EDITION 10

The food industry may not be as capital intensive as real estate, and even though Anand Chordia is the third generation to inherit the Pravin Masalewale business, understanding consumer need is vital. Says he, “we were a typical masalewala business that catered to the Maharashtra region.” After completing his degree in Food Technology, Anand decided that the future of his family business would be dictated by market needs.

“We did and continue to do market research, talk to our dealers, our customers to get an idea of what is the need in the market. When the IT boom happened, it broke a lot of joint families into nuclear families. Women joined the workforce in large numbers and so had little time for the kitchen. They preferred easy to cook food.” This meant a whole new line of products for the company.

“That was when we launched our ready-to-cook line. With lack of time and overworked housewives, we thought why not provide packets of gourmet food that otherwise people would eat in a restaurant? So Paneer Makhanwala that takes 15 mins to cook was launched. And then some more. Breakfast items, desserts like besan ladoo, sheer korma etc. were added to the product basket.

Anand’s mantra: “Always have your ear to the ground, not only when you are starting a new business, but even when you are well into it. Apart from that, one has to have the wherewithal to act on the findings and rapidly.”

The tech industry, being what it is, offers entrepreneurs tonnes of data to read and build products and services. Says Jitendra Tanna founder, Eternus Solutions, and a TiE mentor, “Product development for me meant studying the technology trends. I follow research by various agencies like NASSCOM, Gartner, Forrester and others. In 2005, I read and realized that cloud mobility was going to be the next big thing in the tech world.”

But simply knowing and creating a product are two different things. Says Jitendra, “we brainstormed and came to the conclusion that customers will always need sales to survive. No business can run without sales. Seeing that cloud technology and now AI/ML, the technologies that are getting big, we built a product around Salesforce. This can help our clients keep track of how their customers feel about their product or service.

“The algorithms that we have created can read emails, audio and even video to provide a clear feedback on customer views.” Earlier one would use feedback forms and the response you get would depend on the mood, time, and so on of the respondent. But with the reading of emails, audio or video over weeks, months, years, you can get a clear idea of what your customer thinks of your product. For Jitendra, understanding technology trends and using that knowledge helped him develop a product that is relevant and much needed.

Kiran Deshpande who is a mentor and founder of Mojo Networks, says, “an entrepreneur is one who sees either an opportunity or a problem and tries to solve it. Of course, all of us may be faced with an opportunity or face a problem in our daily lives, but not all have the drive or motivation to solve it.”

He gives the example of the founder of Cotton King, “Pradip Marathe said that he always wanted to wear cotton shirts but could never find one at a reasonable price. That led to the launch of Cotton King.” But at times the reverse can be true. According to Ravi Nigam President TiE Pune and founder of Tasty Bite, “Either you see a need (in the form of an opportunity or problem) or at times you drive it. Like Steve Jobs did with iPod where he probably was the only one who believed that people would like to listen to music through his gadget or Richard Branson who’s led people to believe that going to space and back is the highest level of luxury.”