"It was an interesting transition from coding programs to carrying dabba. We started with an order of eleven Tiffins and could only deliver two on the first day," says Pandiya, a Chemical Engineering grad from IT-Banaras Hindu University, 2004 batch. "Having experienced the trauma of consuming unpalatable food at work, which is what most IT professionals get, we decided to fill this gap in the market," explains Rathore, a Civil Engineer from NIT Allahabad. "There is a basic difference between vegetables cooked in restaurants and that in our homes. In restaurants same gravies and chopped vegetables are used in permutations and combinations (an engineer in him is speaking) to make different dishes. At home every dish is prepared specially for you," he adds.

The duo started off by doing an informal market survey before beginning the business. "We used all our contacts in IT industry. We started discussion forums on social community websites about our project. The results were encouraging and thus on September 1, last year we started Mom's Kitchen," adds Pandiya. "Using whatever we learnt in engineering colleges we designed a specialised carrier which was to be mounted on a bike and could carry 36 tiffins at a time," he further reveals. "I think we are the first dabbawalas in Pune, who will have a full-fledged end-to-end e-commerce website," he adds.

Mom's Kitchen has turnover of 65 lakh and caters to 800-1000 orders every day. Interestingly the duo went back to their college canteens to source cooks for their enterprise. "That's because I knew they have experience of cooking for a large number of students. But I had to work a lot on them to make them accept this offer and come to Pune along with their families. Now we have a staff of 40. They are all young, dynamic and are allowed to do all kinds of mistakes and learn from them. We are a family now," says Rathore who feels that the fact that this business at the end of the day is about giving good and wholesome food to people is gratifying.