MakeMyTrip.com: Is eCommerce in India Finally Happening?

 GURGOAN, INDIA-- Back in 1995, Deep Kalra knew that India had burgeoning consumer promise. So he took a risk, quit his safe-but-boring banking job and joined AMF Bowling—an American company that was aiming to bring bowling alleys and billiard halls to India for the first time. It didn’t quite scratch his entrepreneurial itch and the hobby was ahead of its time for Indians. So after four years, he headed back into the safe world of banking. And then, in 2000, with some money saved up, he decided to leave again and do things his way. Enamored by the Internet and frustrated by how hard it was to travel in India he opened MakeMyTrip.com. The site—as you might guess from the name—was like any of the online travel brokers started during the dot com bubble, only it was in India. Of course, that was a pretty crucial difference. What Kalra didn’t know back in those dark days was that he was about to benefit from a global Internet truism: Online travel is the ecommerce gateway drug.