Techspian – Born of the Pandemic

Sameer Lodha says Techspian, an online platform is spreading the power of technology in the travel industry space

The travel industry has a difficult reputation for not adopting newer technologies that have affected their customer experience over the years. While tech companies in the travel space are constantly developing newer technologies, it is essential that travel agencies are able to manage their platforms effectively to take advantage of these developments.

An online platform should not only be intuitive but also flexible enough to adopt and incorporate newer technologies into its existing framework seamlessly. In such a scenario, we decided to speak to Sameer, the CEO and co-founder of Techspian, a start-up that is making leaps and bounds in the travel tech space through the introduction of their innovative new technologies. We wanted to understand exactly how Techspian, a company that started its operations during a global pandemic, is not only managing to handle its day-to-day operations but also expanding its services during COVID-19, especially when the travel industry was affected adversely. This is what Sameer had to say about the challenges that he faced while launching a start-up during a global pandemic.

Sameer, tell us about your journey, career, and how you co-founded Techspian?

Sameer Lodha: This takes me back to 2007 when I started my career as a software engineer. To be honest, I have always been passionate about technology and creating usable software for solving everyday business problems. Since I always had aspirations to start my own business, I co-founded a products company in 2018 with the experience I had gained working closely with Tavisca in the past. While developing products and working with multiple customers, we observed that the overall ecosystem of the travel technology space has a lot of scopes to evolve, and because of the way we were doing technology work in our products, a lot of customers started looking for our collaboration to help them with their technology needs. We saw a clear opportunity in this regard that eventually evolved into Techspian. Techspian was founded as a professional services organization with the mission of spreading the power of technology.

What services does Techspian offer?

Sameer Lodha: Techspian offers product and platform development services to customers largely in the Travel and Health care domain. We offer holistic services including product management, application development, QA, DevOps, and support with our expertise in delivery using the latest technologies like AI, ML, microservices architecture and various cloud providers.

What were your biggest challenges while initiating and building a company during a global pandemic?

Sameer Lodha: Techspian started right in the middle of a pandemic when movements were restricted. So, literally, everything had to be taken care of virtually ranging from official formalities of setting up the company to recruitment and onboarding team members, meeting vendors and meeting clients, sending the onboarding kits and equipment such as laptops to remote locations all over India and dealing with network issues for team members to name just a few. Initially, there was a lot of deliberation on the ways to handle and tackle these challenges but we learned quickly and made the right use of tools to streamline and automate as much as possible. In hindsight, our operations and admin teams worked really hard to make sure everything operated smoothly and on time.

For a year-old start-up, how did you manage to onboard global customers and retain them?

Sameer Lodha: A lot of our customers initially came from our network and from past engagements. With the trust, domain expertise and solutions we brought to the table, it became quite easy for us to work with these customers and for them to work with us. Once that initial barrier was overcome, it all came down to our execution and I’m quite proud to say, the teams performed flawlessly. One of the most important aspects that we focused on is transparency – a strategy that paid off really well when it came to instilling trust with our clients. I believe it played a critical role when it came to achieving 100% customer retention.

What sets Techspian apart from the rest?

Sameer Lodha: Techspian has a wonderful team! Even without being able to meet in person due to the pandemic, each and every member has shown respect and care towards each other and has worked tirelessly to meet the set goals. It’s our people that have set us apart and enabled us to be where we are today in such a short span of time.

Since Techspian was founded after the pandemic hit, how are you managing to onboard new talent and keep them engaged without meeting them in person?

Sameer Lodha: The nature of Techspian’s business is such that there is a constant need for new talent. We crossed a team size of more than 50 in less than a year that is quite unprecedented for a start-up. We invested in setting up a dedicated recruitment team early on and provided them with the right tools in order to translate their hard work into effective results for the company. These tools provided us with a lot of data and key insights into the aspects that needed to be tweaked in order to identify the right talent for the requirement and onboard them. Keeping them engaged was an organic process through regular, transparent communication and fun online activities that brought people together and enabled them to interact freely and spend time on non-work-related activities and games.

Techspian has had exponential growth in less than a year, can you tell us more about your cash flow and revenue?

Sameer Lodha: Even though the pandemic hit many businesses and especially the travel industry which happens to be one of our core focuses, we were still able to cross 1 million dollars in revenue in less than a year. This proves that there are even larger opportunities post-pandemic, a fact that is driving the entire team to work harder than ever before. I am quite happy to say that all our existing accounts are growing and are willing to do more business with us reinstating the trust in our services.

Culture can play an important role in running a company efficiently. What is Techspian’s culture like and what are you doing for your employees during these difficult times?

Sameer Lodha: Techspian has a people-centric culture – we value our relationships and our people the most. We have tried our best to adopt company-wide measures that will ensure the wellbeing of our employees, both physical and mental, during such harrowing times. These include medical insurances that cover the entire family, 5 days paid leave for covid recovery, sponsoring the paid covid vaccination for all employees and their family members, reimbursements for work-from-home setups and internet bills, extended remote working even beyond lockdowns etc. We believe each one of these steps was key to ensuring a good state of mind, wellbeing, and convenience even while working from home.

What are your future goals for Techspian?

Sameer Lodha: With the kind of opportunities and learnings we have seen so far, our goals are to stay focused on the travel and healthcare domain and to scale self-organized teams that provide exceptional services to our clients.

If you have one piece of advice for someone starting a business, especially now, what would it be?

Sameer Lodha: Have patience, there are and will be a lot of opportunities out there. Focus and invest in creating the right team and they will have your back in times of need such as this.

Your website?

You can visit us at www.techspian.com for a better understanding of our services and the solutions we offer. Our support team is online 24*7 and will be happy to guide visitors through our processes. We invite everyone to come to check us out, get a feel for our products and gain an insight into the workings of Techspian and the ways we are revolutionizing the travel tech space.