Meet ExploreMaps, a Singapore-based travel startup that wants to take the pain out of travel planning by letting users create and share mapped out itineraries that are easy to follow.

Describe the business, core products and services in one paragraph .

ExploreMaps is building a social network of a million travelers who can share their itineraries and interesting trails on our app and they all get plotted on a map. Now people don’t have to spend ours reading blogs and researching on “what to do”, instead they just search for trails on our platform and do it! 

Who are your key customers? 

Our users are anyone who loves travelling the offbeat routes, millennials who want to explore new places but don’t have a lot of time to spend researching. Our content creators are the exact opposite. They are those travelers who love building itineraries, trails, documenting them and publishing them for the world to see.

Who are your key partners? 

Our key partners currently are TripAdvisor and tiqets in the ticketing and attraction vertical. We have ULA cabs that will come on board with us later during the year as a cabbing partner and F&B establishments.

What business are you most likely to be compared to? 

Think Google Maps (the map) + Trip Advisor (the tickets and travel content) + Instagram (the social network).

What problem are you trying to solve for your customers? 

Travel information is easily available but not in an organized form. Travel planning can take a lot of time. Collaborative travel planning is a pain!

What problem are you trying to solve for your partners?

Dedicated audience. Today, Klook, TripAdvisor or tiqets are largely working on price wars.

What financial support did you have to launch the business? 

Our company won an Enterprise SG grant with which we have built a highly efficient digital nomad team that’s helping develop the product.

Who validated the idea first – investors or customers? 

Customers, always.

What is the revenue model and strategy for profitability? 

Current revenue model is affiliate partnership. However future revenue model will open us up to a data sharing economy where creators of the content will earn a fee for their content (And as a result we earn a platform fee). We are hoping we can put this on a block chain for obviously all the positives it comes with especially – decentralization of data.

What is the market opportunity? How scalable is this business? 

It’s a geographically scalable business, but when it comes to industry span, the opportunities are countless too. For example: E-commerce giants who want to target travel customers can partner with us and sell their products.

Competitive analysis – strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Strengths: Efficient and capable product and marketing teams. The idea is exciting people. They sign up immediately. We are building our influencer community.

Weaknesses: Financial runaway gets shorter ever day.

Threats: The community can become dry if there isn’t anything interesting happening. We are coming up with offline events to keep ongoing engagement. It’s a tech company, our only defensibility is our data and people’s emotional connection to our platform.

Opportunities: The scalability is not just geographic but can venture out in other industries.

Who are the team members and advisors? 

Team:

Uphar Bhandari: Head of Marketing, Co-founder of ExploreMaps

Priyadarshini Majumdar: CEO and Co-founder of ExploreMaps

Natalia Trawinska : Full stack engineer, ExploreMaps

Yash Muchhala : Full Stack Engineer

Yu Gin : Front end Intern

Advisors:

Indranil Majumdar, COO of Myclin Express Offshore and Anuj Jain, CEO & Founder of Startup-O ventures

Why do you think you are the best people to make this vision happen? 

We get the millennials. I have felt the need for this while I was solo travelling myself. It was over a backpacking trip that this idea struck me.

What’s the motivation behind doing this? 

This is our why: With every generation, it is our job to amass more knowledge about the world. Scientists, artists, philosophers, technologists and engineers do this in their own ways. Our job here is to build products that can collect and share this information so new travelers can experience a place a little better.