Book review: How I quit Google to sell samosas

Munaf Kapadia started The Bohri Kitchen to showcase his mother's culinary talents and provide customers with an authentic home dining experience at his flat in Colaba. Through his venture, he introduced the Bohra culture and community (a minority Muslim community in India) through food, garnering attention and popularity. This journey led to notable achievements such as being featured in a BBC documentary, gracing the cover of Forbes '30 Under 30', and participating in a reality show. His endeavor attracted Bollywood celebrities seeking to savor Bohra cuisine and much more.

"How I Quit Google To Sell Samosas" narrates the captivating journey of an adventurous entrepreneur who transformed a weekend food pop-up into a Rs 4 crore F&B (Food and Beverage) start-up.

The journey of The Bohri Kitchen commenced with intimate weekly dinners hosted for a small circle of individuals in a cozy, homelike setting. Kapadia distributed WhatsApp invitations to acquaintances, conducting background checks to ensure a "no serial killer policy" before extending meal invites to his Colaba residence. Guests received advance notice detailing the seven-course meal and the concept of the "ultimate thaal." Following the meal, guests departed with both hearts and stomachs satisfied, enriched with insights into Bohri culture and newfound friendships formed with strangers-turned-friends during the gathering.

Here are my key takeaways from the book categorized by different themes:

On Marketing:

1. Genuine belief in the product is essential for effective selling.
2. Word-of-mouth marketing remains a powerful tool in F&B industry. Most of his catering orders with Bollywood celebrities were based on good word-of-mouth publicity.
3. Educating customers about the Bohra culture fosters authenticity and builds strong brands, drawing parallels to successful businesses grounded in creativity and unique offerings. (As a matter of fact, I also didn't know a lot about this community before reading the book!)
4. In today's competitive landscape, consistent content creation is key to visibility and brand recall.
5. Balancing professional presentation with the authenticity of homemade cooking is crucial to avoid being perceived solely as a family-run enterprise. (Did not want to be perceived as “Aunty business”)
6. Creating an illusion of scarcity can drive demand.
7. Make the brand story personality niche, and make the product mainstream, so that your product is scalable. His idea was to create a brand image of TBK to resonate more with Bohri culture and his mother - Nafisa kapadia

Entrepreneurship:

1. Entrepreneurship can be hard: Scaling The Bohri Kitchen involved numerous trials and errors, from translating family recipes into precise measurements to overcoming operational challenges while maintaining food quality.
2. Most of his mom's recipe measurements were based on "Andaz" which was sometimes difficult to standardize. Also, his mom is comfortable running the home-dining experience rather than the food delivery business where she can control the quality and work within her physical limits. However, to scale his business, Munaf wanted to train chefs under Mom who could prepare dishes of similar taste as his mom.
3. Operational difficulties with standardization, bad reviews, and the struggle to maintain product quality were also taking a toll on Munaf’s mental health = The entrepreneurial journey is not linear, characterized by moments of emotional strain and mental health struggles, which may not be openly discussed due to the importance of maintaining a strong business image.
4. “More than failure, be afraid of not trying your best. Fail fast and as many times as you can. Struggle forces you to think on your feet. Thus no one has more potential than a failed entrepreneur”
5. Consistency and persistence are the keys to successful enterprises: the way he chases up Riyaaz Amlani for setting up a small TBK store at one of his leading restaurants.
6. “The smartest way to help yourself is by asking for help”

General:

1. Your initial job experience serves as a vital foundation for future roles. Unlike management schools, it exposes your professional strengths and weaknesses through experiences like receiving your first paycheck and performance appraisals, igniting a reflection on what truly motivates you.
2. Demonstrating support from management, as exemplified by Munaf's boss at Google, who inquired about his long-term vision for The Bohri Kitchen.
3. Embrace creativity and innovation within your job role to refine processes and differentiate yourself.
4. The regrets of missed opportunities weigh heavier than those of actions taken.