We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jyotiee Kistner a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jyotiee, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you tell us about a time where you or your team really helped a customer get an amazing result?

The thing with Marathi food is that it is difficult to find in Minnesota. This makes it fun when you see an Indian expat walk past the food truck, stop, then do a double take at the menu. They are seeing food from home that they have not yet found in Minnesota. We love reading a review when customers mention that they have not had food like this here yet and it reminds them of home.

Food is a very important part of Indian culture and nothing makes us more happy than bringing people joy through these delicious, under-represented recipes.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Muddy Tiger-Indian Street Food was ultimately started to provide a cuisine that was lacking in Minnesota. and in fact, lacking all across America.

Over a decade ago, Chef Jyotiee came to Minnesota from India, following a job in the IT industry. Despite the Twin Cities metro area having a plethora of Indian restaurants, Jyotiee could not find the food from her region. The comforting cuisine she grew up with was not served in many of these restaurants.

If you travel across the United States and eat at one hundred different Indian restaurants, you will most likely see one hundred different versions of butter chicken, palak paneer, chicken tikka masala, dosa and naan. America seems to be holding on to the notion that “Indian food” has to be these classic dishes from the northern and southern regions of the country. Jyotiee is from the western state of Maharashtra and she is showing people that there is much more to Indian food than these delicious yet cliche’ dishes. She is showing people that “Marathi” food is some of the best in the world.

There is an Indian Michelin Star chef that says for every 50 kilometers in India, not only will the language change but also the cuisine. By the time we reach the western state of Maharashtra, the “typical” curries and gravies give way more of a stir-fry style cooking. The ingredients are no longer bathing in cream sauces and you will get to experience a dish where fresh meat and veggies are featured instead of hidden.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

Neither Chef Jyotiee nor her husband Andy had owned a business prior to Muddy Tiger. They had to seek out resources to help them know where to start and in which direction to go.

With the amount of online information, you would think finding exactly what you need is easier than ever these days. However there is so much information that it’s almost impossible to filter out the useless or even harmful advice. Everyone wants to give their 2 cents these days and if you know anything about the internet, everyone is always right and they’ll fight you if you disagree.

The Muddy Tiger team found it most helpful connecting with veteran food-truckers in the area. Jyotiee helped out on the famous Chef Shack truck to get some experience and learn from some of the best in the business. Also, there would many occasions where Andy and Jyotiee would simply visit trucks as customers. They would watch and observe and even introduce themselves and ask questions. They found that the majority of food truck owners are very helpful and willing to give advice. This was a nice surprise knowing that fellow food truckers will help you out, despite the business being relatively competitive.

Muddy Tiger found that if an established business is willing to give advice, you listen. So many small businesses do not last. If you can connect with a successful veteran business owner, you know they are doing something right their help can be invaluable.

Sometimes in a pinch, you can turn to industry groups on social media. They can be extremely helpful and get you answers fast. You just have to gamble that those answers are correct.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

There is one thing we will tell everyone that is trying to grow awareness for their product. Try buying a social media advertisement. You will be surprised how many people you can reach with a five dollar Facebook ad.

We’re living in a time where people complain about how much online tracking is being done. Some people consider this a bit frightening and perhaps a violation of their privacy. Because of this tracking, Facebook knows a lot about you. Use this to your business’s advantage. This collected information can be invaluable when building a Facebook ad.

When building your ad, you must spend time setting your demographics and location. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a sponsored ad for service/restaurant that is on the other side of the country from me. This is because the local company did not set the location to their local area. The ad was nationwide and targeting people that will not be able to visit your shop. By setting the location of your ad, you just made it immensely more efficient. Also you want to think out of the box when setting your demographics.

We are selling Indian food out of a truck. What kind of out-of-the-box demographics can we add to make our ad most effective? Obviously you want the no-brainer tags like “foodie” “Indian cuisine” and “food trucks” but how do we really take a deep dive and make sure our ad is reaching people that will visit our truck. Well, it’s no secret that many Indians living in Minnesota are in the IT field, the medical field and here as students. You can literally set the advertising audience to hit these specific fields. Also, you can get so specific that you can target people that used to live in India but are now in your neighborhood. More obscure demographics we use to sell Indian food are Indian cricket fans, University of Mumbai and The Times of India. If someone is following the Indian National Cricket Team but live a mile away from your location, chances are your ad will cross their newsfeed and there is a good chance they will visit.

Don’t forget to use pop culture as well. We will almost always target fans of TV shows like “The Great Food Truck Race” and include fans of Indian celebrity chefs we enjoy, as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.muddytiger.com
• Instagram: @muddytigerindian
• Facebook: facebook.com/muddytigerindian
• Other: www.muddytiger.com

Image Credits
Image credits- Andrew Kistner