Mitho: Changing The Way Northeast Eats

We learn more about Mitho, a completely bootstrapped, zero-debt, food delivery service based in Sikkim

- Bhairavi Jani

A veteran of India’s 21st century start-up bubble and a fast-growing unicorn are competing in the food delivery arena across the country. Ironically, they seem to be giving one of the most beautiful parts of India, a complete miss. In their early 20s, Kushan Zulca and his partner Fredrick Rai saw this gap as a huge opportunity on which they have just begun to monetise. A conversation with Kushan Zulca, co-founder of Mitho, reveals the story of the completely bootstrapped, zero-debt food delivery service brand based in Sikkim, that is delivering delicious grub from the best restaurants, bakeries and kitchens in the region.

How it Began

Until around this time last year, there was no presence of any big brands or any other unified large scale food delivery service in the Northeast. So what prompted the kick-start of a service that would’ve eventually made its foray through any of the big apps? Zulca reveals, ‘The industry is really fragmented, with small restaurants delivering their own food and a few startups doing a half-hearted job. We want to be the brand that connects all the restaurants with customers at home or office, offering a wide range of cuisines and restaurants to choose from.’ He adds, ‘The restaurants have a completely new revenue stream.’

Kushan is a class 10 dropout, and his mother has been, as he calls her, ‘our main supporter and cheerleader right from the beginning.’ One of the other tremendous support systems he alludes to is the local entrepreneurship community which is known to be close knit, dedicated and involved in building Mitho as one of the most recognised brands in Sikkim. About his friends, he says, ‘were difficult to convince in the beginning as we had never done anything of this scale before but now they are our main support system.’