Wow! Momo is a fast food restaurants chain in India, that has its headquarters in Kolkata. Wow! Momo menu includes tasty momos, in-house burgers stuffed with momos, which are called Moburgs and desserts that are based on momos. Wow! Momo founders are Sagar Daryani and Binod Homagai, who studied in St. Xavier’s college in Kolkata and are the alumni of the prestigious institution. Business Outreach Magazine brings you the one of a kind Wow! Momo to our avid readers.
Who is Wow! Momo?
The company was founded in the year 2008 at a time when the market of business was slowly taking an upward curve. Wow! Momo has about 425 outlets in India distributed across several cities. Wow! Momo Foods Pvt. Ltd supervises three subsidiaries namely Wow! Momo, Wow! China and Wow! Chicken that was introduced to the food aficionados in December 2021.
Wow! Momo is aiming to be an IPO in the upcoming years and has plans to spread around different parts of the world. The company considers Domino’s and McDonald’s as their market competitors and plans to bring their product to the international market. In the year 2021, Wow! Momo Foods was valued as the most efficient QSR brand based in India. And being homegrown, the company has a net valuation of Rs. 1,225 crore. Wow! Momo franchise is not yet in the picture and the company has scaled with outlets that are being operated by the company.
Why is Wow! Momo successful ?
Sagar Jagdish Daryani and Binod Kumar Homagai, being Wow! Momo founders first met during their undergraduate program at St. Xavier’s College in Kolkata. They just had about Rs. 30,000 in the year 2008 and set out for the venture of Wow! Momo. Back then, they were 21 years old and had a bag full of dreams and hopes. The company initially started in a 6’ by 6’ space Kiosk in Spencer’s retail store along with another kiosk space in Big Bazaar with an agreement of 18% of revenue every month.
The company’s expansion possibilities of the brand, marketing strategies and retail operations were handled by Sagar Daryani. On the other hand, Binod Homagai looked after the quality control and proper production of their product. As the business was ongoing, another alumnus of St. Xavier’s College named Shah Miftaur Rahman, joined the team of Wow! Momo. Shah took the charge of supervising cost control of the company along with managing the finance.
Expansion and Funding
In the month of June in 2017, Wow! Momo raised about Rs. 44 crore from the venture capital firms Lighthouse funds and Indian Angel Network. After about a year, the managing director of FabIndia’s, William Bissell supported the company further by investing Rs. 3 crore in the company. This investment from William took Wow! Momo achieved a valuation of about Rs 300 crore.
In the year 2019 in the month of September, Tiger Global Management invested about Rs. 130 crore into the company, which took the overall valuation of Wow! Momo to Rs. 860 crore. Such a huge support and capital allowed the company to open more outlets in several malls and public places. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, Wow! Momo strategically partnered with Cafe Coffee Day and decided to share spaces of their outlets along with cost and revenue.
Wow! Momo India won several awards that includes Best Dim-sum product chain by Indian Restaurant Congress Award in the year 2016, the award for Best Unique Retail by Images retail Award in the year 2017 and other awards like the Coca-cola golden spoon in 2018.
The prompt-service restaurant chain is growing rapidly in all parts of India. Wow! Momo company is the only one of its kind as the largest supply chain of momos. The dish is very popular in Nepal and also in parts of Tibet and in India. Some of the cities that include the outlets at Kolkata, Bhubaneshwar, Chennai, Puri, Cochin, Delhi, Faridabad, Gurgaon, Bengaluru and many more.
Business Model and Key Takeaways
Sagar and Binod love momos and this inspired them to try for Wow! Momo. And at that time, who would have thought that hard work with loads of efficiency and patience do make dreams turn into real success. The company started with a small kitchen space that had only one table and two cooks, who were hired on a part time basis. The grocery stores that were based locally provided the raw materials on credit and this emerged as the initial business model for Wow! Momo. Devoid of proper business know-how, there were obstacles at first, but if the heart is in the right place, no roads are only made of thorns.
The color yellow was chosen to portray the brand and a unique strategy turned out to be a massive hit, where Wow! Momo gave free samples to their customers to get their feedback. This allowed the company to build trust between the brand and its customers. Several social media platforms like Meta, Twitter, Instagram helped in the promotion and awareness of the brand, Wow! Momo in India. The ease of the internet allowed customers to get Wow Momo online orders at their doorsteps. Wow Momo menu also has their special pan fried momos, steam and chicken momos coupled with options for vegetarians like corn, cheese and mushroom momos.
The company’s most appreciated audience was students and professionals who are working. By having a young and vibrant customer base, Wow! Momo scaled and grew rapidly. The company also collaborated with restaurant aggregators, Zomato and Swiggy to further outsource their product. Exclusive food in the menu like gluten free momos, and momos that are chilled, gave an edge to the company when it came to being creative.
The product offered by Wow! Momo was of higher quality than the street sellers. Apart from that hygiene is better maintained in Wow! Momo than the local momo sellers on the streets, who sold at a much lower price. In any line of business, diversity and consistency is required to excel in an industry. Wow! Momo offered momos in several Indian spices and sauces which brought more options to their plate. Momo chas, tandoori momos and chocolate momos came out to be much appreciated by the customers and Wow! Momo soared further towards success.
Also Read More –
Startups In India – Financial Literacy
