STARTUP SPECIAL... How I got my STARTUP IDEA

How I got my STARTUP IDEA

We built an app to help people grow veggies

SHAMEEK CHAKRAVARTY | Co-founder and CEO, Farmizen

THE IDEA: 

App-based service for consumers to rent a mini-farm and grow organic vegetables

EUREKA MOMENT: 

“Like many families in Bengaluru, we had concerns about eating chemical-laced veggies. So we started growing our own food,” said Shameek Chakravarty, cofounder and CEO, Farmizen. He and his co-founders Gitanjali Rajamani and Sudaakeran Balasubramanian had their own vegetable patch, and wondered why they couldn’t help others rent space and grow food. They started Farmizen as an appbased service in 2017. Consumers monitor the farm using an app, and farmers take care of the crops.

EARLY DAYS:

 “67% of the consumers we talked to told us that the main reason they were hesitant about switching to organic was because they didn’t believe the produce was truly organic,” said Chakravarty. The startup included “trust-reinforcing measures” into its model, including updates via an app and a group chat service for consumers. They spent close to six months (January to June 2017) building a robust technology stack for end-to-end tracking and domain expertise by speaking to experts and farmers.

MAIN CHALLENGE:

“It was hard to find the first partner-farmer who scored well on all our parameters for partnership, and convince him about working on this model,” Chakravarty said. The company is no longer actively scouting for farmer-partners as farmers themselves are reaching out, thanks to their efforts of creating a community. “Very often, produce that is grown naturally or organically is not of uniform size and shape, and may have holes or other defects, but they are tastier and far healthier. It is a continuing challenge to convince customers about this,” he said.

WHERE THE STARTUP IS TODAY: 

Farmizen is present in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Surat with around 1,500 families as subscribers and 18 farms with about 30 acres under cultivation. Generating annualised revenue run rate of Rs 4.5 crore, Farmizen raised a seed funding round of $300,000 in September 2017 from VC firm Venture Highway and angels, including former Canaan Partners MD and Indifi co-founder Alok Mittal.

—SINDHU HARIHARAN

TNN 9DEC18