.
Will get in touch with our merchant and will make sure the credit would reflect in your account within 2 working days.
Request you to co operate with us till this is completed. “”"”
Now i am quite sure that there will be a lot of cases where you are not refunding the
money to the customer and customer is not all aware about it .
It is my responsibility to sue you .
1)My bank stantement clearily showing the payment made by me to you for the booking
2)I have the ticket still with my mail id
3)I have the email message ( with subject (TIN): TD3363299298) from you confirming the
cancellation and the refund amount is mentioned in that amount
4) And ironically there was no deposit happened from any body after from feb onwards
Well i have all the necessary proofs now .
I am wondering how many customers might have lost money just because they are not tracking
their bank account .
Well i am not going to leave you till money is getting refunded .
And it is my responsibility to sue you , if required get the money back
— On Tue, 29/3/11, redBus Support wrote:
From: redBus Support
Subject: Re: [CaseID#10139598] redBus ticket cancelled (TIN: TD3363299298)
To: “Ajay J. Mattam”
Cc: TicketMaster@redbus.in
Date: Tuesday, 29 March, 2011, 9:03 PM
Dear Customer,
Greetings from redBus.in!
Thank you for contacting redBus.in. We are sorry to inform you that the delay in processing your refund amount. Due to some technical difficulties, we were unable to process the refunds in time.
The reversal of amount Rs.765/-has been completed from redBus. Will get in touch with our merchant and will make sure the credit would reflect in your account within 2 working days. Request you to co operate with us till this is completed.
Best regards,
Rakesh U,
redBus Support Team,
Phone: 394-12345 (FYI-12345 on your mobile keypad)
03/29/2011 20:50 – Ajay J. Mattam wrote:
I am yet to get the money credited to my bank account .And it is almost one month over after me cancelling the ticket .
And probably this is the 5 th mail i am sending for the same purpose .
And i am getting a mail back only if i am sending to your side and the mails i am getting seems to be just for the sake of formality .
I want the actions from ur side .. not just mails
Regards
Ajay
— On Wed, 23/3/11, redBus Support wrote:
From: redBus Support
Subject: Re: [CaseID#10139598] redBus ticket cancelled (TIN: TD3363299298)
To: “Ajay J. Mattam”
Date: Wednesday, 23 March, 2011, 8:20 PM
Dear Customer,
Greetings from redBus.in!
Thank you for contacting redBus.in. The reversal of amount Rs.765/-has been completed from redBus. Will get in touch with our merchant and will make sure the credit would reflect in your account within 2 working days. Request you to co operate with us till this is completed.
Best regards,
Rakesh U,
redBus Support Team,
Phone: 394-12345 (FYI-12345 on your mobile keypad)
03/23/2011 03:30 – Ajay J. Mattam wrote:
I am yet to get a reply for this mail .
Let me brief it again .
I made a booking using netbanking ..paid the amount directly from my savings account ( not using any card) .Cancelled the ticket . After some days i got a message like
“The refund of Rs. 765/- is done to the Account/ Card from which transaction processed”
But i am yet to recieve the money . So i contacted the bank and they are telling such of a transaction had never happened from the your side . And bank is asking me the below details from you
— On Fri, 18/3/11, Ajay J. Mattam wrote:
From: Ajay J. Mattam
Subject: Re: [CaseID#10139598] redBus ticket cancelled (TIN: TD3363299298)
To: “redBus Support”
Date: Friday, 18 March, 2011, 9:14 PM
The refund amount did n’t come to my account .And already contacted the bank officials .
And they are asking the following things .Please provide the following details for the transaction you mentioned .
1) Exact Date of Transaction
2) Exact amount charged / deducted
3) Time of the transaction
4) Account number
5) Card used and number
6) Reference number, if any
7) Contact number
— On Thu, 17/3/11, redBus Support wrote:
From: redBus Support
Subject: Re: [CaseID#10139598] redBus ticket cancelled (TIN: TD3363299298)
To: “Ajay J. Mattam”
Cc: “redBus Cashier”
Date: Thursday, 17 March, 2011, 2:42 PM
Dear Customer,
Greetings from redBus.in!
Thank you for contacting redBus.in. The refund of Rs. 765/- is done to the Account/ Card from which transaction processed. The transaction Id is 3525542.
Please note that bankers would take four working days to credit the same to your card. Kindly do confirm the receipt of the same.
Best regards,
Avinash R,
redBus Support Team,
Phone: 394-12345 (FYI-12345 on your mobile keypad)
03/17/2011 14:00 – Ajay J. Mattam wrote:
I am yet to recieve this amount to my account .
Please provide the details of the transaction made by you
Regards
Ajay
— On Mon, 21/2/11, redBus Cashier wrote:
From: redBus Cashier
Subject: redBus ticket cancelled (TIN: TD3363299298)
To: ajayjm@yahoo.com
Date: Monday, 21 February, 2011, 11:45 AM
Dear Mr. Ajay,
We processed your refund request on 21-Feb-2011. Your tracking number is 4166624.
The refund amount is Rs.765.
Your bank will take 5 working days to credit the amount to your account.
The cancellation fee for this transaction is Rs.85.
Ticket details:
Ticket number (TIN): TD3363299298
From: Thrissur
To: Bangalore
Date of journey: Monday, February 21, 2011
Travels: Kallada Travels Blr
Bus type: Volvo A/C Semi Sleeper (2+2)
Boarding time: 09:30 PM
No of seats: 1
Seat number: K3-S
Please feel free to write to our customer care at support@redBus.in for any clarification.
Best regards,
–
Team redBus
Young Founders of REDBUS if u have time pls read this. Earning money by kicking on others account is not Entrepreneurship. its called cheating.
I had cancelled a ticket on March31 2011 . its May now still i am yet to receive amount of Rs.1215 and i am not going to leave this until i get it back. each time call them they say it will return in 2 days and its 2 months now.
The best part is the support team has never replied to 5 of my emails. Wonderful place to book tickets.
I am very serious in getting my money back to show my of of friends who lost lesser amount in redbus that we can get it back.
Me and my near friends together have lost around Rs 4825 in red bus cancellation. wonder how many more in INDIA would have lost.
Guys probably I am late in this one.. Excellent endeavor from founders as it’s highly unorganized sectors.
I TRIED RED BUS TWICE. BOTH TIMES INFORMATION WAS NOT CONVEYED TO THE TOUR OPERATOR AND ULTIMATELY I WAS ON MY OWN EVEN AFTER PAYING IN ADVANCE.
ALL SCHEDULES ARE THERE ON SITE ARE NOT TO BE BELIEVED. TOUR OPERATOR CAN SIMPLY DENY AND SAY WE DO NOT HAVE ANY UPDATE.
BEST PART IS THEY DO NOT HAVE 24 X 7 CUSTOMER SERVICE.
AND EXTREME ONE IS – THEY TOOK 6 MONTHS TO REFUND ME BACK AND THAT TOO AFTER DEDUCTING 10%
I WILL NEVER EVER GO TO RED BUS NOR RECOMMEND ANY INTELLIGENT ONLINE SHOPPER TO BELIEVE THEM.