Staying far away from home I realized the need and desire of having homemade food. Is there is no such place where I can get pure home cooked food of good quality and within a valuable price with the taste of mother’s loving hands?I got a solution to this from Cyber Chef, which allows website ordering as well as app ordering. This instant food provider quenches the thirst of every foodie who desires homemade food.
I had a conversation with Neha Puri, who is someone with a very friendly persona and has brought this solution through self-realization in her life.
The Founder
Neha Puri is the founder and CEO of Cyber Chef, which is actually a food delivery startup. She is basically from Mumbai, Maharashtra but lives in New Delhi, India. She studied BBA from Gd Goenka World Institute (2010-2013), then she did Masters of Marketing and Strategy in Marketing from University of Warwick(2013-2014), and simultaneously attended Oxford college of Marketing for Diploma in Digital Marketing. Besides she had also done internships in Concept Communication and Airtel.
The Idea
She always had an entrepreneurial mind but the idea for this startup came to her mind while she was away from home for 5 years. She didn’t want to work with anyone and had the desire to do something on her own, by being responsible for the success or the lack of it she achieved. She always had the desire to fly high with golden wings of innovation and imagination. Cyber Chef is the culmination of the very thought that if creativity is implemented, total freedom can be achieved.
While she was away from her home, she craved for the wholesome home cooked meal which is very hard to find in even in most developed cities and towns at any cost. Then a thought about the home chefs came to her mind -Home chefs cook a wholesome food of appetizing quality without any preservatives and colors, daily in their house. Closely observing the scenario she concluded that there are about 70% people who stay away from home who has to either cook food or go to a restaurant or order online but nowhere in these places they find a healthy homemade food. Hence a viable solution would be the creation of a platform where home chefs can showcase their talents in cooking as well as be a beneficiary with profits, besides the people who are away from home can feel the nostalgia of homemade food.
This thought made her starting up with Cyber Chef, takes orders for homemade meals, picks up the food from several home chefs, and finally packages them and delivers it to the appropriate locations.
Cyber Chef has a mobile app and also a website from where people can order online. It believes that consumer experience is of much importance so a call center is also maintained besides the app.
The Team
Neha Puri with her brother Anuj Puri went through an experimental business and after that, they started Cyber Chef in Jan 2015 which came into operation in May 2015. Her brother was from a financial background, had done Financial accounting from the same university she studied in and had done a lot of internships in banks of UK and also had the knowledge of business management. So, she thought that he would be her perfect co-founder, who will look up to the finance and this would make the company as a whole.
Their first target was Gurgaon, why Gurgaon?
The business originated from Gurgaon, Haryana because with their initial target being a metropolitan city and 30% of the population of Delhi travels to Gurgaon every day, besides she was also well acquainted with the market of Gurgaon. So they overall thought Gurgaon as a better market. Presently it’s a self-funding company since they got support from their family but to expand the business they will prepare for raising big bucks.
Hurdles faced by CYBER CHEF in the past
Firstly, like every startup’s, Cyber Chef also faced some turmoil in making people understand the concept and the making them realize that purely homecooked foods are available online. It also faced a problem in getting the home chefs online, but soon they managed to overcome this problem through facebook, kitty parties and by other means. Finally, they got a team of home chefs whom they deliver the best quality raw materials for making the food and logistics and this food is picked up by delivery persons and are delivered to the destinations.
Are the other food startups in Gurgaon a threat to CYBER CHEF?
When it comes to the point of competition, Neha says-“Competitions are always there and it can’t be neglected but we can maintain our standard, quality, and cost so that it attracts about 900 out of 1000 people back again to us and we would have our loyal customers”.
FOOD TECH revolution is slowing down
Asking to quote her on the priority of food over other commodities what we get is these aesthetic words”Food is something which cannot be done away with, there is always a need for food and everyone will require fresh and healthy homecooked foods, so she thinks the food tech revolution will never slow down”.
Next 5 years mission of CYBER CHEF
Neha says that the home chef community, as well as the customer, responded quite well so she expects to get successful and expand the parent company of Cyber Chef, “India Cook” to the next target areas like Delhi, Noida, Hyderabad and so on. She is focussed on turning this newly formed platform into a large industry.