Atlys.com

Introduction

Atlys is a start-up aiming to make the tourist visa application process streamlines, user friendly and transparent founded in 2021 by Mohak Nahta . They are in direct competition with Global leader in visa processing VFS Global, Teleport among others. Their growth is dependent on their contract with different country governments for visa processing at one end and growing the customers (travel agents & consumer) at the other end. 

As per the founder initially they tried the concept for Indian passport holders residing in the USA. Now they have moved their focus to Indians needing visa for their international travel. 

Core Value of the Product

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The core value proposition of Atlys revolves around simplifying and expediting the visa application process for international travellers in a transparent manner.

Product Review

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Take away

1. Lot of satisfied customers who liked their hassle free and easy inetrface for visa (ignoring if they are paid reviews)
2. There are customers who are not happy with Atlys's lack of communication and policy of no refund in the case of rejection of visa request
3. There is anxiety among people who have recieved visa if the visa given by Atlys is indeed legitimate.

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User Research

Macro Objective

Create an acquisition strategy for Atlys.

Micro objective

Visa processing is largely pull driven where consumers who are looking to travel look for right solution. The idea is to be present in the right places when such instaces arises for potential users.

1. What is the reason for travel to a country where visa (which is a high effort task) is needed?
2. 1. What primarily motivates them to travel to countries where a visa is required?
   2. How often do they travel internationally requiring a visa?
      
3. What factors decide their visa provider?
4. 1. Before choosing a visa service provider, what sources of information do they consult?
   2. What factors are most important to them when selecting a visa service provider?
      
5. What is their current experience with visa provider?
6. 1. If they have ever used Atlys for visa and the reason for choosing Atlys?
   2. If they have used any other providers and the reason for choosing?
      
7. What is their current level of satisfaction with their provider?
8. 1. How satisfied were you with your previous visa service provider (including Atlys)?
   2. What could make them switch from your current visa service provider to another one like Atlys?
      
9. What is their future outlook?
10. 1. Considering their future travel plans, how likely are they to consider using Atlys for their visa needs?

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User Calling

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Ideal Customer Profile 

 Based on the above ICPs we will have to look at the prioritisation through few lenses:

Prioritisation Reasoning for Atlys:

Focusing on high value, medium to high CAC and high ease of adoption, the profiles we can target are:

1. ICP-4: Young Tourists:
2. 1. For a company like Atlys which is adding tech enabled convenience on top a largely bureaucratic process ICP-4: Young Tourists would be an ideal customer profile to go after. 
   2. Adoption Curve: They have high ease of adoption, if successfully converted their LTV would be high and reaching them on digital platforms would be easier than older tourists who may not be as present on digital platforms. 
   3. Frequency of Use Case: For a upwardly mobile younger generation looking for experience getting visa is a major hassle and a platform which can solve it and also give some predictive analytics on ease of obtaining visa for other countries would be great → more travel. That may lead to increase usage frequency.
   4. Appetite to Pay: For tourists going for international travel appetite to pay would be medium to high.
   5. Distribution Potential: Given their volume and social network marketing to this group can also be considered as a strategic investment with high distribution potential.
   6. Influencer: peer group
   7. Blocker: peer group/ online review
      
3. ICP-6: Travel Agents: 
4. 1. Their expertise in travel logistics means they value reliable and efficient service provider. They can also help us capture a sizeable portion of Older Travellers.
   2. Adoption Curve: They would have lesser ease of adoption compared to the above group. But as it's their bread and butter they have higher motivation to learn if it helps them in their business.
   3. Frequency of Use Case: They have high frequency of use case making them an attractive group to go after.
   4. Appetite to Pay: They would have medium to high appetite to pay depending on the value add they see in terms of incremental revenue they can make through Atlys. By targeting travel agents, Atlys can tap into a network that frequently deals with bulk visa applications, leading to volume-based revenue and potentially lower customer acquisition costs due to the B2B nature of the relationship. 
   5. Distribution Potential: Partnering with travel agents can also lead to sustained usage and referrals within the travel industry, increasing Atlys's market penetration and brand credibility.
   6. Influencer: fellow travel agents
   7. Blocker: integration with existing system

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Based on the two prioritised ICP above the Job To Be Done framework would look something like this:

1. ICP-4: Young Travellers:
   
   

2. ICP-6: Travel Agents
   
   

 Learning for User Calls and research on the Industry

Visa and travel is a high cost and high anxiety inducing activity. If the visa processing doesn't happen or if it doesn't happen on time, people lose a lot of time and money. This makes them decide on their visa service provider based on the following factors in descending order of importance:

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TAM, SAM and SOM

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We have not divided the TAM, SAM and SOM based on the ICP as both are essentially serving the lesiure travellers. We will need to understand the market size of the problem Atlys is trying to solve:

Total Addressable Market

1. Approximately 1.5 billion international travellers (tourists and non tourists) were recorded globally in pre-pandemic years, according to the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO).
2. Within this 1.5 billion due to passport strength(countries with bulk of traveller like USA, UK, Europe etc.) only ~40% of the travellers may need visa. This brings our number to 600 million.
3. Below that there would be countries with visa agreements and multi entry visa accounting for ~10%. This brings our number to 540 million.(1.5 B X 40%= 600M, 600m X 90%= 540 million)
4. An Average visa will be ~$40 based on average of countries ranging from high to low.
5. This makes the TAM, 540 X 40= $ 21.6 billion

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Serviceable Addressable Market

1. For Atlys for the foreseeable future it would concentrate on Indian travellers which is about 2% of the world travellers (30 million Indians travelled annually in 2023 as per latest report. So 30/1500 would be ~2%.)
2. This makes the SAM approximately $432 million.

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Serviceable Obtainable Market

1. The visa service provider is dominated by VFS global with tight government partnership. The key being the Government parties which moves slow and has ecosystem that they seldom look to change.
2. So realistically and optimistically Atlys can look at 10%- 12%of the market given their push and streamlined process. This brings to annual market of $50 million.
3. This is the market available immediately for Atlys.

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 Channel Selection

This will depend upon where our ICP spend their time and money.

ICP-4 : Young Travellers

1. They typically stay in tier 1 cities and bulk of their time goes at work.
2. They spend their time on social media like Instagram, follow travel influencers and pages.
3. They spend their time on experiences and tend to be confident in their future earning potential to sustain their lifestyle and even improve it.

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ICP-6: Travel Agents

1. They spend bulk of their waking time running their small to medium sized business(s). They are typically set in their ways and it takes effort to change their ways of doing things. Partnering with them will get them captive audience. Many travellers still trust travel agents to get them visa and this can be a valuable way to reach those travellers.

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Channel Prioritisation

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Based on the above we will select Referral/Partner Design and Product Integration as the two channel to run our acquisition experiment.

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Referral/ Partner Design

This is a channel which we will experiement in as it solves for trust more than other channels

The following will work for ICP4: Young Travellers​

Experiment design #1

1. Brag Worthy Proposition: Digital first and hassle free visa processing.
   
2. Platform Currency: coins that will help travellers get discount with holiday attraction inventory supplier like
3. 1. Klook
   2. Viator
   3. Isango, among others, here 1 coin= Re.1 discount on attraction
      
      
      Logic: You want to give coins for toursit attraction for their country of visit instead of visa prcessing fee discount (for next travel) as people who got their visa on time would value discount for attraction more and that will nudge them to refer their friends & family.
      
      
4. Who to ask for referral: People who have recieved the visa on time and are waiting for their travel date to arrive.
5. 1. Validation: A call/chat from their travel concierge (who is a SPOC and already in touch with them through the visa process, providing familiarity and human touch point) to get feedback and explain how referral can help them see holiday attraction with some discount.
      
6. Discovery of referral program:
7. 1. Call/message of refering friends: "Gift a Visa" → no platform fee.
   2. In app CTA as shown below
      
      
      
      
8. How will they share the voucher code/ referral link?
9. 1. On the screen tap on the Share Link button,
   2. User will be requested for access to Contacts,
   3. User will select the contact they want to invite and tap on the Invite.
   4. The app will draft a message with an unique invite link
   5. User can also personalize the message if they wish
   6. Send the message via whatsapp or SMS
   7. The recipient would have to install Atlys using the received invite link to claim the gift (no platform charge)
10. Tracking of referral
    The user can track their friends visa status in the same screen (app downloaded> visa applied > visa processed)
11. Referee landing page design
    
    
    
12. Incentives for keeping referring
13. 1. The very real discount on holiday attraction for their immediate places of visit through different supplier of holiday inventory (ex- Get Your Guide)
    2. The bragging rights of introducing friends/ family to a service provider which is hassle free.
    3. Mockups:
       
       
       
       
       Once the user clicks on Claim your reward button, the following popup opens up:
       
       

Experiment success metric: Number of signups

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Experiment design #2

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Construct

1. Reach out to Admin and HR of corporates with seating >2000 members in the office.
2. Sponser friday activity that involves a "Travel Quiz" titled "Are You Boarding or Bored? 😅"
3. Have fun questions that tests people on travel location.
4. Give goodies to winners like, Passport Covers, Travel Checklist, Anti Theft Bags etc. Goods which one would associate with leisure travel.
5. Get leads from people and explain to them the seamless feature of Atlys and invite them to try out.

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Experiment Success Metric: Number of signups

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Product Integration

Experiment design #3

For India, typically the ticket/ accomodation booking is either done prior to visa application (Ex-Schengen Area) or done parallely.

Our ICP spends a significant time in OTA for flight and accomodation booking. They use OTA like MakeMyTrip/ IATA. We can integrate can in such a way there there is a clear call out after the flight is booked and the same can be done for accomodation booking as well.

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Experiment Success Metric: Number of visa booked through partners

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Content Loop

For now we will leave the status quo on the content loop apart from what delighted users may share their experience about Atlys on social media.

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Organic Channel

Based on my research, Atlys has a search value of $36, 956. which they would have spend if they went the paid keyword route for the words.

Organic Keywords

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Points to note

1. They fair quite high for educational key words like the difference between embassy vs consulate. With relevant blogs they can further increase their presence in more topics where their potential user could be trying to understand travel and adjacent territories. Right to win → more educational blogs.
   
2. Keyword "eticket Dominican republic has a relatively high search volume, indicating significant interest in e-tickets for the Dominican Republic. Ranking 10th means Atlys is on the first page, but there might be room to improve visibility. Right to win →
3. 1. by providing in depth article, this can include guides on how to buy, use, and manage e-tickets, along with any related travel tips.
   2. using long tail keywords, such as "how to book Dominican Republic travel e-tickets" or "Dominican Republic e-ticket advice."
   3. Link from high-authority pages on the site to the e-ticket Dominican Republic content to pass on more link equity.
   • Optimizing the page load time as Google considers page speed a ranking factor.
   • Ensuring the page is mobile-friendly, as a significant number of searches are performed on mobile devices.
     
4. Keyword "Malaysia visa for Indians" shows first for a specific demographic looking for visa information implies good content targeting and SEO performance. The zero CPC indicates low commercial competition, which could mean an opportunity for Atlys to dominate this niche. Right to win →
5. 1. While popular destinations have high competition, offbeat or less traveled destinations offer a unique niche. Keywords can include ex: "tourist visa guide for Georgia" or "how to visit Namibia on a visa."

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Paid Channel

The LTV for the two selected ICPs would be:

1. ICP-4: Young Travellers: $40 (average Visa Fee) X .20 (Visa processing fee) X 2 (Average travel per year) X 5 (Average Customer Lifespan) = $80
2. ICP-6: Travel Agents: $40 (average Visa Fee) X .20 (Visa processing fee) X 100 (Average travel per year) X 5 (Average Customer Lifespan)= $4000

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Paid Keywords

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1. High Search Volume and Traffic for Kenya Visa Keywords: Keywords related to Kenya visas ("kenya visa", "kenya evisa", "kenya e-visa", "evisa kenya") have high search volumes and collectively contribute a significant portion of traffic. This indicates a strong interest in Kenya visas. What would be interesting to understand where the searches originate, if they are outside India, they should optimise for search orginating from India.
2. Dominance in Position 1: Atlys holds the top position for most of the keywords, which is advantageous for visibility and click-through rates.
3. Low Competition for Some Keywords: Keywords like "electronic visa" and "visa for egypt" have very low competition (0.02 and 0.20, respectively). These keywords can be cost-effective targets for PPC campaigns, providing good ROI due to lower bidding costs.
4. High CPC for Specific Keywords: Keywords such as "kenya evisa" and "egypt visa for us citizens" have relatively high CPCs ($2.31 and $1.95, respectively). While these keywords are more expensive, they also contribute significantly to traffic and traffic cost, indicating their importance in the overall strategy.

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Conclusion

Atlys is at Early Scaling stage where it nees to solve for visibility and trust. The two ICPs that we have prioritised are Young Travellers and Travel Agents. This will give us a very large market to go after. For acquistion we experiment with referral program powered with tie up with holiday attraction inventory suppliers, coroprate shows and integration with existing OTA players. We will closely monitor the channels and modify the experiment construct based on what works and what doesn't.

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