This story was originally published in www.thesmartceo.in. You can read it here.

Backed by India Quotient, Holachef is an online food platform that crowd sources Chefs in Mumbai to cook and deliver homemade, preservative-free food to customers.

Modern day kitchen economics are such that quite often we tend to leave the ladles in the shelf and order-in food from outside. Added to this, we take it as an opportunity to scout for food that we can’t otherwise make at home. In simpler words, exotic dishes. But, how long can we survive on restaurant food? And, how often have we found authentic cuisine home delivered at reasonable prices? These were the very thoughts running on Saurabh Saxena’s mind when he was still an employee at Toppr.com. Soon enough, he found a solution and plunged into the entrepreneurship ecosystem with his second venture, Holachef (his first being Aakar Knowledge Solutions, research-based education company).

Founded in 2014, Holachef is an online food platform that connects Chefs who specialise in exotic cuisines with customers who turn to online for food delivery. “We don’t operate in an entirely new sector. Holachef is an improvisation of what a Zomato on one hand and a brick and mortar store on the other have built. For us, technology is the enabler to conduct business more efficiently,” indicates Saxena.

Hola Chef is backed by India Quotient, which invested Rs. 2 crore as short-term debt in February 2015. “One of the primary challenges that any startup in its early days faces is in identifying the right valuation. Luckily for us, India Quotient was willing to take that risk,” says Saxena. Once the startup raises its next round of funding, or when the business has achieved a sizeable scale, the debt will be converted into equity.

Rolling out the idea

So how does Holachef work? First, the startup partners with Chefs who are professionally trained to cook exotic, preservative-free food. Then, it collates data and uses predictive algorithms to determine what kind of food customers want to eat. This analysis is then used to decide what kind of food needs to be prepared and made available on the platform for the day. Unlike any other food business, Holachef does not offer on-demand service to its customers. For every order, the customer has to choose a time slot within which they want the food to be delivered. “Our customers can also pre-order food and on the basis of this demand, we determine what to make and how much to make,” states Saxena.

The Chefs at the startup are typically ones that have held high positions at fine dining restaurants or even amateur chefs who hold a professional degree in this field. “Usually, amateur chefs learn on the job,” adds Saxena. While today, the menu on the website changes every day, Saxena indicates that they have plans to post a seven-day menu, which will ensure that they are better planned in meeting customer requirements.

On the logistics front, the Chef prepares and delivers the food to Holachef, which in turn delivers the food to its customers. To fulfil this, the startup has setup an internal logistics team and delivery is managed efficiently through automatic route planning. “We also look at a sharing economy with our logistics team. We don’t mind hiring people who can work for just a few hours a day,” he says.

Holachef currently has over 100 chefs on board and records an average of 250 orders per day and over 3,000 orders a month. While it started off operations from Powai (in Mumbai), it has expanded into Chembur and by year end plans to create a presence across key locations in Mumbai. “By then, we estimate our monthly number of orders to increase to 20,000 to 25,000,” shares Saxena. The company takes a percentage of revenues from the Chef, for each dish.

At the purchase point

As is the case with most startups, Holachef earned its first few customers through a combination of word-of-mouth and social media marketing. “Our key marketing strategy was to get the customer to taste the food first. Until now we’ve had a zero customer drop rate. This puts us in a very strong footing in sales,” notes Saxena. He adds that Holachef’s key differentiator lies in making fresh food ever day, and not using any preservatives. “In fact, even our dishes don’t repeat for a week. For now, all leftover food for the day goes to NGOs which donate food to the needy every day,” he says.

Operating in a food business is akin to dealing with emotions. Food is often very personal and every individual’s preferences vary. This, while being an advantage, is also a challenge for Holachef. “Sometimes, even a chef can have a bad day and the food, in turn, may drop in quality. In such circumstances, we ensure that we inform the customer before hand, and our customer support team resolves the issue immediately,” he admits.

Second, of course, is in managing logistics in the most efficient way possible. Saxena feels that once the seven-day menu is introduced and business expands to other regions, more systems will have to come in place to ensure that each order is tracked and the food gets delivered on time.

Three-year plan

In the longer run, Saxena plans to take Holachef to multiple cities, including Tier II and Tier III regions. His focus during the scaling up phase is going to be on ensuring that the food quality and delivery process is maintained, and in making technology more intuitive for chefs and customers. “In three years from now, we want to reach a monthly order target of 50,000 orders a month,” says Saxena, on a parting note.

Read the complete article here: http://inc42.com/startups/holachef/

Having Their Chunk Of The Online Food Industry: Holachef, A Startup That Is Bridging The Gap Between Food Lovers & Chefs

In the present generation, everyone is on the quest for something great. But, what is mutual among everyone, is the quest for food, great food. Everyone is on the lookout for something new – a new dish, a new restaurant or a new cuisine. But, it isn’t always see. An eat-out experience isn’t always a good one; it is either too far, too expensive or low on quality. You can order food at home, but, it gets monotonous after a while and you don’t feel like having it anymore.

With an aim to fill the gap between fine-dining and its accessibility, Holachef.com was launched. It aims to connect the best chefs in town with food lovers and, also, to provide them with an amazing food experience, without having to shed in a lot of money.

WHAT IS HOLACHEF ALL ABOUT?

Holachef, which comes with the mission to connect the best chefs in town with foodies, is an extension of your passion for food. There always remains a gap between the good fine dine experience and its accessibility. To bridge this gap, Saurabh Saxena co-founded this Mumbai-based company with Anil Gelra.

Saurabh is also an advisor and mentor to promising startups and budding entrepreneurs. Anil is adept at creating internet scale applications delivered over mobile and web. He brings to Holachef his acumen for designing, developing and scaling big data applications.

Currently, Holachef is a team of 15 and has over 150 chefs onboard with a total of 25 members in the delivery queue.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Unlike, every other restaurant food delivery or 30 minute guaranteed delivery chain, Holachef believes the fact that someone who is looking forward to a sumptuous lunch or dinner would plan it well in advance. Following this theory, they deliver the food in specific timeslots.

Holachef.com connects the customers to an impressive set of chefs with a rich culinary experience through an online portal. The customers can order only via the mobile app or the desktop hence eradicating the need for menu pamphlets. Moreover, Holachef provides a new menu every day. The meals are provided in a single-person meal format, which prevents wastage and the spill free, recyclable packaging comes with an option for the customer to choose the time of delivery.

Of all the traffic that they entertain to, Holachef interestingly gets 65 percent of its traffic from phone users while the remaining 35 percent comes from the desktop users.

THE ONLINE FOOD INDUSTRY

The Indian food industry stands at $50 Bn and is growing rapidly. The demand for good food has increased and market is slowly waking up to the opportunities in the online food sector given that the home-delivery segment is growing at a whopping 40%. Thus, the market to be covered is vast and compared to the international standards, the Indian Online food delivery is at a very early stage and needs time to grow.

Holachef has served over 3000 customers in the past 5 months and has a retention rate of 60%. The average orders per customer have also increased from 2 to 5 per month. The revenue model is a share of the price at which the meals are listed.

With a revenue of INR 60,000 in the first month of September 2014, Holachef has grown to INR 16 Lac revenue in the month of February 2015. And looking forward to increase the number month on month basis.

THE COMPETITION

The main advantage that Holachef has over everyone even remotely related to this industry is the fact that they are a community of chefs with the required skill and experience rather than a single chef heading over a team of cooks. There are in the similar services, but, the biggest competition is the local restaurants that deliver food.

Holachef is a one-of-its-kind service and restaurant aggregators and restaurants moving into online-ordering and mobile ordering could be considered their immediate competitors. But, the one-person meal formats also make it more convenient to order food in a specified proportion and to prevent any wastage.

THE ROAD AHEAD

According to Saurabh,” Holachef.com is as much about food as it is about technology. Technology is a huge enabler and not just for making a simple ordering process for the consumer. Technology automation on our backend system allows us to service more people, more efficiently. Technology helps us in predicting demand as well as planning deliveries better.”

Holachef.com has raised INR 2 Cr funding from India Quotient in the form of convertible notes. They now intend to raise INR 25-30 Cr to fund their expansion across Mumbai and 6-7 other cities across India.

Without leaving out on any factor, the company plans to expand with deeper penetration into at least 4 more Indian cities in the next 2 years.

They have a high engagement of customers and repeat ordering rate and going forward they plan to invest into marketing to expand their customer base and would soon be serving more orders per month than any other fine-dine or casual dining restaurant in Mumbai.

Our Take

Holachef.com has combined technology and the love for food to create a product which will enhance the customer’s fine-dine experience. Thanks to an upwardly mobile, unceasingly busy and tremendously aspirational generation, the appetite for good food is increasing and Holachef.com is making sure that this need is taken care of.