In italics below is probably non-interesting, you may skip to the non-italic part (which is relevant) at the end of this discussion:
Now, I have been working over this concept for the past 6 months and have learnt a lot about te business myself. As my business will be a start-up – I see around 400 to 800 percent growth every year past the first year.
The idea is already a well contested area by both small and large companies – online vegetable and fruits.
My starting area – Delhi/ NCR
My background:
I wanted to become an actor and after much struggle /tag-fight with my family – conceded to do an MBA. My studies got over and acting dream dried up due to various medieval era pressurizing tactics (you will not want to hear of) applied right after that.
But here is something I had never learnt – to stop dreaming. During my MBA studies itself I became one of the founding members of a new branch of studies under a new institute in the private university I was studying in. Also, in the same time I had started an intensive education program for security guards in my college with the help of founder-president (thankfully he was a great man always leading into anything he agrees upon from the front) – this later resulted in floating a separate security company by the college founder (the founder had much to do in all this but I also provided sparks – the guy owns 170 different companies – no joke). I had also started a vermi-compost experiment that resulted in another company launched by the founder by the end of my academia session.
After MBA, did not opt for a job – went to launch my biotechnology company (I was a bio-technologist by training). Miserably failed within 2 months – reason – the company I had tied up with did not pay (first experience of real world business environment in India).
Then started an IT company. Developed a social network with path-breaking feature set in 2 years. Now this was the recession period – the moment the recession period got over – employees flocked away (all of them) to big MNCs and the network was left in no condition to be launched. Had to close the further development due to two realizations : 1. Lot of money will be required as the same ability employees will be 3 times costlier atleast. 2. Over this – I realized the inconvenient truth of high server space and bandwidth prices (my pockets did not allow me to afford it and I was totally a fool to not have done proper business planning to account for that). Anyways – went to various VCs via agents (there are agents who take money to fix meeting with VCs) and VCs could not understand a shit about Social Networking scope. Finally by a chance encounter – met a start-up mentor who offered me to buy my technology (code, structures {especially over data structure was revolutionary} etc.) at dirt cheap price. Again, was playing on family money and so took the first exit I saw. The mentor sold the technology and concepts to one of the biggest companies on the internet and to my surprise that social network still uses many underlying concepts and codes designed by us. Anyways – what could have been of hundreds of millions was sold for a few lakhs.
Learned my lessons the hard way and went to Mumbai to start as a social media consultant – did some good work, got noticed. Learned a few seo techniques and used them so effectively that nytimes features the manipulations done by black techniques used by us. The search engine manually ranked us down for those keywords (they do this even though they claim not to – and we know that from experience).
Here’s the funny part, became the consultant to the search engine and in that capacity met a king one day (a literal king) and got to work for govt. of two nations for sometime. Now again – after catching this train to success, I jumped off it – I have less patience for working for someone else. So I collected some money – invested in TV serials, made good of it.
All my life came crashing after making a huge loss due to a personal emergency/tragedy which took all the money I earned plus some more (I am still to give money to some people I took help from). After this started my casting agency (because it only needs contact, no money) – which is still working and growing.
Started an event company but did not make any money – lost in-fact. However, still in existence and am steadily working on technical offerings that will give unique competitive advantage.
Became bored with life after that – laid back at home for 4 months without doing anything professionally. Occasionally went to various social movements, political movements etc. as had seen a lot of exploitation of farmers (I was taking care of a whole state and when one sees the big picture – one comes to know the real depth of exploitation by the govt. and private companies – this is invisible at smaller level as we take things as isolated incidents and companies have good PR and media control).
Probably from the interactions I had while working on field only I must have got an idea about online vegetables full 4 months after leaving that job. Now I see this as the next big thing. In the past 6 months I studied supply chain, vegetable and fruit business tactics and concluded my field study. Also worked with 3 top most vegetable sellers (not fruit sellers) of Delhi. Currently I am getting ready with the website for this business(In these years I myself learned all the coding also in my free time – so I know mysql, php, javascript, jquery, html, flash, and n number of other things by now). I am focused on providing the best experiences to the consumers (although not everything will be included from the very beginning but things will be added as business moves on).
Given my experience I have full control over the knowledge and experience end of the business. I may or may not enter into contract farming quality controls in the future depending upon human resources I accumulate during running this business (I am not a great HR manager as I am a perfectionist – never take mediocre efforts, although I hope to do better this time given experience).
Note: Neil Bahal et al – thanks for this wonderful discussion https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/my-thoughts-on-online-vegetable-selling-companies
This is my first experience of exposing myself to the public, so please be gentle.
Here is the piece of advice that I want:
What are the top factors that will drive you away from the offline vendor and choose my online vending services specifically (not any other online store). Among these factors kindly also grade as to which factors are absolutely crucial, and which are of top priority. Also while giving me this insight into your decision making factors, do tell me about you location, living conditions (opposite supermarket or far from any vendor, in enclosed society apartment, parents at home, free time available etc.).
Last but not the least, if a marketer were to approach you (in person or via marketing mediums like print, tv, internet etc.) to convince to try our services – what will be the most effective way (except for word of mouth publicity).
Note: any other piece of advice and knowledge in addition is also welcome (I have learned a lot of things while meeting people – like one of the innovations for 100 times cheaper cold storage etc – I hope I learn from all of you something – any knowledge is good knowledge for me).