Hi All,
I’ve been a member of this wonderful community at TRH for the last 3 weeks. I really admire the community and the see the talent galore on this platform. I’d take this opportunity to introduce my startup Falphool.com.
Falphool.com is an ecommerce company focused on solving the problem of delivering fresh fruits, vegetables and grocery at GUARANTEED affordable price at your doorsteps. Now with Falphool YOU
a) Don’t need to pay 3 times for fresh fruits and vegetables delivered at your doorsteps.
b) Don’t need to travel to weekly market(and search for parking space before buying).
c) Don’t need to carry the heavy bag full of fruits and vegetables and roam around to get the best deal.
d) Don’t need to bargain at local shops.
e) Don’t need to go out on hot and humid days or rainy days or in shivering temperature.
f) Don’t need to worry for the things you’ve missed in your list.
Pass all the above worries to Falphool.com, we will take care of the above and you enjoy that time with your family and friends.
Currently we are serving in Dwarka, New Delhi only.
How it all Started ?
On June 12th 2015, I’ve was having a routine telephonic conversation with my boss and during the course of chit-chat I told him that I’m now more interested in setting up an e-commerce store, I want to sell vegetables, fruits and grocery. This after knowing that most of the startups related to fruits, vegetables have failed and failed miserably. Some of the sites have perished(I take pride in holding to some of those domains). And to my utter surprise he readily agreed.
He didn’t ask for any project plan/projections/revenue etc. On 15th June 2015, I prepared one of the report in EXCEL showing him some of the initial set up cost and very conservative projections for the next few months (July/Aug/Sep).
Without wasting any further time I booked the domain (Falphool.com) , developed the site in 2 days. I used CMS to develop the site as I don’t want to write the code from the scratch (even though I’d have love to get it done in ASP.NET and SQL Server). I’d rewrite it in Microsoft technologies in next few months.
We launched beta on June 22nd 2015.and released the final version on July 1st 2015.
What and how we did ?
During this period we learnt a lot, we washed fruits and vegetables, did packaging (learnt how to package to make it look good), and delivered in Dwarka in our own vehicles, and did everything possible.
For marketing, we did some newspaper inserts and we started getting orders. By 2nd week of July we had 100 customers (with 6000 newspapers inserts). We started doing newspaper inserts regularly and we could see surge in orders.
Till date I haven’t hired anyone for this NEW LAUNCH. Since we already have a team of 30 which comprises of Developers/Data processing Team members/software trainees and some operations staff, I tried to develop a methodology of optimum resource utilization for the current team. Some of these members (who were under utilized) agreed to do Purchase/Packaging and delivery for this project by working extra hrs. They all agreed in unison for the nominal compensation(that was the icing on the cake).
I started using 12 members of the team for the above mentioned processes without our current projects getting disturbed. Every team member shared my passion so it became very easy for me. And at the same None of us were having the background of selling fruits and vegetables, so first week became the learning week for us. We went to vegetable Mandi did surveys there, brought fruits and vegetables. We got 10 orders from our other team members on DAY 1. and we were quite happy. There was no wastage as we were buying based on orders. So on DAY 1 we delivered 10 orders. This process continued for next 9 days and during that time we all learnt a lot.
Where we stand ?
We are delivering 30-40 orders daily with the average ticket size of Rs 250/-, this taking into account we are a month old venture.
How users can order ?
Users can order online, through phone and through whatsapp.
Our Future plans.
We plan to improve the customer satisfaction through innovative ideas.
We plan to go global with our natural and organic food category.
My Background
I’ve been into software development for the last 15+ yrs. I still write code and prefer to do POCS. I’ve worked with Escorts and HCL. Currently working with VSK Technologies Pvt Ltd as Director.
Now more interested in enhancing customer experience.
My Thanks
Thanking you in advance for reading this out and would love to hear from you. Kindly be soft on us as we are very new to all this.
~Sunil Suri
Follow us on Social Media: facebook
@falphool
P.S – My Special thanks to Abhik who gave us brilliant ideas to work upon through ASK ABHIK.