Meet Sharmila Bhide, the founder of HausKhaas; a startup that aims to redefine your food experience. A chartered accountant who studied management at Yale, Sharmila went on to co-found Calsoft, a software company.
After 15 years of Calsoft, she sought to do justice to her passion for food and the science of cooking; which led to the inception of HausKhaas. Aiding scores of closet chefs live their food dream, she affirms the notion that you don’t need a restaurant to be a chef.
All you must do, is cook a delicious dish and HausKhaas claims to handle the rest..
Talking to us about life as the founder of a food technology startup, Sharmila walks us through a day in her life.
“I always begin my work days at half past six in the morning with an hour at the gym,” she says. “Then I am back home around 8 am when I catch up on my emails over tea and breakfast. Work is especially busy on Mondays as there is a lot to catch up on since everyone is on call on the weekends, when the operations team is working. Any issues that crop up over the weekend need to be addressed and fixed.
“We work with the team to come up with creative concepts, marketing campaigns, etc. I also check with the operations team for any specific packing needs. So this is business as usual at HausKhaas! Generally, we need to plan for any campaign at least a month in advance. I work with the development team to ensure every task is carried out with efficacy.”
Startup Essentials
HausKhaas aids individuals in reaching out to homechefs (think HausChefs) to order freshly curated individual dishes or meals.
Their mission ensures you enjoy a one-of-a-kind dishes that are left out of the menu of most restaurants.
Orders are facilitated online and are door delivered at a click of a button.
Speaking about the idea behind the inception of the startup she expounds, “We believe food need not be restricted to cooking ourselves. It could be just boring sometimes. That being said, eating from restaurants can be unhealthy, recycled or quite frankly- same-old, same-old!
This inspired us to ensure people could eat exotic, genuine dishes made fresh and healthy in kitchens like yours and mine.
“Remember how that lady round the block made an amazing chocolate ganache? Or perhaps the person on the next street made scrumptious jackfruit biryani? HausKhaas makes sure you can order it!” she beams genially.
As we’re a startup it’s all hands on deck!” says Sharmila talking about the work culture. “Our entire team works from home some weekends, taking calls and coordinating with each other. But there’s a lot of flexibility which allows for family time, lets someone sleep-in and still pitch in at work.
“I think we have an excellent combination of skillsets that are need to make this organization work,” says Sharmila who is all praise for her team at HausKhaas.
CEO After Hours
Having done Harvard’s online course about the Chemistry of Cooking, weekends see her experimenting with the science of cooking.
Sharmila admits to exploring the genre of fiction with a good book, when not perusing through a magazine on cooking.
While her duties at Calsoft and HausKhaas keep her busy most weekends, she likes to strike a good work-life balance.
The founder admits that her role at the startup entails thinking ahead in terms of the next campaigns and upcoming festivals.
“Celebratory occasions like Diwali, Christmas or Valentine’s Day demand special menus.
“We even have some food centric festivals like the Regional Thali Festival or Just-Desserts. In each case, planning involves finding home chefs, curating menus that are different and interesting,” she concludes, rushing off to plan the new menu.
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#Pune365 takes this opportunity to wish Team HausKhaas all success ahead!
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