Using Crowdfunding to Grow a Eco-Friendly Food Delivery Business In Heart of London w/ Anshu Ahuja | DabbaDrop

Anshu Ahuja: 0:00

Just going from delivering to five streets around my house to now delivering London-wide and everybody eating the same food of an evening. That feels like a real pinch-me moment. Yeah, I feel proud that we are delivering nourishing food and taking people away from unhealthy eating and unhealthy food on a weekly basis. With DabbaDrop we've now saved just under 400,000 plastic containers from ending up in landfill. You know, apart from all the nourishing food, the sort of environmental impact is quite big as well. So you know it makes you feel pretty good waking up in the morning knowing you're making such a big difference to our dear planet.

Amardeep Parmar: 0:40

Today's guest is Anshu Ahuja, who's the co-founder of Dabba Drop. They deliver healthy cooked meals using tiffin boxes, which makes it more environmentally friendly. Anshu's got an incredible story, having worked in TV for many years before deciding she just didn't want to continue working in the industry. She knew she loved food and she started off small. One of her first customers became a co-founder and since then they continue to grow, especially during the pandemic. And what's interesting too. She talked about after the pandemic and things opening up again, how that affects the business and what she learned from that. They continue to go from strength to strength and to raise significant amounts of money from crowdfunding because their customers love them so much. There's lots you can learn from this episode. I'm Amar from the BAE HQ, and this podcast is powered by HSBC Innovation Banking.

Amardeep Parmar: 1:31

So great to have you here today and it's amazing to see your journey so far. If we take you right back to the beginning, when you were a kid growing up, what were your dreams? What did you want to be when you grew up?

Anshu Ahuja: 1:39

Gosh, that's a really interesting question. Firstly, thank you so much for having me. This is so exciting. You know, love your podcast and love all the guests that you've featured, and you're obviously such a lovely guy, so it's nice to have a chat as well.

Anshu Ahuja: 1:54

So back to when I was a kid. Do you know what funny thing is? I've always been interested in food, even since I was, you know, three, four years old. I've always liked, you know, with my dolls, throwing dinner parties or cooking for people, you know, and bringing a smile to people's faces through food. That's always been a passion of mine. I remember at school, which was I grew up in Mumbai. I went to school there.

Anshu Ahuja: 2:18

There was a choice between home economics and studying computing. My parents obviously this was the early 80s, they were very keen on me. My mum was a feminist, so they were both. My parents were both quite liberal, so they were like no, you should do computing. You know that's a safe career. Home economics, what does that mean? You'll just sit at home and be a housewife.

Anshu Ahuja: 2:42

Anyway, I was quite rebellious and I was like well, do you know what, mom and dad, I'm actually going to do? Home economics because I love cooking and you know I want to follow what I'm passionate about. So even in those early days I was kind of, you know, going for what I love doing rather than following the kind of safe trajectory which, yeah, I guess, was the rebel in me always. So, yeah, when I was young, yeah, I wanted to work in food. I didn't know in what form, and in the 80s, I guess, the only form really was to have like a little cafe or, you know, bake cakes out of your home or mitai sweets in Bombay. But yeah, I always wanted to work in food. But life took me on a different sort of trajectory, I guess. But here I am back after all that time, working in food. So, you know, tick, big tick, I guess, for me.

Amardeep Parmar: 3:30

So, as you said, it's interesting there because career options now are different. So at that time you said you could, if you're working in food, you could have your own restaurant, you could have your own cafe. But now there's so many other options available so you decided not to go down the route, I guess, of going for your own restaurant. What did you decide to do at university and what took you down that path?

Anshu Ahuja: 3:46

Um, so I moved to the UK to go to university, um, and I guess I was sort of, you know, quite, uh, moving to a new place. My parents were. I didn't move with any family, I was on my own. So you know, I remember going to career counseling and they were like, look, the sort of you know, I suppose, fruitful, successful careers are, you know, in media and publishing and you've obviously got, you know, quite a creative slant to you. I was awful at maths and science, so you know, I failed pretty much, yeah, so you know those were not really an option for me. So you know, the counseling was very much around the creative arts and things that I couldn't paint or draw either, so it was quite limited in that sense. So I was like, okay, well, I mean, I know I can cook, but that is not being laid out on the table to me, so I'm gonna, yeah, go do media and make films. I mean, obviously, um, yeah, I loved movies as well. So growing up in Bombay, the home of Bollywood, so I was like, okay, well, I'll try my hand at making movies.

Anshu Ahuja: 4:51

And you know, I arrived in the UK very sort of determined and, you know, um, wide-eyed and bushy-tailed and, you know, wanting to make the most of the opportunity that I had, I guess. And so after university this was back in 2002, I handwrote. I didn't really have a computer and college was, you know, university was closed for summer or something along those lines. But I handwrote 120 letters and delivered them and walked around Soho and you know, back in the days where you used an A to Z to go down, you know, Beak Street and Berwick Street and to all these production houses, and hand delivered these letters. Because I was like that's my only way of actually sort of meeting these people.

Anshu Ahuja: 5:40

I didn't have an in into any of into the film industry. You know I didn't have any family and it's quite a sort of it's a, it's a closed knit industry. So I just kind of walked into these offices and I was like this is who I am and I'm. You know, I'm free all of this summer.

Anshu Ahuja: 5:55

If you need an intern or a runner, I'm happy to make coffee. And here's a letter and my resume. I've may have got no experience, but I'm, you know, willing to do whatever you want me to do essentially. So I think I got I don't know 99 rejection letters and one company was like okay, you know, we've got an opening for a couple of months, so come on board and, you know, give us a hand. So that's kind of how it started and from that, you know, work experience, job. I went on to work at a big tv company and over the course of 10 years sort of worked my way up from runner to researcher, to assistant producer and director and then series producer 

Amardeep Parmar: 

Obviously like going into the media industry is really difficult and you tried to do it in London as well, which, like you said, you didn't have the network and things like that.

Amardeep Parmar: 6:40

But you also mentioned you're from Bombay, where Bollywood is. So what made you decide to like stick in the UK and try it here, rather than maybe in Bollywood, where you might have been able to have other connections or other things going on there?

Anshu Ahuja: 6:51

Good question. Um, I guess I was trying, I'm sorry. I was in the second year of university and I, you know, I knew I had one more year to go and I wanted to make the most of the opportunity I had here, get as much experience working on different kinds of productions before deciding whether I wanted to move back to India back home or not. To be honest, I just I felt very much that I fitted in here in London, in the UK, more than I did back home in Mumbai, which you know, I mean. I guess that's for a variety of reasons, but you know, I just felt freer, I just felt I could um, I wasn't trapped by the you know, this is what a good Indian girl should do sort of situation being out here in London and I could kind of spread my wings in whichever direction I wanted to and try out different things, without kind of being told well, no, that's not, that's not the way you should be, heading down.

Anshu Ahuja: 7:51

It's not really my immediate family that who did that, but it's like you know, the society around you in India sometimes, especially in, you know, the early late 90s, early 2000s, it was still quite you know, uh, everything was still stereotype quite a lot. So which is? You know, I was kind of already on that trajectory. So I was like, okay, now I'm going to try and make it work here, even though it's going to be much harder. Um so yeah, I just was like knocking on doors, I remember, would call my mum and be like, oh god, that was so bad. No one, no one's given me a job, you know.

Anshu Ahuja: 8:23

But, um, I guess you just kind of wake up the next morning and you're like, well, here's another day and I've got to try again. What else can you do? It's just, you know, if you want something really badly, then you've just got to keep moving forward, like however many setbacks there are. And of course there are days where you're just like this is, is this even worth it?  Am I even good enough, am I? You know, maybe it's just not meant to be? Then you just find the result somewhere inside you and it just suddenly clicks and you just keep moving forward.So yeah. 

Amardeep Parmar: 8:52

I think one of the biggest indicators of successful entrepreneurship as well is showing that you're willing to do these hard things early on as well. So so many people wouldn't have been willing to go once you've got that many rejection letters, just keep sending more letters and they go for the easy option maybe of like they could do it in like Mumbai rather than doing it here, and things like that. So choosing the hard sometimes, I think, can be sometimes a good indicator.

Anshu Ahuja: 9:15

I don't know. I mean some people might say that's just foolish. Like you know, you're just kind of I don't know there's you've just got this dogged sense inside you that do you know what? Actually I deserve more, or I deserve better, or I know I can do this, like it, even though everybody, everything around you, is telling you actually, well, maybe you don't have the right experience or we don't need this kind of person right now you're just like nope, but I know I can do it, so you just keep moving forward.

Anshu Ahuja: 9:41

I mean, yeah, whether it's kind of foolish or whatever you said, which sounded quite nice, I don't know. 

Amardeep Parmar:

So you had quite a long career in tv as well, and obviously you did different positions there and you mentioned how, when you're younger, you thought about food. When you're going for that tv career, how did you feel at that point? Were you enjoying it, were you getting fulfilled? And then what made you take the decision you did within that career to end up where you did?

Anshu Ahuja: 10:08

I mean, I always thought when I was working in tv and I tried really hard to kind of move towards more of the food side of things you know, to work on food programs or a food documentary or even ready steady cook. Do you remember that show? I used to love watching it back in the day but it just never happened. You know, you get pigeonholed and you end up. So I used to end up working on Indian programs. Or you know, I did a program for China 4 called Bollywood Star and then I made a documentary about gay and lesbian Muslims. So you just get sort of typecast slightly within the industry and then you just get called to work on those types of shows. So, sadly, my you know dream of working in food TV just never, just never took off.

Anshu Ahuja: 10:48

I never worked on a single one yet.

Anshu Ahuja: 10:50

Yeah, yeah, I mean in the early days, absolutely I loved it and you know, as a runner, as a researcher, as an assistant producer, it was a great time as I was going into directing, I'd just recently gotten married and I was sort of I was you shortly after I got pregnant with my first. And that's when things became quite tricky. With no immediate family or network here to look after the kids, it became really hard to juggle both having a very, very full on job, and TV is a very full on career. You're just constantly on and everything should have been done yesterday. Deadlines are crazy so you never really get to, you know, kind of properly switch off or have any balance.

Anshu Ahuja: 11:40

So that's when it kind of got hard and I was like I don't know, if you know, and when you have a child, you kind of want to make the most of that as well. You can't just go okay, well, sorry, I'm just going to get a nanny. I mean, some people do and there's no judgment and it's fine. It's just what you want to do. And I very much felt that when I had children I would be, you know, around with them as much as possible and kind of watch them grow up and take their first steps or, you know, just be with them as they go through those early milestones, through those early milestones Even prior to that, prior to having children, I was doing little side hustles in the food industry, kind of doing little pop-ups or subclubs. I had a market stall so I was kind of testing out whether it would be possible to do this.

Amardeep Parmar: 12:25

Tell us a bit more about the market stall there.

Anshu Ahuja: 12:30

Yeah, so it was. I don't know if you know this food item from Mumbai called Vada Pav which is essentially a chip butty. You know, it's carb on carb.

Amardeep Parmar: 12:38

It sounds cooler in Hindi, right? Yeah

Anshu Ahuja: 12:40

Vada Pav. yeah, it's carb on carb. So you've got, you know, this beautifully soft roll called Pav, which is inspired by the Portuguese and their time in Mumbai, and then you have a deep fried spiced potato dumpling which is then squashed in the middle with tons of chutneys, tamarind and coriander and a fried green chilli. So I used to serve that up at an organic farmer's market in Stoke, Newington. You know, wake up at like 4am and roll all these balls of potato patties and then deep fry them and go off and sell them in the freezing cold. You know, so yeah, and then yeah. So I tried that for a while and I mean, for one reason or another, I've got called on a different shoot which meant I was away for like three months. So I shut that down. So TV was always kind of you know the bread and butter, but I tried lots of different food opportunities. So I had two kids by this point.

Anshu Ahuja: 13:37

I just finished on a job as a series producer on a show for Channel 4. And we were taking a bit of time off as a family and I remember we were in New Zealand actually, which was lovely and quiet and as far away from the world as possible, to do all this soul searching and thinking. And I was saying to my husband you know, I don't know, I think I really I think it's time for me to just properly try whether I can leave TV. I mean, the funny thing is, everyone who works in TV always wants to leave because it's so full on and you just, you know, you just end up. All the situations you, you end up in which you may have thought was really exciting when you were in your 20s, in your 30s, you're just like this I don't know if this is worth it. I don't know if this is how I want to be spending my life. It just doesn't feel, it feels manipulative and I want to be giving back to the world. I want to be working on programs that are respectful and ethical and all of those sort of existential questions that I think most people go through when they're sort of mid-30s. Anyway.

Anshu Ahuja: 14:38

So I was saying that to my husband and I was, like you know, on these long drives, while we were driving through the South Island, I came up, I was starting to think about what I could do while having two children, you know, and kind of work around them and also earn a living. So, you know, I was interested in sustainability. I was obviously really interested in Indian food and that's what I'd grown up with and I loved cooking it and I, you know, I knew from ordering in takeaways that really was so either really bland or just kind of bastardized um. So I knew that that's where my heart was, um. So I was like, listen, I'm just gonna take a couple of months off and I'm gonna, you know, and that's what I would have done looking for new jobs.

Anshu Ahuja: 15:23

I was freelance, so I was like I'm gonna take a couple of months off. I came up with the idea, built this website from scratch on my kid's iPad, you know, got a child's Squarespace apart. I mean I make it sound like I knew what I was doing. I really didn't. I was kind of teaching myself via tutorials on YouTube or you know. Yeah, just kind of learning through Google, essentially, Google Classroom.

Amardeep Parmar: 15:50

Best way to learn.

Anshu Ahuja: 15:51

Yeah, and so I was like like okay, let me just try it out. And um it, it took off. You know there were that. I I thought you know maybe I'll get like 10, 15 orders, but it kind of week on week it just sort of seemed to double you know.

Amardeep Parmar: 

How did you get those first customers?

Anshu Ahuja: 16:08

I just sort of I had a group of mums that I, you know, I was on a whatsapp group with and I say, listen, guys, you know sorry to bombard and do a sales kind of not off kids topic sort of message. But I'm thinking of setting up this business and it's called Dabba Drop and this is the concept we deliver in Tiffin Tins, so there's no plastic, and all of these mums were sustainability sort of conscious anyway and they were into vegetarian food. All the parents were kind of having to spend time, more time at home because they had kids and they weren't sort of able to go out on a Friday night as they used to. So they were like, look, yeah, sign me up, because you know I'm not going anywhere. So I think the second sort of round of deliveries in the second week, and then you know she loved it and she was like, listen, you know, if you're ever looking to kind of, you know, join forces, let me know. So it was all quite organic.

Anshu Ahuja: 17:10

You know there was no, I hate to say say it, there was no real sort of strategy as such in the early days. It was just like, okay, let's just try and see if this would work. It's. You know, can I leave my old job and kind of set up something that could be a fulfilling be, you know, able to work around the kids, make us a living and actually do some good? So those were the kind of non-negotiables for me really. And just start really. I mean, if you spend so much time kind of coming up with the perfect formula, you'll just end up never doing anything. So I was just like I'm just going to go, I'm just going to apologize and I'm going to learn along the way and just kind of say look, it's the first time I'm doing it, just give me your honest feedback. And you know, we Just give me your honest feedback and we'll obviously improve as we keep growing. That's kind of how we did it really.

Amardeep Parmar: 17:58

We hope you're enjoying the episode so far. We just want to give a quick shout out to our headline partners, HSBC Innovation Banking. One of the biggest challenges for so many startups is finding the right bank to support them, because you might start off and try to use a traditional bank, but they don't understand what you're doing. You're just talking to an AI assistant or you're talking to somebody who doesn't really understand what it is you've been trying to do. HSBC have got the team they've built out over years to make sure they understand what you're doing. They've got the deep sector expertise and they can help connect you with the right people to make your dreams come true. So if you want to learn more, check out hsbcinnovationbanking.com. 

Amardeep Parmar: 

So we've got a co-founder as well, so she was one of your early customers.

Anshu Ahuja: 18:38

Yeah.

Amardeep Parmar: 18:39

How did you then work out whether this would work and you could be a good team? Did you have that conversation about okay, I'll be in charge of this, you'll be in charge of that, or how did you do that at the beginning?

Anshu Ahuja: 18:47

It's an ongoing conversation. You know, as founders, you end up wearing every single hat possible. So some days Renee would be the cyclist and I would be the chef, whereas other days I'd be the accountant and Renee would be the ops manager. So, you know, it's like we've. I think we just took it day by day because there were so many jobs to be done and we're like okay, this is a long list of things to do. You know, let's kind of both go through it and take off what needs to be done. And so really, we wanted to build a system where we were kind of job sharing, because we were building a business around the children, um, so that if one person had poorly kids, the other person could cover for them completely. Um, and if we had meetings at school, one of one of us would go and take notes for all of both of us essentially, and then the kids stayed at home with the other person.

Anshu Ahuja: 19:43

So we kind of, we didn't have that kind of grown up conversation of like, okay, I'm going to be the ops director and you're going to be the CEO, whatever, because there were too many jobs that needed to be done. It's still the same way. We don't really have the fancy title of I'm this and I'm that. We do, like, this week we've got someone, uh, who's off sick and so I'm going to be covering their shift, which is portioning out all the Dabbas. Um, so we still do pretty much all the jobs there is, and sometimes we are on our bikes delivering as well.

Anshu Ahuja: 20:10

So, yeah, I'll tell you what was hard, though going from being friends to being business partners. That was more of a tricky trajectory, and it still is, because it is a different relationship when you're friends with someone and you're casual and you can go out for a drink and you can have a sort of non-professional conversation, and then you have to suddenly actually be like, well, we're both accountable and we're both directors of a business. So you know, that shift was hard and I suppose it is sad, but we're more now business partners than we, we are friends and maybe in the long term, like we will end up being both. But that is the journey you take when you kind of um go into business with a friend, I suppose and it does put a toll on your friendship and there are, you know you end up spending so much time with each other. You kind of you don't want to see each other like on your downtime, if you know what I mean. So, yeah, I mean it's tricky, but you know conversation and communication can help you get over all the hurdles.

Anshu Ahuja: 21:16

If you're just clear right from the start about you, know your relationship and who's responsible for what, and you know you hold each other accountable and don't if you don't take things personally. When you know if somebody gives you feedback or says that you maybe you should have done this better, or you know you haven't finished this job, can you let me know when it's done? It's it's all about just kind of knowing you're in the same, on the same boat, heading in the same direction. And yeah, I mean on that note, I guess Renee and I sometimes do want to go in different directions and we we argue, and you know I say argue, we have a nice sort of rounded debate about what is right for the business, because we both care and it's coming from a good place. Um, so yeah, and I think founders can disagree, it's okay, you know, anyone can disagree. It's just finding a way back and knowing, you know, finding what is right for the business or the venture. That's the most important thing.

Amardeep Parmar: 22:15

And obviously you've grown the team out since those early days as well. When did you decide it was the right moment to bring on that first employee and to expand the team?

Anshu Ahuja: 22:22

I mean, we were actually really lucky. So we were working from a little sort of shared kitchen in Dalston and this was in early 2020, um, maybe late, late 2019, and we, um, we'd sort of grown out, we'd outgrown that kitchen. Essentially, we were looking for a new space, um, and we were also rebuilding the website and people I listen, you know, I think we need to have while we're kind of resetting up the kitchen, we might need someone who can kind of manage the orders and kind of make sure everything is working smoothly while we're focusing on rebuilding the kitchen. So we actually hired someone. Renee had worked with previously at her time at Caravan Restaurants, really luckily, because we went into lockdown in March 2020. And we were obviously homeschooling as well, as our orders grew by 300% in the space of two weeks. So we were literally all hands to deck, you know juggling crazy amounts. We had run out of tiffins, we had an 800 person waiting list, you know managing emails, all of that. So, yes, that's the first person we hired.

Anshu Ahuja: 23:34

We had a few part-time chefs before then, but that is the first proper employee we had, Shelely, and it was, um, she stayed with us, uh, up until august this year, so a full five years, um, and she went from, you know, a sort of e-commerce assistant to being a head of operations and now she's um going back to australia. So, yeah, it was. She also wore lots of different hats being with us, um, and you know, I guess that's that, that the. The quality you look for when you hire your first employee as a startup is someone who can roll up their sleeves and get involved in every single thing, who can be an extension of the founder, essentially, who you know you can say at midnight like, hey, you know there's a leak in the kitchen, I need you there at 6 am to kind of sweep it all out. And then you know, um, make sure the bins are clean and all of that kind of stuff.

Anshu Ahuja: 24:25

So someone who is on your side as much as you know, your co-founder or or that inner, that inner team. 

Amardeep Parmar: 

I think that's obviously the difference between, say, hiring somebody at a corporate versus a startup is that they need to really be part of it too. Where they feel like this is they're going the extra mile because they care about what you're doing as well.

Anshu Ahuja:  24:42

The mission, yeah.

Amardeep Parmar:

And if they care about that, then like doing the odd thing here and there is a bit out of their job description, they won't mind so much. But you mentioned there as well that you did it just before the pandemic. How about? How? What impact did that have on the business?

Amardeep Parmar: 25:00

Because obviously, so many things changed there for the restaurant industry, hospitality industry. How did that affect you guys? 

Anshu Ahuja: 

So we had um, we grew by 300 in the space of two weeks. So we had to, obviously, you know, make sure that we could fulfill all those orders, so all that food being cooked. So we had to hire lots of new chefs, lots of new cyclists and also get more space to be able to store all this food. We unfortunately didn't have access to Tiffin's, the Dubbas that we deliver in, so we had to stagger because India had basically locked down as well. So we were waiting for our shipment to arrive from India, which fortunately did four weeks into lockdown, so then we could open up those orders again.

Anshu Ahuja: 25:39

So it was kind of I mean, lockdown was two years, essentially, wasn't it? So we had huge scale and then coming out of lockdown was actually slightly harder because, you know, people started going out again. So it sort of balanced out and we had to let people go, and that was hard. We had an office that we couldn't really afford, so it was having to kind of make like, you know, as a founder, you're like, oh, my God, we've grown, we're profitable, this is great, we've done it, yay. And then you're like, oh no, we're not, we're in the red again. So you know, it's just like pulling all those strings and making sure you pull it back and you know you kind of get to a sort of stable place again. That was hard.

Anshu Ahuja: 26:22

Coming out of lockdown was really hard because we tried our best not to kind of shrink the team. We sort of, you know, invested more in marketing. We tried lots of different things. Renee and I were out a lot more often talking to customers and working out exactly what they needed. But you know, ultimately, if the P&L is not working, you have to make those tough decisions and, um, that's what we had to do. And so, yeah, I mean it was the seesaw of the pandemic. You know, one minute you're up and the next minute you're, yeah, back down to yeah, like literally.

Anshu Ahuja: 26:55

We had to start from scratch almost, and it was around the time where we were expanding, because we were still only delivering to hackney and islington postcodes and so we expanded to deliver London wide, um, so that took a hit on our sort of, you know, um PNL as well, because we were sort of, you know, forking out for deliveries when we hadn't matured in these areas.

Anshu Ahuja: 27:16

So, it was quite um, yeah, it was a tough decision but we're, we're glad we went with the sort of. We followed our instincts and you know, we we believed in the fact that if, if there are people in Hackney buying from us, there will be people in, you know, Kensington also interested in the same offer. So we stuck with it and now you know, as of uh may this year, we're profitable again, which is, I mean, it's such a good feeling. I don't know why, but it really is. It makes it makes your shoulders go down and you can kind of settle. And I remember my dad sort of saying to me after our first fundraise think about, don't forget cash burn. Like you've got to conserve cash. He's a very conservative man, you know.

Amardeep Parmar: 27:58

It's really interesting, like I said, because a lot of other companies the pandemic had their negative effect because people were locked up or things like that, whereas you had this other day period of I guess you almost had to start planning for, like you said where once the pandemic ends, then you've now got more competition from not direct competition, but it brings people out again. They're not maybe using your service as much, so it's really nice to see the other side of things yeah and you mentioned there about the fundraise as well.

Amardeep Parmar: 28:21

What made you decide to do the first fundraise and like what's behind that reasoning?

Anshu Ahuja: 28:25

So we were um, so it was sort of when we were coming out of lockdown, um, we were thinking about, well, you know how to how to grow, basically, so we were only delivering in Hackney and Islington and we constantly had our customers writing to us and saying, hey, you know, I know I've got friends in X, Y and Z and you know why don't you guys start delivering to them? And we were like, well, we'd love to, but we don't have any money to be able to invest into the business, because we'd used all our profits from when we had grown in lockdown to build a much bigger kitchen, assuming foolishly that after lockdown life would continue being the same. So, anyway, so you know, because we had so many customers interested, we were like, okay, well, let's do an email to all our customers to ask if they would like to invest in the business and for equity and, you know, help us scale up to from an East London concept to a London wide concept. And I mean the response we had was phenomenal. And you know, we raised £450,000 over the course of I think it was six weeks or something. So, yeah, it was, it was really encouraging. And then so, yeah, we used all that money to kind of build a better website and expand our offering London wide and then coming out again.

Anshu Ahuja: 29:45

So in April 2024, that's the year we're in now we did another fundraise to be able to enhance our offering and look at possibly expanding outside of London as well. So that's what we've just come out of, and we did it both times the same way a crowdfund, mainly our customers. And the response is like you you know it's always humbling and um, your customers also, alongside your sort of early employees, believe in the mission as much as you do, um, and they're aligned with your vision. They obviously love your food and they want you to invest in the product and make it better, and it's like a little secret. They want the world to know. So it you know in the early stages it's a really good way of raising capital rather than going for the big VC money.

Amardeep Parmar: 30:32

It must be such a good feeling as well when you send out the initial email, because I guess when you send out the initial email you don't know for sure yet whether or not people are going to be like, yeah, we want to back this one to help you grow, because it's one thing when people say it versus actually putting their money in and actually doing it. So it must have been such a validating feeling to know that your customers actually really care and really want to see that succeed. And as that's gone along, how have you seen that relationship with those customers as well? Do you have? How do you maintain this? I guess there's a lot of people who invested. Are you able to keep in touch with them? Or how do you manage those like that relationship with those early customers?

Anshu Ahuja: 31:10

Yeah, I mean, that's a really good question. You know, investor relations are really important, uh, in the same as customer relations are really important. Um, so we kind of have check-in points with all of our investors. We do an investor quarterly investor report. We always provide direct email addresses so they can get in touch with us. We, you know, give them discount codes so they can offer it to their friends. We've sent them tote bags with, you know, our logo and you know, so they can do some free publicity for us as well. It's just kind of making them feel as part of the journey as possible. You know, we also say if you want to invite some friends around, we'll drop in an extra Dubba so you can kind of share the love. They're ambassadors as well after all of your business.

Anshu Ahuja: 31:45

So, um, yeah, that's kind of how we've maintained it and and as we grow we'll probably do that even more, make them as much part of the business 

Amardeep Parmar: 

Looking at where you are today, right, so, you've had these different journeys and you had that tough period coming out of the pandemic and then now had this high moment of the customers backing you and supporting you and then doing it again this year. What's some of the biggest wins so far? If you're looking at where you are today, what are you most proud of and where do you think the company has really succeeded?

Anshu Ahuja: 32:19

I mean personally, you know, as a founder, obviously it was a business that I set up to work around my family life. So that is the first kind of validation. You know, just going from delivering to five streets around my house to now delivering London wide and everybody eating the same food of an evening, that feels like a real pinch me moment. And you know, it's quite incredible, like you can have a dream and actually make it happen. It's weird, right, like I mean, obviously it takes a bit of luck but you know, just kind of coming up with an idea and just kind of making a plan and doing it and putting some words on a piece of paper and saying, right, I'm going to tick these things off and then that will make this business viable, and you do that and you make it viable, that kind of feels really, really exciting.

Anshu Ahuja: 33:05

But obviously, on a bigger level, you know, outside of my own personal sort of ambitions, it's a business that's doing good. You know we're providing healthy, nourishing food to thousands of tables across London on a weekly basis and there's no plastic in that, in the packaging. So, um, that is, that is definitely. You know, it makes you sleep better at night knowing that you are, um, nourishing all these thousands of people and, uh and making a difference. It's a real sort of uh yeah, I feel pride that we are delivering nourishing food and taking people away from unhealthy eating and unhealthy food on a weekly basis.  

Amardeep Parmar: 

So you mentioned there a couple times about sustainability, elements of it as well.

Amardeep Parmar: 33:47

So obviously you're a cyclist. You don't use any plastic. Can you talk about that element as well and the impact you're making on the sustainability side?

Anshu Ahuja: 33:55

Absolutely so yeah, the whole concept was, you know, I had sustainability at the heart of it. We have a plant-based offering, so it's, you know, plant-forward dishes that are kind of inspired by home style recipes, mainly from South Asia, but from across the world as well. We have all our deliveries take place in dabba tins, which are stacked metal tins that are all kind of fitted together and we just sort of swap these out when we deliver your next Dabba. It's a subscription model and then all the deliveries happen on bikes, either old-fashioned single-speed bikes or big cargo bikes. With DabbaDrop we've now saved just under 400,000 plastic containers from ending up in landfill. We've saved 54 million liters of water and nearly 200,000 CO2 emissions. So it is, you know, apart from all the nourishing food, the sort of environmental impact is quite big as well. So you know it makes you feel pretty good waking up in the morning knowing you're making um such a big difference to our dear planet as well. 

Amardeep Parmar:

That's awesome.

Amardeep Parmar: 35:14

So one more question before the quick fire questions is obviously you've made a big impact so far through the food and also, like you said, on the impact on the climate and the planet as well. But you're going London wide  now. What's the dreams? Where do you see this being in the next few years?

Anshu Ahuja: 35:30

That's. I mean, that is the big question within the business. So you know, for the next six months we're very much focused on enhancing our offering in London. So we only deliver zones one to three and we want to expand to the whole of the M25. Beyond that, we're looking at franchising options actually to go scale faster across the UK to various cities and also towns as well. And there are other ideas to get into retail which you know are not finalized yet but that is on the cards as well. So it's kind of taking Dabba Job from or Dabba Job, if I had to pronounce it correctly um from just being a sort of uh, you know d2c business to becoming omni-channel and having as available at lots of different touch points, um across the sort of spectrum as well. 

Amardeep Parmar:

So, so great to hear your story today.

Amardeep Parmar: 36:22

We need to go to a quick fire questions now. So first one is who are three British Asians you think are doing incredible work and you'd love to shout them out?

Anshu Ahuja: 36:30

So there is a lady called Samyukta Nair who owns, actually I came across her and her dad's business back when I lived in Mumbai. They used to run a beautiful hotel well, they still do called the Leela Hotel, and they now run four or five restaurants here in the UK. One of them is called Bombay Basel, which is kind of inspired by the same Dabawala tradition as we are. In fact, we're talking about possibly doing some work together, which is really exciting. I love what she's done with her restaurants and you know, really sort of amplified Indian culture here in the UK and Indian food, so that's really exciting. There's another lady.

Amardeep Parmar: 37:14

And she's not.

Anshu Ahuja: 37:15

I suppose she's not strictly British Asian, she's Indian. But she is here in the UK and she's selling her products here in the UK now. So her name is Sana Javeri Kadri. She owns Diaspora Spices and she sells spices straight from the farmers in India to firstly in America, but now also recently available in the UK. The spices are gorgeous. She is an amazing founder. You know she's in her early thirties. I, I mean she's doing so much single-handedly um, kudos to her, um. And then Eshita, do you, I think you had her on this podcast.

Amardeep Parmar: 37:55

She runs By rotation so at the time we're recording this, tomorrow we've got a fireside chat. We're doing an event with 120 people yeah ah, oh, yeah, so I'm seeing her tomorrow and it's for on friday.

Anshu Ahuja: 38:05

Yeah, yeah really inspired by her as well. Obviously, sustainability is at the core of her business, so, um, yeah, and it is ours as well. So I love what she's doing and the community she's built and given so many women, uh, a chance to earn a livelihood by sort of putting their clothes, uh, on rent to other women. So she's done something really cool and very, very excited to follow her journey. 

Amardeep Parmar: 38:27

Awesome. And then if people want to find out more about you and find out more about Dabbadrop, where should they go to?

Anshu Ahuja: 38:32

So DabbaDrop,  dabbaDrop.co.uk is where you can hear all about us. We also have a Instagram handle called at dabbadrop um, and then I post regularly on LinkedIn my name's Anshu Ahuja, and so, yeah, all the information is out there for everyone to read.

Amardeep Parmar: 38:50

And is there anything that you need help with right now yourself or DabbaDrop needs help with? Maybe the audience could help with.

Anshu Ahuja: 38:54

Absolutely. I mean, we're always looking for new customers. That's, you know, like one of the big missions for this year is to kind of get everyone to try a DabbaDrop at least once. So you know, tell your friends, tell your neighbours, tell your family. We are delivering London Zones 1 to 3. So if you live in those zones we'd love to feed you. And then, beyond that, yeah, I mean, we're always looking for advisors. Yeah, we're looking to sort of put together an updated advisory team. So if there's any advisors out there, founders who've, you know, grown a subscription business, exited founders we would always love to hear from you.

Amardeep Parmar: 39:31

Awesome, so thanks so much for coming on again. Have you got any final words?

Anshu Ahuja: 39:40

No, I mean, that was a lovely chat. Thank you so much. That was really good fun to talk about my story and DabbaDrop's story and thank you for listening.

Amardeep Parmar: 39:46

Thank you for watching. Don't forget to subscribe. See you next time.

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