This Delhi Man Embraced His Calling And Quit Full-Time Corporate Job To Become a Community Entrepreneur

Choosing whether to follow our passion and do something we love OR settle with a profession that pays our bills is undoubtedly tough.

We’ve all found ourselves at this crossroad at some point in our lives, haven’t we?

While we so want to choose our passion and take the risk, most of us stick to the latter because it seems easy and practical in the long run.

In fact, there are just a handful of us who have had the courage to start things over.

And, Adit Kohli is certainly one of them.

It was back in 2015 when Adit lost his father (who was his mentor, friend, and hero) to a heart disease. Thereafter, he found himself in the flashback of his dad’s memories from the past.

He recalled how his dad was a dedicated and hard-working corporate professional who worked until his last breath. It was exactly in that moment Adit realised that he didn’t want to go through the same fate.

A few days later, he quit his full-time role as AVP Sales at Eg Com to recover from his father’s loss and pursue his passion, i.e. scaling his online community, Delhi Foodiez.

Sure, he was both nervous and hesitant. And, the thought of not receiving the fat paycheck in the month end was daunting. But, he believed in himself and stayed firm on his decision.

Fast forward to today, he is earning pretty well through his 35,000+ member community and has collaborated with some global brands like Saami-Thair Basmati Rice, MOD, MamaEarth, FabPiks, Sunshine Tea, Nestle, Dettol, Nan Pro, SPAR, Kent, to name a few.

Most of all, the inner satisfaction he has of doing what he loves is above everything else. 😊

When I asked about the best ever moment while building his Facebook group (what he proudly calls an online dining table that takes care no one eats alone), here’s what Adit had to say.

“We have a member who lives in the US alone. He doesn’t cook often.
One day he called to thank me for creating Delhi Foodiez. He said, it is because of my online community that he is motivated to cook and share his food pictures with other DFZ members. This way he doesn’t feel isolated and no more misses his extended family in India.”

Wait… Did I mention that in 2018 Adit’s story got featured in Business Standard, one of the largest selling publications?

This passionate young man is definitely on a roll! Scroll down to learn all about:

• His journey from a corporate worker to a community entrepreneur
• The core values of his community
• How he earns through his community while providing value to members and brands
• How he increases engagement and manages SPAM in his community
• The skills he learnt while building his community

Working in the corporate to managing his Facebook group full time… Passion drove him!

Adit was a part of the corporate world for 10 long years. He started his career as a Loan Manager with ICICI bank, went off to work as a media sales professional with Live Media and finally as AVP Sales with Eg Com.

During his tenure at Live Media, he created a Facebook page namely Delhi Foodiez in 2014 out of his sheer love for food. He reshared all viral content about local and international food on the page. And surprisingly, it took off really well. As of today, the page has around 42K followers.

But, he realised that it was not possible to connect and engage with the audience via a Facebook page. That’s when the idea to create a close-knit community struck him.

In June 2015, the Facebook group Delhi Foodiez was born.

In September 2015, Adit quit his full-time role at Eg Com and set sail on his journey to become a community entrepreneur. And, the traction Delhi Foodiez has gained since then is just amazing. The engagement rate of 202% and activity rate of 29 are proof of it.

Besides Delhi Foodiez, Adit owns yet another Facebook group namely Healthy DFoodiez. He created this food community in January 2018 with an aim to encourage healthy eating choices and promote the benefits of eating correctly. Currently, the group has over 1800 members who work together towards a healthy future.

Simultaneously, he has created another community called The Daddy Club. It is a men-only community for all dads, dads to be, and those who wish to see how it feels to be in one such group. They talk about anything and everything around parenting, gadgets, food, movies, lifestyle, sports, and so much more.

But, Adit devotes a majority of his time and attention to scale Delhi Foodiez since it is close to his heart. 😊

Positive environment and constant motivation set his community apart

Food enthusiasts from different walks of life are a part of Delhi Foodiez. They talk about anything and everything related to food (both local and international) and its preparation.

Basically, this community serves as a platform where common people come forward and share their food experiences. Here’s an example where a member shares a picture of the special food she prepared on the occasion of Naga Panchmi.

The activity score (total reactions + total comments) of this post is 117. Now, if we look at the activity rate or the average activity score of Delhi Foodiez, it is 29. It means that this post attracted 4x higher engagement than average!

In fact, Delhi Foodiez has come to be known as a safe space where women feel free to voice their opinion. “I focus on quality and not quantity when it comes to adding members in my community,” says Adit.

Apart from that, the members constantly inspire and motivate each other. “My community is like a family. The members are so comfortable that they share their personal moments in the group. When they are not connected with their families, they still feel connected with someone close through the group,” smiles Adit.

This is one of the reasons that sets Adit’s community apart from the other food communities out there. The other being his personal involvement. 🙂

How does Adit earn through his community while providing value to members?

Through brand partnerships.

Since he worked for a media firm, he has quite a few contacts in the industry. In fact, they helped him get started with his monetisation efforts pretty early, when the group had just 5K members.

Sharing his experience reaching out to brands, he tells,

“Initially, a lot of handholding had to be done. I had to explain to brands why they should rely on communities and not FB advertising.”

For the same, he prepared a dossier highlighting the key points about his community. It comes really handy and entails everything from member growth, engagement details, to campaigns and other such details.

“I try to close a long term deal with brands like half-monthly or yearly. Since I know I have a fixed set of campaigns for the next 6-12 months, I feel stress-free,” says Adit.

As part of Dettol’s awareness campaign, Adit’s wife Jyoti encouraged members to read instructions carefully at the back of a product before using it.

The activity score of this post is 158 which means it got 5.5x higher engagement than average!

In a really sweet attempt to shower affection towards moms on Mother’s Day, Adit came up with a contest in collaboration with SPAR. Members had to just complete the sentence sharing the reason why they love their moms. And, two best answers won SPAR gift cards.

The activity score of this post is 190 which means this post attracted almost 6.5x higher than average engagement.

With an engagement rate of 220% , Delhi Foodiez boasts of amazing health!

Adit tracks these engagement metrics via Convosight to measure the health of his community.

• Engagement Rate: The average actions (posts + comments + reactions) per member per month in his group is 220% or 2.2 actions per member per month.

• Activity Rate: The average number of comments and reactions per post per month in his Facebook group is 29.

• Daily Active Users/Monthly Active Users: The percentage of monthly active members that are active daily in his Facebook group is 32%.

FYI: The average DAU/MAU of Facebook groups is 53%. So, if your community’s DAU/MAU is along these lines, it’s good news!

If you wish to know more about any of these metrics, feel free to check out our article on “Top health metrics for your Facebook group”.

Adit’s foolproof way to tackle SPAM in his community

Adit is very particular about the kind of people that join his community. He has put quite a few filters (questions being one) that ensure that the right kind of people enter his community.

Since the moderator makes sure that the right kind of people enter the community, there is very less SPAM in his group.

Simultaneously, he uses Convosight’s Urgent Alerts feature to get notified of any abusive words. He has marked words he considers as spam and instantly gets notified when any member uses them.

He immediately moderates that particular comment, mutes that member, and gives him an opportunity to know he has done something wrong.

Apart from that, he turns off post approval for any member breaking the rule. If the same set of people are doing the same thing time and again, he removes them.

Here’s how Adit’s moderators help scale his community

Adit’s sister-in-law is a full-time moderator of Delhi Foodiez right from the start. And, his wife moderates the group part-time.

Additionally, his group members volunteer for the role of moderator from time to time as per their availability. Even he keeps a tab on the active members and approaches them.

He interviews them personally and finally selects the one whose values align with that of his community.

The moderators of his group are responsible for:

• Screening member profiles
• Accepting/rejecting member requests
• Post approvals
• Managing SPAM

“I take a backseat and let my moderators take responsibility for their work. They connect with me for any sort of approvals or when they feel any input is required. This way they perform well and have a satisfying experience,” tells Adit.

P.S. If you wish to know more about how to choose the right moderator for your Facebook group, check out our blog on it.

These 3 things are the engagement drivers of Adit’s community

1. Contests

The contest below has two parts. In the first one, Adit asked members to add their friends in the community. And, in the second part, he encouraged them to share their original food recipes along with a picture.

The activity score of this post is 313 which means it attracted almost 11x higher engagement than average! Wow!

2. Polls

Adit conducted a poll to find out the favourite tea brand of his members and the engagement it attracted was awesome. The activity score of this post is 120 which means it attracted 4x higher engagement than average.

3. Changing cover photo with member pictures

“As a rule, we do not put cover photos from the dishes posted by any of the admins. Instead, we pick photos posted by members. Within a couple of hours, that post gets close to 100 likes. This way the members feel empowered and motivated enough to post more often,” tells Adit.

Have a look at the engagement on the post below. Adit uploaded this as the cover image of DFZ and credited the member. The activity score of this post is 282 which means it received close to 10x higher engagement than average.

The secret behind Delhi Foodiez’ growth revealed!

Adit tells that the first 5000 members of his community came easily. Although his friends, relatives, and extended family were the initial face of Delhi Foodiez, the group picked up well and started to grow organically early on.

Secondly, he credits the group’s engagement for its growth. As it is, Adit leaves no stone unturned to provide value and a great experience to members. One such way is to wish members on their birthday by making a good creative and sending across gifts.

Here’s how he wished his moderator on her birthday. The activity score of this post is 353 which means it got 13.5x higher than average engagement. (So amazing!)

Now, the best part. Adit revealed that he holds contests wherein he asks members to add their friends in the group and win amazing gifts. Sharing an example here.

The activity score of this post is 218 which means it got 7.5x higher engagement than average.

Adit is proud of learning these 3 skills while building his community

1. Designing

Scaling Delhi Foodiez has certainly got Adit’s creative juices flowing. He designs some beautiful creatives on Picasa for sharing in his group.

Here’s one he created to announce the winners for the ‘Rice for Life’ contest. The activity score of this post is 65 which means it got 2.5x higher engagement than average.

2. Photography

From a wannabe photographer to excelling at it, Adit has come a long way. So much so that he has been invited by restaurants to click pictures of their food and even get paid for it.

3. Cooking

Lastly, he is proud of being able to learn about and cook some mouth-watering dishes now, both from the local and international cuisine.

Adit’s message for every community admin reading this…

Wow! That’s some nice motivation!

That said, we have our Facebook group, Growth and Monetisation for Facebook Group Admins where Adit and hundreds of other community admins are constantly discussing about the ways to build their groups and motivating each other in the journey. If you wish to gain such insights too, feel free to be a part!

Simran Grover

Creating value in the lives of others with my content, little by little.✨

Working at Convosight, I do more than just wrangle commas. I’m passionate about innovating new ways to create super valuable and actionable content about Communities and Community Marketing at large, and sharing it with the right audience.
I also happen to manage a global community of power admins on Facebook, and that’s where most of my learnings come from.

Do check out my latest blogs and feel free to share them! 💛