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How We Bounced Back from Near Collapse to ₹121 Cr in Revenue | Rashmi Daga (FreshMenu)
145 Plays4 years ago
"In India, ideas are everywhere, but you get rewarded for execution."
This was the core conviction that led Rashmi Daga to build a full-stack food brand, taking on the immense operational challenges of controlling everything from the kitchen to the customer's doorstep—a bet against the asset-light models that dominated the startup world.
About The Guest
Rashmi Daga is the founder of FreshMenu , the pioneering food-tech brand that helped define the cloud kitchen model in India. An alumna of the prestigious IIM-Ahmedabad , she led FreshMenu through a period of meteoric growth, scaling to over ₹122 crores in revenue and clocking up to 20,000 orders a day. After navigating a near-fatal funding crisis that saw revenues plummet by over 60% , she orchestrated a gritty comeback, returning the company to ₹121 Cr in revenue and a clear path to profitability.
In this candid conversation with host Akshay Datt, Rashmi unpacks the invaluable lessons learned from her journey of resilience, execution, and brand-building.
Key Insights from the Conversation:
- Full-Stack Conviction: Rashmi deliberately chose an operationally-heavy, full-stack model to control the end-to-end customer experience and long-term margins, believing execution is the ultimate differentiator in the Indian market.
- The Aggregator's Dilemma: For survival, FreshMenu was forced to pivot from a direct-to-consumer brand to listing on platforms like Swiggy and Zomato, sacrificing significant margins in exchange for visibility in a hyper-competitive market.
- Resilience & The Comeback: After a funding freeze brought the company to the brink of collapse, a focus on fundamentals—menu re-engineering, supply chain optimization, and improved unit economics—powered a remarkable revival.
- Data-Driven Innovation: From its early days, FreshMenu leveraged data to power a constantly rotating menu, track customer preferences, and minimize food waste, which was a key driver of operational efficiency.
Chapters
(00:00) Introduction
(01:22) The "No Repeat" Career: Building Skills Across IBM, J&J, and TutorVista
(10:06) My First "Practice Run": Invaluable Lessons from a Failed Startup (Afday.com)
(17:21) The Founding Thesis: Why FreshMenu Chose a Full-Stack Model Over Aggregation
(22:07) Zero to One: How to Hire Your First Chef and Acquire Early Customers
(26:05) The Brutal Food-Tech Wars: Navigating Hyper-Growth and a Near-Death Experience
(32:52) Data-Driven Menu: The Secret Behind FreshMenu's Constant Innovation
(41:45) A Founder's Hardest Job: Tough Lessons in Hiring, Firing & Setting Culture
(52:04) The Great Reset: How a Crisis Led to a Stronger, More Resilient Business
(58:45) The Road Ahead: FreshMenu's Playbook for 10x Growth and Profitability
Hashtags
#FounderThesis #StartupPodcast #RashmiDaga #FreshMenu #Entrepreneurship #StartupIndia #BusinessPodcast #CloudKitchen #FoodTech #AkshayDatt #FounderStory #VentureCapital #WomenInBusiness #StartupLessons #IIMAhmedabad
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Transcript
Introduction and Repeated Phrase
00:00:01
Speaker
Take me on a tour. Take me on a tour. Take me on a tour. Take me on a tour. Take me on a tour. Take me on a tour. Take me on a tour. Take me on a tour. Take me on a tour.
Empowering Women Entrepreneurs in India
00:00:27
Speaker
In the traditional male-dominated society of India, a woman's place is in the kitchen. But a new breed of female entrepreneurs are shattering the glass ceiling and breaking the mold by blazing their own trail, be it in the kitchen or in the corporate world. And Rashmi Daga is one such superwoman.
00:00:45
Speaker
She has always made the most unconventional career choices a woman can make, from doing engineering in a male-dominated field, to joining a career in sales, to eventually quitting the corporate world to start up her food deck venture, Fresh Menu. Joy Nakshaitat, in this fascinating conversation with Rashmi Daga, founded a Fresh Menu who talks about her mission to build an iconic Indian food brand and organization.
00:01:11
Speaker
Did you have a plan that, okay, I want to do a job for a couple of years and then start my own or was it organic?
Rashmi Daga's Career Journey
00:01:21
Speaker
No, I think a few years of job was important because I think we just finished education and you have no real life, real world experience and I think it was important to just go out there, work and really learn the ropes of doing a business.
00:01:37
Speaker
I think after the first, so I had worked for seven years before I bootstrapped a startup and started again. So yeah, I think it needed a few years of experience.
00:01:47
Speaker
Looking behind, I think it was more organic. But yeah, I think it was sure that you have to build some experience before you jump in. Okay. So where did you join from campus? IBM. So I joined as a relationship manager in the IBM sales team in Delhi. And this was like hardcore B2B sales. This was hardcore B2B sales. Yes. Selling everything right from a desktop laptop to the
00:02:11
Speaker
IBM software, data center services, etc. So yeah, the end-to-end spectrum with a set of accounts. And then you switched into like an FMCG kind of a role. So why did you make that switch from B2B to a B2C kind of a thing?
00:02:26
Speaker
So the truth is, for the first two and a half years at IBM and the role was going very well. I think I learned so much about work, life, about sales and really, you know, standing for your own self in the IBM space. But my fear there was that, you know, for lifelong I'll remain an IT salesperson.
00:02:46
Speaker
Because at that time I was seeing people around me who were doing that same thing for last 10 years, 20 years. Obviously they were handling like say a different size of account or different size of business, but it was typically the sales profile. And I think I was kind of a little jittery to imagine myself doing the same thing for all my life. So it was more the fear of being stuck in doing the same thing that I moved out.
00:03:11
Speaker
The other reason why I joined J&J Medical was more to learn the FMCG style of work which is more distribution, more feet on street and really being on the ground and it was still early years so I really wanted to go through the grind knowing that you know 10 years later I would not do that. And what were you doing at J&J? Like what was your role
Challenges in FMCG and Skepticism
00:03:35
Speaker
there? So J&J was, this was a division called Lifescan. This is J&J Medical.
00:03:40
Speaker
And Lifescan had brought to India a range of blood glucose meters to test blood sugars at home. Before this, there were no products available like that in India. So it was early years. We were trying to establish the whole business with doctors recommending home testing of sugars, patient education, and setting up the distributor and chemist and merchandise. Patient education programs was a big part of it.
00:04:06
Speaker
So, yeah, it was a whole hog and we used to cover the ground like, you know, meet general practitioners, meet, you know, internal medicine doctors, meet endo specialists and really, you know,
00:04:19
Speaker
talk them through that how together we could convince patients to be more careful about their sugar monitoring. So this was like a proper grind, typical FMCG grind, like on the ground. Typical FMCG grind, six days a week, 100 kilometers a day on the road meeting. The target used to be meet 10 doctors, 20 chemists, something like that. There were Sundays which were dedicated to patient education programs.
00:04:47
Speaker
two or three days travel outside Delhi. So it was totally great. Yeah. Did you enjoy it though? Now I feel I enjoyed it that time it was really hard to work. Travel is you again, the same thing you spend so much time waiting for people are on the road, you talk to your team, you build again good relationships.
00:05:09
Speaker
I think you see real India. So I was covering Delhi, Rajasthan, Punjab. I also covered Jammu. So you get to see a lot of real India on the road. I think a lot of your life experiences are built with that kind of work you do. And your family was okay with like this kind of a role with so much traveling. I don't think they had a choice.
00:05:32
Speaker
Okay, because typically Marwari families are very conservative when it comes to the daughter. Very conservative. People used to ask me, why can't you do something better or something in office? They used to think that only the less smart people go out on the field.
00:05:51
Speaker
It was not easy, but I think they did not have a choice. And then why did you move on? And that also to like a completely different sector again. That was because my husband had got a great role in
Transitioning to Startups
00:06:03
Speaker
Bangalore. He was moving to Bangalore and I moved along with him. I said, I'll go figure out what to do in Bangalore. When we came to Bangalore, I think around that time,
00:06:13
Speaker
Bangalore was also buzzing with new startup ideas and all of that. So while I did interview with some of the bigger companies, I interviewed with Tutor Vista. It sounded very exciting. It was that time rated as the hottest startup around. So, you know, I took it up thinking more as a challenge that I've done MNCs for about four and a half years. Why don't I dig my heels in and, you know, try something that is the next step to
00:06:39
Speaker
maybe starting on my own. So yeah, I think part of the thinking was that. And Tutavista was like a life classes, online life classes kind of a product. Yes. So Tutavista was like a K-12 homework help from India. So Indian teachers teaching students in the US on online. So it was used to be like a chat, whiteboard, Skype kind of session. And what was your role here?
00:07:03
Speaker
I did multiple roles here. So I started with trying to do B2B sales for the US. Then I moved on to doing the tutor recruitment part, which I think was one of the most interesting things I've done in my career. Sitting in Bangalore with a very small team, very low cost, we were recruiting hundreds of teachers every month. Sign up women, the kind of work you are doing. Sign up women who are willing to do part-time work online,
00:07:31
Speaker
And most of these are early morning sessions or late night because these are mostly US time makes. So we were convincing them that, you know, you could really earn an extra income by doing a few hours of work. And it's online, so you don't need to come out of the house. It was targeted to married women, women who were doing either caregiving or, you know, raising children. But it was interesting. We hired in an year, I think the maximum that we had hired was almost 1000 plus teachers.
00:07:57
Speaker
Wow. And you had some sort of like a training process for them to train them on how to teach and the subject knowledge or you looked at subject knowledge as a prerequisite. So part of the subject knowledge is prerequisite depending on the qualification and the test that they used to take up. After that, there was some training and then on the job you would monitor, you know, how they're able to cope up with students in the US, especially communication.
00:08:25
Speaker
I think a larger issue we faced and most of the students are looking for math help. So while you could find a lot of people who are good at math, the harder part is the communication. The student won't understand what teachers been saying, which is what we used to check for. We used to take, we introduced a grammar test because the biggest hurdle we faced was in written English, people were making massive grammar mistakes and that we were not comfortable with. So for math teachers, I used to take a grammar test.
00:08:55
Speaker
So other test was that, you know, and this is 12 years back, most people were so slow in typing that you will kill the whole interest, right? Like something very slow. So we introduced a typing test. People below, I think, you know, some number of characters per minute or below were rejected purely because they would be too slow on a session. So how is Tutor Vista doing now? I imagine at that time, this must have been pretty high margin business.
00:09:21
Speaker
It was high margin business, but the tough part was the cost of marketing was very high because we were marketing for the US. So I think, no, it was good from a unit margin point of view, but the cost of marketing, if you include, then it did have a challenge. And then after like a fairly longest stint, you kind of bit the entrepreneurial bug.
Lessons from Startup Failures
00:09:48
Speaker
So like what happened then?
00:09:51
Speaker
So the good news was Tutavista was acquired by Pearson. There was some monetization. We got some money. I was also having a child at that time. So this is 2010-11. I came out of Tutavista. I thought it's a good time to take a break.
00:10:06
Speaker
So it started working on an idea, which was art for every day. We called it AF Day. And it was more built around the Etsy in the US, where you could have, let's say handmade, handcrafted products online. I think the big mistake I made was it was way ahead of its time. 2011, people were just getting started with buying books online. So buying handicraft online was like a long shot.
00:10:33
Speaker
So the numbers remain small and whatever we attempted, see as an individual, I think I learned massively about setting up a company about setting up
00:10:41
Speaker
you know, website products, merchandising, selling shipments, e-commerce, we did the whole hog about the e-commerce bit. But the hard part was numbers were so small. And my calling was that, you know, if it's such a small business, I can't keep spending years and years running a very small business in the hope that market would grow at some point of time. So how did you fund it? Like all of this would have costed, you know, how big was your team like when you set it up?
00:11:09
Speaker
three, four people, mostly bootstrapped, I and my husband had put in some money. So we did it for about, I think, 14, 15 months. And by then we realized that, you know, it's going to remain small. I think at the best month we would have done like, you know, a couple of lakhs of sale. So we realized that, you know, it will not survive without external funding. External funding would need, you know, people to see numbers moving. So it was chicken and egg.
00:11:35
Speaker
And we decided that it's not worth spending more time on it, we closed it. And how did you meet your husband? Arranged marriage, completely arranged. Okay, but he was pretty supportive of investing in your venture. Yeah, he's been an investor for life, so he's been working at private equity funds, so I think investment is in his blood. So then you moved on to Bluestone, and Bluestone is what, like a jewelry e-commerce?
00:12:02
Speaker
Yes, bluestones and online jewelry business. So one big learning out of, you know, bootstrapping a business and shutting it down. I think as an entrepreneur, you'll have to, you know, build clarity around what you're doing this for. Because once you start investing time and money, actually, at times you, it's almost like bad money over bad money.
00:12:25
Speaker
So every few months you'll have to set up milestones and check back on that. Is it meeting your milestones? What should you do? And dispassionately also at one day, take a call that if it needs to close, it needs to close.
00:12:38
Speaker
So yeah, I think that's the hard part. I look back, I didn't think maybe I should have given it some more time. But I think if you look at the macro part of it, more time, few more months would not have helped it. It would need a few more years. Because after that, let's say a business like Jaipur, etc, you know, there are a couple of other people who have built that out.
00:12:57
Speaker
But it was much later than when we were trying to do it. And you shut it down like did you try and find a buyer for it or you just like wound up operations and like in what way? It was so small that you know trying to find a buyer for it would have been a futile exercise.
00:13:15
Speaker
The other thing that, you know, personally, I did not have the time because my kid was like, small, we started actually half day, and Riddhi was born around the same time. So I think it was also a timing issue that I was not able to really move out physically, you needed to be around
00:13:31
Speaker
So we were working from home. So it all added up. So Bluestone was a fairly short
Role at Bluestone and Transition to Ola
00:13:36
Speaker
stint. And you know, what was it that you did there? So Bluestone, the role was head of sales. It was primarily building an offline sales channel for an online jewelry company. So a couple of things that we did were set up a team for home try-ons. So let's say online people come visit, you can collect their numbers, etc. or they query on your call center.
00:13:59
Speaker
And then you can offer that, hey someone would visit you and show you more or help you choose what you need or customize. So this was a more offline sales support team that we created. It actually had off the charts numbers in terms of conversion and AOV etc.
00:14:16
Speaker
So it was doing very well as a program. Then we set up a few guide stores. So what you see today as a Bluestone or Carrot Lane store, it was different from that because these were built with like dummy sample pieces and not true jewelry, like the gold or diamond pieces. But it was more to give people an idea that how a design would look like in real, they could try it on and then order for what they need and it would be delivered to them.
00:14:41
Speaker
So these were like smaller walk-in by appointment kind of centers where people could come in, talk to someone who understands the catalog, who can help them browse, help them choose what they need to do, assist them in sales. So these were a couple of things that we were building around that time. The idea was online is great for people to discover that an option like this exists. They can browse through a lot of pictures and catalog and decide what
00:15:05
Speaker
shape, size, amount works for them and then come and make a final decision. So the problem was that 100% online process versus creating an assist model looked like it was way better converting. Right. Right. Okay. So online for lead generation and then offline to convert. Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:24
Speaker
So even today, if you see both the two big online jewelry guys, both Bluestone and Carrot Lane now have stores on High Street and malls, etc., because you need brand building. You need people to walk in. You need them to experience the jewelry, try it on, maybe show it to family. And then jewelry purchase in India is a very like a family decision. Right. Right. So and then you joined Ola from after a short stint here. So why did you make the move?
00:15:53
Speaker
The true part is one, I think I had done a startup of my own, I was working here and I think there was an alignment issue between me and Gaurav and I realized that instead of putting in more time where we are not aligned fully, it's better that I move on to doing something that I will put my full energy on.
00:16:13
Speaker
So that's why a shorter stint and then moved on to Ola Ola also I was running the sales piece and if you remember originally the whole point to point and on demand taxi was not you
Inspiration Behind Fresh Menu
00:16:28
Speaker
know
00:16:28
Speaker
What was the biggest thing? So when I had joined, Ola used to also have a lot of pre-booked airport rides or pre-booked corporate business. The point-to-point taxi was available, but it was expensive and very few people wanted to take it up.
00:16:44
Speaker
It was a growing business. Um, so corporate look like, and before Ola or Uber were in India, there was herds and cars on rent or, um, the, the cab rental business in the corporate was a very big business and a profitable business. So there was an intent to build the corporate side of business is, and this I'm talking like, you know, seven years back. Okay. So you were again doing B2B sales here.
00:17:10
Speaker
I was again doing B2B sales. And this is where you kind of conceived of fresh menu. So what was that? I was seeing startups all around me and it was a buzzing time. I think at that time.
00:17:28
Speaker
And the smartphone penetration was just picking up a lot of apps. People were trying to build apps, people trying to figure out, you know, how do we get consumers to tap on a button and create services? And obviously, Uber is a huge inspiration for all the app startups, right? World over also, food, there was a lot happening. And that's where the whole idea came about that, you know, we should also think of doing something in food.
00:17:51
Speaker
Um, and, and delivery food is looking like the way to go. And, uh, so, you know, how did this idea actually become reality? Like, did you quit your job first and work on it? Or, you know, like, tell me about that journey. Yeah, almost. I think once, once, um, in Ola, I realized that, you know, I think, um, I needed, I had reached a point, uh, where I really wanted to go back and build a business, uh, where, uh,
00:18:18
Speaker
I really own the whole piece instead of working at a startup. So I think I kind of understood that my journey is now to go back and create a startup. So once that decision is done, I think I moved out. Then next few months, we thrashed out the whole idea. I think doing something in food was decided when I moved out to Pula. But what to do in food and how it would shape up, et cetera, took a few months of planning after that.
00:18:45
Speaker
Okay, so when you say V, what does that mean? Okay, V means for this idea, I think my husband played a big role in trashing out the idea. Also, I went to Ganesha Shrini and they supported through the initial capital that is needed to see the idea and to do proof of concept. So what did you launch
Creating Fresh Menu's Brand Identity
00:19:07
Speaker
it as? Like, you know, what was the initial launch like?
00:19:11
Speaker
Thought that, I mean, at that time the word cloud kitchen, of course, didn't exist. So like, what did you think you're building? Like, did you think that you're building a restaurant which only does delivery? So Akshay, the idea around that time, and there were a couple of big pillars around, you know, how we thought of what would freshmen you do. And if you see the choice of name is a very neutral name, it is not
00:19:32
Speaker
a cuisine name, it is not a meal type, it's not like a pizza burger or biryani brand. So the idea was if we're building something for very long term, it has to be flexible, because we did not have a hero product at that time. See, if you take license from a global chain, you know, what is a hero product and what do you have to do for it. But here, we had to create something from scratch. So one, the name was a neutral name.
00:19:57
Speaker
um it allowed it was built on the peg of fresh which means that you know something that people will believe is good for them and for decades it would be good right it's not it will not go out of fashion it's not something that is like a fad and it will go away in a couple of years
00:20:13
Speaker
So a lot of thought went into the name, a lot of thought went into the business model decisions like we will start with global cuisine, we will start with like premium pricing, we are not doing the daily dal roti daba, we're actually doing break the monotony food because we wanted people to come back frequently. And everybody around that time who was trying to do a food startup actually started doing the dal roti kind of business assuming that's the highest frequency player.
00:20:41
Speaker
And what has proved out is that no consumer will consume from the same company for 20 days in a month. The highest that you can get from a consumer is like five to seven times a month. And that's more like what allows me to indulge a bit of what allows me to break the monotony. So I think we were on the right track with that decision. The business model was built on better unit economics. We understood the costs better.
00:21:07
Speaker
We took floor cost kitchens. We set them up behind the scenes because it was going to be delivery and focus on mobile. So we never took phone orders because the temptation could be while the app is being built or, you know, people, how would you convince people to come online? Let's take phone orders. We never took phone orders.
00:21:25
Speaker
So I think some of these decisions worked really well for us. What we brought on to consumers was something they had never imagined, like a high-end restaurant, five-star kind of quality food and the kind of international menu. A menu that was changing daily was brought onto their table and it was super cool. Okay. And so like day one itself, you launched with an online ordering platform and customers had to like install an app to place an order.
00:21:55
Speaker
Devan was a website, the website was built on Shopify. And how did you set up
Initial Challenges in Building Fresh Menu
00:22:00
Speaker
the backend? I mean, you have no experience of running a restaurant, so to say. So like, you know, what was setting up the first kitchen like? Setting up a first kitchen, that's a very interesting story. So the first hire is more interesting.
00:22:13
Speaker
So I started looking for chefs and I contacted quite a few chefs on LinkedIn and finally the ones that I got to meet they said your idea sounds interesting but if you are really successful then I'll come and join you and I said yeah so I need a chef to become successful. So it took a couple of months and just figuring out you know how to hire the first chef or you know how do you think about the menu how would you do research
00:22:37
Speaker
So while research, a lot of it I could do online, et cetera, but it really needed someone to come along and really do the back end. You're right. I think it was stuff. So, so the story goes that I posted on, like, I think quicker or will eggs that I'm looking for a chef and somebody called me that, Hey, I'm out of job and I want to look at the role that you're offering.
00:23:02
Speaker
So I called and this person came in, we did trials at my home and you know, whatever he used to, so I asked him how much do you, what's your salary? And he said, let's say X. So I immediately made it 30% higher and said, okay, you can start working with me today. So yeah, I think you do.
00:23:24
Speaker
Some of this stuff is very, very interesting of how do you start a business. So while the idea is there, but it took, and after that, this guy said that, Madam, I said, no, no, our kitchen will be ready in 10 days. So we obviously put a makeshift kitchen together in 10 days.
00:23:44
Speaker
and start rolling how did you do the initial customer acquisition like how did people hear that okay i can order food from press menu again so multiple things happened while we were doing you know while the kitchen was getting set up or the site was getting set up we used to just cook food every day deliver it to some friends office get people to try for free and then check with them okay what are you liking what are you not liking how much would you pay for it so obviously
00:24:14
Speaker
We would really understand, you know, are they really even going to pay for it or not? So a lot of iteration went through that. So I think a lot of office sampling is something that got us successful. I've personally delivered to a lot of people's homes, offices for their parties, just try out our food. And that I think really helped us get off the ground more quickly.
00:24:36
Speaker
Um, so corporate kiosks sampling, uh, uh, serving, you know, whoever was interested really go to them, show them what we are doing, uh, invested a lot of time and effort initially on packaging and designing the food that it had to look great on a photograph. It had to be presented in a very colorful manner. It has to be very appealing in a box. And, and I think that's something that, um, I think we were very, very product focused that helped us a lot.
00:25:04
Speaker
that kind of got the word of mouth rolling in. Yeah, and then I think for food, see newspaper inserts did well. Once we were four, five kitchens, we started doing some radio and radio helped us a lot because radio was building top of mind, you know, frequency recall. And morning evening, if the radio plays and talks about a new food choice, a lot of people are coming to try it out.
00:25:27
Speaker
Then ending the standard coupons, et cetera, distributed with the flyers, with the newspaper. I think that's how we initially got customers. And so 2014, you started this.
Scaling Fresh Menu and Funding
00:25:40
Speaker
So what did you end that year at like 14, 15? Like what kind of revenue did you hit? And I'm assuming it must have been one kitchen only at that time.
00:25:49
Speaker
No, so we started I think in October of 2014. By March of 2015, we were probably five kitchens, six kitchens, if I'm not wrong. We ended the year with like what?
00:26:04
Speaker
3 crores of revenue? We ramped up revenue pretty quickly. That's amazingly fast, like from 1 to 5 kitchens in a matter of months. So 3 crores became I think 30 crores next year, 30 became 72 crores year after and then it became
00:26:20
Speaker
I think 120 crores, if I'm not wrong. So I think we ramped up very, very quickly. So like, how did you manage this kind of explosive growth? Like you managed to hire one chef to get your first kitchen up from one to five. Like, you know, how did you manage that? So actually that's a long story. I think it's very hard to recall, you know, what all we did to kind of, you know, one get the kitchen set up, get the staffing done, get the training done.
00:26:46
Speaker
menu innovation on the side, the whole delivery piece. And trust me, six years back, there was hardly any train delivery boys for food. So we were doing everything end to end sourcing the material costing of the food, photographs, marketing, I think, if I if I look back, I think there were 1000 things that we took on our plate. I think I was working 20 hours a day for those three years.
00:27:12
Speaker
But in a business like this, it's an ops business. The engine has to go on 365 days. Nothing can break down. Nothing can stop. So we were building tech for it. We were recruiting team left, right, and center. I think, yeah, it's a very thrilling experience to really go through that, get customer success. People love what we offered them.
00:27:34
Speaker
The kind of innovation we were doing was, you know, I think nobody in the market had imagined that there would be a brand that would come and change menu almost daily. Would churn out like, you know, 40 new products a month. So yeah, I think we were working at a breakneck speed.
00:27:51
Speaker
And like you didn't rely on delivery partners. It was like your own team of delivery boys that you built up. So like how did the expansion beyond Bangalore happen? Like when did you start doing that and how many cities are you in now?
00:28:07
Speaker
So beyond Bangalore happened after year one. Bombay and Delhi is what, Gurgaon is what we chose to start with, the other two cities. The idea was to, one, prove out that what works in Bangalore would also prove in the other cities in India.
00:28:23
Speaker
And Bombay and Delhi are both way bigger cities than Bangalore is. So fundamentally, you should expect a lot more scale in those markets compared to Bangalore. While it turned out that Bangalore is a much bigger delivery market for next few years. But yeah, we entered the other two markets with the size expectation. And what about the funding journey? So initially you had that seed funding which you raised and then after that, like did you raise subsequent rounds and
00:28:53
Speaker
Yeah, so we raised money with light speed, 5 million series A in 2015, I think, or December of 2014 itself. And we raised series B in 2016, which was another 17 million. We've raised about 25 million so far.
00:29:11
Speaker
So two rounds of funding. Okay. And so was the funding journey like a challenge to overcome being a woman founder and a solo founder? So did you find it hard to get investors on board or by your numbers more than enough?
00:29:30
Speaker
No, I think funding is always a process. And I think apart from your work effort, numbers, or presentation, there are more elements to play. So I won't say funding was a cakewalk. I think funding has been a tough process. For women, I think naturally,
00:29:51
Speaker
Women tend to underplay what they are good at, what they're capable of. Their plans are not the most aggressively projected plans. And I think that comes in my way too. I learned the hard way to let go of my perfectionism streak because I think part of my experience with startups has been that you have to scale fast. You have to execute fast. And if you wait for the perfect thing to happen in a business like this, perfections
00:30:20
Speaker
very hard to achieve. And I could have waited for two more years to have a perfect product to roll out in the market. By then, the market would be gone. Somebody else would do it. So I think speed in the market needs some sacrifice and perfection. And you should be convinced that iteration is a way to go forward. So I think there are learnings on the way, but funding for women, I think, is a tough nut. Why is that? What is the application that
00:30:46
Speaker
So the part of it is our own apprehensions, our own projection, our own conditioning that you know others should notice what we are good at and we will not blow our trumpet like you know this is what I'm good at and this is why you should give me money. We're not the strongest on networking and really doing you know
00:31:07
Speaker
networking for the sake of it. And I think I was too busy. Just this business needed a lot of time to do the groundwork and it didn't leave a lot of time to do the other stuff that founders should be doing. So I think that's a lesson that, you know, founder will have to really balance out what needs to be done for the company inside and what needs to be done from an external management perspective.
00:31:30
Speaker
And how did your head count grow?
Operational Strategies and Workforce Growth
00:31:33
Speaker
In 2015, what head count were you at? And subsequent years, how did that grow?
00:31:38
Speaker
I think we would have grown from like 100 people to 1000 people in one and a half years. So by 16 you were like about 1000 people, 16, 17. I think at our peak we would have been about 1400 people. And this was like what kind of people, like how many of these were corporate, how many were in the kitchens and
00:32:02
Speaker
Corporate was always about max of 100 people, probably below that. It was mostly people in the kitchens or supporting the kitchen, supervising the kitchens, delivery staff, a lot of delivery networks. So it was a combination. Do you still do delivery yourself? Because now there are many startups who offer delivery as a service.
00:32:24
Speaker
So we still do some of our own. So there is some dedicated delivery available. We also use third party like Danzo or delivery to do part of our deliveries. And Suigi and Zomato would do their own delivery. So yeah, now it's quite a combination. So is it still the same in terms of menu with changes very frequently? Because now that your menu would also be listed on Suigi and Zomato, how has the business evolved and what is it today now?
00:32:52
Speaker
Over the years, we learned that this whole piece about daily changing menu, we should treat it differently. So, you know, customers don't need a daily different menu. They basically need new things from time to time.
00:33:07
Speaker
So what we did was now it does not change daily, but every month there are still about 40 new SKUs that get tried on the platform. Over the years, we've also figured out what works really well for us, what combinations people seek, what price points are working very well. So I think there's a lot of intelligence around the menu, flavors, photographs, portion sizes, offers. I think there's lots of inherent learning that we've collected over the time.
00:33:35
Speaker
And now we do new dishes with the guardrails around, you know, what would work in our system? What should we offer to customers? So I think today it is not a daily changing menu, but it keeps getting new stuff all the time and stuff that, you know, has become a little jaded or, you know, we see that numbers are below average. We will take it out of the menu, maybe a couple of months later, refurb it, change a bit of flavor and then bring it back.
00:34:03
Speaker
So what are some of the interesting trends you observed about Indian food habits, you know, things which might have surprised you that you discovered based on the data that you generate on orders and all?
Understanding Indian Food Preferences
00:34:18
Speaker
So some interesting tidbits. See, Indians always eat food for taste. And while whatever else we say, I think taste remains paramount.
00:34:27
Speaker
actually till pre-COVID right now, I think the change that we've noticed is people are very, very particular about the trust and assurance of safety over taste. So COVID has pushed customers to be really, really focused on hygiene, safety, et cetera, around the food or anything from outside for that matter. And I think that's a big shift. It's a paradigm shift because food otherwise has been an unorganized business.
00:34:54
Speaker
where the organized players invest money and effort to be focused on food quality and safety and a lot of work behind the scenes while the small restaurant operator or a small shop could get away with doing things
00:35:12
Speaker
in not the most scientific way. So I think that that's a big change. Some of the interesting stuff is like, you know, when we introduced Thai on our menu and Thai was very hot in India a few years back, you know, everybody used to say, Hey, I love Thai on your menu. And I said, my sales are not supporting it. So basically, everybody used to talk about eating Thai food, but they were eating it like once in four months or six months.
00:35:38
Speaker
So some of the stuff is good to talk about, but not the best to eat regularly. The other thing we did, for example, something that has done very well for us is taking Mexican food to masses, taking teriyaki to masses. I think we've been running a teriyaki chicken rice bowl for the last five years now.
00:35:57
Speaker
And I think we're very, very well known for it. And I think somebody coined it for me that you've taken teriyaki to masses. And I was like, yeah, that sounds very cool. So chicken and radish, I think, is a big staple. I think India loves chicken and rice in any form. So that we continue to offer in different avatars, and that keeps doing well.
00:36:17
Speaker
Deserts, I think indulgences is another big piece that you know, while we all say, but I think we all eat sweets. So, healthy eating is for Garka Khanna basically, when you order, then you won't taste this stuff. So, healthy eating is also another trend that we picked up around 2017.
00:36:36
Speaker
We realize that health is not just a buzzword, but people are moving more and more towards, you know, more calorie counted food, healthier looking food, more greens, low carb, high protein, keto was coming around the corner. The interesting part for us is people always thought that we're healthy food.
00:36:55
Speaker
Because we showed a lot of green, we showed a lot of veggies, we did a lot of grilled meats. I think inherently it was more healthy food than your restaurant food. And people believe that we serve healthy food in general. So it helped us. Then in 2017, we put a collection called Fit and Fab. And since then, it has only been growing in sales as a percentage of our total sales. So healthy food is a reality. I think it is still much smaller than what we would want it to be.
00:37:23
Speaker
But every year it has been growing. Is butter chicken the number one selling item?
Brand Model vs. Aggregation Platforms
00:37:31
Speaker
On our menu, teriyaki and chicken tikka and Mexican burrito are the highest selling products. And the one that you would not like to believe is like a chocolate cake. So do you have a different menu for different regions? Would Delhi and Bangalore menu be different?
00:37:50
Speaker
Slightly. So there are some local variations. Some of these are material constraints. Some of these are capability constraints or demand constraints, right? Like people in Delhi, let's say prefer food a certain way or portion sizes a certain way. So there is local customization for local customization, even at a hyper local area. Okay. So like one outlet in Delhi, like one area in Delhi could have like a slightly different menu. Yes. Yes.
00:38:19
Speaker
And how does Zomato deal with that? Does Zomato serve up a different venue or it shows some items as not available to somebody from that area? So Akshay, we have done a lot of work in building a deep API integration and I think that allows us to push a differential menu by location by restaurant ID.
00:38:40
Speaker
Including even now, you know, at times we've figured out that we could do differential pricing by the city depending on, you know, if your costs are higher or something, if you've changed the portion size, et cetera. So I think that capability is built into this. So you started about the same time as Zomata only, right?
00:39:00
Speaker
So do you have any regrets that you got more into a like an actual nuts and bolts business where you're building the product and serving it up as opposed to the platforms which are more of a software play?
00:39:19
Speaker
I think a tough question. I don't think I regret what I chose to do. See, aggregation is a very, very different business to do. What it showed around six years back when we were really working through the ideas
00:39:35
Speaker
aggregation was a capital play, whoever would raise maximum capital is the one who would win. And in India, if you remember, there were a lot of people who started with aggregation. And there's only three in Zomata, which are there today. So I think that was also a very tough play. And you could be wiped out very, very soon, because the match showed that you lose money for years together. So I don't regret
00:39:59
Speaker
Yes, I don't regret choosing doing a brand because see the real opportunity in India was that we are short of brands. We don't have national food brands. We don't have listed food brands and customers are seeking new choices. The food palette was expanding. There was a lot of opportunity to be done in the space. So opportunity wise, it looked very, very excited.
00:40:24
Speaker
Yes, it's a tougher part. It's more execution. You cook the food, you deliver the food, you build the menu. On paper, this would look like a tougher thing to do, but in India, you get rewarded for execution. Do you see yourself as like the Indian dominoes in a way, in that sense, like delivering food, pan-India, quick and tasty food?
Building a Strong Team
00:40:48
Speaker
So see, as a business model, it is different from Domino's. Domino's is a global food brand. Domino's is a pizza company, and they have deep, deep expertise in pizza and delivery business. So yes, there is aspiration to do delivery as well as Domino's do in the kind of reliability they've built around. And the systems and processes they follow, the way they've attracted customers and kept customers loyal. So there are a lot of things to learn from Domino's and aspire to be like them.
00:41:17
Speaker
And there's clearly aspiration to be a market leading brand in India. So yeah, there is aspiration, but in a lot of ways, they're very different from Domino's. So we would not see ourselves as just doing everything like Domino's is going to help us. So over the years, what have you learned about building a team in terms of hiring and upskilling people? And what are some of the lessons that you've learned over there?
00:41:45
Speaker
I've learned I think the most lessons in hiding and you come from a recruitment business, I'm sure you'll appreciate. I think when you're hiding for startups at growth stage, the kind of speed and the quantum of hiding that you're doing. I think one lesson is that you should be prepared to hire fast and if things don't work.
00:42:05
Speaker
let go while it does not sound the best way. But for the business, this probably is the speediest solution. So that is one of my lessons. As a founder, you have to be totally invested in recruitment. You have to spend a lot of time in recruitment while you may believe that you don't have time to do recruitment. But without recruitment, things don't go ahead. And it's a full sales process. And especially till you're small or till you're unknown,
00:42:34
Speaker
You have to do a real hard sales pitch to recruit your first few employees, right? Like why should someone join a company which nobody has heard of? They don't even know will you survive six months, 12 months? Will you be able to pay, not pay?
00:42:47
Speaker
what quality of work or you know, I think it's a full sales process. So I think the good part was that I had done sales for long. So I think, and I'd also done recruitment. So I think recruitment and meeting the timelines, that whole rigmarole around the process.
00:43:06
Speaker
But yeah, I think there are a lot of lessons around how resourceful you could be around recruitment. You need to do a mix of self-hiring, use your LinkedIn, use your network, use agencies, be opportunistic about hiring.
00:43:22
Speaker
At times you have to pay more to do a quicker hiring. So I think that there are lots of nuts and bolts to recruitment. I think it may take a full another session to talk about the whole process. The thing that I have learned the other pieces that
00:43:39
Speaker
After a year of hiring, you also need to get into a culture setting exercise and then have some filters of the next set of employees have to meet or be in a certain framework. Otherwise, it becomes very hard to manage the whole show. And I think we did go wrong in that piece in the middle. So that's a huge lesson that just for the sake of completing your hiring while it works for some amount of time, it does not work forever.
00:44:06
Speaker
Um, culture setting is not a late exercise. It has to be an early exercise in the company. Um, and you need to check for culture fitment.
00:44:16
Speaker
Culture? Okay, for example, Akshay, for example, where I went wrong in recruitment is, depending on the past achievement of a person, you bring them on and they've worked at a level different than where this startup is. Let's say somebody has worked at a much bigger company and they've delivered something as a growth there, but you are now where they were six years back.
00:44:40
Speaker
And you realize that while in the interview, they say, yes, yes, I would love the startup piece, and I would love the excitement. But they're not willing to roll up their sleeves and work at the stage where we are. So I think that is partly where we went wrong. And that's something that we should do more check on of what's your stage, what would be exact, the kind of work that you would need to do, and are people ready to do that. The other is people, there's some people who don't scale up with the organization's growth.
00:45:08
Speaker
For example, the early employees feel left out when you start hiding a lot of other employees or you start hiding a different level of profile, depending on the funding or depending on the size that you're aiming for. So I think there is also an expectation mismatch between old employees and new employees. And I think in a large people organization, it does get hard.
00:45:30
Speaker
Like people earlier reporting to you would now report to somebody else who reports to you. So that would be a difficult thing for them to adjust to. Okay. So, you know, like you said, you're an operations heavy business and which basically is like about having people who run those operations well.
00:45:54
Speaker
My first job was at McDonald's and I joined when I was like 18 over there. I was doing this along with college just to earn pocket money and I wanted to buy a two-wheeler to go to college instead of taking the bus every day.
00:46:08
Speaker
But their onboarding induction process was phenomenal. Literally, they would take an idiot off the street and train him to become a crew member at McDonald's. So do you have that kind of an approach in your operations team? How you hire and how you upskill them? Do you look for just some basics and then train them on the rest? How do you do that part of it?
00:46:34
Speaker
So Akshay, I think that's a very good question. And this is something that these companies do very, very well, both Domino's, McDonald's, and especially with their global processes and then how they've optimized it for India. I think they are very good at this whole setup of taking an employee, getting them up to speed, following the process come what may the SOPs are very, very strong.
00:46:57
Speaker
And as a young company, I think it was not possible for us to have nailed everything and we were doing things differently. It was not like an exact replica of a Domino's store or a McDonald's store.
00:47:13
Speaker
What we did was we obviously resourceful hiring, right? We hired a few of the dominoes and McDonald's or KFC store managers and brought in some of their practices into our system. And that's how part of the SOPs got developed. Then we then spent time in having, for example, some experts and some consultants come in and really help us with the process mapping with, you know,
00:47:38
Speaker
what could go wrong, how to nail the problems, how to reduce your error rates. So I think you have to do the whole thing, but no company, and even today, I think we're six years old, and I think today also there's a lot that needs to be done better, that needs to be done more smartly. And I think it's a continuous process. But initially, I think the easy part is people who do it very well, you take off them and you learn from them.
00:48:02
Speaker
so i have no shame in saying that you know i kind of used what is a trained resource in the market and started with that right right yeah i mean that's the i mean the that's the way to learn like from from best practices so
00:48:18
Speaker
So by the way, now the thing is that anybody who wants to do a cloud kitchen business would want to hire from Fresh Menu because I think generally our training or our processes have worked much better. And we know that people get calls and say, just come and join us. They don't even want to interview. So have you made it India proof? You can literally hire anyone and make them an operations team member. Has it reached that level?
00:48:43
Speaker
No, no, it will get there. I think it's still a few years away. But it is much, much less skill dependent than it was, let's say, even two years back.
00:48:53
Speaker
So do you see the way ahead as more automation?
Technology and Data in Food Business
00:48:59
Speaker
For example, I saw that Chios now, they've stopped doing manual tea making and they've got a tea making machine there which makes the tea based on whatever customization you select. So that dispenses the exact amount of milk and water and all that. So is that the way you're seeing yourself going also? How do you see technology changing the food business?
00:49:23
Speaker
Very interesting. I think the technology has changed a lot in the food business in the last six years. Though so far, I think the changes are more around the whole delivery piece of kitchen operations piece or the efficiency piece of it.
00:49:38
Speaker
I think that the future holds that as volumes improve, you can actually get in more automated equipment. You can do some of the cooking processes that you do manually. You can get machines to do it, or you could get suppliers to do a part of your work and you do the final value adder finishing. See, I think the crux of this is you have to stand true to what you've offered a customer. For example, we've told customers that we're not adding preservatives to your food. We are not microwaving your food. It is not dumb food.
00:50:06
Speaker
This is the healthier, fresher, tastier food that you could get in 30 minutes, which means we have to do the last mile effort. We have to do the value addition for them. We have to bring them unique flavors. We have to bring them new combinations that others are not offering. So I think fundamentally you'll have to stay true to why customers come to you.
00:50:26
Speaker
And after that, whatever you can do to ease your process, to dumb it down, to make it easier for the customer, to make it faster for the customer, to make it tastier for the customer, you will obviously do that. So it all does not happen in one day. The story of big data on food is still to play out because the data is still not big enough.
00:50:47
Speaker
You will, over the years, we have collected a lot of intelligence and over coming few years, I think it'll keep getting more intelligent. And as volumes change, you can, you will really plug and play better equipment, more automation, more forecasting to improve, you know, food execution. But I think.
00:51:06
Speaker
saying that it will be idiot proof, it will be made by a machine and therefore it will become idiot proof. I don't think that's the way we have adopted it. But largely you're saying that how technology would change would be better data, which would allow you to build better models and
00:51:22
Speaker
reduce wastage, decide what is the best way to do stuff and you know, that's how you see like data would power the tech transformation. There will be other things. So they could be, you know, system level wastage management. They could be system level QC products. They could be more technology, more camera.
00:51:41
Speaker
more, you know, algorithm in calculation of, you know, when should people expect a surge of orders, how fast they should prepare and work. All I'm trying to say is we are a food company. We believe that, you know, people come to us because we offer them the best food possible in their local area. And therefore that cannot be compromised. Right. Right. So how has COVID been for Fresh Menu?
Impact of the Pandemic on Fresh Menu
00:52:08
Speaker
COVID has been very, very tough. I think world over world food businesses have seen the maximum disruption in like a century, right? Nobody ever thought in food, you know, even in a recession, you already go down like 5%, 10%. Food businesses don't shrink to like 20% of their size.
00:52:27
Speaker
And I think in India with the severe lockdown that we had, food businesses had to completely shut down. Delivery businesses were on. We were on. But it took us a while to adjust to the lockdown and the changes that were needed, the new process, safety. Customers had become super scared. So first,
00:52:51
Speaker
three months, four months, there was nothing really moving for the business. And you know, you have to take care of people, you have to take care of suppliers, you had to think about safety, you have to think about really surviving in this year. And I think talking on like, 22nd December, I'm very proud that we've survived the year.
00:53:10
Speaker
I think surviving this year is like growing two times. So I think we've done well for the kind of hardships we had to face. Everybody chipped in and I think this year has taught so much about resilience, about building mental capacity,
00:53:30
Speaker
We've done some bold things. We've changed a lot of processes internally. I think the downtime really helped the business like ours because we could do some of the reset that was waiting because, you know, since we were running, we didn't want to touch and make wholesale changes. But right now, I think we've done wholesale changes. What kind of wholesale changes? Like give me some examples.
00:53:49
Speaker
So wholesale changes, for example, in the way we would treat the manpower or staffing in a kitchen and see COVID pushed us to work with lesser people in kitchens more distancing. So we've done, you know, big.
00:54:04
Speaker
menu iteration on how the menu could still be delivered with lesser people, how could we offer the same quality and same speed with lesser people. So I think there have been some big changes on the menu, there have been some big changes on the cooking process in the timing and the metrics process and all this while maintaining safety.
00:54:24
Speaker
and bringing safety to the top of mind for everyone in the system. So I think there have been some big changes. Do you also have like service restaurants or is it only kitchens? We don't have service restaurants. We used to have one at the airport. It was done as a brand store, but that's closed now. So that way you kind of got spared from the worst of it because I think the worst hit are like the actual service restaurants. Yep, yep.
00:54:53
Speaker
Okay, so what kind of revenue are you currently at? Like last year, what did you close at if you're at Liberty to say? It's still not public yet, so I would wait for that to go public. But right now, compared to pre-COVID times, we are at about somewhere between 60 to 70% of pre-COVID numbers. I expect post-March to get back to the full pre-COVID number.
00:55:21
Speaker
And post that, I think we expect we're actually optimistic that we would do even better than before, purely because I think delivery foods, I think we have penetrated more homes. We used to be 70% office business. And today, if we are back at 70% of our old business without offices being open, without colleges and hostels being open, I think we have penetrated more homes.
00:55:46
Speaker
So I'm quite confident that, you know, as and when we get to normalcy where, you know, schools and colleges could open when people are getting back to work, when all these big offices and tech parks open, I think we probably would grow a lot more.
Future Growth and Expansion Plans
00:56:02
Speaker
Okay. Do you also have like bulk deals, like providing meals to employees of a company instead of them having an in-house canteens, that kind of stuff?
00:56:13
Speaker
Yeah, so we've done that for more small sized companies where let's say you have 30 to 50 employees because caterers don't serve that kind of requirement. And we also don't have to then customize anything. We use our single serve meals and offer them choices and they could change the choices regularly.
00:56:32
Speaker
So that's the kind of business we were looking at before COVID. Right now, we are talking to people to see that we could get into more packed meals as offices open. We've also been getting some inbound queries about people saying that now we will not have the buffet cafeteria. We can't allow people to sit and chit chat in the cafeteria, which means packed food in office is a reality that is going to be served.
00:56:58
Speaker
And people like us are the best suited to serve that demand. Right, right. So what is your personal journey like that you see in the next couple of years? What is it that you personally want to learn and discover which makes you more effective at work or whatever? But at a personal level, what is it that you are seeking?
00:57:24
Speaker
It's a tough question, Akshay. Personal journey. See, I think we've last, and this year has been a very tough year to manage. I think personally, I would spend some time rewiring the way I would think or I would work because I think last six years as an entrepreneur, as a CEO, I think
00:57:45
Speaker
It's taking a toll on your learning ability or openness to change. And I think I kind of recognize that. So that's something that I would spend time and effort doing on.
00:57:58
Speaker
because I guess over the years and you've got set in your ways and I think right now I'm really thinking hard that how do I change or how do I in some sense become unpredictable because the predictable path is now done for quite a few years. So I think there's going to be some personal change, some resetting. I turned 40 last year. I think a part of it is also the age clock. So I think personal fitness has become a much bigger priority.
00:58:28
Speaker
I think there's going to be change on the personal front. And I think self-learning, which kind of stops when you're too busy in your day-to-day work. So I think I'll pick up some of that again. From a business point of view, I think we're really roaring to figure out how do we become 10x from here. So I think that's going to keep us busy.
00:58:48
Speaker
Okay. So what do you think will make you 10X? And in how many years do you think that you will become 10X? Actually, honestly, in a business like this, we could become 10X in probably three to five years. And I'm saying that because we've spent the last six years nailing the business model. I think we've done so much work and effort in really optimizing
00:59:12
Speaker
on both the kind of menu that we could offer, the way we execute it and the kitchen economics. I think today we are 100% sure that we can take it 10X from here. We could be in like the next 10, 15 cities in India and really scale out fresh menu, become a national brand, become a big brand, leading food brand in India.
00:59:33
Speaker
and I don't think I have a doubt about the economics and about the success potential that we have now. So we've gone through our tough years, we've had our learning, we've done the hard work about optimizing economics, about optimizing experience and I think today we feel we're prepared
00:59:49
Speaker
And dealing with COVID, I think there's more faith that we could deal with anything. Okay. Are you looking at a fresh fundraise or? We're looking at a fresh fund raise right now. Yeah. To power the growth to 10X basically, to invest more in branding, I'm assuming.
01:00:07
Speaker
Invest more in branding, invest more in opening the kitchens, opening more footprint, more cities, yeah. And how is the investor appetite like? I mean, do you see investors being as optimistic about food tech and India both or like, you know, what do you see there?
01:00:24
Speaker
early days I see optimism come back because delivery food is here to stay is what I think a lot of people understand. Cloud kitchen is the best way to serve delivery demand is also understood now. So I think now it's about betting on
01:00:40
Speaker
businesses and brands that really understand that they could really follow this up. There are people who are already engaging and I feel like there is cautious optimism about the business that we are in. So I feel like next few months we should be able to close around.
01:00:59
Speaker
So you are also an angel investor. I think you've done a couple of investments. So what is your thesis as an angel investor? Like, do you have a thesis or is just mostly like friends and family kind of thing that you support? No, no thesis yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was just because, you know, there was something that I really liked and there's also people that I know well.
01:01:19
Speaker
So no thesis yet as an angel investor. Okay. But is that something you enjoy? Like do you want to do more of it or it's just occasionally if somebody like needs a helping hand or as a way to give back or like what's the... Yeah, I would remain a passive investor. I think I'm really thinking that next year I could help a couple of women entrepreneurs take their journey forward.
01:01:45
Speaker
I kind of understand that it is tougher for women, so I think a part of the priority would be to focus on women on women. Right, yeah. That's true. So, you know, one of our concerns at the show has always been to have a good gender mix and we struggle just because there are so many more male founders than female founders. So, yeah, I totally agree with you. So that was Rashmi.
01:02:12
Speaker
talking about her journey and learnings in the world of food tech. And if this episode has left you hungry, then do check out TellYummyMeans on FreshMenu.com.
01:02:24
Speaker
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