Hari Menon was once again at the same crossroads where he had once failed twelve years earlier. It was the year 2011, and he was set to attempt something that had already ruined his reputation once. He wanted to attempt launching an online grocery store once again. Anybody else would have quit after the sort of failure he experienced with Fabmart. But Menon didn’t see anything different this time. India had transformed, and he was willing to risk everything on that transformation.
This is a story about how a failed businessman returned to create BigBasket, India’s largest online grocery platform, and demonstrated that sometimes you simply have to wait for the appropriate time.
Learning from the Ashes of Fabmart
Once Fabmart closed shop in 2001, Menon did not vanish. He remained close to the retail industry, observing and learning. He and his Fabmart friends took their failed internet-based business and converted it into Fabmall, an offline grocery chain. They merged it with another store named Trinethra and expanded to 300 stores in South India. They sold the entire business to the Aditya Birla Group for a huge sum in 2006, and it was subsequently named “More.”
Those years taught Menon all there was to know about operating grocery stores. He learned about supply chains, stock management, how to handle suppliers, and what consumers really needed. The contrast between those years and his Fabmart experience was immense. At Fabmart, he was over-running reality. With Fabmall, he learned the hard lesson of how retail operates on the ground.
But even as he was operating physical shops, Menon never forgot that initial dream. He witnessed India’s internet community gradually increase from half a million to a few million. He saw smartphones beginning to surface in people’s palms. He observed companies such as Flipkart demonstrating that Indians would buy online if you made it convenient enough. By 2010, Menon had a secret. The same concept that had killed Fabmart in 1999 could possibly succeed in 2011. India was ready now.
Starting BigBasket in 2011
It was October 2011 when Menon reunited his original Fabmart team. VS Sudhakar, Vipul Parekh, Abhinay Choudhari, and VS Ramesh were all part of the group. They had all weathered the dot-com bust together, and they all knew what had gone wrong the first time.
This time, there was a difference. India had more than 100 million internet users now. Smartphones were spreading rapidly. Online payment methods actually functioned. Above all, other companies had already demonstrated that e-commerce was possible in India. Flipkart was selling electronics and books successfully. Folks were becoming accustomed to online shopping.
The team began in Bangalore. They didn’t have high-end warehouses initially. Instead, they purchased products from Metro Cash and Carry stores and utilized them as warehouses. Team members literally stood in Metro stores, waiting for orders to arrive so they could package and ship them.
In February 2012, they secured their first genuine funding round, receiving 61 crore rupees from Ascent Capital. This was enormous as it indicated that investors would risk investing in online groceries once more, even after what had happened to Fabmart.
The Early Struggles Were Real
The initial six months were tough. Despite India’s transformation, getting people to shop for groceries online was extremely difficult. Indians were accustomed to feeling and smelling vegetables before purchasing them. People enjoyed their local stores where they knew the shopkeeper. Ordering dal and rice on a website seemed illogical to most individuals.
Menon and his team would rise at 3:30 AM daily to purchase fresh vegetables and fruits from wholesale markets. They did it themselves because they had to ensure the quality was impeccable. If customers received bad vegetables even once, they would never return.
Cash was scarce, and they grew slowly. But the team saw something promising. Customers who tried BigBasket returned time and time again. They had 25-30% monthly growth in orders by the first year, and 60-70% of customers were repeat buyers. This was despite the fact that they spent hardly any money on marketing. Word of mouth brought the majority of customers.
Building Trust Takes Time
The team recognized that grocery shopping is a personal activity. If you deliver a bad onion or rotten milk, people will never trust you again. So BigBasket went wild on quality control. They inspected each product before it was shipped from the warehouse. They coached delivery personnel to be courteous and punctual. They ensured customers could return products if they were not satisfied.
In 2014, they launched in Chennai, Pune, and Delhi. Every new city was an experiment. Would customers in these cities believe in an online grocery store? The response came in the affirmative, but it took time. Creating trust in every city took months of flawless deliveries and good service.
Things had improved by 2015. They hired Shah Rukh Khan as their brand ambassador. This was a big move because it indicated that they were serious about being a name in the household. They also introduced Express Delivery, delivering groceries to your doorstep in 60 minutes. This was ridiculously ambitious, but it worked.
The Real Growth Begins
BigBasket reached 1,000 crore rupees in sales in 2016. They had 5 million customers at that point. The business model was now successful. They initiated a B2B segment to supply to restaurants and hotels. They brought in smaller organizations such as Delyver to enhance delivery infrastructure.
By 2017, they had approximately 4 million registered customers and were making 150 crore rupees in sales per month. The growth was organic and genuine, not due to nutty discounts like other e-commerce firms. Their average order value was about 1,500 rupees, and customers used to come back repeatedly.
In March 2019, they also raised 150 million dollars from the likes of Alibaba and Mirae Asset. This funding had valued BigBasket at more than 1 billion dollars, and it was now a unicorn. Menon had succeeded. The guy whose first grocery venture had bombed big time was now heading a billion-dollar company.
The Pandemic Changed Everything
The COVID-19 pandemic hit India, and suddenly everyone needed to order groceries online. People who would never have tried BigBasket before had no choice. They were stuck at home and needed food.
BigBasket’s orders went through the roof. They moved from processing thousands of orders a day to hundreds of thousands. The systems were pushed to the limit. Menon and his team worked day and night to keep pace. They added more staff, more warehouses, and more delivery vehicles in a flash.
By mid-2020, BigBasket was at 1 billion dollars in annual revenues. They were shipping more than 300,000 orders per day. The pandemic had leapfrogged their growth by several years. What could have taken five years took just five months.
Tata Group Steps In
The explosive expansion also created explosive attention. India’s largest conglomerate, Tata Group, was paying attention. Tata envisioned creating a super app that would rival Amazon and Flipkart, and it needed a robust grocery platform.
In May 2021, Tata Digital acquired a 64% stake in BigBasket for approximately 9,500 crore rupees. This placed the valuation of BigBasket at about 13,500 crore rupees or approximately 1.85 billion dollars. For Menon, this was vindication. The concept that had not worked in 1999 was now valued at billions.
The acquisition was timely. Alibaba, the Chinese investor, wanted to leave India because of political unrest, and BigBasket required a robust Indian ally to battle JioMart of Reliance. Tata provided them with the support and capital to do that battle. Menon and the original team remained to operate the business. The transaction wasn’t money-oriented. It was about creating something larger within the Tata family.
Life After Tata
With Tata as its owner, BigBasket kept expanding. In January 2023, they raised further 200 million dollars, increasing their valuation to 3.2 billion dollars. They were folded into Tata’s super app, Tata Neu, that managed the entire grocery requirements of Tata’s millions of customers.
By 2024, BigBasket was present in more than 30 cities and fulfilling nearly 15 million orders in a month. Their yearly revenue surpassed 10,000 crore rupees. They had more than 20 million consumers and had over 22,000 employees.
The company also diversified beyond online delivery. In 2021, they launched their first brick-and-mortar store named Fresho in Bangalore. These were technologically enabled self-service stores that blended online and offline shopping. The intention was to go up to 200 stores by 2023 and 800 stores by 2026.
They introduced a 10-minute food delivery service in Bangalore in 2025 directly competing against Swiggy and Zomato. They were no longer merely a grocery delivery firm. They were turning into a full-fledged food and essentials platform.
What Made BigBasket Succeed
The largest factor that BigBasket succeeded where Fabmart couldn’t was timing. India in 2011 had the infrastructure it lacked in 1999. People had smartphones, broadband internet, and credit card payment capability. The environment was set up.
But timing is only part of the explanation. Menon and his group managed because they learned from their failures. They knew supply chains because they operated physical stores for years. They knew customer behavior because they witnessed Fabmart’s failure firsthand. They constructed slowly and cautiously rather than throwing money at growth.
Trust was paramount. Unlike their discounting peers competing with each other on price, BigBasket emphasized quality and reliability. They ensured that each tomato arrived fresh and each delivery was done on time. That engendered loyalty that the discounters could not purchase.
Technology also had a lot to do with it. BigBasket spent big time and money on their systems. They utilized data to forecast what customers would buy, handled inventory effectively, and optimized delivery routes. This was not merely a grocery store with an app. It was a technology firm that happened to sell groceries.
The team was important too. Menon chose to surround himself with people who had fought the wars alongside him. They trusted one another and made swift decisions. When the pandemic broke out and they had to ramp up quickly, that trust enabled them to speed ahead of rivals.
What This Means for Entrepreneurs
Menon’s tale has something strong to teach about failure. His first stab at online groceries laid him waste and lost investors millions. Anybody would have quit. But Menon realized that his concept wasn’t bad, merely premature.mHe spent twelve years preparing for his second attempt. He learned the business inside and out. He waited for the market to be ready. When he finally launched BigBasket, he had everything he needed to succeed.
The moral isn’t that you just keep repeating the same failed concept time and time again. The moral is that if you are truly passionate about something, sometimes you must wait for the world to catch up with your vision. Spend that waiting period learning, preparing, and understanding why you didn’t succeed the first time.
Menon also demonstrated that comeback stories exist. Back in business circles, folks wrote him off after Fabmart. Nobody thought that he would create something big again. But he didn’t give up. He kept his head down, learned from the past mistakes, and returned stronger.
Where BigBasket Stands Today
Now, BigBasket is the fifth largest grocery retailer in India, behind only offline biggies such as DMart and Reliance. For an online platform that began little more than a decade ago, this is humongous.
The company touches the lives of millions of customers each month, ships everything from vegetables to electronics, and is a household name in urban India. Menon, who is in his sixties, continues to run the company as CEO, although succession planning has been discussed in the past as Tata seeks to reinforce BigBasket’s position.
India’s grocery e-commerce market is worth billions and expanding rapidly. Players such as Swiggy Instamart, Blinkit, and Zepto are fighting aggressively in rapid commerce, with 10-15-minute grocery deliveries. BigBasket is also countering with a quick delivery offering while continuing its conventional model.
Legacy of Hari Menon
The journey is not done. BigBasket continues to expand, continue to battle competition, and continue to pursue more of India’s enormous grocery market. But what Menon has done up to now is impressive. He took a failure that exploded in the face of a good idea and waited for the ideal time before constructing it to become one of India’s greatest startups.
From the failure of Fabmart to the success of BigBasket, Hari Menon’s career spanned more than two decades. It’s one of patience, of learning, of timing, and of taking a risk and trying again after failure. Sometimes the greatest concepts are just waiting for their time.
Five Fast Facts
1. BigBasket was launched in October 2011, twelve years after Fabmart’s failure.
2. The firm turned into a unicorn in March 2019 and was worth more than 1 billion dollars.
3. Tata Group acquired 64% of BigBasket in May 2021 for around 9,500 crore rupees.
4. BigBasket currently processes around 15 million orders every month in 30+ Indian cities.
5. The company achieved 10,000 crore rupees in yearly revenue in 2024.
FAQ
- Who is Hari Menon?
Hari Menon is the founder of BigBasket.
- What was Hari Menon’s first business?
Fabmart was Menon’s first business.
- How did Hari Menon start BigBasket?
He started BigBasket after failing his first business and waiting for the right time and experience. And it was launched in October 2011, twelve years after Fabmart’s failure.
- What is the net worth of BigBasket?
Net worth of BigBasket is around $3.2 billion. It turned into a unicorn in March 2019 and was worth more than 1 billion dollars.
To know more about Hari Menon and his inspiring journey, follow him on LinkedIn and X, and explore BigBasket’s official website along with their X, Instagram, and Facebook pages to stay updated on their growth, innovations, and new ventures.
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