Building The Largest Online Bus Ticketing Company in India: redBus.in Co-founder and CEO Phanindra Sama (Part 11)

Sramana: What percentage of the bus operators ticket business do you have now?

Phanindra Sama: We are at 1% of total business. We have 70% of the automated bus ticket business. >>>

VC Aid Should Not Be Sole Focus Of Start-Ups

Peerzada Abrar and Srividya Iyer with The Economic Times captured their conversation with Sramana Mitra while she was in India last week in their article, Venture Capital Aid Should Not Be Sole Focus Of Start-Ups. You can read the entire interview here.

Building The Largest Online Bus Ticketing Company in India: redBus.in Co-founder and CEO Phanindra Sama (Part 10)

Sramana: How did you achieve an industry-leading conversion rate?

Phanindra Sama: We have taken our analysis down to fine details. We have a specific orientation for the bus on the entry page. >>>

Building The Largest Online Bus Ticketing Company in India: redBus.in Co-founder and CEO Phanindra Sama (Part 9)

Sramana: How many customers does redBus have today?

Phanindra Sama: We sell about 200,000 seats per month at this point.

Sramana: How many seats were you selling when you met the journalist?

Phanindra Sama: At that time we were selling 10 to 15 seats per month. It was enough to keep our allocations from the bus operators because at least a few seats were getting sold. >>>

Building The Largest Online Bus Ticketing Company in India: redBus.in Co-founder and CEO Phanindra Sama (Part 8)

Sramana: How did you gain access to a payment gateway as a new Internet company?

Phanindra Sama: I took a banker’s recommendation and accepted personal liability for charge backs. I had to keep a certain amount of money in my account as well. Once we took the site live, we then had to focus on getting customers. >>>

Building The Largest Online Bus Ticketing Company in India: redBus.in Co-founder and CEO Phanindra Sama (Part 7)

Sramana: How far were you able to bootstrap your company while maintaining your job?

Phanindra Sama: The product was completed and ready. To solve this problem, the logical process was to give the software to bus operators. >>>

Building The Largest Online Bus Ticketing Company in India: redBus.in Co-founder and CEO Phanindra Sama (Part 6)

Sramana: Did you keep your jobs the entire time?

Phanindra Sama: Yes, we did keep our jobs. One member of our team did the majority of the work developing the technology. Randomly he stopped going to the office because he was so obsessed with building the software. >>>

Building The Largest Online Bus Ticketing Company in India: redBus.in Co-founder and CEO Phanindra Sama (Part 5)

Sramana: What was the next step in the development of redBus?

Phanindra Sama: We split up our work. When it came to creating the technology, we realized that none of us knew the technology. We did not know databases, Java, or any of the core aspects of building a Web application. >>>