Dairy News
Milkman is a SaaS platform by Mr. Samarth Setia, Founder, Mr. Milkman
Wednesday, 20/02/2019
http://thedairytimes.com/milkman-saas-platform-mr-samarth-setia-founder-mr-milkman/
How was the idea behind setting up Mr Milkman conceived?
The idea of coming up with a dynamic platform came from observing the local milkman who delivered to my house. He had no concrete management of his accounts and would leave it mostly to memory. If there was any change in the delivery schedule or quantity, it would have to be conveyed to him via the building’s security guard, which eventually led to several misunderstandings and incorrect billings. The platform was conceived with a vision to change the perception of the local milkmen to the organized Mr. Milkman.
The Platform built for the local milkman evolved to become the platform for dairies to get digital and automate their processes.
Background of the founder.
I am an Electrical and Electronics Engineer from R.V. College of Engineering, batch of 2015. I was briefly associated with Mu Sigma as a data analyst.
I was also associated with the development of The Campus Connect in 2013, an organization aimed at bringing together campuses and bridging the gap between them.
What is your company solving?
In order to organize a largely unorganized sector, Mr. Milkman is a SaaS platform, which enables dairies to track product lifecycle with real-time analytics and reports of their operations – right from the farm till the end consumer.
In the dairy business, what comes back from the market is just as important as what goes into it. What I mean by that is, there are several components, such as crates, returned milk, glass bottles, etc., which are sent back to the dairies or milk brands. Mr. Milkman also helps manage the reverse logistics in these cases. Thus, from forecasting production to tracking damages and managing reverse logistics, Mr. Milkman takes care of it all. Apart from this, it also aids the automation of processes like generation of orders which are set to go to distributors, retail outlets or end consumers. The platform itself can also detect anomalies and notify the sales team of the dairy in case there are any sudden anomalies in the ordering patterns. This helps plug in the problem of unnoticed losses for our clients.
Explain in detail your business model
Livestock contributes to roughly 4% of the GDP, of which the dairy sector forms a large part. Even though the dairy industry is growing at a double digit CAGR, the sector remains largely unorganized. Most dairies are still managed manually and require a lot of human involvement. Not only is this an additional cost which is incurred by the dairies and the milk brands, it is not a necessary one as these processes can be easily automated.
The dairy industry has always been working on the old principles of B2B, where milk is dropped off at the distributors, who then manages the circulation to the retailers and eventually the collection of money from them. Most of these activities are carried out manually, and even if the dairies do use software to manage operations, they are rarely available at the level of the distributors, which eventually leads to missed data. Our platform tracks all the data received from sales and measures them to give an overview of the dairies’ performance and helps make informed decisions.
B2C or D2H which is the next wave that is going to hit the dairy industry is also completely managed through our platform. Boutique farms across India are ready with premium quality, fortified, unadulterated milk with the service of free home delivery. In most cases the milk is delivered in a premium and beautiful glass bottle packaging or a tetra pack. Consumers enjoy the benefit of milk delivered at home and at the same time have the assurance that the milk is unadulterated as these brands have their own farms, and no middle men involved.
How many clients have you associated with so far? Please share a few names?
Some of the organisations Mr. Milkman has tied up with are, Milk Mantra, Whyte Farms, Amlaan A2 Milk, Himalayan Creamery, Go4Life, Milk Valley Farms, Binsar Farms Creamery, Mookie Moo, Holy Drops, Happymoo, Plenty Kart, Dely Bites Aryaffoods, farm crème, DailyDoodhwala, Vanam to name a few out of over a 50+ client list across India.
Have you raised a Series A or angel round or seed round?
We have raised an Angel round, and are closing our Pre-Series A.
What have been the difficulties in building this business?
Building any business has its own set of difficulties. I was lucky enough to be able to solve most of them at the nascent stages of the business and have had the support to take care of them. I feel that being a solo founder was the biggest challenge I have faced. Managing everything alone led to a mess – I was taking care of everything, from client management to addressing technical issues and even the finances. Although this led to some missed client relations, I can confidently say that I learnt a lot from my mistakes.
When I started out, I knew next to nothing about the dairy industry. The initial product was created with the simple vision of helping the local milkmen and hence was a very basic application, not even a straight-out problem solver. Over time, we have learnt, and the platform has evolved into a SaaS product, but the learning curve was a difficult one as we required a significant amount of knowledge about the dairy industry. Our clients – though not entirely happy about this – helped us a lot by sharing their knowledge through feedback of the product. In fact, our clients have become our largest source of on-field issues which we can help with.
Finally, the last hurdle which we needed to cross was that of having a strong team. Experience has taught me that having a strong team ensures the betterment of your product. We faced issues with this, as those who were working with us, weren’t aligned to our vision and looked to me for constant guidance and decision making. Hiring smarter team members who arecapable of making their own decisions has helped us scale faster! The good thing is that during this growth journey, I have learnt quite a few lessons to help me take this forward in a better manner.
What is your plan for next 12 months?
Our priority is expansion and education. We want to reach out to dairies overseas and explore the options available there as well. We have already caught the attention of a few dairies overseas and they are exploring their options on our platform. Some work is left with regard to making the platform ready for international usage and to make the platform ready for that, is our primary plan for the next 12 months. We are also looking at launching some new products which are in the pipeline.
What is the USP/value proposition?
The dairy industry is one which is constantly evolving and to keep up one needs to realise that automation is essential. As a platform we are growing, advancing in terms of technology and introducing new features regularly. The platform is being built with the cumulative experience of all the dairy clients and hence the product is coming out to be exactly what the dairies really need. The knowledge derived from other milk brands and dairies, helps us to ensure that you go to market faster without any additional effort on your part. Furthermore, our platform is cheap and built to scale. With all these benefits and more, dairies see value addition to their brands if they join our platform.
What is the biggest learning so far in your entrepreneurial journey?
After releasing over 67 versions of our products over time I have realised that it’s never too soon to launch a product. Every time you enhance your product , the previous one always looks embarrassing but that’s how you grow and learn from the feedback of your clients. Reid Hoffman said it perfectly – “If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” — Reid Hoffman
What is your revenue model?
We have ensured that the pricing model is a basic one – we charge for the software use on a per litre processed basis, via the platform. Certain features over and above this are chargeable. This way our clients do not have to worry about any heavy Cap-Ex to go live.
Who are your competitors?
There are a few IT companies out there that we have identified, who had built a custom product for a particular dairy just like any software company does. They sell that product which they had developed for one to others. It is not a SaaS product though.