IIT-B alumnus helps you decide ‘what to eat’ with his venture FoodiesCompass

When we order food, it always helps to have a picture of the dish to help us decide. But most menus in restaurants and online eateries do not generally display images of each dish. FoodiesCompass is here to solve this issue. It helps you answer the question of ‘what to eat?’

FoodiesCompass is a platform where restaurants display their food offerings through photographs. It allows users to review, rate and voice their opinion online about dishes at nearly 200 restaurants in Gurgaon.

Birth of the idea

Founded by Manish Goyal, FoodiesCompass has listed close to 200 of Gurgaon's best restaurants on the platform displaying their selected food items. Manish is an IIT-B alumnus and has over six years of consulting and analytics experience. He owes his allegiance to IIT Bombay for turning out a food and travel loving civil engineer.

Manish thought of this idea while sitting at a restaurant. In a dilemma over what to eat, he wished if only the restaurant's offerings were available online he could have checked out the dishes, reviews about them and then ordered.

How it works?

“There is a dedicated team that collects data directly from the restaurants -- the most important part being food photographs. This is the on-ground team that represents FC to restaurants. Besides this, there are different set of people focused on technology -- website and mobile application development as well as maintenance and social media marketing,” says Manish.

Manish is the sole Founder of FoodiesCompass but he was supported by friends from IIT-D and IIM-A from the beginning. Till now, FoodiesCompass has been self-funded.

Scale will come with time

“Scaling up will take place gradually. It will take some time for users to get used to the product, the values it offers and then it will stand for something,” adds Manish.

FoodiesCompass has come a long way since its ideation stage almost a year-and-a-half ago. Starting with the ambition of being a food recommendation platform, Manish realized the presence of more evolved players in the sector. With time, he has found a niche in this space.

Challenges

“Things have been challenging -- from operational issues to hiring to retaining staff, everything has been a roller coaster ride. “There was a time when we had 4 different developers who had already worked on the website,” reveals Manish.

When Manish got married last year, his friends tried to ‘put some sense into his mind’ and suggested he quit FoodiesCompass and join a full time paying job. However, financial help and support arrived from a couple of good friends and family that kept the venture alive.

Road ahead

The startup is already in discussion with some VC funds who liked FoodieCompass’s idea and the product to expand it to major cities in India starting with Delhi NCR.

Website: FoodiesCompass