Project
Grocery Gunj
An online grocery delivery service in Birgunj that Mohammad co-founded with his cousin in January 2024. It ran for six months, served more than 300 customers, and closed in August 2024.
Grocery Gunj started in January 2024 as an online grocery delivery service in Birgunj. Mohammad co-founded it with his cousin, Jabed Sheikh, who was the early investor and CEO; his older brother joined as a partner.
The team began with WhatsApp Business, one bike, and door-to-door marketing, without a website or an app. The first 15 days brought no orders. Over six months the service reached more than 300 customers and about Rs 5 lakh in sales, on margins of 5 to 15 percent.
After an investment of about Rs 2 lakh, Grocery Gunj closed in August 2024. In his own account in The Rising Nepal, Mohammad names the reasons: demand was overestimated, costs were underestimated, systems were missing, family responsibilities pulled at the team, and the open-border market in Raxaul competed on price.
He sums up the lesson in one line: "This failure is not our full stop; it is our comma."