LETTUS KITCHENS - A short series
Playing with Fire: Valuable lessons learnt building a Cloud Kitchens startup
A capped-series of articles covering the journey of building and closing a startup
What the series covers
- Why build a startup and when's the best time
- Discovering opportunities and shortlisting ideas
- Incorporating a Startup (US/Singapore/Local)
- Finding a co-founder
- Evaluating accelerators / incubators for launch
- Finding Product-Market-Fit
- Fundraising through angel investors/VCs
- Managing captables & employee equity ownership
- Burn management and Financial discipline
- Managing investor relations and updates
- Growing and managing a team of 50+
- Scaling operations to deliver 70,000+ orders
- Designing a Customer Experience across 14+ Virtual brands
- Technology Investments (the Good & the Bad)
- Pivoting a business...twice
- Dealing with an entrepreneur's stress/anxiety
- Deciding when to pull the plug and shutting down
- Handling layoffs and closure gracefully
- Capturing key lessons and paying it forward
- The Road ahead for a Mid-Career Entrepreneur
Who is this for?
- Aspiring Entrepreneurs
- First-time Entrepreneurs going into Fundraising
- Casual Readers curious about startup challenges and overcoming them
- Lettus Kitchens' Followers curious to know what happened
About Lettus Kitchens
- Founded in Jan 2021 and shutdown in late 2023
- Raised $450K from 12 angle investors/2 angel syndicates
- Built 3 kitchens with 5,000+ sqft of space across 3 cities (Islamabad, Rawalpindi & Lahore - Pakistan)
- Operated 14+ virtual restaurant brands and delivered 70,000+ orders
- Made 2 pivots along the way (Started with Cloud Kitchens --> Grew Full Stack Dark Kitchens --> Survived through B2B Corporate Meals)
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My team and I built Lettus Kitchens with a mission to provide access to affordable and delicious food in every neighborhood of Pakistan and empower food entrepreneurs to unlock their potential.
Get a behind-the-scenes view of the rise and decline of Lettus Kitchens and learn about the lessons acquired as a first-time entrepreneur.
20 Articles. Everything I've learned and resources I had gathered.
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About Me
I'm Bilal and for the longest time, I've wanted to build something meaningful (my wife will attest to me pitching a new idea to her every other week). If only she were in VC...
The opportunity finally came in the form of Lettus Kitchens. After 4 years building and growing verticals at Careem, I felt I was ready.
It was anything but easy,
but it proved to be one of the most meaningful experiences in my career.
I'm writing this series to help professionals navigate some of the early challenges of founding a company and accessing the valuable lessons/resources I acquired over time building Lettus.