Mr Milkman – a dairy industry platform

The Gurgaon-based startup, Mr Milkman, has enabled dairy farms to connect directly with end consumers. Mr Milkman’s platform tracks sales data and measures these to provide an overview of the dairies’ performance. The summary helps them manage their entire business – from farms to their customers’ glass. Founded in 2017, the platform today works with leading dairies to help manage their operations.

Local milkman to the organized Mr Milkman

Speaking about the conception of this idea of starting a platform for dairy businesses, Samarth Setia, chief executive officer and co-founder at Mr Milkman, says, “The idea came from observing the local milkman who delivered milk to my house. These men would have no concrete management of accounts and would leave it mostly to memory. If there were any change in the delivery schedule or quantity, conveyed to the milkman via the building’s security guard, which eventually led to several misunderstandings and incorrect billing.”

“Conceived with a vision to change the perception of the local milkman to an organized entity, the platform built for the local milkman evolved to a platform for dairies to automate their processes,” he adds.

SaaS platform provides real-time data analytics

Explaining Mr Milkman’s SaaS platform, Setia adds, “This platform enables largely unorganized dairies to streamline their businesses by tracking product sales, lifecycle and customer consumption patterns with real-time data analytics and reports of their operations.”

According to him, the data helps dairies manage demand, sales forecasting, and distribution. The platform also creates offline distribution channel hubs and helps manage transportation and delivery to the end-customer.

Addressing the trend of direct to home milk delivery, Setia says, “Today farms across India are delivering premium quality, fortified, unadulterated milk directly from farm to home. Moreover, the milk is delivered in either premium and beautiful glass bottles or a Tetra pack. Consumers enjoy the goodness of milk delivered to their doorsteps with the assurance that the milk is pure and unadulterated. These direct to home delivery services are easily managed through our platform.”

The learning curve was difficult

Setia admitted that in the beginning, he was not aware of the dairy industry, and the learning curve was complicated. He shares, “Our first product was a very basic application that was developed to help local milkmen. Over time, we learned, and the platform has evolved into a SaaS product.”

Smarter team better output

 Setia admits to the need for teamwork, “I feel that being a solo founder was the biggest challenge I have faced. I was managing everything alone, from client management to addressing technical issues and even the finances, that led to a mess. However, now I can confidently say that I have learned a lot from my mistakes.”

Realizing his mistakes, he understood that a strong team could overcome the challenges and ensure the improvement of the product. “Hiring smarter team members who are capable of making their own decisions has helped us scale faster,” he admits. 

Clients and competition

With more than 60 clients across India, the company is currently on track to touch over 1 million liters monthly via its platform. Mr Milkman is now associated with organizations such as Milk Mantra, Whyte Farms, Gyan Dairy, Amlaan A2 Milk, PureMilk, Go4Life, Milk Valley Farms, Binsar Farms Creamery, Mr Dairy, Mr Milk, HappyMilk and Happymoo.

Setia is aware of the competition in this field and says, “We are aware that a few IT companies have built a custom product for a particular dairy just like any software company does. Although they sell the product developed for one to others, their product is not a SaaS solution.” 

Mr Milkman is growing

He proudly says, “The company is growing organically and steadily and have managed to grow three times in the past 12 months. Moreover, as a platform, we are growing, advancing in terms of technology, and introducing new features regularly.”

“Successfully established in Tier-I and Tier-II cities, we are constantly partnering with dairies in Tier III markets as well. We aim to reach out to international dairies and have already caught the attention of a few of them. While they are exploring options on our platform, it is work-in-progress to make the platform ready for international usage,” he concludes.