I had the opportunity of speaking to Nishant Aggarwal, founder of BlueWander about what inspired him to start his business and to offer more tips on how everyone could strive for the same
What inspired you to found BlueWander?
Throughout my life, my biggest passions have always been travel, technology, and the impact travel can make on the world. So I’ve always had a strong desire to build a disruptive technology company in that space. As a kid, we traveled a lot and was fortunate to experience some of the best and the most unique experiences. But it wasn’t until I landed a consultant job at Deloitte and worked with many high- and ultra-high net worth individuals that I realized how frustrated they were with the entire booking and planning experience. I like to call them “cash-rich, time-poor” travelers.
So, I started looking into the problem, and realized how fragmented and backwards a market it was. And given today’s landscape and the ability technology has to facilitate a more meaningful and seamless process. Also, I learned that a lot of them genuinely cared about making social impact.
Fast forward to July 2017, I founded BlueWander, where our mission is to reimagine the future of luxury travel – and to build a product where the travel discovery and planning process itself becomes an experience.
What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs who are thinking about taking the leap?
One life mantra that I live with is “dreams do come true” but only if you make smart choices. With all the information and resources that are available at your fingertips today, it is not very difficult to get a good enough understanding of your target market. Once you have that, the next thing is to have a solid action plan, which believe me is going to change a lot. You can even get to some early traction without quitting your full-time job. After that it is really just about taking the leap, it can feel unnatural and counter-intuitive, but it is something that you just have to do at that point to take it forward. One thing I like to do is thinking about the worst-case scenario in order to make such a decision.
What is your advice on fundraising?
I am a big advocate of bootstrapping your business. First, if it is something that you are passionate about you should not be afraid to put in some capital of your own. Be prudent and don’t burn all your savings. Second, if you need to raise from friends and family and angels until you can get to some good traction. Once you have that you can go either way – hyper growth or more organic growth based on what you actually want.
Nishant, is a serial entrepreneur who comes from an engineering, product, and business consulting background. He is currently the founder of BlueWander, reimagining the future of meaningful luxury travel. He is a member of the Forbes San Francisco Business Council and is involved with organizations such as Singularity University Venture’s Incubator program and BUILD, an entrepreneurship focused experiential learning non-profit for high school students. He has an Engineering Management degree from Dartmouth College.