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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

#281

Post by schoen »

bambataa wrote: post #216
gyani95 wrote: post #113

Hey! I'm am an expat who lives in the UK. I'm from India as well. $24 for 3-4 vegetarian meals seems really expensive, will you adjust pricing as you scale? How do you plan on preserving taste and the "home cooked feeling" as you scale? This might be an absurd question at this stage, but a friend and I who wanted to get in this space couldn't come up with a good answer. Personally, I just cook a lot of food whenever…

What is this 'tiffin service'? I'm from the UK and have never heard of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiffin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala

(I don't know anything about the U.K. situation.)

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

#282

Post by repsilat »

fusiongyro wrote: post #261
ghaff wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I went to school in New Mexico I generally think of myself as liking spicy food. I tend to favor Szechuan Chinese and I lived in New Orleans for a few years. When I was in the Santa Fe area last summer, I came to the realization after the first night's dinner that I really needed to order the Hatch chile [corrected] sauce on the side or it was going to be completely overwhelming.

> Hatch chili sauce It's just called chile.

The spelling of the pepper and the sauce both vary by region.

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

#283

Post by hashgowda »

Great idea. I wish you nothing but success.

Few points: * If you're targeting Indians. You need to price competitively. You need to make it hard to resist. * Find a village/s in India where you can procure and pack. * Post some videos of how it's prepared (tasty.com style).

Minor website issues: * Fix coloring "Buy it now" barely visible - https://thebuttermilkco.com/collections/single/products/daal * When user selects single. Images should show singles not multiple packs. * confusing product categorization. click on "shop now" on the landing page. goes to https://thebuttermilkco.com/collections/all I could not find "Singles" mentioned the listing. * on the shop menu it displays "Suites, combos, bundles" confusing just keep it simple "combos" and "singles" allow user to mix and match using cart? based on there selection apply pricing changes and let them feel they won a lottery by choosing the right combination.

All the best.

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

#284

Post by subpixel »

ttcbj wrote: post #276

I don't think I'm exactly in your target market, but I have a related problem: We cook a lot of healthy foods at home (e.g. skinnytaste), and Indian recipes are the only ones that never come out. I suspect it is because we never get the spices right. We went to an indian cooking class many years ago, and the woman who taught it hand ground all the spices herself. The results were amazing, but who has the time? If you…

There is no shortcut or workaround when it comes to fresh ingredients. That doesn’t mean you can’t market and sell one, just that it won’t deliver.

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

#285

Post by zachberger »

js2 wrote: post #268
sarchertech wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience non-westerners tend to underestimate the level of spiciness that westerners can handle (particularly westerners who are culinarily adventurous), and overestimate the average spiciness of their cuisine. If it's too spicy for me, it's too spicy for 99% of the population of any country, but it's damn near impossible to convince servers of that.

A bunch of us Westerner looking types went to a Thai restaurant in Mountain View. This was many years ago and I don't recall the restaurant. We ordered some shared dish and were asked how spicy we wanted it, 1-10. We said 10. The whole "are you sure?" thing a few times. They brought the dish out. We said "this really isn't 10 spicy." The server said, "next time say you want it 10 on the Thai scale". Sigh. I live in N…

I've found at Thai restaurants I have better luck telling them how many chilies I want added. I learned this trick when in Thailand. I would order something "very spicy" or "Thai spicy" and I would always be questioned. One waitress asked me how many chilies and I've been using that ever since.

I've settled on 4-5 chilies for Som Tam.

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

#286

Post by justfor1comment »

ttcbj wrote: post #276

I don't think I'm exactly in your target market, but I have a related problem: We cook a lot of healthy foods at home (e.g. skinnytaste), and Indian recipes are the only ones that never come out. I suspect it is because we never get the spices right. We went to an indian cooking class many years ago, and the woman who taught it hand ground all the spices herself. The results were amazing, but who has the time? If you…

You just defined the concept of a masala. A masala is a mixture of dry spices in the correct ratio for a recipe. You can find them at an Indian store. I have also seen them at Target or on Amazon. The recipe for cooking is on the back side of a masala packet. Here is a link to a popular brand of masalas: http://www.everestspices.com/products

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

#287

Post by pen2l »

learc83 wrote: post #270
ForrestN wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you pause to think about why you were asked that series of questions so often? Your experience suggests that the case of a guest overestimating their own tolerance is vastly more common than the case of the restaurant underestimating the tolerance of a guest. Edit: my mother, for example, is constantly enamored of the idea of spicy food, orders it "medium" or even "spicy," and then struggles to eat it.

Warning customers that your food is spicy is one thing. Refusing to accept that your culture isn't the only one on the planet that enjoys spicy food is something else entirely. There are white people who don't like spicy food, and there are Indians who don't like spicy food. There are probably more white people who don't like spicy food than Indians who don't (percentage wise). But if you use this heuristic instead o…

Roughly 10 years ago, I briefly worked as a waiter in an Indian restaurant in the midwest.

Easily, more than 90% of the white people who wanted things "spicy" on the Indian spicy scale could _not_ handle it.

So the heuristic of interpreting the definition of spicy in the context of their background more often than not works out. (If it didn't, Indian restaurants who have been established for decades would have learned and changed their ways)

On a separately interesting note, I'm a brown person... I love spicy Indian food, but I have trouble handling it. Invariably I get all snotty, but I keep eating it. I have to keep a ton of tissues nearby to keep wiping snot, but my god food without the spicy kick is just too bland for me.

I wish so bad that I didn't get snotty every time I ate spicy.

It's kind of embarrassing and disgusting that when I'm eating out with folks, they have to see me constantly wiping my nose.

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

#288

Post by J_cst »

opportune wrote: post #43
J_cst wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mind to share what you eat for 20usd/week and, more importantly, in which region you achieve that? I am in Italy, and I believe that budget would suffice for maximum one day. Thank you

I have lived on that before in the US and it’s not that hard. You just need to buy macro-nutritionally dense food at super markets - rice, chicken, beans, cooking oil, butter, oatmeal, noodles, etc. Of course the problem is that you don’t get a super varied diet which can be problematic both mentally and nutritionally. It can also become a bit harder to incorporate fruits and veggies into your diet when they’re not o…

That's what I actually said: here in Italy I'm spending about 20usd per day.

Thank you for your reply and your insights!

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

#289

Post by tathougies »

sarchertech wrote: post #242
t1o5 wrote: post #200

You will have a hard time balancing the spice levels. You can't satisfy both Indian and non-Indian demographic or you will have to have a spicy, less spicy type of each item. As an Indian, I cant stand the westernized non spicy versions of the supposedly authentic Indian foods. So I wouldn't buy them nor eat in those type of Indian restaurants. Its the same case vice versa. Non Indians may not like the spicy versions…

In my experience non-westerners tend to underestimate the level of spiciness that westerners can handle (particularly westerners who are culinarily adventurous), and overestimate the average spiciness of their cuisine. If it's too spicy for me, it's too spicy for 99% of the population of any country, but it's damn near impossible to convince servers of that.

Also, lots of Indians find Indian food spicy. My mom and aunts and brother are spice nuts. My grandmother will literally eat raw chilis, but my dad, my uncle, myself, and my grandfather, when he was alive, aren't super into spicy food. My uncle turns read and gets sweaty whenever he eats my mother's food, and my dad and i cope by consuming copious amounts of yogurt.

Like, years and years of practice have made me able to ignore the pain and eat what my mother cooks when we visit, but that's not to say I'm a fan of the spice. My wife often asks how I handle my mother's spice, and the answer is -- I ate it as a hungry teenage boy when I was too hungry to stop for water, so I just grit my teeth and power through.

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

#290

Post by selimthegrim »

vram22 wrote: post #267
selimthegrim wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn’t aware hing and lightly spiced could be used in the same sentence.

Ha ha, good point :) Yes, hing is a very strong spice. But it can be a light spice, if you use little enough. Normally just a tiny pinch of it is used. Also, in India, the packaged variety you get from shops is usually mixed with some filler material which makes it less strong. Not sure what, need to check. In a similar manner, for example, some mustard powder out here is mixed with some whole wheat flour (atta) and…

Yes my impression is it’s atta
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