With a thought of – ‘Tiffin service market being so unorganized,’ the 39-year-old Dharit Gadani incepted Vittlebox on December 7th, 2016. He has a background of engineering, marketing, and eventually family business. Clubbing such vast experiences, Dharit took a leap of faith and created a resilient story of the Vittlebox. This made him set out on an expedition to become an Entrepreneur and start something of his own! His journey unfolds many twists and turns of running a cloud kitchen. And that too during the introductory years of food aggregators. Moreover, Dharit’s story depicts his nature of embracing the dynamics. This sheds light upon strong insights and learnings of entrepreneurial pursuit. The USP that Vittlebox holds is its product simplicity. The Thalis, Tiffin Planner, Packaging curated stands out in the market.
“Vittlebox jevi thaali akha amdavad ma kyay nai made.”
Dharit Gadani, Founder
Keep going with the Trials
Dharit Gadani’s entrepreneurial journey of embracing the dynamics was initiated with the launch of a cloud kitchen named Vittlebox. This name – Vittlebox given by him meant “essential and everything that gives you nutrients in a box packed.” Dharit entered the market with a zest of having an entrepreneurial mindset. Because he had no forte or prior experience in the food business industry. Being an engineer, he first set up the advanced technology in his business model. This move made a unique user-centric tiffin platform. The cloud kitchen was instilled with a week’s menu. The menu contained full plan of what will be on the platters of the users—be it for lunch or dinner! This idea of providing a planner purely came out of Dharit’s thought process. It is due to him being a hostelite once and used to have tiffin food for his meals.
Improvising is the key
The entire high-tech system was built around 2017 where users can get the access to full menu. And they can even notify two hours before if they tend to fulfill some other craving. Also, the user profile catered to adding multiple addresses and time slots to access food at their convenience. In March 2017, the actual operation of the business began. At that time the Dharit had no clue about delivery, packaging, food costs, and other jargons of the food industry. However, by investing time and learning the trends, he got the references and suppliers for a smooth supply chain. With that, Vittlebox started gaining 60-70 subscribers per day which is a huge milestone of that time! By May-June 2017, a key person from Zomato approached the Vittlebox founder. The tie up was finalized and a new window got opened for local food service business.
Adapting to advancements
The tie-up initiative forged in creating an all-new dashboard. This included Zomato orders getting flashed up which the Vittlebox team had to process. With time and progress, Vittlebox established its 4 cloud-kitchen outlets in Ahmedabad. Namely, Navrangpura, Vastrapur, Prahaladnagar, and South Bopal. According to the founder, from these many outlets, the Navrangpura outlet remains legendary! It is because being the oldest where maximum orders get placed in. During venture’s early days, what sort of equipment was required in a commercial kitchen was a question. Along with the manager, the founder managed to equip the kitchen with all the essentials. Undergoing multiple trials, facing errors, and making apt improvisations Dharit built up a brand. This too over 5 years and now entering into 6th year with fresh plans & strategies! What a resilient story!
Sailing through the failures of Entrepreneurial Journey
“One failure at a time,” has become the success mantra for the Vittlebox founder Dharit Gadani. It is because he firmly believes that failures are stepping stones to success. Facing multiple downfalls, the founder managed to sustain his brand from shattering apart. Challenges include—from negative gross margins, recipe not working well to cut-throat competition, and even Covid hitting vigorously. In his view, encountering a failure – overcoming it – again facing a failure – overcoming it is a vicious cycle. And this makes you efficient and brings you back to your fundamentals. Eventually, leading you toward the lamppost of success.
Identifying the flaws
While talking about his failures, he pinpointed certain snippets. These empowered him to be a refined and churned entrepreneurs. Initially, he used to be the decision maker and his personal choice started becoming his opinions. The 39-year-old Gadani felt that the dishes preferred by him according to his taste buds should be on the Vittlebox’s menu. This was a negative move. Soon he realized his mistake and embraced users’ feedback via comments and ratings. He also incorporated the suggestions put forth by the them. Such resilient move made Vittlebox one of the best in class user-friendly cloud kitchens aka tiffin service.
Apt trait of being an entrepreneur
In another incident, he mentioned about manually keeping track of inventory. That led to a major downfall in terms of stock management. So, this year they infused inventory software which is AI-based. It keeps a check on raw materials, places orders automatically to the supplier if the stock seems to lessen. And the entire inventory has been now on auto mode. This portrays that Dharit’s trait of accepting mistakes and not bringing ego into decision making. And that is why he found a way to come out of the darkness. Also embracing the dynamics at every moment aided in sustaining his venture!
Major Learnings & Outcome
The story of Mr Dharit is flooded with key takeaways. As his positive approach towards learning new things gave him the major outcomes. Here follows the Vittlebox founder’s eminent learnings to follow in life and if you aspire to be an entrepreneur:
• Accept & Embrace failures. Don’t be afraid of it. They are the best mentors.
• When you lack motivation, adapt discipline in your life. Keep occupying yourself in a disciplined routine to follow.
• Stop overthinking about the problems that are created in your mind. Keep on working and take things as it come.
• You are 90% successful if you don’t give up. Rest 10% is your intelligence and efforts. Keep trying.
• You can’t run a business single-handedly. So build up systems. And trust the people.
• Stop blaming being too hard on yourself.
Setting a resilient example
‘Entrepreneurial journey is filled with ups and downs so one needs to be mentally strong.’ This has been said by the founder of Vittlebox, Dharit Gadani who sets a perfect example to it. As Mr Gadani strongly believed to put technology first, he collectively used his skills to be an entrepreneur. The 39-year-old engineer turned entrepreneur, intriguingly combined technology to food business. This made his business model outstanding! Thereby till date, Vittlebox is well-equipped with tech-savviness. A high-tech point of sales technology system, supply chain system, and even attendance is done using technology. Paying respect to staff members and key to bounce back is in talking to your support system. This is the resilient story of the Vittlebox which one can look upto. Kudos to Mr Dharit Gadani for sustaining a cloud-kitchen despite many challenges!
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