You are planning to go out for food but you are not sure about the restaurants then you think…okay let’s try this one. You reached there but ooooops… you had a bad experience or Wow… might be fantastic. NeedGrub is a platform to write your dining experience so others won’t have oooooops moment like you and they may enjoy their dining. Restaurant’s owners can find where they are lacking or where they stand out.
Let’s talk to women entrepreneur Anu Parthasarathy, Co-founder of NeedGrub.com.
Tell me something about your venture?
NeedGrub.com is essentially an online dining guide for various Cities in India. NeedGrub unlike a typical city guide does not illustrate all about the community, entertainment, fashion, commerce or other details. It rather exclusively features, the geography’s eating options. NeedGrub highlights and thus specializes in providing just restaurant and dining information. And of course, while specializing in the stated endeavor, all of it is covered. There is hardly anything about the eating places, NeedGrub would miss.
The most suitable substitute for food publications or city directories, NeedGrub extends updated restaurant details, which if not available can seriously irritate. Special occasions minus good food, no longer remain special. Only a perfectionist would know the importance of knowing it all before hand. And with NeedGrub to assist, the job is much easier. Just logging on to www.NeedGrub.com eliminates the tedious requirement of navigating through various dispersed websites which talk about anything but the much required restaurant info. And then of course, NeedGrub is one portal, for very many different cities. Nothing as comprehensive and convenient as NeedGrub’s online food guide is available as an option. Almost all cities and areas are being covered and the expansion drive, to cover yet another, is always underway.
NeedGrub.com team profile?
NeedGrub.com – A startup a small enthusiastic team from various backgrounds.
Online food/ restaurants guide in India is still in its nascent stage. How you guys are convincing restaurants owners to be on NeedGrub and users as well to take a look before going out for food.
NeedGrub provides a platform to help both users and restaurants to communicate and reach other. Users need an online platform to express their views about a place they go out to eat to.
Restaurants have the fair chance to promote their business to the right customer base. NeedGrub is just right for doing just this. With over 30 million online users in India and with this number growing at an enormous rate, I think it has become more of a necessity for businesses to promote online. There is awful lot of competition among restaurants. Restaurants and eating out is such an important area that is growing faster than ever in the metros of India. Eating out has become a very common part of the culture, especially among the young. NeedGrub constantly works on reaching out to the restaurants to help them take advantage our platform and increase foot traffic.
NeedGrub helps promote the business for the restaurant owners, by providing a lot of online and offline methods, especially the innumerable number of restaurants that do not have the means to go online to do marketing themselves. Our users are fantastic, and they help to pass around the word around as well. It is a mutually benefiting platform, and is catching on well.
Whom do you think as your competitors?
Frankly, there are so many online city guides and local search engines out there for India now. It is hard to say if any of them should be considered competitors. I think with the internet community being so big, there is enough pie for everyone. I don’t see others as competitors, I see them all working towards the same of goal of providing a more enriched internet to the growing online users of India. We are focused more on taking NeedGrub further everyday, and listening to our users and customers, to provide what they need.
What are the killing features make it different from others?
The uniqueness of NeedGrub is that it focuses on restaurants only. We are not trying to overload and overwhelm our users with all the information about a city. I think this saturated focus on restaurants makes us distinct, simple and to-the-point. We are excited about every little detail that goes into NeedGrub.
The business listings include Name and Address, integrated maps, user and expert reviews, ratings, events and much more. Every feature is a killer, in its own right.
Any difficulties you are facing?
I guess there are no easy routes to doing business as a startup. There are always challenges, and it is always fun and exciting to tackle these challenges. We learn as we go, strive to get better everyday.
There is always something more to learn, something more to do, improve. I cannot think of any major stumbling blocks I can quote at this point.
Your suggestion for young entrepreneurs?
Give your idea your best shot. Stick with a venture that is strongly based of your experience. Do not assume you can find someone to do the work for you.
User innovations are by far the most successful, you be the user of your product, work on it till you are satisfied with it, then the world will be ready for your idea as well.
I think the success of an entrepreneur is directly proportional to the passion they have towards the idea, and the work they put in to it. Nothing comes easy!
A great idea is only great when it is transformed into a great product. And, with a fast paced growth pattern in India, the sooner you get your ball rolling, the better.
Thanks Anu! Good Luck to NeedGrub.com
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