An Indian chain of fast-food restaurants, Wow! Momo is serving large variants of innovative momos and Tibetan cuisine in a dine-in, delivery, and take-away format.
Founded in 2008, the company opened its first store in Kolkata and has since expanded rapidly across the length and breadth of the country. And, it has today over 200 stores throughout the cities of Delhi, Bengaluru, Pune, Coimbatore, Thrissur, and Digha.
Wow, Momo which was founded with an initial investment of a paltry sum of Rs 30,000 successfully found the recipe for progress and now values more than 100 crore rupees. It all happened because of the strong will and determination of Binod Kumar Homagai and Sagar Daryani, the visionaries.
The founders, Binod Kumar Homagai and Sagar Daryani were in the same batch and course of M. Com at St. Xavier's College in Kolkata. They both loved momos and shared.
As Binod is a resident of Nepal, he naturally had that love of momos while Sagar used to eat momos from street vendors outside his school.
During that time, Sagar noticed that the momo seller was easily able to make quality momos and do variations and it did not take a lot of time. Sohe decided to try working with Momos and shared his idea with his buddy, Binod. Binod immediately agreed.
But the main problem was the money for investment. Sagar took 30000 rupees from his father and started the business and also convinced his family to let them use the ground floor of their relative's house in Jadavpur for the kitchen.
Finally, in 2008 they gave their idea a name- Wow Momo. And, the journey has begun with a 200-square-foot kitchen with one table; two-part-time cooks on a nominal salary, raw materials taken on credit from a local grocery
Fortunately, Binod and Sagar managed to get a 6*6 kiosk at Spencer's Retail in South Kolkata on rent. The founders always had a product-oriented marketing campaign. They used to bring a yellow color for kiosks for promotional activities.
Both used to wear Wow! Momo t-shirt and go up to customers with a tray of momos for sampling. And, as said hard work pays; people started understanding their idea, and on the first day, the company had sales of around Rs. 2000 and Rs. 53000 at the end of the month.
When the company started riding on the success ladder, many big companies offered them kiosk space in their branches. In 2010, the first independent outlet of Wow! Momo was opened at Sector V in Salt Lake, Kolkata. Later they planned to expand it and opened an outlet in Phoenix Bangalore also.
The menu of the company was designed in a way that 7*7 could generate revenue of over 12 lahks per month. Raising funds was never a problem for Wow Momo.
They kept following their model simply with 16 types of Momos and three types of sauces. As the founders were not aware of the formalities of a new business, they had to go through some issues.
In spite, it crossed the revenue of 100 Crore. In July 2015, the company raised more than $2 million from Indian Angel Network, and in May 2017, it raised Series-B funding of INR 440 million.
The two college buddies, Binod Kumar Homagai and Sagar Daryani were studying in the B.Com course at St Xavier's College in Kolkata. Both were ordinary middle-class boys.
While Binod had done his schooling from St. Xavier's Collegiate School and Sagar completed his schooling from St James School in Kolkata. These young friends from Kolkata took their first step and cooked up a unique success story by building a fast-food company, Wow! Momo Foods Pvt Ltd.
Currently, Sagar and Binod are directors in the company, with equal shares, a 10 percent stake in IAN, and an ESOP pool of 10 percent for their staff. Despite their achievements and progress, their feet are planted firmly on the ground and their heart is in the right place too.
Apart from their victorious journey, they are also dedicated to the welfare of the community and contribute a part of their income to the treatment of cancer patients; now they are planning to open cancer hospitals for poor people in the coming years.
The BestDim-sum product chain of Wow! Momo got Indian Restaurant Congress Award in 2016.
The BestUnique Retail Concept Award was given to the company under the Images Retail Award in 2017.
The company received the Coca-Cola Golden Spoon Award under the Best Innovation in StoreDesign category in 2018.
It was again honored with Coca-Cola Golden Spoon Award under the Best Quick Service Restaurant of Indian Origin in 2018.
Overall, today Wow! Momo is touching the sky of success and the major secret of their accomplishments is "Simplicity, Passion, and a Never-Say-Die Attitude".
