Former Rocket Internet employee launches a Pinterest for travelers

“Rocket Internet has inspired many people to launch their own startups,” says Anirudh Gupta, a former employee at Namshi and Mizado – himself included.

After moving to Dubai over a year ago, Gupta joined Rocket’s company Mizado, only to see it shut down three months later. Witnessing how the startup had to fire 100 employees in one day exposed him to the tough side of launching a startup. “This gave me perspective on how quickly things can change at a startup,” he says.

After the closure, Gupta moved to Namshi, another Rocket Internet company, where he worked as a resident entrepreneur, project leader, production team manager, and helped set up a new warehouse, among other responsibilities. Throughout his journey with Rocket, he was exposed to the fast and quick changing pace, which he thought was “pretty crazy and fun.”

After getting some insight into the internet industry with Rocket’s companies, Gupta thought he was ready to go solo. So he left the German company in June 2013 and returned to India to launch Tripoto last October with his partner Michael Lyngdoh.

The Pinterest for travelers?

Tripoto is a crowdsourced platform that allows travelers to post about their itineraries and allows locals to offer tours or trips for tourists. It has so far around 4,000 contributors who have submitted 2,000 itineraries; only between 500 and 600 were published, though, because the team wants to ensure quality.

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Former Rocket Internet employee launches a Pinterest for travelers