Behind WOW! momo's ₹500 Cr journey 🤯
Branding is one but what matters is demand density.
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2009 → Wow Momo makes ₹2,000/ day
2023 → Revenye reaches ₹1,50,00,000 /day
Here’s the real story of WOW! momos 👇🏼
Remember the Momo place that you used to go to for those delicious momos?
I am hungry just from the thought of it. The menu was simple - veg & non-veg momo, with the option of fried and steamed momos - that’s all. The price used to be a steal deal at ₹50 - ₹90 per plate. Enter - Wow! Momos. It has over 30 varieties & costs anywhere from ₹150 to ₹300.
But, first, let's learn momo-economics.
It costs ₹3 to ₹7 to make a single momo. That’s around ~₹18 to ₹50 per plate. A typical Wow! location sells at least 200 plates per day. If you make a broad math on real estate and labor costs, it will be around ₹20 per plate in capital expenditure.
So what helped Wow! momo?
1. Brand promise 🚀
The problem with roadside eateries is first hygiene. Second, is the consistency of taste - something McDonald's cracked very early on and now everyone’s trying to replicate it for different fast food cuisines. Lastly, in the eating experience, you will get a place to sit and eat peacefully at the store locations.
Honestly brand is the only differentiator to build preference in a crowded consumer space over a long period of time. So we sat down with Swati (Ex-CMO, Netflix India) and built the CRAFT on “Brand-Led Growth”.
2. Location with right demand density 📍
The density of demand is extremely important for the business model to work. No wonder over 60% of locations is inside malls, shopping centers or food malls. Density helps them break even per location faster. The other insight is opening stores inside tech parks where time to eat is a major parameter for customers to decide what to eat during the lunch break.
3. Online + Offline marriage 🖱
The demand density also comes from Zomato & Swiggy. The stores outside shopping centers are focused on online and walk-in but more importantly, food ordering is critical to breaking-even a store in this case. Wow! Momo is now using the Rebel Foods insight & scaling orders with its cloud kitchen model. We covered the Rebel Foods cloud kitchen model in one of our Wireframe episodes. You can watch it on YouTube.
4. Category Expansion 🍗 🍜 🍦
The demand is tapering as most early adopters have tried the brand at some point. This means Wow! has to solve for wedging into consumers who are fast food consumers but aren’t momo eaters. No wonder, it’s entering the “chicken” category with Wow! Chicken - its competition to the likes of McDonald's burger.
5. Ready-to-eat category 🍱
”Prasuma” - a ready-to-eat momo brand does ₹120 Cr in revenue every year. Wow! Momo is late to the party. Two things need to happen - first, a healthy variant of “momos” needs to be positioned. Second, Wow! Momo needs to be present across 10-minute grocery platforms (where early adopters exist).
And lastly, the insight of snacks 🍪 🍟 🥜
Indians love eating their snacks - maggi, chips, biscuits or even nuts. Because momos need to be fried or put in hot water, it limits their ability to be an easy snack that you could prepare and store - if WoW solves this, it opens up a whole new category of dry snacks. This could help them venture into Happilo’s ₹9000 Cr dry fruits and healthy snacking industry, we wrote about it a few weeks back.
