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MoiPot - An online Food ecommerce Marketplace

What is MoiPot?

Moipot is an online e-commerce marketplace endowed by two young enthusiasts to give all the foodies a unique gastronomical experience! Our aim is to provide an online service to deliver authentic regional foodstuffs that you crave the most but are difficult to find locally. Take a trip down the memory lane while you explore India’s authentic delicacies like sweets, snacks, cookies, biscuits, namkeen, pickles, pastes, masalas, beverages, sharbats, mouth fresheners, mukhvas, granolas, healthy mixes, sugarfree items and much more. Explore your favorite foods from all the original producers and give us a chance to deliver joy.

Tell us more about your team ?

o Krishna Shah (Co-founder & Chief of Operations and Marketing) – Did MS in Computer Science from University of Pennsylvania and worked at Bank of America as a Technology Associate. She learnt business dynamics and marketing in India which helped in building the brand.

o Rushabh Shah (Co-founder & Chief of Technology and Finance) – Did MS in Computer Science from University of Florida and worked at Amazon and Synopsys as a Software Developer for a couple of years. He honed his business skills in India before starting Moipot.

How did you come up with the idea ?​​

While Rushabh and I were in US, we faced problem in getting Indian food items with authentic taste. The sweets and savories which we used to get there at Indian Stores missed the regional touch of Indian cities. We used to ask our family to send us parcels every few months from India and stuffed our luggage with food whenever we visited our home. We realized that we were not the only people facing this problem. Our friends back in India faced a similar issue when they moved to different parts of India due to work and missed the delicacies from their home town. This is when the idea of Moipot was born. 

What problem are you solving ?

We are trying to solve two problems. Lot of people migrate to different parts of India due to studies or work. Main problem is that there is no simple and easy way for people staying away from their home town to get authentic regional sweets and savories from their native place. The second problem is foodies don’t get to explore delicacies from other cities of India very easily. They get to taste those only if they travel to that place or some of their relative staying there gets it for them when they visit. This is where Moipot comes into the picture. We provide a platform for them to get and try new savouries from all over India delivered to their doorstep in a couple of clicks.

How does it work ?

Moipot is an ecommerce marketplace where you get a variety of authentic sweets, snacks and accompaniments like pickles, mouth fresheners, etc. from different regions of India delivered to your doorstep. Customers can browse and search the website via specific product, brand or city. Once the order has been placed, we deliver the savories within 2-5 days. To ensure the freshness of the products, we pick them up from the vendor and courier directly to the customer. Thus the customer gets the savories fresh and faster. Vendors can register and start selling on our website within less than 24 hours. They can manage their products and orders through their dedicated vendor dashboard. This helps in transparency and avoids delays in operations.


What is your target market ?

We are targeting two sections of the market:

1. Every foodie is our target! To be specific, we are targeting people in the age group of 18 to 40 staying in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities of India.

2. People who stay away from their family or native place. No age limit or geographic location limit for this.

What is your competitive advantage ?

The things that set us apart are real time vendor dashboard and live chat. So, the vendor can control each and every minute detail of his entire store on the portal. It takes less than 24 hours for a vendor to register and start selling at Moipot. They needn’t set up anything from their end to maintain or keep track of activities. The dashboard is self-sufficient for all their needs. For customers, we have a live chat facility. From imparting knowledge about savories to troubleshooting technical issues, it’s a one stop instant solution for them.

How much time did it take you from conceptualization of 'your venture' to actually launching it in the market ?

It took us almost a year to launch it. We took our time in doing proper research of the idea and try to find out the feasibility. After starting the execution our major setback was choosing the wrong technology stack. 4 months into the execution of the project we realized that it was time to scrap it and start from scratch again. Meanwhile demonetization and GST worries created constant apprehensions amongst vendors making it a time consuming task for us to get them on board.

How do you plan to market your product? What are your customer acquisition strategies ?

Currently, we are more into organic SEO and Social Media Marketing. In future, we plan to use Google AdWords and do on ground activities in different cities to mark our presence. We feel digital marketing is the best way forward for us considering the audience we are targeting.

What is the revenue model ?

It’s a pure commission model. On every order, we charge a commission to our vendors. In future, we can monetize the featured products section and generate revenue from such different small streams.

What do you want to achieve from this? What is your larger goal or vision ?

We want to bring all the popular savouries from every part of India on the portal. Moipot would be a one stop solution for all the authentic regional delicacy needs.

What sort of support and feedback are you looking from the community ?

The eChai community has been a great support from the moment we joined. Currently, we have the website but not the apps. We would love the suggestions and recommendations from the community on how we can make the portal more user friendly. But the most important feedback we want is the community to suggest to us popular brands along with their regional sweets and savories which they would like to see on Moipot. That would help us in building the website catering to the specific needs of the people.



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Jatin Chaudhary
Salesman @eChaiVentures l Good at managing WhatsApp groups n organizing high quality, large gatherings at low cost :-) l Observer l Fmr Global Shaper @WEF

@Krishna - Which has been your biggest challenge to onboard the vendors?

Krishna Shah
Entrepreneur | Foodie | Read |Travel | Adventure

@jatin10 We have vendors from all over India. It is not feasible to travel every time to meet each new vendor. So, the biggest challenge is to make them trust us with their brand and
payments through just cold calls and the telephonic/email conversations which follow.

Neel Shah
Gujju (Foodie), IIM Grad (Strategist), Entrepreneur (Story Teller, Dream Seller)

Do you give discount or charge a premium on the MRP of items listed..?

Are all items branded only and FSSAI certified?

Do you get the ordered item at a central location and get your branded packaging or send directly..?

Does intra-city order and delivery work?

Krishna Shah
Entrepreneur | Foodie | Read |Travel | Adventure

@neelnshah
We charge the MRP of items.
All items are FSSAI certified.
There is no central location.
Intra-city to Inter-state, all type of orders are handled.

Keyur Bhalavat
Technophile | Innovator | Serial Entrepreneur | Sport Fanatic | Travel Buff

@krishna -
1. If the items are sold on MRP, i'm assuming you might be charging extra for delivery?
2. What is the unit economics setting in?
3. At what price point or at what volume this will be viable?
4. What are the plans for execution of user base ?

Krishna Shah
Entrepreneur | Foodie | Read |Travel | Adventure

@keyur-v--bhalavat
We charge extra for delivery.
Currently, we are expanding user base via SMM.
We can catch up sometime and I can explain the unit economics in detail then.

Keyur Bhalavat
Technophile | Innovator | Serial Entrepreneur | Sport Fanatic | Travel Buff

@Krishna: sure

Nilay Shah
Over 12 years industry exposure, Serial entrepreneur, technology enthusiastic, managing an IT firm, working as a consultant helping other companies grow.

@Krishna - How is your startup different and/or better than similar website https://www.placeoforigin.in?

Nilay Shah
Over 12 years industry exposure, Serial entrepreneur, technology enthusiastic, managing an IT firm, working as a consultant helping other companies grow.

@Krishna and how do you plan to take on deep pocketed https://www.placeoforigin.in with already a good foothold?

Krishna Shah
Entrepreneur | Foodie | Read |Travel | Adventure

@nilay--shah This industry is still very unorganized. There is enough space for both us and our competitors to survive. Getting the unit economics right is the crux. We have got it fairly good till now and will continue to do so in future.

Nilay Shah
Over 12 years industry exposure, Serial entrepreneur, technology enthusiastic, managing an IT firm, working as a consultant helping other companies grow.

@Krishna Agreed. The reason i asked those questions is to know if you have any specific plus points planned out. I have noticed some shortcomings of placesoforigin that can work to your advantage if tapped well. If you would like to discuss that pm me.

Krishna Shah
Entrepreneur | Foodie | Read |Travel | Adventure

@nilay--shah Sure. Share your contact details.

Nilay Shah
Over 12 years industry exposure, Serial entrepreneur, technology enthusiastic, managing an IT firm, working as a consultant helping other companies grow.

You can contact me on nilay @ appsnstuff dot com

Hanuj Tilwani
Founder's Office at DemandFarm | Ex-Founder at Miho (B2B SaaS)

Are you try to get famous food times from tier 3 cities to get on-board? if not then why?

Krishna Shah
Entrepreneur | Foodie | Read |Travel | Adventure

@hanuj_t Yes, we are trying to get them on board. If you have any suggestions of good delicacies of good brands from those tier 3 cities then please do share them with us.

Srikanta Pratap Mishra
Have not done anything

But whenever You will Approch Tier 3 Cities.The Main problem is certified Food ( FSSAI Certification)

But Try to Bring The Mahaprasad Of Puri,Odisha On Board.

As it is the Lifeline for Odia people along the world

Krishna Shah
Entrepreneur | Foodie | Read |Travel | Adventure

@srikanta-pratap-mishra Agreed. Unfortunately, we have to let them go. Because we have to abide by the rules.

That's interesting to know. Thanks for this insightful suggestion. Could you please suggest some specialty brands which have those delicacies? Because Mahaprasad is more of a temple thing so commercializing them online won't be feasible.

Apart from that, any other brands/delicacies of other states which you would like to see on board?

Aditya Dave
Soil testing for farmers

@Krishna How do you handle logistics as logistics is a problem which many of young entrepreneurs have ?

Krishna Shah
Entrepreneur | Foodie | Read |Travel | Adventure

@aditya-dave Logistics is a big problem especially when you are handling items having a shelf life of few weeks. We have tied up with few renowned courier companies who have strong Pan India presence. They help us in picking up and delivering the parcels whenever an order is placed.

Dhruv Gupta
A researcher turned entrepreneur, a computer scientist by certificate and a design thinker by training who did his first startup at 18. He has built 3 (three) tech startups till now and has been part of the journey for many startups as consultant, mentor and investor.

@Krishna - Have you thought of having secondary/hidden channels of revenue in your venture..?? If they already exist, what are they..??

Krishna Shah
Entrepreneur | Foodie | Read |Travel | Adventure

@drvgpt Currently, they don't exist. But, we would like to monetize featured products on home page and special promotion for certain vendors. Getting bulk orders would also be a good secondary channel of revenue.

Raj Kothari
Co-founder at @Startuptalkies,a platform for Discovering Startup Founders,Products and Early Customers.

@krishna can you explain what is your business about?

Krishna Shah
Entrepreneur | Foodie | Read |Travel | Adventure

@irajkothari Sure. Let's connect on PM. Share your contact details.

Shivang Swaminarayan
Health professional with industry experience of 25years in Pharma, Health & AYUSH.

Is 'Moi Desert' your venture at Bodakdev?

Krishna Shah
Entrepreneur | Foodie | Read |Travel | Adventure

No

Shivang Swaminarayan
Health professional with industry experience of 25years in Pharma, Health & AYUSH.

Wanted to understand Unit economics as I am facing similar challenge in my domain to be cracked. Will you be willing to share your insight, way out worked for your domain

Krishna Shah
Entrepreneur | Foodie | Read |Travel | Adventure

Sure. Which exactly is your domain?

Jatin Chaudhary
Salesman @eChaiVentures l Good at managing WhatsApp groups n organizing high quality, large gatherings at low cost :-) l Observer l Fmr Global Shaper @WEF

How did you get the early customer for your startup?

Krishna Shah
Entrepreneur | Foodie | Read |Travel | Adventure

The first few customers were by word of mouth. Facebook and Google Ads helped us in bringing in the early unknown customers.

srinath valaboju
an entreprenuer

good

Krishna Shah
Entrepreneur | Foodie | Read |Travel | Adventure

Thanks

Law Fleeter Adv Shivangi

Plz contact me if you want fund 8850373717

Kritika Manshani

Hello Ms. Krishna Shah!
I am Kritika Manshani, a Doctoral Candidate at the School of Management and Labour Studies at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai!
My doctoral thesis understands, The impact of Leader Humility on employee wellbeing! I am conducting a study on Entrepreneurs for my thesis! Would like to connect you to you regarding the same!

Dr. Swati Patil

Hello Entreprenuer, This study is related to women entrepreneurs,s especially those who own digital startups. I would appreciate it f you could spread the message to the desired group. Thank you!
https://forms.gle/K9xTQYztATS7pS3GA