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Festival Bites – Celebrations are again the way they used to be!

By Rajkishan Udapudi on 24 Comments / 2713 views

Hello Rodinhooders!

I am sure you all remember those days when we celebrated all festivals with full josh. School holidays and get together with friends and family, etc. etc. It was a different atmosphere all together. And the best part of these festivals were the amazing dishes our mums and naanis cooked, which we relished with great pleasure.

WHY

It’s a totally different scenario now. We as a society are slowly moving away from this amazing tradition which we have been following since ages. Not that we stopped liking it, just that other things gained our importance.

With most of the families living separately because of jobs or education or whatever, a typical festival day for most of the people would be just spending time at home with their family without those important aspects of the festival. And for many people who don’t get a day off, it just like any other day. Festival days are no more filled with “celebrations”.

Well, we are trying to do something about this in a small way. Though we can’t bring back everything, we are doing our part to continue the most important part of this tradition – delicious festive dishes.

We are launching Festival bites for the sole reason to get back people into festive mood again.

HOW

Imagine, it is the Diwali morning and you receive a box filled with amazing delicacies (relevant to that festival) at your doorstep, along with recipes for other dishes to be made at home and some other information and history about the festival to educate your kids (and yourselves too). Imagine this happens for every festival!! How cool is that! 🙂

Yes, we are doing exactly this. Keeping you happy on some of the most amazing days of the year.

WHAT

Festivalbites is a subscription based service which brings you amazing delicacies and other surprises to your doorstep during festivals. All you have to do is subscribe to the festivals for which you would like to receive boxes from us.

Each Box will cost about Rs. 1000 ( this is tentative and would really appreciate some views on price sensitivity)

I hope you will subscribe to festivalbites, so that we can start doing this asap. Please check out our site and show us your support by filling that form/subscription. It will help us in understanding the demand and take steps accordingly. Also don’t forget to share it with your friends. We are going to start our service as soon as we reach 1000 subscribers. So hurry up if you need a box for the next festival.

Thanks for your support. Will ensure special discounts for Rohinhooders whenever we start. You can use the coupon code “TRHS” to get upto Rs. 150 discount.

Thats it guys. We will see you on the festival day! 🙂

www.festivalbites.com

You can also fill your subscription directly here

PS: Right now, we are in the process of getting responses from people to see the demand. This will help us in making decisions on the size of the boxes and the number of delicacies we need to add in each box. Hence we haven’t yet finalized on what goes inside the boxes for all the festivals. We will keep you updated. Thanks.

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24 Comments

  1. hi raj,

    nice concept – i suggest you add all the important details upfront on your post (u can edit) – like the cost per box, the fact that you will start once you reach 1000 subscribers.

    super quick feedback – i just clicked on your link and browsed for a min:

    i think a few imp things are missing from your homepage – food & festivals.

    though i see the images of 6 festivals – i think you should list down the festivals you’ll be covering – there should be no less than 12 – ideally one for each month!!

    food – seeing is believing – i think the food that is synonymous with the festival needs to be shown. to me sankranti means chikki (i grew up in gujarat – but in other states it’s different – maharashtra is famous for its tilgurd)

    ganpati – is modak etc etc

    i have no idea that there is some special food for nag panchmi!!! 🙂

    also, if you’re serious about a rodinhooder discount – perhaps you could work it out and announce it right now while you have our attention here. we have loads of foodies and foodpreneurs on trhs – and most of us are early adoptors.

  2. also, pls add an about page.

    to me – if you’re into the food biz – it should be reflected in your about page as well.

    have you seen what eatopia is doing? tanul is a rodinhooder – you might want to connect – you’ve got synergies!

  3. Thanks a lot Asha for your feedback..

    Actually there are some unique delicacies for Naga Panchami also (eg: black sesame laddoo).

    I am surely going to add a few more festivals and other details on the page.

    As for the discount, Rodinhooders can use the coupon code: “TRHS” to get discounts of upto Rs150 (when we launch)

    I just had a small clarification though about the “about us” page!

    This was meant as a landing page just to give basic information about the idea and encourage people to signup (to collect emails and preferences before we start). Do you feel I need to give all the details of each product (what it contains) and the aboutus page right here? I was thinking of adding all these when we come up with a full website (we are on it) where people can directly buy.

    Please do clarify on this (whether to add all details right now or on the complete site).

    I checked Eatopia. It looks great. I will surely get in touch with Tanul soon.

    Thanks.

  4. details should be on the complete website raj.

    and i would reckon you should mention somewhere that your main site is still under construction and that the purpose of this landing page is “to collect emails and preferences before we start”

    thing is raj, you will get eyeballs the minute your post is shared over social. but if people go through it – don’t see anything concrete – you would’ve lost a chance to create a great impression. 

    somewhere indicate that you’re adding festivals and more food to the list and that your website is still a WIP.

  5. You are right!

    That solves all my doubts.. Will do it Asha..Thanks. 🙂

  6. minor typo – last line says we will confirm your order when i subscribed for updates.

    tc cheers

    karan

  7. Thanks Karan for your response and subscription.

    The form you filled is also sort of a “pre-order” (but without paying). And according to the preferences we would be calling the users to confirm whether they want the box for festivals they mentioned.

    Therefore we had mentioned “confirm your order”.

    However, I get your point. Have made the changes to avoid confusion!

  8. raj – i’ve been thinking about your idea. you are from karnataka if i’m not mistaken. festivals & food are so culturally bound. will your festival food boxes represent south india initially? suppose you’re based in b’lore – will you be able to find an authentic traditional maharashtrian cook for ganesh festival? 

    i think these apects also need to be communicated! 

    are you on twitter?

    pls share your twitter handle at the end of the post. bawi bride’s first orders came via twitter – so that’s a big learning!

  9. nice choice of name! 🙂

    few things: 1. too much whitespace on the top of the landing page…can think about reducing it!

    2. what’s a “box”? I see you said you are in the process of determining what goes into a box, but then how did you price it at Rs. 1000? is it 1kg or 2kg or something else that you’re thinking initially? 

    3. Why wait for 1000 subscribers – or more imp. what’s stopping you guys to ship before you hit that limit? Do you guys have your own cook or are you sourcing it from some vendor? 

    best wishes!

    p.s. Interesting, if I remember right there was a similar service promoted on #trhs this week. 

  10. A very valid point. Couldn’t agree more.

    (Yes I am from Karnataka)We are initially going to provide stadard boxes for all the subscribers. But very soon we will be giving an option to choose region specific Festival Box.
    We are also planning more customizations in this regard, with more variety and a different category of Do-it-yourself festival box. But all that in the near future. Currently, it will be common for all. It is also one of the reasons why we are starting our service city wise!!

    And I have just created a twitter account also. Thanks for the suggestion 🙂

  11. Thanks for your feedback Rishi.

    1) We will try to figure that out.

    2) Sorry if it was not clear. A “box” is nothing but the order you will receive – a “festival box”. Will try to make it more clear.

    We have a rough idea of what the box consists of and how much it would weigh (about 2 Kgs). Based on that and other expenditure (shipping and packaging) we had estimated Rs. 1000.

    Simultaneously we also sort of decided on what order amount is ideal and acceptable to the users and accordingly we will increase or decrease the contents in the box.

    3) The reason is to get the intent of the users. We thought it was a good idea but unless it has a good market it wouldn’t work out. So it was purely for that purpose. Also another reason is we are negotiating with logistics providers (for specifically overnight delivery), and having a good number of subscribers would reduce the burden of shipping cost (which is already very high due to next day delivery)

    We are currently planning to source it from a very reliable vendor with whom we had partnered with for the past 6 months for another venture.

  12. okay…do you want to focus on subscription only? if not, you could try this to start with…just  my suggestions…

    # show two options on your site (1 with 1kg box priced lower and the other with 2kg box at 1000 rs) and you will get more data driven feedback rather than trying to solicit feedback by just pricing at 1000 rs. 

    # instead of waiting for sizable orders + establishing a relationship with vendor etc. you could try this…raksha bandhan is around the corner…there are so many siblings living in different cities/countries. Start with Bangalore only (that’s where you’re based tight?) and deliver locally by yourself and/or with help of your friends…try the gift delivery route to start with…once the word spreads, you can offer subscription services etc.

    # also might want to comeup with some social media campaign like #deliveringsweetness or something like that…make it easy for people to share

  13. Actually speaking, it is not subscription per se, since the user has to buy for every festival separately, because in India we can’t charge recurring payments from customers (RBI guidelines).

    We will be having 2 or more options as you very rightly mentioned.

    But do you feel 1000 is a bit high priced and we need to lower it? (we were thinking of having the lowest option for Rs.1000)

    I agree. I think we will add another option to get better data driven feedback..

    Good suggestion. We thought we should start once we see some good response (to make sure our service is something people would use). But I guess we will start with whatever customers we get in Bangalore. Sounds good!

    Thanks again Rishi.

  14. Don’t think it’s about 1000 rs being high. Many people will be willing to spend it if there’s a need…but imagine, a guy living in Bangalore all by himself. If you were his sister, would you send 2kgs or 1kg, on raksha bandhan? 

    and, verbal buy in != actual buy. So instead of waiting, I’d just focus and try to get people to buy it. 🙂

    you have >2 weeks till rakshan bandhan. if you create a raksha bandhan campaign and even if you focus on just getting orders for the next 2 weeks and do nothing else…i think you’ll have a better validation than waiting for 1000 subscribers/interests. 

    best wishes!

  15. It was amazing the way you put it. Sort of cleared many of my doubts. I think I will go ahead with your suggestion.

    It was seriously of great help. Will keep you posted Rishi!

    Cheers!

  16. hey raj,

    have you started subscriptions yet??

    remembered you owing to janmashtami!

  17. Hey Asha,

    Thanks for remembering us 🙂

    We are actually starting our service first in Bangalore (have already mentioned it on the site)…And we couldn’t launch it for Janmashtami because there was only one subscription ( and have already apologized to the customer)..We are starting shipping for Ganesh Chaturthi! Have got a few subscriptions for that festival..

  18. I was actually looking forward to this update.

    I do have a genuine question – even if it’s one why not service it, rather than cancel it? 

  19. Hi Rishi,

    As much as we regret it to have cancelled the order, we were very specific from the start to launch our service once we reach a certain number of people who would be interested in Festivalbites. Though I agree with you about having to start with whatever customers we have got, we wanted to make sure at least there are enough people who wanted this service (as a validity) 

    We recently did a campaign locally which has got us some numbers and therefore will be starting soon!

    And we are in talks with a logistics company and if things go well we can start delivering pan India (instead of just Bangalore) simultaneously!

    Thanks! 🙂

  20. okay, good luck 🙂

  21. thinking of you again raj – happy ganapati!!

  22. Hi Asha! Happy Ganesh Chaturthi to you too!

    Thanks for remembering us again! 🙂

    I am very happy to inform you that we successfully shipped orders to our customers today (in Bangalore). I personally delivered most of the orders. All seemed very happy to have received the festival box. We also provided a small mud Ganesha Idol in the box, as part of a campaign we were running for a pollution free Ganesh Chaturthi. Now, eagerly waiting for the next festival…

  23. awesome raj! pls update your post with the pic of the box so folks know you are operational now!

  24. That’s a really good start. Congrats and best wishes Raj. 🙂

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