Ahmad AD, the founder of Aisavent, did not really have the time or opportunity to cook lunch

for himself every day. Like many other professionals in Dhaka, he used to send his office
assistants to different restaurants to bring lunch for himself and the colleagues. It was not a
settlement he was satisfied with; sending his office assistants to bring lunch whereas they were
supposed to add value to his business in a more efficient way. Being the entrepreneur that
Ahmad is, it did not take much time for him to turn this dissatisfaction into a business idea. His
company Aisavent was already in e-commerce business. In May of the year 2013, Ahmad
decided that opening an e-commerce website to offer food delivery service is what he is going
to do next.

In mid July 2013, Ahmad and a few freelancing software developers came together to talk
about the business idea. All of them were already in either e-commerce of freelancing business;
together they had the technical ability and know-how to launch a startup that would allow the
dream to turn into reality. Finally, in October 1st, 2013, with Aisavent as Mother Company, the
startup Hungrynaki.com was launched which would deliver food from restaurants to doorsteps.

HungryNaki’s goal is to provide customers with food from

“HungryNaki’s goal is to
provide customers with food
from their favorite
restaurants without having to
fight through traffic, bad
weather or wait in queue”
their favorite restaurants without having to fight through
traffic, bad weather or wait in queue. The way their
website and mobile app work is very simple as the
developers keep working hard to ensure superior and
friendly user experience. A customer has to log on to the
website HungryNaki.com, select his/her city, select an
area, choose a restaurant in close vicinity and choose a
food item from the restaurant’s menu. Next s/he has to
pick a payment method (credit cards, cash on delivery or
through BKash), make the payment and wait for the
delivery to reach his/her doorstep. If the method “cash on

1
 delivery” is chosen, the customer can pay the price when
the food arrives.

After the order is placed, HungryNaki calls the customer within minutes to confirm the order
and to mention any preferences or changes if needed. HungryNaki then calls the restaurant,
sends a delivery man there. The maximum time allotted for a single delivery is 60 minutes, and
it costs Tk.50. Orders can also be placed directly through the phone.

Change in the Number of Restaurants

700
600+
600
No. of Restaurants

500
400
300
200
100
30
0
Initiation Present
Timeline

Change in Number of Restaurants

HungryNaki started out with only 30 partner restaurants and now they have over 600
restaurants signed up with them. Being the pioneer of this specific kind of business in
Bangladesh HungryNaki had the first mover advantage. Initially they enjoyed a market share of
90% and from the beginning till now the market has faced a 500% growth rate. Their initial
market segment was the elite group members of Dhaka city who have disposable income and
are technologically sound. To do business with this specific group HungryNaki started their
operation from the Banani area. Gradually they expanded the operating area to Gulshan,
Dhanmondi and Khilgaon. Now in Dhaka City, 58 areas are under their coverage. They have
expanded their business to cover other cities of Bangladesh as well, starting with Chittagong
and Sylhet, serving 60,000+ customers countrywide. In the future HungryNaki plans to cover all
parts of Dhaka city and all major cities in the country.

2
 Sales units growth based on
70,000
Quarters
60,000
50,000
Sales 40,000
30,000
20,000
10,000
-

Sales Unit

Quarters

Sales units growth based on Quarters

SWOT
Strength - Ahmad, the CEO of HungryNaki, thinks that the core strength of HungryNaki is the
passion of the employees. Passion works as a fuel for the dedicated team of food enthusiasts
and it keeps them thrive for more. The employer-employee relationship is practically like family
members; allowing the employees to have a fantastic people created work environment. The
vision of HungryNaki’s mother company Aisavent is, “Aisavent will become the largest e-
commerce company in South Asia.” HungryNaki has the potential to complement this vision in
the near future.

Mehdi Hasan Khan, the developer of Avro Keyboard who

specializes in software engineering and business development,
“Bangladeshi e-
recently joined the HungryNaki team. “Bangladeshi e-commerce
commerce and IT
and IT industry should be leaded by Bangladeshi people” – this is
industry should be
what Ahmad has to say about the joining of Mehdi. The passion to
leaded by
develop a local company to be one of the key players in the South
Bangladeshi people” -
Asian economy is the reason why HungryNaki does not seek
Ahmad
foreign investment, rather they believe in organic growth.

Another strength of HungryNaki is their quality of service. They are offering the fastest delivery
service in the market taking only 60 minutes to reach the customers. They have come up with a
unique delivery package which ensures freshness, protection and a high standard of food
hygiene. HungryNaki has a put in a great effort to find and train a superior pool of delivery
staffs. Their experience with the indigenous people, especially from the “Garo” tribe has been

3
the best. Now HungryNaki’s team of delivery people consists mostly of people from the “Garo”
tribe who are well known for their dedication to work and ability to work relentlessly for hours.

Weakness - When asked about the weaknesses of HungryNaki, Ahmad again answered with the
word passion. Passion is what drives them to find new ways to develop their business and
simultaneously at times it holds them back. When a mistake done by an employee is identified,
HungryNaki often condones the mistake trying to maintain the friendliness of the work
environment. The emotional attachment with the employees is keeping HungryNaki from
ensuring a proper performance management system. HungryNaki team realizes this weakness
and recognizes that they have to work on this issue to perform better. As HungryNaki is not
taking foreign investments, they have to rely on the limited resources gained through
organizational growth – this is another weakness they have.

Strength Weakness
. Passion . Quality of Service . Passion
. Patriotism . Delivery Team . Limitation of resources

SWOT
Opportunities Threat
. Restaurant Owners' inertia
. Nature of customers
. Traffic . New startup
. First Mover Advantage
. Competition

SWOT Diagram

Opportunities - According to Tausif Ahmad, one of the co-founders and Chief Operating
Officers of HungryNaki, the self-indulgent nature and tech savvyness of the Bengali people are
deemed as opportunities by the company. “Interestingly HungryNaki was perhaps the only
company that benefitted during the recent political unrest in the country, with more people
opting to eat in as opposed to going out to a restaurant or cafe to enjoy a meal,” says Tausif.
The mass people in Bangladesh are very keen to figure out new systems and incorporate
technology into their daily lives – which is of great benefit for e-commerce based businesses

4
like HungryNaki. The growing willingness to spend money for technology and comfort is a
blessing for the company. HungryNaki also has the Fast Mover Advantage as they were the first
to enter this industry allowing them to acquire superior brand recognition and customer
loyalty.

Threat - Initially, the biggest hurdle faced by HungryNaki was to convince the restaurants to
sign contracts with them. As the practice of food delivery service was almost absent in Dhaka
city, restaurant owners were unfamiliar and uncomfortable with the idea and did not want to
sign up. Another factor working against HungryNaki was that restaurants generally count their
cash on a daily basis; doing business on credit is something they are not used to. On the other
hand HungryNaki does its accounting on a weekly basis. It took relentless effort for HungryNaki
to convince the restaurant owners to agree to a deal, but eventually they made it happen. Once
30 restaurants agreed to make deals with HungryNaki, the company started its operation. But
the situation has changed over time. In less than 2 years the whole food delivery service
scenario has changed which led to restaurant owners realizing how associating their
restaurants with food delivery service can add value to their business. These days, restaurants
come to HungryNaki proposing to do business together.

Turning a startup into a fully fledged company from scratch is challenging itself. Managing
resources, having an efficient use of the limited items, maintaining proper organizational
structure in an ever changing environment – all of these demand well coordinated and
continuous efforts. Putting up with the traffic situation of Dhaka city and still maintaining the
promised delivery time is a big challenge. This does not allow them to deliver the food from the
restaurant from one zone to another, which has high demand. If an order is placed in the late
evening, it usually takes longer since that is the time when most people go out to dine. “The
company has and is dealing with these challenges and they are in no way slowing the pace
down for HungryNaki,” Tausif informs.

But the biggest threat that HungryNaki faces is competition.

. “The company has and
“Khanahero.com, another start up, began its journey about the
is dealing with these
same time as HungryNaki did but they closed down within 3
challenges and they are
months, despite them being a combined foreign and local
in no way slowing the
venture,” says Tausif. On November 19th, 2013, Foodpanda, a
pace down for
global online food delivery company headquartered
HungryNaki,” - Tausif
in Berlin, Germany, launched its operation in Bangladesh and
this is when HungryNaki started facing real competition. The
startup is supported by Rocket Internet, the largest e-
commerce incubator in the world. In Bangladesh Rocket Internet
group also has projects like Lamudi, Carmudi, Kaymu.com.

5
The amount of investment that Foodpanda is capable of putting into developing their business
is much higher than that of HungryNaki. This is allowing Foodpanda to currently offer absolutely
no delivery charge for their service during some hours of the day in some areas, which is not an
offer HungryNaki can afford to make right now.

Foodpanda took the Frontal Attack Strategy evident by their efforts to match HungryNaki’s
product and distribution. They like HungryNaki, started their operation serving the people of
Banani. Foodpanda was able to pull half of the marketing and delivery team of Khanahero.com
and trained them to suit their needs. HungryNaki had to ‘create’ the market for food delivery
service in Dhaka city whereas Foodpanda came to operate their business in an already
established market. Foodpanda had a jumpstart and their strategies are working in their favor.
The Principle of Force says, “The side with the greater resources will win”, which is happening
till now. The market share of HungryNaki decreased from 90% to 55%, and very recently they
lost the position of the market leader, occupying 45% of the market. Foodpanda starting as a
market challenger has become the new market leader capturing the larger market share.

Market Growth
500%
Market Size & Share percentage

500

400 350%

300 70% 45%

200 100% 90%

100

0
2013 2014 2015 Market Size
Year Market Share

Market Growth

6
HungryNaki or Foodpanda?
HungryNaki, once a market leader, is
currently using a mixture of Position
and Flank Defense strategies and in
the future they want to take
Counteroffensive defense strategy.
For HungryNaki the key strategy to
face competition is focusing on
superior service. HungryNaki wants
to occupy the most desirable brand
image in consumers' minds making
the brand almost impregnable.
HungryNaki did celebrity
endorsement, associating Tamim
Iqbal with their brand. But this
strategy was later adopted by
Foodpanda. HungryNaki recently
withdrew their advertisement
efforts and focused on targeting the
initiators and early adopting
customers to turn them into
spokespersons of the brand. They
are more into taking BTL strategies
than ATL.

Map: Coverage of Dhaka City

The customers’ feedback about the service of HungryNaki and Foodpanda in Foodbank, the
largest online platform for the food loving community of Bangladesh, shows that HungryNaki’s
efforts are paying off. In this facebook group with 104,000+ members the question “HungryNaki
or FoodPanda?” often pops up. According to Tausif almost 60% of the feedback in there is in
favor of HungryNaki. “When a dissatisfied customer shares a negative experience about
HungryNaki, loyal customers at times fight for HungryNaki claiming the negative experience to
be an anomaly”, says Tausif. When ordering via phone, customers often ask for suggestions
about what to order from a restaurant which demonstrates customers’ faith on the brand.

7
Present and Future
HungryNaki currently has a greater coverage of Dhaka city and are signed up with more
restaurants than those of Foodpanda. HungryNaki has the mindset of protecting their weak
point and support a possible counter attack. The company is continuously doing geographic
expansion of their business but when it comes to expanding their business outside Dhaka City,
HungryNaki wants to take the Counteroffensive strategy. They want Foodpanda to establish the
food delivery service market first in the whole country and then, they want to enter those
markets. They will imitate FoodPanda to grab market share in the new markets, just what
Foodpanda did to them earlier.

Very recently, Hungrynaki.com has made a contract with Robi which allows Robi users to get an
instant recharge of Tk.50 when an order is placed through HungryNaki. The customers simply
have to put their Robi numbers as contact number. They can also place an order to recharge
their mobile account balance when placing an order for food. The customer with the highest
number of placed order at Hungrynaki.com in a month period will receive a food bucket worth
of 1500 BDT. HungryNaki has also made a contract with Standard Chartered Bank. According to
which customers can enjoy a 10% discount on their food bill if they pay the bill online via
Standard Chartered Bank’s credit or debit card.

HungryNaki believes that competition is good. When a business faces competition, it has to
improve its services and focus on getting better every day. As HungryNaki’s key is to provide
superior quality service, to be the market leader again, it has some excellent plans to
distinguish their service from competition. HungryNaki wants to gradually bring all parts of
Dhaka city and all major cities of Bangladesh under its coverage. HungryNaki wants to bring
“Live Tracking System” where customers will be able to track the status of their delivery after
ordering. Needless to say, this will require high logistics support.

HungryNaki wants to establish a system where if the delivery is delayed for traffic or some
other unavoidable reason customers will be notified beforehand. Later the customer will be
sent an apology letter. In the event of the company’s failure to provide the customer with the
promised service, it will be followed by a free service of some other reward. HungryNaki
recognizes the customers’ need to have a trustworthy source to know about the quality of food
of different restaurants. With this in mind HungryNaki wants to launch a “Restaurant Review”
section in their website where customers will be able to post and seek reviews of the
experiences with those restaurants.

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Conclusion
The short term mission of HungryNaki is to provide fastest delivery service, and its vision is to
be number 1 in the market. They believe in, “More growth, more coverage.” Ahmad thinks that
being a local company HungryNaki knows the market characteristics better than that of
competitors. HungryNaki has to take the advantage of that. The company’s business is beyond
simply delivering food now, it is about helping customers find the right restaurant, cafe, or any
other eatery in the neighborhood, and order food online. HungryNaki believes that they cannot
limit the company to itself; there is always more opportunity to grow and be better.

Questions
1. Do you think HungryNaki could develop a sustainable business while being emotionally
attached to their employees?

2. How do you think is HungryNaki facing competition? Do you think their defense strategies
are appropriate and sustainable?

3. What other strategies will you suggest for HungryNaki to handle competition?

4. How do you think HungryNaki could make the overall service better?

5. HungryNaki is focusing on becoming the market leader again which means its share would
exceed the optimal market share. Do you think this would have a negative impact on
HungryNaki's profitability?