Good morning [%first_name |Dear Reader%],

It’s Aayush for Trade Tricks this week. 

A few days ago, Entrackr published an article with a two-part headline. Zomato-owned quick commerce player Blinkit, it said, is planning to enter the home services segment by offering the services of carpenters, plumbers, electricians, and other service partners to customers at home. The second part was about how Zomato-founder Deepinder Goyal had exited his role as independent director on the board of home services marketplace Urban Company (UC). 

Having written about both these companies in the past year, I found the developments pretty fascinating.

A foray into home services would make Blinkit a direct competitor to Urban Company, so it isn’t surprising that Goyal has chosen to exit UC’s board. But former and current employees of the companies say that UC founder and CEO Abhiraj Bhal and Goyal share a close relationship, with one former UC employee telling me that Bhal drew quite a bit of inspiration from Goyal. Now, mentor and mentee will be on opposite sides in the home services business. 

But more importantly, there’s the fact that for Zomato, this is new territory. 

So far, it’s kept its experiments close to its core business: food. Home services is quite a jump to the side. Nevertheless, Zomato has decided this will be the latest addition to its list of experiments.

And considering its lack of experience here, it’s probably going to be the hardest. 

Close ties

A former UC employee told me that there are two businesses that Abhiraj Bhal looks up to, the names of which feature often in discussions at UC. The first is Amazon—the American retail and tech giant’s 16 leadership principles are guiding lights at UC too. 

The other is Zomato. 

“Bhal looks at Deepinder as a mentor and friend. This explains why Deepinder Goyal was the only startup founder to be included when UC expanded its board with four independent directors in March last year,” the former UC employee said.

They also recall how UC tech teams derived inspiration and guidance from another top Zomato executive, CTO Gunjan Patidar, who resigned from the food delivery company early this year. Mukund Kulashekaran, the current Chief Business Officer for UC’s India business, also formerly worked in the same role at Zomato.