It was just another late night overtime when Aakash Agarwal and Ebrahim Akbari were working on a business project. As many of us would do keep the eyes open and mind functioning, they were too feeding themselves with cereals but soon they found the milk gone.
Thye needed something as common as milk but couldn’t have it anywhere. The IT capital of Inia has seen plenty of apps for even the silliest of stuff but ironically there was no dedicated app for milk or dairy.
This accidental realization in 2015 was actually the birth of India’s first virtual milkman called Doodhwala.
It took them another few weeks to conduct the required surveys and then they developed a beta version of this app. Upon the launch of it, they received a fair response and were confirmed that people not just wanted, but needed, Doodhwala.
People had this general demand of timely getting non-adultered pure farm milk unlike the most of the dairy vendors. Therefore the duo developed a punctual, cost-effective, non-traditional model that could serve the purpose.
The startup basically solves the problem of timely milk delivery, availability and quality maintenance of dairy industry.
Ebrahim and Aakash both entrepreneurs hail from a heavy infrastructure industry background.
Earlier in 2010, Aakash had also co-founded a steel company in Odisha.
Ebrahim came after resigning from his family business at Dubai.
According to the team-
Doodhwala is progressing steadily with a 25 percent month-on-month growth rate.
Currently, apart from Bengaluru, the startup has also expanded its reach to Pune. The team employs 60 people as of now.
Doodhwala also claims to cater over 6,000 customers every month and completing over 1,00,000 successful monthly deliveries. It has got 80% of customer satisfied and retained, and the figure is supposed to increase even further in the coming months.
And with rate, Doodhwala is likely to turn itself into an operationally profitable model by the end of this year.
Doodhwala has also found its first investor Tom Varkey, from the USA, and has raised an undisclosed amount.
Doodhwala is implementing this investment to upgrade its technology, further increase the market footprints, and grow its HR.
Ibrahim makes a note on Doodhwala’s working:
We work on strict deadlines. We, additionally, have over 70 varieties of store milk and a range of essential groceries that consumers need daily or very often such as yoghurt, organic paneer, eggs, bread, cheese, batters, fresh vegetable juices, smoothies, meat, vegetables, fruits, and other shelf-stable items.
Customers receive their orders before 7 am, which means the milk and groceries they get are fresh. All the products are at sold at/below MRP, with no delivery charges being charged to the customer.
