Desicow.com blog

I am sure you have heard of B2B (business 2 business) and B2C (business 2 consumer) models. An entity/business provide service or product to other business or directly to consumers.

DesiCow.com project is based on B2B2C model.

Let me introduce yo uto different actors/elements in my project:

1) Travel Agents [Business]
Travel Agents beat all prices when it comes to buying Air tickets to India. They do excellent job as far as this business is concern. DesiCow.com aims to give additional business to Agents by helping them reach to wider pool of people from all over USA.

2) Community [consumer]
I am building a community (portal) where Indians (living in USA) take part in their shopping process (shopping of Air Tickets to India).

Hence Desicow.com serves Businesses[ Travel Agents] to sell tickets to buyers[consumers].
“B2B2C”

What does consumer get out of desicow.com project?
Desicow.com enables you to easily get quotes from several Agents[we just have 2 agents as member, but this list will grow with time]. And I am repeating it again “Ticket Agents beat all prices”.

What does Travel Agents get out of Desicow ?
If you are some travel agents heres my message for you “Desicow.com project is based on fact that you guys do excellent job in selling Air tickets and beat all price. Desicow.com user base is growing day by day. Everyday I see number of visitors growing. By becoming member of desicow.com you get more visibility amongst this community”.
Since my website is new I will be more then oblidged to make sure that early members[Agents] eventually get more priviledges on this website in future.

What do I get out of desicow.com ?
I am software engineer at heart with inclination towards entrepreneurship. I like to create new things, make difference, like to see that 1000s of people use my work and help me grow it. I am passionate about this porject and like I have doen in past I will desicow a big success.

In the flight to USA, they showed instructions on the in-flight video display about immigration and customs formailties. For most of the visas that are applicable to ppl from India, we need to fill form I-94. Tired & half asleep I watched the details in the flight video, not understanding much. Luckily for me, there was an experienced desi gentleman next to me who helped me to fill out the form. Though, I had to make 3 attempts before getting everything right on the form.

Soon we landed at Washington D.C (it was Dulles Airport IAD, I think), stood in line for the Immigration. I was still quite groggy, and sleepy from the flight. They told me to wait behind a yellow line, till the officer calls. Other ppl got calls from their respective officers, but unfortunately for me,  I stood there waiting for the officer to call. But he wouldn’t call !!!! Now what, my tired half asleep mind panicked. I stood there for what seemed like tens of minutes. After a long time, a security guard told me loudly (I’m sure he was angry), why are you waiting, go to the counter. “Arre but”, I thought, “its written on the board to not go till you are called.”

So then, I gathered some courage and started to go to the counter, certain that i’m going to be scolded by the immigration officer for coming to the counter without him calling me. Luckily for me, there was no shouting. I think that officer didn’t want to work that day, so he just didn’t call me.

Then came the usual verification of original docs, passport, & taking the I-94. Once all that was completed, the officer stamped the I-94 form with my immigration status. Gave me the rubber stamped Customs form, to be given at the customs declaration counter. Much relieved, I was like…..  America here I come …..

There are lot of advantage Travel agents will get out of Desicow.com

From my past experience I am positive that desicow.com will eventually become a popular brand and destination for amongst desi community for buying tickets.

I spoke to couple of Travel agents and found that they get business from
* local customers/buyers directed from classifieds etc
* referred by friend and family

Desicow.com will give you 100 of additional ticket leads from all over USA. There are many Travel agents who advertise on websites like sulekha, desi magazines etc . Desicow.com helps you to get in touch directly with ticket buyer.

Desicow.com will get more and more users through word of mouth, and organic growth on internet.

Travel agents who associates early with Desicow.com will get more privileges in near future.

If you go out and ask 10 Indians “What are different places/ways to buy Air tickets to India ?”. Some of the answers you will get :
* local Travel Agents
* websites like makemytrip, priceline, kayak etc

If you go out and ask 10 Indians “Who gives the cheapest?”
9 out of 10 will tell you that “Travel Agents”

There is no way you can beat price given by travel agents. If you have an impressions from those funky ads claiming $500 ticket to India, they are absolutely false claims. These are just marketing tricks to get you interested in those website. If you don’t agree with me go to these websites and ask them to give you that $500 ticket and believe me they will come up with 10 UN-doable conditions in your travel for buying that $500 ticket.

Travel Agents give best price.
(how they get cheapest ticket will be discussed in some other blog entry).

Before starting Desicow.com project I asked myself one question: Is Desicow.com something I will use personally when shopping for Air tickets to India? answer was ‘YES’.

I checked with 10 different people and they said they will use it too.

If it helps me, if it helps 10 other people in my network, I am sure it will help 100s of people like us.

I am starting a website where Travel Agents will be able to get in touch with potential customers who are shopping for air tickets to India. Of course tickets need to cheapest and should beat all other prices.

Mr. X runs a travel agency, selling tickets to India. Business is doing all good.

One fine day he comes across a website which claims to solve an important issue in same business and also claims that website will give boost to Mr X’s business.

For some reason Mr. X decides to give this website a shot, so that he is not left behind in competition. Within minutes Mr. X realizes that website does solve problem if it is able to attract users who are shopping out for Air tickets to India. He also finds that website is not free. There is a small fees involved in using website to get business out of it.

Is it wrong to ask your first few customers(Travel Agencies in my case) to pay for using website?

Almost all of my friend said ‘YES’. Everyone said - “make it FREE for first few Agencies”

I can guess some of the reason they are thinking:
1) Travel agencies will avoid using website because of fees involved.
2) no one wants to pay money to a new website.
3) You will get more travel agents on board if you make it free
4) Its always easy to start asking for fees once website gets bit old and popular.

However I have some different thoughts in my mind.

1) A business owner doesn’t care about some small amount of money, if in return, website is really helping his business. In fact he will surely avoid wasting time on some website which doesn’t help him(even if it FREE).

2) As business owner instead of spending small amount he is more concern about how he can get more out of this website, promote his business and sell more tickets.

3) Desicow.com is actually bringing a travel agent closer to potential ticket buyer; its way better then wasting money on other websites for advertisement.

Desicow.com is going to give Travel agents 100s of ticket leads over a period of time. Travel Agents will get access to these leads from all across USA.

I want these travel agencies to push me to add more tools and features to website. I want them to make me go crazy fixing any issues and get more potential ticket buyers. This kind of coomunication will only come in to picture if these travel agencies have paid for using website. They are serious about business and now they have paid to use desicow.com , so desicow.com better be a sincere website.