Zomato - The Google for Food

Hello readers! 

Let's embark upon this journey to know a little about how Zomato went from mere scanning of menu cards to becoming one of the most successful food startup with net worth of a whopping 1500 crores!  Yes you read it right. You don't always need lots of money to be an entrepreneur, sometimes even a Xerox machine will do.  Happy reading!

Formerly known by the name 'Foodiebay.com', Zomato is the brainchild of  the two IITians, Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah, who wanted to make waiting in long queues less tiresome for those people with 9 to 6 job and who greatly relied on restaurants and cafes for their meals.

The idea of the start-up bloomed as they saw their colleagues at Bain & Company waiting in the lines to get a glimpse at the menu card. To curb this need, these future entrepreneurs scanned the restaurant's menu and posted it on a private network which was soon made public after witnessing the traffic and response the network was generating. 

They expanded their services to the major cities like Mumbai and Kolkata. Now the utility of the website was not just restricted to menu cards, it also allowed the customers to locate restaurants  near them.  

Taking a courageous plight was easy for Deepinder and Pankaj but now the real problem was how to remain the longest in the air. Their nascent idea was later fostered by Sanjeev Bikhchandani of  Info Edge India who currently owns 54% shares of Zomato.

Eventually, revenues started flooding in as the restaurants started entering into paid partnerships with Zomato. Zomato also provided an advertising platform for them. Since then Zomato has only encashed the opportunities coming its way and never looked back. After marking a much renown presence in India, it expanded its services beyond the Indian borders in September 2012. Sri lanka, United Kingdom, Philippines, South Africa, New Zealand, Turkey are few among the 23 countries that Zomato has ventured into.

  

Thus, to summarize, Zomato is a Food Aggregator which gathers information against a customer query and presents the most relevant results to the customer to help them make affordable and yummy food choices with few clicks just like Google. 

One can easily start their own business by entering into a partnership with Zomato. The official site consists of simple and easy to follow directions for the users to register one's restaurant with Zomato. 

Here's a link to guide your way through the registration process (just in case I stirred up the businessman in you): https://www.indiafilings.com/learn/zomato-registration/

To know more about Zomato straight from the horse's mouth, here's Deepinder Goyal himself speaking about his journey..