When Jaydeep Barman started Faasos in 2010, it was a single QSR brand aiming to take on McDonalds. Twelve years later, his goal remains the same — creating the world’s largest restaurant company — but he is using a different route that involves a multi-brand portfolio and an online-first approach.

Rebel Foods, which owns Faasos, has tried almost every business model in the restaurant space. It has opened outlets, built a stable of private brands like Oven Story and Behrouz Biryani and licensed or acquired established businesses like Anand Sweets, Samosa Singh​​ and Wendy’s India operations. It is also present in international markets, including Indonesia and London.

Barman has not done this alone. He counts on a key group of people who joined Rebel at an early stage and stuck around, propping up parts of the business which needed intervention the most at a particular time. He describes forming a versatile team as an important trait of the founder mentality. 

“A founder mentality essentially means that if there is a big problem that needs to be solved, I will take it up. If that problem means that I must hire my own boss or someone at a higher salary than me, if it means that I am running a big team but must now pick up something very small and grow it, I will take that decision,” Barman told The CapTable, explaining how he built Rebel into a billion-dollar company.