324 - Breaking the Mold: How a Young Girl Became a Business Powerhouse with ERIA Food's Nikita Khandheria

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started.

Nikita Kunderia, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You're 22 years old. You own a couple of businesses in Marin County, California, and you have done some really remarkable things in your life. So let's just get right into it. I know from reading about you that you were born in Marin County. Your parents took you to India to expose you to India because obviously you're of South Asian background. And then you went to school in Scotland, university, and came back to California. And now you're running these at least 2 businesses and maybe 3 in Marin around food services. Tell us what happened. How did all this happen? And you're only 22.

Amazing.

I feel like when you put it in a summary like that, it makes it sound a lot more impressive than it feels every day. So I appreciate that. How does it happen? I think a lot of it, funnily enough, is just accidental right place, right time, next step movement, if that makes any sense.

Sure.

I was going off to university. I was 17 at the time. My dad had a conference he was attending in India, so he dragged me along. I met with these investors on accident. They were looking at opening a restaurant in the States in San Francisco. I obviously at the time living in Marin was like, look no further. Being 17, they awfully, they were very surprised to see me as a 17-year-old female author and they laughed it off. A year later, they transferred the money to my account and we opened the restaurant. Wow. Yeah. So like I said, whenever I tell the story, people are like, so how did you get your investors? I'm like, I wore really short, I'll make a joke and I'll be like, I wore really short shorts and pajamas and I just, and they'll be like, what? No, I just walked into the right room again in my pajamas. Cause I wasn't expecting to be there, but it was just, it's funny to think about.

Wow. So you got some investors and tell us a little bit about your business. You got, I know that you got a restaurant and yet you also have an interesting food service. It looks like a supply company. Tell us about that.

Yeah. So when I was graduating, I wanted to expand in some capacity. As you said, I was flying between I was actually doing two bachelor's, so I was in Scotland and Virginia.

Oh wow.

And then I was flying here sometimes to help restaurant opening and all of that. But I had built the restaurant to be self-sustaining, obviously, because I wasn't here that much. And so when I was graduating, I was like, what am I going to do with my time? The restaurant is on autopilot. So we bought Judy's Breadsticks. They were a 30-year-old bread company. They do vegan bread and things like that. And it was interesting because being in the restaurant space, you'll see so many recalls, and it was terrifying because like it'll be 3 days after someone delivers scallops to us or oysters and they'll be like, "Oh, don't use them, they have norovirus," and I'll be like, "But luckily we're closed Monday, Tuesday, and so we do have the time to fix that, but what if we didn't check our email?" And so that was terrifying. So I really like the idea of taking a step back and getting involved in the actual production of food from from an earlier stage, just because I feel like it gives you a little bit more control. And that's where the concept of Iria came into play. So Iria to me is me signing my name on everything. It's the last 4 of my last name, and it's my way of saying that I would put this inside my body. If I see— it's like, like lot numbers. When you see the number, you're like, okay, this was vetted, I can have it. And it's all about just clean, good-for-you food, because I feel like that's a concept that's so lost And even though we're finding our way back to it, I just want to know the chain of custody is clean. There's nothing getting in my food. And that's how Iria came in. We then took the logistics company and started doing a lot of things from Ditas and took that larger as well, which was the restaurant. So we do quiches. A lot of your most popular grocery stores will do all their gluten-free stuff. So pastries, desserts, everything that comes from the restaurant. It now comes from our commissary kitchen, but it was originally tested out at the restaurant and products that people liked there. I don't know if this is commonly known, but I was very gluten sensitive growing up and the chefs used to make me a lot of gluten-free options, right? And so our restaurant menu already had a lot of gluten-free things. So when I saw that there was a huge void in the market, one of the biggest gluten-free companies in Marin County, that serviced Marin County closed during COVID So there was a huge gap where people needed that. I was like, perfect, my chefs are already used to this. This is going to be easy. So the quiches were where we started and then the gluten-free items were our next stop. And now we do, we have our own cheese factory. So we produce all of our own cheeses. We do our own bread, crackers, pies, tarts. We have about 250 products.

Now you're distributing those just in the North Bay area, or are you, are you beyond that?

So we're in 400 stores in the North Bay area, and we're in the process of going national with our croutons, crackers, and breadsticks with Kiki and US Foods. Wow. So by hope— I don't know when this comes out, but in the next 2, 3 months, it'll be national.

Wow. So let's back up a little bit. You're obviously native Californian, born in the North Bay of San Francisco. We call it the North Bay, Marin County primarily. Mm-hmm. I live in Central California, about 200 miles south of where you are. The, you end up studying, getting two bachelor's degrees, one at St. Andrews and the other in Virginia?

At William Mary.

At William Mary, the oldest university in the United States, I think.

Yeah. And actually, no, Harvard is. We were second.

Is William Mary second? I thought William Mary was the oldest. Oh, it doesn't matter. Old and very well respected. But your major studies were math and science.

Computer science. Yeah. Econ, math, comp science, and data analysis.

How the heck do you go from there into being a restaurateur and food distributor and logistics expert?

I, so very honestly, I don't know if I would call myself a restaurateur. I feel like that's not fair to actual restaurateurs. Okay. I think that I'm a business person that really enjoys building. Right. So Judy's Breadsticks, Cheese Company, everything that we do get involved in, it's always a distressed company. And I'm like, I'm going to blow it up. I love doing the sales part. I love fixing books. And I did a lot of consulting while I was in university for companies and I would just clean up their books. So I would say that's my main thing. And I feel like it's underestimated how much that would help in restaurant spaces. So I'm a little naive, if you will, but I'm a huge believer that anything can work. As long as you aren't too attached to your ego and you're willing to pivot based on customer trends. And as long as you're good with money, because that's all it comes down to. Cash is king. It's, no, it is, right?

It's money. I'm laughing because you're so young and you're so wise.

I'm a math kid. It's what we do.

There you go.

So yeah, and the restaurant was really interesting because Obviously the opportunity presented itself. I had no background in it. And I, like I told you, I'm terrified of the food market. So at this stage I was not going out to eat at all. Till this date, I will not go out to eat a lot because I know the restaurants are going through a hard time. So a lot of restaurants will use like seed oils and things, and I will not put that in my body. So unless I'm going to a place that's owned by a friend or I know the chef and I'm like, okay, I can ask, or I know that they're known to do clean food. I won't eat out at all because I'm— at 22, I'm terrified. I don't want anything in my body that I don't want in there. Definitely not a restaurateur. It was just, they said that it's going to be a hard business and I said, I can do it. And I wasn't doing anything else. I was going to school.

So you figured it out and here you are.

Lots and lots of pivoting.

Yes. But you're expanding. So that must mean you're, you've got some profitability or at least a road to profitability.

Yeah, we were profitable actually our first month we opened and we were profitable from day one. Touch wood, not at Judy's Breadsticks. That took me a month to clean up. The Cheese Company took me a month to clean up, but we were profitable from opening at G Twist.

Okay, my head is ringing here. So you basically what you did is you bought existing businesses that were distressed and use your, the analytical skills that you've developed, saw the problems, addressed them, and immediately turned the companies into profitable companies.

It took a month. Yes. So like with Judy's, I did do, she was losing about $60K when we took it. So I did take $60K of losses for the first month. And then we turned and I think this month we closed with $250K in profit.

Wow.

And we bought it in September.

$250K profit, and you bought it in September. I'm surprised that people aren't just pounding down your door to get your help on other projects, especially all the way down to San Jose, Silicon Valley, and everywhere else.

It's— I've done a little bit. So like, my parents have home health companies, and they were like, here are our books. After Judy, they were like, here, here is everything, can you please set that I had my accountants like scrub 'em, put them in a format that I can decipher it. And then I think we saved them like $30,000 a month or something. So I did it and then I did it for a couple of their friends as well. It's, I, it's my most favorite thing. Like my boyfriend will always laugh. Like I'll sit in bed and I will just look at case studies and I will look at these. I just love it. I, it's my favorite thing.

It's your thing. Data. You love looking at data and telling it, what does it tell you and how can we improve on it?

So the biggest 3 things that I think businesses are not thinking out of the box on is softwares, right? So people feel very— I don't want to say locked in, but you're, you're locked in on a lot of the software that you think you need for your business. Like for my parents at home healthcare, Sky is where you do all of your charting and everything like that. And to someone that isn't necessarily in the industry, It doesn't mean that it's gold to me. So with the computer science background that I have, I think everything is buildable. So instead of paying $1,500 a month for that, if you buy something on WooCommerce that's already on the market, super simple, get a developer at $100 in India to customize it, to build it out to what you need. You pay $150 upfront, you pay $100 to him, $250, and then you have no recurring costs on it and you've already saved $1,200.

Wow.

Now you do that in every single step. You negotiate your ADP fees, you negotiate your business insurances, you group things together, you create a separate LLC for payroll so that you can have a lower cost on your EPLI. I don't know if I'm talking too fast, but there's just so many—

I get the idea.

Yeah.

And it's just things that because you're so used to it being a certain way and you're like, this is the gold standard, people are scared to deviate from it.

Okay. Nikita, where are you going with all this? You're 22. Where are you going to be in 10 years?

Hopefully having a little bit more control over my consumption, right? So the goal right now, we are actually pivoting Adita. So we opened up, like I said, as a fine dining. We then transitioned into being a little bit more casual. And then now in March, we're doing events 28 days out of 30. So we're transitioning out of dinner service, keeping it just as an event space in the evenings. Converting that into Eurya Cafe, where everything we do wholesale you can buy in the daytime on the water with a beautiful view. Just come hang out like a billboard. So the goal is to just grow Eurya to have its hands in everything. I want it to become the gold standard for clean source, handmade, small batches, good for you.

And what kind of a reputation do you have in the North Bay now?

I think that's what we have. People, I think it started off initially with, oh my gosh, it's this young girl. And then it turned into, wow, they're, they're only for occasion. And I think now it's transitioning into people being like, but it's this 22-year-old girl that's terrified of everything she puts inside her body. It must be decent if this is okay for her.

Wow. What is it that gets you up in the morning, gets you really excited to go to work? I can tell you have a lot of passion.

I don't know. I get asked this a lot and people are like, why don't you just stop? And I just, I don't think I'm hardwired like that. Like, I genuinely just think I'm wired to go. So like yesterday, so I take one Sunday off every month technically, right? And yesterday it was like 7 AM and I hadn't been to the gym yet and I hadn't started working and my mind was starting to like go crazy. I was just sat there and I was like, oh geez, what am I going to do? And I went to work. That was my first Sunday I was trying to take off and it wasn't very successful.

You were just— love doing what you do.

I love to feel like I'm making— I'm taking a step towards the person that I want to be and taking another step towards a world I want to live in.

So tell me, okay, those two very full statements right there. Who, who are you now and who do you want to be?

I am a work in progress. Who do I want to be? I want to be the best version that I possibly can be for— of myself, right? I want to be the strongest version of myself physically and emotionally that I can be. I want to be the most intelligent version of myself. I want to be the best-read version of myself that I physically can be. And I think that's what gets me going, right? Because any moment that you're not doing that, it just feels like a wasted moment, right? And relaxing is important because it gets you to the point where you could be able to be that version because you do want yourself to have some balance. But I think that any moment that I don't feel like I'm being very present and intentional with my time, I feel like it's not a very good use of time.

So you just can't— you just can't unplug and do nothing, read a book or go for a walk or go out?

I read a lot. I go on a lot of walks. But I think just because of the way that the last 5 years of my life have been, I'm so used to trying to be extremely efficient. I'll always try and multitask. I schedule anytime I know that I have to drive anywhere, I'll schedule a call for that time in the car. Anytime that I'm walking, I'll schedule a call for that time. If I'm reading, I read a lot. I'm a huge believer in not making the same mistakes as the people before you. And I feel like the only way I can do that, because I don't— I think if you work for someone, it's much easier to learn a lot of things. Learn what missteps not to make. But because I'm not working for anyone, I read a lot to vicariously get myself accustomed to mistakes that people have made that I don't want to necessarily repeat.

What do you think the biggest mistake is made in business when you think about it?

Thinking about yourself instead of the customer, right? Not willing to pivot because you like your idea and you believe in it, even if there isn't necessarily mass traction for it. Honestly, that's the prettier answer. The honest answer is cash flow. I just don't think people know how to forecast how much money is going to leave their bank account until they reach a point where they have none and they're like, now what am I going to do? And the company goes bankrupt.

There you go. So Nikita, what is it about you as you think about it at your age, 22 years old, that you bring to the table personally that makes all of these enterprises so successful?

Yeah, I could not tell you. I feel like it's, I think honestly it just comes down to math. And I think I was really lucky to, in the nicest way, get into an industry that I didn't have a lot of pride in, so to speak. I wasn't a chef going into it being like, my food is the best food. This is what I do. Right. So like, let's third or fourth week that we were open, I went and I sat at every table with the guests and I said, what do you want to see? You're a local. What do you want on the menu? And the menu we then wrote and the menu we currently run is just an accumulation of everything people said they wanted. I think that because I was lucky enough to get into an industry where I wasn't, I don't want to say arrogant, but I wasn't going into it knowing anything. I was very humble in the sense that I was like, teach me things, right? Tell me. What you want? Tell me how to do this. Chef, give me the options based on this. So it was honestly just like my job. When people say, what do you do? I'm like, I just delegate and I do math. That's all I do. I delegate and I do math.

You'll be interested in knowing that every successful entrepreneur that I've interviewed on this show says, they don't say the math part, but they do say that the most important thing you can do is hire good people. And let them do their thing. And it sounds to me like you've stumbled onto that.

Yeah. And I have touched with a really strong team. It took a while, but I feel like they all now speak my language very well. So we work very well together. Like I'll go into a meeting, I'll send a voice note after that to Chamini. She's my director of business development. She'll send it to the lawyers. The contract will be written within the next hour. The contract will go to them. Chamini will follow up with them. And it's just, they give me the space to just think and delegate. And I think a lot of people aren't fortunate enough to just be able to spend their entire time thinking and learning. That's all I do.

Thinking and learning. So at your young age, obviously a genius and brilliant. How do your— you have people working around you who are 10, 15, 20 years older than you are and they're taking direction from you. How does that work?

So I think that it was difficult when we were at like 3, 4 employees. So when we first started out and I had 3, 4 people working for me, it was a little bit more awkward. I think now it's a lot easier because I— we're— I think we have 186, 187 people now with us. And I think when you come into it and you see the respect from other people that you've respected, you're like, oh, she must be saying something worthwhile. When we started, I think it was a slow transition. I think a lot of the times, even if people didn't say it to my face, there was always this idea of like, why am I taking direction from someone that's 17 years old? I've been in this industry for 30 years and I'm listening to a 17-year-old girl who should be playing dress-up, right? And I think it was actually one of my bartenders. He got really overwhelmed during service one day and this was like first few days and he packed his bag and I was like, if you leave right now with the tickets on your desk, you will be fired, right? You don't abandon your team. Get back there. I'm gonna come join you behind the bar and we're gonna do this. And he said no, and he started shouting, and he was like, you're just a little girl, whatever, right? And he was like shoving everyone around us, and he pushed me down. And I think that everybody was standing there listening, and I didn't— because he had always been so respectful. It wasn't until after that conversation that I was like, oh my gosh, at the back of people's mind, I'm still a little girl. They're nice to me when they know I'm going to be paying their salary because they have to, right? And the job market, in the nicest way, in the restaurant space is not good enough that people are taking it so lightly. You know, if I get fired— so they're listening, but they're not listening because they think that I have something intelligent to say. They're listening because I have the checkbook. But then I think I started to gain some more talented people around me, and as those people started to be like, oh, I understand where she's coming from. This is intelligent. Let's follow along. I think the other people followed suit. So it's not something— yeah.

Interesting. So we got a few more minutes left. Tell me about the importance of listening in your life.

It's all you do, right? I listen to everybody on my team when they give me feedback as to what's possible and what's not possible. And then I take that around to the guests and I say, this is what we can do. What do you want? And that's entirely what I do. I just find the web between what people want and what's physically possible for us to give them, and that's what we produce. People said, the space is so beautiful, the one that we have on Bridgeway, and they said, we want to be able to spend more hours there. I wasn't able to give it to them during dinner service because obviously we had events, and that is the way that the company makes its money. So I said, okay, can we open in the morning? My team said, sure. I listened to them. We're open in the morning. Right. I, it's all listening. You just listen here. You listen here and you find the web. Everything that I've done is something based off of something I've heard or listened to. I am obsessed with business case studies. So Hermès, LVMH, I just listen to everything that they did. Everybody that's in charge, I listen to what they're saying. I listen to Benioff talk and I'm like, okay, what can I take from this and apply it to what I'm doing? It's all listening.

Amazing.

Huh.

You're an impressive young woman, I have to say.

I appreciate that, but I don't know if I'd go that far.

I've interviewed— you're 240, I think, people I've interviewed over the last 2 and a half years. I don't think I've ever run across somebody like you before. And the nice thing is I'm not that far away. My wife's mother lives in Nob Hill, so we get up there. So we're going to make a point to come visit you at the restaurant.

I love to hear that. Even before that, I can get you I'll see you some quiches at Molly Stone's in Safeway near you.

Absolutely. So one more question, Nikita, and then I'll let you go. What's one thing about yourself that we would never know about unless you revealed it to us?

I'm ambidextrous.

Really? And how does that manifest in your life?

When one hand gets tired of writing, I use the other.

The other one takes up?

Yeah, no, I think it's just a very good analogy as to me as a human being, right? Like I, I'm a huge believer in when one thing starts to give out, try another.

I know how that feels. I was born left-handed in a right-handed world and I've learned to do so many things right-handed. I play jazz violin and I play violin right-handed the way most violinists play it, but I don't play left-handed.

Yeah. That's interesting. Me too. I was born left-handed and then my school didn't like that I was left-handed because it's behavioral. So They feed it out at me. But I— now it makes for a really good story. Whenever I'm teaching a class or anything, I'll be like, in a world where people think my hand hurts, I have to take a rest, I think my hand hurts, let me switch to the other one.

There you go. Interesting. Nikita, it's been a real pleasure meeting you and talking to you. Thank you so much for your time today. Really appreciate it.

You too. Thank you so much for having me.

Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and Wanna know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.