Kannada Version: ನನ್ನ ಪಯಣ, ನೈತಿಕ, ಹಸಿರು
ಉದ್ಯಮಿಯಾಗುವತ್ತ
I was staying bit low profile on this so far, but
finally now it is time to announce it in open. I have started a new journey as
an ethical, green entrepreneur. Though far from perfection or success, though
quite exhausting and challenging, and though extremely risky financially, I am
moving forward with baby steps.
In a nutshell, I co-founded a company named “Swamy’s
Kitchen Pvt Ltd” with the goal of doing ethical and vegan business. At the
moment, we have setup a vegan health food restaurant in Bengaluru:
"Carrots, The Healthy Kitchen and Store", this will be open within
next few days.
Facebook
Page: www.facebook.com/CarrotsTheHealthyKitchenAndStore
Website:
www.carrots-india.com/ (still under
construction)
"For Better Health, For Better Tomorrow"
is our vision and guiding principle. We wish and strive for better tomorrow for
all - for environment, for animals, and for us human beings. Being Creative-Conscious-Vegan
is our mantra during everyday work and while coming up with long term plans. We
believe in and promote Fair Trade & Organic Farming.
How I reached here?
Part 1 – Mental Buildup
I think the story really has to start from way
back, when I became vegan and how I became one. That is an interesting story
which I will write some other time. Here, let me start from fairly recent
times. In 2010, when I decided to leave Infosys, all I knew was that I want to
leave and experience something different. Luckily, I got an opportunity at
Mangaluru itself, at MphasiS. I got a good hike and position, and many things
were going well. It was really an eye opening experience to work in a different
organization, after a long stint with my first employer. But during this time I
also started thinking more and more about certain aspects of the IT industry, especially
the direction towards which overall work culture was moving, the impact such
work culture had on personal life, the ultimate purpose of the work we do, and
so on.
Then a major development happened – my wife Smitha
got into IIM-A, the best B-School in India, one of the best in the world. It
was a one year program, from Apr 2011 to Mar 2012. It was a fantastic
opportunity and not to be missed. But it also meant disruption in our personal
lives - we were not happy about staying apart for even for one year, and who
knows for who much more longer? This became a trigger for me too, and helped in
shaping up my own MBA dreams. I decided to take a bold step, take a break from
industry, move to Ahmedabad, and study for GMAT. Studying for GMAT and taking
the exam was first priority, exactly what to do during the remaining period was
an open agenda.
Meanwhile, I also started getting involved more and
more with the hospital at my hometown Kasaragod, where my father is also one of
the partners. There were certain challenges that needed fresh perspectives,
there were opportunities inviting next generation, and also there were areas to
improve service to mankind, which is the primary goal of a hospital. With job
at MphasiS, I could not focus on hospital, but I thought the break would enable
me to do that as well, and it proved right.
Studying for GMAT exam was one of the best
refreshing experiences I had in recent times. I got quite a good score in the
end, but what made me really happy was the enriching journey, I never thought
such a simple exam preparation would carry that value. Anyways, once I got good
GMAT scores, my next step was to apply to various B-Schools. I was very
selective in this process and applied to only 3. One of them did not find my
application interesting enough, and other two invited me for interview.
Fortunately or unfortunately, I couldn’t make it through the interviews. But
once again, the whole process was very enriching and humbling as well.
An important thing that happened during the break
was that I started thinking more about green initiatives, importance of
sustainability and so on. As a vegan for over a decade, this was anyway one of
my interest areas, however the break really enabled me to get involved and
think deeply. At IIM-A and outside, I got opportunity to research on various
related subjects, discuss with many interesting people, look at various
products and solution proposals, and also wonder why there is such a high level
of insensitivity even among highly educated people holding responsible
positions. My increased interest in this area led me to think if I should try
and get into “Sustainability Management” programs instead of regular MBA
programs. Some such options were available, but there were several obstacles
and factors to be considered, evaluated. Considering our personal priorities, I
decided to continue the break until there is some clarity about Smitha’s job
location. This also helped me get deeply involved with the hospital related
work and influence, bring in some important changes over there.
These are some of the articles that wrote, hoping
to share knowledge that I gained at Ahmedabad with others:
Soon, our destination was confirmed and we decided
to spend at least next few years in Bengaluru. I was continuing to deeply think
what would be the best thing I could take up as part of my own journey. Once we
reached Bengaluru, found a good place to settle down, I decided to seriously
explore one of my dreams i.e. setting up a vegan restaurant; there were several
ideas but this came up first in the list. Veganism is a positive lifestyle and
philosophy that is good for health, environment and animals. So, a business
following this principle would obviously be a very ethical one, and close to my
heart. To avoid unnecessary distraction and confusion, I consciously decided
not to reapply to any B-School at the time, and decided to pursue the dream of
setting up this ethical business.
There was also one more thought process behind this
decision. To do MBA in a premier school requires a small fortune to be spent. I
thought a “Practical MBA” would also be a good choice, with that kind of fund.
Of course, in the end I won’t get a degree certificate, but I was open for such
life experience. Smitha was anyway equipped with formal education in management
studies, so I thought such backing should be good enough for us to think big
and boldly join entrepreneurial bandwagon. To be frank, Smitha was still
slightly apprehensive of the idea, and felt few more years should pass and some
more experience had to be gained before we go in that direction. But I was more
enthusiastic, eager and dreamy about the whole thing. Now, looking back I do
agree that she was not totally wrong.
Part 2 – Actual journey of
setting up Carrots
In May 2012 I started exploring various things
about restaurant business. And then a vegan friend introduced me to Krsna and ‘Swamy’s
Kitchen’, a (almost) vegan and health food restaurant that he was running at
Puttaparthi; basically, Krsna is a German citizen and a Sri Sathya Sai Baba
devotee. And most importantly Krsna was interested in setting up one at
Bengaluru. I thought partnering with someone like him would be very good since
I lacked experience in food industry. I checked the website, menu and felt it
was fantastic.
Then I decided to check it out in person. In June
2012, I travelled to Puttaparthi, stayed there for couple of days, tasted
wonderful food at “Swamy’s Bakery” (what originally started as Swamy’s Kitchen
had moved to a different location with a slightly different name), had good
talk with Krsna, and got a positive feeling that doing a project with him would
definitely be a good idea.
Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/SwamysBakery
Website: http://swamyskitchen.com/
(Yet to get updated to reflect details of ‘Swamy’s Bakery’)
Location Search
After returning back to Bengaluru, I started
searching for the right location for our restaurant. Before I began the search,
I was not considering this to be a big challenge. I thought finding a decent
space in this jungle of buildings would be fairly easy. But I ended up spending
next 4 months in this process. The experience was quite enriching as well as
frustrating. My initial focus area was Indiranagar, but after sometime shifted
focus towards Koramangala. Finally in late Oct 2012 we finalized our location.
Swamy’s Kitchen as a formal
entity
Meanwhile, we decided to execute the project under
a very formal umbrella, and formed a private limited company. Hence, born
“Swamy’s Kitchen Pvt. Ltd.” Krsna was very keen on this name – to him ‘Swamy’
was not just Sri Sathya Sai Baba, the word represented the creator, the god
with any name or form, and then the word ‘kitchen’ meant the entire creation
where many things keep happening, created and consumed. So, the term ‘Swamy’s
Kitchen’ meant the entire creation and our company was a tiny part of the same.
Personally, I am not a religious person and I did have my apprehensions about
this name. But with the above generic meaning, I agreed and we proceeded.
However, we decided that the restaurant name would be different.
The restaurant name – Carrots
We wanted a name that has a single word, not
attached to any religion or region or controversy, something that clearly
indicates that it is related to food industry, something that can be closely
associated with vegetarianism, health and wellness. When ‘Carrots’ name was
proposed by Krsna, I instantly liked it. The colour of carrots was also
attractive for us to choose this. And finally the way 2 carrots are positioned
in our logo to indirectly highlight “V” turned out to be fantastic.
With similar and deep brainstorming we came up with
several other important phrases that truly reflect our idea, goals and concept.
“For Better Health, For Better Tomorrow”
is our vision and guiding principle.
“The Healthy Kitchen and Store”
describes our unique eating/shopping place.
“Creative-Conscious-Vegan” highlights
our personalities and values.
Connecting with Organic,
Environment friendly products, people, organizations
During this time of searching restaurant space and
setting up the company, I also attended many events and fairs related to
organic farming & produce, environment friendliness, veganism etc. I met
several wonderful people and organizations in this process and developed
connections. Along with the restaurant, we also intended to have a conscious store
to promote/sell various vegan, environment friendly, healthy products. Hence,
this exposure was quite helpful.
Though I had spent lot of time and energy
collecting the information and developing these contacts, I did not want to
keep such information to myself, so I decided to openly share such information,
and I intend to do this in future also.
A special mention about Dr. Nandita Shah: though I
had heard a lot about her, I had not met her personally earlier, but that was
solved during this period, in one of her healthy cooking workshops. I was quite
happy to see her efforts in spreading the awareness related to health and
veganism. She also came forward as a big admirer/supporter for our venture. We
look forward to work with her in coming days.
Hiring Staff
As many people say, one of the most important
challenges in restaurant business is to hire staff and to retain them. Luckily
I got through the first part easily, especially for the most important position
– main chef. When I published job opening, Chef
Anantha came forward with a desire to take up this unique project as a
challenge. That is exactly the attitude that I was looking for and he was hired
in no time. During the setup time, he did not get opportunity to be very active
due to lack of a well setup kitchen, but now he is into action, and numerous
appreciations are coming at his preparations during the tasting sessions.
To every staff we hired, I explained in depth our
philosophy and highlighted how we are different and constantly try to make an
overall positive difference. Our hiring is still in progress, so far the 4
staff we got are fantastic. I hope we get remaining staff also with same
attitude and spirit.
Setting up the restaurant
space and other things required to start operations
This was the most difficult part of all. Since we
took up a place that had a running restaurant earlier, we thought we might be
able to start very soon, with minimal modifications. But the ideas changed, the
expected timelines for various work were not met and the budget also overshot.
I realized that the experience I had gained through
software project management won’t be always useful while dealing with such
projects. In IT world, it is easy to apply certain processes, set expectations,
track progress, take actions and so on. But in non-IT projects, when many
people (vendors, consultants, workers etc.) are not accustomed to such a work
culture, and when challenges are of totally different kind, applying that
knowledge in effective way is a different ball game altogether.
I had even gone for a workshop that was supposed to
throw lot of light on effectively setting up a new restaurant, but it was not
very useful. There was another such workshop which I avoided after not-so-great
experience with the first workshop, but apparently that was much better, I
guess I just missed it.
Another important point is the difference between
developing something from scratch vs. doing alterations. At one hand, already
existing restaurant space makes life easier, but on the other hand modifying it
for our concept becomes very challenging, because there would be many unique obstacles.
Adhering to environment friendly principles during
each step of the work, ensuring that people who work on the ground get fair
treatment/wages/facilities etc. – these were also extremely challenging,
especially when the clock was ticking and budget was limited – striking the
right balance was a daily puzzle for me throughout. If these two aspects are
really important for someone, I would strongly suggest doing an extensive
homework and be ready, even before signing the lease, because otherwise it just
makes things slower and exhausting.
Overall, it was truly a humbling experience for me
and I can clearly feel that I have become a wiser person with this experience. If
anyone wishes to get my advice or suggestions, feel free to contact me.
Thank You
Personally, I would like to thank several people
who helped me come so far in realizing my dream. The list is long, and I would
feel bad if I end up missing someone’s name, so not daring to attempt to do
that. But I hope those who helped me are indeed feeling the appreciation and
reciprocation from my end in different ways, and at least be assured that I am
trying honestly wherever and whenever possible.
Last but not least, all this would not have
happened without tremendous confidence and support that my family has shown, in
good and bad times. This is just starting of the journey, and I hope this leads
to some success, so that I can make them prouder and happier, and most
importantly less anxious soon!
13 comments:
My best wishes for your venture.
I am happy to visit 'Carrots'.
Hatsoff to your dedication.
ವಿ.ರಾ.ಹೆ. Thank you, hope to see you at Carrots sometime soon.
All the best for "CARROTS"
Congratulations Krishna. Wish you the best
All the best Krishna. Very soon I will visit your restaurant.
Thank you everyone.
All the best Krishna....u have selected a good&meaningful name i think...hope for a smooth running restaurant.........
my best wishes to krishna , hope to catch you up at carrot!!!
all the best
All the Best Krishna ..........
Will see you at Carrots soon
Nice article about your journey. Keep up the good work, --of following your conscience and not the crowd.
I wonder if you can some day arrange to have such healthy food delivered regularly (for lunch) to businesses or individuals, (but not in plastic, of course), thereby setting up a stable customer base.
Proud to be a part of Carrots. Reading this created lots of positive energy in me. Good journey sir, it will surely turn to be an awesome in upcoming days.
Hello Krishna
Naanu Balaji kaNo, Srikrishna Bhattana friend.Ninnanna iisc nalli onderadu sala meet maadiddeeni.Gurthiddeeno ilvo gotthilla.Naanu 3 varshadinda vegan aagiddeeni.Idu tiLida mele bhatta ninna bagge thumba heLthidda. Neenu vegan restaurant shuru maadiddeeya antha gotthaagi thumba khushi aaythu.Naanu eega germany nalli kelsa maadthaa iddeeni.bengalurige bandaaga khanditha carrots ge bartheeni.Sigua, matte good luck...
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