This Pune-based Doctor Turned Chef Chooses Her Passion to Whisk Her Way to Success

We are publishing an interview with Ms. Neha Mathur – Blogger & Recipe expert behind WhiskAffair. She has nurtured Whiskaffair for last 8 years by trying & testing every recipe published.

Neha studied to be a Dental Surgeon, however she could not foresee herself being bound by the clinic boundaries. Right from her childhood, she was fond of food and learnt nuances of cooking from her mom and dad. Early in her career she got multiple opportunities to explore the Globe, from South East Asia to Europe and US and got fascinated by variety of cuisine. She started to document a number of recipes she came across while traveling the globe and felt there was an opportunity to help people experience food as more and more people look out for Global recipes. Whiskaffair just followed naturally and started to garner the love from its readers. Neha is fond of local flavors and ingredients and makes sure to include them in her recipes. To help everyone experience the recipes to the best; each and every one on WhiskAffair is personally tried and tested by her.

Neha continues her passion in trying out traditional, fusion and local recipes and with this research she continues to create engaging content on WhiskAffair (https://www.whiskaffair.com)

Q.: What is the problem you are trying to solve?
Ans: We want to help people experience food. Cooking is fast developing as a hobby and is a great idea to bond between friends or family. Until now the kitchen was used to make similar kind of food regularly and people stepped out if they wanted to eat something different; this trend is now changing. More people travel within and outside India and a number of them get attracted towards the local cuisine. This is especially true with youngsters. When back at home; a lot of ingredients are now easily available in supermarkets which lets you try different cuisine. To have the best quality and to enjoy the experience of cooking, it is best to cook at home and bring those experiences to everyday life. WhiskAffair gives tried and tested recipes to make sure these interested people can enjoy what they like and be 100% sure that their experience will sure be amazing. Each recipe of WhiskAffair is sure to turn out good as I personally try them. WhiskAffair has grown to about 700,000 views a month already and I expect to touch a million views per month by end of the year.

Q.: Tell us about the Product / Solution.
Ans: To help our readers get best experience with a variety of cuisine at home; WhiskAffair gives tried and tested recipes. Our readers are happy because they get recipes which are 100% sure to turn out good giving them best of experience with food.

Q.: What is your USP?
Ans: Most websites out in the market focus on volume of recipes; without thinking about their readers experience. We want to make sure that each person who tries our recipes has the best experience; so we try and test every recipe. All recipes have step by step instructions for anyone to follow easily. We always keep our end users in mind while writing any recipe or content. This quality of recipes content is our USP.

Q.: Please tell us about the investors (if any)
Ans: Whiskaffair is fully bootstrapped.

Q.: What were your assumptions when you entered the market, learnings that you have?
Ans: When I started WhiskAffair, we knew that getting a good recipe online is a big challenge. Right from beginning we have focused on quality of recipes. My journey has proven that it is absolutely essential to maintain quality of content as that is the single biggest lever to make sure people trust you. WhiskAffair today gets more than 700k views a month from its loyal readers which is constantly growing.

Q.: What has been your biggest failure as an entrepreneur and what did you learn from it??
Ans: Not focusing on some essential technical aspects and SEO in the beginning caused a slow start for us. Now that those things are taken care of, we have seen a very strong growth.

Q.: How are you pricing the Product? Explain your thought process.
Ans: For now, all recipes and content are available free for its readers. We want to create a good trust with our readers so they make WhiskAffair as their top of mind recipe website and this model works best for them.

Q.: How did you get your first customer?
Ans: My customers are my recipe users. People started to notice WhiskAffair through social media and started to share the content as well. This is how we started, now we rank high on search results which helps us grow.

Q.: Is there any interesting success story? If yes, please write about it. ?
Ans: My work on WhiskAffair has been noticed by other food startups and big F&B brands. As part of my work I get to collaborate with many of these brands and together we share enriching recipes with my readers.

Q.: What is the big picture of your startup?
Ans: We want to give highest quality Indian and International recipes to our readers. My vision is to have everyone enjoy variety of cuisine, at home; with finest ingredients; and best possible food experience with their family and friends.

Q.: Since inception, give us a sense of the value of business done by your venture?
Ans: We have had more than 10 Million page views since we started, our current run rate is around 700k views a month and expect to hit a million views per month by end of 2019. We have a healthy turnover which helps us fund more recipes content and our passion for good food.

Q.: What is the insight that you have about this market, which no one else has? Uniqueness about your Startup.
Ans: Creating a recipe content is a long journey and many people give up too soon. We have continued with our hard work passionately; keeping our readers always in focus. This has had snowball effect and we have started to grow rapidly now.

Q.: List all the names of the core Team Members, along with their Designated Roles.
Ans: Since we are an internet business, I work with a distributed team. We have content writers, social media managers, video editors and technical support. Each of them brings a tremendous experience with them on managing their individual areas.

Q.: Who do You Perceive as Your Competition? How do you differentiate yourself with them?
Ans: They are many recipe websites; which are a competition; but we focus on best quality recipe content. I also believe that there is enough space for everyone to grow. The important thing is to be consistent and be yourself.

Q.: What would be your goal to accomplish in the next six months?
Ans: I want to hit a run rate of a Million page views per month in next 6 months.

Q.: What message do you want to convey to fellow entrepreneurs?
Ans: Believe in yourself, be consistent, aim high and don’t be satisfied with mediocre results.
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Thanks Neha. Best wishes!