Business Plan

GharKhana
LUMS Incubation Centre, Sector U, Defense Housing Authority
Lahore, Pakistan

Hassan Zulfiqar Mohammad Sameed Zaheer

Chief Executive Officer/Chief Technical Officer Chief Operating Officer

94-FF, Phase 4, DHA 94-FF, Phase 4, DHA

Lahore, Pakistan Lahore, Pakistan

Phone: (123) 456-7890 Phone: (123) 456-7890

Fax: (123) 456-7890 Fax: (123) 456-7890
Email: hassan.zulfiqar@gharkhana.com Email: sameed.zaheer@gharkhana.com

Amna Bilal Hira Tariq

Chief Sales Officer Chief Marketing Officer

94-FF, Phase 4, DHA 94-FF, Phase 4, DHA

Lahore, Pakistan Lahore, Pakistan

Phone: (123) 456-7890 Phone: (123) 456-7890

Fax: (123) 456-7890 Fax: (123) 456-7890
Email: amna.bilal@gharkhana.com Email: hira.tariq@gharkhana.com

Kiran Juman
Chief Financial Officer

94-FF, Phase 4, DHA

Lahore, Pakistan
Phone: (123) 456-7890
Fax: (123) 456-7890
Email: kiran.juman@gharkhana.com
Table of Contents

1 Executive Summary.........................................................................................3
2 Our Team & Organization.............................................................................4
2.1 Mission Statement............................................................................................................................................4
2.2 Management & Team.......................................................................................................................................4

3 Products & Services.........................................................................................5

3.1 GharKhana application.....................................................................................................................................5
3.2 Unique Selling Point........................................................................................................................................5

4 Market Analysis...............................................................................................7
4.1 Market Segmentation.......................................................................................................................................7
4.2 Customer needs................................................................................................................................................7
4.3 Customer profiles.............................................................................................................................................8
4.3.1 Students....................................................................................................................................................8
4.3.2 Young Professionals.................................................................................................................................8
4.3.3 Working Mothers.....................................................................................................................................9
4.3.4 People with health concerns...................................................................................................................10
4.4 Target Areas...................................................................................................................................................10
4.5 Competition....................................................................................................................................................11

5 Strategy & Implementation..........................................................................13

5.1 Milestones......................................................................................................................................................13
5.2 Customer Awareness......................................................................................................................................13

6 Financial Projections.....................................................................................14
6.1 Return on investment......................................................................................................................................14
6.2 Payback period...............................................................................................................................................15

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1 Executive Summary
GharKhana with its pilot run in Lahore introduced a shared economy model like Careem whereby it
connected people looking for healthy, home-cooked food with female chefs working from their homes. The
company’s vision is not only to promote a healthy lifestyle but also to encourage women empowerment in a
country where female participation rates are abysmal. The target market includes working women, students
(40% of entire market) and professionals.
Initially, in the proximity stage in 2020, the company will operate within a 10 kilometers squared radius of
LUMS. In the expansion stage in 2021, it will expand within Lahore and then move to other commercial
hubs including Karachi in 2022.
This market is not only huge but largely untapped due to limited internet access and increasing purchasing
power. The app makes this process very simple. After a customer places an order, the chef is informed by the
customer relation officer. Then the order is prepared and picked by the rider. After the customer gets his
order, he is prompted to rate both the rider and chef.
The venture’s major competitors include Cheetay, Food Panda and Olaround. GharKhana aims to maintain
its edge over them through its diverse and experience executive team, flexible menu and the option of
customization for dietary plans. A major chunk of the expenses come from advertising plan because this
concept needs to be marketed aggressively initially. The firm has taken a conservative approach in projecting
an annual sales growth of 10% and 2500 customers in the starting year.
The required funding of 3 million will be paid back from net income in 2.3 years. Moreover, the company
provides investors with an appreciation in the equity of 60% in the fifth year. GharKhana expects an increase
in inflation keeping in line with IMF’s projections. Hence, expenses have been inflated keeping in mind the
conservative approach. The firm provides investors the option of an IPO as an exit strategy.

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1 Our Team & Organization
1.1 Mission Statement

Our mission is to make home-cooked meals accessible and affordable for everyone living in Pakistan.

1.2 Management & Team

Hassan Zulfiqar
CEO/CTO

Amna Bilal Kiran Juman Hira Tariq Sameed Zaheer

CSO CFO CMO COO

Hassan Zulfiqar completed his MBA degree from Harvard Business School in 2009, summa cum laude, and
started working for the Research and Development division of Google Inc. He is originally from Lahore,
Pakistan and is now currently residing in his hometown while working independently as a leadership
consultant as well as serving as a CEO and CTO of GharKhana.

Amna Bilal is an alumnus of Yale University. Due to personal reasons, she moved back to Pakistan
immediately after completing her degree in 2007 and has since been working for Foodpanda. Her
competency enabled her to quickly move up the corporate ladder and become the youngest VP of the sales
division.

Kiran Juman completed her degree in Accounting and Finance from Harvard Business School in 2001.
Even before she graduated, she had secured a job in Standard Chartered, London and she had been working
there since then before moving to Pakistan and joining the GharKhana team.

Hira Tariq is a successful entrepreneur in Pakistan’s food industry. She dropped out of Oxford University to
pursue her dream of opening up a chain of restaurants in the UK. After her business was acquired by
Benihana, she moved back to Pakistan to open up various food businesses such as Food Truck and California
Bites. She is a marketing strategist and has assumed the role of Chief Marketing Officer in our company.

Sameed Zaheer graduated from MIT in 2006 and started working for Cisco immediately afterwards. After
spending a considerable amount of time in Cisco, he wanted to explore new avenues of businesses while

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using his business operations expertise to their full potential. He is an integral part of GharKhana and the
genius behind the smooth-running operations of our company.

The management team consists of diverse individuals with vast experience is various industries in major
parts of the world. They have united to reach one common goal, which is also the vision of GharKhana, that
is “to provide a healthy lifestyle and empower female chefs of Pakistan”.

2 Products & Services

2.1 GharKhana Application

GharKhana is a standard, and registered, home-cooked meal delivery service which is based in Lahore,
Pakistan. We provide a cross-platform mobile application and we will soon be launching our web
application.

The mobile application has three interfaces which serve the following purposes:

1. The Customer Interface would be used by all the customers wherein they would be able to search for
nearby chefs, view their respective menus, view the prices of each item on every menu and place an
order. They would also be able to customize their orders according to portion sizes and/or dietary
preferences. After placing an order, our customers would also be able to view the status of their order in
real-time and track the delivery rider when the order would be dispatched.

2. The Rider Interface would be provided to our delivery riders where they would be able to view pending
orders which they would have to deliver. These riders would be able to update the status of every order
assigned to them for the customers’ satisfaction and knowledge regarding the whereabouts of their
orders.

3. The Chef Interface would be provided to all of our female chefs. In this interface, they would be able to
receive not only customer orders but also complete information regarding the assigned delivery rider for
security purposes. Using this interface, the chefs would be able to update their menu on a daily basis and
also the price of each item on the menu.

2.2 Unique Selling Point

After months of market research and data accumulation, we believe we have accurately understood the need
of our target customer base and, with the help of our CTO, developed our application-based model to cater
for that need.

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 i. Authentic Home Cooked Meals

Our first focus was on the food need of our customers. As our target customers are mostly students and
bachelors who have travelled to Lahore for study or employment purposes, we know, having been in
similar situations, that what they miss the most, is a warm, home cooked meal. We have therefore
developed our business to cater for this need primarily. We ensure our customers that they receive 100%
authentic home cooked meals, conjured up by women in local households in the region closest to the
customers. Home cooked meals are preferred because they are healthier, nutritious and free from
contaminants that otherwise customers may be wary of if they purchase food items from elsewhere.

Home cooked food also ensures the originality of the ingredients since recent media reports about food
available in the market have raised quite a few eyebrows.

ii. Diverse Menu

Unlike other food based application platforms, our business model ensures that our menus are not fixed.
We have developed a front-end application, where those who choose to sell their home cooked meals
can enter into our database whatever they cook and our efficient algorithm sets the price of the meal
accordingly by matching the market rates of the ingredient plus profit. Our pricing strategy for meal
ingredients is based on up to date market data.

Since the menu is totally dependent on what our home chefs cook at home, our customers will never get
bored by a redundant and repetitive menu that some of our competitors may offer. Diversity in our menu
will generate greater customer interest and create competition between chefs to produce greater quality.
A win for us, and for our customers.

iii. Rating and Review System

To account for quality control measures and to make sure our consumers receive top of the line service,
we have created a rating and review system that allows food consumers to enter their opinions about the
taste, presentation, sight, smell, etc. of the food and give a rating from 1-5 based on the quality of the
food they receive. This allows us to monitor any discrepancy in any of the meals being delivered to our
consumer. A rating and review system not only allows us to ensure quality but also enables us to locate
the root cause of an issue, should an issue occur.

Rating and reviews will also encourage our home chefs to abide by quality standards as lower rating and
poor reviews on our app will result in our algorithm assigning them lesser orders than their competitors.

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iv. Dietary Preference

We’re currently working on an algorithm for our app to cater to the concern of the ever growing, health
conscious consumer. Options such as food with low oil, low salt, greater fiber, gluten-free content etc.
will soon be available to our consumers.

Furthermore, we will be developing our technology to ensure that our target consumer with food
consumption related health issues, such as uric acid problems, diabetes, etc. are not left out.

3 Market Analysis
3.1 Market Segmentation

We segmented our market on the basis of residential regions, age groups and certain eating behavior. Our
target segment is all the people within the age group of 18 – 50 especially those who are studying or working
out of their hometowns.

3.2 Customer needs

Need for Belonging

Since our business is based on a homemade food delivery model, our major focus is to satisfy the need of
satiating hunger with homemade food, cooked with warmth and love using healthy, nutritious ingredients.
We want to target a need for belonging and love of all the individuals who are based out of their home cities
as we aim to provide them with a feel of home, away from home.

Budget Eating

GharKhana will be a budget friendly platform that will offer a wide variety of home cooked meals that the
customers can choose from. Our prices will be placed lower than our major competitors such as Lunch.pk,
Cheetah Tiffan and Foodpanda.

Convenience

Through our business model, we will be providing the convenience of having a perfectly safe and delicious
home cooked meal with the touch of a button. This benefit will be especially useful for all the working
mothers who don’t want to sacrifice on the quality of the food that they give to their children. They won’t
have to order junk food when they don’t feel like cooking. Of course, this benefit is not only limited to the
working professionals, it stretches further to the women at home as well.

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Large Variety
We currently have 10 local home based cooks on board with us and, as more home chefs register, we’ll have
more options available to our customers. Compared to similar competitors which offer homemade food,
people usually have very limited options to choose from as all the menus are already decided for the week
and the customer has to choose from those limited options. However, with GharKhana, a customer will have
multiple options available to him/her every day as our chefs enter their own food items that they wish to sell.

3.3 Customer profile

We have categorized our target market into four categories. For each of the category, we have created
customer profiles for a better understanding of our customer, his/her pain points and eating behaviors.

3.3.1 Students
This segment makes a major chunk of our target market. It includes all the hostilities either enrolled in
undergraduate or a graduate program. Since students living in a hostel are usually fed up of eating options in
their universities, and have a limited budget, they really miss ‘Ghar ka khana’. So, we aim to cater all the
students who are living in hostels.

A typical student, living away from home, at a university in Lahore, may have the profile given below.

Customer Profile 1
Age: 24
Profession: Enrolled MBA student
Residence: LUMS hostel
Daily Food Budget: Rs500 – 1000
Eating behavior: Knorr, PDC and Food panda
Pain Points: Home sick and limited budget eating
options

3.3.2 Young Professionals

The other kind of customer that we will be targeting would include all the young working professionals who
are living alone and don’t have anyone to cook for them. This segment is more prone to appreciating and
yearning for ‘Ghar ka khana’. However, since they are not limited by budgetary constraints, their eating

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habits involve dining out with friends mostly or ordering from foodpanda. And as dining out is their mean
towards socializing, the availability of homemade food would not change their social behaviors or living
styles. However, we placed this segment as our second priority as they contribute large number in target
market and has a huge potential that we can tap on.

A typical target customer of this category would have the following kind of a profile.

Customer Profile 2
Age: 28
Profession: Finance Executive in HBL
Marital Status: Single
Residence: Lives alone in DHA Y block
Daily Food Budget: Rs1000 – 15000
Eating Behavior: Dine out and Food delivery
Paint Points: No time to cook and yearns home cooked healthy
food

3.3.3 Working Mothers

We are expecting this to be a small contribution into our customer base as their turnover ratio will be less
than ratio of categories explained above as mothers in our culture tend to cook themselves or have help in the
house who cooks for them. This category includes all the mothers who are working full time and finding it
difficult to maintain a work life balance. To this particular segment, through GharKhana will be providing
them with the convenience of not having to cook themselves as well as an ease of mind as far as the quality
is concerned. However, we still identify this category to be of significant value to our target market. A
customer profile of this type would look as following:

Customer Profile 3
Age: 32
Profession: Project Manager, USAID
Marital Status: Married
Residence: Lives in Model Town with Family
Daily Food Budget: Rs1500 – 2000
Eating Behavior: Dine out and Home cooked food
Paint Points: Struggling to manage work-home life balance

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3.3.4 People with health concerns

GharKhana also aims to cater to the people who have certain diet preferences due to health issues such as
diabetes, blood pressure etc. Such people can have a monthly or a weekly agreement with the chefs and order
from them on scheduled deliveries. However, this is a minor focus as far as our target market is concerned.

3.4 Target Areas

Since our business is based on a homemade food delivery model, our major focus is to target anybody who is
currently living out of their home cities or anybody who years a homemade food either because they live
alone, or simply because they don’t want to cook and spend more than PKR 500 a day on food delivery
services. For this particular reason, our target market is identified on the basis of their living as well as eating
patterns. Our target market are people who appreciate the importance of homemade food and the warmth it
radiates.

We will be targeting all the residential as well as corporate offices that are situated within 10km2 of LUMS.
Our current target area can be broken down to four categories:

i. Universities – All the universities that lie within our initial target resion such as FAST, LSE,
LUMS, Punjab Universities and USA University.
ii. Private hostels and apartments – Many students and working professionals reside in these
establishments making them a key market region.
iii. Residential Areas
iv. Corporate Offices – Most revenue will be collected during lunch hours.

3.5 Competition

We have identified our primary competitors in the market to be Foodpanda, Cheetay Tiffin,
Supermeal.pk, Olaround and all online undocumented home-made food ventures. These competitors
provide restaurant and home-made food.

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Among these competitors, we see that Foodpanda has the largest average monthly sales of approximately
PKR 850,000, followed by Cheetay Tiffin with average monthly sales of PKR 700,000. Next in line, we
have Olaround with average monthly sales of PKR 450,000 and finally, Supermeal.pk with sales of PKR
350,000. The price range for meals on Foodpanda is typically PKR 500 – PKR 2,000, while on Cheetay
Tiffin and Olaround it is around PKR 300 – PKR 1,000. On Supermeal.pk the price range is usually PKR
250 – PKR 1,500.

Foodpanda operates in metropolitans in Pakistan and has international presence as well, while other
competitors are currently limited to operating within Pakistan.Foodpanda and Cheetay Tiffin both offer
home-cooked meals in addition to restaurant meals. On the contrary, Olaround and Supermeal.pk do not
offer home-cooked meals to their customers.

Moving on, Foodpanda and Cheetay Tiffin seldom offer meals that cater to specific dietary needs, while
Olaround and Supermeal.pk do not offer any such options to customers. Finally, none of the competitors
allow customers to vary the portion size of their meals.

The following table entails our competitors’ business details and various other attributes. These details have
been added for a comprehensive analysis of the market and the food delivery service industry in general.
Currently, Foodpanda is the market leader with PKR 850,000 monthly sales, followed by Cheetay, Olaround
and Supermeal respectively.

Monthly Sales PKR 850,000 PKR 700,000 PKR 450,000 PKR 350,000

Price Range PKR 500-2000 PKR 300-1000 PKR 300-1000 PKR 250-1500

Local or International International Local Local Local

Home-cooked Meals Yes Yes No No

Dietary Preferences Dependent Dependent No No

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Portion Preferences No No No No

These market statistics explain why Foodpanda currently has the largest market share of 44%, with Cheetay
Tiffin next line with a 28% market share and so on. Creating differentiation in a market with a few
documented players that have a stronghold is challenging, but with USP that GharKhana offers, the market
structure can be greatly disturbed.

Market Share

Foodpanda
Cheetay
Olaround
Supermeal

5 Strategy & Implementation

5.1 Milestones
Of course, no business has ever thrived if it had not established long terms goals to tap into greater
opportunities. We have established expansion goals (milestones) n order to look forward, and to plan for the
future success of our company.
a. Proximity Stage
To streamline our process in order to create a more efficient service, we will initially be operating in
a region of 10km2 of Lahore University of Management Sciences. We plan to expand to the domestic
stage, one year after the proximity stage.
b. Domestic Stage

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 At this stage, we will be taking our service and expanding it to meet the needs of the entire city of
Lahore. We will be increasing our target customer base with a focus on increased revenues.
c. National Stage
Two years after the domestic stage, we will expand our business nationwide, targeting particularly
customers in the major national cities including Islamabad, Peshawar, Multan, Faisalabad, Hyderabad
and Karachi.
d. Lateral Expansion
With our eyes gazing at the horizon, we hope that eventually we will be able to reach lateral
expansion where we can develop as a major role player in our economy.

5.2 Customer Awareness

To create awareness for the service that we will be providing, our CMO Hira Tariq has developed low-
moderate cost, initial marketing strategies. The strategies included below will be accounting for level one of
our expansion phase:
I. Search Engine Optimization
II. Digital Marketing
III. Use of Social Media Influencers with at least 10,000 followers
IV. Brochures and Billboards
V. The commencement of a campus ambassador program in major universities of Lahore

6 Financial Projections
30% of Lahore’s population is online; this indicates the large potential of this untapped market. Additionally,
one of GharKhana’s indirect competitors, Food Panda, saw a 300% increase in its incoming orders in 2018.
They handled a total of 1.08 million orders in that year alone. Hence, the projection of 2500 customers in the
first month is very realistic. Additionally, the forecasted increase in annual sales of 20% is driven by a 10%
increase in internet subscribers.

GharKhana chose Lahore as the pilot destination because this of its large market and lower commerce prices.
The real estate prices are lower than in other commercial hubs including Islamabad and Karachi. Hence,
even though 70% of Food Panda’s revenues come from Karachi, Lahore is a good place for initial run. It has
60% of Pakistan’s student population as well which is our primary target market. The annual sales revenue
projection of 9,900,000 has been discounted for the seasonal fluctuations in demand. Due to the prolonged
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 holidays in June and July, the demand from hostilities will see a dramatic dip. However, such dips are
compensated by the spikes in winters due to festivities including Christmas and weddings.

The flexible revenue model lures in home-based cooks by allowing them to keep 60% of all sales revenues.
After the business acquires essential servers, a majority of the revenues will be channelized towards
marketing. Even though initially GharKhana plans to outsource the bikers, it will have them on its payroll in
the expansion phase when it will have reached a stable stage. Food Panda received 80,000 calls in 2018 and
40,000 customer complaints. Even though this venture’s customers have the option of rating the cooks and
riders on the app and chatting with them, maintaining a constant hotline is essential. This is why as the
business expands, the utility bills take on an unusual spike.

The expenses have been projected on the premise that the inflation rate in Pakistan will revolve around 10%
for the next 5 years. This is substantiated by IMF’s projections that the economy is moving towards a stable
economic growth.

6.1 Return on investment

GharKhana is asking for PKR 3 million, and will give our investors 30% equity. This equity will appreciate
by 60% in the fifth year. Additionally, the promised payback period is 3 years. The business’s entry strategy
leverages its USP of flexible menu with customized dietary plans and the rich experience of executive team
to make a mark in the market. In response to reactive strategies from competitors aimed at under cutting
GharKhana’s revenues, it will introduce disruptions like food truck. More than two thirds of Pakistan’s
population comprises of the youth that not only loves food but also yearns for non-food activities in their
leisure time. Hence, the idea of a food truck will provide them this option.

6.2 Payback period

As shown in the following table, the investment of 3 million will be recovered in 2.3 years by the net profit
after income. Since all estimates are conservative, the business expects to break even much before that. All
values in the table are in PKR ‘000s.

 PKR (‘000) 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024

   
Sales 9,900 11088 12529 13970 16065
Our sales revenue 2970 3326 3759 4191 4819
Expenses:
Rent and utilities 300 315 343 377 407

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Helpline resource 216 227 247 271 293
Social media marketing 360 378 412 453 489
Freelance graphic designer 240 252 274 302 326
Phone bill 60 63 68 75 82
Miscellaneous 480 504 549 604 653
Total expenses 1656 1740 1895 2084 2252
Net Income   1314 1380 1863 2106 2568

If the investors are not satisfied with the returns on investment, they can resort to either an IPO or initiate a
merger with competitors including Food Panda.

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