1.Team
Or, a business is nothing without its people.
1.1 Founder
It all starts with the founder. Or better yet, it all starts with the founder’s dream.
When co-founders Deepinder and Pankaj saw queues of people outside restaurants during lunchtime, Zomato’s idea was set into motion.
Food-court menus were listed on the co-founders’ company website and soon enough, the employees started to use that portal for convenient food – ordering. This brought massive traffic to the site.
So, this is what founders do; they notice pain points, think of a solution and kickstart its execution. The founder’s vision is the single most important factor contributing to the success of any venture.
1.2 Creators
Zomato is not just busy revolutionizing the food delivery scene, it is also making people laugh on Twitter and Instagram. Within a startup, creators are the underdogs who give a voice, personality, and humanity to the brand. From writing scripts for an advertisement to designing logos for the company, creators take up a vast plethora of roles.
The next time you receive an “order confirmed” email, admire a brand’s Instagram aesthetics, or laugh at a YouTube ad, know that there’s a team of creators working tirelessly to make the brand come alive.
1.3 Operation Specialists
Operation specialists keep the cog of the company wheel running day in and day out. This includes roles specializing in operations such as sales, customer service, human resource management, marketing, business development, and more.
2. Business and Financing
Or, a dream is nothing without its execution.
2.1 Validation
Business ideas aren’t worth it if they don’t solve a problem for a specific set of people.
In the Zomato inception story earlier, founders of Zomato observed the pain points of their colleagues; people were wasting hours catching lunch on a busy day.
Their idea was to simplify the process of food ordering. And it worked!
Validation is when a solution for a particular pain – point is verified to be useful by the market. Validation is done in many ways – market research, feedback, targeting customers, having an MVP, etc.
2.2 MVP
Zomato founders executed their idea by using their company’s private online portal and adding food court menus in the repository.
They wanted to see if people would be interested in using the portal to browse and order food. Turns out, the traffic was immense on the site!
MVP, or Minimal Viable Product, is the usable prototype for the first target customers to fulfil a need. It contains the barebone characteristics of the full product and is tested to see if it aligns with the market.
2.3 Pitch Deck
Think of Shark Tank.
The entrepreneur stands in front of 5 seasoned investors and gives a brief about their startup. This is called pitching, and it’s done to appeal to the investors with the goal of receiving financing from them.
A Pitch Deck is a presentation consisting of the brief summary, scalability, team, and market of the startup. It includes all the valuable information about the startup’s growth that the potential investor may find attractive.
2.4 Funding
Every startup needs funds to kickstart its operations. They’re secured in multiple ways.
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