Serial entrepreneur and ex-Army man launch midnight delivery service, The Booty Call, in Delhi
Ishan Mann and Chirag Mediratta were compulsive partygoers but the duo found it hard to find a place to order food after a late night rendezvous in Delhi. On a few occasions they had to trudge to a 24/7 coffee shop to eat a standard, average microwaved meal sold at a premium price.
“With both of us being from a F&B and marketing background, starting a night delivery service made sense. We knew there is a demand for such a thing and if marketed and run properly, the business had great potential,” says Ishan. The duo started ‘The Booty Call’, which is synonymous with late night rendezvous.
Besides night delivery, the startup also runs a cafe which is conceptualised and designed as a place for chilling with comfort food. The USP is an elevated loft style seating in the same level which gives a new kind of experience to visitors along with the casual low seating, soothing lights, quirky artwork, music, and wi-fi.
Ishan is a serial entrepreneur and had worked with ITC Hotels’s in-house management training institute for budding hoteliers. After quitting ITC, he conceptualised his first venture, United Colors of Food which is a food curation-cum-event-based platform. Chirag is an alumnus of VIT and currently studying at MICA. He has had a stint at Tata Motors and later served in the Indian Army, but his stint was short lived due to medical injuries.2
“We absolutely understand what a lot of our guests would most desire for in terms of food at night,” adds Chirag. The Booty Call also delivers urgent needs such as cigarettes and other over-the-counter medicines, party essentials, and contraceptives.
“Another thing which differentiates us from our competitors is our communication and branding. We believe in communicating our services through quirky and minimal designs, while hinting towards the naughty side of food,” says Ishan.
The Booty Call concentrates on spreading awareness about its service and cafe through Facebook & Twitter coupled with traditional tools of marketing such as word of mouth, and flyers. “In terms of footfalls we have been witnessing a sharp increase since our launch and now we're focusing on targeted marketing, aiming at doubling our current footfalls within the next month,” adds Chirag.
A quick look at midnight food delivery service in Delhi
With the number of similar services like Batmandelivers (Gurgaon) running successfully in Delhi alone, the market is growing at a fast pace. The key to tapping the vast potential of this market depends not only on providing a consistent quality of service and taste but also on an effective, well thought out marketing plan to rapidly spread awareness and to make a connect with the audience.
The target market can be categorised into late night party goers, working professionals and college students. With the increase of late night places and jobs, the market size of late night food market also increases proportionally.
“With a bootstrapped venture, we have grown step by step and have grown our team in a structured manner directly influenced by the demand of our services,” says Chirag. The startup plans to expand first in Delhi-NCR and later move to other cities in the near future.