How Licious became a meaty unicorn? 🍤 🐟🍗
The story of really "solving the problem" than just "beautiful UI"
Welcome to the 126th edition of the GrowthX Newsletter. Every Tuesday & Thursday I write a piece on startups & business growth. Today’s piece is going to 94,400+ operators & leaders from startups like Google, Stripe, Swiggy, Razorpay, CRED & more
Every week, ~51% of India’s population eat meat 🍖
Yet, most of the meat category is unorganised 🥺
Here’s how Licious is disrupting the category ⬇️
Quick context 🗓
Launched in 2015 it solved for delivery, quality of meat, order experience & really built a delta four experience. And, that’s after 10s of player tried disrupting this category. It recently raised ~USD $488 million at a $2 billion valuation.
So what did Licious really do?
First, a direct channel with producers 🎯
Over 50% of the meat comes from Licious’s own farm, and the rest from vendors who are throughly trained to produce under bio-secure techniques, leading to zero contamination. This is what’s called the “Licious” edge.
McDonald's does something similar with the raw materials by controlling the process end to end and owning potato farms across the world.
Second, differentiated packaging 📦
Eating, buying, carrying meat is still a taboo in India - and where meat is wrapped in a black coloured plastic bag. Licious took it upon itself to change this sentiment & allow users to feel content with the purchasing, breaking years of stigma attached to consumer buying habits.
Third, control over cold-supply chain 🧊
During their primary research, Licious found the meat quality & its ability to go bad a high concern among it’s target urban buyers. It solved the issue by creating a network of 90+ delivery centers across 14 cities & storing meat between 0°C to 4°C which is the ideal temperature to store cut meat.
Fourth, demand prediction models 📊
Perishable produce is a nightmare for demand <> supply business - and Licious knew this from day 0. With predictable data models to gauge consumer buying habits, uptick and downfall during hour of the day, day of the week, even seasonality effects from weather, festivals - it reduced wastage of goods from industry average of 40% down to 3%.
Fifth, customer obsession & design for trust 💥
The bullseye was Licious “Priority Desk” that lets customers reach out to the customer support team directly. This is unheard of in this category. Stuff like meat cutting to delivery in 120 minutes has not been done by any pre-cut meat brand in India. If you think deeply, the customer journey is designed for trust.
The key insight from Licious story ✨
The first few years of internet in India was all about building websites & optimising for selling product funnel. But, the next 20 years will be all about building full stack internet businesses such as Licious, Zomato, Urban Company. Ask your team, “Is your product really solving for the end to end user experience?”
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