7th Gear Case Study | Adventure Travel Platform

The brief

What we were asked to solve.

7th Gear lists curated adventure experiences across India — Himalayan treks, Spiti Valley runs, Goa beach camps, Meghalaya caves, Rajasthan safaris, cycling circuits, paragliding, Kerala backwaters and more.

The commercial insight was that adventure travel is seasonal but community is not. So alongside the booking marketplace we built a contest engine and a community feed — reasons to open the app in the eleven months you are not on a trek.

The hard parts

Where this project was genuinely difficult.

CHALLENGE 01Browsing must not require an account

Gating the catalogue behind a signup kills discovery for a category people research for weeks before booking.

CHALLENGE 02Three products, one app

Marketplace, contests and community each pull the interface in a different direction. They had to coexist without the navigation collapsing.

CHALLENGE 03Supply comes from hosts, not the platform

Hosts create and manage their own experiences. That needs tooling good enough that they keep listings current, and controls strong enough to keep quality up.

CHALLENGE 04Payments and cancellations for trips months out

An adventure booked in March for October needs deposits, balance handling and a cancellation policy that is clear at the point of purchase.

What we built

The product, feature by feature.

01

Discovery and booking

Full catalogue browsable free, no account required
Filter by location, date, price and category — trekking, camping, biking, retreats, beaches, wildlife photography, spiritual, music festivals
Destination hubs for Himalayan treks, Rajasthan, Kerala, Northeast India, Goa and wildlife safaris
Save favourites and compare options across trips
Three-step booking: browse free → pick your adventure → book in one tap
Razorpay checkout with instant confirmation to the phone
My Bookings, with itinerary, host contact and cancellation terms in one place

02

Contest engine

Time-boxed contests with entry deadlines and prize configuration
Multiple formats — photography, storytelling and destination nomination
Entry submission with media upload
Community upvoting where the format calls for it
Winner selection, announcement and showcase placement

03

Community and hosts

Community feed for stories, photos and trip reports
Member profiles and follow relationships
Group trip discovery, so solo travellers can find companions
“Become a Host” onboarding with verification
Host console for listings, availability, pricing and bookings
Reviews tied to verified bookings

Approach

How we ran it.

STEP 01

Open the catalogue

We designed discovery to work fully logged-out, and put the signup at the point of booking only.

STEP 02

Marketplace core

Listings, availability, pricing, Razorpay checkout and the host console — the machinery that has to be right before anything else matters.

STEP 03

Retention layers

The contest engine and community feed were built on top, sharing the same identity and media infrastructure.

STEP 04

Apps and scale

iOS and Android alongside the web platform, with destination hubs for organic discovery.

DELIVEREDWhat shipped

A full marketplace with host self-service, so the catalogue grows without the platform.
Contests and a community feed giving travellers a reason to return off-season.
One-tap Razorpay booking with instant confirmation.
Destination and category hubs built for search discovery, not just in-app browsing.

PLATFORMWhat it runs on

iOS app Android app Web platform Host console Razorpay payments Contest engine Community feed Media pipeline

Live at travel7thgear.com

More work

Other things we have shipped.

HR & Workforce

Beam Time

A workforce product for teams that do not sit at desks: attendance, task assignment and live location tracking on iOS and Android, with an HR admin console behind it.

Read the case study →