With Just ₹50,000 and a Laptop — A Food Startup Went Viral in 6 Months

The Bootstrap Playbook: How They Actually Went Viral

EatSure (formerly Faasos) started in Bengaluru with little more than a laptop, ₹50,000, and a kitchen. Within months, the startup gained viral traction and went on to help shape India’s cloud kitchen wave.

This wasn’t luck — it was focus.

By keeping marketing spend near zero, saying no to distractions, and doing one thing exceptionally well, a scrappy underdog built momentum strong enough to take on far larger competitors.

Back in its earliest avatar — before it became a known brand — Faasos (now EatSure) wasn’t the polished app-based empire we see today. No, it was literally two founders — Jaydeep Barman and Kallol Banerjee — a laptop, a Bengaluru rented kitchen, and ₹50,000 to experiment with. Not even fancy seed funding. Just fifty thousand rupees and a bet: people will order food without seeing it first.

Crazy, right?

And to be honest, that was absurd for 2011-era India. Swiggy didn’t exist. Zomato was still a restaurant listing site. Cloud kitchens weren’t even a term. People ordered through landlines or walked in. Forget “food tech,” this was basically “let’s hope strangers trust a box of rolls delivered by a guy on a bike.”

But they pulled it off. Not because they were geniuses (they are, but you get the point). They focused. Like brutally.

Instead of “Let’s make a multi-cuisine global restaurant,” they nailed ONE thing — Kathi Rolls. That was it. One obsession. One dish done so damn well that customers spoke about it like a secret cheat code.

And that’s where the magic started.

So… how do you go viral without money?

Quick reality check — they didn’t do influencer campaigns, no Google Ads, no Instagram reels (it didn’t even exist). Their “marketing” strategy? Pure, unapologetic word-of-mouth. Plus a tiny trick:

🟡 They placed flyers inside every order.
🟡 Each flyer had a QR, a number, and a cheeky line like:
“Loved the roll? Tell a friend. Hated it? Tell us.”
🟡 And then — the kicker — ₹100 free credit if you share with 3 people.

Cheap. Real. Effective.

Sometimes the simplest idea beats a marketing department.

In fact, the first big viral spike didn’t even come from the founders. It came from a random techie in Koramangala posting on a forum (yep, those old-school chat boards). Something like:

“Tried rolls from Faasos — holy sh*t they’re good.”

That tiny post spread like gossip in a college canteen. People love being the first to discover something. That’s what most brands forget.

Within 6 months, they went from “nobody knows us” to “you haven’t tried Faasos yet??”
Their first ₹10 lakh revenue month?
Still no ads.

Wait, was this luck?

You might be wondering — okay cool story bro, but how does a bootstrap founder replicate something like this now?

Here’s the uncomfortable truth:
They said NO — a LOT.

❌ No fancy office
❌ No PR agency
❌ No menu expansions
❌ No business cards, banners, or “branding”

Instead:

✔ One product
✔ One narrative
✔ One obsession — deliver fast, taste great, repeat

And that’s what hit me while digging into this story — sometimes your real advantage isn’t money, it’s the ability to ignore 99% of distractions everyone else fights.

Startups die not from starvation but from indigestion — too many ideas, too many tools, too many “maybe we should also…

The Bootstrap Playbook: How They Actually Went Viral

• ₹50,000 initial budget
• One rented kitchen
• Laptop + simple website + phone ordering
• Word-of-mouth referral loops
• Flyers and ₹100 credit incentives
• Focused on one hero dish
• Fast delivery → habit building → repeat order addiction

What founders today should steal from this

Look, it’s 2025. Distraction is the new pandemic. Every founder is drowning in tools — AI CRM, martech, funnels, webinars, cold email SaaS (yeah, I know). But sometimes the OG rulebook still works:

Do one thing insanely well — world talks for you.

If you want to dive deeper into Faasos/EatSure, check:
Official site → EatSure (https://www.eatsure.com/)
Founders’ origin story (Medium interview): Jaydeep Barman piece (https://medium.com/@jaydeep)