health is wealth- cyrus driver

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Cyrus quit his private equity job in Singapore to launch

Calorie Care, India's first professional, calorie-counted

meal delivery service. His own battle with weight

prompted the idea of the business!

Cyrus Driver (PGP 2000),Calorie Care

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© Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad

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On the job or on your own? The question just got harderfor recent batches, given the vastly improved placementprospects.

And one piece of advice almost all the entrepreneurs ofthe earlier generation had for today's dreamers is: ‘Don'tjoin a cushy job with a big brand name company. Youwon't learn much there, and you'll probably get addictedto the creature comforts’.

Sitting in Cyrus Driver's cramped little office in Sewri, Ican only think, that theory is wrong. If you have the ideaof entrepreneurship coursing through your veins you willdo it - anyhow.

Cyrus worked with J P Morgan in Singapore beforereturning to India in 2004 to set up the unique concept of‘Calorie Care’. It had been a success but like all earlysuccesses the company faces the difficult task of scalingup from here.

We don't know how he will do it, but the story is importantenough even as a work in progress. Because this storycould be yours.

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Cyrus Driver is an Air Force child. Everyone went the doctor-engineerroute, and so did Cyrus. He joined IIT Bombay. But much before that,as India was opening up in the 1990s. Cyrus found himself fascinatedby business and big businessmen. “I felt these are the real ‘rock stars’and knew I wanted to do something of my own early on.”

With this in mind, Cyrus joined IIM Ahmedabad and that's also thereason he joined J P Morgan in their private equity division. He figuredit would be a great ‘learning ground’, and it was.

“I worked in both India and Singapore, from where we invested in a lotof promising young Indian companies.” The work included everythingfrom hiring salespeople for investee companies, to looking intofinances. It was the dotcom era when a lot of companies launchedwith Rs 5-10 crore advertising budgets. And fizzled out quickly as well.

“I learnt the importance of starting small and growing big. “And I knewmy company should be built the bootstrapped way.”

In August 2004, Cyrus quit J P Morgan and came back to Mumbai. Hehad a nest egg to invest and also an idea to invest in: Calorie countedhealthy meals. “I've always had a weight problem of sorts but after Istarted working it became worse. I knew there was definitely ademand for such a service because I myself had a need for it.”Secondly, it was a good opportunity to be an early mover in a growingspace. And thus was born Calorie Care.

The first step was constituting the product. Recipes which were low incalories but tasted good as well. Sports nutritionist Lisa John workedalong with two professional chefs to create a library of calorie countedrecipes. It took 10 months to put together a database of 150 suchrecipes across different cuisines. Everything from masala bakedbeans in tomato cups to grilled hara bhara (soya) kebabs.

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Cyrus Driver (PGP 2000),Calorie Care

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“Downloading a list of low-cal recipes would take 60 minutes on theinternet as there are thousands available online.” says Cyrus. “Thereason it took almost a year is because we actually cooked and triedout literally a thousand recipes and modified them by trial and error tocome up with 150 that we thought were tasty as well as healthy”.

The next hurdle was getting the sundry municipal licenses required toset up a food establishment in Mumbai. “There is so much corruption!For the first time I came face to face with this whole different world.”

Finding a location to set up his kitchen was also not easy. It took 5months to zero in on a property which met the requirements and wasaffordable. It happened to be in less-than-glamorous Sewri andclinching the deal involved a lot of haggling and negotiations.

Next came the task of setting up a professional kitchen and this iswhat required a sizable investment (Rs 45 lakhs, put in by Cyrushimself). Calorie Care is modelled along the lines of a flight kitchenand at its helm was chef Kamlesh Kumar, who had worked withAmbassador Skychef. And no doubt it is most impressive: gleamingstainless steel counters, uniformed workers with caps and gloves, andan air conditioned area where salads are cut and food is packed.

Utmost care in terms of freshness and hygiene is very evident! “Themeals are even delivered in our own air conditioned vans.”

You notice a lot of attention to detail. Attractive packaging, smalltouches like a napkin with each meal.

But the big idea is, not only are the meals calorie counted but they arecustomised. This means, when you wish to order Calorie Care, youmust first consult their dietician (in person, or on the phone). Next, youindicate your preferences and this could be as detailed as: “I likeIndian and continental but not Chinese. I am allergic to onion and hategreen peas. No salad with yoghurt dressing. Delivery at officeMonday-Friday, and Saturdays at home, please.”“Technology makes it possible for us to handle this kind ofcustomisation,” says Cyrus. A specially written software conveys to thekitchen the entire list of orders daily, and how much needs to be packedfor each individual as serving sizes vary from person to person.

Every meal is packed in food grade containers with individual labels,similar to inflight meals. Of course all this does not come cheap - amonth of Calorie Care meals would cost between Rs 3500-4500. Butclients from the financial services sector (Deutsche Bank, GoldmanSachs and consulting companies) form the core customer base andthey aren't complaining.

“We've found success with well paid professionals pressed for time,willing to pay for health and convenience,” says Cyrus.



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This is certainly an achievement but also an issue. How much morecan a premium service grow, and that too only on word of mouth?Currently Calorie Care delivers 600 meals a day, and caters generic‘healthy meals’ to some corporate houses. The company clockedsales of approximately Rs 2 crores in its second year and some profit- which was reinvested in the business. The issue is: where does thecompany go from here?

Calorie Care entered into a joint venture with Sterling Biotech, acompany launching ‘health malls’. The company also runs health foodcafes at select gyms in Mumbai. But both these activities yield more interms of visibility and brand awareness than any substantial revenues.

“We had ambitious plans of launching in Delhi and Bangalore, whichwe've dropped for now. The problem is finding and retaining seniormanagers. We are finding that extremely difficult.” Money is not anissue, as Calorie Care raised some venture capital. However moneyalone is not enough...

Or maybe it is a question of being in a hurry. Graduating from a small,self sustaining business to a large, multi-city operation with substantialscale is always difficult. A number of entrepreneurs interviewed for thisbook have done it, but not in 2-3 years. 8-10 years is par for thecourse, and it could take even longer. Cyrus, and other youngentrepreneurs, may not be willing to wait that long.

“I am in talks with a couple of strategic partners.This would meanparting with a large chunk of equity but I think we will get much inreturn.” So far the business has grown purely on word of mouth. Butnow it needs advertising, a salesforce to market it and well, all themuscle a large organisation can provide to take it to the next level.

“If you feel you are not growing fast enough would you fight it out onyour own, or would you take the practical path like me and look for apartner?” he muses. “To me ‘control’ is not as important as the brandbecoming bigger. Something I created, living on...”

In fact, he is brutally honest when he says that at present thebusiness is ‘na ghar ka na ghat ka’. And that also describes his owncareer in a sense.

Cyrus divides his time between Calorie Care and working as the Indiahand for ‘Helix investments’, a PE firm looking for companies to investin India. “I don't take a salary from Calorie Care, whatever profit wemake is put back into the business. Helix is what pays my bills,” hereveals.

Again, this is something many entrepreneurs do to keep their dreamalive. But one can't help wondering, is giving 50% of your time andenergy to a young business enough?



This is a good time to start up but keep in mind, the oddswill be against you. You must carefully plan how you willbe financially sustainable. Create a nest egg to draw onor, like me make sure you have some alternate source ofincome. The other option is to set up after 10-15 yearswhen you are an industry expert.

Start small and then expand, after you feel you have theproduct and processes right.

It's good to be a consumer of the product you areplanning to launch, as you don't need to do endlessmarket research. You know what will sell.

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There are many unanswered questions and answers as varied as theCalorie Care's customised meal plans. What works for one companymay not for another.Calorie Care has lessons and learnings which willbe evident - but all in due time.



health is wealth- cyrus driver

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