Hey visitor, myself Malay Oza, founder of ForestRP.

I am a travel enthusiast and a self-taught developer.

I officially founded ForestRP what it is now half a year ago but was actually working on tech for more than 2 years now. What was I doing? Well I thought coding has to be easy and honestly it is, but I learned hard way that it is not same as coming up with and writing logic which is what a developer is valued for.

I started with a goal to help organisations & communities associated with forests by digitising forest management with an ERP and hence the name ForesRP! I built a POC and went asking for help to understand how forests are managed(kind of a quick training I can use to conclude my product) but then again reality had to kick in, it doesn't matter you are building something necessary and on the right path, forests in India are primarily run by government and they mostly take decisions based on SOPs, and none of them said they can help a for profit startup this way, can help researchers and students, not a startup. There were huge private reserves outside India, but I didn't have funds to go there. So, there was no way I can complete an ERP on my own(which btw may not be relevant without on ground experience I have been seeking) and no one would fund unless I had hands on experience,a classic chicken and egg story!

I was standing at a dead end which is when I struck me that I may not have an ERP, but I had a goal and a core code, a transaction system which was great for a marketplace like project, so what can I do with it? Again, answer was right there, part of my ERP was a reservation system for ecotourism run by forest departments which I was going to give to run on our client's own servers connecting to their own websites. Of course there is more to the story which you can find in Startup's story .

So? I pivoted from ERP with ecotourism reservation system to a nature/ecotourism reservation platform(an OTA) with a Partner App(toned down SAAS version of an ERP), created a pitch, applied to several incubators and got selected at IIT Mandi Catalyst which I recently completed with a demo day back in mid september.

Yeah, of course I am running with a delay on my go-live targets but I have just managed to do a prototype test run at regional private nature reserve which gave me some validation that I am heading right direction, that there is a need of what I am building.

Sorry if I bored you & thanks if you reached till here, but I assure you that things are going to get really exciting ahead. Stay tuned or may be let's talk if you like my story and think if there is something you can do to add value to the goals I am madly perusing to achieve!