“August slipped away into a moment in time”
That’s right. August was a superrr busy month for us.
(Also, did you really think we’d let August go by, without a plug for Taylor Swift at every opportunity we get?)
If we had a shot for every time our Founder, Akash said “OMG! This is the craziest day in LFC’s 2 year history!” - we’d be drunk *hic*
We’ve expanded the team from 8 to 11 new members.
Done 10 events & pop-ups across Bangalore.
And 2 Sunday Randoms.
There are 4 months to go for the year to close, and we are here going all cylinders blazing! 🚀
So let’s swift-ly recap what’ve been up to this month:
- New Team Members
- Making Awfis Fun(er) with our Sandwich Pop-Up
- Sunday Random Vol 17: The BEST GODDAMN Boozy Beef Sandwich
- Sandwich Showdown: Me(a)t-Up at our Micro-brewery
- Sunday Random Vol 18: The BEST GODDAMN Shrimp Katsu
- Wrapping things up for Bangalore Poetry Festival
- Beverage Partners for The OG DAO Club
- LFC Recommends Namu’s Vegan Market
- Poppin' Bottles at a Pop-Up for The Breakfast Klub
- Our Revenue-Based Financing with Klub
- What’s Up Doc?: Pop-Up at St John’s Medical College
- Simpl’s WE Club Beauty & Brains Event
- Having a(hoot!) at Warehouse’s Mixers
New team members!
This month, we’ve onboarded 3 new team members:
1. Ankit: Ankit’s joined us to make sure our beverages are always stocked in your favorite cafés, bars, and restaurants.
2. Sakshi: Thanks to Twitter (X?) we were able to recruit an amazing designer to our team! If you’ve been loving our new posters & newsletters - you now know who’s behind them!
3. Ishan: After stints at Taj Coramandel, Freshmenu and Nāvu Project, Ishan joins our team as our new Head Chef.
And he’s already been whipping up brand new sandwiches!
Starting with a small pop-up that we did at the co-working space Awfis. Ishan debuted our new chicken sandwich the Chicken Van Dam (that got us going GODDAMN)
And of course, as part of our Sunday Randoms, where our best chefs experiment to bring you the BEST GODDAMN stuff.
Sunday Randoms
This month - we’ve had not just ONE - but TWO Sunday Randoms.
For version 17, we launched The BEST GODDAMN Boozy Steak Sando
Sandwich Showdown: Me(a)t-Up at our Micro-brewery
The day before we launched our Sunday Randoms Vol. 17, we saw that a bunch of foodies on X were organizing a food walk across town to find the best b**f sandwich. They went from Candice’s, The Only Place, and Maverick & Farmer.
On seeing this tweet, we offered to host them at our cloud kitchen and get a sneak peak of our Sunday Randoms. While we are a cloud kitchen, we love hosting community-led events like this at our brewery and hearing what customers have to say about our sandwiches.
Here’s the verdict:
Follow Raj, Rahul and Sahil on Twitter/X to stay tuned for the next sandwich showdown - which will (apparently) attempt to find Bangalore’s best chicken sandwich.
This weekend we have ANOTHER Sunday Random.
This time it’s THE BEST GODDAMN Ebi (Shrimp) Katsu Sandwich.
Golden & crispy shrimp.
Sandwiched between fluffy, pillow-like Shokupan (Japanese milkbread) hotdog.
Layered with rich burnt garlic-infused Japanese mayo.
House made sweet chilli sauce.
Slow-pickled vegetables & aged cheddar.
Served with a bottle of our shrub soda - the Asian Medley, made with lemongrass, kaffir lime & galangal. This complimentary bottle complements the Japanese flavors in the sandwich really well.
Take our word for it - it’s a SHRIMPLY delicious combination.
Grab yours here (before stock runs out!).
While our last few Sundays have been crazy putting together the Sunday Randoms…
The CRAZIEST Sunday has to be the first Sunday of August.
We’d just wrapped up (quite literally) 100+ gift hampers for Bangalore Poetry Festival’s panelists, where we were official beverage partners.
We were EXHAUSTED.
But we had work to do. That weekend, we had not one - not two - but FOUR events lined up. Our team was spread across town - from Indiranagar to Palace Road.
While tired, we were energized. At LFC, one of our fundamental ethos is to bring together like-minded individuals and brands. We like exploring synergies and collaborations and helping build communities. The aim is to foster the growth of an ever-budding ecosystem that goes beyond the our 4 walls.
And we are glad to be based in Bangalore - because what better place is there for all things start-up and community related?
Starting with Breakfast at The Breakfast Klub
A couple of months ago, we were in need of much needed critical capital to grow our business. That’s when we heard about Klub - who helped us put gasoline on our growth with their revenue based financing model.
We were excited when Klub asked us to partner with them for their Breakfast Klub, an event for D2C founders to connect, collaborate, and learn how to accelerate their growth. We also loved interacting with 25+ other homegrown brands who were in Klub’s portfolio at their pop-up festival open to the public.
If you're a fellow D2C founder, we highly recommend that you check out Klub’s offerings here. We are happy to help you with any doubts you may have about the process.
Our Revenue-Based Financing with Klub
Checkout this fun video we shot with Klub. Let's keep the conversation around start-up finance going!
P.S.: Here's a tweet from Akash summing up the journey of LFC via bootstrapping, equity funding & finally, RBF.
Throughout my years of running ChefSocial, I have consistently advocated for the practice of bootstrapping your ventures. Honestly, the idea of fundraising, let alone taking debt wasn't something I was keen on. #oldschool? [1/5]
— Akash Devaraju (@SkyKOG) June 29, 2023
The OG DAO Club
Post speaking about term sheets, we then went to the Bangalore edition of the OG DAO Club meet-up. Making Web3 fun & accessible to the masses by hosting exciting events led by amazing speakers from the space, this was our 1st time being a part of one of their events. And we were thrilled to be their official beverage partners. We would like to put it on record (hehe, see what we did there :P) that this DAO meet-up is one of the coolest meet-ups. Big, big shout out to the man of the hour, Siv Souvam, for making us a part of this incredible group of people!
If you too would like to be part of this DAO and witness serendipity happen, check them out here.
Star Struck at the Bengaluru Poetry Festival
Bangalore often gets a bad rap for not encouraging the arts and culture vis-à-vis other cultural capitals like Delhi & Bombay.
So we were thrilled when one of our partners, Atta Galatta (an indie bookstore in Indiranagar), told us about the yearly Bengaluru Poetry Festival that they were organizing.
Our favorite part of the day was when we heard the journalist Humra Quraishi interview the lyricist Javed Akhtar and talk about his biography, Jadunama.
We learnt that Javed Sahab was named Jadoo (magic ✨) at birth, after a poem written by his songwriter father:
Lamha, lamha kisi jadoo ka fasana hoga
Translation: Every moment will be the story of a certain magic
When Javed Sahab entered kindergarten, they realized that they needed a more serious name. So they renamed him Javed (which means eternal) Akhtar (which means star).
All we can say is that, looks like Javed Sahab truly lived up to his name on both accounts - an eternal star whose story is magical!
We were also thrilled to meet other stars such as Maria Goretti and Shubha Mudgal!
LFC Recommends Namu’s Vegan Market
In 2021, Namu Kini set up a market with 13 brands. Now 2 years later, her eight edition saw more than 100+ vegan brands came to Bangalore. We loved bumping shoulders with some of our favorite vegan brands like OatMlk & Gud Gum!
This was our 4th time at their vegan market and as always, we had blast meeting so many of our customers and fellow booch enthusiasts. A moment of appreciation for the stunning venue, Chamara Vajra, that elevated the entire market fair experience!
Follow Namu Kini on Instagram to stay updated on the next vegan market!
What’s Up Doc? Pop Up at St John’s Medical College
After this, we headed to a pop-up at St John’s Medical College mid-week for their Diamond Jubilee CME in Pathology. We had a great time whipping up sandos for a buncha budding doctors (who overlooked some calorie counts for the day :P)
After this hectic month, we needed a break.
Beauty, Brains & A Break
Being a woman founder is extremely isolating. It is hard to break into the boy’s clubs. It is particularly disappointing to note that even in 2023, women-led start-ups receive less than 3% of all VC investments. Therefore, we are happy to be part of groups like Leap Club and Blume Venture’s Lead Tribe, which provide support and networking opportunities to women.
Recently, we also took part in Simpl’s WE Club “Beauty & Brains” event hosted at Slow Art Salon. We were happy to lend our support to the cause by being beverage partners. Here, women entrepreneurs networked while sipping on our Ginger Ales & Shrub Sodas, while getting some complimentary treatments courtesy Slow Art Salon!
It was also inspiring to see how the founder of Slow Art Salon manages 4+ other businesses along with this!
Having (a)hoot at Warehouse Meet-Ups
These days we find ourselves especially looking forward to the last Sunday of each month. From last month’s formal mixer at Olive to last weekend’s barbeque at Camp Monk, Bannerghatta Road, Warehouse meet-ups always mix things up.
We were thrilled to step away from our laptops, and be out under the blue, blue skies. We loved grilling up chicken while speaking with some of Bangalore’s most creative and talented folks!
If you would like to come join these cool mixers & meet-ups to make new friends, you can join Warehouse. Just fill up this form here!
Well, that’s a wrap! (Or should we say.. That’s a sandwich?)
Don’t forget to order our shrimp sando this weekend (limited portions only!)
