A grocery delivery app founded by two 19-year-olds
‘I am too young to even think of building a startup!’. This is something commonly said by 99.9% of teenagers and 20-year olds. But 19-year old Zepto founders Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra don’t have this mindset.
😲The Stanford University dropouts founded Zepto, a 10-minute grocery delivery start-up backed by Y combinator. The company is now valued at around $200-$300 million.
What is it about? Well, it is a grocery deliver app that claims to deliver in 10 minutes.
💨On speed alone, none of its competitors comes close to it.
So how does it do it? It operates on a hub-and-spoke model through a network of dark stores which use data to setup micro centers in every micro hub.
Its network is optimized with the use of location intelligence and geospatial data, including geography, demography, road patterns, traffic dynamics, weather, last-mile supply availability, real estate prices, etc.
The startup works with contractors or gig worker partners for its delivery fleet. Based on predictive analysis and data trends, Zepto allocates delivery partners before it starts getting orders.
One of the founders claim that through this model, it takes 60 seconds or less from the time a customer checks out of the app till their groceries are packed and dispatched. Insane, right?
The startup which has its headquarters in Mumbai, India is targeting 100 dark stores by early 2022 across India.
This isn’t their first startup though. Their first venture, KiranaKart, a grocery delivery platform too, had to be wrapped up as they couldn’t find a market fit for their product.
It planned to deliver groceries within 45 minutes and had already raised $730,000 pre-seed round led by Global Founders Capital and others.
KiranaKart had to close its doors in March 2021 paving way for their new startup Zepto which they started in April 2021.
💡Moral of the story: You are not too young to do something challenging. Most people do not consider themselves useful to the society up until the age of 23 or 25 or even 30.
As a 19 year-old myself, I have struggled with this mindset. I have always wanted to start a blog since the age of 15 but I convinced myself that I was too young to start writing online.
👀I have since acquired the cojones to share my work online and build an audience but I have got a long way to go.
Tiny Bits
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✍️Quote of the week
The observing eye sees events, clear of distractions, exaggerations, and misperceptions. The perceiving eye sees “insurmountable obstacles” or “major setbacks” or even just “issues.” It brings its own issues to the fight. The former is helpful, the latter is not.
From ‘The Obstacle is the Way’ by Ryan Holiday
🔆Tweet of the week
💡Thoughts: It’s crazy how crypto is making people rich. Returns from some coins are proving to be cosmic compared to traditional investments.
Have a great week, won’t you?
Dennis