[Women’s Day Special] Welcome to Archana’s Kitchen

If there is one thing any women would have definitely done in some point in her life, it would be cooking for the family. And despite the theory that men are better cooks than women, not too many men can be actually seen cooking outside a restaurant or commercial kitchens. Our entrepreneur story today is of one such woman chef, who not only loves to cook for her family, but she in a way embodies the new age Indian women. Tech savvy, juggling a profession with her family and we are sure she actually loves all that she does.

Meet Archana Doshi, an entrepreneur, a mother, a photographer, a technophile and much more. Archana’s venture is different from a normal business, in the sense that there is not a single product or service that she vends. Archana does what she does best – cook and shares her experiences with people across the World Wide Web through her website Archana’s Kitchen. In her own words, “I sit at home in front of my computer, using technology and social media to connect with people, customers and clients.” With the help of YouTube videos and Google Hangout classes Archana connects with people, cafes, restaurants and anyone who wants to learn and create healthy vegetarian food. The use of technology has removed all geographical restrictions on the people she can reach out to anyone who wants to learn from her only need a computer and internet.

Archana believes in cooking healthy food and particularly enjoys whipping up vegetarian fare. While she cooks, photographs, types and produces videos of her own cooking, she has also helped cafes and restaurants design their menus. Archana also curates recipes for Kitchen Daily, a food website that is a part of the AOL group.

Archana is part of Women Entrepreneurs on the Web (WeOW), Bangalore chapter. WeOW is a Google program for female entrepreneurs to connect, grow their online presence, and utilize Google products to launch and scale their businesses. As part of the program, entrepreneurs learn to build their online presence, connect with their customers, track and optimize their efforts, and connect with other entrepreneurs in their communities. And therefore it is not surprising that Archana has over 400,000 followers on G+. A majority of her followers come from the US, India, Middle East and European markets.

Archana’s love for cooking stems from her formative years where she was formally trained by her mother. Even her father occasionally wore the chef’s hat to cook family lunches over the weekend. “Me and my brother had compulsory days of cooking and working in the kitchen,” says Archana. And today she has also started training her boys on the art of cooking. But some of her lessons she’s imparted to her kids is also proving to be a hindrance in them enjoying her baked items. “I have trained them to eat healthy and sometimes my children refuse to eat my baked things saying its junk food. I have to convince them to make an exception,” laughs Archana.

Things are going good for Archana and she is in no rush, but the question of what next is something she is constantly thinking on. There are certain monetization and revenue targets that she has set and once she achieves those, she plans to get some extra help for her future endeavours. What started as a blog, Archana’s Kitchen has now evolved into an online platform for people who like cooking to converge. Archana has recently started inviting guest writers to share their recipes on her website and is thereby trying to increase the variety of cuisines on her site. She is also working with a company to develop their range of healthy good products and in her free time, she is evangelizing the benefits of technology to more and more women.

YourStory wishes its readers, Happy Women’s Day!