From Developer to Serial Entrepreneur: Hevo Data CEO Manish Jethani (Part 4)

Sramana Mitra: Why do you think the VC was calling you? What did he know about what you were doing?

Manish Jethani: Some local newspaper caught the Facebook post in the group. They saw that we got 1,700 signups in four hours. She wrote a story around that. That got us a bit of media coverage and some kind of popularity. That’s how the fund discovered us.

Sramana Mitra: When you got this call, were you already in operation?

Manish Jethani: Yes, it was the first week of operations. I used to write the code at night and deliver food during the day.

Sramana Mitra: When was this?

Manish Jethani: This was around 2013 end.

Sramana Mitra: What was the name of this company?

Manish Jethani: SpoonJoy.

Sramana Mitra: Did you take money?

Manish Jethani: Yes, a million dollars.

Sramana Mitra: What happens after that?

Manish Jethani: We were a food tech startup and there were a lot of food-tech startups then. Every now and again, there is a lot of capital in the market. Unit economics don’t matter. We were in that phase where we were chasing growth.

These cycles come and go, but, fundamentally, you have to understand what the business you are in and how will that business make money. The sudden rush of money in the market will come and go, but you have to build the business for 10 to 15 years and not for eight months. We continued to scale while the unit economics weren’t great.

Sramana Mitra: What was destroying the unit economics?

Manish Jethani: We never spent any money on marketing. In an office setup, we used to send the food in a bright yellow box that is quite big. Imagine getting that on your desk. Everyone will ask you about it.

Sramana Mitra: Lots of viral acquisition.

Manish Jethani: The moment we get one order from an office, it grew to five to fifteen the next day. The only thing we needed to do is find the offices and find someone whom we know. Send them free food for two days. There were not a lot of startups who were doing that.

This segment is part 4 in the series : From Developer to Serial Entrepreneur: Hevo Data CEO Manish Jethani
1 2 3 4 5 6 7