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Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

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Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

#91

Post by vram22 »

neya wrote: post #69
mitraraman wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad you asked! We have a few key differences: - MTR provides just the spices, you have to bring everything else. This includes vegetables/meat, seasoning, additional spices, oil/salt, etc. Our products include all of this so that the only ingredient you add is water which makes it much more convenient. - Our packets are 100% fresh and don't have any preservatives, whereas existing packaged Indian foods are packed wi…

> MTR provides just the spices, you have to bring everything else. This includes vegetables/meat, seasoning, additional spices, oil/salt, etc. Our products include all of this so that the only ingredient you add is water which makes it much more convenient. Sorry, this is not accurate. If I buy an MTR Sambhar rice, or Paneer masala, everything is included. I just need to heat it and eat it. > Our packets are 100% fre…

>They use a combination of food engineering and package engineering to preserve the food without using preservatives.

I don't know specifically about Haldiram's or MTR (I might have tried out MTR Indian food ready-to-eat packs), but some others that I used to buy and eat sometimes (I forget the name, it may have been from an ITC group company - the Indian food and tobacco giant), mention on the package that they use DRDO-licensed technology. DRDO is an Indian defence-oriented R&D organization of the Indian government. The technology was originally developed for soldiers on the field. So likely made in such a way as to last long, and could account for its not tasting that good, and not as good as the same item, but freshly made (obviously).

Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

#92

Post by EvilEndures »

mitraraman wrote: post #87
EvilEndures wrote: post #58

This seems like you are working off of TastyBite's playbook: http://tastybite.com/products/ > The options were expensive, time-consuming, or tasted horrible. Tasty bite tastes decent, takes 60-90 seconds to heat up, and costs about $3/package with no need for refrigeration. --- This seems like a YC to clone TastyBite without any differentiation beyond the nebulous "quality food". So.... Are you telling me your qualit…

TastyBite is definitely a similar product/company. The key differentiators are: - Our products are fresh and don't have any preservatives, meaning they must be refrigerated or frozen whereas TastyBite is shelf-stable for 9+ months. Our food is inherently fresher and tastes more homemade because of this. - Our recipes are crowdsourced instead of developed in our kitchen. This ensures that the food is actually authenti…

So you are going to market as an upscale version of TastyBite with no preservatives that sells niche Indian food?

I wish you the best of luck with that.

Personally, I find a package of Vindaloo from TastyBite, some riced veggies, and a shredded chicken breast lasts me about 2 meals and is comparable to the price you are charging. I really only use TastyBite as a backpacking/on-the-go meal or as a quick curry out of laziness. I'm probably not your target market but shelf stability has alot going for it.

Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

#93

Post by mitraraman »

koala_man wrote: post #78

Right up my alley. Thanks for using Amazon/Paypal/Google checkout integration properly, and not just to pre-fill some info while making me create Yet Another Shopping Account. One bug: the Amazon cart discarded my old items after I added new ones. Steps to reproduce: 1. Add a sampler to the cart 2. Try to check out using Amazon 3. Discover that shipping is $6, or free shipping at $35+ 4. Go back and add a few more it…

Thank you, happy to make the shopping experience easier for you!

Very sorry to hear about that issue and thank you for the debugging instructions. We will look into it immediately!

Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

#94

Post by EvilEndures »

autarch wrote: post #89
EvilEndures wrote: post #58

This seems like you are working off of TastyBite's playbook: http://tastybite.com/products/ > The options were expensive, time-consuming, or tasted horrible. Tasty bite tastes decent, takes 60-90 seconds to heat up, and costs about $3/package with no need for refrigeration. --- This seems like a YC to clone TastyBite without any differentiation beyond the nebulous "quality food". So.... Are you telling me your qualit…

Except Tasty Bite tastes terrible. There's another competitor making the same thing (sealed cooked food, no water needed) Maya Kaimal that is _much_ better. It actually tastes good.

Personally, I enjoy Tasty Bite curries. It may not be the perfect authentic Indian dish you get at a good restaurant but I find at its price point there isn't any real competitor for my $$.

Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

#95

Post by mitraraman »

vram22 wrote: post #85
mitraraman wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you! Definitely -- we are a Seattle-based company so we have a huge community of campers and hikers eating our meals! Our products are not actually dehydrated, so they are great for 1-day hiking and camping excursions but not for much longer unless you're able to keep them cool. That is a great point, and we will definitely update our website to make the nutritional information more readable.

Mentioning on the packaging and/or site, how you make the product dry (after assembling and cooking it), may be of interest to readers (unless you cannot because it is some proprietary technique). I know I would be. Just a thought.

We don't actually dry or dehydrate our products in any way, but can definitely include more information on how we create and package our products.

Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

#96

Post by mitraraman »

mortenjorck wrote: post #56

As a non-Indian who loves Indian cuisine, I’m intrigued to see some dishes I don’t recognize from the usual options at restaurants and in packaged goods. Are some of these regional specialties?

Yes! Most of our starting dishes are South Indian and we are expanding into other regions soon! Our goal is to make authentic dishes more accessible so happy to do so :)

Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

#97

Post by erikpukinskis »

I haven’t tried the food, but it seems like you are making real, high quality food. I think the “ship fresh” angle is interesting and worth experimenting with. I wish you the best and will follow the journey on Instagram!

Others in this thread seem dubious that quality could be a differentiator, but I think you should double down on that. It’s not just ingredients, but technique that makes food delicious and if you can truly scale proper par-cooking technique, that will be a strong core for your business, and difficult to copy from the outside.

I also think you are absolutely correct to focus on a core market who loves real Indian food. There’s no price you can put on your family’s home cooking, which makes it a good market for you to start in low volume.

Just a random idea as you grow: you might try supporting an “experiment community” the way Soylent did. I think that forum became https://www.completefoods.co. They encouraged people to share and develop their own recipes.

In the long term, you will need to compete against “monoculture” brands who are selling one size fits all products. Because you aren’t storing inventory, you will be positioned to sell a wider selection of products, even short runs of one-off special foods. Could be another differentiator.

Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

#98

Post by ajacksified »

neya wrote: post #69
mitraraman wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glad you asked! We have a few key differences: - MTR provides just the spices, you have to bring everything else. This includes vegetables/meat, seasoning, additional spices, oil/salt, etc. Our products include all of this so that the only ingredient you add is water which makes it much more convenient. - Our packets are 100% fresh and don't have any preservatives, whereas existing packaged Indian foods are packed wi…

> MTR provides just the spices, you have to bring everything else. This includes vegetables/meat, seasoning, additional spices, oil/salt, etc. Our products include all of this so that the only ingredient you add is water which makes it much more convenient. Sorry, this is not accurate. If I buy an MTR Sambhar rice, or Paneer masala, everything is included. I just need to heat it and eat it. > Our packets are 100% fre…

> seems like there isn't much difference between ordering from a decent Indian restaurant and you guys

I know it seems absurd on HN, but there are people who live in areas without decent Indian restaurants.

Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

#99

Post by mitraraman »

staunch wrote: post #83

I checked just a few items and saw 910mg, 1220mg, 1430mg, and 1760mg of sodium per serving! That's an incredibly high amount of sodium. It would probably be unhealthy for most people to eat one per day, let alone 2-3. Maybe you can do something about lowering the sodium levels, but until then I don't think "healthy" is a fair word to use.

Yes definitely. We are actively working on creating low-sodium options of these dishes. Unfortunately, the sodium comes from the traditional Indian spices used in each dish so it's an intricate process to adjust the levels and keep the same quality and taste.

Re: Launch HN: The Buttermilk Company (YC S18) – Homemade Indian Food in 5 Minutes

#100

Post by vram22 »

elhudy wrote: post #32

Mitraraman, The website has a really clean look - it makes the product seem delicious and authentic. The minimalist design compliments the minimalism of the product. I would be careful with identifying your target market. I live in Chicago, which I believe has one of the highest percentages of Indian immigrant populations in the nation. This might seem like your target market - but in fact the large percentage of imm…

>It might be worth consolidating all of the different packages and their ingredients lists on a separate page

Agreed. And also may be worth putting all the nutritional information (I mean what ingredients are used, and all - not some - of them, and in what percentages or weights - again, for all), on the food packages themselves. Saying this because a pet peeve of mine about Indian products here is that many of them put such info for some, but not all of the ingredients. Common example: Haldiram snacks: they often mention many ingredients, but the labeling can go like this: Peanuts (8%), gram flour (12%), rice flour (no number given), and so on. I mean what the heck is the use of putting that info, then? if a person wants to know that info, they want to know it for all ingredients, not just some, for their health or whatever other reasons.

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