Foodtang: An Online Portal That Helps You Make Your Dining Decisions
It all started with a problem. “Being tired one night, I wanted to have food from one specific restaurant in my locality. I tried to find that restaurant online, but I wasn’t successful. I did get the number somehow though, so I placed the order over the telephone. What I received, however, was something entirely different from what I had asked for. It all happened because of the communication gap between me and the restaurant manager. What I was left with was an empty stomach and a mood that needed some serious upliftment!At that time, I thought to myself; wouldn’t it be so much simpler if we had an online system or a restaurants-focused call centre in place?” says Naveen Kumar, Founder & CEO, Foodtang.
Based out of Bangaloreand founded in November 2011, Foodtang is an e-commerce company with an aim to serve foodies a mixed platter of restaurant services online. “Food can be ordered online, from restaurants in a vicinity of 3-4 kms, and table booking at any restaurant acrossBangalore can be done from a single place. Parties can be planned by sending requirements online or via telephone. The Foodtang team helps a person get the best restaurant based on his/her requirement," said Naveen.
Foodtang has over 125 restaurants in their list. Their portal allows one to browse through their partner restaurants to get a feel of their ambience, pricing and specialty. One can also go through the complete menu, details of the buffet and accordingly arrive at a fine dining decision.
Naveen Kumar and Kedar Chandrayan are the founding members of Foodtang. Naveen, Founder & CEO, is a 2008 graduate of IIT-B and has previously worked for SAP Labs. Kedar Chandrayan, Co-founder & CTO, has a dual degree (B.Tech + M.tech) in Electrical Engineering from IIT-B and has also worked for Oracle previously.“We aggregate restaurants on an area and cuisine basis and give them an online presence. We act as an interface between netizens and restaurants. A customer who wants to see the restaurant in his/her area of choice can easily find it on our portal and avail any service. We represent restaurants online as well as offline through our intact call center facility,” says Naveen.
There are multiple portals running inBangaloreon the idea of online home delivery and table booking from restaurants. What then differentiates Foodtang? “To tackle the competition, we are getting into a niche market, aiming towards making dining an experience, which will be way beyond just enabling home delivery or table booking. Our call centre facility is unique. Apart from that, we are into party planning as well, which many of the other portals don’t have,” said Naveen.
Foodtang receives traffic of more than 100 users per day. They run on a Cash on Delivery model. Their revenue comes from commissions received from restaurants for each order that is placed on their portal.
They have not received any funding so far, but are in the process of raising funds to take Foodtang to the next level.
“Foodtang must occur to anybody who thinks of food. That’s where I see us in the future. We have plans to expand to Mumbai andDelhi, once we have set up our roots inBangalore,” says Naveen.
“I would like to make a special mention about the team of Foodtang. We are 15 in number right now, and each person, right from customer care to the CXO, is working wholeheartedly to make Foodtang a successful brand,” concludes Naveen.
For more on Foodtang, visit their websie here.
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