THE LARGEST CHAIN OF MOMOS IN INDIA, WOW MOMO
An Indian chain of fast-food restaurants, Wow! Momo is servinglarge variants of innovative momos and Tibetan cuisine in a dine-in, deliveryand take away format.
Founded in 2008, the company opened its first store in Kolkata andhas since expanded rapidly across the length and breadth of the country. And,it has today over 200 stores throughout the cities of Delhi, Bengaluru, Pune,Coimbatore, Thrissur, and Digha.
Wow, Momo which was founded with an initial investment of a paltrysum of Rs 30,000 successfully found the recipe for progress and now values morethan 100 crore rupees. It all happened because of the strong will anddetermination of Binod Kumar Homagai and Sagar Daryani, the visionaries.
THE DELIGHTFUL SUCCESS STORY
The founders, Binod Kumar Homagai and Sagar Daryani were in the same batch and course of M. Com at St. Xavier's College in Kolkata. They both loved momos and shared with each other. As Binod is the resident of Nepal, he naturally had that love of momos while Sagar used to eat momos from street vendor outside his school.
During that time, Sagar noticed that momo seller was easily ableto make quality momos and do variations and it did not take a lot of time. Sohe decided to try working with momos and shared his idea with his buddy, Binod.Binod immediately agreed.
But the main problem was the money for investment. Sagar took30000 rupees from his father and started the business and also convinced hisfamily to let them use the ground floor of their relative's house in Jadavpurin the kitchen.
Finally, in 2008 they gave their idea a name- Wow Momo. And, thejourney has begun with a 200-square-foot kitchen with one table; two part-timecooks on a nominal salary, raw material take on credit from a localgrocery
Fortunately, Binod and Sagar managed to get 6*6 kiosk at Spencer'sRetail in South Kolkata on rent. The founders always had a product-orientedmarketing campaign. They used to bring a yellow colour for kiosks for thepromotional activities. Both used to wear Wow! Momo t-shirt and go up tocustomers with a tray of momos for sampling. And, as said hard work pays;people started understanding their idea and one the first day, the company hada sale of around Rs. 2000 and Rs. 53000 at the end of the month.
When the company started riding on the success ladder, many bigcompanies offered them kiosk space in their branches. In 2010, the firstindependent outlet of Wow! Momo was opened at Sector V in Salt Lake, Kolkata.Later they planned to expand it and opened an outlet in Phoenix Bangalore also.
The menu of the company was designed in a way that 7*7 could generaterevenue of over 12 lakh per month. Raising funds was never a problem for Wow Momo.They kept following their model simple with 16 types of Momos and three typesof sauces. As the founders were not aware of the formalities of new business,they had to go through some issues.
In spite, it crossed the revenue of 100 Corore. In July 2015, thecompany raised more than $2 million from Indian Angel Network and in May 2017,it raised Series-B funding of INR 440 million.
THE FOUNDINGTEAM
The two college buddies, Binod Kumar Homagai and Sagar Daryani were studying in the B.Com course at St Xavier's College in Kolkata. Both were the ordinary middle-class boys. While Binod had done his schooling from St. Xavier's Collegiate School and Sagar completed his schooling from St James School in Kolkata. These young friends from Kolkata took their first step and cooked up a unique success story by building a fast-food company, Wow! Momo Foods Pvt Ltd.
Currently, Sagar and Binod are directors in the company, withequal shares, a 10 percent stake to IAN and an ESOP pool of 10 percent fortheir staff. Despite their achievements and progress, their feet are plantedfirmly on the ground and their heart is in the right place too. Apart fromtheir victorious journey, they are also dedicated to the welfare of thecommunity and contribute a part of their income to the treatment of cancerpatients; now they are planning to open cancer hospitals for poor people in thecoming years.
AWARDS ANDRECOGNITION
Overall, today Wow! Momo is touching the sky of success and themajor secret of their accomplishments is "Simplicity, Passion and aNever-Say-Die Attitude".
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