"Leadership, for me, is emphasizing the needs of a customer and the team and building a bridge between the two,"
Nishanth Chandran, Founder and CEO, TenderCuts
Change is inevitable and can force a well-brainstormed business plan like that of the serial entrepreneur Nishanth Chandran's second venture TenderCuts, originally designed to be an e-commerce platform to navigate and transition to a truly omnichannel mode.
Nishanth, who has steered through a responsibility-driven journey of leading 8 people to 800 people today in his entrepreneurial leadership, leveraged his visionary insight to foresee the future of TenderCuts.
The leader in his search to cater to the meat consumers discovered a vital fact. Customers rightfully prefer freshly cut meat and trust local stores for the same. In an adventurous journey to deliver the freshest meat, he went on to brainstorm a friction-full solution.
Soon, Nishanth came up with an omnichannel model which allowed customers to choose products and get them freshly cut from the nearby store through both retail orders and online orders. Today, the brand is renowned as a unique startup altering the industry.
"I don't know what the comfort life looks like. I have always believed that the biggest risk is taking no risk. Not all risks will be beneficial, but some will pay-off enough and beyond to balance out the other risks."- Nishanth Chandran
Nishanth Chandran devoted 22 years of his life to entrepreneurship and leadership. At 16, he became well-versed with software and website development through the Tamil Nadu government-subsided computer he received.
As he ventured to become a financially independent graduate and entrepreneur, Nishanth discovered it was a non-viable payment experience in existence. He saw an opportunity to solve the problem he faced and went on to start payment gateway in 2005, which was successfully sold to a Europe nestled company in 2013.
During his time in Europe, Nishanth, who usually enjoys continental food, travelled back to his comfort food to soothe his Indian palette and took the task to cook for himself with Indian Masalas. A Eureka moment followed when Nishanth went to the market to buy meat, especially chicken and realized that India has transformed on various fronts, and the fresh meat industry was still unchanged.
As he came back to India, with an idea and an entrepreneurial DNA, he put his visionary insight into action and ideated to create a platform that would become the next-generation venture, TenderCuts.
"One of the first few name suggestions, during our brainstorming session, was Get Fresh Meat, which is still our legal brand name, GFM Retail Private limited. However, it never seemed like a brand name. We realized a perfect name would be TenderCuts as meat is always marked as 'tender' while it is valued based on its 'cuts'," Nishanth shared the story behind TenderCuts' name.
Getting their first store was a challenge for Nishanth. As he targeted sizable stores, landlords were unable to relate with the TenderCuts model and rejected his proposal. He knew, convincing the first landlord was a cumbersome task and once he achieved that, he never looked back.
Parallelly, butchers had to unlearn hygiene standards and adopt new ones which resulted in a major pushback. Nishanth had to make this work as he did not have the luxury to train someone from the ground up. As customers appreciated the hygiene, butchers eventually synced with the Nishanth's vision.
As quality is the heart of TenderCuts, their QTT model comprising elements like quantity (offering right weight), temperature (using technology to ensure the right temperature), and time (tracing the product to farms) ensures high quality.
TenderCuts works with controlled products sourced directly from the farms. The brand is the highest-rated brand in the meat industry commanding quality in sourcing, processing, and delivering.
Nishanth robustly puts his trust into the win-win situation mantra where he believes "you have to always make people win." Nishanth has scaled up a small business into an 800 member-led team today by focusing on creating a scalable structure. While building any team, for example, a store team, the first of few hires should have the potential to manage five stores. He believes those are the growth pushers for the company.
He shared a Steve Jobs saying to reinforce his point of hiring better employees, "A players attract A players. B players attract C players." He shared, "Leadership is all about understanding people, objectives, and understanding evolution of ideas of today. Today, while people prefer to buy meat offline, I remember, similar was the trend with groceries a few decades back. As our GDP and disposable income increases, food is the first industry to reap benefits. See a vision and follow it up with a great team."
"I have been privileged to evolve as an entrepreneur and target on understanding the clientele and then aligning the team with the same" – Nishanth Chandran
The first step towards building the TenderCuts team was taken by conversing with a food safety expert. After she came on-board, Nishanth focused on operations, for which, he visited the evolved retail market and contacted talents who have experience in managing retail supermarkets with 10,000 SKU (Stock Keeping Units) to easily handle the limited number of SKUs at TenderCuts.
Afterwards, he ventured into the unorganized stores where he met experienced butchers and offered them an opportunity to change the way they sell meat and shift to a better model than the current one.
"Find out a large problem and don't focus on solving it, rather focus on building a structure which will solve it. Keep improving the structure and success follows." Nishanth shared
He continued and credited the people working behind TenderCuts for the success of the brand. Our hardworking team deserves credit for the success, who has toiled day and night to ensure seamless client satisfaction. These are followed by the farmer and fisherman community, who have collaborated with us."
He added, "Last but not the least, our customers, who showered their love through positive feedback and even critics. We, at TenderCuts, endeavour to understand and solve these issues from its core highlighted in the critics."
The omnichannel platform offers a challenging and an excitement filled day for TenderCuts' growth-driven employees. Given their approach to taking the brand to newer heights and the growth that follows this passion, every TenderCuts employee receives a promotion every year.
The brand deploys employee engagement programs targeted to Butcher Cutting League, an initiative wherein butchers from the TenderCuts stores compete every Saturday to cut the highest amount of meat at the fastest speed to win the tournament. From fastest cutting to fastest packaging to fastest delivery, and highest customer satisfaction scores, multiple approaches are used to successfully motivate the employees of TenderCuts
"Find a large problem, be focused, stay frugal, and make history" – Nishanth Chandran's advice to next entrepreneurs
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