R Venkatesan quit his job at a multi-national company to sell vegetables online via Veggibazaar.com in Chennai:


The year 2008 was a time of pink slips and thinning salaries. For 33-year-old R Venkatesan, it was a good time to change gears and drop out of the corporate rat race. It took a salary cut to make him question the safety of his job-back then he was heading country-wide marketing for a project by Hewlett Packard. So, the Chennai resident decided to switch to a job that would ensure a steady income irrespective of the state of the economy-selling vegetables. 

Blinked, didn't you? This is the same reaction that Venkatesan got from his friends when he proposed the idea of Veggibazaar.com, an online vegetable store. "I was quitting a job that was paying me about Rs 2 lakh a month despite the recession. Few people believed that my idea would work. They cited the example of a person who had floated a similar company a few years ago, which bombed due to the lack of Internet penetration," says Venkatesan. 

So, by the time he started his business in 2009, he was sure of two things-he needed to start on a small scale and then give it ample time to grow. The ace up his sleeve? He had about eight years of experience in the marketing division of major software companies, which taught him that as long as one sticks to the basics, a business will do well. "I was targeting people who were hard-pressed to take out time to buy vegetables daily," says Venkatesan. 

He initially spent Rs 40 lakh to start the company, mainly to buy cutting and chopping machines, pay a monthly rent of Rs 30,000 for an office space and to print covers for packing boxes. This amount came from his savings. Venkatesan admits that it helped that his wife had a job as a senior business analyst with a software company. "If she hadn't been earning, it would have been difficult to even think of quitting my job," he adds. 

His business model is simple: Veggibazaar.com takes orders online and delivers the very next day. This not only ensures freshness of the products-an essential feature of the company-but also means that he does not have to worry about bulk storage space and associated facilities, which is a huge saving. "The orders are put together by about 10 p.m., after which we inform the vendors about the order. We buy from Koyambedu and farms in Chengalpet, Tindivanam and Kodaikanal," shares Venkatesan. 

Vegetables reach the company's Alwarpet office by 6.30 a.m. the following day and, after a quality check, they are sorted, cleaned, chopped, packed and delivered between 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. Venkatesan has 25 employees to do these jobs. Clients can pay online through debit/credit cards or pay cash on delivery. Venkatesan has also started providing additional facilities, such as nutritional specific packages and loyalty points which customers can redeem against future purchases. 

Since its launch, Venkatesan has pumped another Rs 1.2 crore into the company, of which Rs 60 lakh came from the couple's saving, Rs 40 lakh was raised by diluting the shares through a CA firm, while the balance was borrowed from family and friends. Venkatesan's effort is beginning to pay off. The company broke even in March this year, and has 
been yielding monthly revenues of about Rs 11 lakh ever since. 
Venkatesan says that he is now looking at the franchisee model for further expansion, both within Chennai and outside, starting with cities such as Bangalore, Trichy and Coimbatore


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