This Bengaluru-based startup aims to elevate VR tourism and real estate experience in India

Startups in India are bravely moving ahead to make virtual reality (VR) become part of our day-to-day lives. A Bangalore-based startup is investing efforts in the virtual tourism space, documenting Indian heritage sites and tourist places within reach along with providing various real estate VR solutions. They started the company under the brand name of Escape Reality. They had started the business on 20th march of 2018. The company was started by two founders Sumeet and Chandan. They are childhood friends who have been looking for interesting business opportunities since the start of our working careers. We are publishing an interview with Mr. Chandan:

Q.: What is the problem you are trying to solve? Please share with us any insights that led you to believe that this is a big enough problem?
Ans: The problem that we are trying to solve is long awaiting revolution in how tourism spots and real estate sell their idea to their customers.

The biggest problem with these two industries is they are trying to sell something people can’t see in front of them. Imagine a real estate broker trying to sell you a house that has not been built yet or visiting a tourism place such as Hampi and trying to imagine the culture that was present during the Vijayanagara empire at that time. We can allow people to experience their future home and their rich cultural past through VIRTUAL REALITY. We specialize in building realities that can help people understand things better.

Q.: Tell us about the Product / Solution. How did you get your first customer? Explain how you went about the Product-Market Fit Process.
Ans: We are providing content to businesses through VIRTUAL REALITY to help them in providing their customers with better experience and ultimately better customer acquisition.

We are currently doing a real estate model for one of our customers who wants to be able to give their customers a full property ride which will help him explain his project better.

Q.: What is your USP?
Ans: The uniqueness about this start-up is the idea itself. We believe that our technology and content in the tourism space specially can help the millennial generation bring closer to their culture by helping them understand it and view it with the help of a technology that they are excited about and is the future of any content consumption.

In the Real estate space, we believe that we can build a whole new marketing strategy for our customers which will help them convert customers much faster by allowing them a VIRTUAL REALITY ride of the property that is going to be built. It will help build more trust among them.

Q.: List all the names of the core Team Members, along with their Designated Roles – How you see them evolving over time.
Ans: Along with two co-founders, we have more 4 people as in staff who helps in operations. 

Q.: What were your assumptions when you entered the market, learning that you have? Who in your mind is your ideal customer? Do you have at least one of them signed up?
Ans: Yes, we have served VR Mall Bangalore for 1 year and now we are going be in Bangalore Airport. And apart from these we keep visiting the places like societies, clubs, colleges and restaurants where we have seen people enjoying our concept.

Q.: What has been your biggest failure as an entrepreneur and what did you learn from it??
Ans: We all fail every day. It’s how you bounce back that counts. I don’t look back. The biggest failure would be dwelling on failure. – This is what I learn from failure.

Q.: How are you pricing the Product? Explain your thought process.
Ans: Since we are in a business similar to movie making, although in virtual reality. The principles of pricing remain the same as that of a movie business where It completely depends on the quality of content the customer wants.

Q.: Please tell us about the investors (if any)
Ans: We do not have any investors as of now but we are very actively looking for one.

Q.: Is there any interesting success story of your startup? If yes, please write about it. ?
Ans: Virtual Reality (VR) start-ups raised over $3 billion in venture capital. Coupled with a 47% increase in active virtual reality users from 2017 to 2018, the VR market is set for some explosive growth in the near future.

For marketers, virtual reality’s surging popularity and ability to deeply engage people in immersive experiences and transport them to places they could only imagine going to makes it one of the most exciting emerging technologies in the industry.

And It’s all started when Chandan and Sumeet have been to US last year to learn how to effectively leverage VR, they decided to make a list of the top VR startups and showcase how they’ve been able to use the technology to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in venture capital and build successful businesses.

From there we started working on it and reached till here.

Q.: Since inception, give us a sense of the value of business done by your venture? Please explain in detail.
Ans: Since we are in the middle of our first project, giving out those numbers will be difficult.
Although we believe that it will be a completely profitable business for every project that we take on.

Q.: What is the big picture of your startup? Is this Product/service leading to something bigger? If so, how?
Ans: We believe that we can become really big or have a much bigger impact if we are able to crack a deal with any one of the tourism departments in the state governments, which will allow us to solve a much bigger problem and reach out to a lot of people.

Q.: Who do You Perceive as Your Competition? How do you differentiate yourself with them?
Ans: We are proud of the fact that there is almost no competition for us in the Indian market right now.

Q.: What would be your goal to accomplish in the next six months? Any other information you would like to share?
Ans: We would want to successfully close the deal at hand and look to take up more projects which will enable more customers to believe in us and appreciate our innovative technology.

Q.: What message do you want to convey to fellow entrepreneurs?
Ans: Stay focus and Stay hungry.

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Thanks Chandan. All the best!