13 magical years passed with a blink of an eye. Time for me to step down as CTO of Goibibo, it feels bad to add ex :( to what I cared for so much. I can't, but will try to summarize this journey & express my gratitude to many of you who created these magical moments for me 
Joined as a software engineer Feb 2007, with MIH India operating out of two cabins in a business center. Thanks to the extra push of @RubanPhukan I was kinda a half reject in the interview ;) Rajesh took me into his team to build a crawl platform "CrawlX". from Perl to python
Started building an ambitious search platform & a family tree based social network “OneFamily” with @raodyboy @dhimant @ituhin. Wrote my first email to @ashishkashyap 'THE CEO' to showcase vernacular vertical search engine we built (e-mail partly drafted by @dhimant ;) ).
Filed our first patent on Crawl Tech with Muddassir, while vertical search product was great. Monetization was hard :(. @ituhin, @anshuljohri @venkat_kotra became friends 4 life. Learned one of the biggest lessons of my life #FailFast from @ashishkashyap & a pivot 2 Transactions
@SanjayBhasin5 came into life became a partner & mentor, he wth @ashishkashayp calls a meeting & asks to build a flight booking engine in 2 weeks, with just one of my colleague Binny. We did it in 3 :) @deepaktuli roared into team & magical camaraderie begins with first 100 txns
Moved to a smaller but luckier office, Hypergrowth of Goibibo along with IbiboPay ( aka PayU ) with @NagShailaz @nitinwhatever Growing at 200% YOY. @shankarlamba started giving us a tough time with exclusive designs asks & precision. Our yearly Goa offsite ritual begins
@avinash011 builds the fastest & most agile flight booking & post-sales engine. while @gnufy & @pranjal5215 wrote bus vertical all by themselves. @4abhishekpathak started setting up the rails of the first data platform. @mohitrajpal4 became our product + business + cx + ops guy
110% YOY growth, big focus on post-sales best turn around time 4 refunds & launch of international flights. NeerajKoul joins back to scale up the architecture, NitinKalra does guerilla marketing. @phanichand takes on distributing @Goibibo to banks & affiliates, The Youtube Effect
THE first OTA to launch an android app, becomes a mobile-first product. 130% YOY growth & hotel launch. @rithish joins back with a bang started setting set up the most amazing FE & BE teams. @dhruvpathak started building "voyager" that eventually became the heart of @goibibo.
@pratikshadake ends the year 2014 with our biggest growth hack, creates a new brand synonymous to @goibibo "GoCash", to which @sauravyadav had to triple shift to tackle a massive surge in traffic, referral program launch. Rapid hiring & to our luck, we got some of the best talent
growing at 140%, @pranjal5215 & @neha_jagadeesh goes live with the first version of a dream project, virtual interlining (multi air). eventually, @aman_ankur @ishan_speaks makes it one of the best in the world @TechGirlPooja @pransss creates mobile testing FW out of nothing
@pungoyal & @nishantgupta86, gave us countries largest hotels review rating engine & the younger of the goyal brother ;) @goyal_rahul along with @prerna, @ujjwal & @ankitrastogi started scaling up, by far the most important product of @Goibibo & of Indian hoteliers "InGoibibo"
@PariSpeaks sets out to build a big moat of on-ground supply team for hotels. Morgan Stanly calls out Goibibo the largest hotel booking platform in the country, @iam_dhananjayk @RGengage @Haribabu_v wrote the most amazing frontend stack of Goibibo. Google talks about it at I/O.
@ashishkashyap's another idea and a big growth hack GoContacts made a debut to take traffic to different level thanks to @sraheja & his mobile team for exceptional execution, while @sauravyadav always a rescuer solving scale issues at Goa hotel post-launch with HarshadPatil
The mega-merger of @goibibo, @makemytrip & @redbus happens. @deepkalra & @RajeshMagow enriches learning with splendid business perspectives & vast experiences. Mkt Cap of MMYT moves from 800M$ to 4B$ :O. I start taking free doses of non-tech & product stuff from @prakashsangam
@bapnaa partners as CPO, leapfrogged my personal learnings. Adds an equal amount of grey matter that we collective had. @Bhoomitt @izotope86 built Gia, bots on WhatsApp creates never before experience. Abhishek mines gold out of content, while @ImAnusheel Reactifies FE Tech
As @saujanyas masterminds, @Divyangbhardwaj @abhyrama @phanichand @bhaskar @thedosaboy & team hits ball out of the park, Mega one of a kind IPL campaign goes live. Saw never before surge of 40x in registration, with 0 issues. A proud moment for tech teams on handling scale.
@RGengage, sukant leads @goibibo trains to become 2nd largest pvt train booking product. @ankurdinesh & team launch first of a kind flight marketplace, @shwetamodi @jasmeetweets improves CX to best ever. Bhaskar Arjun continues to add trust to hotel txns with GoStays & Collection
@iiitd_amar, @sail1202 & team drove the most amazing payments agenda to take @goibibo UPI share to 30% reducing overall MDR and improving refunds, @cppSunny & team built the most successful dynamic pricing engine and gave Goibibo the most sort after neo data platform
MMYT declares awesome qtr, 200M$ in revenue. COVID hits to test our resilience. We help to build @SetuAarogya, Go-MMT volunteers A-class team to build for the nation. 3 Weeks to launch & 13 days to 50 Million. Proud moments @goyal_rahul @deepkalra @arnabthakur @KLalitesh @matthan
And the time comes to bid Adieu.
I am sure I wld hv missed many names & exciting moments. Especially many of u supporting me from outside of Go-MMT. Thank u so much!!
With a heart full of gratitude, off to some rest before a new journey. A lot more magic to experience. 🙏🙇♂️🤞
I am sure I wld hv missed many names & exciting moments. Especially many of u supporting me from outside of Go-MMT. Thank u so much!!
With a heart full of gratitude, off to some rest before a new journey. A lot more magic to experience. 🙏🙇♂️🤞
@ashasubz1 @anoop77 🙇♂️🙏
