#Insanestartupstories
“Annapurna”- A Fresh Home Made Food Distribution Network
Story Teller: Anirban Sengupta, Jeetu Katiyar, Rajat Barjatya, Rahul Kumar, Garima Tamuli
When people mention been there and done that, we wonder, Really?
So here is the first real life experience of #InsaneStartup
Annapurna, as we called it, a startup idea born out of the need of the hour.
2017, April, a month which pushed us into the oblivion and uncertainty. We had just moved on from our positions at a T Commerce organisation. We, A Leader and His Team, without a clue of what was in store for us, we decided Healthy Home Cooked Food was the ‘Startup Idea’. Thus the beginning of “Annapurna”-named after
the Hindu goddess of food and nourishment.
We started at our home kitchen. Day 1 had Roti (Indian Flat Bread), Chole ( Chickpea), Rice, Vegetable Curry and For Desert we had Payasam (An Indian Sweet Dish made with Rice and Milk). Each of these prepared at the home kitchens of 5 of us.
Our outlet, the boot of #marutisuzuki #ritz.
Our outlet location, the busy intersection of the business district of Sector 63, Noida, Uttar Pradesh, India
Outside Temperature maintained at 42 °C, the scorching Summer Heat flaring at us.
An outgoing team of an organisation including leadership team members, at the busy intersection of the business district at 12 pm, dropping their inhibitions, launches #Annapurna
Our USP, we served one glass of semi chilled RO water as complimentary with the food to quench the thirst.
And there we had our first walkin, rather a drive in, a young gentleman probably impressed with our #LouisPhilippe dresscode, or maybe driving in with inquisitiveness as to why us?
Soon we had more people moving in.
We were selling this whole meal for INR 50.
So one of our esteemed customers just enquired if he can get just Chole ( Chickpea) and Rice instead of the whole meal, which gave us the food for thought to quickly make the split to the menu.
Chole ( Chickpea) & Rice- INR 30
Roti (Indian Flat bread) and Vegetable Curry INR 30
Sweet dish was any which ways complimentary as a launch offer.
So our Ticket Value of INR 50 got split to add up to INR 60, an additional 10 bucks.
To be continued…
Learnings: Leaving a job unplanned or Loosing a Job unforeseen, does not mean you need to sit and wait for the next job offer to come across. Your startup idea can be as small as ours, your startup idea may not need you to be deep pocketed
Important to loose your inhibitions to unlearn and then learn again. Remember we had leadership team people including one Vice President of the organisation as part of the sales operations at the busy traffic junction.
One Idea Opens Up another one- Be open to change basis customer requirements. Splitting the meal led us to earn INR 60 instead of INR50. 10 bucks more. Not bad. Thank you to the esteemed customer who requested the split on the menu.
“Annapurna”- A Fresh Home Made Food Distribution Network
So Annapurna was taking baby steps of growth. Day 1 was encouraging, inspiring for day 2, the number of customers started increasing, just when the Yogi Government decided to eradicate the road side hawkers, and there we were ” The Corporate Hawkers”. The police started hounding our vehicle everytime we pulled up to set up our food joint.
We changed locations, we changed lanes, we pulled down the hatchback door everytime we saw the cops coming. Survival was threatened.
A realization, that off the boot we can’t expand our operations and we cant grow beyond a certain level.
As we were pondering over what next, a brilliant brain rattled and thus was the birth of the Rajma (Kidney Beans) Chawal (Rice) Re-evolution.
The dictionary meaning of Evolution meant, gradual change over time and that of Revolution meant fundamental and relatively sudden change. So this was a quick evolution and thus termed as Re-evolution.
One of our partners had an interesting observation, the road side tea stalls or the smoke hubs ( Where people burn their lungs out and their frustrations as well), had a steady flow of repeat customers who would always visit the same stalls for their hot cup of tea or the blissful smoke.
Bingo! We had our distribution network already in place.
These tea stalls and smoke hubs would be the Annapurna franchisees.
Zero investment and assured high returns worked out to be lucrative offering for these franchisees.
Next day the hand made boards adorned their store fascias. Annapurna-Home Made Rajma Chawal, it read and on the store front we had these well packed mini boxes of Rajma (Kidney beans) and Chawal ( Rice). The customers who walked in for a cuppa or for a smoke left with a box of hot Rajma Chawal.
And we left early for the day with the monies from these Franchisees.
A food distribution network well set in place
Learnings – 1)Let a problem be visualized as an opportunity.
Creative thinking in difficult times helps with an altogether different Avenue
2) You need not have a huge setup to setup a distribution network. Explore even the smallest player already existing in the trade who has a set customer base. Piggyback on the already set network
3)Agility is the key, or you miss the bus, if you don’t, someone else will.
4) Lean Setup helps to control costs and improve efficiencies
