Why Zepto's Aadit Palicha Turned Down Stanford to Deliver Groceries

Name: Why Zepto's Aadit Palicha Turned Down Stanford to Deliver Groceries
Uploaded: 2026-05-19T14:00:50.000Z
Duration: 28 min 57 s
Channel: Y Combinator

Y CombinatorMay 19, 202628m

Topics18

Starting from First Principles0:00 Founding Story0:31 The Stanford Decision2:30 Competing in an Established Market5:00 The Pivot from Kiranakart to Zepto7:00 Why Others Said the Dark Store Model Was Wrong9:30 Advantages of Nailing Customer Experience11:00 How They Built the Company12:00 Focus on 100 Users14:30 Zepto as a Logistics and Supply Chain Company15:00 Scale and Numbers18:00 Long-Term Vision20:00 Building a Unique Indian E-commerce Platform21:20 Platform for Consumer Brands21:31 Employment and Economic Impact22:00 Implementing AI at Zepto22:30 Software Team and Hiring25:31 Learning and Skill Development as a Young Founder26:01

In a Nutshell

Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya founded Zepto by starting with a simple WhatsApp grocery delivery service in Mumbai during COVID, then pivoted to the dark store model after realizing customers wanted 10-minute delivery, full selection, and competitive pricing. They rejected Stanford to scale the business once they saw strong retention and product-market fit at around 10,000 orders per day and a 60-70 crore run rate. Zepto now operates as a massive logistics and supply chain company with AI-driven forecasting, hundreds of millions in ad revenue, and millions of daily deliveries, aiming to build India's urban grocery infrastructure.

AI-Generated Notes

These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.

If you remove all constraints and remove all the laws of physics and think from first principles, you can determine the most extreme positive customer experience possible, then work backwards to figure out how to make that possible.

Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya (KB) started working on Zepto when they were 17 years old. They had been friends for some time and loved building things as kids. Around age 15 or 16, they noticed people in Silicon Valley building cool products for a living and decided to explore doing the same. They applied to study in California and got into a good school.

When COVID happened, they found themselves back in Mumbai. With nothing to do and no interest in online college, they took a year off and decided to work on a project. The big problem at the time was that people couldn't get groceries in their neighborhoods. Small mom-and-pop stores had labor issues, and larger players doing next-day delivery were backlogged.

They started a WhatsApp group chat delivering groceries for neighbors in Mumbai. This evolved into an app originally called Kiranakart.

Aadit had been accepted to Stanford and was planning to leave India for Palo Alto. This was two or three months before matriculation. He asked Jared whether he should go to Stanford or drop out and start the company. Jared convinced him not to go to Stanford.

Many people ask Aadit whether they should drop out of college. His answer is less heroic than it appears. He and Kaivalya took a year to work on the idea and reached early signs of product-market fit around eight months in. They saw retention and compounding in the business. Only when they reached about 10,000 orders per day did they decide it was a real business and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

They reached a 60-70 crore revenue or GMV run rate before committing fully. They also secured investor interest and a term sheet at that scale. The advice Aadit gives is to have some product-market fit and proof of concept before taking the big risk.

Grocery delivery was not a new idea in India when they started in 2020. There were already multiple billion-dollar companies operating at scale. Grocery digitization had been pursued for 20 years. Existing players used different models such as doorstep delivery from other stores or next-day delivery.

Aadit and Kaivalya did not start with the intention of trying a different model. Their conviction came from the bottom up. They delivered themselves in Andheri, Mumbai, and spoke directly to customers at their doorsteps. Customers told them they were not satisfied. There was no compelling player hitting their needs.

Customers said the first version of Kiranakart lacked full selection, had high pricing, and had delivery times that were not in their control. From these conversations, Aadit and Kaivalya learned that customers ultimately care about speed, quality, selection, and price.

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Why Zepto's Aadit Palicha Turned Down Stanford to Deliver Groceries

Starting from First Principles00:00

Founding Story00:31

The Stanford Decision02:30

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