When Siddhi Mittal and Heinin Zhang swapped their six-figure incomes for the uncertainties of entrepreneurship, they weren’t chasing a safe investment, but an idea: that is, to start a company that would make private chefs as accessible as dining out.

And, unlikely as it was for two women who’d spent years in trading and corporate finance to leave it all behind for the culinary arts, their company, Yhangry, has fast become the UK’s largest private chef platform.

The scale of their achievement doesn’t stop there, either. Since its 2020 launch, Yhangry has facilitated $7.6 million in earnings for chefs, hosted over 135,000 guests, and closed its second $1 million investment round in just two weeks of fundraising. All of which is even more striking when you consider its scrappy beginnings.

“At the time, we were knee-deep in the world of corporate finance, climbing the ladder and looking to earn as much as possible,” Mittal recalls. “Very quickly, that ceased to inspire or excite us.”

Like many others, they had been conditioned to see the corporate grind as the pinnacle of professional success. But for Mittal and Zhang, something was missing. “Both of our fathers are businessmen, in India and in China, and we’ve seen them graft through and actually create an impact on this world, not just making money for themselves—I think both of us always had that itch.”

The idea of Yhangry took root as they began to notice a gap in the market. “People in countries like India and China have private chefs all the time; it’s normal. Here in the Western world, it was just impossible to find one,” Mittal explains.

Though everyone around them kept saying that private chefs were not affordable enough to hire, they knew that restaurant chefs were among the lowest-paid workers in the hospitality industry, and that facilitating the gap in the market could be extremely profitable. “We realised that customers would love this if it was cheaper than a restaurant, and that chefs who have a very tough life with the long, gruelling hours—they’d love to get more private work.”

Initially, they didn’t have much to work with, let alone the finances to turn it into an industry-leading reality. “In the beginning, we didn’t even have a chef,” Mittal admits. “We just made up prices as we were confident that we would find one and pay them. We told people it would be something like £100 [$127] to £150 [$190] all in, and the chef would come and cook for you.”

Still, sharing a simple PDF with their colleagues and corporate peers (“we knew that everyone in finance has a good income”) turned out to be all it would take to get them started. “It was all about hustling to get people to book in, and soon after we were fulfilling grocery orders, even sending them to our Barclays office by accident!”

Two months in, the demand was so high they could no longer juggle their day jobs with the growing needs of Yhangry. A pivotal milestone in many an entrepreneur’s journey, there was only one real question for Mittal and Zhang to answer before jumping in: would their parents approve?

“Heinin’s Dad said “no pressure, no diamonds” and I remember telling my dad that I was

going to start this start-up or I’m going to go to do an MBA, which would cost around $200k,

so this was the cheaper option,” Mittal jokes.

Of course, the hustle paid off. After building momentum through small-scale dinner parties throughout 2019, their business caught the eye of Dragon’s Den producers, who invited them to pitch their business to the show’s celebrity investors… and the millions of viewers who tuned in each week.

“Dragon’s Den was amazing,” says Mittal, “but while you’re in the Den, you don’t get to ask the dragons any questions.”

Though they secured offers from Peter Jones and Tej Lalvani, they ultimately turned them down off-air. “The thing is, the terms aren’t very commercial, so we were offered £100k [$127k] for 10%, however, only two months after and before Dragon’s Den aired, we raised £1m [$1.27m] for 10%. It’s very hard for the Dragons to add any commercial value to a tech start-up, so that’s why we chose to decline.”

Grateful as they are to both the investors and the experience, it ended up being the exposure that benefited the business most.“It’s how a lot of consumers found out about us,” Mittal says, “with a lot of people still remembering watching us.

“It’s also great to have two Asian girls of different backgrounds on primetime TV. We had a lot of people saying ‘my daughter saw it, I saw it, and we’ve never seen women like me on TV for business!’—that was a great byproduct.”

As luck would have it, these objective wins coincided with the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, ushering in nearly two years of losses.

“It was insane, I’ve never seen so many orders and cancellations happen in a matter of minutes,” Mittal recalls—and that was just the first lockdown.

With restaurants closed, and a complete ban on having people outside of your bubble—let alone chefs—in your home, their entire business model disappeared overnight. “We had nothing to do—we explored virtual classes and kept trying to build the community and grow our followers, but every time the business would gain some momentum with rule changes, we would then be hit with another lockdown–there were so many challenges.”

Adapting in every way they could to survive, including turning the business briefly into a grocery delivery business, the co-founders now feel the experience taught them a very important lesson. “Whatever comes we’re going to give it a go, because everything that seemed impossible happened during Covid and we had faith that if we kept going, kept learning, then we would make it through.”

And made it through, they did. Despite almost “crashing and burning” as part of responsive changes to the business in 2021 and 2022, Yhangry was recognised among the top 10 female-run businesses by the Department for Business and Trade in the UK this year, contributing to their latest funding round’s appeal to high-profile investors, including Tamara Lohan, co-founder of Mr & Mrs Smith, and Michael Seibel, MD of Y Combinator.

The investment is set to fuel their U.S. expansion in 2025, as well as continued expansion into Europe, the Middle East and Africa thereafter.

“On the face of it, all of our accolades seem very glamorous, but everything in the middle is a rejection. When we left corporate, for example, a lot of our peers thought ‘wow, these two women are so silly’ – someone even said ‘oh, they’re going to start a catering company behind our backs’. It was painful and I just remember thinking, ‘we will show you one day’.

“The same people that rejected us a year ago are suddenly backers and now want to invest–but all of that happens with momentum, time and execution.You need to be an execution beast.”

Mittal has found it particularly affirming to see Yhangry’s growing chef cohort–now over 1,000 talented chefs strong–-reaping the rewards of the platform’s growth. Case in point: Chef Mark Bywater, who previously served as Disney CEO Bob Iger’s personal chef, has managed to earn an additional £211k [$268k] since joining Yhangry in 2021, far exceeding the average salary of a restaurant chef.

“We’re not just about providing meals,” Mittal reflects. “We’re about creating moments that people cherish, while also giving chefs the opportunities they deserve.”

In a recent change, their work now extends beyond individual chefs to broader partnerships. In the last two months, Yhangry has established over 100 short-term rental collaborations, enhancing profit margins for hosts and enriching guest experiences. With a pipeline of over 3,000 potential partnerships, the opportunities for growth are immense.

“The travel sector has become really big,” Mittal continues. “People go travelling, they’re booking a self-catering accommodation and guests want great food to go with this, so this is a new focus and we’re going to be very big in this space in the coming years.”

As the company looks to the future, their goals remain grounded in what they do best: brilliant, equitable dining experiences for everyone involved. It seems they have, in fact, made private chefs as accessible as going out.