SYMBIOSIS INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES

ENTREPRENURSHP
INTERVIEWING ENTREPRENUR – MR SHARANDEEP SINGH
PHULKA

DATE OF SUBMISSION: - 28th -12 – 2018

Submitted to: - Prof. Arjun Panchal

SUBMITTED BY:
TRUSHA PATIL (C-52)
MENAKA SAMANT (C-58)
SADAF SULTANA (C-59)
Mr Sharandeep Singh runs his venture PHULKA successfully in Khadki which caters mainly to the students
and the working people in the IT companies in the area. He proudly mentions that he has loyal customers
who travel long distances and come from as far as from beyond Lonavala to have food at his restaurants
atleast 1-3 times in a month.

1. Idea/Concept of entrepreneur:
• Providing home-made food for working professionals and students at affordable prices.
• The menu mainly includes North Indian dishes as Sarso da saag, make di roti, Aloo tikki,
Rajma Chawal and Chole Bhature. The venture is based out in Pune, Maharashtra where
most of the restaurants offering these dishes lack in the taste and authentic flavour.

2. Findings/Detailing:
PHULKA was started by Mr Sharandeep on November 2016. Mr Sharandeep has been working as a
Sales executive in Pune for past 8-10 years.
• Inspiration: When asked about what inspired him to take this drastic step as a change of
career and to start the venture, he mentioned that his job involved a lot of travelling away
from home and thus, eating outside due to hectic work schedules. What hit him was the
quality of food that was served in the restaurants, especially the use of typical ingredients
such as chemical colour, soda and maida in the cooking of food, which is highly harmful for
any person’s health.
He felt the dire need of unadulterated home-made food for people like him. This particular
thought inspired him to provide the working people and students staying away from home
with the pure home cooked food and this led to the opening of PHULKA.

• Vision: To provide home-made food to the customers. PHUKLA is the Punjabi word for
tortilla which symbolises the home cooked rotis made of pure wheat flour, warm and soft,
served with love by our mothers.

• Target Audience: PHULKA’s major target audience includes the nearby college/university
students and employees of the IT companies in the area. He mentions that there is a lot of
 north Indian crowd in the area who look for authentic Punjabi food and that his target
audience covers Punjabi residing in the Aundh road.

• Value Proposition: Mr Sharandeep says that there are several restaurants in the Khadki area
and regions nearby which provide varieties of cuisines from around the world. However, Mr
Sharandeep believes in his unique idea of home-made food which he provided to his
customers at a very low rate sets him apart from his competitors and hence is not a threat
for him. He believes his simplicity in the service and food which focuses on the concept of
home-cooked food and low rates gives him an edge in the market.

• Opportunity: Mr Sharandeep emphasised that the current chains of restaurants in their

menu cards mention special Punjabi food but do not actually serve authentic Punjabi food
but are instead made in typical north Indian UP style which tastes like any other food on the
menu because of use of similar gravy. He also mentions how these restaurants use
ingredients in preparation of the Punjabi food which are actually not its ingredient. In his
restaurant, he ensures the quality and standard of food served in hid restaurant which is
prepared in authentic Punjabi style.

• Distribution Channels: There is a dhaba located in Khadki. Also, PHULKA has is registered
on Zomato as an exclusive partner to it, he receives a lot of proposals from other online
food delivery giants such as Uber Eats, Swiggy, Foodpanda, etc. However, he chooses to be
tied up only with Zomato for now till their contract expires in March next year, under which
he receives several exclusive benefits. Such a partnership ensures lower revenue sharing of
14% which is beneficial for him.
Zomato helps him receive orders more than his existing capacity. He avoids getting in terms
with more food delivery giants so as to maintain his quality of food, eliminate unnecessary
delays in delivery. Another major reason for not entering into multiple tie ups with several
food delivery giants is that he already earns a very narrow profit, which he chooses to keep.
By entering into tie ups, he would be needed to share his revenue (currently sharing 14%
with Zomato), which his narrow profit margin model doesn’t allow.
Mr Sharandeep has also expanded his venture into catering where he only provides food for
small number of guests to ensure the quality of the food that his brand promises. Mr
Sharandeep also mentioned that his services only include preparation of food and they do
not indulge in any other activities such as providing waiters, furniture, etc.

• Focus on Brand rather than profits: PHULKA’s focus has always been on building its brand
value. Mr. Sharandeep tells us that he in the initial 2 years he has run his venture at a no
profit-no loss condition as he maintained a very low margin. He told us that for 2 years he
used to prepare the parathas in desi ghee, which used to cost him around Rs24-25 per unit
and he sold them for Rs30 maintaining a very low margin. This was done mainly to build his
brand, which has been his foremost priority.
Results of building a brand of his own has been such that today he receives a lot of
proposals for franchise of his venture and has several expansion plans lined up. Today, Mr
Sharandeep is able to make profits, however, it is very narrow. The major idea behind this
narrow profit is to fulfil the concept of affordable home-cooked food.
 • Marketing Strategy: Major marketing strategy for Mr Sharandeep has been word of mouth
which he says always played in his favour. The students and the IT employees especially who
regularly came to his place, boosted his food and services online and hence the customer
base increased several times. His customer base expands beyond Kolhapur and Lonavala
and these customers do not mind travelling distances to have his food.

• Challenges: There were a few challenges he faced while setting up PHULKA

Initial funding: Showing his gratitude towards God, his family and friends, Mr. Sharandeep
said he did not face any difficulties in arranging the initial funding as most it was from his
own pocket and from his close friends. He did not have to resort to loans his venture did not
require any massive funding. Everything happened smoothly without any unnecessary
hurdles.
Less Staff: In the initial days, Mr Singhprepared the food himself with 2 staffs. As business
prospered, Mr Sharandeep the number of staffs as per requirements and currently has two
expert chefs for the venture
Hectic schedule of his job: Mr Sharandeep left his job this year, in January 2018, after he
was assured that he has established his venture. Until then he was working as a sales
executive.
Less Space in the current outlet: PHULKA’s current outlet isn’t sufficient to accommodate
customers and there is a waitlist unnecessarily. Due to less space in the nearby area, it
becomes difficult to increase his existing space but is however ready to move to a bigger
spaced area as soon as he sees an opportunity in order to achieve more efficient and fast
service and smooth functioning of his venture.

3. Suggestions: Here are some suggestions that can help PHULKA grow by leaps and bound
• Opening of new outlets: PHULKA’s expansion plan can include opening of 2-3 new branches
at different places He plans to open these branches in the 4-5km radius such as Aundh,
Bane, to ensure efficient operations.
• Centralized kitchen: Speciality items of PHULKA such as Rajma, Chole, Sarso ka saag, tikki,
etc can be prepared at the centralized kitchen and then relocated to the branches as
required while chapatis, rice can be prepared at the branches. This is to ensure the quality
and standard of the food that PHULKA is known for. The main idea behind this is that the
more the quantity of Punjabi food such as rajma, chhole, daal makkhni, kadi, etc is cooked,
the tastier it is, enhancing the food’s aroma.
• Revenue Sharing model: For the expansion plan to fall in place, PHULKA can partner with
other entities. In such a model, PHULKA will be in charge of food preparation, keeping the
kitchen operations in his hands, while the other partner will be responsible for
administrative, operational and customer services. This is something Mr. Sharandeep plans
to do.
• Expansion in the online space: PHULKA should extend into online food delivery exclusive of
its present offline restaurant. There should be a separate kitchen within 200-300 meters
region exclusively for online delivery, to ensure no negative interference of the two
platforms.
 • Spacious offline outlets: Space crunch is a major disadvantage for PHULKA. It needs to
increase it’s seating capacity to cater to more customers to reduce waiting time for the
customers.

4. Learnings:
• Stick by the vision of the venture: It is of utmost importance to stick by the vision of the
company and believe in its values. Mr Singh has throughout maintained the same vision of
providing ‘Ghar ka Khana’ to the people residing away from home and he believes that this
vision has made his venture flourish all the way to here.
• Maintenance of working capital: Mr. Sharandeep focused on the importance of maintaining
the working capital. Running a business is not a one-time investment, it requires efforts and
capital throughout. And hence it is very important that all of the capital is not spent at one
go, one must ensure that he/she is left with enough working capital to run the operations.
For the survival of the start-up in the long run, it is very important that one plans for any
unforeseen set-backs. Opening a restaurant is easy but to keep it running is the major task
which needs to be planned strategically.
• Adapt to the market trends: Going online was a much-needed step in the growth of
PHULKA. Since the food industry is gradually moving online, PHULKA had to keep up with
the pace to maintain and increase its customer base. One should be vigilant of the market
happenings anad adapt accordingly.
• Expansion should be well planned: In the wild race of expanding the business one shouldn’t
forget to maintain the profit margin, as PHULKA hasn’t collaborated with all the online
delivery partners.
• Building Employee and Customer trust: Most of PHULKA’s staff has been there since the
very beginning of the venture and have now became a loyal member of the venture. Also, it
has a very loyal customer base. Its customers have loved the food so much that even if they
have moved places, they come from even a hundred miles away to have his food at least
once or twice in a month

Some interesting extracts from the interview:

• Breakeven and how demonetisation/GST affected him: Mr Singh achieved his breakeven in less
than 1.5years. He mentions how demonetisation has both helped and hampered his business.
During demonetisation, he received a lot of funding from his family and friends who had spare old
notes during the period. But it affected his customer base due to liquidity crunch at that time.
However, once the issues were resolved, his business flourished. He says that he would have
achieved the breakeven earlier had it not been for demonetisation or GST, as his venture serves
people who have food outside everyday and PHULKA is their first choice due to its quality and low
rates. He says that he has always been lucky in terms of customer footfall.

• Emotional encounters with the customers: When asked about any memorable incident during the
service, he said that there have been times when people actually awkwardly burst out into tears
saying that the food here reminded them of their mother’s.
• Best experience during the running of PHULKA: To this Mr. Singh happily narrated the incident
when he received a catering order for a function, where there very several Bollywood and Marathi
stars present. He remembers that Shubash Ghai loved and praised his food and it was a lovely
experience to cater to the movie stars. He says that there are two such functions where several
celebrities gather in a year, one on 31st December and the other on 13th January. In both these
functions, Makki di roti, sarso da saag and Gajrela is especially served, which is his speciality. Along
with these, his tikki chole, stuffed parathas, thalis are much loved by his customers.

• Mr Singh’s expansion strategy: On expansion, Mr Sharandeep doesn’t wish to alter his menu and
wishes to provide his customers with the food that they have always loved, better and tastier. He
wishes maintain his simplicity and wants to ensure the quality of his food throughout.
Mr Singh’s long term view includes expanding his venture to 8-10 branches while increasing his
happy customer base multiple times.