I admire Startup founders, they are a different breed of human beings. When I quit my job a few years ago, I did not realise that I would get startup lessons from travel. So I thought I could share some of these business lessons from travel for other startup founders and aspirants.
Back in 2015, I quit my 8 year-long PR career to take a gap year. The gap year turned out to be 18 months long. During that time I travelled through 14 countries, most of them were in South America.
Like many startup founders, I did not have enough money for the journey, neither did I know what would come of it. It was a risk in every sense of the word. Add to that my zero knowledge of Spanish or Portuguese, the only languages spoken in the countries I was about to visit.
18 months after quitting my job, I returned home to Mumbai. And I didn’t come back only with Instagram pictures and beautiful memories. I had also collected startup lessons from travel that would come in handy for building a company from the ground up.
Here they are.
1. Get innovative with funding:
Despite having saved money for a few years, I still didn’t have enough to take care of my home loan EMIs and for the 2-year travel, I had buffered for.
I decided to let my savings take care of the monthly loan instalments. This meant I actually had to figure out how to fund my travels. My job could not go remote, neither was I interested in carrying it along with me.
I wanted to write about my travels, but it was going to be sometime before that would bring any money.
That’s when I heard of crowdfunding for the first time. I probably ran the first crowdfunding campaign in India for a travel project.
Now how is this linked to your startup journey?
Not everyone agreed with my idea of crowdfunding, but some did. And that is what matters.
I also managed to bring Airbnb on board as a hospitality partner to support my project in return for content and PR work. It took me over six months to get them on board, and they were the only one to work with me of the 20-odd brands I approached.
But they were the only one I truly wanted to work with.
As a startup founder when initial funds are a challenge, you have to think out of the box and be okay with not many agreeing with you. In fact, I think being okay with most people disagreeing with you is the prime quality of a startup founder.
2. Look beyond the obvious for network building:
After I took the plunge(and that long-ass flight to Sao Paulo), I decided to make friends with locals by any means possible. Couchsurfing was my obvious go-to platform to make friends and hang out with people.
But I did not stop at that, I tried making friends on the metro and at parties. Basically I was trying to strike conversations everywhere I went(making conversations without speaking the language can be fun, trust me).
Not just that. Some of my best friends from the many months of travel are women I met on Tinder.
But trust me I wasn’t looking only to hook up, far from it. With relatively less social taboo about meeting new people, Tinder acted as a fab way to make new friends in Colombia and Brazil.
3. Ask yourself what can you offer:
This is a question you need to ask yourself, both as an individual and as a startup. When I travelled, I constantly asked myself what I could offer to locals so that they’d want to be friends and hosts.
One obvious answer was teaching English, which I did. All my hosts in Brazil wanted to practice conversational English with me.
But was there something else I could do?
I could cook. And I could cook Indian food. I carried a pouch filled with Indian spices(masalas, yaar) and tried to cook for my hosts and friends whenever I could.
Once I took over a restaurant kitchen in Salvador, Brazil and cooked a full-on Indian lunch for 15 people. Even my 33rd birthday celebration in Rio was the Indian dinner I cooked for my hosts and other friends.
My ability and inclination to cook delicious and exotic Indian dishes made me quite popular with locals wherever I went.
It just went further in helping me build strong networks. And more importantly – it made me feel super good!
As a startup founder, it’s important to zero in on things or services you can offer to mentors, partners and even your own team. We all know that for a startup money is always scarce, but offering your expertise is a great way to make up for it(at least in the initial stages of your journey).
4. Sales may not come from where you expect it to. And that’s okay.
My initial idea while travelling, though vague, was to make money through travel writing. I knew it would have its limitations, but I wanted to try it nevertheless.
In a few months, it was clear that building a sustainable lifestyle using freelance travel writing was very difficult, if not impossible. Though I continue to pursue travel writing even today, it’s more out of love for the craft and to keep honing my storytelling skills.
It was along the way during my travels in Sri Lanka that I met Mustafa Kassim, the founder of Roar Global and eventually got offered the job of building their operations in India.
I see this as accepting an opportunity that came my way, much like a startup would take up a client or service that it originally did not intend to serve. As long as it sits within your brand values and your present or future capability, you should take it up.
Many startups disappear because founders stick to services or products that have no market feasibility. So learn to be open about what the market is telling you.
5. If it ain’t fun, it ain’t worth it.
My original plan was to travel from South America to the United States. But things started to go south after Costa Rica. I contracted Dengue, and with the fever had to cross the border to Nicaragua. After a couple of weeks, I was better but my body felt exhausted all the time.
And that affected my mind too.
It felt unpleasant to even think of months of gruelling travel that lay ahead of me. It just stopped being fun.
So despite having planned to go all the way to the US, I cut short my trip to recuperate and rejuvenate myself.
Many times running a startup can feel the same, a task and not fun at all.
If you start hating what was meant to be a source of joy, and if it stays that way for a long time, it is time to reconsider. Your well-being matters the most.
6. Remember you will do it again.
My first long term trip taught me a lot. After it was over, I was able to figure things that I could do better the next time around.
So now I am preparing for my next year-long trip. It may happen in 2 or 3 or maybe even 5 years from now. But happen it will.
And I am sure that if creating something is your passion, this won’t be your last startup. So take it easy on yourself. You will always be able to come back stronger and better.
That’s it from me. Hope you found these startup lessons from travel useful.
Let me know what you think of these. Do you agree with them? If you disagree then I am even more interested in what you have to say. Do share in comments.
