Faasos: Success is brightest where Food is best

 About

• ‘Fanatic Activism against Substandard Occidental Shit’– FAASOS
• Faasos is an Indian ‘food on demand’ company.
• It’s started out slowly but gained in momentum and went on to raise funding.
• The company was founded in 2011 by two friends Jaydeep Barman and Kallol Banerjee.
• The company works on three important aspects in a ‘food on demand’ business – Ordering, Distribution and Fulfillment.

Founders & Their Journey

• Kallol Banerjee & Jaydeep Barman, IIM-Lucknow alumnus, founded Faasos inspired from the kathi rolls of Jaydeep’s home city, Kolkata.
• Jaydeep Barman: Previously an associate principal at McKinsey & Company in London
• Kallol Banerjee: Previously worked for Bosch in Singapore.
• They set up Faasos, a food-on-demand start-up serving Indian delicacies, in Pune, investing close to Rs. 50 lakh- savings and loans from family and friends.

Why we chose Faasos as Startup of the Month?

• It is running on two platforms, online and offline.
• Launched in 2011, the start-up has served 3.5 million customers so far
• It has recorded a growth rate of 20-25% month-on-month
• It serves between 15,000 and 18,000 orders every day
• Gets 70% of its orders through its mobile app.
• It has seen 113K likes on Facebook, whooping 39.8 K followers on Twitter and 2,825 followers on Instagram.
• The company is on track to hit more than $20 million in revenues (2015-16).
• The company had six outlets in Pune in 2011, is present in 15 cities- Nagpur, New Delhi, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Pune, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Chennai, Indore, Hyderabad, Noida, Jaipur and Bhopal.
• Business model: Deliver convenience and quality at consumers’ doorsteps
• Responded to all of its customers immediately after receiving their orders
• Faasos advantage: has a strong offline supply chain and presence which has enabled them to generate revenues with bigger margins.

Funding

• 1^st round of funding of $5 million from Sequoia capital in November 2011
• 2^nd round of funding of $20 million from Lightbox Ventures and Sequoia Capital in February 2015
• 3^rd round of funding of US$30 million from Russian Internet-focused Investment firm ru-Net, Sequoia Capital and Lightbox Ventures in December 2015

Faasos Marketing

1) Traditional Marketing

• Like pamphlets and hoardings.
• Posters are stuck in the buildings where they serve.
• Partner restaurants will have pamphlets available at the counter which the customers can take with them.
• Partnering with already popular restaurants helps their cause.

 2) Online Discount Coupons

They regularly have coupons for special occasions or for certain days wherein they have 1+1 offers or certain % discounts.

3) Mobile App

Making people download their app with special features or exclusive discount.

4) Cash on Delivery

Discount coupons made available on COD.

5) Faasos Elite

Faasos Elite is their loyalty programme to express gratitude, to delight power customers with prioritized delivery with facility to pay once in 15 days and to surprise complimentary freebies and more.

6) Social Media Marketing

Faasos has been active on Social Media. It has done social media campaigns to attract their customers and new visitors to the city.

[thrive_testimonial name=”Kallol Barman ” company=”Co-founder, Faasos.” image=”https://dsim.in/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/kallol.jpg”]”We are choosing our marketing channels carefully as we are not interested in massive app downloads, which are inactive. We would rather invest in those channels where we get less app installs but more active users.” [/thrive_testimonial]

Competitors

Faasos competes with names like Yummist, Swiggy, TinyOwl and FoodPanda.

[thrive_testimonial name=”Jaydeep Barman ” company=”Co-founder, Faasos” image=”https://dsim.in/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/maxresdefault-1.jpg”]“I think there will be aggregators like FoodPanda, Tinyowl, Swiggy and there will be internet kitchens. We are building something totally different – we are building a hyper local food on demand play where we control everything from ordering to food to delivery – your personal kitchen on our app.”[/thrive_testimonial]

Future Plans

• At present Faasos have 120 delivery centres and plans to expand to 200 in 10 cities.
• Plans to expand on the entire Asia Pacific platform.
• Hopes revenue to touch $100 million in a couple of years

Key Learning

• Inability to identify the target crowd
• Inability to identify the incoming social change
• Immediate response
• Personalized service

Wrap-up

Faasos is developing its supply chain in a way that the offering becomes a ‘personal kitchen on a mobile app’.

The food-tech segment is extensively open and Faasos stands a good chance of having a strong stay in the marketplace.