Let’s read the story of TIFFINQNQ and its impact, my lots of friends not able to read on Medium, so I published it here:
When I was an undergraduate student of IIT, I always thought of doing something on Indian street food lines and turning it into a global brand. There is one Bihari Dish Litti Chokha, and I did intensive research on it. Over the years, I tried 100 local outlets in Delhi-NCR with my non-Bihari friends, and some of them liked it. But a lot of innovation and marketing expense was required to make street food style Litti Chokha hygienic, healthy, and create an ambiance to meet the global standard.
But suddenly, demonetization happened in 2016, and I realized that people would have very little money to spend on their lifestyles in the next few years. Many well-known brands are already struggling to make a profit, like CCD and Snapdeal, etc. So, I change my plan to do something for society as it had suffered from demonetization. And the food is something that we have to eat three times a day. You can say that if demonetization had not happened, TIFFINQNQ would not have been born.
Entrepreneurial Drive to Make an Impact:
Being a health-conscious person with an entrepreneurial mindset, I did not want to eat outside of the hostel, or at the local Dhaba, due to food quality, hygiene and ambiance. Various restaurants serve excellent quality but not in the student’s location. They are either in the central market or Mall and again they are not economical. Zomato, Swiggy, and dozen of other players can deliver good food but again, pricing issue. They also do not have control over the quality and delivery time of the food.
Graduates or freshers do not have enough money to spend 200 INR per meal for Zomato, Swiggy, Faasos now Rebel Foods, and many more. Many of my friends were preparing for UPSC, IES, and PSU exams. They don’t have side earning sources, and few have dependency at home. In this case, they do not have enough money to spend on a daily meal. Working professionals or people preparing for exams have to follow a disciplined routine. Time is essential for such people, and they cannot wait 20 to 30 minutes for their meal. When I was a working professional, I tried many local Dhabas, and I found that they cannot deliver on time. Their waiting time was more than 30 minutes every day.
As students or working professionals, while waiting for our food outside of Dhaba, we used to watch Youtube or listen to ebooks on Audible, Storytel, Headway(1 book free every day). But eating in public places, sometimes ambiance cannot support you in listening to your audiobook. Because there is too much noise.
Simple statistics show us that if students waste 30 minutes for each meal and 60 minutes each day for lunch and dinner, they spend 30 hours every month, and within a year, they will have wasted 365 hours. If a student can utilize this time to watch and listen to audiobooks or podcasts, while they eat, they become masters in listening skills.
Truth in The Statistics:
According to Malcolm Gladwell, anyone can become a master in anything if he/ she gives 10 thousand hours to it. After realizing these statistics, I decided to save this time and fix the Tiffin service for my daily meal. More than 20 tiffin service deliveries in Jiyasarai, the graduated students’ hub near the IIT Delhi campus. More than 20 thousand students and 5 thousand tiffin boxes delivered every day for the last 30 years, and many of my friends have become IAS officers by eating those Tiffin boxes. The hidden truth about Tiffin’s owners is that their condition was terrible. They barely get by and support their family. So, Tiffin/local Dhaba owners face financial issues because they do not have any high-standard supply chain to deliver food on time and retain the customers.
While I was fixing the Tiffin box for me, I tried more than a dozen Tiffin vendors over the last five years, and none of them delivered on time and the quality of the food degraded as the months passed. As my friends and I suffered this problem with our daily food, I realized that it wasn’t just a problem with Jiya Sarai. My niece studying in Kota and many friends working in Hyderabad, Bangalore also faced similar issues. That’s why I decided that I have to fix this problem.
The Pain Points:
“Being an entrepreneur, You enjoy the process of creating something from nothing.”
As an aspiring entrepreneur, I wanted to do something for the society and create a solution that has a massive impact on society. Along with observing the problems, I read various books on startups, like ZERO to ONE, The Lean Startup, 100 Dollar startups, Hooked, and Biography of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Elon Musk; I read how to eradicate this problem from our society. Finally, all Six books help me a lot in finalizing the name to understand the deeper level of the problems to hope of making TIFFINQNQ a billion-dollar company.
I visited more than 50 tiffin owners to understand their pain points and why they could not deliver quality food. Upon my observation, I found the following reasons:
1. Students cannot fix with tiffin / Dhaba. They hardly continue for three months.
2. Students cannot pay the advance because owners do not have any solid identity or Brand value
3. Students always complain about transparency in their monthly billing; personally, I have faced this problem with every vendor.
4. Tiffin owners do not have a standard of cooking food, and they also do not have a supply chain system
5. They do not have proper marketing. They only rely on word of mouth
6. They are doing all work along with cooking, delivery, and procurement of raw material.
7. Tiffin owner delivers or runs his Dhaba for the last 20 years, but they are struggling to survive their life, We need to make their lives better.
8. Baba Ka Dhaba’s viral story is proof of struggling life.
The one who observes and then serves. Takes the pot of gold.
After observing so many hidden truths about the tiffin/ Dhaba industry, I silently promised myself that I want to fix this unorganized Tiffin industry. To deepen my understanding, I ran my kitchen to test my MVP model from May 2018 to Feb 2019. I have hired one cook and two helpers. Since week one, with my friend’s connections, we delivered 100 tiffins every day, and everything was running well.
During that time, my aim was only to deliver 100 tiffins every day. But due to the cook’s indiscipline after 3 months, I changed it and hired a professional chef. The new chef was cooking scientifically, but the taste did not match my old cook, so 50% of the students left us due to a lack of good taste. At that time I did not have any social media presence, and I hadn’t incorporated my company, so all my friends’ mutual concern is those who eat my Tiffin box.
I hand over all the setup to my present vendor Gopal Das (Tadka Tiffin). He also delivered Tiffins and runs Dhaba for the last 20 years; After closing my kitchen, I researched the cloud kitchen and food delivery business model. I found a few names, Rebel Foods, Oven Story, Zara Box, Foodabhi, Dazo, TinyOwl, Yumist, Fresh, Bite Club, Box8, iTiffin, Hopping Chef, Eatlo, MealTango, SpoonJoy (Few of them have been shut down).
But TIFFINQNQ BUSINESS MODEL is different for everyone. It creates a win-win situation for both vendors and customers.
The post-pandemic situation becomes more favorable for us. We are a bunch of IIT Graduates, and the team has a splendid combination of commitment and competency. Now we are looking for a seed fund to set up a sustainable supply chain system.
Why the name TIFFINQNQ
When I ran our trial as an MPV model, many of my customers told me, sir (Quality and Quantity Achha Rakhna), To set the standard of Quality and Quantity. Take some advantage of the google algorithm; I put the name TIFFINQNQ. Another solid reason is that the name TIFFINQNQ helps us in marketing. It created curiosity inside the audience or customer, so we do not need to market it separately. Our 99% of patrons ask what is QNQ in it. When I told Quality and Quantity, our marketing has been started. And It is a very uncommon name for a regular tiffin supplier. This name alone gives us a completely different identity in the Tiffin Industry. If you are in South Delhi, you must try our minimum of seven days trials.
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced us to rethink how we live and what we eat?
Thank You for reading the TIFFINQNQ story. If you have any curiosity, suggestions, feedback, or association, connect me at Linkedin or shyamdeo@tiffinqnq.com. The article was originally published on Medium.