Recently my partner, a nurse in the NHS, and I were discussing our holiday, and she was keen to take in a conference whilst we traveled.  An alternative suggestion was to spend a few days on a kind of busman’s holiday and visit a few interesting health startups in Europe, with a particular interest in perhaps shadowing some Buurtzog nurses for a while.

In a bygone age, such a field trip was considered a fine way to learn about how other organizations operate, but you sense that with the Internet making case studies travel at instant speed around the world, it is not so necessary to actually travel to learn these insights.

Startup tours

An Indian startup suggests that the concept is not a complete anachronism however.  The venture, called ExploreLifeTravel, offers travelers an Airbnb like experience, albeit with the aim of showing folks around the local startup scene.

Travelers are offered a tour of four startups in the Bangalore area over the course of a day.  Whilst it’s likely that my partner will have to foot the bill for her own experience herself, ExploreLifeTraveling’s experience is free of charge to any entrepreneur interested in learning more about startup life in the city.

Now, it should be mentioned that ExploreLifeTraveling own a startup ‘hub’ themselves, called Startup House, which is of course on the itinerary, and there is undoubtedly a motivation there to show off their work and help attract investors to the startups under their roof.

Nevertheless, it’s a nice idea, with travelers spending around an hour with each startup, with that time divided between a tour of the office, some interaction with the founders and a slot for Q&A.

The offering builds out of the core offer of ExploreLifeTraveling, which is an Airbnb style aggregation site to provide travelers with homestays in India to hopefully learn about the local culture via their host as well as having nice places to stay.

Broadly speaking, I think the idea of traveling around companies to learn how things work still has a lot of value and gives a richer understanding than a basic case study would.  Would such a venture work in the west?  Let me know in the comments below, and check out the video to see more about the tour.