How this woman entrepreneur uses WhatsApp to run her salads business

A full-time working professional with a real-estate company, Megha Bafna also makes scrumptious salads and delivers them to people looking for healthy meal options in Pune.

In 2019, she decided to take her passion for salads to a wider audience and started sourcing orders in her locality via a WhatsApp group.

“Since I didn’t want to make these creative salads only for myself, I decided to test the waters by asking my friends and acquaintances to taste them. I designed a creative and that was the beginning of Keep Good Shape (KGS),” she says.

The orders began pouring in and by the end of 2019, Megha had a large number of subscribers for her wide range of salads.

Most of her customers came from the IT sector, BPOs, as well as hospitals. A team of 15 people, including delivery persons, worked with her to cater to the orders.

Since then, Keep Good Shape has reached a large number of people in Pune looking for healthy alternatives to their everyday diet.

However, the business had to shut down for almost three months with the onset of COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdowns.

“We could reopen the business only in August. Initially, it was slow but when people started realising the importance of eating healthy, it has picked up considerably and has doubled since we started,” says Megha.

Subscribers get a total of 26 salad dishes every month. A team of 28 now handles the business while Megha still takes care of picking the ingredients and making the dressing that goes into each salad. Her husband pitches in by taking care of the logistics part of the business.

Other than IT companies and hospitals, most of her current customers are people working from home, IT companies, hospitals and residential societies.

“Since we couldn’t deliver far, we have a franchisee outlet on the outskirts of Pune. We have also finalised a franchisee outlet each in Nagpur and Chennai, which will hopefully start once things get better. As of now, they are unable to come to Pune for training,” she adds.

“Keep Good Shape entirely runs on WhatsApp Business, as it enables one-on-one and consistent interaction with my customers. If you Google my name, you will find the WhatsApp number one can send the queries to,” says Megha.

The business has grown over 75 percent from the time it first began. Megha still continues with her full-time job.

“My plan is to have more franchises of Keep Good Shape and also run a cloud kitchen in the near future,” she says.

This story is part of a series spotlighting extraordinary, inspiring women from different walks of life for the See Us, Hear Us campaign powered by WhatsApp for International Women’s Day. You can read more such stories from the month-long campaign here.