The sluggish, painful pivot that turned Pocketfood right into a B2B startup

Omolara Olarerin skipped lunch on most days throughout her first full-time function as an administrative government at a pharmaceutical expertise startup. With a demanding schedule and meals choices situated removed from the workplace, starvation turned one thing she and most of her coworkers managed privately. 

That inconvenience left a query Olarerin couldn’t cease serious about: why was one thing so primary not addressed at work?

Day 1: When starvation feels private

The primary time Olarerin felt really hungry at work was in 2019, deep inside Ikeja, the capital of Lagos, in an workplace with no canteen and no close by meals choices. Contemporary out of college, she awakened early, commuted lengthy distances, and spent most of her workday hungry as a result of she couldn’t afford to order meals on-line. 

“I wasn’t making sufficient cash to be ordering meals on-line,” she recollects. “ And even when I had the cash, on-line meals supply wasn’t actually a widespread factor then the best way it’s now.”

She tried roadside meals close by as soon as and fell sick for 2 days. The sample repeated at her subsequent jobs; both no canteen in any respect or canteen meals that tasted the identical each single day. Rice and beans. Rice and beans. Rice and beans.

Someday, she requested herself a easy query: if giant corporations in different nations present lunch for his or her employees, why didn’t anybody try this in Nigeria?

That query turned Pocketfood, a meals tech platform that goals to simplify meals ordering and supply for company workplaces.  

From JotForm experiment to validation

Olarerin’s first answer was not designed for companies. It was meant for particular person employees members like herself. 

“I requested folks, ‘How a lot are you spending on meals on daily basis? What if I might ship meals to you Monday to Friday, persistently, with out you having to consider it?’”

She created a JotForm, constructed a easy menu, partnered with a personal chef, and launched what she referred to as “Lunch Woman,” actually, a service that delivered lunch. 

She shared the shape with colleagues. They shared it with associates. She posted it on Twitter (now X). Throughout the first week, her colleagues have been utilizing it. Inside a month, she had 15 orders, 3 times greater than she had hoped for.

“I used to be working with supply riders, doing every part manually,” she says. “However I knew in my coronary heart I needed to make this an actual enterprise.” 

The issue was expertise. Olarerin had already failed as soon as earlier than with a startup in college, a platform referred to as JackUp that linked college students who have been handymen with different college students who wanted repairs. It couldn’t scale as a result of she lacked the expertise to run it. This time, she was not going to make the identical mistake: “I knew I wanted assist. I wanted mentors. I wanted a workforce. I couldn’t do it alone.”

By early 2023, Olarerin was making between  ₦300,000 ($207*) and  ₦400,000 ($276*) month-to-month from JotForm subscriptions. However she knew she wanted one thing stronger. She spoke to a cousin, who spoke to a pal, who cherished the concept. That pal gave Pocketfood its first angel cheque: ₦10 million ($6900*).

“It was some huge cash. It was validation. “That was once I knew we have been  in enterprise.”

With that funding, she employed her first employees, began constructing an app, and rebranded from Lunch Woman to Pocketfood. The imaginative and prescient was clear: make office meals easy, wholesome, and reasonably priced. What she didn’t but know was that the market she thought she was constructing for—particular person staff—was about to vanish.

Day 500: When inflation nearly killed the enterprise

In 2023, Nigeria’s financial system collapsed. Gasoline subsidy removing. Skyrocketing inflation. Foreign money devaluation. Nearly in a single day, Pocketfood’s clients might not afford to eat out.

“Plenty of our clients have been japa-ing,” Olarerin says, utilizing the Nigerian slang for emigration. “Individuals who had been with us from Day 1—our highest-volume customers—have been leaving the nation. Those who stayed might not afford subscriptions. Individuals have been saying, ‘I’d fairly eat at residence.’”

The numbers advised a brutal story. Subscriptions turned rare. Income dropped. Olarerin was paying employees, renting workplace house, managing supply bikes, and watching her runway disappear. 

“I checked out our trajectory and knew that if we continued that manner, we must shut down,” she recollects.

She had raised $100k in August 2023. By mid-2024, she was looking at the potential of burning by means of all of it with nothing to indicate. The B2C mannequin of particular person subscriptions was dying quick.

The pivot: B2B or bust

The lifeline got here from a sample Olarerin had observed however hadn’t acted on. A few of her particular person clients have been grouping at their workplaces to separate supply charges. One particular person would order for 5 colleagues. 

“I assumed, what if we work on a bigger scale? If we onboard one financial institution, that’s 1000’s of shoppers for us.” Olarerin was contemplating adopting a Enterprise-to-Enterprise (B2B) mannequin.

It was a necessity. “B2B got here as a sink-or-swim choice,” she says. “The B2C was dying. We wanted a steadier earnings pool. One B2B consumer can provide you as a lot as ₦30 million ($21,600) in comparison with the lifetime worth of 1 person. It was a no brainer.”

However B2B meals tech isn’t just B2C at scale. It’s a totally different enterprise completely. Firms don’t simply need meals delivered; in addition they need meal administration infrastructure. 

Olarerin and her workforce spent months finding out the handbook course of corporations used to handle employees meals. Most relied on Excel spreadsheets and cellphone calls to coordinate lunch orders. Directors would remind employees to select meals by 9 a.m., manually name distributors to position orders, after which chase down funds on the finish of the month. Distributors, typically ready as much as 30 days to be paid, minimize corners. Meals high quality declined, and chaos adopted.

“We needed to digitise that,” Olarerin says. “However first, we needed to stay it. For the primary two months of B2B, we took handbook orders ourselves. We needed to grasp precisely what corporations have been dealing with so we’d know the place to resolve it .”

What emerged was Pocketfood’s dashboard, a ‘digital cafeteria’ that automates vendor onboarding, meal ordering, budgeting, and logistics. Directors can onboard employees, set meal allowances, schedule deliveries, and observe spending in actual time. 

Distributors undergo rigorous vetting, together with style assessments, facility inspections, quarterly high quality checks, and score methods. Solely quick-service eating places that meet Pocketfood’s requirements are onboarded onto the platform.

The result’s that corporations not handle meals logistics manually. Employees choose meals by means of the app. Distributors are paid on time. Everybody eats higher. Even with the expertise, Olarerin insists, B2B is basically human: “What works for Firm A doesn’t work for Firm B. That’s why now we have account managers. They work with purchasers to grasp their wants and customise the expertise.”

The acquisition: Steadiness Bowl and the Fitfarm wager

In 2023, whereas constructing out its B2B providing, Olarerin met Andrea Kamara Dunbar, the founding father of Steadiness Bowl, a fitness-focused meal subscription service. A mentor launched them. 

“Speaking to Andrea was like speaking to myself,” Olarerin says. “Similar targets. Similar imaginative and prescient. Similar mindset round personalised vitamin and serving to Nigerians eat higher.” That dialog led to Olarerin’s choice to amass Steadiness Bowl. 

Steadiness Bowl had what Pocketfood wanted: vitamin information from greater than  1,000 customers, a menu for a neighborhood of fitness-focused people, and a buyer base concerned about health-conscious consuming. Pocketfood had scale, funding, and a tech platform. In August the identical yr, Pockedfood introduced it had acquired Steadiness Bowl for an undisclosed quantity, “to supply an unparalleled vary of meal plans, combining comfort and well-being for our subscribers.”

The acquisition made sense: Steadiness Bowl’s information helped Pocketfood construct AI-driven meal suggestions based mostly on physique mass index (BMI), allergy symptoms, and dietary preferences.

“It was time and probability,” Olarerin says. “It seemed like the appropriate factor to do, and we did it.”

The logistics nightmare and the way they escaped it

For a meals supply firm, logistics is existential. In Nigeria, logistics is very punishing. 

Within the early days, Pocketfood labored with third-party supply riders. Costs fluctuated wildly. “They’d say, ‘Let’s do 50 orders at this value,’ and by Wednesday they’d come again and say, ‘No, it’s elevated due to gas.’”

Pissed off, Olarerin purchased bikes and employed riders. That was worse: “Bikes broke down. Gasoline ran out. Highway officers have been continually harassing riders for paperwork. One week it’s one allow, subsequent week it’s one other. We have been paying for one thing each different day.”

With the enforcement of the prevailing ban on business bikes in sure areas in Lagos, surviving logistics corporations needed to function underneath restrictions. Pocketfood was hemorrhaging cash on supply charges that usually exceeded the meal price itself.

The answer was to cease utilizing bikes and begin utilizing vehicles and vans, and accomplice with Uber, Bolt, and devoted drivers for bulk deliveries. “We transfer in bulk now, not piecemeal,” Olarerin says. “It’s simpler. It’s extra dependable.”

However even that got here at a price. Supply charges nonetheless ate into margins. Pocketfood needed to get artistic, introducing “Pocketfood Go”—a twice-a-week supply mannequin that capped supply charges at ₦4,000 ($2.88) per buyer, irrespective of the order dimension. Prospects saved cash, and Pocketfood might negotiate bulk charges with logistics companions. Everybody received.

Day 1000+: What’s subsequent?

Pocketfood has now delivered over 500,000 meals, in keeping with Olarerin. The corporate works with distributors like The Place, Lagos Buka, So Contemporary, and Merchandise 7. It has purchasers starting from 20-person startups to 300-person enterprises. And it’s fundraising—focusing on angel buyers and partnerships with banks and HR tech corporations.

“We’re constructing an ecosystem round worker wellness,” Olarerin says. “Not simply meals. Monetary safety. Psychological well being. Bodily well-being. We need to accomplice with organisations which are already doing this and create a greater work expertise in Africa.”

For now, Pocketfood is targeted on Nigeria. However Olarerin has her eyes on the continent. Kenya. Ghana. South Africa. Wherever the work tradition is shifting, wherever staff are demanding higher, Pocketfood desires to be there.

*Alternate charges as of 2023.