Design Cleartrip for Business for startups and small companies that have no travel desk

Introduction

Cleartrip for Business is Cleartrip's offering for companies that want to book and manage work travel. Large enterprises usually run travel through a travel management company with negotiated rates and dedicated agents. Startups and small companies are different: they rarely have a travel desk, the founder or an office manager books flights on a personal card, and finance teams chase employees for GST invoices at the end of the month.

The prompt asks me to design Cleartrip for Business for startups and small companies with no travel desk. This is a B2B design problem, so I'll map multiple stakeholders before picking a user, then design and measure the solution.

Step 1

Clarify Questions (3 minutes)

• What size of company are we targeting?

• Why it matters: A 15-person startup and a 500-person firm need very different controls.
• Hypothetical answer: Companies with 10 to 200 employees and no dedicated travel manager.
• Impact: Setup must take minutes, with sensible defaults rather than complex policy builders.

• Which products are in scope?

• Why it matters: Flights are the bulk of business travel spend, but hotels drive most policy violations.
• Hypothetical answer: Domestic flights and hotels first; trains and buses later.
• Impact: We design for the flight-plus-hotel trip, which is the typical sales or client visit.

• What is the business goal for Cleartrip?

• Why it matters: Growth in accounts, gross bookings and retention lead to different priorities.
• Hypothetical answer: Grow active business accounts and their monthly booking value, because business travellers book more often and are less price sensitive than leisure travellers.
• Impact: We'll optimise for repeat usage across a company, not one-off sign-ups.

• Is credit or invoicing in scope?

• Why it matters: Consolidated billing is a strong hook but carries credit risk.
• Hypothetical answer: Yes, but only through a partner and for verified companies.
• Impact: We can include a pay-later option as a later phase.

Propose the Goal

Make Cleartrip the default way a small Indian company books, approves and accounts for work travel, so that founders spend less time on travel admin and finance teams get clean, GST-compliant records automatically.

Define the Scope

Self-serve web and mobile product for SMEs: company sign-up, employee booking, approvals, policy, GST invoicing and reporting. Out of scope: large-enterprise integrations with HR systems and international travel.