14 cities, 80 outlets: How WishADish is bringing management solutions to restaurants beyond metros
Bhavya Bhambhani and Sawan Kumar, banking on their understanding of management software from working at KPMG, incepted WishADish in October 2018. The restaurant management platform has since collaborated with over 80 restaurants in Tier II and III cities.
Numerous POS software in the market work on a set template in a country like India, where not just the taste and preference changes every 100 km, but the working style varies as well.
In the food and service industry – estimated to reach Rs 5,99,782 crore by 2022-23, as per NRAI’s India Food Services Report 2019 – customised tech solutions are believed to emerge as the game-changer for restaurants and food vendors beyond the metros and Tier I cities.
Delhi-based restaurant management platform is specialising in this very arena. The SaaS startup, founded by two ex-KPMG employees, looks after end-to-end backend needs with its one-stop management solution for restaurants that includes cloud-based POS billing, inventory management, CRM, third-party management and marketing management.
“Our target audience is anyone who is a food entrepreneur, be it single outlets, QSR, or a multichain fine dining restaurant,” Bhavya Bhambhani and Sawan Kumar, the brains behind the restaurant tech startup, tell YourStory.
The founding team of restaurant tech startup WishADish.
According to the duo, their product, by utilising data analytics, not only helps in seamless management of restaurants, but also increases the revenue of its clients through instant feedback generation.
“We customise the tech solution as per the requirements of the clients,” says the duo, adding, “Our product focuses on CRM and instant feedback generation that help in increasing the revenue of our clients whereas other players just provide them with effective management.”
Currently, WishADish’s offering includes two products – an offline billing software for FNB, priced at Rs 7000 per year, and an AI-based restaurant POS and management system, which is priced at Rs 15,000 per year.
The founding story
The idea of the restaurant management platform was born out of the founders’ brief encounter with the corporate world.
After graduating from Delhi University, Bhavya and Sawan, who were both 24, pursued their master’s degree through the Narsee Monjee Distance Education programme, and started working at KPMG, a global network of professional firms providing Audit, Tax and Advisory services. There, the duo gained over two years of experience working as an audit associate and auditor.
“Our job at KPMG was to find regularity issues and flaws in client control systems (ERPS & POS),” they say, explaining how the experience helped them understand management software. “We were working for big corporates across the globe, sitting in India; this helped us find gaps in the current scenario,” the duo adds.
Armed with this knowledge and understanding of management software and bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, the two decided to found a startup and thus, WishADish was launched in October 2018.
The startup, headquartered in the national capital, currently boasts a team of 28 employees, with the technical team based out of Kochi, in Kerala, and the management team set in New Delhi.
Focus on Tier II and III towns
Picking the food industry was not a complicated decision, says the founding duo. It was, after all, a choice based on research that revealed tremendous prospects in the food and services industry management.
The difficult part was educating the market in India, convincing vendors and clients in Tier II and Tier III cities about the feasibility of the restaurant management platform, making them understand about its ease of use and user-friendliness.
“The challenge is being overcome by connecting with local associations and influencers (restaurant consultants) and with door-to-door live demo campaigns. Further, we are making explainer videos and mass campaigns to increase the speed,” the founders share.
They explain that they also tried to instil awareness among the first set of audience who had been using manual ways for billing with paper/pen, or a code-based billing machine. “We educated them about the benefits of this robust tech, easy usage, and the usage of data that helps in saving operational costs,” they add.
With these measures in place, and after the completion of testing and the pilot sales, WishADish now collaborates with more than 54 food consultants across India. The restaurant management platform also has a presence in 14 cities across seven states.
“We are working with more than 80 restaurants in Tier II and III cities,” the entrepreneurs add.
Funding plans and the roadmap ahead
If the men behind the restaurant tech startup are to be believed, the space that WishADish operates in is competitive but also unutilised. The competitors are large in numbers but most of them are local players.
This is exactly where the sweet spot lies for the startup. With a promising presence and an increasing footprint across geographies, the company aims to become the one-stop solution for restaurants pan-India, while focusing on single outlets with low-tech penetration.
In keeping with this vision, the startup has already raised Rs 60 lakh from a clutch of angel investors in India.
“We will be utilising the capital to expand geographically, especially in Tier II and III cities,” says the founding duo, explaining that they aim to penetrate regions that are still using traditional ways. “We plan to go for pre-Series funding in 2021,” they add.
(Edited by Kanishk Singh)