Coolest Small Food Businesses

Food is one area, where one sees a lot of innovation and creativity. I have tried to compile a list of food concepts: food trucks, restaurants, coffee, fresh daily dinner kits, etc. How many of them will succeed and scale only time can answer.

ScratchDC (let’s get cookin)

They create fresh daily dinner kits, that come chopped, measured, marinated and are delivered to cook. All the produce is locally sourced. They have only one dish per day, and delivered to your home from 2pm to 8pm. The bundle comes with a list of ingredients, recipes and also a list of utensils required to cook the dinner. They are becoming very popular in DC area. read more >>>>

Crock Spot (slow cooked gourmet cuisine)

Crock Spot offers the Denver area slow cooked gourmet cuisine. All of our proteins, including our vegetarian options, are cooked slowly to mouthwatering perfection, served over healthy grain varietals and topped with sauce of choice. Thair unique concept offers a Build a Bowl menu that will suit a wide variety of palates. Nominated to be America’s Favorite Food Truck in 2011 by the Food Truck Network.  read more >>>>>

Fojol Bros (A “traveling culinary carnival.”)

The Fojol Bros. are more than just food truck chefs. They are also carnival performers. The brothers serve up Indian- and Ethiopian-style food truck classics over basmati rice and injera, respectively. While the fojol bros. may represent something different to each of us, they hope to bring together local communities through a dynamic food experience on DC’s streets. Yet another Washington DC phenomena. read more >>>>

Chipotle Mexican Grill (Can Restaurants Deliver a Higher-Quality Pizza in 2 Minutes)

The ascendant Mexican-food chain known for its mix of healthy-enough, fast-enough food, has the blueprint from its burritos: Make pizza fast, individually tailored and with higher-quality ingredients than low-end competitors. The restaurant’s executives want to carve out a niche between eating pizza at home and heading to a high-end, sit-down Italian restaurant. read more  >>>>>

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Tweet Time, Sept 2013

some super tweets this month

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” ― George Orwell. … @talismanasreen

All your groceries at the click of your mouse  >>>>>   …. @sjpatil

If you ever want to commit suicide, jump from Barkha Dutt ‘s Ego level to Sagarika Ghose ‘s IQ level.  …. brilliant! ….. @iNeelSoni

The lies of Sanjay Jha exposed   >>>>> ……  @livemint

Only packs of jackals have dynastic succession. Whereas, prides of lions have a fight between rival lions for leadership. @AgentSaffron

Golf is 10 years of hope, 10 years of hopelessness and 10 years of resignation. …. @shiningbridge

A shot of irreverence is an essential ingredient of an innovative and creative society…. @kaushikcbasu

My RSS senior was once told by Guruji that he should bow head only to Bharatmata, God, Parents n Teacher. Learnt it from him. Stuck to this … @jitengajaria

China consumes 3kg of instant noodles a head. Hong Kongers consume 5kg a year … @FT

The dirtiest actions should be carried out by the most honest men. ~ Meir Dagan, spymaster and former chief of Mossad … @abhijitmajumder

An onion can make people cry but there’s never been a vegetable that can make people laugh. – Will Rogers …. @bibekdebroy

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Golf and the U.S. economy

(via CNN)  How golf helps drive the U.S. economy   >>>>>>

 

Golf contributes  US$ 68 billion to the U.S. economy… World Golf Foundation

President Barack Obama’s love of golf is well documented, one report even claiming he spends more time on the course than in economic meetings.  “One, he’s arguably the busiest man in the world with the toughest job in the world, but he can make time to play. He played five times on his recent vacation in Martha’s Vineyard.

The tournaments such as  the Masters at Augusta and competitions run by the PGA of America, the PGA Tour, the USGA, and the LPGA generated approximately $1.2 billion in 2011

The golf industry is larger than the spectator sports and performing arts industries combined,” WGF chief executive Steve Mona told CNN.

Employs close to two million Americans with a combined wage income of $55.6 billion.

There are two economies in golf.  There’s the participation economy which is about the everyday golf facilities, trying to attract golfers and current players to play as much they can. “Then there’s the entertainment side of golf too and that’s where the professional tours come in. that relates to the interest of the game.

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Documentary on The world’s greatest Investor, Warren Buffett

 

 

super documentary on the world’s greatest investor.  lot of subtle points to take note of. a must watch.

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Benefits of Online Grocery

About a year and a half ago, Town Essentials started a direct to home service, supplying grocery and vegetables. In various conversations with Town customers,  realized that customers were benefiting in many ways.  Some of these benefits, can be  classified as tangible and some intangible.

Would like to share some of these benefits, they are:

Time, Time, Time:  For the Indian professional and especially working couples, time has become very scarce, long working hours, lengthy commutes, whatever little remains is personal or family time.   If any free time is available,  the last thing on anyone’s  minds is grocery shopping.

Even, if  one liked shopping, you have to hustle, take out your car or two-wheeler, drive to the store, finding parking, then shop, wait for your turn in lengthy check out lines,  settle the bill,  then carry grocery to your vehicle,  drive back home,  last lug your grocery from the parking lot into your home. In addition to all the hassle your vehicle has burnt some scarce fuel also. All this can be eliminated by a click of the button and the goods are delivered to your doorstep.  The hassle and the time you save, is an intangible, true cost should  be accounted for, some call it the welfare surplus or quality of life surplus.

Eco Friendly: A brick and mortar grocery store, needs a of lot of energy to sustain the infrastructure. Air conditioning, packaging and the fuel consumed to travel to the store. If there are 100 customers for 100 orders, each customer’s  travel to and fro from the store has to be accounted for. In the case of online purchase, these orders will be delivered with a smaller number of vehicles, reducing traffic on city roads and lower fuel consumption.

Accounts: Keeping a tab of how much you spent by order, day, week, month, year etc can all be tracked. When you go shopping unless you store the bill and remember to capture it, very unlikely you will have the full picture. Using staff for cash purchases has leakages associated with it.

Special Purchases: Party Shopping can be hell, get this from this shop, get that from that shop, already arranging a party is stressful, getting everything together only adds to the stress.

Quality: the vendor is able to supply the same quality across the city. Else you really have to depend on your corner store and you don’t have a choice when the quality is bad.

Choice: Physical stores are limited by space of how many products can be stored. An online store can have an offering that is always larger than the physical space. The store can always deliver slow-moving items, without stocking them.

Repeat: 80% of a monthly grocery list is generally the same as last month. So you can reorder from the last order or most frequently ordered items.

Finally, there are some who just enjoy shopping, for them grocery shopping is a priority,  they love going to markets, touching and feeling the vegetables before purchase. For this category of people, online grocery service is a firm no for sure.

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Economist 2012: Top 10 articles based on twitter

The top 10 article in 2012 based on twitter activity basically retweets

Our most popular article of the year on Twitter was about the future of 3-D printing  >>>>

Number two in our countdown is an article about Mexico and the legalisation of marijuana    >>>>>

Number 3 in our countdown is the Where to be born index 2013  >>>>>

Number 4 in our countdown is an article about Mexico’s relationship with America  >>>>>

Number 5 in our countdown is the article in which we endorsed a candidate for the US election   >>>>>

Number 6 in our countdown is an article about the Mystery of Mitt Romney  >>>>>

Number 7 in our countdown is an article about the LIBOR scandal going global >>>>>

Number 8 in our countdown is an article about understanding why exercise is good for you   >>>>>

Number 9 in our countdown is an interview about intelligence with Satoshi Kanazawa >>>>>

The tenth most popular article to be posted on Twitter by the Economist in 2012 was about the demise of Kodak  >>>>>

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Is There Something Called Luck ?

“Life is not fair”, goes the popular saying.  Some have luck on their side and those that don’t, are generally consoled “bad luck”, better luck next time.

Andy Grove, former CEO Intel Corporation, a visionary in his time, penning his pearls of wisdom, recognized the existence of luck.  One of the pearls from many he coined,  “There is something called luck, recognize it and make the most of it”. Another successful silicon valley based entrepreneur, Prakash Bhalerao, at a recent talk conducted by TIE Pune, noted that there is something such as “right place, right time”. He attributed success to be 51% luck and 49% hard work. He recalled many immigrants who arrived in the valley during the 80s and 90s became rich, because so much was happening  then.

However only a lunatic will believe it is all luck and no hard work. Casing point, my own uncle, extremely capable, handsome, a Tamilian who could be easily mistaken for a Punjabi and  above all a very nice human being. He was the living example of someone who believed  “all is luck”.  HIs daily routine included 2 hours of Puja, before that a bath that resulted in a unusable bathroom (bath was a ritual that included splashing water all around), count his steps to anywhere and everywhere and a regular gambler at the races. On many occasions, he put his family on the brink of financial disaster, it was my aunt who basically ran and managed the home. A case of a very capable person, hardly motivated to work.

I have this very basic equation, that highlights the equal importance of hard work and the contribution of luck. If anything, it is the prerequisite for success.

performance = motivation * capability

success = luck * performance

luck = time * place

Then there is this story about Napoleon, who used to evaluate promotions of his direct reports based on luck coefficient. At the time of appraisals, he observed that they are all great soldiers, high caliber, but what will differentiate in the future  is their luck. He had this firm belief that luck played a major role in winning wars.

Lucky people exhibit two kinds of behaviour, arrogance and humility. The arrogant insist that it was all due their hard work, capability and tenacity. The others acknowledge that luck had a role to play in their achievement. Standing in the balcony of a high rise in Mumbai, slums on one side and an imposing skyline on the other, a thought crosses your mind, for you could have been born on the other side and life would have been very different. That for many successful people is the source of their humility.

Is there something called luck ?   The ball is in your court now.

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