TREKNOMADS: DELIVERING PREMIUM TREKKING EXPERIENCES
COMPANY OVERVIEW
TrekNomads is a community that curates Trek, Travel & Adventure experiences. They have been operating since 2016 and specialize in designing premium, all-inclusive luxury treks that are meant for anyone and everyone who wishes to explore nature.
Since 2016, they’ve organized over 200 treks and have introduced over 2,300 Nomads (the trekkers) to the mountains. As a community, their focus is to- help people explore nature, help local communities sustain through their treks, travels, and adventures and promote the concept of responsible & plastic-free trekking.
Core Offerings of the company:
- One Day Treks around Bangalore
- Two-Day Treks in the Western Ghats
- Himalayan Treks in India & Nepal
- International Treks
- Corporate/Group Outings
- Women-Only Treks
- Treks for the specially abled
TrekNomads aims at building an innovative platform for customers and helping them access and explore easy to toughest trails with an element of luxury. As a community, the primary focus is to pass on the benefits directly to the locals hence removing the model of middlemen thus providing long term entrepreneurial employment to the locals.
The inventory currently includes various one-day treks near Bangalore, two-day treks in the Western Ghats of Karnataka, treks in the Indian Himalayas & their latest addition – International treks (Nepal and Tanzania). They have a wide range of options for – beginners, intermediate trekkers & advanced (certified) trekkers who are looking for a challenging adventure. They take amateur trekkers and help them explore with one-day treks and slowly graduate them to two-day Western Ghats treks. Once trekkers get the basic knowledge, TrekNomads helps them take up easy-moderate Himalayan Treks.
For all the nature enthusiasts who love to explore nature in a comfortable manner, all their treks have a crucial comfort element right from designing their itineraries with deluxe/semi-deluxe and luxury stays to ensuring that all logistics are all well-maintained. They ensure that the quality never drops, thus providing the best possible experience to trekkers of all backgrounds and expectations.
For those who wish to do their bit to help society, every trek they conduct has an element of responsible trekking where they clean up the trails, being a part of TrekNomads’ trek also means that you are doing your bit to save nature.
STORY OF INCEPTION
Naveen Mallesh, a trekking enthusiast for over twelve years, came up with the idea of TrekNomads with his partner, Mahendra Rathod, in 2016. Before TrekNomads he was the founder of another startup called BookMyInterest (a hyperlocal marketplace) which was acquired by Xoxoday. He joined Xoxoday as Channel Sales Head and met another trekking enthusiast, a former colleague and now business partner – Mahendra Rathod. They went on a trek to Tadiyandmol and during this trek, both realized the love they had for mountains and the simplicity that mountain life has. After thinking a lot over the trek on possibilities of what they could do to pursue trekking as a full-time passion, they decided to see if people would be interested in getting introduced to nature. After doing a beta test for about two and a half years, understanding the ground realities of everything right from logistics to permits, rules, regulations, building relationships on the ground with the local communities, they found their niche and realized how they could not only help the local communities thrive with TrekNomads but also help all kinds of people get introduced to the mountains.
In April 2019, Naveen quit his job as a Channel Head, Xoxoday and in June 2019 they started operations 24/7. Both Mahendra (IIM Bangalore) and Naveen (IIM Lucknow) come from startup backgrounds along with experience in the corporate sector. They know exactly how the business works, what’s the best way to set up the model and to understand what works for them and what doesn’t. They pick up trends quite fast and plan things to the T. This has helped them a whole lot since the very beginning.
Since June 2019, TrekNomads has hit plenty milestones – they’ve been recognized by Startup India & Startup Karnataka and have been incubated by an esteemed organization Mobile 10X-IAMAI.
WORKINGS OF TREKNOMADS
TrekNomads is here to serve the niche audience who are looking for a comfortable and premium way to explore nature and the mountains. They also help corporates with team outings and till date they’ve had – ANZ, Siemens, ShopX, MagicPin, etc. who’ve opted for their corporate outings.
Some of the reasons why trekkers prefer TrekNomads are point to point all-inclusive plans, comfortable and premium accommodations, insurance for every departure, guides from the local community, trained and certified trek leads, and so on. They are strong with their service with a prime focus on safety and quality experience.
For them, the workforce is as important as the customer base. Only if they do their job right, do they get to do business and this holds good for all companies. TrekNomads are currently a very small team, all of who share the same passion for Trek, Travel, and adventure like Naveen himself. Naveen does not believe in over hiring people, his team is extremely productive and is in line with their motto, vision and mission. Also, according to him, it’s very important to have a team that is self-driven, which becomes a great boon to any startup and he can confidently say that my team is just how he would want them to be.
When it comes to the local on-ground staff, they’re extremely thorough with how they scout and hire their staff. They trek with them once when they do a recce and only if and when they like the quality of their service, their commitment towards trekkers and the batch and their loyalty towards helping trekkers in the right direction do they go ahead and build their relationship with them. Once they’re on board, they become an integral part of the TrekNomads family.
MILESTONES AND VISION FOR THE FUTURE
The biggest milestone for TrekNomads in the six months that they’ve been operating has been getting recognized by Startup India, DIPP, Startup Karnataka and getting incubated by Mobile 10x-IAMAI. Along with this, they have been over-achieving their sales & revenue targets all through. This is a great achievement and booster for them as a company. Along with this, they’ve also helped local communities with various eco-initiatives and they’ve garnered the trust of their local on-ground staff all across, which they consider one of their greatest milestones.
As an experiential travel company, they believe in helping people experience trekking and explore nature in the best possible manner. Their motto is built on bridging the gap between nature and people who wish to explore nature with a core focus on comfortable & premium all-inclusive treks, local sustainable & responsible trekking. Their vision for the immediate future is to use Business Intelligence & technology to bridge the gap between trekkers and locals to build a seamless two-way trekking experience