Year 2008, classmates Sagar Daryani and Binod Kumar Homagai had just finished their graduation, and Sagar realized that he was too fragile in math to be able to clear CAT.
The story of WOW! Momo
"Started from the bottom now we're here"
How WOW! Momo went from borrowing Rs. 30K, to being valued at over Rs. 860 crore
Year 2008, classmates Sagar Daryani and Binod Kumar Homagai had just finished their graduation, and Sagar realized that he was too fragile in math to be able to clear CAT.
But he knew that he's always been passionate about brands. He had Nike, Puma’s stickers/logos in his notebook (that's literally me!)
Sagar and Binod originally got the idea of WOW! Momo after completion of 3rd year of graduation as they were waiting for their results at the age of 21.
They got the idea of WOW! Momo by observing the lady who used to sell tasty momos in front of their college
Sagar and Binod used to research all night together. In the night Binod would make Momo and Sagar Daryani would make toss bread etc.
Binod is a Nepali man, and Momo’s origin is thought to be from Nepal itself. Binod is, therefore, a great chef when it comes to making an ideal and delicious momo.
WOW! Momo was started with the investment of 30K rupees which Sagar took from his father.
In the beginning, Sagar and Binod did approach the supermarket chain Spencers to set up a 6 by 6 stall. In the company’s initial days, Sagar used to wear a Wow! Momo T-shirt and approach every person entering the store, asking them to sample the momos.
WOW! Momo’s first kitchen was a 200 square foot room and they took the raw material on credit from a local grocery store to get things started.
The first kitchen started with only a single table and two part-time chefs who worked on a nominal salary. The first chef was Ramji KC who worked for 3000 rupees.
On the first day, the team’s sales were Rs 2200, and by the end of the month, had touched Rs 53,000
Spencers assisted a lot in the WOW! Momo’s early days. They allocated a new kiosk in Kolkata’s finest mall with the greatest Spencers by seeing the hard work of two boys.
After the first four months, they set up their second outlet/stall. In the early days, WOW! Momo sold the momos at 40 rupees per plate.
The South City Mall store marked a game changer for WOW! Momo. The team moved from a revenue of Rs 50,000 a month to Rs 9 lakh. With the additional income, the team hired more people and invested in R&D for their products.
After Spencers, the team approached Big Bazaar and Pantaloons. WOW! Momo launched an outlet at Phoenix Market City in Bengaluru in 2011. This is the first branch out of Kolkata.
They have not looked back ever since. Today, the Food company boasts of having 130 outlets in nine cities. It works in a hub-and-spoke model with a central kitchen in each city.
The company has over 700 people employed in backend productions, & over 900 people managing the storefronts. The team follows a standardised recipe and cooking methodology.
Also, Chef Ramji now works full-time for Wow! Momo, and is the head chef with a salary of Rs 1.5 lakh a month
Backed by The Indian Angel Network & Light House Funds in the past, last year Wow! Momo was valued at over Rs 860 crore by US-based Tiger Global.
More from Atharva Kharbade
This is the story of a guy named Alex, who made $1 million in just 5 months by selling pixels of his website's homepage, when he was broke
16 years later, now he's the CEO of a company worth more than $2 billion
Thread ↓
1/
Year 2005
Alex has no money in his bank account, and just after 1 month his classes at a three-year university are gonna begin.
Being really determined to avoid student debt, he pulls an all nighter to brainstorm on a question, "How can I become a millionaire"
2/
Twenty minutes later, he had his answer: Sell one million pixels of advertising space on a website for $1 each.
"I thought, 'This is one of those crazy, quirky ideas, but it just might work.I've got nothing to lose.' " says Alex.
3/
Tew already had some experience with website design, so with a paltry $100, he quickly bought a domain name and some basic web hosting services and had his website, https://t.co/APDYhSjFTQ, up and running in two days.
4/
The concept was simple: Businesses could buy 10x10 or larger blocks of advertising space for a $1 per pixel and place their logos and links on his site.
16 years later, now he's the CEO of a company worth more than $2 billion
Thread ↓
1/
Year 2005
Alex has no money in his bank account, and just after 1 month his classes at a three-year university are gonna begin.
Being really determined to avoid student debt, he pulls an all nighter to brainstorm on a question, "How can I become a millionaire"
2/
Twenty minutes later, he had his answer: Sell one million pixels of advertising space on a website for $1 each.
"I thought, 'This is one of those crazy, quirky ideas, but it just might work.I've got nothing to lose.' " says Alex.
3/
Tew already had some experience with website design, so with a paltry $100, he quickly bought a domain name and some basic web hosting services and had his website, https://t.co/APDYhSjFTQ, up and running in two days.
4/
The concept was simple: Businesses could buy 10x10 or larger blocks of advertising space for a $1 per pixel and place their logos and links on his site.
It's been 2.5 years now since I'm on antidepressants and many people closely related to me still believe that depression is something that's "just in the head"
Our society needs to seriously rethink of mental health. Our society needs to be educated
3 years ago, during my JEE prep, when I went into clinical depression, no one could diagnose me of it. I had every symptom of it.
I literally got no help. This is not about me, I'm telling this from a general 3rd person view.
Any help that I got was wearing a ring made of horseshoe of a black horse of a specific breed. All the blame was slapped on 'Shani'
I was being taken to orphanages and slum areas so that I could see that my ailments are nothing in front of theirs.
Loads of toxic positivity
I lived in a PG hostel. I used to go to institute. Used to meet numerous people everyday. But not a single person could diagnose me of any medical condition. Not their fault, even I didn't what I'd been going through
Our society needs to seriously rethink of mental health. Our society needs to be educated
3 years ago, during my JEE prep, when I went into clinical depression, no one could diagnose me of it. I had every symptom of it.
I literally got no help. This is not about me, I'm telling this from a general 3rd person view.
Any help that I got was wearing a ring made of horseshoe of a black horse of a specific breed. All the blame was slapped on 'Shani'
I was being taken to orphanages and slum areas so that I could see that my ailments are nothing in front of theirs.
Loads of toxic positivity
Yes, \U0001d5fd\U0001d5fc\U0001d600\U0001d5f6\U0001d601\U0001d5f6\U0001d603\U0001d5f6\U0001d601\U0001d606 can be \U0001d601\U0001d5fc\U0001d605\U0001d5f6\U0001d5f0
— Atharva Kharbade (@athrvakhrbde) September 25, 2020
Before you let your ignorance kick in and make you laugh out loud, try seeing life with a new perspective
No BS
A thread...
Read this if you use sentences like "Good vibes only" or "Just be positive and stay happy"
I lived in a PG hostel. I used to go to institute. Used to meet numerous people everyday. But not a single person could diagnose me of any medical condition. Not their fault, even I didn't what I'd been going through
More from Business
Should we go into the details of these 125 years?
SA is built on the exploitation of labour. That labour has functioned on alcohol unfortunately. Very few people consume liquor purely for enjoyment unfortunately. When SAB opened its doors 1895 workers were paid in alcohol- the dop/tot system. 2 years into SAB's establishment
The Prohibition Act is introduced. This means black people are barred from buying your wines, beer etc. So SAB's products are exclusively for white people. But during this period beer brewing by Black women is the norm. Ayinxilisi ncam ke this type of beer. Apparently it had some
Nutritious elements to it. Now some of the context around drinking culture during this time is migrant labour to the mines, further land dispossession, the Anglo-Boer Wars, Rhodes corruption (our first state capture commission if you will) which leads to his resignation.
This context plays a role in how our cities and small towns are constructed, how they lead to the confinement and surveillance yabantu. Traditional beer brewing is identified as a threat because buy now mining bosses have identified that there's money to be made here.
SAB has formed part of the fabric of SA for the last 125 years & we've stood behind the nation through its triumphs & challenges. After much consideration,SAB has decided to approach the Courts to challenge the Constitutionality of the decision taken to re-ban the sale of alcohol pic.twitter.com/40rWpJSW5b
— SABreweries (@SABreweries) January 6, 2021
SA is built on the exploitation of labour. That labour has functioned on alcohol unfortunately. Very few people consume liquor purely for enjoyment unfortunately. When SAB opened its doors 1895 workers were paid in alcohol- the dop/tot system. 2 years into SAB's establishment
The Prohibition Act is introduced. This means black people are barred from buying your wines, beer etc. So SAB's products are exclusively for white people. But during this period beer brewing by Black women is the norm. Ayinxilisi ncam ke this type of beer. Apparently it had some
Nutritious elements to it. Now some of the context around drinking culture during this time is migrant labour to the mines, further land dispossession, the Anglo-Boer Wars, Rhodes corruption (our first state capture commission if you will) which leads to his resignation.
This context plays a role in how our cities and small towns are constructed, how they lead to the confinement and surveillance yabantu. Traditional beer brewing is identified as a threat because buy now mining bosses have identified that there's money to be made here.
The American business community is speaking with a unified voice - NAM called to invoke the 25th Amendment; the Business Roundtable and Chambers of Commerce urge a peaceful transition of power; all have denounced last week's violence. What might this mean? A few implications:
1/
This isn't just PR - bad politics is bad for business. Here, the Harvard Business Review makes the business case for democracy (leading essay by
Historically, business has been a crucial ally for democracy. Mark Mizruchi shows how business helped secure democracy after WII, through organizations like the Committee for Economic Development (see also his @NiskanenCenter paper: https://t.co/xoqUUN1nCD)
3/
My book examines how business groups formed to lobby against patronage and corruption, and in favor of institutional reform, in the 19th c. (https://t.co/FnNhZUupBG)
For a summary of business’s role in American democracy over the 20th century, see
Today, corporations are cutting off PAC $$ — Wall St banks (JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, CitiGroup), big tech (Microsoft, Facebook). Many more corps have suspended donations to members of Congress who contested the certification of election results last week
5/
1/
This isn't just PR - bad politics is bad for business. Here, the Harvard Business Review makes the business case for democracy (leading essay by
Historically, business has been a crucial ally for democracy. Mark Mizruchi shows how business helped secure democracy after WII, through organizations like the Committee for Economic Development (see also his @NiskanenCenter paper: https://t.co/xoqUUN1nCD)
3/
My book examines how business groups formed to lobby against patronage and corruption, and in favor of institutional reform, in the 19th c. (https://t.co/FnNhZUupBG)
For a summary of business’s role in American democracy over the 20th century, see
Today, corporations are cutting off PAC $$ — Wall St banks (JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, CitiGroup), big tech (Microsoft, Facebook). Many more corps have suspended donations to members of Congress who contested the certification of election results last week
5/
