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ManagementGrowth StrategyTechnologyAdvanced2016
TikTok: Algorithm-Driven Global Expansion
The challenge
Zomato started in 2008 as Foodiebay, a simple menu listing website for Delhi restaurants. Food delivery was dominated by restaurants' own delivery staff or expensive aggregators. The challenge was building a two-sided marketplace with restaurants and delivery infrastructure simultaneously.
The strategy
Zomato first built a comprehensive restaurant discovery platform — menus, photos, reviews — becoming indispensable to both restaurants and diners before adding delivery. This asset-light discovery business funded expansion before the capital-intensive delivery operation.
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Try the full case free →Key lessons (preview)
- Build the discovery platform first before the transaction layer — data makes the marketplace defensible.
- Restaurant data at scale creates insights valuable to every player in the food ecosystem.
- Vertical integration into delivery is expensive but creates quality control and customer loyalty.