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ABSTRACT
redBus.in is an online travel agency offering bus tickets in India. redBus.in was founded by three engineers-Phanindra Sama, Charan Padmaraju and Sudhakar Pasupunuri -who studied together at the BITS, Pilani, and later worked in various companies in Bengaluru. Started modestly in August 2006 with a few seats from one bus operator, redBus today is one of the most successful online bus ticket booking agencies. Today, it has 700 bus operators, 10,000 buses listed on it, works in 15 states and sells around 5,000 tickets every day. The Company raised its first capital in 2007 from Seedfund Advisors, an early stage investor and their second investment in 2009 from Seedfund, Helion and Inventus Capital. Phanindra became the second entrepreneur from India to join Endeavor, a non-profit organisation started by the Harvard alumni. Business magazine Fast Company recently released its 2012 list of the World's 50 most innovative companies. One of the companies to be featured on the list is the Bangalore-based redBus. The journey of redBus has been amazing and an eye-opener to all the budding entrepreneurs. This type of business model is not present anywhere in the world. This paper attempts to explore the journey of redBus. An earnest attempt has been made to develop a case study of redBus that could be administered in management classrooms.
KEYWORDS: Business Model, Online Travel Agency, Venture Capital
1.1. Introduction
Bus ticket booking during the offline era posed various difficulties to the customers as well as the bus operators. Offline ticket booking reduced the scope of customers to choose different options based on their travel criterion. It also increased the franchising cost for the bus operators. At the same time, the bus operators were also finding it difficult to monitor their bus seat filling information. Many small and medium bus service organizations do not have their own online bus ticket booking system. E -Bus Ticket booking system enables those bus service organizations to cater their services online and get benefit out of it. Online bus ticketing system facilitates the customers to book their tickets of their desired bus services. The premium search engine enables customer to choose one of many buses belongs to different bus services based on their travel criterion. A unique characteristic of online...