How a retail branding veteran spotted a format gap in India's ₹40,000 crore ice cream market and built Poodyno, the country's first dinosaur-themed frozen dessert brand. There is a particular kind of entrepreneurial clarity that comes not from a eureka moment, but from years of watching the same problem repeat itself across hundreds of different rooms. "I've spent fifteen years walking into stores and asking the same question: why does this feel forgettable?" saysSaurabh Mehdiratta, Founder and CEO of Poodyno. "At some point, I stopped asking it for other brands and started asking it for myself." Mehdiratta is not the kind of founder who stumbled into entrepreneurship on a whim. A commerce graduate of Delhi University with a Bachelor of Information Technology (BIT) and MBA from Manipal University, he spent nearly a decade in advertising and media sales before making his first entrepreneurial move. He briefly ventured into the import-export sector, which he describes, without romanticising it, as "the most operationally honest education I've ever had." In 2013, he founded Ozeca, a retail branding and visual merchandising agency based in New Delhi. What started as a small operation in South Delhi grew, over a decade, into one of India's credible names in its domain: 500+ clients including Fortune 500 corporations, pan-India execution across 300+ cities, and an international footprint spanning South Asia, the Middle East, and East Asia. Ozeca has built store environments for luxury brands, executed airport lounge installations, and delivered large-scale retail campaigns across geographies that most agencies of its size don't reach. While running Ozeca, Mehdiratta was paying close attention to India's food and beverage landscape, not as a casual observer, but as someone who had executed in-store environments for F&B clients and watched, at close range, what worked and what didn't. The picture he saw was consistent: a frozen dessert category growing strongly on paper, but almost entirely stagnant in format. According to TechSci Research, India's frozen dessert market was valued at USD 4.86 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach USD 9.25 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 11.32%. IMARC Group puts the ice cream market alone at INR 312.76 billion in 2025, forecast to grow at a CAGR of 16.03% through 2034. The macro story is compelling by any measure. But what the numbers don't capture is what Mehdiratta noticed on the ground: every player in the category, from market leaders to the medium segment and the emerging artisanal brands, were competing on flavour range, price point, and distribution reach. None of them were competing on experience. The concept Mehdiratta arrived at is, on the surface, disarmingly playful: a dinosaur-themed ice cream brand, complete with handcrafted dino-shaped waffle cones, a rotating menu of fusion flavours, immersive prehistoric retail environments, and a live dinosaur ride at every outlet except for the kiosks. Operate
