Every entrepreneur has a unique journey filled with highs and lows, but what unites them all is their unwavering dedication and “never-say-no” mentality. We at Accel are honored to have worked with such achievers, whose stories serve as inspirational life lessons for a multitude of nascent and established business owners. Here, we tell the moving tale of one such founder.
Two alumni of Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilania, Nandan Reddy (age 29) and Sriharsha Majety (age 31), are fortunate entrepreneurs who have struck it twice. They collaborated on their first startup project together back in 2014, Bundl, a logistics aggregator that linked courier service providers with small and medium-sized businesses. The company got off to a good start. But after nearly a year, they came to the conclusion that the food business needs to take center stage instead of the courier service sector.
Working with like-minded individuals across the year. Nandan and Sriharsha saw that the restaurant business had a significant demand for an online hyperlocal logistics provider. On August 14, the two launched Swiggy, the nation’s first online meal ordering service, turning their vision into a reality. Rahul Janimini, a former student of IIT Kharagpur, was brought in to handle the platform’s coding.
Swiggy was established back in 2014 in a Bangalore office building in Koramangala. Swiggy’s initial launch consisted of one neighborhood, six delivery executives, and 25 partner eateries. After nearly four years in the business, Swiggy is already well-known across Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Kolkata, growing at a rate of 25% per month. Furthermore, they have partnerships with approximately 13,000 delivery executives and 12,000 restaurants. The company’s RoC data indicates that it has a turnover of Rs 7,41,702 and a net worth of Rs 3,86,34,590.
Sriharsha (Harsha) Majety, the founder and CEO of Swiggy, states that she has always been an entrepreneur because her family has always been in the business. My mother is a doctor by profession and has her own clinic; my father owns a restaurant in Vijayawada and intends to make investments in the hotel industry. She also intends to open a chain of beauty salons. From my early years, I was inspired by my family members’ selflessness and ability to take responsibility for their actions,” Harsha says.
He also attributes his path to his time spent obtaining an engineering degree at BITS Pilani, where he interacted with individuals from many cultural and ethnic backgrounds. “Those, I believe, were my formative years. Pilani never required attendance of its students, in contrast to other colleges, which allowed us plenty of free time to follow our passions. I made a lot of friends and experimented with a variety of interests, including travel, photography, and quizzing.
Travel enthusiast, Harsha took numerous backpacking journeys around Europe and South-East Asia. He learned a few things about the globe via his travels, which has aided him in his business endeavors.
During a hiking journey, Harsha learned how to face setbacks and lack of preparation with composure and tolerance. “I was completely unprepared for the weather when I rode my bicycle throughout Portugal. I was tired, lost, and about to give up on the journey. My host for the holiday helped me out by taking me in and giving me the confidence to press on. He simply informed me, under pressure, that I should bike a ride upward and only ride downward if I couldn’t cycle uphill. which at the time made perfect sense.
These experiences influenced Harsha, and he still believes that by focusing on long-term objectives and avoiding undue pressure, short-term problems may be overcome. “I believe I have made a concerted effort to live by the Zen philosophy, and this has really helped me to regain some serenity. The entire journey took me three months to cycle 4,000 kilometers alone from Portugal to Turkey.
Stubbornness, in Harsha’s opinion, is a personality attribute that has influenced him as an entrepreneur.
“I was willing to dedicate myself to doing things that excited me, but I was stubborn about it.”
This is among the reasons he decided against accepting campus placement offers and to wait a year to enroll at IIM-Calcutta.
For Harsha, RedBus founder Phanindra Sama served as an inspiration. When Sama talked about his aspirations to go public with Harsha in 2006, Harsha believed it was a foolish idea. However, upon his return to India, he witnessed the RedBus’s expansion, which inspired him to take the risk.
He began getting together with Swiggy co-founder Nandan Reddy to exchange ideas, and the two of them recognized a great opportunity in the e-commerce sector, which was home to popular sites like Amazon, Flipkart, e-Bay, and others. Both of them were certain of one thing: running a business that combines offline and online employment.
According to Harsha, “We believed that we would find that competitive advantage by being not just a pure offline company or not just a pure software company.”
Their initial business endeavor, Bundl, was founded in August 2013 when they recognized the opportunity in the disorganized logistics and shipping sector within the e-commerce industry.
This online platform has raised a significant amount of money since its launch, which more than validates Swiggy’s value as a place to purchase meals. Swiggy has become the most popular online platform, with its visual menus, significantly faster delivery times, and no minimum order required for discovery. Swiggy has established itself as the leader in this sector with over 12,000 restaurants on its roster, an industry-best average delivery time of 37 minutes, and lower overhead expenses. In order to ensure its long-term viability, Swiggy has introduced several innovative features, such as Swiggy Pop, Swiggy Access, and Swiggy Schedule.
For food-tech firms, service and delivery speed are crucial, according to Sumer Juneja, Principal at Norwest Venture Partners.
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