The Unfair Growth Advantage For Zomato

A few days back I was discussing growth and what it means for Internet businesses, with peers. The mention of Douglas Rushkoff came up. He’s the author of ‘Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus: How Growth Became The Enemy of Prosperity’.

Rushkoff makes an impactful point. He takes on the failure of the new age businesses and economy in making things better for more people. He emphasizes on how extreme growth is leading to abandonment of core values that occurs due to short term thinking that companies go into to achieve targets with speed.

Most companies hire growth hackers to come up with smart tricks to beat the customer acquisition cost down to its bones. It makes it all look so smart.

Ultimate growth comes naturally!

Just like organic word of mouth is a lot more powerful than its paid counterparts, similar is the story of growth.

“Ideas that create and communicate value for people in their natural state go big!”

Natural state: Food

One incredibly important natural state for a human being is food. Of-course it has importance in the Maslows’ Hierarchy.

A related natural state is: Comfort and Experience

It’s interesting how comfort and experience are related to food in many ways.

Zomato has both!

There’s no doubt that Zomato will grow and expand with new business lines and across new geographies. It has strong foundation in both the natural states.

Everyone loves great food. Like the VAS of telecom, the VAS in food business is table booking. The ease of making a reservation makes worth the while. You just don’t need to spend time on searching for places and calling them up yourself.

Highly rated foods and restaurants with comfort and experience = global growth!

Everyone loves their food!

Wherever you go on the planet, the human virtues of ‘loving their food’ and ‘the experience of making a reservation’ stays the same.

Food, culture and Zomato’s unique opportunity!

Of-course there will be channels of acquisition and funnels defining their optimal behavior with analytics and the important metrics.

“The one detail that will work magic for Zomato is building on people’s love for their local cultures and food via storytelling.”

Like Humans Of New york ignited Humans Of Mumbai, Of Chandigarh and many more similar communities, Zomato has the unique opportunity to bring the world closer by making people experience each other’s culture via food.

It’s incredible how this one thought about growth and natural human evolution led me to think of Zomato as the one business that is best positioned to leverage this sensibility and build a great business.

I am always happy to hear multiple perspectives. Do leave your comments.