Everyone likes choices in life, be it food, clothing or anything else. However, some choices are irreversible like in case of food. An individual spends almost 30-40% of his earning on food, and it’s a mood spoiler if the food is not worth every penny. Every occasion, from first anniversary to twentieth birthday is celebrated at a either a pub or a restaurant. With thousands of places, serving the exact thing we crave for makes it difficult for us to pick one. It is too big a risk to go for something new so people often end up going to their usual place and place their usual order. It is always helpful to have someone to assist you to choose the right place for any kind of celebration. Hungerista helps you pick a place and the meals with their wide range of fine dining places.
Based out of Rohini, and with more than 200 restaurants on board within the Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida and NCR region they have handpicked some of the finest restaurants, which helps you compare the places and then choose the one as per your budget and taste. To save consumer’s and restaurant’s time and to avoid any kind of chaos, they offer the service of choosing your meals prior to visiting the place, so that you can get a taste of it without wasting any time. Apart from food, you can always check the latest events and happenings at a place.
Even with tough competition in the dining industry, Parth and his team took every measure to make their service better and unique as compared to their rivals to make each one of your experience the best. Without wasting much time, let us get straight to the journey of hungerista.
1. What is the source of inspiration behind the name of your venture?
Hungerista is the amalgamation of the words Hunger and Instant.
2. Who all are your target audience/clients?
We are targeting urban users that are looking to explore amazing places to dine out within their locality. They only need an internet connection to access the portal.
3. Your current operations are located in which regions and Where are you based at (city, state, country)?
We have more than 200 restaurants on board within the Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida and NCR region. Our headquarters are based in Rohini.
4. What problems does your venture resolve? What are your products or services?
With the incorporation of technology in the food service domain, it is becoming easier for consumers and business to interact with each other. But there are still some problems that have not yet been addressed.
Some problems yet to be addressed from the user end are:
- Deteriorating user experience due to the time consuming aspect of dining out. For example, if my favourite restaurant is very busy, then I’ll have to either wait for a very long time before they will be able to serve me or I’ll have to look for alternatives.
- It is difficult for users to discover and compare new and amazing places to eat out. Also, it almost impossible for them to be abreast of various offers and services of their favourite restaurants.
Some problems yet to be addressed from the perspective of a business owner:
- It is difficult for restaurant owners/managers to showcase their offers to a large base of potential clients.
- During peak hours, business suffer due to inefficient handling of their service and customer management which results in poor feedback from users.
5. Would you like to Share the idea or story behind the foundation of your company?
I think we all have experienced the frustration of having to wait hours for the food to arrive at the restaurant when you are extremely hungry. Also, sometimes you favourite restaurant is booked and you have to wait to be even seated. Having worked in the food industry, the team identified a few issues that could be solved with the help of technology and can enhance the entire users experience while dining.
6. Do you face any rivalry and how do you differentiate yourself from them?
We have ventures such as Dineout, Eazydiner, Clicktable etc. which operate in the same space yet have not addressed all the problems in the space of making the customer/business interaction as seamless as possible.
https://www.dineout.co.in
https://www.eazydiner.com
https://www.clicktable.com
7. How do you identify your co-founder? Would you like to tell us something about them?
We have a well-rounded and extremely competent team who are managing different verticals of the venture.
Dev Raj Thakur, Founder and CEO: Has over 3 years of experience in business and technology domain. Graduated from one of the premier institutions in the country.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dev-raj-thakur/
Parth Dave, Founder and COO: Has over 3 years of experience as an entrepreneur and has the heart of an innovator. Worked for 1 year in the same domain.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/parth-dave-519066b4/
Vishal Goyal, Founder and CTO: Has two years of experience in handling the software development of a premier educational institute. Has also worked with various start-ups .
https://www.linkedin.com/in/vishalpsych/
Manish Saini, Founder and CBDO: Has experience of around 4 years in hospitality industry as a business development executive. Has been active in the business world for 5 years.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/manish-saini-1ab731153/
Rahul Thakur, Founder and CMO: Has worked with various start-ups as marketing manager and has handled various marketing campaigns.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahul-thakur-679994157/
8. What is your idea of team formulation? What type of qualities do you search for in your team?
The ideal team for a startup is people who are execution based and can quickly carry out tasks. A tech startup should have the right mix of people with expertise in technology, business development and the right market experience.
9. What are your growth or expansion plans for the next 2 or 5 years?
We hope to expand outside Delhi NCR within the next 6 months and hope to cover a lot of tier-1 cities in India within the next 5 years.
10. Where do you see yourself 10 years down the line?
We hope to have achieved some measure of success with our ventures and brought about a shift in the entire dining industry.
11. What are your short term goals?
We aim to work on our value propositions to the users to ensure that there is a genuine value addition to the users that come on to our portal. That will ensure a positive word of mouth among users.
12. Have you risen any funding yet? Are you looking for the same?
We have completely bootstrapped the startup till now and are looking to raise our angel round very soon.
13. Please share your incubation days struggle issues while setting up this venture, and how did you resolve them?
A startup encounters a variety of issues from day one. From issues of sharing the same vision with your co-founders to maintaining the same level of motivation when things do not go your way. You also need the sufficient funds and revenue to bootstrap the venture. We have faced all of this during our 1 year of existence and came out on top of it through sheer determination and competence of the team.
14. What was or has been the most challenging part of your journey? How do you overcome the same?
The most challenging part of our journey has been acquiring our first initial paying customers.
15. What is your idea of stress management?
The complete idea of stress management is to take a hard stop when you feelings things are getting too stressful or hectic. We usually go for one or two day trips and to refresh and refocus our minds.
16. What do you do to escape the work life in your leisure time?
I usually indulge in sports or light reading during my leisure time.
17. Where would you like to escape to for a holiday?
I have heard Bali is a must visit for a short trip out of the country. So that’s the place I would like to escape to. Within India, Panchmari is one of the places I would like to visit.
18. Whom do you consider your idol/role model or biggest motivator and why?
Elon Musk. The dude is handling multiple game changing companies that will benefit the society at large. It is hard not to be impressed by him.
19. What makes entrepreneurs different from service class professionals?
I believe entrepreneurs have a much higher appetite for risk taking and are much more execution oriented but they can also be a little too unpredictable.
20. Which part of your life would you like to rewrite if given a chance to restart with your career today?
I would like to have started my entrepreneurial journey much earlier with the right team.
21. How has being an entrepreneur affected your family & Social life?
It is really difficult to manage a social life when you are working in such a fast paced environment. All our families have been incredibly supportive with a pinch of apprehension mixed in.
22. Is there anything, you’d like to say to our readers or upcoming entrepreneurs?
I would only like to say, persistence eventually pays off in a startup environment. You just need a team that believes in the idea and is more focused on the execution part.
23. Tell us something about your education & family background.
I am a graduate from Delhi University and the first one to pursue entrepreneurship in our family.
24. What is your USP or biggest strength that makes you stand apart from your competitors?
Our primary USPs are as follows:
- We optimize the interaction between the restaurant and the user thereby enhancing the user experience. Users can pre-book meals and services, for dining and takeaways, from the restaurant and they will be ready by the time they arrive. Such an interaction will ensure that restaurants will not lose any revenue during peak hours.
- Food is ready for every customer within 2 minutes of their arrival.
- User can discover new restaurants to try out and also compare their latest offerings. They can also discover new events, cuisines and happenings at various restaurants.
- Restaurants will have access to a dashboard that will be integrated along with POS software solutions. They will be able to manage their profiles on the portal by themselves and have access to all the user data analytics.
25. Why do you think start-ups are so vulnerable to the external business environment? What according to you are the threats to their stability?
Startup have a lot of points to focus upon during the phase when they are just getting started and there are a lot of potential factors that could possibly derail them. Slow market conditions and
26. Do you consider yourself successful and by what means do you measure success?
I am a firm believer in never settling for a status quo. We are just beginning to start with our success story and we have a long way to go.
27. Please share your contact details’ as follows:
a. complete name: Parth Dave
b. address: B-1/32, Sec 17, Rohini
c. phone number: 7011598340
d. email id & website of Your Business: [email protected] and Hungerista.com
e. Contact Person: Parth
