Unseen captures the behind-the-scenes evolution of Zomato's Deepinder Goyal

The book not only tells of many such awe-inspiring moments in the life of a startup, it also captures the unpredictability, risk and adventure through it all

Unseen: The Untold Story of Deepinder Goyal and The Making of Zomato

by Megha Vishwanath

Published by Penguin Business 

289 pages ₹799

  Stories about startup founders are made of stuff that invariably inspire and impress. That includes stories narrated or shared by entrepreneurs. Deepinder Goyal, CEO of Zomato (Eternal), the online food delivery startup with huge focus on quick commerce through its arm Blinkit, recently posted one such story on X (earlier Twitter). This is about someone who had worked as a delivery agent at Blinkit for a few months to fund his education and was now set to join Zomato’s design team. Goyal’s post, sharing the transformational journey, caught widespread attention, while also triggering a debate on opportunities created by startups, especially food tech companies such as Zomato, which listed in 2021 — just three years after turning a unicorn (valuation of $1 billion or more).

 

Unseen, The Untold Story of Deepinder Goyal and the Making of Zomato, not only tells of many such awe-inspiring moments in the life of a startup, it also captures the unpredictability, risk and adventure through it all. The writer, Megha Vishwanath, is a senior executive at Zomato, enabling her to access relevant information about the company. That Vishwanath, a former journalist, is a company insider can also raise questions about objectivity — a critical aspect in a biography. However, the author’s note at the start tells us about the “arrangement” reached between Goyal and Vishwanath in the making of this book.

The writer had already left journalism and was working with a tech start-up. “I knew that to tell this story with real depth, I couldn’t rely solely on scheduled interviews or second-hand accounts. I needed to shadow him, closely and consistently, slipping in and out of his personal and professional worlds, watching decisions take shape in real time…”. And, Goyal suggested she become a part of the team working to build Zomato. The book is an outcome of some 300 interviews with family, friends and colleagues, along with three years of closely tracking the Zomato founder’s journey.

 

Unseen… opens, as part of a preface, on a bullish note with Zomato’s much-awaited listing. As India’s first tech unicorn went public on July 23, 2021, the author describes how people in the Gurugram office clapped, laughed and clicked photographs. Against this infectious setting, Unseen…  brings out the vulnerability of the man that the world was watching. After the noise had died down, “Deepinder sat alone in a corner of the office….’’ He asked himself why the IPO moment didn’t feel like enough.

 

The story of Deepinder Goyal takes off from here, going back in time to trace his parents’ life in Punjab, especially during the turbulent 1980s. Deepinder and his elder brother Geetinder “grew up in different worlds,” we are told. According to this account, Deepinder, or Deepi as he’s called, was shielded from the harsh realities of the world outside, unlike his older brother. But then, there was pain with which the young Deepinder struggled.

 

Deepi’s formative years — his sense of falling short when compared with his brother who was academically bright, his stammering, his attempt to outshine others in class through various means and finally finding success — have been documented sensitively, lending credibility to the narration.

 

The book reveals that he was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a condition on the autism spectrum, when he was well into adulthood. “It explained why social interactions often felt like an intricate dance, one where everyone else instinctively knew the steps, while he never got the music,” the writer notes, adding that “Deepi’s childhood was a paradox.” The paradox, though narrated by juxtaposing his home environment with the external world, could have been explained in greater detail.

 

 The protagonist’s transformation, including his sudden interest in physics, which pushed him to take the joint entrance exam for Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), has been described well. The other side of Deepi — such as his bonding with Albinder Dhindsa, who founded Grofers (which rebranded to Blinkit and was acquired by Zomato) and courtship of Kanchan Joshi (whom he went on to marry later) on the IIT Delhi campus — are endearing.  Kanchan was Deepi’s senior, pursuing an MSc in Mathematics while Deepi and Albinder were studying engineering.

 

 Besides friendship, romance and studies, the campus became the starting point of Deepi’s entrepreneurial journey. For that, Prayank Swaroop — another senior from IIT Delhi who’s now partner at Accel — worked with Deepi on several projects. And then there was a turning point. In 2005, a year after Prayank graduated, Deepinder who was now in his fifth (final) year at IIT, approached him with the idea of setting up Foodlet.com, the seed of an idea which would eventually become Zomato. Prayank declined as he had accepted a job offer in Singapore by now.

 

 And the rest, as they say, is history. A startup built from scratch became a giant. Also, the insecure boy growing up in Punjab is now on top of the Hurun Rich List 2025 in the category of self-made entrepreneurs. While much of the book is about the adventure, thrill and also the hurdles of the startup world including the ups and downs of fundraising, the bumpy road to profitability and staying relevant, that story is not unknown. Unseen… stands out more for the portrayal of Deepi as a young boy, more than him as a businessman.