Dubai: Why would a digital visa platform processing more than 700,000 visa applications a year decide to open a physical experience centre in Dubai?For many technology companies, growth means moving further online. For Mohak Nahta, Founder and CEO of Atlys, it means meeting customers wherever they feel most comfortable: whether that is through an app or across a desk."Our app already enables travellers to complete their entire visa journey end to end, and that will continue to be at the heart of what we do," Nahta says. "The centre complements it, giving customers another way to engage with Atlys, particularly those who value expert guidance before an important travel decision."He adds: "For us, the focus has always been the experience, whichever medium delivers it. The centre simply meets travellers where they are."The launch marks the latest chapter in a journey that spans three continents: from Nahta's childhood in India and his formative years in the US technology sector to Dubai, where Atlys is deepening its presence in one of the world's most internationally connected markets.Curiosity before entrepreneurshipLong before Atlys raised approximately $73 million from investors including Peak XV Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, Elevation Capital and Susquehanna Asia Venture Capital, Nahta had developed a habit that would later shape his career: teaching himself how to solve problems.Growing up in India, he was encouraged to pursue his interests rather than follow a predetermined path, a freedom he credits with building his ability to learn independently."My family never pushed me into anything. I had full freedom, which in practice meant my interests changed every three months," he says. "But because nobody was forcing me down a specific path, I had to figure out how to learn things myself. If you want to build something and no one is going to teach you, you learn to tinker, break things and fix them."That mindset led him to Carnegie Mellon University, where he studied Computer Science and immersed himself in an environment known for rigorous problem-solving."CMU is rigorous, and it forces you to think from first principles," he says. "It gave me the technical foundation to build whatever I could imagine, but more importantly, it put me around people who were already building real things."Don't set out to be an entrepreneur. It's the wrong framing. Find a problem that is annoying enough that you'd solve it for free, then build a solution that is so useful it would be a tragedy if it disappeared.By graduation, he had gained something equally valuable: confidence in his ability to learn quickly. "If I did not know how to do something, I could learn it fast enough to matter."A personal frustration becomes a business ideaAfter university, Nahta moved to Silicon Valley and joined Pinterest as a software engineer. The experience exposed him to world-class product development, but the idea for Atlys emerged from a far more personal source.While planning a multi-country trip with colleagues, Nahta found himself facing paperwork for multiple visa applications while his American teammates booked travel with relative ease. "Every country demanded nearly identical documents, yet the process remained repetitive, slow and opaque," he recalls.Having travelled extensively, visa hurdles were nothing new. This time, however, the inefficiency stood out so sharply that he decided to build a solution. "I envisioned a solution where one could upload their documents once and become visa-ready for multiple countries, and I built it for myself, as a side project."The project quickly spread beyond its original purpose. Friends started using it, then friends of friends. The demand signalled a problem far bigger than his own."The organic pull made it clear this was something millions of travellers experienced." Convinced he had identified a genuine market need, Nahta left Pinterest to build Atlys full-time.Learning the hard wayThe path to Atlys was not built solely on successes.Before launching the company, Nahta had created a marketplace that connected travellers carrying products overseas with people who wanted them delivered. The venture failed, but it left him with a lesson that would fundamentally shape his approach to business."The reason stuck," he says. "I had focused on everything except the product itself."Seeking to sharpen his product instincts, he spent time working closely with experienced leaders at Pinterest, where he learned the importance of deeply understanding users. "Products live or die on how deeply you understand the person using them."The Silicon Valley environment reinforced another principle that continues to influence Atlys today. "When a skill matters, you spend the nights it takes to build it, and you stay ahead of the curve."Together, those lessons became the foundation of the company's operating philosophy: understand customers, learn quickly and move fast.Building trust one traveller at a timeLaunching a startup in a heavily regulated industry came with a unique challenge: earning credibility.In the early days, Nahta focused less on scale and more on direct engagement with travellers. When changes to a country's visa regulations created widespread confusion, he took an unconventional approach. "I stood at San Francisco International Airport wearing a T-shirt that read 'Got Questions on Turkey e-Visa'," he says.The exercise was hardly scalable, but it provided something more valuable: direct insight into travellers' concerns and frustrations.Today, Atlys tackles those concerns through technology. According to Nahta, the company focuses on solving two core problems in visa processing: uncertainty and trust."The first is inherent to visas: uncertainty," he says. "We use extensive data processing to predict timelines and success rates."The goal is to provide travellers with greater clarity about their applications and reduce the anxiety that often accompanies international travel planning.Trust, meanwhile, is earned through transparency."A new market owes you nothing, and trust has to be earned from zero," he says.To reinforce that trust, Atlys publicly shares customer feedback, including critical reviews and the improvements made in response.Why Dubai mattersFollowing its $36 million Series C funding round, Atlys has intensified its focus on the UAE, now its largest market outside India.For Nahta, Dubai offers a rare combination of ambition, diversity and global reach."What makes Dubai interesting for entrepreneurs is the combination of ambition and execution," he says. "It is a market where ideas can be tested quickly, consumers are open to adopting new solutions, and companies can build with a global audience in mind from day one."The city's multicultural makeup is particularly valuable for a business built around international mobility."UAE attracts expatriates from all parts of the world, which means travellers of dozens of nationalities applying to destinations across the world."The new experience centre is designed to strengthen that relationship with travellers. Customers can receive in-person guidance, verify documents and seek reassurance before continuing the rest of the process digitally."We expect it to act as a trust compounder," Nahta says. "The confidence a traveller builds at their first touchpoint carries into everything they do with Atlys digitally."Still thinking like an engineerDespite leading a global company, Nahta insists his core mindset remains unchanged."What changed when I became a founder? Nothing important. I still think like an engineer." The difference, he says, is that the systems he now analyses extend well beyond software."An engineer is someone who can't look at a broken thing without wanting to know why. That used to mean software bugs. Now it means one-star reviews, operations, how a support agent talks to a customer."At Atlys, customer-service issues are treated much like technical failures. "We treat bad customer service the way you'd treat a crashing app. You find the bug and patch it."That engineering mindset is now guiding the company's next phase. Atlys is integrating artificial intelligence across the travel journey, from reviewing documents and catching application errors before submission to potentially handling travel compliance, insurance and claims in the future.Yet despite building one of travel technology's notable success stories, Nahta's advice to aspiring founders remains remarkably straightforward."Don't set out to be an entrepreneur. It's the wrong framing," he says. "Find a problem that is annoying enough that you'd solve it for free, then build a solution that is so useful it would be a tragedy if it disappeared."For Nahta, that problem was the visa process. What began as a personal frustration has since grown into a global platform: one now betting that the future of digital travel services sometimes starts with a face-to-face conversation.
