The Leadership Qualities of the man behind Zomato

 Leadership Qualities of Deepinder Goyal that helped him to create a food-tech unicorn

    Deepinder Goyal is a well-known name in the Indian startup ecosystem. He with his colleague Pankaj Chaddah founded the Zomato, a well known food-tech unicorn. He graduated from IIT Delhi and then worked as a Senior Associate Consultant at Bain & Company. 

  Photo Credit: IIT Delhi Alumni 

    So, while working at Bain & Company, they came up with the idea for Zomato (then Foodiebay). They had noted that during the lunch hour, a large number of individuals would practically queue up to look at menus and place orders. Obviously, this used to consume a significant amount of everyone's daily time.

They started a website for food ordering for the employees of the Bain using the company intranet. To their surprise, the website was a hit and received heavy traffic. Deepinder saw an opportunity that could revolutionize the food tech industry. 

Photo Credit: reuters.com 

Here are some of the leadership traits of the life of Deepinder Goyal:

1. Don't compete in a stupid way: He says that the market is very rational. So they are not fighting in a stupid way, they are trying to do the right things. They put their hard work in the right way and win the match. Many start-ups burn their cash on unnecessary things, but Goyal said that we do investments, not burn the cash.
2. Identify your competitor: Your competitor can be different from whom you are fighting in the business. Zomato is competing in more than 13 markets. 
3. Keep Experimenting: Experimentation is a very important factor in a business. According to Deepinder, they give full authority to employees on their projects. They don't put unnecessary constraints on them. So that person at Zomato can always do the best they do.
4. Be Transparent: Transparency in any business builds trust. Goyal says that we always are transparent with numbers.
5. Sympathy for employees: He said in an interview that he had noticed that when you lift all kinds of constraints of your people. When they actually do their best work. So, making them like do something against their will doesn't lead to any work anyway. So you should set them free. Also, Zomato is the first in the country who gives paternity leave to their employees.
6. Hard work and pro-active: He says that always keep an eye on the market. Always be well prepared while launching your business in a new country/place. Working with local founders will give you an advantage because they know everything about the local market.
7. Don't get false confidence: False confidence is very harmful to businesses. Zomato entered Dubai and became very successful in a short time. Then deepinder and other people at Zomato got false confidence in their business. They launched in more than 10 countries and at half of them, they failed.
8. Culture Integration: According to Goyal, the top person in management should always right person, everyone else will follow him. Zomato always tries to hire this kind of person. Goyal says that you can always find good people who are willing to work hard and willing to build from zero to one. Top leaders should become more humble over time
9. Time-punctuality: There is a certain discipline need to make a startup/company work. In Zomato, you need to show up on time. This show that you can work in a team. If you come late and leave early, then it is difficult to work in a team.
10. Be Realistic, Be Badass: Goyal accepts the fact that he tells people things the way they are. This builds trust in the person. He says that the amount of trust that they have in a team is insane. Teamwork is important, respect your team members.

11. Vision: Since Zomato is a food-tech company and technology is changing rapidly. So Zomato doesn't set a long-term vision about his sales and revenues. Goyal says that right now they are thinking about what needs to be done in the next 6 months. They aren't really obsessed about what needs to be done in the next 5 years. 

12. Take no shortcuts to success: Deepinder says that earlier they used to think that there are shortcuts to success, but there is not. Many founders make this mistake and think that they will become a billion-dollar company in the next few months but they fail.   

13. Keep your distraction away: Deepinder has a team of 5 members which keep the unnecessary distraction away from him. Their work is to filter the work before it comes to Deepinder. Keeping your distraction away is the most important thing to be productive. This is when you give your best output.

14. Great execution is necessary: According to Goyal, all business models are alright, but their execution is wrong. This differentiates between the success and failure of a company. Always keep it simple. The toughest task in business is to keep it simple. Don't burn investor's money on the wrong things. Try to do the right things, growth will happen, according to Goyal.  

    Photo credit: Zomato.com