Yatin Varachhia is the Co-Founder at Nosh. Founded in 2018, Nosh is automating home cooking with a fully automatic robot chef that dispenses ingredients and spices precisely, follows app-guided recipes, and delivers food to your taste without standing over the stove.
In this episode, we delve into the future of home cooking and building a hardware startup in India.
- Nosh started from a craving for authentic “Gujju” food and evolved over 5 years from POC to launch.
- Works through app-based recipes, ingredient tray, built-in tanks, precise dispensing, and automatic stirring.
- Cooks curries, sabjis, rice dishes, breakfast items, pasta, noodles, soups, and sweets.
- Offers taste customization for spice, salt, oil, doneness, and gravy across 200+ editable recipes.
Yatin also shares his journey from IISc and Analog Devices to wearables at Lumos (Kickstarter) and why Ather Energy’s playbook inspires Nosh’s product-first path.
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Episode Timestamps
- 00:18 Starting NOSH
- 01:49 Target audience
- 13:03 Customizations
- 21:53 NOSH Team
- 24:45 Education
- 27:44 Government
- 31:17 Prototyping
- 34:42 Financing
- 36:56 10 Year Vision
- 38:40 Advice for Startups
- 42:21 Hardware
- 45:11 Journey before NOSH
- 47:23 Deciding to startup
- 51:50 Typical day at work
- 53:20 Work-life balance
- 57:53 Yatin’s role
- 59:48 Market
- 01:06:22 Capabilities
- 01:07:38 Supply Chain
- 01:09:43 Advice for Kitchen Appliances
- 01:12:29 Resources
- 01:13:53 Role Models
- 01:15:24 What’s Next?
- 01:17:12 How to reach
About Yatin Varachhia
Yatin Varachhia is the Co-Founder of Nosh, a hardware startup building a fully automated robot chef for home cooking. He previously studied at Indian Institute of Science and worked at Analog Devices, later building wearables at Lumos, before starting Nosh in 2018.
Full Transcript
Yatin Varachhia:
We want products that automate everything that happens in the kitchen worldwide. That is our vision, and we will keep building toward it.
Aditya Anand:
Can you start by telling us a little about your journey? How did you get started with Nosh? How did you get the idea, and how has the journey been so far?
Yatin Varachhia:
It started because we are both working, and we are Gujarati, so we crave Gujarati food. We tried to teach our cooks a few tricks, but it never worked perfectly. That inspired the idea that there should be something that gives us food as per our taste. I spoke to friends who had moved to new cities and realized everyone faced the same problem. Many just say, “chalega, we’ll manage,” but at the core they are not happy. They earn well, but they miss this after moving to a new city.
With that insight, we started experimenting with mechanisms. When we set up the first kitchen, the question was, can it be done? It felt technically complex for a device to cook completely automatically. We worked on mechanisms and dispensers, getting things right. It took five years of R and D before we could launch the product. That has been the main inspiration and journey so far.
Aditya Anand:
I’m familiar with the problem. My partner and I both work, and we know the challenges of getting good home-cooked food that we both like without spending a lot of time. Ordering or eating out gets unhealthy. Trying to get home-cooked food never quite gets there. There’s a gap to be addressed. It’s interesting that you’re solving this with an appliance people can purchase and use at home. What kind of customers would this appeal to?
Yatin Varachhia:
We started with dual-working couples and families as the target audience. We realized that people who are choosy about their food are the first adopters. There is an adoption journey, and those who are choosy and trying many things to get food the way they want will buy first. This is true in India, and we also see a low-hanging fruit in NRIs in the US, UK, and Australia. That will be our other early market. It will have its own adoption curve, but these segments will adopt first and then it will spread.
At the price point we’re planning, I feel that even a single working household that is decently well-to-do will adopt it eventually. When I go to my hometown, all my bhabhis and relatives ask for it. Our generation, millennials and younger, generally do not want to spend time cooking. Our mothers’ generation perfected food, but the new generation really does not want to. Many do it because they feel it’s the only way they have value in society, but overall they’re looking for convenience in food.
Aditya Anand:
Can you tell us more about how the actual product works?
Yatin Varachhia:
It has recipes you select from a mobile app. The app guides you through preparation steps. It comes with an ingredient tray. You put the ingredients into the tray, insert it, and command it to cook. It follows the recipe and cooks completely automatically. Spices, water, and oil are stored inside the product. It dispenses them as per the recipe and your customizations. You can customize spice level, salt level, and oil level so you get food as per your taste.
Aditya Anand:
What kind of things can you cook with it? Can you give examples of popular dishes?
Yatin Varachhia:
It can cook curries such as paneer, palak paneer, and chicken curry. It can make dry sabzi like cabbage sabzi and bhindi sabzi. It can make rice dishes like pulao and simple biryani. It can make breakfast dishes such as poha and upma. It can make sweets like carrot halwa, suji halwa, and kheer. Broadly, whatever you cook in a pan or pot, it can make. It can make pasta and Asian dishes like chow mein. It is quite versatile and can also make soups. Essentially, whatever you do in a pan, this can do automatically.
Aditya Anand:
When did you get started on this?
Yatin Varachhia:
The inspiration was around 2017. We went full time in early 2018, around March. We started building a proof of concept. Our first question was whether we could really do it. We built a POC that was quite large, but it could cook good food. From day one, the idea was we would not make a device if it could not make food that tastes like human-cooked food. We never wanted people to say, “this tastes like machine-made.” If we achieved the taste, we would build the company, otherwise not. So in 2018 we improved mechanisms and got the taste right. By the end of 2018, we had a POC that cooked excellent food, but it was big and didn’t look good.
During that time, we got a lot of interest from cloud kitchens such as Swiggy and Rebel Foods. We worked with them to build a product for their requirements through 2019 and early 2020. It was a small pivot. We were open to both B2C and B2B and were trying to understand where the pull was. But around 2020, when COVID hit, their businesses were affected and their thought processes changed. They had to move toward cold-chain systems because revenue was not predictable and food waste is a major cost. When those companies go for profitability, they often end up adopting cold chains, which hit us during COVID.
We went back to the whiteboard and asked where we could create value in the restaurant industry. On the food side, there are enterprises (large cloud kitchen brands), SMEs (mom-and-pop restaurants), and home kitchens. We debated where to go. The enterprise opportunity felt weak and more like customization services, not a scalable product opportunity. We then spoke to many SMEs and realized they expect one person to do many things and focus heavily on cost savings. We could not save cost for them because workers do prep during on-shift and cleaning and prep off-shift. It was not a perfect opportunity for mom-and-pop restaurants.
We chose home kitchens, which were always close to our heart because that’s how we started. Even while we explored cloud kitchens, we had a project slowly building Nosh. We went full in again from September. The good thing is we built a fully working alpha prototype by early 2021. We used it for apartment demos to show capability and get feedback on expectations. We tried to take preorders to see who would convert first and to capture concerns like cleaning. We started trials, put units in different customers’ houses, and gathered feedback. That was the alpha prototype.
We then built a second prototype, beta one, made a few units, circulated them, and got feedback. The biggest time sink was balancing effort saved in cooking with effort required for cleaning. Making cleaning easy and ensuring hygiene took many iterations with direct customer feedback. Reliability also took time. It almost took two years to get cleaning and reliability right. After alpha, we had beta one, beta two, beta three, and beta three became the final product.
Aditya Anand:
I remember attending a Nosh demo on the terrace of your office a few weeks back with your cofounder, Amit. It was a wow experience: you put in the ingredients, turn it on, select the recipe, and in twenty minutes your food is ready. That was a eureka moment. You spoke about good food, and food is very personal. People have their own preferences for taste and how they want food cooked. In terms of customizations of taste and preference, what features are there in Nosh to control this?
Yatin Varachhia:
I agree. Every household has a different taste. People say food taste changes every 200 kilometers. I would say it changes in every household. The major variables are spice level, oil level, and salt level. We provide customization for these. We are also adding per-recipe customization for doneness and gravy thickness, from watery to thick. We plan to let users customize our recipes. It comes with about 200 recipes, and you will be able to tweak and make them your own.
Initially, we planned to give a recipe creation app. We created it and gave it to customers, but overall it was too much effort for small changes. One insight is that across India, the types of ingredients are quite similar. Spices differ widely. The main taste differences come from different spice blends across states. With limited ingredients, you can build many recipes by changing the spice blend and a few steps. With recipe editing, we can create a large number of customer-generated recipes. Our plan is to provide edit and save/publish features so we have a lot of customer-generated content on the platform.
Aditya Anand:
How do you get started building something like this? What does the process look like to come up with the first prototype?
Yatin Varachhia:
There was a lot of thought. In an Indian kitchen, there are many processes: roti making, chopping/prep, cooking sabzi, cooking dal, etc. We identified what to automate. Dal and rice are easier. A simple pressure cooker, rice cooker, or instant pot-type product solves that. Roti is complex but has one outcome. The taste-determining products are curries and sabzis, which define your food experience at home. We chose that because you can build recipes and create a large product catalog. Each recipe is like a micro-product. Creators can get involved and drive word of mouth. It is a more positive outcome-based product than a single-purpose device. Also, this process has global appeal. Every culture has dishes done in a pot or pan, so it addresses many cuisines.
The key part was getting dispensers right. The biggest concern was the spice dispenser. It has to be super precise, not get stuck, and dispense the correct amount. We focused on that first. If we could not get spices right, there was no point doing other things. We got it right after a couple of iterations. The first ingredient dispenser in the POC was not well thought through. It was basically a funnel. You opened it and food fell, but you had to shake it, things stuck to the walls, and there were many challenges. We then developed a new ingredient dispenser that we use today. Then came the stirring mechanism. The stirrer took almost 27 iterations at the idea stage to get right, because it has to manage different types of food: gravy, semi-gravy, dry; tiny pieces like suji, and big pieces like chicken. It had to be universal. We got it right at the idea stage and patented it.
We underestimated how complex food is. I knew hardware before, but food I knew from a distance. When we worked on dispensing, we realized how many types of ingredients and behaviors there are. For example, we had a problem where a bit of chicken skin got stuck under the dispenser and would not fall out, even with weight above it. We faced many such challenges.
Aditya Anand:
You mentioned earlier the difficulties in hiring and that the kind of talent needed for this is still rare in India. What’s the team setup like? How did you build the team?
Yatin Varachhia:
We are a 27-person team, mostly engineering. Our approach changed over time. At the idea stage, we mostly hired freshers who had participated in competitions, built robots, or participated in ROBOCON. They had to be passionate about this problem. That worked well. They thought like owners and iterated fast. In two months, we would have eight mechanism variants built.
Once the alpha prototype came out, we looked for people who understand design for manufacturing. That is a scarce skill. We brought in experienced people, at least four-plus years, for DFM. The POC-to-product journey required experienced people who contributed to making a product ready for production. Sometimes we had to go back to the idea stage because certain mechanisms could not be manufactured at scale. For example, our spice dispenser worked beautifully but only with CNC-machined metal parts, which were costly. The same mechanism did not work in plastic. We had to redesign the entire mechanism for manufacturability.
Aditya Anand:
Going on a tangent, what do you think is missing in the education system? Your hires may come from electrical, mechanical, or robotics. What can Indian colleges do better?
Yatin Varachhia:
Curricula are outdated. Much of what mechanical engineers learn is not usable in industry. DFM and plastics are covered as a single subject in the final year, along with sheet metal, which is not enough. Universities do not demand hands-on work. Students have to participate in competitions or do side projects to get hands-on experience. A topper with no hands-on experience is often not useful initially. That is the biggest challenge.
Even with better curricula, hardware is hard and only a few people can do it. That will not change. It is also about industry presence. There are not many companies hiring in these areas. People might spend a year or two in mechatronics and eventually move to computer science or IT. The lack of industry is a larger challenge than colleges not getting it right, because students ultimately need jobs, and the hardware industry is still small.
Aditya Anand:
Is there anything the Government of India can do to encourage more adoption and growth in this industry?
Yatin Varachhia:
The government has realized this and is doing a lot right. Today, hardware startups can get many grants. Building a POC or validating an idea is very possible with government funding, even without angel funding. We ourselves got about a crore in grants. Many average startups can get at least 25 to 30 lakhs of grants. That is great.
The government is also building industry through production-linked incentives and import duties aimed at localizing top imports. That will make a huge difference. Products consumed in India will start getting built here. Even if designs originate elsewhere initially, building here brings the ecosystem. It will take time, but the move is right. More products will be localized, building capabilities. For example, in injection molding, truly skilled people in India are still a small number. With more being built here, that number will increase, and capabilities will grow so teams can do their own designs.
The government is doing the right things, but it will take a decade for the changes to manifest fully. I am positive that industry is being built. Almost every consumer durable or product that was imported is now starting to be built in India. That will change the ecosystem. Costs will reduce, component availability will improve, and expertise will build. We are on the right path.
Aditya Anand:
Back to prototyping. For someone looking to start a hardware startup in appliances or robotics, what does building the prototype look like? How do you source materials and equipment?
Yatin Varachhia:
Prototyping is quite doable. In any metro or tier-one city, there is industry around to do small prototyping work across sheet metal and plastics. The government has also set up makerspaces. We were supported by IKP Eden in Koramangala. All our prototyping happened there, which gave us speed. I mentioned 27 stirrer iterations; we could do them in a month because the equipment was available.
Makerspaces have equipment, and there are small industries outside where you can get prototypes done. What’s lacking is professional prototype manufacturers. Small vendors will sideline your order when they get a larger one, so you can’t predict delivery. If you are determined, you can still get it done. Makerspaces are good for quick prototyping. There are enough 3D printers, and urethane casting is available. For PCBs, small volumes are easy to manufacture with many vendors. Prototyping is easy. The challenge is maintaining speed. With small vendors, you often have to send a person to sit there until the part is done. It will improve over time.
Aditya Anand:
During the early stages, how does financing work for a new hardware founder? Bootstrapping, personal capital, grants, venture capital?
Yatin Varachhia:
There are many grants and enough angels willing to bet on hardware. There is affinity and respect for hardware among some angels. So angel investment and grants can cover the idea stage, up to a crore or two. You can prove your idea and do initial user trials. But hardware requires more money. A typical B2C hardware product needs around 2 million dollars to get to a market-launchable product. B2B is a bit lower. That kind of capital is not easily available. Very few people get access to it. Once the idea is proven, reaching that 2 million is the hardest part because very few are willing to take that bet, and there are many teams building hardware. You have to get a lot right to raise that money. For idea proving, funding exists. For mass production, funding is the real fight.
Aditya Anand:
What does the ten-year vision for Nosh look like? Where do you see this in the next ten years?
Yatin Varachhia:
We want to automate anything and everything that happens in the kitchen. Right now we target pan or cooker-based cooking. Next we will tackle preparation, then roti/flatbreads and bread making. We will also automate processes from other countries. The idea is to build products that automate the entire kitchen worldwide.
Initially we are taking an appliance approach, building and launching one appliance at a time. One day we envision a kitchen approach. Instead of selling appliances, we will sell a customized kitchen with automation built in. The fridge will be integrated so the system can take ingredients; you will not even have to load it. A completely automatic kitchen is our vision. We will automate processes one by one and then bring them together.
Aditya Anand:
You started around 2018, so it’s been just over six years. That’s a long time to stay focused. You have a lot of optimism and energy. Any advice for early-stage founders on maintaining longevity and optimism over a long period?
Yatin Varachhia:
Many people approach me saying they want to build this kind of hardware. The first thing I tell them is, don’t do it. It is super hard and you will fail. I give all the negative advice. If they still come back and say they have built it, then they have the right mindset to be a hardware entrepreneur. It takes time and patience. Your pace expectations must be adjusted for hardware. You have to give at least three years of committed focus. Only then will something happen.
Even with a simpler problem, say an IoT-connected washing machine, getting it right will take at least two and a half years. You should do it only if you have that kind of patience and the ecosystem to support you, such as family support or money in the bank. Passion for the problem is the most important thing. If you can be patient, you can build a hardware company.
Generic advice: always buy, don’t build, when possible. If something is available and does not change the customer experience, buy it. Building stable hardware takes a lot of time, even for small things. Build less hardware. Simplify the problem and architecture so you have fewer moving parts. Getting hardware reliability right is painful. Reduce the amount of hardware you build.
Aditya Anand:
Since you started in 2018, what are some things you know now about building the startup, Nosh, and an appliance that you didn’t know earlier?
Yatin Varachhia:
I knew hardware is hard, but I knew it in the context of electronic products: a PCB, an enclosure, maybe a display. I estimated three years to build this. When moving parts get involved, the problem becomes ten times more complex than a static product. When food is involved, it becomes another ten times more complex. Food means cleaning. Materials are a huge challenge because different foods react with different materials. Everything must be food-grade and food-safe. Every detail matters. Anything that touches food has to be cleanable. That is a big challenge. I did not understand this fully at the start.
Another learning: you should build an overly successful software company first, then a hardware company. Hardware requires a lot of funding, and getting that money is not easy. Prior success can short-circuit the funding process. There are not many success stories, so people are cautious funding hardware. We have more examples now than before, but still, the ratio of teams to available funding is tough.
Aditya Anand:
What did your journey look like before starting this company? What were your previous roles?
Yatin Varachhia:
I studied electronic product design at the Indian Institute of Science. I was always passionate about building something new. I joined Analog Devices, a semiconductor company, and worked there for three and a half years. I realized I did not want to do that forever. I wanted to build something exciting. I joined a very early-stage company called Lumos as CTO. It was a wearable tech company. We felt wearables had not changed. Many were doing watches and bands; we focused on smart backpacks, such as solar backpacks and safety backpacks for commuting cyclists. We ran a Kickstarter campaign, got orders, and mostly sold in Europe. We struggled to match the quality of European backpacks with our tech-enabled backpacks. Quality was a challenge we could not close. It did not work out. I did consulting for a while, then this idea came and I started with this.
Aditya Anand:
Where were you in life when you decided to take the leap? How did you get the courage? How did your friends and family react?
Yatin Varachhia:
I’m Gujju, and many of us want to do something of our own. The inspiration started in 9th or 10th class when I read about Dhirubhai Ambani’s journey in the newspapers. That gave me the kick to start something of my own. I am tech-inclined and like science and engineering, so I wanted to build around tech. Even in graduation and postgraduation, we thought about what we could build and sell to local businesses. The passion was always there.
After BTech, I told my parents I would take a job, but eventually I would do something of my own. I told my partner the same when we met. Initially I did not have the courage because I had not seen much of the world beyond tech. After working, seeing more, and exploring ideas in parallel, I gained the courage to step out. My parents and partner knew this was my path because I had been telling them since school. There was no hesitation from them.
Aditya Anand:
So you always had it in you?
Yatin Varachhia:
Yes, I always wanted to do this. I have spent six years on this, which is not a short time. People who were with me are now in different places. Parents and partners sometimes feel that difference. Thankfully, due to family support, there’s no financial trouble, but you feel the gap. You remind yourself this is the path you chose. You knew hardware is hard and still chose it, so you do not look for excuses.
Aditya Anand:
What does a typical day at work look like for you?
Yatin Varachhia:
It changes over time. Currently, since we are in production, we start with an internal meeting on identified production issues and our actions. Then we meet with the factory on fixes and status. My major time goes into project management to keep things moving smoothly. We also have new projects like accessory development. A lot of time goes into recipes: which to develop and how they are coming along. Often the chef brings a dish to taste and review. I wear multiple hats. Right now, production and getting recipes right are the core focus.
Aditya Anand:
How do you look at work-life balance? Over six years you must have seen many ups and downs. How do you deal with the roller coaster and manage stress?
Yatin Varachhia:
I think of it as work-life harmony. You should enjoy your work. In our team, we say if you are not thinking about your work in the shower, you should not be doing that work. There is mental satisfaction, but it takes time. I spend 11 to 12 hours in the office daily, and most Saturdays I am working. I sometimes feel I should spend more time with my kid, which feels imbalanced, but overall I’m happy and the family is happy.
I naturally handle stress well. I once heard from the CTO of Tejas Networks: always think about controllables, not just the outcome. Outcomes matter, but if you focus only on them, you get stressed. Think about what is in your control and do your best. For example, if a major competitor launches a new product that is far ahead, we cannot control that. We can control which market we can serve, how to improve our product, and how fast we move. I rarely get stressed. The one period I remember being most stressed was when our cloud kitchen business went away during COVID. I had given three years, and it felt like what we envisioned would not happen. We had put a year and a half to two years into that opportunity. Even then, thinking about controllables helped. Enterprise was not working, so we met SMEs, figured out what could work, and kept moving.
Aditya Anand:
I can see you have a calm demeanor. In the office, are you the one bringing calm in meetings, or what role do you play?
Yatin Varachhia:
I play the pusher role. I push everyone to move faster and not settle into a comfort zone. No one really wants to be in a comfort zone; everyone wants to get better. My role is to remind them and guide them when that is not happening. In our company we say outcomes will come slowly, but actions must be fast. If your actions are delayed, outcomes may not come at all. That is a hardware reality.
At the same time, if there is unpleasant news, I am the calmer. I reassure the team that we will take care of it. There is plenty of unpleasant news: late supplies, wrong quality, and so on. Then I push: go sit with the supplier until it gets done.
Aditya Anand:
How do you look at the market for this product? How do you think about the addressable market in India versus outside India?
Yatin Varachhia:
We eat three times a day, and food is very important. The early targets are dual-working couples and families, the choosy ones, mostly urban: Gurgaon, Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai. Then there is a second market in India that is more impulse/excitement-driven. We believe Coimbatore and Ahmedabad behave differently from a city like Bangalore. In Bangalore, people calculate value and cost. In Ahmedabad or Coimbatore, if they like the food they taste, they buy. In our preorder campaign, many orders came from Coimbatore, with people traveling to Bangalore just to see the product. These were not dual-working households; they were regular households with a different trigger.
On numbers, a comparable niche product already does around 300,000 units a year in India. As per Blume’s India 1 segmentation, the opportunity we are going after is about 1 million households. Our product is not very costly. It is around a 50,000 rupee product. Households regularly buy products in that range. ACs changed the perspective; people do not see this as extremely expensive.
Dual-working households will buy for all food occasions: regular meals, weekends, and guests. Other segments will buy for special occasions; it will become a restaurant replacement for them. We believe we can reach 100,000 units per year in India across these markets and then grow.
NRIs are another large opportunity. In the US alone, there are millions of Indian households, many earning more than 100k. That is a good market and well distributed. Then the Middle East, UK, South Africa, and Australia. Between India and NRIs, reaching 200,000 to 500,000 units a year is feasible. Beyond that, we will need to push beyond the comfort customer zone internationally to Asian and other households, and in India go deeper with other products and business models. For example, in India we might offer a subscription model where you pay monthly and do not have to buy upfront.
Aditya Anand:
Today, Nosh is optimized for Indian cuisine, correct me if I’m wrong.
Yatin Varachhia:
The mechanism and hardware can handle all cuisines that use pot-based cooking: Italian, Mexican, Asian. Our chef and recipe team is currently optimized for Indian cuisine. With more recipe creators for other cuisines, we can build those too. Right now we make pasta and chow mein and a bunch of Asian dishes, but the taste is Indianized because we are targeting Indian consumers. Later we will adapt recipes for different segments, which is not difficult.
Aditya Anand:
Can you talk about the supply chain for taking this to production? From sourcing raw materials to assembly to manufacture, does it all happen in India?
Yatin Varachhia:
Yes, it happens in India. We work with a contract manufacturer, and eventually they will do everything. Currently, we are handholding the supply chain and will likely do so for the next two years. Our sheet metal, plastics, and PCBs are manufactured in India. Our display and motors come from China, as do a few electromechanical parts. Those electromechanical parts should localize soon. Displays and motors will take some time. There are motor manufacturers in India, but not to our spec at small volumes. Once we reach volume, they will.
Supply chain is hard because you must reach volume to excite suppliers, but to reach volume you need reliable initial builds. There is a lot of negotiation and convincing. Supplier convincing is a major part of building a hardware startup. If you do not get the right suppliers excited, you cannot build the quality product you want. You need to excite suppliers almost as much as investors.
Aditya Anand:
What advice would you give to someone building a kitchen appliance?
Yatin Varachhia:
Kitchen appliances are a great category. In many areas, India looks to the West, but not with food. We believe our food is better. Yet kitchen appliances are built for the West, not for India. LG and Samsung optimize for the US and make small modifications for India. Indian manufacturers like Godrej or Kent often white-label or adapt products built for other markets. No one truly builds for India. The paying mass was small earlier, but it is increasing, and there is a real opportunity now.
If you’re building for India, do not compromise on taste and do not compromise on choices. People want to customize everything. They will not follow even the best chef’s recipe; they want their recipe. Enable them to cook for their taste. Taste comes first, then effort saving. If you balance both, there is a great opportunity. There are many opportunities because few are thinking deeply about this, and it is hard, so few attempt it.
Aditya Anand:
Any books, courses, or blogs you recommend for someone learning robotics, EE, manufacturing, or appliances?
Yatin Varachhia:
From a hardware entrepreneur’s perspective: Tony Fadell’s book “Build” is a great handbook. Keep reading, learning, and challenging your thought process. The blog by Bolt VC is also a good guide for hardware entrepreneurs. You can learn the process, the complexity, and what opportunities to pursue. These are resources to keep referring to and keep challenging yourself.
Aditya Anand:
Any role models you look up to, companies or people who do production or hardware really well?
Yatin Varachhia:
For me, Tarun and Ather Energy are role models. How they went about it, made sure the product is great, and built it starting in India. There are many Western role models, but you have to operate in the Indian ecosystem. We often go back to Ather’s journey to understand how they addressed things. My previous startup teammates mostly joined Ather, so we have insights into how they operate. We admire Tesla and others, but we have to contextualize for where we are. Ather is a great example for us.
Aditya Anand:
What’s next for Nosh over the next six to twelve months?
Yatin Varachhia:
First, get the production line churning regularly, solve hiccups, and make it run without our constant attention. Second, build the marketing engine. We’ve been a product-first company and never marketed much. We will build the team and engine that keeps churning and getting orders. Third, customer support and service are a main focus. We want auto-diagnostics in the product and processes so Nosh itself can report issues. A service visit should fix the problem in one go, with the right part carried. Finally, launch in the US. These are our focuses for the next six to twelve months.
Aditya Anand:
Where can someone learn more about Nosh? Where can we follow you on socials or place an order?
Yatin Varachhia:
Go to our website, lessnosh.io, where you can learn about the product and place a preorder. Follow us on YouTube and Instagram where we post videos and product updates. This is a product people often do not believe until they see it. It truly cooks completely automatically. There has been skepticism because others have overpromised and required a lot of effort. Ours is truly automatic. Come taste the food and believe. Tasting is believing. Check us out and order if you like.
Aditya Anand:
Awesome. Yatin, thanks so much for doing this. This has been insightful and a great learning conversation for me and the audience. I’m excited to follow you and the rest of Nosh’s journey.
Yatin Varachhia:
Thank you. Thanks for hosting me. It has been a great conversation.