Success Story of Zomato – How Zomato, which started as a startup in 2008, grew into a 56,000 crore company  

How Zomato Startup started – Success Story of Zomato

Zomato is a food discovery and delivery platform that connects users with restaurants. It offers a wide range of services, including restaurant reviews, menus, online ordering, and food delivery, making it easier for people to explore, order, and enjoy a variety of cuisines from their favorite local restaurants.

The person named Dipendar Goyal was born on January 24, 1983 in Punjab India. He has been living in Punjab since childhood. During his graduation he developed a friendship with a person named Pankaj Chadda. Together they completed their graduation at IIT Delhi. Later Dipendar and Chadda joined Bain & Company.

During their time working together, one day they went to restaurant there they observed people struggling to find menu card. which sparked an idea that’s when they came up with the concept for an application called Foodie Bay (Success Story of Zomato). They created a website where they initially placed one restaurant menu card. Eventually they realized the potential of this website as it gained popularity day by day and it became the foundation for their future success.

They began by creating the menu card for a single restaurant and now their website Foodie Bay has earned a good reputation with daily increasing traffic. This initial success encouraged them to create menu cards for more restaurants and their website continues to receive significant attention and support. This is how Foodie Bay got its name.

Zomato Investment and Growth – Success Story of Zomato

Goyal and Chadda after developing Foodie Bay they wanted to add food delivery services in their application. However, they didn’t have the necessary funds or investors for their venture. Despite their efforts they couldn’t secure support. They persisted with their work on Foodie Bay and their dedication to its growth eventually caught the attention of Sanjay the representative of Naukari.com.

Sanjay saw potential in their business and sent an email to Goyal expressing interest. This initial investment of 1 million dollars came from Naukari.com with this funding, Goyal and Chadda expanded Foodie Bay and attracted more users. They realized its potential for growth in the business sector. Sanjay, who believed in their vision, contacted them and again provided an investment of 3.5 million dollars from Naukari.com, leading to substantial growth. They later transitioned Foodie Bay into Zomato.

which rapidly gained popularity and attracted investments from various investors, including Sequoia Capital and VY Capital. They secured a total investment of 225 million dollars, transforming Zomato into a prominent player in the food industry. Initially starting in major Indian cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, and Pune, Zomato expanded its presence to other major cities in India and then internationally, including Dubai, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom (UK), the Philippines, South Africa, New Zealand, and Turkey. Presently, Zomato boasts over 90 million users worldwide and operates in 24 countries, with plans for further expansion in over 40 more countries.

Zomato Business Model (How Zomato Business Works) – 

Zomato Consulting Services (Customer Data Collection and selling) –

Zomato collects and saves data for each profession registered on their platform, including the data of food orders placed by customers. Those all data sells to the business restaurant owners through Zomato consulting services.

Business owners Using this data, they determine how much sales are generated in each state, area, and city, and what types of food orders are being placed, if customers prefer certain types of food or order within a certain price range, Zomato’s consultant services help restaurants make more profit by suggesting them the data.

The main goal of Zomato Consultancy is to assist restaurant owners in starting and operating restaurants in areas where they can earn higher profits and offering a variety of food items in specific price ranges.

Zomato cloud kitchens (Food Making and Delivery) –

This data is utilized to initiate cloud kitchens in India. Furthermore, Zomato Catering Services have started through which they analyze and prepare popular dishes in neighboring areas and deliver them to customers.

The main difference here is that cloudy kitchens aim to reduce costs and maximize profits by preparing and delivering food items at a lower cost. Zomato has customer data, so they guide on how to start and establish cloud kitchens in different areas to attract more customers and earn higher profits.

Zomato Advertisement –

on the Zomato app Several restaurants have been listed. By being listed in this way, restaurants on the Zomato app offers advertising and gaining the profits.

This means that when a person searches for a food order keywords the restaurants should appear in the top 5 results to get the orders, to achieve this restaurants must pay to Zomato for advertisement charges. This is how Zomato advertisements help them to get benefits and Zomato making profits.

Zomato Gold Offer:

In order to stand out from its competitor like Swiggy, Zomato introduced a paid subscription service called Zomato Gold and plus, with Zomato Gold customers could enjoy exclusive discounts, benefits and free delivery. This subscription allowed users to get discounts on a wide range of restaurants listed on Zomato. However, this strategy led to a significant disruption in the food delivery industry in India.

As a result of Zomato Gold’s deep discounts many restaurants listed on Zomato started facing financial losses. In response to this the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) filed a case against Zomato Gold. In the course of time as the restaurant industry in India faced this challenge Zomato decided to make some changes.

Zomato Hyper Pure (Future Planning) –

Zomato beyond its primary food delivery service, is diversifying into various types of businesses. One of these ventures is Zomato HyperPure. This business is focused on sourcing and delivering high-quality ingredients and commodities such as groceries and kitchen essentials to restaurants. They have a real-time delivery plan to ensure that restaurants have access to these ingredients whenever they need them. Zomato is helping restaurants streamline their food preparation processes.

Zomato Hyper Pure’s goal is to make it easier for restaurants to source the necessary items for their food preparation needs. By consolidating and delivering these goods, they are contributing to the success of restaurants. If this business initiative succeeds benefit to Zomato by increasing its profitability

By prathivedika