Zomato's IPO Brigade: Powering India's first tech Unicorn listing

Give Zomato founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal the option to run his company or lead a product team, and he will most likely choose the latter. That theme—of running a product-first organization and solving problems using technology interventions—has helped Zomato stand out.

Goyal’s laser focus on getting the product right, to the extent of sometimes being called “a micromanager”, resonates with multiple Zomato employees. It’s these attributes that have defined Zomato’s culture built over the last 13 years. 

“They don't match market salaries, have long work hours, and yet get some of the best talent in tech and product,” said a former Zomato executive. “The retention strategy is high-ownership,” he added. 

Zomato, which started as a restaurant paper menu digitizing website, is now one of two leading food delivery companies in the country. Ironically, in the early days, Goyal wasn’t keen on building food delivery as a line of business. But he took a chance and brought in Mohit Gupta from MakeMyTrip to lead it. The bet paid off, with over 75% of the company’s business now coming from food delivery. 

“When Zomato started food delivery, it had no right to win over others in the space, including UberEats, TinyOwl and FoodPanda. But it out-executed them,” said a second person who worked at the company. 

This is just one example of how Goyal built Zomato to be the company it is today. 

The CapTable maps Zomato's organization structure under Goyal, CTO Gunjan Patidar, and Head of Supply Gaurav Gupta.