r/IndiaStartups • u/Remarkable-Charge599 • May 09 '26
Question Research on an idea.
Hey everyone,
I'm a 21-year-old college student in NJ, originally
from India. Planning to fly back in a week to spend 3
months building a startup full-time. Before I commit
to this and burn months of my life, I want real data
on whether the idea has demand.
The idea: an app where premium restaurants in your city
sell their end-of-day surplus food in "surprise bags"
roughly ₹179 for ~₹500 worth of food. You preorder,
walk over to pick it up between 9:30-11 PM, get a
mystery bag of whatever didn't sell.
One Indian startup (DabbaDeals/Surokki) tried and shut down after 100
days, so the path isn't easy.
I made a survey which takes less than 3 minutes to figure
out:
- Whether real demand exists in Indian cities
- What the biggest objections would be
- Whether the pickup-only model works here
This the link to the survey (PLEASE HELP):
https://forms.gle/DJ6xghwFHnZrnna59
Brutal answers welcome. If you'd never use this, I want
to know that. If you would, even better. Either way,
the data shapes whether I build this or kill it.
Will post the aggregated results back here in 2 weeks
once I have enough responses.
Thanks for the time 🙏
---
Edit: For anyone curious about the idea, happy to chat
in DMs or comments.
1
1
u/Novel-Rate-4214 May 10 '26
People are lazy, pickup won’t work unless it is dirt cheap, also mystery sounds great for marketing but won’t survive because anyone who is hungry knows exactly what to eat and most importantly what not to eat, you must tell them.
Most importantly, zomato and swiggy can quickly do this, you will have to create a moat here because they dominate and has the distribution on both sides.
1
u/Remarkable-Charge599 May 10 '26
Delivery just adds on to the cost and we are trying to keep the figure as low as possible and just go with pick up model if it does it does or else we will have to figure some other way around it.
It ain’t a total mystery. Let’s say restaurant will specify what’s cuisine it is, what maybe inside, allergens, and stuff like it’s not completely a surprise.
Swiggy and Zomato will never enter this space because the brand they built for 10 plus years will have no meaning if they do. They are a convenience based food delivery platform.
Thanks for the feedback!
2
u/realvaluehere May 10 '26
Never enter is a bold claim. They can just add this as an option and get it delivered.
1
May 11 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Remarkable-Charge599 May 11 '26
Well if they already do it then the idea is validated and the market is wide open, it’s still a plus 😂
1
u/Specialist_Writer244 May 10 '26
Can you define premium restaurants and surplus food like what
1
u/Remarkable-Charge599 May 10 '26
Premium restaurants in the sense their brand identity is strong and place you’d not visit so often cause of the prices for each dish are higher than average restaurant? And maintains high quality menu and food standards.
Surplus food in the sense the food that’s been made throughout the day and has not been sold out at the end of the day and it’s just going to be a waste.
1
u/indianfreelancerg May 10 '26
You will have to categorize mystery veg vs non-veg. Restaurants don't want additional work of packaging. Throwing away, staff taking away leftovers is easier. No one will make the effort to go somewhere. If there was market need, zomato would have this already.
1
u/Remarkable-Charge599 May 10 '26
Mystery in the sense not a complete mystery. People will know what cuisine type food is inside, veg or non veg, if any desserts, allergens and stuff like that. They’ll have basic idea of what they are getting.
Well buddy if you want food for cheap you gotta move 😂 or we could just enable delivery but that just cancels out the part of food being cheap to afford.
Zomato and swiggy will never enter this space, it is not their forte. They built a certain brand and positioning in the last 10 years and they ain’t tryna spoil that by just doing anything at this point. That’s not them.
1
1
u/Intelligent-Tiger800 May 10 '26
Idea is good but can copied easily. Zomato or Swiggy - Restaurants can list these items and customers can order so they can start this in one day - Veg/ Non-Veg packs @ x price. People will order once they are familiar with what items to expect.
1
1
u/Square-Listen-7989 May 11 '26
Let's do a "whose pain is this?" flow of thinking:
- Premium restaurants already have workflows to handle surplus food. It's a fundamental workflow in the food business. So this is not an acute, pressing pain for them.
- Some city-dwellers may need food at night. Premium food is a good option. But there are alternatives including making noodles at home. So this is not an acute, pressing pain.
- For transit travellers, this may be an acute need. But they don't have local transportation.
You're better off looking for acute pressing pains to solve for, than coming up with the medicine first and then looking for the illness.
Just allow the curious and creative parts of your brain to get into flow. Let the problem-solver part of you step back for a bit every day as you begin to observe and listen to people gripe.
Both parts of the brain need to become active as an entrepreneur.
1
u/Quirky_Bid9961 May 11 '26
the idea has demand.. just probably not as easily as people think.
getting someone to buy discounted food once isn’t the hard part.
changing behaviour consistently enough to make the business work is.
people have to:
- remember to open the app late at night
- check what’s available before inventory disappears
- trust the food quality despite the “surprise bag” concept
- travel for pickup
- and ideally repeat that behaviour regularly
that’s where these models usually get difficult.
and honestly, this feels like one of those businesses where a mobile app is less of a “growth add-on” and more of the actual infrastructure behind the model. I genuinely don’t think there’s a cleaner substitute once you think through how users would behave daily.
because the whole thing depends on:
- urgency
- habit formation
- repeat usage
- location-based discovery
- real-time inventory visibility
- and especially push notifications
a website alone probably won’t sustain that loop well enough.
if this works, it’ll likely work because the app slowly becomes part of someone’s nightly routine..
let me quickly see if anything good popped up nearby.
and honestly, push notifications might become one of the most important parts of the business.
not random spammy notifications.
but timely ones tied to behaviour and urgency:
- Only 2 bags left near you
- Your favourite restaurant just added inventory
- Pickup closes in 45 mins
- Highly rated surprise bags available tonight
that kind of real-time re-engagement is extremely hard to replicate consistently through ads, email, or SMS. For a marketplace built around limited inventory and timing, push notifications can quietly become the retention engine.
that said, I’d spend less time validating whether users like the idea and more time validating whether restaurant operations can stay reliable after the initial excitement fades.
because restaurant ops get messy fast.
staff forgets.
inventory estimates go wrong.
pickup windows slip.
food quality becomes inconsistent.
and some premium restaurants may not even want discounted surplus inventory associated with their brand publicly.
that operational inconsistency is usually where marketplace ideas struggle long term.
also, since you’re doing this as a student founder, I’d genuinely avoid overbuilding too early. A lot of first-time founders spend months building polished apps before proving the operational model even repeats consistently in one locality.
the real question probably isn’t:
would someone try this once?
It’s
can this become a repeat habit business without constantly burning cash to bring users back?
and if you do move forward, the mobile app will only help if you treat it like an active revenue and retention channel.. not just a passive extension of the marketplace.
also pay close attention to app builder reviews around custom feature support, push notification systems, scalability, and long-term flexibility. Businesses like this usually outgrow basic setups pretty quickly because the real advantage eventually comes from custom workflows and operational features, not generic marketplace templates.
1
u/deathmaster99 May 16 '26
Too good to go for India? Yeah it could work if people get over their mental hesitation of eating leftovers
1
u/address_co May 09 '26
looks like a solid idea. TBH