'DNA' conversations: Social media is the next big thing

Deepinder Goyal, CEO of Zomato.com and Siddharth Poojari, director and founder, S3 Luxury & Entertainment Private Limited discuss all things ‘happening’.

Deepinder Goyal: Your family is in the food business for a long time now. What made you start City Bar?
Siddharth Poojari: I’ve grown up in a family where we constantly discuss food. I studied abroad and wanted to get into research. However, later I was clued into the food business as well. Though I quite enjoyed spending time abroad, I wanted to come back to India. I started City Bar with two other partners — Rajesh Sachdev and Barkha Matani. It is more like a reflection of the tastes and experiences from around the world. Since there was no space for office goers to sit and relax after their work, this serves more like a space for all age-groups to chill and unwind. How did you start Zomato.com?

DG: My love for food dates back to my IIT days when, in order to avoid the hostel food, I and my friends used to eat out almost everyday. After graduation, I experimented with a food website called Foodlet.com which was the first food portal of its kind in India. Realising that India was not yet ready, I left Foodlet and joined a management consulting firm — Bain and Company. Zomato was conceived when I was working at Bain. What inspired Zomato was a huge stack of menus in the pantry of Bain that people used to look up to order food from nearby restaurants. They used to scan and mail it, I took a cue from there and starting working on this website seriously.

SP: That’s wonderful! Everything is available online today and social media is currently making waves right now. As a matter of fact, our marketing strategies were mostly on social networking websites like Facebook and stuff. From big brands to small time stores, everyone has a page for their company on these social networking websites. Social media is really the next big thing for almost all kinds of companies. Don’t you agree?
DG: Of course! Now most firms don’t even want to market their companies in magazines or newspapers. It’s done mostly online and in social media websites. From the event listing to their regular updates, everything is available online. We have several customers giving feedback for restaurants regularly. This works more easily than writing it down and giving it in a piece of paper. So do you have any expansion plans?

SP: We will shortly be opening a restaurant named, Zafran. Initially I wanted to serve Asian cuisine, but as there are not many authentic Indian restaurants in our city, Zafran will be a speciality restaurant that serves Indian cuisine. We are planning to open Zafran in three different locations of the city. What are your plans?
DG: Zomato is currently active in ten cities in India. I don’t think we can expand any more in India. So we have plans to set it up in other Asian countries by mid next year.