Conversations with Shikhar and Nidhi Singh, Co-Founders of Samosa Singh
Tell us about your best and worst days at work
Shikhar and Nidhi: Being an entrepreneur means that you often have to blaze through many challenges. We love going to work, interacting and seeing the team and business evolve and grow. Every day brings new challenges and we follow our ikigai at work—so most of the days are good days where we seek, learn and evolve together.
Definitely, nothing beats the excitement of seeing your start-up grow.
Some days are tougher and you need to hold on to it. We have and are seeing our share of challenges and hurdles. But certainly not meeting the customers’ expectations or not being able to fulfill any demand is the worst nightmare. We are working to ensure that no further worst days come or at least we are prepared to challenge and be able to change that.
What do you do when you’re not at work?
Shikhar and Nidhi: It’s imperative to leave behind work for sometime and spend some time doing something other than work.
We love indulging in our hobbies and other activities when not at work, which includes, cycling, hiking, gardening, traveling and watching movies.
What is unique about your business?
Shikhar and Nidhi: Samosa Singh was born from a simple realisation – in India, leisure time and snack foods are both inextricably linked to the country’s cultural fabric. And what food better exemplifies our country than the versatile samosa.
Our strong product differentiation (Delicious & Crispy with Flavorful Crust, Healthier alternative) is our biggest value proposition. What makes us different is the fact that we are bringing back something which is very Indian in its roots. Samosas and other Indian snacks are deeply ingrained in our eating habits. It's not just about the taste it's also about the whole nostalgia of consuming something every Indian kid has grown up eating.
We are one of the biggest manufacturers of samosas in South India and our model is highly scalable.
Samosa Singh is the only Indian snacking startup with a scientific core team with 100,000 + research hours behind its products.
If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be?
Shikhar and Nidhi: Always keep the big vision in sight, persevere, have a plan but be flexible to carve out a way through obstacles when faced, and most importantly embrace your expertise and own it completely.
How do you define success?
According to us, success is progression. Every day you get a little better than the day before. Being able to contribute and be happy about it.
What is your favourite aspect of being an entrepreneur?
Shikhar and Nidhi: Being able to bring about the change. Being able to be responsible. Seeing your company, team and organization grow and evolve.
It's fulfilling to create a brand and a strong team of like-minded people with you with a clear vision and being able to do what you love!
What book has inspired you the most?
Shikhar and Nidhi: Ikigai by Albert Liebermann and Hector Garcia and Leader: 50 insights from mythology by Devdutt Pattanaik
If you had the chance to start your career over again, what would you do differently?
Shikhar and Nidhi: Maybe start a little early! We think so much about the right time to embark on our entrepreneurial journey—but there is no right time and you must start NOW! So maybe if given another chance, we would start a bit early.
Where do you see yourself and your business in the next 5-10 years?
Shikhar and Nidhi: Our vision, “India’s SnacKing with Samosa Singh” We are on the quest to make Samosa Singh a household name.
Through Samosa Singh we’ve found a way to strengthen the bond our country shares with food and by positioning ourselves as leaders in the underpenetrated and fragmented Indian snack market, we are poised for immense growth. We are biting into and fighting for the Indian snacking industry to now take on world domination.
How has COVID impacted your business? How did you deal with it?
Shikhar and Nidhi: COVID has been tough on everyone. Thankfully food falls under the essential category and we were working throughout the lockdown phase. Our front liners (retail staff, production workers etc.) have been our pillar of support and we were together throughout the pandemic. Extra care was taken throughout and stringent processes followed to ensure staff and customer safety.
The most important lesson we learned during COVID was to be self-reliant and manufacture everything in-house to ensure smooth operations. During Lockdown, when resources were scarce—we leveraged our expertise and managed to identify our spare capabilities which made our company self-reliant. Moreover, with self deep analysis of all our business verticals, we were able to optimise our processes with a lean yet efficient team, thereby enabling us to create a positive impact on the bottom line. This not only improved our cost metrics but also made us self-reliant thereby ensuring smooth operations.
Share a story/experience about the impact of your company that brought a smile on your face.
Shikhar and Nidhi: What we always knew is that Indians love snacking and Samosa is the most preferred snack for over two decades without any heavy advertisements & corporate backing. There are many food outlets that promote International snacks like pizza, burger etc., yet our humble samosas and chaats remained unorganized.
Another major reason why people preferred these snacks over Indian snacks is because of the ‘cool factor’. Making our humble samosa cool again and changing people’s perception is gratifying. We had humble beginnings, got our customers love and are growing to match up to their expectations. Till date we have sold over 25 million samosas and counting.
Grew from a team of 4 to 150 and over 25 locations
It is satisfying to see our team strength grow from 4 to 150 spread across 25 locations. It is even more gratifying to see team members grow in their roles. For. e.g. our first cook who joined us has now grown from a cook support to production manager. It's pleasing to see the team grow and evolve.