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Dropped out of Stanford at 19 and built a 60,000 CR company. 1. Everybody called "Aadit Palicha" crazy when he dropped out of Stanford from his bachelor's degree in computer science. But what he decided to do next was even shocking. He wanted to build a startup to aggregate and digitise neighbour grocery shops. ✅ 2. In June 2020, he started KiranaKart to fulfil customer orders through a hyperlocal delivery network. Aadit ran deliveries himself and manually mapped workflows. He even raised 70 lakhs from Contrary Capital, but the model had many challenges. 👇🏻 3. Inconsistent inventory, unpredictable service quality, and lack of real-time control made the model unreliable. Customers expected fast delivery, but with the kirana model, orders took too long. He had to find a solution, and it came in two words - Dark Store. 🛒 4. If they could open a dark store within a 2 km radius of their customers, which would also serve as an inventory hub and delivery centre, they would receive orders within 15 minutes. He raised 1.3 CR from Ycombinator and started. In 2021, Zepto was born. 🚀 5. Starting with around a dozen small, dark stores of about 2,000 sq ft each, Aadit scaled to 1,000 orders daily, with a 12-minute delivery time, within two months in Mumbai. He used predictive algorithms to ensure each new location achieved operational breakeven within 12 months. ✅ 6. By 2021, Zepto had scaled to 100 dark stores. As it started delivering 90% groceries within 10 minutes, it raised 758 CR and grew to a 15% market share but swiggy launched Instamart and Zomato acquired Blinkitt for in June 2022. The battle was on. 💪 7. Zepto was delivering over 3000 products in 10 minutes across top 10 markets in India. But Aadit had to expand- so he experiemented to deliver chai, coffee and other food items in 10 minutes under Zepto Cafe. And it worked - It grew by 800% in revenue. 📈 8. In May 2022, it raised 1530 CR at a valuation of 5350 CR. As it was almost nearing to become a unicorn, it scaled to delivering 300,000 orders daily. It has grown 300% yearly again and was now clocking sales of 3040 CR. And the big news came. 👇🏻 9. Zepto raised 1650 CR led by Stepstone group and touched a valuation of 11,600 CR. It became the first Indian unicorn and quick commerce unicorn of 2023. 🦄 10. Today, Zepto clocks over 17 lakh orders daily in 80 cities with over 1000 dark stores. Nearly 20% of its orders come from smaller towns, and it is valued at over 60,000 CR today. 💰 ➡️Who would have thought that a 19 year old dropout boy would create one of the largest companies giving a tough fit to Zomato and Swiggy? 🙏