He quit Google to sell samosas. 5 things he learnt along the way
Munaf Kapadia was an account strategist at Google India when he quit the corporate world to, as he puts it, “sell samosas”. Over seven years, his samosas — delicious Bohri mutton ones, usually bite-sized — have become a full-fledged business called The Bohri Kitchen (TBK), with a Rs 4 crore turnover at its peak. Kapadia’s book about this journey, How I Quit Google to Sell Samosas, was released by HarperCollins in April. Here are the five biggest lessons he says he learnt along the way.
1. Do the digging: “I think there’s no better way to start out than to learn from others’ successes or failures,” says Kapadia, 31. He had an idea in 2015, he says, for what he called The Dining Table (TDT), an AirBnBstyle app for home-dining experiences. He googled the idea and saw than many around the world had tried it and failed. This was about a month before he quit his job. He had garnered investor interest in TDT by then, identified some home chefs. A survey of his own confirmed it wouldn’t work. There were doubts about consistency, comfort levels across offerings.
2. Don’t fall in love with your concept: After his survey, Kapadia switched track and decided to focus on growing TBK instead. “If someone’s already tried it and it has failed, that allows you to find solutions or at least save time and move onto the next idea,” he says.
3. Create a narrative: “You have to invest time to make your brand, story and personality stand out from the clutter,” Kapadia says. Kapadia credits the success of TBK to his mother Nafisa’s lip-smacking food. But it helps that they built a narrative around the food that incorporated the story of the Bohra community, the Kapadia family and their journey. “That kept diners and the press coming back for more,” he says.
4. Think small when you need to: In the pandemic, Kapadia says, he’s learnt that small ideas can make a big difference. “I feel, when we think of entrepreneurship, we only think of big ideas, large numbers and scale. If you’re not thinking big, it doesn’t seem worth it,” he says. “But pursuing small ideas in a big way is the spirit of entrepreneurship.” In the pandemic, TBK is using a delivery model where orders are placed a day in advance, and the focus is on staying strong and sustainable in these hard times.
5. Look after yourself too: “My experience with stress, anxiety and panic attacks is the story of so many other young entrepreneurs. I thought success was the antidote, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth,” Kapadia says. “I grew dependent on that feedback to validate myself, professionally and personally. My business became my identity and I channelled everything that happened with TBK into my own sense of self-worth.” Kapadia says he has since learnt to separate personal and business goals and finds he has a clear head for both.