Two cousins, one comment section

Two cousins

We have been a team for as long as we can remember. Parties, cricket, movies, family weddings: whatever needed sorting out, we sorted it out together. Without noticing, we kept learning the same lessons. Break the mess into small tasks, split the work, and when plans change, find the next move.

Rajesh started early. At 13 he was charging friends ₹10 an hour to play a video game on his computer. In 2014 a search for “how to make money online” pulled him into blogging and SEO, and in his second year of B.Tech he left to build a business. Since 2016 he has helped Indian and international brands grow through search.

Vinod took the other road: IIT Patna, then ten years building products at startups in Bangalore and Mumbai, two of which were acquired. Every time he came home, Rajesh asked the same question: “When are you starting something of your own?” Vinod always had the same answer: “Let me learn more first.”

Then Vinod moved to Udaipur, we started meeting almost every weekend, and he ran out of excuses. In October 2026 we started Oye Vira India Private Limited.

It started in the comments

India is full of people who run great trips and experiences: trek leaders, photographers who take a group to Spiti every summer, friends who host a music night every month, people who know their city better than any guidebook. Most of them run it all from an Instagram account.

We spent weeks reading their posts and the comments under them, and the same pattern showed up every time:

A good post collects hundreds of near-identical comments in a couple of days: “price?”, “dates?”, “DM”. The price is usually hidden, so everyone has to ask. The host answers each one by hand, sends an itinerary PDF, chases payments, and keeps the guest list in a notebook or a spreadsheet.

Guests have the same questions every time. Who else is going? Is it safe if I travel alone? What happens if I have to cancel? And they send money to someone they have only seen on a reel, with a screenshot as their only receipt.

Neither side was doing anything wrong. There just wasn’t a tool built for the way trips are actually sold in India. Rajesh had spent ten years helping businesses get found online; Vinod had spent ten years building products people trust with their money. So we built one, and called it OyeDash.

What we are building

OyeDash is a marketplace for small-group trips and experiences in India: treks, trips, weekend getaways, meetups, music nights, food walks, wellness and workshops. Every listing is run by an independent host, and you book with that host directly.

For hosts, OyeDash is one page that works like their own small website: their trips and experiences first, ready to book, with their links alongside. Behind it, OyeDash does the dull and difficult parts:

• holds a seat while a guest pays, so a date is never oversold;
• takes payment by UPI, card, net banking or wallet and sends it to the host’s verified bank account;
• keeps the guest list, with friends invited into the same booking;
• opens a group chat for each date and sends reminders before the day;
• handles cancellations and refunds by the policy the host chose;
• turns an itinerary PDF or an Instagram post into a listing in minutes, so nobody starts from a blank page.

For guests, everything you used to ask in the comments is on the page before you pay: the price, the dates, the seats left, who is coming, what is included and what happens if you cancel. Reviews come only from people who booked and went.

How we work

• The host keeps the ticket price. OyeDash takes no commission today, and during our founding phase we cover the payment charges too. If that ever changes, hosts hear about it first, in advance.
• Trust is earned, never bought. Hosts link a verified bank account before they can take bookings. The Verified badge comes from running real dates with real guests. Ratings appear only once there are enough reviews to mean something.
• No made-up numbers. No fake follower counts, no fake “selling fast” labels, no reviews from people who weren’t there.
• Built for India. UPI first, mobile first, and comfortable with how people actually talk, Hinglish voice notes included.
• The host is the face of the trip. Guests book with the person named on the listing. We are the marketplace that makes it work, not a tour operator in between.

What comes next

We are early, and we build with our first hosts every week. Here is what we are working towards:

• Safer money for both sides: payments that protect guests until a trip is sure to run, and pay hosts reliably when it does.
• Working where hosts already are: Instagram and WhatsApp tools, so a comment or a message becomes a booking without the back and forth.
• Operators and hosts together: we are testing a way for trip operators to list fixed departures that hosts sell to their own audience, with OyeDash holding the money and splitting it fairly.
• More of India: more cities and kinds of experiences, in more of the languages our hosts and guests speak.

If you run trips or experiences, set up your page and tell us what to build next. If you love travelling in a group, see what’s coming up.

Rajesh and Vinod