Wotu
An online B2B marketplace for food commoditiesOverview
Wotu was India's first online business-to-business (B2B) food tech marketplace, pioneering the use of mobile technology to connect farmers directly with buyers in the food and beverage industry.
This revolutionary platform provided a one-stop procurement portal for buyers, offering a wide variety of products like fruits, vegetables, pulses, grains, meat, and poultry.
For sellers, Wotu unlocked access to a larger market, enabling them to expand their businesses and reach more customers. By empowering farmers and streamlining the food supply chain, Wotu contributed to increased efficiency and reduced food waste in India
Wotu Technologies was acquired as Hyper Pure by Zomato in 2018
ROLE
Product Designer, Core team member
Product strategy, User research, Interaction design, Visual Design, Information Architecture, Branding, Investor Pitching, Events
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Jan 2017 - April 2018
Product Designer, Core team member
Product strategy, User research, Interaction design, Visual Design, Information Architecture, Branding, Investor Pitching, Events
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Jan 2017 - April 2018
Driven by a passion for social impact, I invested significant personal time in this project, collaborating closely with the founders to build their vision. My contributions included UX design, user research, and product strategy, ultimately contributing to the successful launch of the platform.
I collaborated with Wotu as the sole product designer when it was a small team of 2 co-founders, 1 Operations Analyst, 1 Business Analyst.
Results first
As the first rays of dawn break over Bangalore, a fleet of Wotu vans awakens at the company's bustling facility. Over 18 vans are loaded with crates brimming with fresh produce. This ensures that over 1,000 restaurants across the city have the freshest ingredients to delight their customers, from succulent fruits and crisp vegetables to plump poultry and tender meats.
Before the city fully awakens, Wotu's dedicated team sets off to deliver the promise of quality and freshness, one delivery at a time.
Trucks loaded with orders leaving the Wotu warehouse
Understanding the problem
At the most simplistic level, the people involved are the buyer, an agent, and the seller (generally the farmer).
BUYER
To understand the challenges faced by buyers, we embarked on a series of in-depth interviews with top restaurateurs in Bangalore.
We discovered that:
To understand the challenges faced by buyers, we embarked on a series of in-depth interviews with top restaurateurs in Bangalore.
We discovered that:
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They struggled to discover new sellers and often spent excessive time and effort sourcing new products.
- This limited their ability to find better value deals and diversify their offerings.
SELLER
Coming from a family of coffee growers, I was intimately familiar with the challenges faced by sellers. This personal connection fueled my desire to create a platform that could empower farmers and streamline the agricultural supply chain.
To validate my understanding, I spoke with numerous farmers who echoed these frustrations.
Coming from a family of coffee growers, I was intimately familiar with the challenges faced by sellers. This personal connection fueled my desire to create a platform that could empower farmers and streamline the agricultural supply chain.
To validate my understanding, I spoke with numerous farmers who echoed these frustrations.
- They faced significant barriers in connecting with new buyers, relying heavily on word-of-mouth networks.
- Slow payment cycles often left them in precarious financial situations.
- Furthermore, the reliance on middlemen limited their profits and prevented them from branding their products effectively.
Sellers (farmers) with their produce
The product vision
Wotu aimed to revolutionize the Indian food and beverage industry by establishing the nation's first B2B marketplace. Our platform focused on three key areas:
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Expanded networks
2. Fostering Trust and Transparency
Building a reliable ecosystem where businesses could confidently connect with verified and certified suppliers. This fostered trust and transparency, enabling strong and lasting partnerships.
3. Providing Data-Driven Insights
Equipping buyers and sellers with valuable market intelligence and real-time data to optimize their operations. Through data-driven analytics, businesses could gain a deeper understanding of market trends and make informed decisions..
In addition to my UX design responsibilities, I leveraged my storytelling and visual communication skills to create impactful presentations, concept videos, and marketing materials. This allowed me to effectively communicate the user experience and value proposition to key stakeholders, including investors and potential customers.
Pitch decks, business cards, stickers, etc
Concept video
Defining the MVP
I conducted sketching sessions with the team to map out the user flow and develop a storyboard to capture the MVP.
Mind mapping and brainstorming
We identified the following key features:
For Sellers
For Sellers
- Empower sellers to easily create and manage product listings, setting competitive prices to maximize their reach and revenue.
- Provide sellers with a comprehensive dashboard to track orders, monitor sales performance, and manage their business efficiently.
- Offer a seamless selling experience across Android mobile and web platforms, enabling sellers to manage their business on-the-go.
For Buyers
- Enable buyers to effortlessly discover and source a wide variety of high-quality products through an intuitive and user-friendly catalog.
- Foster a trusted marketplace by allowing buyers to rate and review sellers, promoting transparency and accountability.
- Provide buyers with a convenient web platform for efficient order management and streamlined procurement processes.
Designs - Seller
Capitalizing on India’s mobile phone boom, we first started with just an Android app version for sellers.
Onboarding and registration (mobile)
Easy and quick registration using phone number verification
Create a listing
We ask sellers to select the product they wish to sell, enter the quantity and price.
Adding a product
View orders
Empower sellers with insightful order views, enabling them to toggle between a detailed list of individual orders and a summarized view of product quantities.
This facilitates efficient order processing and informed inventory planning.
Empower sellers with insightful order views, enabling them to toggle between a detailed list of individual orders and a summarized view of product quantities.
This facilitates efficient order processing and informed inventory planning.
List views of orders
Fulfill an order
Wotu used multiple logistics partners, and the process of entering delivery information was manual. The seller can mark the order as “Shipped” and then as “Completed.” This was later automated to fetch the order tracking ID.
Wotu used multiple logistics partners, and the process of entering delivery information was manual. The seller can mark the order as “Shipped” and then as “Completed.” This was later automated to fetch the order tracking ID.
View orders and status of an order
View listings
Sellers can view their listings, see how much quantity is in stock, edit their listings.
Sellers can view their listings, see how much quantity is in stock, edit their listings.
Reception
We encountered some unexpected hurdles during the initial seller onboarding process.
Many sellers, despite having a working knowledge of English, were not comfortable navigating the online listing creation process or struggled to find their products in our catalog due to variations in local language product names.
To overcome these challenges, we adopted a hands-on, user-centric approach. My team took the initiative to go out into the field, meeting with sellers face-to-face to understand their challenges and provide personalized support.
We became their trusted partners, guiding them through the process, assisting with listing creation, and ensuring their products were accurately represented in our catalog. This direct engagement significantly increased seller registrations and improved the overall onboarding experience.
Designs - Seller (web)
As the Wotu team onboarded sellers, we created a seller experience on the web. We quickly learned that sellers would need assistance using mobile phones. It was not necessary to restrict ourselves to only a device that our sellers had access to.
Landing page (web)
I created a landing page with a simple call-to-action that conveyed our purpose and value to our target users.
I created a landing page with a simple call-to-action that conveyed our purpose and value to our target users.
Registration, create a listing, view orders
On the web, I created the same flows we designed on mobile on the web.
Designs - Buyer
We built a web portal where buyers can search for products, choose the required quantity and complete the order. They can also rate sellers based on their buying experience.
We chose to build a web experience for the buyers since these users already use computers as part of their accounting workflow.
Browsing
Buyers can browse through the catalog and select the product they want to purchase, or if they are looking for something specific, they can type it in the search bar.
Buyers can browse through the catalog and select the product they want to purchase, or if they are looking for something specific, they can type it in the search bar.
Adding required quantity
Once they have found the item they’re looking for, they can enter the quantity they want to buy and view price comparisons from different sellers.
Once they have found the item they’re looking for, they can enter the quantity they want to buy and view price comparisons from different sellers.
Checkout
Review order and checkout
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Review order and checkout
Seller page
The idea is for the buyer to check out a seller's page and view items the seller has to offer. They can also leave ratings and reviews for sellers, but this was not designed in the MVP.
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The idea is for the buyer to check out a seller's page and view items the seller has to offer. They can also leave ratings and reviews for sellers, but this was not designed in the MVP.
Reception
Buyers were used to a manual process
Using the internet or a computer to place orders was not part of buyers' regular workflow. This posed a barrier to have them log into the Wotu web portal to place an order. The team introduced Wotu to 8 restaurants in 1 week, and we got only one order. The following two weeks, we visited more restaurants, introduced them to Wotu. This led to us getting two new orders in 2 weeks but 0 repeat orders.
At a 0% conversion rate - something was wrong.
We spoke to the head chefs in these restaurants and discovered the following:
Using the internet or a computer to place orders was not part of buyers' regular workflow. This posed a barrier to have them log into the Wotu web portal to place an order. The team introduced Wotu to 8 restaurants in 1 week, and we got only one order. The following two weeks, we visited more restaurants, introduced them to Wotu. This led to us getting two new orders in 2 weeks but 0 repeat orders.
At a 0% conversion rate - something was wrong.
We spoke to the head chefs in these restaurants and discovered the following:
- The agents/middlemen they were procuring commodities from knew what type of quality and specifications the chefs preferred. E.g., "small onions" could mean green onions, red onions, scallions of varying degrees of "small."
- The middlemen showed up at the kitchens every day to take orders for the next day. It was hard for the chefs to think of Wotu when they had someone physically in front of them ready to take their order.
The team regrouped and asked ourselves the question - What is the user behavior we need to create to drive business results?
At the core, we want buyers to place orders through Wotu. We stepped outside the web portal and worked on bringing this change in customer behavior in the minds of buyers - Think Wotu when you think of placing orders.
We became the ones placing orders on the buyers' behalf.
At the core, we want buyers to place orders through Wotu. We stepped outside the web portal and worked on bringing this change in customer behavior in the minds of buyers - Think Wotu when you think of placing orders.
We became the ones placing orders on the buyers' behalf.
The team went to restaurants and took orders. We then used Wotu.com to place orders. We became users and testers of our product.
Manual orders
Very soon, buyers asked if they can just phone in with their orders. Phone lines were ringing, emails with orders came in, text messages came in.
Very soon buyers asked if they can just phone in with their orders. Phone lines were ringing, emails with orders came in, text messages came in.
We celebrated. Buyers thought “Wotu.”
Then we got them to place orders directly on Wotu’s portal.
Very soon buyers asked if they can just phone in with their orders. Phone lines were ringing, emails with orders came in, text messages came in.
We celebrated. Buyers thought “Wotu.”
Then we got them to place orders directly on Wotu’s portal.
Results and Takeaways
Working in an early-stage startup was an eye-opening experience that taught me a lot about being lean and knowing when and where to focus energy and efforts.
Some key results that I’m very proud of:
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WOTU raised funding from Kae Capital, Mumbai Angels Network, and Claris Capital before being acquired by Zomato in late 2018.
- Before the acquisition in August 2018, WOTU served 250 restaurants out of a 6,000 square foot warehouse. By February 2019, it had moved to a 30,000 square foot warehouse capable of serving 2,500 restaurants every day. Hyperpure has a 40,000 square foot warehouse in Delhi, too, capable of serving just as many restaurants.
Wotu warehouse
I've been extremely fortunate to have part of this journey and have grown tremendously during my time at Wotu; some key takeaways are:
- Turned an idea into a product. The ability to transform an idea into something much more tangible is a process that is both exhilarating and rewarding. I worked closely with the founder and team to shape the product vision and strategy of Wotu.
- Juggled many different hats. I dedicated hours of my spare time conducting research, sketching, testing and designing the product alongside coordinating events, creating pitch deck presentations, printing brochures and business cards.
- Handing off high level designs. Since this was something I worked on while having a full time job, after creating the initial designs, it was time to step away and hand off designs to a design team to carry it forward.
- Building a product is tremendous fun!!!
Good times :)