To say food is the next big thing in the startup world is an understatement. A wave that was probably started by Zomato with its restaurant reviewing app, has now snowballed into a slew of food tech startups that bring foodies together. Whether it’s delivering home cooked food to your doorstep or your friendly cab doubling up as a cafe, food services are touted to be a $50b market growing at 16-20% year on year.
One player in this food tech revolution is the startup Plattershare, a food networking platform for food lovers to network, share, discover and monetize their passion for food.
Plattershare is the brainchild of passionate foodie Kirti Yadav Misra, and techie Ankush Dhiman who met up over Linkedin and discussed all things food.
Ankush is a hotel management graduate who also happens to be passionate about website designing. Kirti pursued her B.Tech from HBTI Kanpur and has worked at various MNCs. She is a mother of 11 month old daughter and life partner to a food loving husband and is mostly found in her kitchen experimenting something new.
During their discussions Kirti and Ankush realised that there was a need for a platform for unorganized food sector, i.e. homemakers who cooked everyday and their recipes remained unknown to the world. Entrepreneurship came calling, and soon both of them quit their glittery and hefty paying jobs at companies to follow their passion for food and technology. Initially started as a Facebook page to share food photos and recipes, Plattershare has now developed into a fully-fledged website with neat integration of recipes, food articles, foodie profiles and everything in between.
“I’ve had no money to pay my bills, buy fancy clothes or the time to socialise, my life has changed completely as now my daily routine comprises of improving the website, contacting foodies and investors. I have enough on my plate!”- Says Ankush.
Kirti, takes care of Plattershare’s daily operations & marketing. The most striking feature about their partnership is that the duo have met up in person just once!
“For us our trust in each other is a strong factor and despite working remotely, the dedication towards our work has helped us make our dream a reality.”, says Kirti.
For now, Plattershare wants to focus on creating awareness, increasing interaction and bringing all the foodies together on their platform. They plan to organize various contests, and publish and promote stories about food startups and food businesses to bring about a true collaboration.
“As we grow, there are plans to share the revenue back to food lovers who are contributing to the website and are our real (platter) shareholders.”- Ankush adds.
The company has made its way to the final round of the NASSCOM 10K start up program, but still there are funding challenges. “With a small, diverse and scattered team of 5 people, we have achieved milestones like 11,500 Facebook fans, 900+ users on website (including professional chefs), 500+ recipes and 500+ restaurants who have signed up to show their confidence in the concept. “
They also plan to launch a mobile app for the website to make it more user friendly. However funding challenges persist and their immediate concern is to raise funds for the startup.
“Whatever the challenges, we are happy to have channeled our shared passion for food and technology into a career, and love doing what we do”