Generation Start-up: How Akeed is transforming the online food delivery business in Oman
Starting Oman’s first online food delivery platform Akeed was not easy for its founders. Gaurav Nahar, Moosa Al Lawati and Darshan Puranik struggled with a number of issues from lack of funding to a shortage of workers at the time of its launch. “I remember I spoke to about 40 investors before I finally got one investor who believed in our vision and believed in the kind of value that we wanted to bring to the market,” Mr Nahar says, remembering the initial days of the company. The start-up also experienced staff shortages in the initial days as the founders worked to build it up. “Myself … Darshan all of our team members, used to even work as drivers because initially, we were short on drivers. We used to wait till evenings for some orders and do the deliveries.” “We also worked in all the other departments, like the call centre [to receive orders], marketing, developing everything … the setup initially.” Akeed — an Arabic word that means “sure” in English — overcame th...