ZeroCater, the on-site catering service, has gained revenue of $100M in four years with $1.5M funds from Y Combinator and other individual investors. Founder Arram Sabeti started the company with only $7000.
The San Francisco startup ZeroCater earned $100M sales in four years. The catering concierge was owned by Arram Sabeti which serves companies like Nissan, Salesforce.com and Google. The meal service has food truck, barbecue joint and a taco shop on the side with its own line of delivery crew, reported CNBC.
Funded by Y Combinator, SV Angel and other private investors accumulating $1.5M, ZeroCater served employees by sourcing their meals from local kitchen, private chefs, gastro food trucks and restaurants. The team personalizes menus and special orders for clients including large companies, tech startups and medium-sized customers, cited on CrunchBase.
As ZeroCater is now being known, it has been the target of venture capitalists, but Sabeti can't just jump in and accept offers. For him, everything must be planned carefully.
"The really tricky thing is not getting money anymore. The really tricky thing is getting great talent." Sabeti said finding the right people among the array of emerging companies is very crucial in the business. In fact, he said he hasn't yet found the right candidate for the vice president of marketing position after interviewing 40 applicants.
At present, ZeroCater serves the Bay Area, Chicago, New York City and Washington, D.C. and is very cautious with adding new locations.
In an interview with Zalmi Duchman from Forbes, he found out that Sabeti had been into various blue collar jobs before he put up his own company. He used to joke his coworkers that he'll work until he had his own.
It appears that from early on, he already assumed that he'll start a company. His desire just needs a little funding. That is also the reason why he moved to the Bay Area.
Sabeti explained it just looks easy, but it's difficult to manage. He said he only had $7000 when he started the business and he almost ran out of money for about 18 months. It came to a point that losing a single customer would make him lose his rent pay.
When asked how does he manage responsibility dealing with 100 workers, restaurants and companies, Sabeti said he's looking for a 'cofounder' attitude when he hires people; anyone who cares for the company as much as he did. He pointed out that if you could not find these people, you would not survive the business.
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