Transcript

12 March 2025, 03:42pm

Aditya Gupta started transcription

Aditya Gupta 0:24

Didn't, OK.

Samar 0:25
Uh huh.

Nandini Saraogi 0:28

You record or Aditya.

Aditya Gupta 0:29

Yes, yes.

Samar 0:30
Yes.

Nandini Saraogi 0:31

OK, OK.

Aditya Gupta 0:33

OK, good. So OK, let's start.
A very good evening somewhere. Hope you're doing good.

Samar 0:41
I'm good. Thank you. How are you, Aditya?

Aditya Gupta 0:43

I am fine. Thanks for giving us the opportunity to know more about your
business. Can you start by introducing your business?

Samar 0:52
Yes, thank you to you for giving us the opportunity to speak about our
business in the 1st place. So, so basically our business is not exactly a
restaurant per southeast.
We operate in the entertainment sector and our target audience is
specifically male. So what we try to do actually is we have leased out a
building which is a three Storey building all right. So we have dedicated all
the three floors to a different sector.

Aditya Gupta 1:11

OK.
OK.

Samar 1:25
Am I audible?

Aditya Gupta 1:25

K yes, yes.

Samar 1:27
So our first floor is dedicated to snooker and the 2nd floor is dedicated to
E Sports and the third floor is a rooftop cafe. So that's the that's the model
of the business that we operate in. And yes, the major revenue that we
earn from in our business in our short lived period is basically from the
entertainment part. But of course if.
This is this has been our experience throughout running the business has
that. If there are other modes of entertainment.
People tend to stay in your place longer and then the revenues for food
increases automatically.
Because I think this is understanding the consumer behaviour in a way
where you think that if you are in a place for a long time, say six hours, 7
hours, right, so you tend to get hungry and there are people around you,
you of course these are these are games that you play with your friends
or, you know in a competitive format. Also there are people. So when
people are there they order food continuously.

Aditya Gupta 2:28

OK.

Samar 2:34
We are still in the budding stage of our business. We are expanding our
kitchen and our menu.

Aditya Gupta 2:34

OK.

Samar 2:38
But so far the business is profitable touchford.

Aditya Gupta 2:39

OK.
That's great. So OK. So my next question is, can you please walk me
through your daily business operations like how it runs and how like how
everyday operations in your business looks like?

Samar 2:57
Yes, sure. I think if I have to give you a brief explanation of how our day in
my life looks like, it's more like.
We open at 11:00 in the morning and that is where the prep goes in a lot
of customers don't arrive at us. I think before 3:00 PM, so our people in
the kitchen get ample amount of time to prep for the meals that comes
ahead with these services in the future. So there is a lot of procurement
going on beforehand. So we dedicate around 1 1/2 hours daily for
procurement of raw materials.
We have our vendors strictly.
In place for the food items that that are very.
Regular for example, like we have a vendor for our chicken supplies. Then
we have a vendor for our vegetable supplies, especially for dairy and all
we for the perishable items. We tend to keep the quality quantity low and
if need be for per say at any point in time there's an influx of people.
So we depend on swiggy or instamat or blinkit for that matter, but All in
all, we have our vendors in place.
For majority of the items and then once the procurement is done then the
prepping is done by the chefs that are there and I think it's usually around
5:00 PM when the people start flooding in and we start getting orders and
then the chefs prepare accordingly and serve. I think that is the answer
that you are looking for and just to add on to that, because we have a all
nighter permit from the government.

Aditya Gupta 4:21

OK.
Yeah.

Samar 4:33
So our restaurant usually runs from 11:00 AM in the morning to around
6:00 AM in the morning.

Aditya Gupta 4:34

OK.

Samar 4:42
It's like a long working hours that way. So we have 8 employees in place
in shifts of eight and eight.

Aditya Gupta 4:43

OK. Thanks.

Samar 4:52
Which are working continuously around the clock so that everything is
seamless.
Is there anything you want me to add?
Aditya Gupta 4:59
Important. No, no. Like moving on to the next question. So what are the
biggest challenges you face in managing your business?

Samar 5:08
I think the biggest challenges that we face on our day-to-day life is
actually communicating because what usually happens is because we still
rely on a very manual mode of communication with the kitchen. So there
are people who are running here and there up and down the kitchens. The
kitchen is on the top floor. I wish this interview would have been offline so
you could have visited the restaurant, you could have seen the layout
yourself.
But unfortunately, maybe some other time.

Aditya Gupta 5:38

Definitely.

Samar 5:38
So what happens is that.

Nandini Saraogi 5:39

He will definitely visit for sure.

Samar 5:41
Sure, sure. It would be a pleasure. So the restaurant and the kitchen is on
the top floor. So if there is an order flooding in the the guy responsible on
that floor either has to drop a text to the kitchen manager or they have to
go themselves manually to get the order place. So I think a lot of times a
lot of orders get messed up. I think if I have to give you a percentage of
that figure, that would be around 10 to 12% of the orders are messed up.
Per sale, somebody ordered, say, a drink.
I'm just giving you a random example, if that's fine. So somebody ordered
a drink half an hour ago, and while the guy was on his way to order in the
kitchen, some other guy stopped him and like, OK, we not, we need some
crispers. We need some peri peri fries and this guy. Because, of course we
understand human error in the picture. So this guy completely forgot
about a drink because it was a small commodity.
So.

Aditya Gupta 6:36

Perfect.

Samar 6:38
20 minutes down there is this guy who is angry that, oh, you know, I
ordered a drink 20 minutes back. I did not receive it, so that is the
challenge that we are facing when we're trying to actually optimise the
this process. But of course, as I said, we are still in the burning stage of
the business. We are still trying to fix a lot of issues that apart from that I
think.

Aditya Gupta 6:45

OK.

Samar 7:04
Other major problem that we faced is of course the delivery time.
'Cause sometimes when there's a lot of people coming in, there's a there
are a lot of orders flowing inside and sometimes we we tend to, we take
the responsibility of it and we get, we give the customer who's order has
been delayed some percentage of so that we retain our customers that
ways. So yeah, I think that that answers your question.

Nandini Saraogi 7:29

Yes, definitely. So now as we know that you know customer is the king,
right? So coming to you like how do you track sales and like what, how do
you understand, OK, these are my best sellers and these are the hot
sellers on these specific days. What mechanism do you use to understand
that?

Samar 7:35
Sure, sure.
I think it totally comes from experience because when you give a vast
menu option to the crowd and that is where the market research comes
play from experience. So you might give certain items on the menu, but
you see that there are repetitive orders of say four or five regular items
which are your best sellers. So you mark them as your best sellers. You
make sure the stock is always there no matter what, OK.
We also encourage people to try on the new options because some of the
options that we have in our menu are new, as in the name is not
something that you'll hear in the market.
If I have to give you an example, one of our momos is known as Ferrari
momos, so this is a very obscure name that nobody has heard about, so
people don't want to experiment with their food, right? So a lot of times
we have to give them prompts, you know, this is one item on the dish. If
you're looking for it, give it a try. But as far as the regular orders are
considered.
As Nandini asked the question, I think we totally rely on our experience.
On what these heart centres are, and I think this is something you learn
when you are on the ground, I mean you you think of consumer from their
point of view that at any point in time what they want so.
A partner of mine very finally said one time that you know we need to put
more options in the menu that don't get your customers hands greasy.
Right reason being the. So why that was put in place was because we
have a lot of state-of-the-art snooker tables. We got it ordered from like
China and Japan. These are our Olympic level snooker tables and these
are very expensive per SE. So we don't want, you know, oily and greasy
hands spoiling the table because that would in turn spoil our business.

Nandini Saraogi 9:21

Great insight.

Samar 9:47
People come to us for the sport that they're intended to play.
And not for the food that, as I mentioned previously, so we wanted to
ensure that our menu options are as as less greasy as possible so that
people enjoy the food but at the same time we don't suffer any damages.
Also the Playstations that we have in place a lot of times when people
order fried food, our controllers get very sticky and oily and.
The cleaning people face a lot of time, you know, actually decreasing the
entire controllers and it just hampers the quality of the products that we
offer.
So this is something that we have been looking. We have been very,
we've been trying to manage as we designed our menu.
So yeah, I think that is that there is.

Nandini Saraogi 10:38

So somewhere like, do you use any technology or any MIS systems in
place to track your best sellers and all these or it is just purely experience
based and you are there all the time too you know monitor it.

Samar 10:52
Look, as far as the sales and the finances of the businesses considered,
we rely on Excel and there is no ERP per SE in place.
I mean, we are not a very huge enterprise that we can afford such
technologies at this point in time. So we totally rely on Excel for our day in
day out sales and knowing what the income, what, what the input and the
output was.

Nandini Saraogi 11:20

So another thing summer like now we have been in the business for a bit,
right? So according to you, what affects your profitability the most like is it
the pricing or is is it the seasonality variation like what affects your profit
for profitability the most?

Samar 11:39
Two things that I can tell you from my experiences. One is your
geographical location. All right, it it actually for a food business, it actually
defines how much footfall that you're going to have at A at any particular
time. And secondly, the demographics of the people that are living
nearby. So the reason why I'm telling you this is because our restaurant is
on the Kalindi Kunj Rd.
All right, so behind our place is a Muslim pocket.
OK. As you know that the holy month of Ramzan is in ongoing right. So we
face this that you know our day sales are dropping at an insane rate, but
at the same time our nighttime sales are increasingly rap increasing
rapidly.
So I think the geographical location and the demographics of the people
around your place matters a lot. I think secondly, the kind of the kind of
entertainment or like ambience you provide to the people is also a main
source like there are. There have been times when people come to our
rooftop and because they are very beautifully, beautifully curated, our and
decorated our rooftop people want to host their small parties.
So there have been times when people have hosted hosted, you know,
their baby showers there we have had.
Birthday party is there and there was also a time that one of our fellow
colleagues from 4 School of Management got their SIP and he contacted
me to give the party for the because he was happy about the SIP process.
I don't know if I'm if I'm like allowed to say this on the camera or not but.

Nandini Saraogi 13:19

Oh, that's absolutely fine. So one more thing, Samar, like how do you
decide the pricing strategy for the items that you have on the menu and
how how do you face any challenge in like you said you're profitable, but
we see a lot of restaurants not making profits for a lot lot of time, right?
So any challenges you face while keeping up with the profitability?

Samar 13:21
Yeah.
Yep, Yep.

Nandini Saraogi 13:44

Or is it? Or is it always cakewalk?

Samar 13:47
I think I'll take your questions part by part. The first part of your question
was deciding the pricing of the products that are on the menu, right. So I
think we we take the average of what the market price is around us. So if
if a similar restaurant or offers say a plate of chicken crispers for say
₹350, we'll make sure that we offer it in 320, all right. So we take the
average of what is going around in the market and then we can cut short.

Nandini Saraogi 13:56

Yes.
Samar 14:17
On our like we have a specific profit margin that we keep in place.
And then we we get next by ten ₹20 at much so that we can have, we can
stand in the market as we are a growing business, we want the prices to
be as competitive as possible. But at the same time, I think the major
traction that comes in any business is from the kind of ambience you
provide, the kind of services you are providing and by service. I'm not
mentioning the services.

Aditya Gupta 14:25

None.

Samar 14:47
Of the food delivery and all, but along with the food, what you are offering
because Indian consumer per southeast is a very spoiled consumer.
That is my opinion on things is because they want everything quick, cheap
and you know.
As as they can bargain in anything so. So that is our philosophy of things.
And then we want the consumer to be happy. So if there is a value for the
money that they're paying, I think any business would do good. And yes,
Nandini, you rightly pointed out that there are a lot of restaurants that are
facing a lot of losses.
I before this venture I also had a cloud kitchen.
And that was so that was also a profitable business, but the only problem
that we face at that point in time was the scalability part, because at that
point in time, we were operating in a very small nutshell kind of scenario.
So the scalability was a was a bit difficult, but when you offer good quality
product and something that is out-of-the-box in your menu, I think the
customer will still come to your place and you'll always have an added
advantage.

Aditya Gupta 15:24

Oh, nice.
No matter if you don't mind, I would love to hear the name of your cloud
kitchen with you, which you had previously.

Samar 16:00
Yes. So my cloud Kitchen was named the Balcony Kitchen and it was more
of a passion project, I would say because I have always been into the food
industry. I like I have loved cooking all my life. And my father says that if I
would not have been an engineer, I would have definitely been a chef.
That was my intake on real things. But of course, you know how brown
parents work around. I was never allowed to take that career option, but I
made sure that, you know.
Aditya Gupta 16:04
Oh, nice.

Samar 16:26
If there is a passion for things you find a way of doing it in some way or
the other, maybe you are in the kitchen. You are.

Aditya Gupta 16:31

OK.

Samar 16:33
Like your own self or you make a kitchen for for it to be a business, but
you are somewhere related to the thing that you are interested in. So that
was the business that was the business of balcony, kitchen and balcony.
Kitchen was started with the idea of providing college students. So we are
our target audience was college students who used to stay late at night
and at that point in time, late night deliveries from Spokane. Zomato was
not on picture.
So we are talking about 2017 18.
So Zomato and Swiggy were not in the picture at that point in time or if
they were, they were not available in the locality that I live in, which is
Okhla region. So that was the time when we started it and it was a
profitable business. But the only drawback of that business was it was a
one man show. So I was the one who was getting up every day in the
morning, procuring everything, preparing everything, delivering
everything.

Aditya Gupta 17:22

OK.
Oh.

Samar 17:29
So it was a tedious job. It took a lot of toll on my body and my parents are
not very happy about it. I'll be very honest about that. So that was one of
the reasons why it shut down. Also, if you want to give it a business point
of view, the scalability of the business was very difficult back in the day.
Now that you know, with the experience that I have, and because I've
been fortunate enough to be in working in the industry and I have some
kind of disposable income to actually invest in a restaurant, this was my
opportunity. So that is where the snook lounge or the restaurant part of it
called NOSH came into picture.

Aditya Gupta 18:04

OK, so some of the next question which I have for you, is that how do you
manage your stocks and ensure that you have the right amount of
ingredients in place for everyday?

Samar 18:14
I thought this this.
Responsibility of ours is totally on the kitchen manager that we have in
place. So we have allotted our designation called the Kitchen Manager. He
is the one responsible for taking the bookings. Who's responsible for
taking the count that like for a particular table, what has been the order
placed and if there is any discrepancy, he fixes it. The inventory
management, it is his.
Job role and I think he has been performing very well at his job. So what
he does is he basically.
Coordinates with the chef and the in kitchen stuff about what is required.
Then they have an excellent place and the quantity they're planning to,
you know, actually have at the back of the store. And of course we have a
cold storage and a dry storage. All right, so the cold storage is about how
much, how many things that we can store with a non perishable entities.
So we store it there. And for the perishable part, it is morally on the day in
day out like.
We maintain an inventory of day in, day out.
Everything is fresh in place, especially the poultry and the daily products
that we use are on everyday recycled fresh.

Aditya Gupta 19:20

Yeah.
Yeah, actually. And have you, have you faced any challenges in terms of
overstocking or in terms of wastage in, in your supply chain management?

Samar 19:43
Quite honestly, yes, we have faced a lot of challenges. There are a lot of
our foods have been wasted. I mean, especially the ones, those are
perishable, there're a lot of times when our the when the poultry that we
use have not been used. So we cannot use it the other day. So what we do
is we have to dump it and somewhere the other. So we do that secondly.
In terms of wastage?

Aditya Gupta 20:20

OK.

Samar 20:21
There was a lot of rottening happening, so yeah, these are the hiccups
that minor hiccups that we face in any business. And I think we also give
the people a chance to rectify their mistakes. So I think we as as owners
or as restaurant business, we don't we take turn to blind eye to some of
these, we we make sure that we have regular meetings with the kitchen
staff and make sure that we tell them, you know, it is best that we.

Aditya Gupta 20:31

Oh, true.

Samar 20:47
Waste minimal food as these are, you know, and we also give the religious
aspect of it that, you know, it's Nemat. We cannot waste any of it.
Everything has a cost behind it. There are people out there who are
actually unfortunate that they cannot even have this kind of food.

Aditya Gupta 20:54

Yeah, yeah.

Samar 21:02
So please be sure be mindful of what you are using. Make sure that
everything is stored properly so that we don't waste any more still of the
food that we have been grateful for.

Nandini Saraogi 21:16

So very nice policy. We also believe in the same that you know it's an
opponent. So wastage like only chain. So you know somewhere like we
spoke about the people part of the business. So like when it comes to the
stuff like what are the factors you see in terms of hiring skilled employees
and you know training them and retaining them because in the in the
hotel industry in the employee turnover is very high. What we have
observed.

Samar 21:23
Exactly, yes, true, true.

Nandini Saraogi 21:45

So what goes in behind training the people and retaining them?
And teaching them actually.

Samar 21:52
Right. So.
I think how we hire people is especially based on the skills that they have
in the past experience they possess and the only thing at at this point in
time, because I think our business structure is different from other
businesses because other businesses operate in a very standard timeline.
All right, so there, there is a time when the shop opens up and then
there's a time when you can expect peak of people.
Then there is a time when you shut the shutter down and when the shop
closes. But our our business is different from that, right?
So the kind of people that we look for are that those are flexible, right,
that those are flexible in working hours. Those are flexible in, you know
and actually passionate about what they do now. Of course, passion
cannot be judged by a day or two. We we have to actually keep them and
keep them at work and make sure that they understand and we observe
them very keenly and how they're doing the work. Also there are a lot of
regular customers that come to our place and we take their feedback as
well.
But you know, if there is any room for improvement, you can feel free to
talk to us about it. And if there is a particular problem with any staff, we
make sure that we have a one-on-one conversation with them and try to
understand if there is anything wrong that they are going like they're
they're doing in their life or there's something else bothering them so that
they're not able to focus on their work. And if there is, if in that case, if
there is something as such, we try to make sure that, you know, we help
them out in whatever way that is possible. So I can tell.
Example that there was this guy, he was an accident.
Employer then he used he was the one who used to take orders from the
people and deliver it to the kitchen. And he was very good at what he did
and everybody around liked him because he was very obedient. That's
and he was always very calm and polite. But we've noticed for a week that
he was, you know, off chats. I mean, he was not working the way he used
to. So somebody complained to us saying that, you know, this guy, I think
there's something wrong with him.
Our orders are not in place. The kitchen staff was complaining about him
and you know, we don't get to know what is going on.
So me and my partner, we spoke to him and we just got to know that his
father was sick in the village. So that was the reason he was not.
Performing as he used to, and I asked him if there's something we could
do, he said. You know, I don't know. I just came from home a week back
and asking again for a holiday from you. I was very shy of that because I
thought, you know, you're still a big business.
Chuti dengue NI, dengue tum mujhe laga ke bhi bol na chani lagega. So
we are like no, no, you know family comes first at any point in time just
because you're not here for a week does not mean the business will stop.
Of course, we assure you that if you want to go, you can go. If you want a
prepayment of your salary that is due in the next 15 days, we can give it
to you.
Just make sure that your family is OK, and I think that is how you earn the
loyalty of the people who work for you, and that is how you make sure the
retention of your employees is maximum. You have to have that
empathetic touch. And I think it is something that we have been
forgetting, that the emotional bond between people because we have all
been so into the rat race of, you know, corporate that we want people to
perform, perform and perform.
Not when we tend to overlook what they're going through in their personal
lives.
So I think this has been our learning that you know, we have to take our
time, take a pause, understand things from their perspective, because at
the end of the day they might work for you, but they're not your slaves.
They are people. They have a personal life and they can go through ups
and downs in their life. And as employers, you need to make sure that you
are supportive of them. So I think at this point in time, only two of our
employees have left since we started.
Rest all eight are still in place and we are very happy. We are a very proud
family as such that you know, if there is anything up and down.
We are there to support you no matter what.

Nandini Saraogi 26:04

To that is a great story firstly, and secondly, you know like, but of course it
is important to track the performance of the employees also. So do you
use any technology or any systems to actually evaluate employee
performance and employee effectiveness, you know like or you do that on
Excel itself in some way?

Samar 26:15
Right.
Think for monitoring the employee. I think it is for for restaurant
businesses. I think tracking the employees completely depending on what
the consumer has. The feedback I mean if your customers are happy with
the kind of people who are getting their orders in place around time, I
don't see any point why we we should have an ERP system in place had it
been an intangible form of.

Nandini Saraogi 26:51

Yes.

Samar 26:52
Say performance system. Of course there is a need for performance
tracking and all, but in a direct customer.
Facing role as these people work, I think it is important that these people
maintain good reputation with the, with the customers, that that come to
us. And if that is the case, a lot of people have make sure that you know
they come because they're happy with the services they're providing and
sometimes they also come because they know the staff.
And even the staff at some point in time recognise, oh, this is a regular
customer. We know what the order is, how much spiciness they like in any
kind of food. And, you know, all the preferences that there are.
So we don't see any point in changing our employers employees every
now and then we make sure that you know we stick to the same set of
employees that we have until unless there is a next level escalation.
Like we have to fire one employee and I'll give you this insight because we
have to file one of our employees because he was very careless, which
actually caused a fire in our kitchen because he turned on the fryer and
he forgot. So there was a huge blast there.

Aditya Gupta 27:54

Oh.
OK, this is something really serious.

Samar 27:58
So we have to fire him out because you know that. Yeah. So we did not
want that kind of casualty because a lot of times the people are there and
because of accidents such as these, someone can lose their life.
And as businesses that is the last thing you want to do.

Aditya Gupta 28:12

So.

Samar 28:15
As humans or as business, that is the last thing you want to feel that you
know in your property, in your under your.
Under your roof, there is a death due to some unforeseen circumstances,
so that was the reason we have to fire this one employee. But apart from
that, no, no, I think there has not not been any firing as such.

Aditya Gupta 28:36

And Summit, I really, I'm really curious about to know like how do you
handle P cars and like how do you like overcome the stuff?
Shortages at the time of the P cars.

Samar 28:50
So basically pickers and for us is when multiple things happen at the same
time. So as I mentioned earlier that sometimes people book their entire
floor for their own parties and all. So that is a peak time for us. So usually
at any point in time you'll find there are four employees working
continuously. But in case if there's a party booking, we make sure that all
of our eight Staffs are in place and we compensate for their holidays in
some way or the other.
Either they are paid for it, or either they get extra holidays for working
over time so.
When eight employees are working at A at at A at a normal normal place, I
don't think we face any manpower shortages and our operations run
smoothly.

Aditya Gupta 29:31

OK, so somewhere now moving on to the more of the marketing section.
So I would really like to know like how do you promote your business? Like
do you run special offers or discounts or something as a loyalty
programme for your regular customers and like how do you track them,
the impact of the marketing initiatives if you take any?

Samar 29:37
Mm hmm.
I think from the marketing point of view, we have for different areas, we
have different strategies in place. So for example, because of course we
are talking about all three businesses at the same time, right? Because I
think when we talk about the restaurant we take, we don't take it
individually, we take it with the other businesses that we have in the
under the same roof. So the marketing that we do generally is usually the
social.
Social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat and Facebook. But
then I think most of our people.
Or the customer that come to us are usually through the word of mouth
because of the services that we provide to them and the kind of
infrastructure that we have in place because we we we made sure when
we were getting our things done in the business, we made sure that you
know we need to offer the customers best in the industry. So if for
example if I have to take an example of the gaming section that we have.

Aditya Gupta 30:33

Yeah.

Samar 30:54
You can get a TV for like 50-60 thousand. I'm just making it up right, but
we made sure that we once we because the PlayStation Five is there and
everything's there. We made sure that the TV has to be best in the
industry and we installed a one point 7,00,000 Tele television.
Because we want to give the customer the best in the industry
experience.

Aditya Gupta 31:16

Yeah.

Samar 31:16
When that is there, and if there is somebody who comes to us and spend
their time and they spend the money and they feel that, OK, I spent X
number of X amount of money here. But I think it was well worth it.
That is the kind of people that we target and we have a lot of regular
customers. I think no, no new customers have been in place in the last.
One month or there are some ways when there are some people who walk
in for the fun of it. But the major business running is from the regular
customers that we have.
Aditya Gupta 31:51
And like, do you have any loyalty programme or a subscription for the
members or something like this for the regular ones?

Samar 32:01
No, not really, but for the traction point, we of course have in some of the
Amen that we participate in, especially in the forums and all we make
sure that we distribute our cards, which says that you have one hour free
of gaming whenever you have, when you enter and also with that we get
we give them 20% off an FNB.

Aditya Gupta 32:16

OK then.
OK.

Samar 32:23
So that is one of the models that we use for customer traction. But to be
honest, that has not been really successful for us.

Aditya Gupta 32:31

OK, got it.

Samar 32:31
Holiday we tried that but we tried giving it a shot but it was not that
successful. In we hosted a event in DTU in that annual function. We also
hosted an event in IIT Delhi and I think there was there's a arts College in
Okhla by the name I I AD. So these are the three areas where we hosted
and we distributed our cards but the traction was not as we were
expecting it to be.
So we are still trying to find out what new ways of marketing that we can
use in, in our business.
And as as I said, the manta Rahan is going on. And so we are trying to,
you know.
Slow up our performances there because we understand the people at this
point in time are more into the religious part of it and that is our main
customer segment. So we're not pushing as much in the marketing zone
as as of now. But yes, of course I like for example, if there is a Champions
Trophy match like there was India, Pakistan or the finals, we have
screening of offers there where people can come and watch the entire
match and the food.
We can give 30% off on FMD so that is a lot of traction from that point of
view and also there is a football streaming the Champions League final,
the Champions League matches that are going on and as we are an all
nighter all nighter business, the Champions League matches start at
around 1:30 AM in the night so we have a lot of crowd that is coming in at
that point in time so.

Aditya Gupta 33:39

Again.
OK.

Samar 34:03
I think that answers your question, Amit.

Aditya Gupta 34:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. And I just wanted to know that. Have you
tried more of the digital marketing side or something like that for your
business currently?

Samar 34:14
Yesterday, because our main source of advertisement is through social
media, so I think the digital marketing is already in place. Yes, the word
the word of mouth marketing is something that we are working on
currently.
I think yes. So I think that that was a question, right not wrong. If you can
give me a moment please, just one moment. I I just need to take a call if
that's not problem.

Aditya Gupta 34:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.

Samar 36:26
Hello. Sorry sorry guys, I'm back.

Aditya Gupta 36:29

No worries, no worries. So.

Samar 36:30
Yeah.

Aditya Gupta 36:33

Moving on to the to my next question, so do you think the data you collect
on daily basis like on sales, inventory, customer and promotions could
could help improve your business and if and if so how?

Samar 36:35
Yeah.
I think yes, the data is something that we rely on very heavily is because
we get to know a very good idea about what forecasting we can expect.
So it really helps us understand you know key in the next 10 days what
what kind of people will be coming in and what will be the expecting from
the food that we offer. But we also we are very open to feedbacks upon
what kind of food that they are looking for.

Aditya Gupta 36:51

OK.

Samar 37:13
And what they look for in the market and they don't find generally. So we
are very open to you know actually change our menu. As I said, we are
still in the budding stage. We are not a very fixed menu though the menu
is still in place.
But we can expand our menu as per our liking and we want people to give
in their feedback about what they want to have, right. So for example, if
there's a dish that is very popular in, say, old Delhi and that that is not
available available on this side of the city, we make sure that OK, we can
get that dish for you. No worries on that. Ashfa trained well enough to
prepare any kind of dish made in the Chinese section or the Mughalai
section.
Or the crisper section so.
That is one part, and of course the inventory forecasting is very important.
Because we understand that if there isn't certain search due to some
event that is going on, we need to be proper properly equipped. So for
example if the when there was Indian New Zealand final match of
Champions Trophy, we made sure that we had an extra backing up of the
inventory that we hold. We are holding because we knew there will be a
lot of people who will be coming in.

Aditya Gupta 38:19

OK, OK.

Samar 38:20
I'll be very proud to say that, yeah, at that point in time, we did not face
any hiccups and at on that day was very peculiar of checking in the
kitchen that we did not have any wastage as such that, you know, any of
the network. So we were very happy about that at the end. We have to
turn down a couple of customers saying that they are. We are out of stock
guys and various we are, we are really sorry about it.

Aditya Gupta 38:30

Oh, that's great.

Samar 38:41
So that was there.
Aditya Gupta 38:44
So Samar, I just have one more last question for you. So so if you had a
simple tool that could give you insights about your business performances
and helps with decision making, what features would you find most
valuable in it?

Samar 38:47
Sure, sure.
I think if there has to be a simple tool, I think I would like to.
Install some kind of mechanism on every floor of our business that is
directly connected to the kitchen. So if there is any order place, nobody
has to run up and down or drop WhatsApp messages per SE in the
kitchen. Saying that there is an order. Take care because we want the
process to be as seamless as possible and I think we are currently working
on that. We are looking for something in the market that eases out our
difficulty.
And second of all, I think we we just want more of our marketing to be in
place so that there's a lot of there. There are a lot of footfall in our current
business.
I think these are the two areas of improvement that we will be looking for.

Aditya Gupta 39:48

Yeah, got it.

Samar 39:51
Any further questions? Yes.

Aditya Gupta 39:56

No, no, no, no. Someone that was it.

Nandini Saraogi 39:58

All from outside and thank you so much for taking out a lot of time and
answering so many questions so patiently and in detail. Was this project is
what we are putting our hearts in? And I think it will be really you have
given us all the insights. We don't even have to think about the insights
now.

Samar 40:18
No, no. It has always been a pleasure helping people out, I mean.
I think what we can learn from each other is something that can never be
taught in any other institution. It's more of a peer of peer learning. So if
there is anything or any feedback, I would have loved that you guys would
have come to our place and interviewed us there. It would have been a
great opportunity. We could also had offer our food. So you can give us a
feedback on it would have loved that. But OK, we understand there are
time crunches for for you guys.

Nandini Saraogi 40:48

Sure. We will redo this interview and we'll come down to you from
placement problem.

Aditya Gupta 40:50

Yes.

Samar 40:51
Sure, sure. Anytime. Sure, no worries. And I think in the interview I've said
this multiple number of times, we are open all night. So if you guys are
free tonight, why not have a drink with us?

Nandini Saraogi 41:06

Thank you.

Samar 41:07
Thank you. Thank you so much.

Aditya Gupta 41:09

Somewhere it will be great if you could turn on the camera once so that
we can have a picture.

Samar 41:14
Sure, sure, sure. Just give me a moment. I'll just switch on some lights
around so that I don't seem dark in the picture.
Hello guys yeah.

Aditya Gupta 41:43

Yeah.

Samar 41:44
Is it?

Aditya Gupta 41:46

Yeah, gosh, just give me one moment, please.

Samar 41:49
Sure, sure, sure.

Aditya Gupta 41:58

Yes, yes, yes.
Nandini Saraogi 41:59
Thank you.

Aditya Gupta 42:07

Don't show up.

Aditya Gupta stopped transcription