How Zepto Made 10 mins Grocery Delivery Possible in India at scale with Founder & CEO, Aadit Palicha

The Neon Show

16-01-2023 • 41 mins

The Indian Grocery market was at 396 Billion Indian Rupees in 2022.

Over 95% of Indian grocery stores are made up of Kiranas or small grocery stores.

While supermarkets account for about 4% of total grocery shares, online groceries are not even near one percent.

Which stands as a huge potential market for companies like BigBasket, Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, Zepto, JioMart, and Dunzo to scale.

Zepto pioneered 10 min grocery delivery In India. It’s a phenomenon that took India by storm. And this is a unique Indian offering. Nowhere in the world has 10 min delivery been pioneered and scaled like in India.


And there are very few businesses born once in a decade that change consumer behavior permanently. Flipkart pioneered e-commerce in India, BigBasket pioneered grocery in India delivered in 3-4 days and Zepto has pioneered grocery delivered in 10 mins.

In this episode, we have Aadit Palicha, Founder & CEO, Zepto sharing his journey so far with us.

During the conversation, Aadit also mentioned about his first startup, moving back to India during Covid, dropping out of Stanford, and starting Zepto.

Notes -

00:00 - Intro

01:36 - The life story of Aadit before starting Zepto

02:36 - First startup at age 16

08:18 - Dropping out of Stanford

10:21 - First round of funding from Y-combinator and Nexus

12:30 - Growth & Challenges in Zepto’s journey so far

17:35 - Is grocery a big enough category to build a large enough business?

20:54 - Is it possible to become profitable in this space?

25:50 - Headwinds in their business

28:46 - Going public in India at $10 Bn

34:00 - Where does 99%+ of his learnings come from?

37:45 - Avoid taking a hit on culture as you scale