Matthew DeSantisFounder of MyBhutan Published On: Tuesday, July 26, 2016 Views 5325

MyBhutan is Bhutan’s premier travel portal. As the country’s industry-wide services platform, we provide the fastest, most cost-effective way for tourists to visit Bhutan. Prior to MyBhutan, planning a trip and securing a visa to visit Bhutan was extremely difficult. MyBhutan’s advanced technology and unparalleled collection of content make the planning process incredibly easy. Further, with the removal of hidden fees, booking through MyBhutan is the cheapest way to visit. Beyond cross-industry growth, every trip booked aids the philanthropic activities of the Tarayana Foundation, a nonprofit founded by Her Majesty Queen Mother Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck to protect the vulnerable communities of Bhutan.

Our inspiration was driven by our model’s envisioned impact on socio-economic development. The model establishes framework to allow developing countries to prevent growing inequality while still promoting trade liberalization and globalization.

MyBhutan supports thriving markets while still preserving its culture and enabling an inclusive approach to survive its traditional crafts – ultimately providing opportunity for locals across all industries. Eventually, we plan to introduce this philosophy to other governments in an effort to nurture a healthier universal platform to support globalization.

To do this we built a platform that finally makes travel to Bhutan easy.

Stephen Hawking once said, “We explore because we are human”. Exploration is one of our most fundamental traits and we should, by all means, ensure that we never lose our inherent curiosity to do so.

There is little difference between my standard weekdays and weekends.

I haven’t. When you become an entrepreneur, you commit to meshing your professional life with your personal life. Rather than trying to find the divide, entrepreneurs should better understand the passion that connects the two.

I am a huge advocate of work environments that weigh personal development over a particular job function. By supporting employee wellness, education and interaction, a company builds a community around the work environment. With this, morale rises, so does innovation. MyBhutan is a family and we intend to keep it that way.

DREAM – and you will be granted the courage to see.

UNDERSTAND – and you will be trusted to lead.

GIVE – and you will find reason.

A startup team’s organization and communication are essential for long-term success. For this, I recommend Slack and Asana.

Read. Reading is the most accessible way to collect information. It also sparks creativity.

I’d like to sleep more!

• One tip to success:

Your team is the success. Only hire people who are smarter than you.

• One mistake you believe every individual must avoid:

Losing sight of cradling your lifeline. Focus on satisfying your customer’s needs. Always.

• One most important lesson that you have learnt till now:

Hiring people with previous startup experience will bring an invaluable set of knowledge to the table.

To take Bhutan off your bucket list and create more opportunity for Bhutanese.

I would have committed more time to inventing earlier, particularly in college. With so much time and resource at your fingertips, college is a great time to start imagining how you’d like to change the world.

Small villages in Bhutan, trekking across a long mountain range, or any place with waves and a longboard.

“Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love.” – Rumi