Pune Entrepreneurs Prefer Hiring Rural Candidates Over IIM-IIT grads; Clock ₹ 52 Lakh Monthly By Giving AI Services To Travel Companies

If you have been to an IIM or know someone who is an alumnus – you know the shared, common dream that ties everyone together.

The dream of living a corporate life. Wake up in the morning, dress up, attend a fancy office with endless coffee and cookies, do work that leaves a tangible impact, and come home feeling fulfilled and tired, but in a good way.

But if you've ever come across students who have passed out of rural colleges and institutions, you'll see this same dream in their eyes. Except that they know it's out of their reach.

A fancy office with an elevator and coffee? No.

Just a job would do, honestly.

But two people, Yogesh Chaudhari and Komal Ghare, decided to turn things around.

They knew that there is, in fact, unlimited talent in rural India, just no one to properly train and utilize it.

They knew that they could bring the corporate life to these rural freshers.

“Right from the beginning, ever since Yogesh and I collaborated for small-scale client projects in the field of technology, we have been driven with an unwavering mission of helping rural people realize their potential and make a salary that justifies it,” Komal Ghare, co-founder of Zeal Connect, tells Startup Pedia in an exclusive interview.

Founded in 2024 and based in Dawadi, Pune, Zeal Connect is a global travel automation platform that streamlines and enhances travel operations for travel companies. 

Currently, in 2025, it clocks a monthly revenue of ₹ 52 lakh.

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HOW IT ALL BEGAN

Hailing from the Jalgaon village in Maharashtra, Yogesh Chaudhari completed his education in the village itself.

“I always wanted to grow up and work in tech. But my parents, despite believing in the power of education, thought that this wasn't possible,” Yogesh Chaudhari shares.

Right after completing his engineering degree, he moved to the city of Pune.

But a shock awaited him…

There was a clear gap between the kind of skills his rural college had made him absorb and the skills corporate employers were looking for.

“Right from speaking to organizing and actively initiating things, I discovered that the corporate world has a set way to do everything. I spent eighteen months in Pune just learning these skills and improving my knowledge in the tech realm,” Yogesh tells Startup Pedia.

He finally landed roles in corporates and worked as a Software Engineer and Technical Lead.

For Komal Ghare, the initial days were more or less similar. Hailing from a rural village called Dawadi in Pune, she completed her engineering degree from the Savitribai Phule Pune University.

“I wanted to stay in Pune after college, but didn't have enough money to get accommodation there. So I undertook a local teaching job in my village, saved money, and ultimately moved to Pune. Next, I did a CDAC course that led me to secure my first job as a software engineer,” Komal Ghare explains.

Yogesh and Komal met in Pune – they immediately connected over their common journeys and the challenges they had to navigate to transition from village life to the corporate corridors.

They were each doing their own jobs when they started freelancing in tech and automation on the side.

In 2024, they received a small-scale project from a client. This project needed more than two pairs of hands.

“We knew it was time to start building our own team. But instead of going through the conventional route of hiring freshers from urban colleges, we decided to help other rural youngsters who might be going through the same plight that we had in our initial days,” entrepreneur Yogesh Chaudhari says.

Almost immediately, Yogesh and Komal decided to set up a small office space in Komal’s village in Dawadi, Pune. This office space was set up in Komal’s house itself.

The mission was simple: bridge the rural-urban divide and ensure that rural talent was utilized.

“Talent does not have a PIN code. This became almost a sacred mantra for us,” Komal mentions.

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EARLY JOURNEY AND CHALLENGES

In the beginning, Yogesh and Komal barely had enough resources. So they decided to make do with what they had and got an Internet connection from a town 14 kilometres away from Komal’s home.

A small office was set up. Close to 15 roles were designed. And hiring calls were made.

What happened next blew their minds – more than 1,200 applications came in for these 15 roles.

“We knew that we had made the right decision. The gap we had discovered was real. The problem was real. And now, we knew that our solution would leave an impact,” startup founder Komal Ghare says.

Initially, they hired 26 people to take on these roles. Komal and Yogesh began training them in communication, technical skills, and overall industry know-how.

With time, they started taking part in the founders’ tech projects, and things began falling into place.

Eventually, Yogesh and Komal converted the latter’s house into an office.

“We spent almost all the money that we would earn through client tech projects and gigs on the office construction and our workforce salaries. We didn't mind it, also, because we knew we were building for the long-term,” startup founder Komal Ghare says.

While working with numerous clients, Komal and Yogesh also got in touch with global travel companies for a project here, a gig there.

But a larger issue surfaced: travel companies were doing a lot of manual operations that were leading to inefficiencies, a rise in costs, and a loss of business.

Together, Komal Ghare and Yogesh Chaudhari decided to utilize their tech background and build a platform that could automate repetitive travel processes and introduce speed to them. Here, they envisioned connecting rural talent with artificial intelligence and smart agents.

This was the beginning of Zeal Connect in 2024.

Later, in 2025, Pranav Kale joined Yogesh and Komal as co-founder and CTO to lead all tech initiatives.

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ZEAL CONNECT: ADDING AI TO TRAVEL OPERATIONS

Startup founders Yogesh Chaudhari and Komal Ghare, along with their team, have built an AI-based solution that directly helps travel companies like agents, tour operators, and online travel platforms.

“These travel companies have a lot of stuff to do every single day – dealing with hotel staff, customers, vendors, and managing hundreds of hotel and flight bookings. What they used to do manually is now automated and made 10x efficient through Zeal Connect,” entrepreneur Yogesh Chaudhari tells Startup Pedia.

Zeal Connect directly creates a unified system for travel companies and agents that seamlessly blends with their existing tools. It automates complex workflow processes and offers real-time insights (like cost leaks, SLA breaches) to optimize the business.

The global travel automation platform’s features include, but are not limited to:

1. Automatically reconfirms hotel bookings with the hotel staff.

2. Efficiently redirects a travel inquiry to the right team equipped to handle it.

3. Automates travel quotes to send to the customer.

4. Automatically suggests add-ons to the customer, like travel insurance, guided tours, and airport pickups.

5. Offers travel companies a conversational AI that can handle WhatsApp chats, calls, email, and SMS communication.

As a global travel automation platform, Zeal Connect promises a 40% cost reduction, a whopping 90% automation rate, a 100% completion rate, and 24/7 global coverage.

In just one year, the platform has automated more than 5,00,000 hotel confirmations and saved several crores in operational costs for numerous travel companies.

“Our clients tell us that Zeal Connect has literally eased the daily headaches that travel companies have to grapple with,” Yogesh says.

“We are especially proud of this achievement because it was made possible by rural people, who otherwise would’ve probably never had the opportunity to develop tech like this and leave a tangible impact,” Komal adds.

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GROWTH

Today, Komal’s house in Dawadi runs as a fully functioning corporate office. The founders also have an office in Pimpri Chinchwad and are currently hiring for various positions for their soon-to-open office in Ahilyanagar (previously Ahmednagar).

“We are proud to announce the opening of our third branch in Ahilyanagar, Maharashtra. This marks a significant milestone in Zeal Connect’s mission to bring meaningful employment and world-class tech opportunities to rural India,” says Yogesh.

Presently, more than 100 people work at Zeal Connect, and all of them come from rural backgrounds with no fancy IIM or IIT degrees, but just raw passion and potential that Yogesh Chadhari and Komal Ghare unwaveringly believe in.

While the platform has not disclosed its revenue for FY24, it has mentioned to Startup Pedia that Zeal Connect is clocking Rs 52 lakh of monthly revenue since April 2025.

“Rural youngsters often grow up with a lot of insecurities about their education and employment potential. At Zeal Connect, we are helping dismantle these very insecurities and exposing our rural talent to endless opportunities. We’d pick someone from a village over an IIT grad anyday. And while we are at it, we continue revolutionizing travel operations in India and abroad,” Komal Ghare signs off.