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He Built A Premium Wildlife Expedition Platform | Ratish Nair's true story

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About this episode

How Ratish Nair built a premium wildlife expedition platform in India where 95% of clients come back, with under ₹1 lakh spent on ads in five years. A Startup India story about quitting a director's job at 43 with no plan B, and pricing premium in a market that runs on price wars.

Ratish Nair is the co-founder and CEO of Ecotrailz, a premium wildlife photography expedition company. He spent two decades in corporate sales, took his first wildlife trip to Tadoba in 2017 on a holiday his wife planned, and started Ecotrailz as a weekend trial in 2019 while still heading sales at a large Indian business services company. In 2024 he quit, at 43, with no plan B on purpose. His first year's trips sold out in 20 to 45 seconds. This is the Indian entrepreneur story behind that: premium only, learning first, a closed community he calls the tribe, no price war, and no monthly target in two years.

In this episode of Chaos To Clarity he explains why 95% of his clients come back in an industry that loses 25 to 30%, why he will never take external funding, and then the photography: manual with auto ISO versus aperture priority, why exposure compensation is the most powerful dial on your camera, when not to crop, breaking the rules of composition, the tiger silhouette against gypsy headlights in Bandhavgarh, and the tigress P151 at Panna.

Timecodes:

Connect with our Guest: Ecotrailz: https://ecotrailz.com Ratish Nair on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ratishnairphotography/ Ratish Nair on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ratishnair/

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Hashtags: #podcast #indianpodcast #chaostoclarity #smallenterprisejourney #startupindia #indianentrepreneur #wildlifephotography #tigerphotography #ecotrailz #founderstory

Chapters

  1. 00:00Intro
  2. 01:04The 2017 Tadoba trip that started it
  3. 02:51Ecotrailz began as a weekend trial in 2019
  4. 04:43Quitting at 43 with no plan B
  5. 09:29First year, trips sold out in 45 seconds
  6. 12:33Why 95% of clients come back
  7. 16:50The Ecotrailz tribe
  8. 24:20Pricing at a premium
  9. 27:21Under ₹1 lakh on ads in five years
  10. 32:00Not for everyone
  11. 34:29Wildlife photography for beginners, practice first
  12. 40:45Aperture priority vs manual with auto ISO
  13. 47:57Exposure compensation explained
  14. 54:18RAW and white balance
  15. 58:40How much to crop
  16. 1:04:23Breaking the rules of composition
  17. 1:09:51His best story from the wild, P151 at Panna
  18. 1:12:27The next five years, no targets, no funding
  19. 1:25:07His takeaway
  20. 1:27:18What clarity means to him
  21. 1:30:04Outro