The crazy story of Goli Vadapav!

Goli vadapav, naam to suna hi hoga! With over 300+ outlets all over India, Goli vada pav is India’s own “hollow” fast-food chain”. Why hollow? More on that in a moment. This podcast revolves mainly around the journey of its co-founder, Venkatesh Iyer and the crazy story of building Goli.

Venky’s family was like any other typical South Indian family. It valued education, not risk-taking. His father used to work for Coalgate. Likewise, all his relatives worked in big multinationals. But he thought differently. Actually, Venky too did a job for 15 yrs before starting Goli vada pav.

He, being a Bcom graduate, tells that he knowingly didn’t get good grades in college, because if he got, he would have done CA or an MBA afterwards and have been like the rest.

His job was as an investment banker. So basically, his job was to help aspiring entrepreneurs raise money for their businesses by giving out loans. He was among one of the people who were involved in the process of raising money for Kishor Biyani, the founder of Big bazaar when it was just an idea. He tells that every day his work was to listen to the stories of entrepreneurs and their dreams, which ultimately made him start his own business with his colleagues at the age of 38.

He started with vada pav stores in the suburbs of Mumbai and put all of his savings of Rs 1 crore into the business, facing criticism from his family. They had around 15 stores in Mumbai initially. Problems kept on coming and they kept on moving further.

But, Venky had big dreams, he wanted to make Goli vada pav a brand. So, he had an idea. Now, Mumbai has something called aarey milk booths. (It is a milk producers association backed by the government). There are hundreds of these milk stalls all over Mumbai that operate just for 2 hours every day to sell milk. venky’s idea was to convert these milk booths into Goli vada pav stores while selling milk simultaneously. And in just a day, Goli vada pav added 350 stores to its name.

This seems like a masterstroke, right?

But picture abhi baki hai mere dost!

All this happened when there were elections in the year 2008–09.

Now, aarey milk booths were supported by a particular political party( you may guess that?)

And at that time an issue was raised about a madrasi person selling Maharashtrian food in Mumbai. (Venky was from South India)

Aur phr kya, the vada pav caught itself in a political storm. Goli had to shut down its operations in aarey booths, they lost their first round of funding, the world was facing a severe financial crisis at that time, and they had no money. Did all end then?

No, climax abhi bhi baki hai

The politics of vada pav during elections caught media attention and Goli got free media coverage. Every major newspaper covered this and people came to know about Goli.

That led them to get calls from all over Maharashtra and India for opening their stores in other cities. And thus Goli became a hit!

Wasn’t this an interesting story? It was destiny as Venky says in the podcast.

Venky repeatedly reminds us that agar tum kisi cheez ko dil se chaho … to puri kainaat usse tumse milane ki..

Why is Goli Vadapav a hollow company?

Goli vadapav is a hollow company because they don’t do anything, they outsource everything.

From the pav to the tikki to chutni, they don’t even own the vehicles and cold chain.

They have a standardized process just like McDonald’s..the vendors who make the Tikki for McDonald’s and Goli are the same!

So what Venky holds is the idea of connecting all this, that’s what the big multinational companies do.

Listen to the full podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCxVwtqnEiQ&t=3125s