Yo!Potato – The Momma of Home Deliveries
Have you ever felt gutted upon realizing that the restaurant you gorged on the previous day, doesn’t have a system of home delivery. ‘Oh man, now I’m going to have to travel 20km for that pasta each time’. Well not anymore, not at least if you’re a Chennaite and you’ve got Yo!Potato around.
Yo!Potato is basically a venture where-in, the customer gets to choose the food she wants, from the restaurant of her choice and the delivery would be made for free. ‘Order from ANY restaurant’ is their theme. “We didn't like the idea of going to the market with the list of restaurants. We thought that's insulting the customer. We didn't want to choose for the customer. We imagined customers to have unlimited choice of restaurants. They should tell us which restaurant to tie up with not the other way around”, says Krishna Chidambaresh the founder of Yo!Potato
Founded by Showkath Jamal, Pavan Kumar and Krishna himself, the Chennai based outfit operates only inside the city currently. Showkath and Krishna, having previously run an outsourcing consulting firm, bring their valuable experience to the table, and Pavan, being an engineer brings a lot of methodical planning to the business.
The revenue model of Yo!Potato revolves around partner restaurants paying them a commission for diverting orders their way and delivering them. A lot of restaurants have also begun outsourcing their deliveries via Yo!Potato. Besides this, Krishna provides some clarification regarding partner restaurants saying, “We do tie ups with restaurants. But as a customer, you can order from anywhere not just the restaurants we partner with. You can even order from multiple restaurants. There's no minimum order and the delivery is free”
Those at Yo!Potato believe that investing in customer experience is the best marketing practice. “We market by offering consumers free delivery from any restaurant. Apart from that, people do tell us they love our ridiculous newsletters and non-informative blogs which a lot of them have circulated to their friends and brought us more fans.” True, a look at their website would ensure one ends up ‘lol’ing a number of times.
To get started the team followed a lean approach. Core essentials like bikes, facility and staff were invested upon, and since the business is expanding at a fast pace, professional funding is being looked into.”We are still bootstrapping. Family and friends have been of amazing help. I know it's a cliche' but without them, this wouldn't have been possible.Everyone's pitching in whatever means they can. The support is overwhelming”, Krishna adds.
Matching increasing popularity is one of the challenges the venture faces; they’re seeing what one might call an exaggerated version of the Moore’s Law. “We see orders doubling every 2 months. The biggest challenges will be to match capacity to the market demand. That includes both raising required capital and recruiting field staff.”
Speaking about Yo!Potato’s delivery system, Krishna assures his customers saying, “We use our own bikes and riders to give this amazing experience to our customers. We will be all over the city as we expand to other clusters”
Maintaining a good record when you’re restricted to a small area with direct supervision is manageable (by no means easy) but the real challenge would come when the potato swells. We’d have our eyes on them as Yo!Potato expands and starts to spread.
Have a look at their site here, Yo!