Phanindra Sama remembers only too clearly the inspiration behind his business. “RedBus was started because of a personal pain point,” he says. “I couldn’t get a bus ticket.”

It was October 2005 and Mr Sama, who is known to everyone in his company simply as “Phani”, was heading home to celebrate Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights. The journey involved a trip from Bangalore to his parents’ home near Hyderabad, nearly 600km to the north.

“I went to this travel agent to book a ticket. He made a few phone calls to the bus operators and told me there were no seats,” says Mr Sama. He tried four more agents. All called a couple of bus companies, but none could find a seat. Even more frustrating, all of the agents told him there might be a ticket out there – they just couldn’t locate it.