For Sanjay Lalwani, founder of Foodwalas.com, the recipe of success is simple – you must have a clear vision, unlimited passion and a customer-centric solution. Foodwalas.com is an online marketplace that offers regional food products from across India. Sanjay is a qualified Chartered Accountant but a foodie by passion. His dream was to create an online platform for making India’s rich food heritage accessible to foodies in different parts of the country. With Foodwalas.com, he is well on his way to making this dream a reality.

As an entrepreneur, Sanjay draws inspiration from his grandfather who set up a shop selling the finest textiles in a small village close to Aurangabad almost five decades back. The high quality material and reasonable prices offered at this shop ensured that his grandfather garnered a loyal clientele. Sanjay firmly believes that a customer-centric solution will always be positively endorsed by consumers.

GlobalLinker (GL) spoke to Sanjay Lalwani about his unique business concept, the challenges he has faced and what inspires him to be an intrepid entrepreneur.

Excerpts from the interview.

JAGL: Tell us about Foodwalas.com & how you started this venture.

Sanjay Lalwani (SL): We believe that India’s real treasure is its food. Every city has its unique food. My family is from Jodhpur and I live in Aurangabad. So whenever anyone would visit Jodhpur, we would request them to bring back food items. However, there were two constraints to this arrangement. We had to be dependent on the kind gesture of someone else and perhaps even inconvenience them. Moreover, it would take up to 8 -9 days for that person to bring the food stuff to our home and perishable food items would not last that long.

So I thought why not make a portal that connects foodies like myself to India’s best gourmet food sellers. In short make India’s food treasure available to everyone at their home. For instance, if I want Agra's 'Panchhi petha', it should be available to me at a very minimal logistical cost. So we took all these factors into account and we convinced the best logistics teams in India to pick up orders from vendors and deliver pan India within two to three days at a nominal cost. We told the vendors that they should send their products from the fresh batch so that the customer who receives the product will be having fresh food. It has been 13 months since we started and although tech was never my domain, the idea has caught on. We have crossed 2,000 orders in 10 months, with a few vendors on board and absolutely no returns on deliveries.

GL: Tell us about your educational background & what made you take the entrepreneurial plunge.

SL: In 2010, I completed my Chartered Accountancy & Company Secretary course. I worked for two years at Verroc Engineering Pvt Limited, which is known for its engineering products and supply chain for auto cluster. After two years I felt that a 9 to 5 job is very comfortable and if I stay on for a couple of more years then it will be very difficult for me to leave. So in January 2013, I quit Verroc and I started an online portal called ‘Meritranker.com’. This portal addressed the need for self-assessment for CA students. Our unique proposition was that apart from self-assessment we also added explanations with every answer. This portal is still live and my wife is looking after it now.

My passion has always been food and I went on to launch Foodwalas.com on January 1^st 2015 with just one vendor. Today we have eight vendors and we have also successfully launched our Android app. We have also connected with Paytm. Paytm has around 85,000 vendors registered from across Indian but only around 10-15 of these are food vendors. The reason being is that logistics is a challenge with food items that are perishable.If you order a food item today and receive after 15 days – you won’t accept it. We connected with Paytm and told them that we would take care of logistics. And now we deliver in 2-4 days.

We deliver to 50 odd cities in India. We receive many compliments from customers who are happy to receive food from their hometowns. We also assist our vendors with packaging and order management.

GL: What are some of the challenges you have faced in translating your idea into reality?

SL: Our foremost challenge was to launch a website. Whenever any of the agencies used to give us a quote, the presentations used to be really amazing but the actual output would always fall way short of our expectations. Later through our family connection we met an agency who met our requirements. Also we applied our learning from Meritranker.com to Foodwalas.com

Figuring out logistics was another major challenge. Since food items are perishable, logistics becomes even more critical. But being from a financial background we were able to convince our logistic partners of the feasibility of our financial model. We only accept products that have a shelf life of minimum 12 days. We needed the logistics company to pick up from the vendors and then deliver in the shortest time possible. Convincing food vendors was also a challenge. The famous food sellers do not have any time to track and deliver products and to convince them to come online was difficult. We convinced the vendors by telling them, “We are not only selling your famous foods, we are also sharing your heritage.”

Once convinced of our business proposition, the vendors were happy to come on board. Moreover, they are thrilled to have an online presence.

GL: In retrospect, what would you have done anything differently?

SL: Where we went wrong in the beginning was that we didn’t realise the potential of social media in advertising our service. If right from the start we had leveraged social media, our outreach would have been much more. Experience has taught us a lot. Today we are more inclined to promote our business on social media, whether it is on Facebook or Twitter. A few months back we also started blogging. We are also exploring Instagram as attractive food images lend themselves very well to this medium and find an instant connect with potential customers.

GL: What is your ‘Big Business Dream’?

SL: Our domestic operations are quite well established. 70% of our business is now automated. In the coming days we will be introducing a subscription based model. The idea is that whoeversubscribes willperiodically receive amazing food from various cities across India. We will also be getting into the fruits sector.

Suppose you like Alphonso mangoes. If you buy in Delhi, how can you be certain that this is Alphonso from Ratnagiri. We are connecting with the Growers Association across India. The idea is to ship directly from the farmer to the customer. Customers would benefit because they would get the genuine stuff from the source at the best available rates. We also plan on going international. By March we aim to deliver gourmet food items from India to UK & several Gulf countries.

GL: What inspires you to be an exemplary entrepreneur?

SL: Inspiration comes from many things. It all started with my grandfather who established a textile material shop in a small village close to Aurangabad almost five decades ago. Most of the employees in that shop have worked there for almost 40 years which is a clear indication of employee satisfaction and a win-win scenario.

This was the first shop of its kind in that area and customers did not have to go to big cities to purchase good quality material. Over the years he earned the trust and good-will of the community. That is exactly what we are trying to do. Our endeavour is to delight the customer. We are a customer-centric organisation. We believe that each happy customer will bring 10 other customers. One of our USPs is packaging. We provide complimentary storage boxes with the food items. This is especially beneficial for students who order food items from their hometowns.

GL: What is your advice to aspiring entrepreneurs?

SL: First and foremost do not think that you will be able to survive if you capture 1% of the market. Suppose there are five lakh students that fall in your market. You may believe that even by reaching 1% of that number you will have a sufficient market base. But the truth is that to capture 1% of the students, you need to reach out to all five lakh students. Imagine your advertisement costs. Also, it is essential to gain work experience before establishing a startup. Unless you deal with the ground reality in an actual job, you will never realise the challenges of running a business. Cross-domain knowledge is also a necessity in this day and age. For instance, I have a commerce background but I worked hard to acquire knowledge in the digital arena to understand the nuances of running an online business.

Sanjay Lalwani is one of the many business owners to access the big business advantage on GlobalLinker. Because there are no small or medium dreams.

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