The journey of an entrepreneur is never easy. It requires one to wear several hats, mitigate business challenges, innovate & ideate and understand customers. It’s truly a tall order to fulfil. But for experienced entrepreneurs such as Sumbul Siddiqui, playing these various roles comes naturally. Currently working as the Co-Founder & CEO of Knosh -A foodtechplatform, built as part of Emperica Tech Solutions, Sumbul doubles up as the Key Strategistand Operations Head with a strong eye on Customer experience and much more. Knosh is India's first unique epicurean food delivery platform that brings together award winning chefs of international repute on a single app. By ordering on Knosh, food connoisseurs can indulge in culinary delights from Celebrity chefs, in the comfort and safety of their homes.

Knosh is the brainchild of Sumbul Siddiqui,a successful women entrepreneur who has strong corporate experience in leadership roles across industries, in building scalable business models, processes and driving profitability. She also successfully launched a B2B grocery platform for hotels and restaurants in 2015, therefore brings with her deep entrepreneurial insights.

The multifaceted leaderhas over 20 years of experience in leadership positions within the leading brands in Telecom/ DTH industry. Having worked for giants such as Vodafone India, Bharti Airtel and TataskySumbulwas responsible for End to End Customer lifecycle management. Her entrepreneurial journey began as a Co-Founder of JumboGrocery- India's first B2B integrated platform for the hospitality sector, built completely ground up. The tech platform was one of the early awardees of the Startup IndiaInitiative launched by PMO. Her second venture after successfully exiting JG is Emperica Foods and Tech Solutions where she is building a strong multi-brand F &B Managed services organisation.

The Women Entrepreneur Team caught up with Sumbul in a candid conversation about her entrepreneurial journey. Here are a few snippets from the conversation.

Throw some light on your entrepreneurial journey. What was the underlying idea behind establishing Emperica Tech Solutions, Knosh-a Food tech integrated platform?

After spending considerable years in the Hospitality and Telecom industry I wanted to leverage my experience to help build a highly scalable, tech-driven business model. I started with JumboGrocery, a B2B platform for hotels & restaurants grocery deliveries. The platform connected Wholesale suppliers with the HoReCasegment ,thereby helping optimize costs for the owners.

With my prior experience and multiple close interactions with restaurateurs, I realized that restaurant ownerswere constantly looking for ways to optimize cost while maintaining the customer experience. At JumboGrocery we provided f & b products at the best price but I felt we needed a solution beyond that space. That’s when we created Emperica Foods and Tech Solutions, to provide ready products which could be used by chefs to customize based on their recipe. This way the cost of procuring raw materials could be brought down along with standar disation of food quality and taste. We developed a Frozen Food product range that restaurants, hotels and hostels could use to help provide the right quality and optimize cost. We started a pilot project with four hotels which became successful. This helped us expand to signing with over 20 properties across India.

“Passion, persistence and powerful vision is the key to be successful in any field of life”

The year 2020 changed all business models and the pandemic made us rethink our strategy and we pivoted to KNOSH ,where we brought Chefs to the front to Celebrate Life -Celebrate food! At KNOSHwe provide Signature Dishes from Award winning chefs at customers doorstep.

What are some of the most challenging aspects of your role as the Co-founder & CEO and how do you overcome these challenges?

During the early stage of any business, it’s important to conserve resources and utilize them for the most critical aspect, i.e. Customer experience. Another important factor for an entrepreneur is to generate positive engagement and increase repeat customer base. Customer Retention is one of the key elements to operate a successful profitable venture.

An important part of my role is to create an ecosystem that helps to stay agile , understanduser behaviour ,test and improve constantly basis customer feedback and create innovative solutions. Strong decision making abilities along with thorough planning of finances, products and services are extremely crucial for any successful CEO As an entrepreneur, one will always hit roadblocks. It’s important to stay persistent and passionate to create unique solutions and execute them properly.

What steps do you take to keep yourself well aligned with the various evolutions and changes that keep taking place within the industry and the technology world?

Since this is my second venture where the entire tech platform has been built ground-up, I understand the nuances of technology and what it can do for a start-up. I have some seasoned industry experienced professionals as part of my advisory board with whom I interact regularly. They act as my sounding board. I have had the privilege of working and connecting with senior leaders across industries who have helped me when I needed advice or support. Fear of failure has never been part of my life and that has been a very strong aspect that has helped me immensely in my corporate life as well as in my entrepreneurial journey.

I also subscribe to several industry journals & forums and I ensure that I carve out time for them. I truly believe that learning is a lifelong process. I also regularly meet and interact with my peers & customers within and across Industries. I have always believed that experience and knowledge are of no use if they simply cannot be applied in today’s world. You have to think “why?” and need to have the urge to ask “how” to be able to effectively use technology to change people’s lives.

Given the all-consuming nature of your current role at Emperica Tech, how do you strike a balance between your professional and personal life? Are there any activities or hobbies that you like to indulge in as well?

For me, my personal and professional life are equally important. I have been working for a very long time now and have always ensured that I have a very healthy work-life balance. Ever since I started working 20 years back I ensure that I start my day early! I am an early riser, getting up at 4.30/5 am every day and that gives me a good head start. Morning hours are highly productive and help me plan out my day every effectively. I reach home I don’t have too many pending items in my To-Do list to I get to spend quality time with my family.

I use tech to create and sort my daily to-do list in a very effective manner ensuring I don’t miss out on any deadlines and plan well ahead in time.

As a successful leader, what would your advice be to young girls and women who aspire to become business leaders and entrepreneurs themselves?

Firstly, I am grateful to have reached a position where I can influence young girls and inspire them in a way that will help them think innovatively. The only advice I’d like to give young girls and other women today is to leave your fears behind and just go for your dreams. Do your homework well before venturing into anything new. Gain Industry knowledge before starting out. Create detailed plans but don’t fall in love with your own ideas. Be open to tweaking and innovation as per customer feedback.

Be very passionate about your dreams make them come true. Face your fears, your challenges and overcome them. As a woman in this world, it is slightly harder to make your mark and be successful but your passion, persistence and hard work will surely payoff.

Define your North Star clearly in your mind and put focussed efforts .

Think big, Dream Big!Create small milestones but Keep your long term vision in mind very clearly.

Be passionate about your work. With the right amount of passion, hard work and strong self-belief, no one can stop you from reaching the stars! Take charge of your life.