In our latest interview, we spoke to Shubham Maheshwari to understand more about his journey as an entrepreneur. He is the Founder at Being Chef. His startup is into F&B space and provides a one-stop solution in veg food ranging from DIY cooking kit to fully cooked meal and homely economic meals to exotic premium meals. Let’s learn more about his interesting journey and his advice for aspiring entrepreneurs!
Excerpts from our exclusive interview with Shubham;
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey, please;
Hi, I am Shubham Maheshwari. I am an entrepreneur and founded a venture named Being Chef in 2014. I was born and brought up in Jaipur and pursued my engineering from NIT Jaipur. Post that I joined a US-based consulting firm at its Indian office in Gurugram. For the first time in 2013, I left Jaipur and was out of my comfort zone. Initially, living an independent life was fun but soon I realized the challenges therein too. We hired a cook to take care of our daily meals but the result came out as boring and repetitive meals. First of all, finding a cook is such a big problem because of huge demand-supply mismatch (this problem is going to increase exponentially now with the new govt. policies) that you are afraid of firing one even if you have to face hassles like frequent offs (without prior information), limited knowledge, etc. Secondly, if we think of cooking ourselves, it becomes a lot more hassle as we have to read recipes, buy ingredients, cut chop and process them, make dough for roti, etc. It was so much time consuming that we ended up eating from outside most of the time. This was an unhealthy option but there was no alternative.
Also, one thing always bothered me a lot. Food wastage. So much of food wastage is happening in millennial’s kitchen (in both raw and prepared format). In a country like India, where more than 15% of the population sleeps hungry, this issue used to bother me a lot.
So I started working on a product which could make cooking easy and fun. Further, I started doing a couple of experiments, the result of which was a concept named 5 min. Recipe Kit. Henceforth I did a lot of market research about the product-market fit and started working on converting the concept to a prototype.
I left my job after just 8 months of joining and started working on the specified concept full time. The result was a company named Being Chef which was formed in March 2014 with the product – 5 Min. Recipe Kit.
Being Chef’s Recipe kit empowers buyers to cook anything in less than five minutes. It provides buyers with all the ingredients (chopped & processed) in EXACT QUANTITY along with a simple 8 step recipe card. By simply following those 8 steps, one can cook any dish in any cuisine with Zero wastage of ingredients. The quantity of cooked food will be as per the no. of persons you have ordered for, thus resulting in zero wastage of raw material(s) and/or cooked food. Quality concerns are also taken care of as buyers can physically see the quality of the ingredients being used for cooking the food. Thus all hassles of managing ingredients, kitchen, pre-processing, etc. are taken care of thereby resulting in saving of your time for near and dear ones.
Why did you choose entrepreneurship over a job?
Since my childhood, I was inclined towards social causes. In school days the pressure of studies doesn’t allow you to think aloud and thus I started exploring the same from my college days. Since the first day of college, I was involved in multiple things along with my curriculum. I did many internships too during college days and realized that a monotonous job in a big company can never be my cup of tea.
Additionally, I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to coordinate INDIA AGAINST CORRUPTION movement in Rajasthan. There was one rally in which we had more than 70,000 people. I was afraid before addressing them. But my speech made me a more confident person which finally resulted in me overcoming a lot of fears in my life and being ready to accept the risks and challenges in my way. One being, choosing the struggle of Entrepreneurship over a good-paying job.
Initially, I joined the job as I didn’t have the conviction for any such big problem that needed to be solved. After moving out of Jaipur, I soon realized that food which is one of the 3 basic necessities (Roti, Kapda, Makaan) needs big attention. It’s one of the most important yet the thing which is ignored the most. And thus I jumped into the boat of entrepreneurship to contribute to this sector to the most possible extent.
Any accomplishments that motivated you in this journey?
It has been an exciting journey of 6 years now. I am glad that our team is intact since the beginning and has shown their integrity and commitment to positively impact as many lives as we can. Because of their efforts, we did accomplish a few things like:
a) Have served 5,00,000+ meals till date.
b) Received ” Transformation of the Year ” award at Amazon SAMBhav 2020 (biggest event of SMBs of India) in presence of Mr Jeff Bezos and many other distinguished personalities.
c) Recognised by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Govt. of India.
d) Served lunch and dinner to 17,000+ people in a single day at 5 locations simultaneously.
e) Finalist (out of 20,000+ start-ups from India) of Smart50 competition organised by Govt. of India, to find those 50 companies which will transform India.
f) have 1,00,000 + followers on Facebook even with the operations in just one city.
What gets you out of bed in the morning i.e. what’s your source of motivation?
I have learned one thing from my family that life is short and it should be lived with experiences instead of regrets (I wish I should have done – that kind of regrets). So I get up every day with a single thought to live that day as much as I can. This thought boosts my energy up and helps me in keeping going.
What challenges/obstacles did you face in your journey so far?
Challenges and obstacles are part of every journey, may it be a job or entrepreneurship. I also faced a lot of challenges. I started at the early age of 23. Also, most of the team members were around the same age. Initially, vendors used to take us lightly, but then our work started speaking. Also, I was having zero food knowledge. Understanding the industry was little time consuming but it also helped in innovation in our products as we used to think with no preconceived notion that ” Yeh To Aisa Hi Hote Aaya Hai “.
How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?
Pressure, Stress, etc comes when you overthink. Ups and downs are part of life, business, and everything you do. So instead of overthinking, if we enjoy the journey and the flow, and boost up the morale looking towards the final goal because of which you started, things get sorted on their own.
What is one strategy that you believe has helped you grow as a person/start-up?
I believe in accepting the mistakes done by me and try avoiding repetition of the same. As human beings, we always make mistakes But accepting and analysing them solves 90% of the problem while non-acceptance of mistakes increases the problem.
In your opinion what is the key to success?
I believe that living every day happily is the key to success.
What advice would you give to someone starting out?
Firstly, understand how big the problem is. Don’t ride the wave of entrepreneurship because it’s cool or it’s in fashion these days. Trust me, it is not as rosy as it seems. So it’s really important to have a very strong conviction for your own idea. Do proper analysis before entering this wave. And once you enter into this, just stick to it no matter what. Make changes, adapt as per the market trends along with setting some new trends of your own too, evolve, struggle but stick to what you believe in. To win a game you have to be in the game 🙂
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