Learnings from building India’s Largest Online Travel Business

Episode Description

In this inaugural episode of the Summit Series, Ravi Adusumalli, Managing Partner at Elevation, speaks to Deep Kalra, Founder and Group Chairman of MakeMyTrip (MMT). Founded in 2000, MMT was one of the first Indian companies to list in the US, and has been a flag bearer for Indian internet companies.

Deep speaks about why he preferred listing in the US over India, how founders should think about growth vs cash burn, learnings from MMT’s experience of acquiring GoIbibo, and more.

Episode Summary

• 00:15 - Introduction and lessons from Covid recovery
• 12:10 - Importance of tracking organic repeats to decide whether you should allocate capital behind growth
• 16:16 - Why the next decade belongs to India
• 19:47 - Why MMT listed in the US instead of India and advice to current founders
• 35:45 - Learnings from the GoIbibo merger
• 45:08 - MMT and Deep's philanthropic journey
• 53:22 - Strategy to retain high-quality talent
• 59:30 - Deep's favourite travel destinations, what he wants to do post COVID