From startups to investments, entrepreneurs offer alternative to Zomato’s Rs 20 lakh fee

Latest update:November 22, 2024 03:46 PM IST

Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal recently faced backlash for posting a job vacancy that required the candidate to pay Rs 20 lakh in the first year.

Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal has announced a hiring for the position of Chief of Staff. (Photo credit: X)

Zomato CEO Deepinder Goyal recently made headlines by posting a unique vacancy for the position of Chief of Staff. The position was offered with an unusual condition: the selected candidate would not receive salary for the first year and would have to contribute Rs 20 lakh to Feeding India, a non-profit organization of Zomato.

Social media users reacted with criticism of the unconventional work. Many questioned the fairness of requiring candidates to pay rather than earn. At the same time, some entrepreneurs took the opportunity to offer alternative proposals.

Arjun Singh, co-founder of sneakerhead Gully Labs, took to X (formerly Twitter) to suggest a different approach to Zomato’s Rs 20 lakh demand. Instead, he advised using the money to start a business that could generate greater profits in a year compared to other options.

Neel Mukti, an entrepreneur from Bangalore, suggested using Rs 20 lakh to start a fashion business. He called for sourcing natural fabrics from Indian artisans instead of relying on synthetic materials.

“Me and my small team will help you with branding, packaging, product strategy and most importantly developing a good meta algo that can scale to 1 crore per month on Shopify alone and beyond. I will charge a discounted commission and take a 5% stake in your business. For your part, you have to be enthusiastic about the clothes and how a particular fabric feels on your body,” Neil added.

Another user, angel investor Tanveer Sur, suggested a different approach. He suggested investing the amount in Zomato shares instead of paying for the work.

“If I believe in Zomato that much, I would rather just buy 20L of Zomato shares in the open market and ride it for the next decade (or two). My gut feeling is that after taxes, I will earn much more from this investment,” shared Tanveer Sur, an angel investor.

While these proposals seem interesting, Deepinder Goyal later clarified his position on the Chief of Staff post. In the update, he explained that “charging people 20 lacs was never the plan.” Goyal said the job advertisement received 18,000 applications, many of which were rejected “by those who have money or even talked about money.”

“We are going to look for genuine intentions and mindsets in the sea of ​​applications we have received,” it said.

“Money is an important thing in keeping people alive, and I believe in paying more than the market rate so money doesn’t get in the way of great work,” he concluded.