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Enterprizing

Hard & Shalu : Marketers by Mind, Restaurateur by Heart

Tell us about your business & what were the challenges that you faced so far?

I run a Digital Marketing & IT service firm named, Senmorta Technologies Pvt Ltd. Being a food lover and service enthusiast, deep in my heart there was always a soft corner and wish to have a café of my own. So me along with my wife took our first step towards being a Foodpreneur. All we wanted to provide here was some unique dishes, amazing service and the best experience a customer can have. So we took the help from local café brand to set up kitchen for our café.

Challenges: With zero previous experience and knowledge into food industry, setting up a kitchen and finding the skilled labour was a big challenge. Penetrating deep in to the highly competitive food industry and surviving for the first 6 months with less revenue and more expenses was itself a big hurdle. As an owner, you need to micro and macro manage each and every element of day to day operation from Raw Material to Recipes . Managing chef, workers , labour is also an important task. You cant totally rely on your workers as there is a high attrition rate in this industry.

Tell us about your achievement you are most proud of?

Within a Span of 1 year, along with our first café Helly & Chilly, we started our cloud kitchen named Tummy Truffle and also started serving few of the big corporates by operating the corporate cafeteria at their premises.

What is your USP and where do you see yourself in next 5 years?

 Below are the USPs of our business

  • Quality and uniqueness of our food items
  • Kind of service and experience given to our customer, we get more customers just by the references.
  • Our marketing campaigns are very engaging and customers feel to interact with our brand.

In next 5 years, we see ourselves franchising our food chain and also come up with a unique themed Restaurant  

How difficult is it to stay in this industry nowadays?

With more and more big players with big pocket size are entering in to this market, it’s very difficult to compete with them. Also because of the online food delivery players and App companies, customers are inclining more and more towards discount and offers which results into very less margins for ours. Seeing the current scenario of Covid19, where the retail business is the most affected, it will be very difficult to bounce back and gain trust of customer so that they can start dinning out again.

How much do you think that social media helps you to work more effectively in knowing your audience or knowing what’s new in the market?

Being a digital marketer, I am always Pro Social media. Today each and everyone uses social media, from a teen ager to a senior citizen. It’s the best platform where a small or big brand can connect with their customer. Social media is a platform where customer share everything say from Brand’s ratings, recommendations, feedback, complaints, picture of them etc. I would say, Instagram is a boon for Food bloggers and restaurant because since few years Instagram has played a vital role in bringing more footfalls at the café/restaurant. Social media also helps me to understand what competition is providing and what innovation I need to add to my business to survive.

What would be your suggestion to the budding entrepreneurs?

I personally think people has a wrong perception that Entrepreneurs are someone who innovates a new product or who starts a new business which has never been done before. According to me, even if you start a business tapped in existing market, if you do it in a unique way that helps you grow your business then you are an Entrepreneur. When you decide you want to do something that other people are already doing, your idea has already been validated. There will be ups and down in business but you should not give up!

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