Life in the mountains is beautiful, yes—but also painfully inconvenient. Resources are limited, hospitals are far, and good luck finding a cab when you actually need one. A friend of mine once waited two hours at night just to get her sister to the hospital. She had numbers for five local taxi drivers, and not one picked up.
And it’s not just about convenience. It’s about safety, mobility for women, independence for the elderly, and dignity for everyone in between. Small towns have their own challenges and barely any mobility solutions that actually work for women, older folks, or anyone without their own vehicle.
This isn’t a money problem. It’s an accessibility problem. When I think about it, I wonder: if Ola or Uber were operating in towns like mine, we’d never face such issues. But they aren’t. Because we’re not a spreadsheet priority.
In Delhi or Bangalore, you can zip from one end of the city to another with a few taps. But in my hometown? It’s a hunt for favours, not a service.
So I did what I usually do when I’m annoyed and restless. I stepped out. I walked 500 meters to the hospital chowk and started chatting with local taxi guys. At first, they were helpful (Himachalis are sweet like that). But the moment I mentioned I wanted to build an app, their expressions shifted from polite to politely telling me to buzz off.
Apparently, “urban ideas” don’t work here.
Naturally, I did what I always do when someone says “you can’t.”
I decided that I will make this happen.
After more momos, gossip, and digging around, I learned that Ola had once tried launching in Himachal. Didn’t work—thanks to opposition from local unions. Someone else even tried building a BlaBla-style app—but the damn thing looked like it belonged to the British era.
That’s when it clicked. If this has to work, it can’t be like Uber. It can’t threaten the taxi guys. It needs to empower them. And it has to make money fast if I want to keep solving local problems without burning a hole through my bank account. It had to be frictionless, profitable quickly, and—most importantly—undeniably useful.
I carved out time from another project (ItsHemp Assure—another story for another blog) and got to work.
First step? Naming it.
For me, naming a project is a magical thing. Something about giving it an identity gives me the fire to go all in.
So I sat with my ever-so-loyal GPT co-founder and brainstormed for hours. From hundreds of options, I narrowed it down to two:
HimRides — inspired by GoaMiles, meant to be Himachal’s default ride-hailing brand
Clixi — a simple combo of Click + Taxi, but with a vibe. Something that could stand on the same stage as Uber and Namma Yatri.
I bought both domains. (No surprises there—I spend over ₹1 lakh a year just on domain renewals. Certified domain hoarder.)
Then came the numbers.
Himachal, even with its modest population, does crores worth of taxi rides annually, thanks to tourism and local commute. The opportunity was real. The business would be seasonal and erratic, sure. But sustainable? Very possible. The number of annual rides is enough to sustain a solid mobility ecosystem. Instead of sitting with Excel sheets for weeks, I used AI to speed things up. GPT + real data = projections in hours. The result? This could work. Like, really work.
So I got to prototyping.
Enter Punit (my co-founder at Made Up Ventures), who instantly vibed with the idea and agreed to fund our tech costs. Together, we decided to ditch the traditional models
Per-kilometre pricing? Drivers hate it. Mountain driving isn’t the same as the plains.
Monthly subscriptions? Not enough volume to justify it initially.
Too many friction points.
So, we flipped it. We built a model where drivers buy ride credits.
No commissions. No middlemen. Riders pay directly via UPI or cash.
Drivers get 100% of the fare.
We would charge a fixed SaaS fee per ride, deducted from their prepaid credits.
And the cherry on top? Drivers and riders bid on the ride. They negotiate the fare themselves.
We brought Ankit on board—the hands behind the code. I designed the flow, branding, and all things “cool.” Ankit built the backend. Punit guided us with his 10+ years of product experience. In just 15 days, we had our first builds of the Rider and Pilot apps ready (we call our drivers “Pilots” because, well… behti hawa sa tha woh).
Then came the mandatory 14-day review wait on the Play Store. So what did we do? We doubled down and shipped 30+ builds in those 2 weeks, tweaking, improving, testing.
And guess what? The same cynical drivers who told me it wouldn’t work? They became our first testers. And get this—50% of them have already paid us in advance for ride credits. We didn’t even launch yet.
We set up clixi.in, created explainer content, printed pamphlets, built a local buzz—all from Dharamshala. And today, on Day 27, we have:
- Two working apps ready to go live (on Android & iOS)
- 50+ of signed-up drivers
- A handful of paying customers
- A hyper-local community eager to ride
Clixi is not just a startup. It’s a rebellion. A statement that even if no one builds for us, we can build for ourselves.
What started as frustration is now a full-blown business. Not a unicorn. Not yet. But a real, revenue-generating, problem-solving product. Built in Himachal. For Himachal. By people who give a damn.
P.S: Clixi goes live next week. And I’ll be back with Part 2 when the rubber meets the road.