Mice Goes App-Y

Having started operations in April 2017, Foxtrot Interactive, a white-labelled event app targeted at the MICE industry, has seen sales of `8.8 million from 23 corporate customers and 37 projects and will be launching two new products in the new year. Co-founders of the app, Unmesh Vaidya and Naasir Merchant, talk about their journey…

- Peden Doma Bhutia

How did Foxtrot come into being?

In November of 2016, both of us realised that there is ample scope to pioneer how the MICE industry uses technology. Between the two of us, we had 25 years of experience in the travel and sales domains, and in organising conferences, meetings and incentives for corporates. We realised that what we had in mind was something the MICE industry desperately needed, so we decided to take the plunge and Foxtrot Interactive was born. What also aided us was the fact that the country was seeing an increasing number of smartphone users, more people on social networks and alternative communication platforms and more clients willing to go the digital way.

This is not a very easy domain, with the kind of coordination that is needed at various levels and keeping so many clients happy. How difficult was the journey?

When both of us had the idea of getting into the tech side of MICE, lot of people rebuked as to how can two sales guys get into a domain which they don’t have any expertise in. We realised that this was our biggest challenge and we decided that the first step is to get a Chief Technology officer (CTO). We got a CTO who took the challenge of making a team ready to hit the market with the entire backend process.