Zepto co-founder's mother had the most desi reaction to son dropping out of Stanford

Kaivalya Vohra (L) and Aadit Palicha (R), founders of Zepto.

In a time when most Stanford University students were vying for internships at tech giants like Google and Goldman Sachs, two young Indian entrepreneurs made a decision that would change the face of India's hyperlocal delivery market.

Aadit Palicha and Kaivalya Vohra, both students of Computer Science at Stanford University, dropped out of college to pursue a dream that started with a simple WhatsApp group. Today, their startup, Zepto, is valued at a staggering $5 billion.

Speaking at the NDTV World Summit, Palicha, 22, opened up about the journey that led to the creation of Zepto and the challenges they faced along the way. "On the outside, it looks like a very cliched Silicon Valley story—you drop out of college to start a company. But before we took that step, Kaivalya and I were tinkering around for a year. As kids, we loved coding and building small projects for fun," Palicha said, recalling the early days.

The two friends were supposed to start their studies at Stanford in California, but the Covid-19 pandemic altered their plans. Stuck in Mumbai, Palicha saw little value in continuing with online education and took the risky decision to take a year off to work on something "interesting." That something turned out to be Zepto, a platform that would later redefine India’s quick-commerce sector.

The idea for Zepto emerged out of a common problem during the pandemic—long delays in grocery deliveries. "We were sitting in Sher-e-Punjab in Andheri East in Mumbai, and during the pandemic, you couldn’t get groceries delivered. Offline options were mostly shut, and online orders were taking seven days," Palicha shared.

Their solution? A small-scale grocery delivery service that started as a WhatsApp group, where they directly interacted with customers to understand their needs. "We kept tweaking the model for about a year before we started building the first version of Zepto," he said.

Once the business gained traction, the duo had to make another major decision—whether to return to Stanford or fully commit to their venture. "We got to a meaningful scale before we decided to drop out," Palicha noted.

Dropping out of one of the world's most prestigious universities wasn’t a decision that was welcomed by their families, especially Kaivalya Vohra's mother. "I remember Kaivalya’s mother burst into tears and said, ‘What have you done to my son? You have brainwashed him!’" Palicha recalled.

However, both sets of parents eventually came around when they saw the early success of Zepto. "At that time, we were doing a few million dollars in revenue, and we were growing fast. We had the substance to decide with conviction," Palicha explained.

While their fathers were somewhat more comfortable with the decision, Kaivalya’s mother still occasionally laments the life her son has given up. "She often says, ‘What a beautiful life you have given up on,’" he told NDTV.

Now, Kaivalya Vohra, 21, boasts a net worth of Rs 3,600 crore, while Palicha has a net worth of Rs 4,300 crore.

Zepto is now a major player in India’s highly competitive grocery delivery space, squaring off against industry heavyweights like Amazon, Swiggy Instamart, Blinkit, and BigBasket.