Find a local expert for your next exploration through RuddBuddy
5 years ago Saritha Keshamoni“Most of us love to Travel, although very few among us really Explore – even our own city”, says Sudeep Reddy, the founder of RuddBuddy, a Hyderabad based startup focusing on experiential activities.
RuddBuddy is a peer-to-peer marketplace for activities and micro tours, where one can find things to do, gather local insights, share stories and most importantly meet like-minded people. The emphasis is on experiential living. Broadly categorizing their offerings into 8 genres, the website offers everything from heritage walks across the Old City to pub hopping across the latest hangout spots in the Hyderabad.
The idea for RuddBuddy was seeded on one of Sudeep’s trips to Mexico, he says. Traveling in a Spanish speaking country with a friend to help him around the place, shop and eat some of the best street food, as well as spend time with a family made all the difference to a great experience than what it could have easily been otherwise, he recalls. Post validation in the USA, he chose to quit his job and move back to Hyderabad to start RuddBuddy. “Nothing has panned out the way it was planned”, he jokes candidly.
Since its inception in May, 2016, RuddBuddy has offered several hundred experiences in Hyderabad, and has expanded from providing micro tours only to activities and workshops as well. They have been covered widely for curating an activity of puppy petting, bringing the workshop of miniature gardening into popular demand, organising the first pub crawl in Hyderabad and several other experiences. They say the choice of being niche over quantity-minded has put them in a unique position in the market.
The unique value they provide seems to lie in the fact that they are a well curated platform of individual RuddBuddies. Every user has a profile page from which they can browse, save and book experiences as well as offer experiences. Upon such requests, RuddBuddy checks for a fit among its genres and allows these hobbyists to become micro entrepreneurs. Additionally, every user can customize their profile page, share interests, write blogs, post images and create a network of like-minded individuals.
