“Start-ups need to adapt the business & embrace the change happening in the world”

While the global pandemic has bought economies to a halt and massively disrupted businesses, it has also fuelled start-up dreams and we are seeing several Indian start-ups achieving Unicorn status during the pandemic period. The times have never been better for the budding entrepreneurs to give wings to their start-up dreams.

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The Government, too, has come up with various schemes to support its ‘Vocal for Local’ drive. A case in point is the Rs 1,000 crore Start-up India Seed Fund announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the Start-up India International Summit 2021 held earlier this year.

Adgully is turning the spotlight on the entrepreneurs who fought against all odds to bring their dreams to fruition in our special series – START-UP STARS. We at Adgully wholeheartedly support the ‘Vocal for Local’ movement and over the next few months will be featuring all local/ homegrown businesses, brands and Apps.

Working as a full-time professional, it was a constant challenge for Prerna Kalra to carry healthy food & snacks to work every day. She barely had time to cook breakfast or lunch or mid-day snacks, and would find herself craving for fresh home-cooked food and snacks. Food delivery simply got tiresome, expensive, and just didn’t match her schedule between meetings, and one needed an instant or quick snacking option to match up long working schedules.

During one of her work visits to China, Kalra came across vending machines that dispensed almost every kind of fresh food item – from fruits to momos and more. While vending machines based retail was so deeply penetrated in China, she saw her father, owning a mom-n-pop store in a Tier 2 city, finding it challenging to grow it to more locations.

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Inspired by this and after coming face to face with this problem, it just clicked in Kalra’s mind and Daalchini was born. Kalra founded Daalchini along with Vidya B, her colleague from Paytm, in August 2017. Her experience in Product Management, Strategy and Business P&L has helped Kalra to grow her entrepreneurial venture.

In conversation with Adgully, Prerna Kalra, Co-Founder, Daalchini, shares how Daalchini provides healthy and affordable home cooked meal to the customers through IoT-enabled ‘phygital’ vending machines, bringing cloud kitchens and tiffin services into the new business’ fold and much more. 

What gap did you want to fulfil with your start-up? What is the core business proposition?

Despite having hundreds of D2C brands in healthy-snacking, their reach is limited to grocery and e-commerce apps, and modern retail outlets. The logistics infrastructure to reach a large network of mom-n-pop stores was not in place and there were little ways to reach the end customers. Cloud kitchens and Tiffin Services are also able to reach beyond food-delivery apps.

With the lack of ‘affordable’ distribution channels, the final cost of a sub-99 snack/ meal to the end customer is doubled up. While customers are willing to pay this additional cost for restaurant food for casual dining, they are unwilling to do so to meet their daily nutrition requirements.

There was also a gap of Rs 40 on each delivery cost, and 40 minutes of delivery time, which was not acceptable when looking for sub-99 snacks. Daalchini bridges the demand-supply gap for home-cooked food and now D2C brands that are instantly available and healthy – a gap that food delivery apps, tiffin services, etc. are yet unable to fulfill. With our mobile app and unique distribution channel of IoT based smart vending machines, we offer fresh home food, snacks and beverages in offices, hospitals, hostels, co-working and co-living spaces, residences, etc.

How did you identify your TG? Did you carry out any feasibility study prior to starting your business?

Our target was to enable our vending machines with sub-99 snacking and home-style food serving users in offices, hospitals, hostels, hotels, apartments, metro stations, educational institutes, etc. We target young professionals and students looking for affordable and instant food. Since the pandemic hit our nation, we are now also available in residential societies and have also started mobility vending machines in cabs and buses in Delhi-NCR.

What were the challenges that you faced in your start-up journey and how did you overcome them?

Initially, after setting up the vending machines, cloud kitchens and tiffin services were not prepared for food items specific for vending machines. We then started preparing our own checklist along with consultants and food-experts to find what it takes. This became our bible and rule-book while on-boarding cloud-kitchens and tiffin services.

Particularly post pandemic, customers were concerned about hygiene and safety. We launched our 100% contactless kiosk solution then, which helped in further adoption.

What were the clearances that you required for your venture from various authorities?

As we enable food through our technology so FSSAI license for F&B Vending Machines and Kiosks is required. Our partner cloud kitchens needed various clearances from FSSAI to shelf-life test reports, etc.

Funds/ finance is the prime issue of almost all start-ups. What can the industry and the Government do to address this issue and ease the capital requirements of start-ups?

While there are some steps already being taken by the government, however, for a new start-up to get finance is still a challenge. In a building up stage, profit versus growth is the key question every entrepreneur faces today and filling the gap for the funding requirements to scale the business until the start-up is self sustainable and profitable.

Prime Minister Modi has announced a Startup India Seed Fund earlier this year. How do you see start-ups benefiting from it? 

Startup India’s Funds-of-fund schemes have helped the micro-VCs to grow in India, which in turn has helped the early stage start-ups.

How is digital helping you further your business?

We, at Daalchini provide healthy and affordable home cooked meal to our customers through IoT-enabled ‘phygital’ (physical + digital) vending machines. We have an app that helps the users to discover the nearby kiosks, browse the products placed in that and book them after paying digitally. At this time amidst the pandemic, contactless is key to safety. To this end, we are now offering a 100% contactless solution for 6-meals-a-day. Buying from unmanned Daalchini itself ensures social distancing, furthermore, we do regular monitoring of our refilling staff and also flash the refilling person’s body temperature on the screen. Specific to our kiosks, we ensure regular sanitisation and the timings of sanitisation are also flashed on the machine to instill confidence and a sense of safety among our users.

What were your key learnings from 2020? How do you see the start-up ecosystem progressing in 2021?

Keep the team connected, adapt the business and embrace the change happening to the world. We kept the team’s spirits high and focused on the larger purpose that we all are working towards.

What would be your message for the budding entrepreneurs?

A start-up entrepreneur wears various hats in a day and hence, they need to be resilient, however in current times, it is important for them to be empathetic towards the mental and physical health of their own as well as that of their family and teams.