The first Chai Kings outlet opened in Kilpauk in October 2016, followed by two more in December at Mount Road and Anna Nagar, and another in T Nagar. Their IT park outlet at DLF was the 9th and faced entry challenges for three years, but finally with occupants requesting the brand, they got their foothold in. In June 2020, Chai Kings launched their first all-women-run outlet at the Ashok Nagar Metro, which operates 24 hours. Their milestone 50th outlet, located on ECR, is staffed entirely by specially-abled employees who are unable to hear or speak. Impressively, they manage around 300 daily walk-ins, performing even better than typical staff.

IT professionals turn entrepreneurs
Jahabar Sadique and Balaji Sadagopan are both first-generation entrepreneurs. Jahabar recalls,“We were about 33 when we quit our jobs. I had some savings, I said I will quit and see if it works, if it does not, we will go back to work. I told Balaji not to quit and asked him to stay for a year but the minute we started doing this, we found it easier, we had so much time and we were earning well. It worked for us but might not work for everyone, it depends on the kind of person you are, the kind of sector you are coming into and you have to be cautious and calculate.

Teaming up for success
Jahabar reveals how they handle their partnership. “We have been friends for a long time. Business comes first, not ego. Only if both of us are alright with something we go ahead. There were conflicts at the beginning but over a period, we understood each other. Our personalities are totally different, but our skills complement each other. For instance, I take care of the fund-raising, finance, HR, marketing and he is operations oriented and the problem solver. He learnt Hindi to communicate to employees. We update each other.

The differentiating factor
“We are in a space where we can’t differentiate. Tandoori Chai for instance was a short trend. We cannot differentiate in terms of product but in terms of customer service, our menu and speed. We keep the entire operations simple and consistent. Whether you go to a small kiosk in Kilpauk or café in Annanagar, the pricing and offering is the same.

“We serve many varieties of tea and snacks. We never used to keep the recipe book fearing that of those were lost all was lost. But later we figured that it was the whole package that mattered. Our menu items online and offline, how fast we serve, training, culture and handling customer complaints. We need not worry about the competition but we have to watch what they do and the trends. That’s why we launched Coffee Theory and Bubble Tea. There are customers for that, The market is so big there are n number of players, but you cannot faulter on quality customer service. People start looking for other brands once they feel that is lacking. We do not go very aggressive on what competitors are doing.

In 8 years so many have come in saying they will give us ingredients at a lesser cost, but we have never compromised.

What they serve
Chai Kings like their name says serves a wide variety of tea amd snacks. Great combos are Dum Chai and Egg Puff, Maggi and Masala Tea or Ginger Tea. Kutti Samosa is an easy snack. The Masala Tea at Kilpauk Is loved by North Indians.

The winning formula
While there is no hard and fast formula, here are some pointers from the Chai Kings. Without risk you can’t do anything. You can be safe but not too safe. Be safe by having a good amount of savings or having the right people to run your business.

Market timing and the company’s capability matter. A good software coder may not be able to run a software company, that limitation is there. You should know how to take a step back when needed.

A lot of people take up franchisees and then shut down. The reason being that one needs a 100% focus, you cannot work in 2 places. Jahabar adds, “We worked in Sutherland for 9 years, Symantech for 4 years, these are all very big companies and you can’t do anything with 50% commitment, if you start, you have to take complete ownership, that corporate work readied us for. I handle about 1000 employees. Discipline, financial discipline, proper accounts, calculating profits right and taking a certain amount is the way. We ran the entire thing by ourselves for the first 9 months and we knew what time we had to hire, the right team at the right time.”

The investment quotient
We initially invested about 1.4 crores, it’s always been 50:50. We did six outlets and then we raised 2.1 crores with Chennai Angels and moved to 24 outlets. We then raised another 7.5 crores and planned 50 outlets but once we went up to 45, COVID came and we had to use the amount to pay employees.

Challenges
“The difference between the organized and the unorganized sector is immense. The way they interpret and understand what you say is different sometimes. If someone from a corporate promises 1000 rupees extra you won’t leave but here they will easily jump. There, if you just send a mail, everybody will read, here you have to message but it does not get communicated always as some employees know only Hindi or Assamese. We therefore had to work on this. We also need to understand their priorities. Once we got them a good accommodation but they were unhappy, we were puzzled, when we checked the mobile reception, it was poor. They do not use wifi only mobile data so this upset them. We immediately remedied this. Our employees are very hard working but those in the North are given flight tickets to travel home once a year. During festivals such as Bhigu and Christmas, we find a shortage of staff but we handle it by hiring staff with a higher salary.

Future plans
“We constantly update ourselves and buy the most advanced machinery. We plan to add 80 outlets.”