Pune Inc: What a hungry startup founder did when he couldn’t find a delivery app

“Despite being this close to Pune, there was nobody catering to this audience in the food delivery sector. When we wanted to have this convenience at our fingertips, nobody was there to cater to us. I had to call the restaurant and ask them if they can home-deliver to me,” says Hire. The experience kept rankling, even after he joined an MNC.

“I was logging into my day, doing routine work and logging out. It was not a fascinating thing,” he says.

Long story short. Hire set up a tiffin services business in Pune, failed spectacularly and returned to his hometown to start a venture delivering food, Ek Plate Parcel, in 2022. Today, Ek Plate Parcel is channelling the talents of local youth and restaurants. Its customers include homemakers and families looking for different flavours, as well as IT professionals and others who work in Pune but live in semi-urban places like Shirur, Shikrapur, and Narayangaon.

Hire’s business model is sparse. He charges 10 per cent from restaurants while delivery riders get paid their entire fee, including surge rates – and shoestring. He has 25-30 delivery riders. He rides out on deliveries himself with the others in the team while his wife, Pranali Hire, manages the back end. Last time Hire heard, other big food delivery apps were trying to nudge into this market “but restaurant owners do not want to pay them 30 per cent as charge”.

On his part, Hire will start a subscription model for restaurant owners soon. At present, Ek Plate Parcel is spreading awareness by sharing its 100-day challenge, a journey of a startup’s experience over a 100-day period, on social media. This includes stories of successful deliveries and raw setbacks, like delivery boys decamping with the cash-on-delivery.

“It has been 17 days of our 100-day journey, and we have received 1,500 more app downloads. Each has a multiplier effect. We are doing almost 100 deliveries per day now but are looking to ramp this up to 600 by the end of the 100 days,” says Hire.

He has covered several miles from the day he invested Rs 15,000 on his food delivery website and upped it to an app for Rs 2 lakh in 2023 after listening to customers.

“Our first customer was a woman hesitating to make an online payment because we were so new. She opted for cash-on-delivery, and I personally went to deliver that order since it was the first order. She was so happy that she gave me a tip of Rs 20-30,” says Hire.

As a tip from a pro, Hire says biryani is the most ordered dish for a reason. “Getting a plate of biryani makes a person satisfied that they have spent the amount well. There is also little chance of biryani becoming cold or spoiled,” he says.