A packet of roasted chana sattu and gulkand, ordered quietly by my husband while we were still grumbling that we couldn’t find them, sent me to Albinder Singh Dhindsa’s account of building Blinkit. I wanted to know what happens behind those ten minutes. The book softened my view of startups and left me with a few ideas worth keeping, though the machinery I was most curious about appears only in glimpses.
I was sitting in the living room with my mother-in-law, grumbling about not finding roasted chana sattu at the nearby grocery store or even at D-Mart. She, meanwhile, was telling me that she hadn’t found gulkand for the thandai either. My husband was sitting there too, quietly listening to our conversation.
A few minutes later, the doorbell rang.
A delivery man handed me a packet and asked for my husband’s name. I took it, completely clueless. Then I saw the word Blinkit on the packet.
Inside were roasted chana sattu and gulkand.
My mother-in-law and I looked at each other, bewildered. We had been talking about these things barely five minutes earlier, and here they were in our hands. Of course, there was no magic involved. My husband had silently placed the order after hearing us. But it felt magical nonetheless — a problem had been mentioned, someone had quietly solved it, and the solution had appeared at our doorstep.
Thirty minutes I never counted
Until that day, I was an old-school grocery shopper. I liked visiting two or three stores, looking at the products and picking them myself. It also gave me an excuse to walk around the neighbourhood. Going to the store never seemed like much of an inconvenience: ten minutes to walk there, ten minutes back and another ten minutes inside the store.
But that first Blinkit order made me look at those thirty minutes differently.
Perhaps that is what some startups do best. They identify inconveniences we have become so accustomed to that we no longer recognise them as problems. We develop our own little jugaads and carry on. We don’t necessarily ask whether there could be a better way — until someone creates one.
What happens behind ten minutes
That was one reason I picked up Buildit by Albinder Singh Dhindsa. I wanted to know what happens behind those ten minutes. How do they find several products, put them together and get them to my doorstep so quickly? There has to be an enormous amount of coordination hidden behind what feels like a very simple transaction.
Dhindsa himself describes a similar sense of wonder when, as a student in the US in 2004, he first experienced Amazon and then went to Walmart. He began thinking about whether something similar could be built in India. Years later, I was sitting at home wondering where to find sattu and gulkand.
A softer view of startups
The journey from that idea to Blinkit, however, was anything but straightforward. Like many startups, Grofers kept experimenting with different models and formats, trying to discover what would actually work. The path towards ten-minute delivery involved several pivots, failures and plenty of money being burnt along the way.
Before reading this book, I had a rather cynical view of startups. I often wondered whether they were simply cash-burning machines — paying hefty salaries, trying one idea after another and somehow staying alive until an IPO or an acquisition came along. Buildit softened that view.
What I saw instead was how stressful it is to build something from scratch in India. There is very little certainty. You are constantly under pressure, constantly making decisions without knowing whether they will work.
An idea is only the beginning. You need the ability to keep going when the idea doesn’t work exactly as you imagined.
Pigeon poop problems
One of the ideas I found particularly useful was Dhindsa’s distinction between real problems and “pigeon poop problems.” These are irritating problems that keep demanding attention but may not have a real solution or lasting consequence. People spend enormous amounts of time trying to fix them, while getting distracted from the problems that actually matter. Sometimes, these problems simply resolve themselves with time or changing circumstances.
It made me wonder how often we do the same thing in our own lives — spending our energy cleaning up metaphorical pigeon poop while ignoring the bigger problem.
Trust, or a system that doesn’t need it
The book also gave me an interesting lesson about managing people. Grofers depended heavily on delivery partners, but they were often unreliable. Some did not turn up; some left without informing the company because another employer offered slightly more. Dhindsa found that this wasn’t a problem unique to his business. After speaking to factory owners, he realised that industries everywhere struggled with retaining workers.
What stayed with me was the solution he eventually pursued. Either build trust with your employees, or build a system transparent enough that trust doesn’t have to be assumed. Dhindsa chose the latter and set out to create a technology-driven, transparent system.
His emphasis on ESOPs also made me think differently about employees. They are not merely a way to get work done. Giving them a stake in the company can create a sense of ownership — of making people feel that they are building something with the company rather than simply working for it.
The question it left open
I did, however, finish the book still wanting to know more about the magic I had originally set out to understand. I got glimpses of the complexity behind quick commerce, but I wanted a deeper look at the dark-store operations and the technology that makes those ten minutes possible. Perhaps that was the question I brought to the book that remained only partly answered.
What I took away
Still, the next time a Blinkit delivery arrives at my door in ten minutes, I will probably see it differently.
I will still see the convenience first. But now I will also see the experiments, failed ideas, people problems, operational headaches and constant uncertainty that sit behind those ten minutes.
What looks effortless to the customer is rarely effortless to build.
And that, perhaps, is what I learnt most from Buildit.
