This Bengaluru Based Startup Reinvents the Travel & Hospitality Sector Through AI

We are publishing an interview of Mr. Abhishek Moharana, Co-Founder & CEO, Trilyo.

About the founders
Both founders (Abhishek Moharana and Gaurav Gambhir) are born on the same date i.e. 19th July. Which is very rare. Met in TCS 8 years back and were playing Guitar together.

Abhishek Moharana is the Co-Founder and CEO at Trilyo. Before devoting his work full time to Trilyo, Abhishek studied at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, following which he served as a Senior Consultant at PWC. With extensive knowledge across the field of Information Technology, Investment Banking and Advisory, he along with his innovative insights has built a solid foundation for corporate clients. Abhishek’s forte lies in building strategic partnerships, drive sales & product management.

With an experience of more than 11 years, Gaurav Gambhir is the Co-founder and CTO at Trilyo. His complex technical ideas with the ability to distill them into user friendly interfaces is where is his expertise lies. Formerly part of Bank of America and Ernst & Young, Gaurav secured the Golden Beam Award at Ernst & Young. Additionally, his proficiency in building enterprise application has saved millions for his clients. Gaurav prides himself in providing all his clients, individual and institutional, the most precise and state of the art technology, giving them a realistic outlook to what they can expect to achieve in today’s market.

What is the problem you are trying to solve? Can you share with us any insights that led you to believe that this is a big enough problem?
Hospitality Industry as we all know is $550bn market but when we see the adoption of technology, they are probably 10-15 years behind other industry. The Hilton or the Marriot’s own a very small share in the entire Industry and who has the potential to invest in tech aggressively to augment customer service with quick adoption of new tech while the rest cannot afford to that. What they are looking for is a potential tech partner like Trilyo who can help them. There are a huge number of 3-star and 4-star players in the market who are looking to bring AI in Customer experience and that’s where Trilyo is helping them.

What is the uniqueness about your startup?
We thought to our self how awesome it would be if you could message a business just like you message a friend at any time of the day & get a quick and instant reply, because who doesn’t love instant responses. What’s more, texting doesn’t even take your full attention like a phone call does. And all this without having to install a new app. Well, that’s the disruptive power of TrilyoBot, and we’re just getting started!

In case of a live chat, a human representative is made to sit behind a system for customer support. Unfortunately, if the agent is busy or offline, an interested customer might just walk away because there was no one to answer his queries. This could result in a huge loss for a business. Hence, it’s absolutely essential to make help available for your customers 24/7, especially if you want to be globally acknowledged in different time zones.

TrilyoBot which halves the manpower needed for customer support. It also lets you save those extra pennies, which we call ‘commission Businesses’; without any third-party’s intervention. This reduced dependency on third-parties such as Online Travel Agencies (Makemytrip, Expedia etc.) which is defiantly something that will steal the show because it not only lets brands save up on the commission paid to them, but the customer’s information remains with them too.

All this concludes in 30x increased customer engagement, 20x faster interactions and 40x more sales for businesses, thanks to a round-the-clock availability packed with robust features that gets customers hooked on starting from the visitor stage up to a happy customer level.

What is the revenue model? What is the logic behind it? What is the model you are following- Free/ Premium etc? Explain your thought process.
We are SaaS, so like any other SaaS company, we charge our clients a recurring fee on a monthly basis. We don’t have a freemium model, but we do have a 15 days trial period for our clients.

Who are the consumers that you are targeting? How is this going to affect them?
The Hospitality industry. People who loves travel, Trilyo is creating a next level of customers experiencing in hotels.
If you are asking how this is going to affect them, well Trilyo is making their work simple and easy.

What is the big picture of your startup? Will it lead to something bigger? If so, how?
Chatbot is our go-to-market product but the bigger picture lies in bringing AI in the customer experience space in the hospitality industry. Chatbots are more like a commodity today but if we consider customer journey it’s not just limited to chat experience. The millennial travelers expect luxury that is lean and smart. We’re making hotels smarter with the help of AI wherever there is an element of smart customer experience. Hence, it is a unique concept and step towards future.

What is the success story of your startup in your own words?
It was July 2015, when the idea of reducing the man power came into our mind through Artificial Intelligence. I believe we already were successful with this idea of Trilyo Chatbot and we can be more by advancing it and focusing on each and every little details which is important.

Growth of any company with an idea and money can always be a successful one if one knows how to use the money, which market would be a Good investment of which one will not give a good return. Clearly it all depends upon a well-researched and prepared plan.

Any other information about your startup that you would like to share with us.
Trilyo is building a global product and we want to be a leader in this space. We’re poised to expand our presence in Middle East and SE Asia market. We’ll explore both partnership and direct route. We’ll be taking both organic and inorganic growth route to grow customer base and add more complementary product line to complete the solution. We’re looking to raise series A of US $ 2.5-3mn in next 4-6 months.

Trilyo aims to reposition itself and focus on a bigger scale that is hotel industry. Trilyo is creating the next level of customer experience in hotels. Our voice-based concierge service using Amazon Echo is the first in hotels. Millennial business travelers expect that lean and smart, and that’s exactly where we are helping hotel turn intelligent and technology savvy. Visit https://www.trilyo.com to know more.

Thanks Abhishek. Best of luck!