u/Illustrious-Milk-896

Hello all,

We are planning to start a new business. The idea is buy an Urbania, rent it to folks coming to our hill station along with a driver to roam around or local people can rent it outside. We have done enough market research to prove the market viability. Even in some of the most pessimistic scenarios, it does sound good. But alas, everything on paper may look good and in reality it could be different.

So tell me folks, what are the dos and don'ts of a travels business? Do you know anyone who is actually renting Urbania? What is their revenue? Are they surviving or thriving?

Any insights is appreciated.

Context: We can buy it with full cash or 50% EMI. We are both drivers ourselves - so worst case scenario, we won't be afraid of making our hands dirty. We have other businesses (IT) where the cash flow is pretty good. This is part of our expansion.

Strategic objective: To become a fleet company with 5 cabs that can generate a decent passive income by the time I am 40.

I am in my early 30s and my partner in late 30s.

We have done business modelling in all scenarios including selling after 5 years etc and it looks appealing.

Yesterday the weather was getting too hot even for our hill station. We don't have AC at home, so its just windows open with a pedestal fan. Yesterday was unusual weather, so I was scrolling despite my wife persisting I shut down the phone and sleep.

I always look into stuff curiously so yesterday I went to Zerodha console and wanted to check my realised profits so far. I know some people may question how you cannot be aware of this - however, I have to be honest and tell that I was a salaried person until 2022 and used to file taxes every year. IDK how, but my auditor just gets some returns... so being so meticulous about taxation and stuff was auditors headache, not mine.

A little backstory: My investment journey started back in 2018 when a kind soul (whom I fondly call akka (sister)) who asked me once at office rather naively - "Do you send all your money back to your home? Don't you save something for yourself? Do keep at least 1000 aside for yourself every month". That trigger resulted me in spending time on the value research website and I started my MF journey. I was a consistent investor since 2018 (SIPs) and only once panicked and sold once during the Russian Ukraine war because I was sitting with my wife at a hospital for her maternity check up and I think it was some jitters about being a new dad lol!

My investment knowledge & theory of belief: I was not a confident investor (I am not a trader either) but I have read a thing or two (mainly Psychology of Money that investing is more about patience than intelligence). I used to check all the companies share price in Google and realize that in the long term (like 5 years, 10 years) almost all the companies chart was going upward. Missed the COVID wave because I knew shit about investing. Then used to review MF portfolio (the companies in which MFs invest, just look at their charts) and started investing in some of the stocks which I commonly saw.. like HDFC, ITC, Voltas etc.

Coming back to yesterday... So yeah, I was checking Zerodha console and ET money capital gains report to understand how it has been.. I understood that I realised about 5.5L profit in stocks and 4.5L in MF. I mean realised, not unrealised.

>!It felt good. !<

I think I can consider myself very active in investing only since 2022 (SIP was only below 15K until then) and looking back, I think on an average, I have made about ~16K per month... More or less my rent (I pay only 8K per month now because I live in my hometown). So I have been living in a profitable way for the last many years. Some of you may argue that you don't know where that money went but I have gotten other enough investments like gold, land and I don't have any debt too.

What I am trying to say: No disrespect to any technical analysis people. I think its about fundamentals. You pick some good stocks, sit on it. I know I sound like preaching but I think we should sit on it atleast for 4 years. It's not a short game. IDK what strategy is this but I do hold some stocks now hoping that in 20 years or so I can gift them to my son... I guess, its all about patience, not being greedy, not being so dependent on it etc.

Everyone is using Claude or ChatGPT to build their decks now. And honestly, you can tell.

Not because AI is bad. But the output has a very specific fingerprint. Three boxes, some random icons, bullet points that say something but do not really mean anything. Gets the job done the same way a vending machine sandwich gets you through lunch.

The problem was never really design to begin with.

The consultants I worked with did not lose deals because their slides looked ugly. They lost them because the story was not there. Slide 4 contradicting slide 9. What should have been a tight 6-slide proposal turning into a 22-slide endurence test for the poor partner sitting across the table.

That is the gap AI has not closed. And I do not think it will anytime soon.

The real skill was always narrative. Knowing when to kill a slide. Knowing when the executive summary is doing too much heavy lifting. Knowing that the client needs to feel the problem before you show them the solution. That is something you develope over years, not something you prompt your way into.

PowerPoint plugins are making things faster, no complaints there. But faster at what is the real question.

Anyone in consulting or design seeing the same thing? Has the bar for good enough just gotten lower, or are clients starting to feel the difference?

Everyone is using Claude or ChatGPT to build their decks now. And honestly, you can tell.

Not because AI is bad. But the output has a very specific fingerprint. Three boxes, some random icons, bullet points that say something but do not really mean anything. Gets the job done the same way a vending machine sandwich gets you through lunch.

The problem was never really design to begin with.

The consultants I worked with did not lose deals because their slides looked ugly. They lost them because the story was not there. Slide 4 contradicting slide 9. What should have been a tight 6-slide proposal turning into a 22-slide endurence test for the poor partner sitting across the table.

That is the gap AI has not closed. And I do not think it will anytime soon.

The real skill was always narrative. Knowing when to kill a slide. Knowing when the executive summary is doing too much heavy lifting. Knowing that the client needs to feel the problem before you show them the solution. That is something you develope over years, not something you prompt your way into.

PowerPoint plugins are making things faster, no complaints there. But faster at what is the real question.

Anyone in consulting or design seeing the same thing? Has the bar for good enough just gotten lower, or are clients starting to feel the difference?