Prafulla MathurFounder & CEO of WudStay.com Published On: Wednesday, September 16, 2015 Views 2986

WudStay is a major online marketplace for budget accommodation launched in April 2015. We started our operations on 1st June 2015, with presence in two cities- Gurgaon and Jaipur, and tie- ups with 15 hotels. In a short span of time of only three months WudStay has expanded to 25 cities and tied up with over 300 hotels across India.

We have embarked on a ride to standardize budget accommodation in the country and set a gold standard for quality in service, convenience and hygiene. We give a guarantee of facilities including-:

• A comfortable and hygienic stay
• Free Wi-Fi
• Complimentary Breakfast
• Clean laundered linens
• Clean bathrooms
• In-house toiletry kits
• In-house customer call center

Being an entrepreneur, I often travelled for business purposes. During these trips I would end up paying Rs.4000-5000 per night for a hotel room, and yet my experience with them was not satisfactory. I strongly felt that there was no consistency in services and in many instances the services were poor. On one occasion I travelled to Haridwar and realized that there was a huge gap in the promise and the actual services of the hotels, which needed to be addressed. I could see the gap because during my trips abroad I had experienced what quality services meant.

The thought of providing standardized services within budgets to travelers and the experience of being an entrepreneur encouraged me to innovate with technology and start a new venture in travel space.

I believe that it’s important to take action rather than sitting back and waiting for something to happen. If you want to do something that you are passionate about, you should not be bothered about failure or success. One should just go ahead and try it out.

Any entrepreneur goes through extremely short cycles of things which disappoint and those which make you ecstatic. It is important to keep your calm and not let sudden shifts outside your control dynamics affect you.

Three factors:

1) Experience and practice: One learns to not get affected by external factors through practice. Just keep at it.

2) I follow my passion for music and play my guitar to unwind.

3) A lot of credit goes to my family and friends who have been a great support system.

WudStay has raised $3 million from Mangrove Capital Partners and Nimbuzz’s Vikas Saxena during its first round of funding, within the first two months of its operations.

I feel that the trend of brain drain has in fact reversed. More and more people want to come back to India as this is where the action is. There is huge potential for growth and the possibilities for trying out new things are much higher.

Perseverance, perseverance, and perseverance. The only way to succeed in anything is to keep at it once you have begun.

I use Wudstay.com and its android app for all my accommodation booking while on the go. I extensively use Google business app for checking my mails and accessing documents, Whatsapp and Gaana app for music.

Have fun and you’ll be productive.

I love jogging but have been avoiding it for sometimes. Need to start that again.

One tip to success:

Start doing it. Take the first step.

One mistake you believe every individual must avoid:

Inaction or not trying is the biggest mistake you can make.

One most important lesson that you have learnt till now:

Don’t take no for an answer.

I want to disrupt the travel booking patterns in India, and make WudStay the de facto Gold Standard for quality of hotels.

Nothing. I feel that it’s important not to demand but to make the best you can with what you have.

• Goa
• Mussoorie
• Edale (UK)

“And a new day will dawn for those who stand long, and the forests will echo with laughter.” – Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin