“India Is Moving From Consumption-Led Leisure To Experience-Led Living” - Vivek Kumar, Founder & CEO, Alive App

India’s leisure economy is undergoing a significant shift. Urban consumers, particularly millennials and Gen Z, are increasingly moving beyond traditional entertainment and spending more time and money on experiences that feel meaningful, social, and memorable. From wellness and adventure to culture, creativity, and community-led activities, experiences are becoming a larger part of how people choose to spend their free time.

With over 12 years of industry experience, Vivek launched Alive in 2023 after a career break made him realize a significant gap in India's urban ecosystem: the lack of curated, meaningful everyday activities. Today, Alive isn't just a discovery marketplace; it is an AI-powered "experience factory" that designs, packages, and distributes unique lifestyle, adventure, and wellness experiences across India's major metro hubs.

In this conversation, Vivek opens up about the rise of India's experiential economy, changing consumer behaviors, the challenges of building a new-age lifestyle platform, and his vision for the future of consumer internet which he believes will be shaped by hyperlocal discovery, personalisation, and experience-led living.

Q. Tell us about the idea behind Alive. What gap in the market were you trying to solve?

Alive started with a simple insight: people want to spend their time doing meaningful, memorable things, but discovering high-quality experiences in India was surprisingly difficult. Most options available were either generic events, tourist-style activities, or fragmented listings with very little curation or trust.

We saw a clear gap for a platform that could bring together unique, well-designed experiences across categories such as adventure, wellness, food, culture, creativity, and premium lifestyle. The idea was to make discovering “what to do” as seamless and exciting as booking a movie or ordering food.

At Alive, we call ourselves the “Experience Factory” because our focus is not just on listing experiences, but on creating and scaling high-quality experiences that people genuinely look forward to.

Q. Was there a defining personal experience or insight that led to the creation of Alive?

Yes. In 2023, I took a six-month break after working continuously for nearly 12 years. For the first time in a long while, I had both time and the financial freedom to explore the city and do new things. But despite living in Bangalore, I realised there were very few meaningful leisure options beyond cafés, pubs, and movies.

At the same time, whenever I travelled to Europe or other Asian cities, I noticed how deeply integrated experiences were into urban culture. There were thousands of things to discover workshops, wellness activities, adventure formats, cultural experiences, community-led events, and more.

That contrast made me realise there was a massive gap in India’s leisure ecosystem. I felt there was an opportunity to build a company that could create and scale thousands of new experiences across Indian cities, and that became the foundation for Alive.

Q. How would you describe the shift happening in India’s leisure and experiences economy today?

India is moving from consumption-led leisure to experience-led living.

For years, leisure was largely centred around restaurants, malls, movies, and travel. Today, especially among urban consumers, people are looking for experiences that feel more personal, memorable, and emotionally rewarding. They do not just want to go somewhere; they want to learn something, feel something, try something new, and create stories worth remembering.

This shift is also becoming visible in spending behaviour. Consumers are increasingly prioritising experiences over products, whether it is wellness, adventure, live events, food-led experiences, culture, or community-driven activities.

What is most interesting is that experiences are no longer reserved for vacations or special occasions. They are becoming part of everyday life, weekend plans, dates, birthdays, solo activities, team outings, and even spontaneous same-day discoveries. People are beginning to value their free time differently, and they want to spend it in richer, more meaningful ways.

Q. What consumer behaviour changes are you seeing among urban millennials and Gen Z when it comes to spending on experiences?

We are seeing very distinct behavioural patterns across both groups.

Gen Z is strongly drawn towards social, adventurous, and visually engaging experiences — activities that are exciting, shareable, and create strong memories. They are highly discovery-driven and often look for experiences that feel unique and “Instagrammable.”

Millennials, on the other hand, are leaning more towards premium, meaningful, and quality-driven experiences. They are increasingly spending on wellness, learning, self-improvement, curated travel, intimate gatherings, and experiences that feel more intentional and enriching.

What connects both groups is a growing willingness to spend on experiences that create emotional value rather than just transactional consumption.

Q. Alive operates in a space that sits between discovery, social engagement, and commerce. How do you define the company today?

Alive is a full-stack experiences platform that designs, builds, launches, and distributes curated experiences.

We are not just a discovery platform or a marketplace. We work across the entire lifecycle from identifying consumer demand and shaping experiences to helping partners package, position, distribute, and scale them. Our goal is to build the infrastructure layer for India’s growing experiences economy.

Q. What have been some of the biggest challenges in building and scaling Alive so far?`

Lifestyle experiences is a new category in India so the biggest challenge in the beginning was to educate partners and VCs about the product and this category. Luckily customers understood this category on Day 1. 

Another challenge has been scaling supply in the beginning. It used to take more than a month to launch a new experience. We had to innovate a lot to build a tech product which could scale launching new experiences. Last month we launched 78 new experiences in 1 month.

Q. How has the response from users and partners evolved since launch?

The response has evolved from curiosity to habit.

In the early days, users came to Alive to explore something new. Over time, we started seeing repeat behaviour around weekend plans, dates, birthdays, celebrations, team outings, and social occasions. That shift has been very encouraging because it shows that experiences are becoming part of people’s regular lifestyle decisions.

On the partner side, the shift has been equally encouraging. Many partners now see Alive not just as a booking channel, but as a platform that helps them build a new monetisation channel for them in the form of experiences.

Q. What differentiates Alive from other platforms operating in the experiences or discovery space?

What differentiates Alive is our focus on curation, trust, and experience design not just listings.

We are not simply aggregating activities. We actively curate experiences, work closely with partners, and focus heavily on quality, presentation, safety, and execution. Our goal is to ensure that users can book with confidence and consistently discover experiences that feel memorable rather than routine.

For partners, we go beyond being a transaction platform. We help them refine their offerings, improve positioning, and create stronger demand for new forms of leisure and entertainment.

Q. How important is hyperlocal and curated discovery in the future of leisure consumption?

Hyperlocal and curated discovery will become extremely important because leisure decisions are increasingly spontaneous and occasion-driven.

People are often looking for something to do this weekend, tonight, for a date, birthday, or team outing. In those moments, they want options that are nearby, relevant, trusted, and easy to book.

Curation becomes the trust layer. It reduces decision fatigue and helps people discover experiences that genuinely match their mood, interests, and intent. The future of leisure is not about endless options, it is about relevant, high-quality choices.

Q. What role does technology and data play in personalising experiences for users on Alive?

Technology and data play a critical role in making discovery more relevant and intuitive.

We look at signals such as location, browsing behaviour, interests, booking history, occasions, and category preferences to better understand what a user may enjoy next. This helps us personalise recommendations based on context, whether someone is planning a date, a weekend outing, a solo activity, or a team experience.

We also use tech to design new experiences. We have built an AI powered stack that helps design new experiences, handle customer support, create videos at scale to inspire our users which leads to bookings on the platform.

Our larger goal is to reduce decision fatigue and help users discover the right experience at the right moment.

Q. Which cities or markets have shown the strongest traction for Alive and why?

The strongest traction has come from Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi, and Chennai.

These cities have large populations of young professionals, higher discretionary spending, and a growing appetite for lifestyle-led experiences. They also have strong creator ecosystems and a willingness among consumers to explore plans beyond conventional dining or entertainment.

Bangalore, in particular, has been a strong early market because consumers there are highly open to experimentation and discovery.

Q. What does success look like for Alive over the next 2–3 years?

Over the next few years, success for Alive means becoming the default answer to the question: “What should we do this weekend?”

We want to build the most trusted platform in India for discovering and booking curated experiences, across weekends, dates, celebrations, solo exploration, wellness, and team outings.

At a broader level, we want Alive to help shape a new leisure culture in India, where people spend more time on experiences that feel memorable, meaningful, and emotionally enriching.

Q. As a founder, what leadership lessons have stayed with you through the journey of building Alive?

1. Building a quality business takes time. Before scaling the company, foundation needs to be set right and that requires patience in a world where everyone is chasing hyper growth.

2. The first set of people who join the team set the pace and getting this right is very important. One needs to quickly build a team which trusts each other and that comes from culture.

3. Always aim to build a product which is much better than what is available in the market. Which means setting a very high bar and ensuring that both internal and external stakeholders are aligned to deliver exceptional value to the customer.

Q. What trends do you believe will define the next phase of India’s consumer internet and lifestyle ecosystem?

The next phase will be driven by hyperlocal discovery, personalisation, and experience-led commerce.

Consumers, especially millennials and Gen Z, increasingly want platforms that understand their city, preferences, mood, and social context. Discovery is becoming more personalised and intent-driven.

At the same time, aspirational spending is expanding beyond products. Young consumers are spending more on wellness, travel, events, experiences, learning, and lifestyle-driven activities that reflect identity and self-expression.

Q. What is your larger vision for Alive in shaping how people spend their free time and discover experiences?

Our vision is to make Alive the default destination for discovering how to spend your free time.

We want to help people move beyond repetitive plans and discover experiences that feel exciting, meaningful, and memorable, whether that is adventure, wellness, culture, food, creativity, or something completely unexpected.

At a larger level, we want to help shape a culture where people do not just consume more, but live more through experiences.

Q. If you had to describe Alive in one sentence to someone hearing about it for the first time, what would you say?

Alive is a curated experiences platform that helps people discover and book unique things to do around them, from adventure and wellness to food, art, culture, and memorable weekend plans.

Alive is a full stack tech platform to build unique, hard-to-find experiences across India and to distribute them to millions of urban Indians.