Dear Friends at HBS and MIT Sloan,
I'm Arif Shaikh, the founder of DFC and I invite you to eat amazing curry from dfcurry.com!
what:
price: free
date: Wednesday, September 13, 2017
time: 6:30-8:30pm
where: Elaine room at the Chao building - map & directions
My goal is to expand DFC's delivery of quality curries to the Boston area.
You are used to reading case studies. You will now be writing one.
On a whim, I started making curries in my backyard in Maine in January 2017 - yes it was freezing cold. I started a fire, got some pots, made curries, and bottled them in mason jars - letting them freeze outside. Then I started delivering frozen mason jars to people's houses. When that got to be too busy, I asked people to meet me at the Camden, Maine Post Office on Sunday mornings at 9:00am. When that got to be to busy, I was offered the chance to operate a commercial kitchen in Rockland, Maine, which I now run three nights a weeks.
This whole time, I documented everything I did via a secret Facebook group, the Camden Curry (top secret) Club. It's loaded with videos, writings, social dialogue, and wildly inappropriate humor.
To give you a glimpse of the magnitude of this social phenomenon, there are less than 14,000 adults who live in nearby towns - Camden, Rockport, Rockland, and Lincolnville. Over 2,000 of them are members the CCTSC. So yes, everyone kind of knows me.
I'm proud to say that I've doggedly stuck to my principles.
1 - I make high quality food affordable. The average per person ticket is between $8 and $16. No tips. I use organic spices, and I make my own drinks.
2 - I use 100% compostable containers. You can literally bury every straw, cup, spoon, and plate in your garden.
3 - I waste almost zero food. I built an analytics platform that monitors demand and consumption - we rarely overbuy or overstock.
4 - I am efficient. I built a digital-only POS and an analytics platform from scratch. I wrote the code myself. People order from their phones - it's hygienic and fast.
This digital-first platform enables me to (1) better serve my customers, (2) diagnose my operational shortcomings, and (3) better utilize labor: there are just two employees - myself and one other person!
5 - I value labor. I pay workers between $13 and $17 per hour, far higher than required.
Lastly, I have never considered myself to be a great chef or a Robin Hood of any sort. I do consider myself to be a problem solver.
The problem in the United States (and now many parts of the world) is that good food is expensive and therefore not accessible. Families go to McDonalds for a fast family meal under $35.
I would like to give families a healthier choice by indulging in them in a super food that DFC will bring to their doorstep: curry.
Curries often have over two dozen ingredients, including spices and vegetables that preserve the food, offer your body nutrients, and ward off evil spirits.
As you write history, please see one of my very first YouTube videos. Good food is for everyone.
HBS and MIT Sloan students - I heartily welcome you the DFC curry fest! And if you're extra nice, I also kindly invite you to join the Camden Curry (top secret) Club, the most wildly successful secret FB group in the entire universe.
Your fearless eater,
Arif Shaikh
founder of dfcurry.com
founder of roadslack.com
camdencurryking@gmail.com
damn fine curry
dfcurry.com