An unconventional approach to market research has caught attention on LinkedIn after a post claimed that an Odisha man moved to Bengaluru, began working as a Rapido rider and started speaking to passengers about their dairy consumption habits. According to the post by LinkedIn user Varun Raj, the man, identified in the post as Dinesh, comes from a family that runs a dairy farm in Odisha. Raj said he met him during a Monday morning ride and discovered that the rider was using his interactions with passengers to understand what potential customers might want from a future dairy products business. However, the details of the story could not be independently verified. Information received separately also indicates that no employee named Dinesh from Odisha has resigned from the organisation in question. Therefore, the claim that he quit an IT job and moved to Bengaluru to work as a Rapido rider should be treated as an account shared in Raj’s LinkedIn post rather than an independently established fact.
LinkedIn post claims rider is studying customer preferences
Raj said his conversation with the rider began with an unusual question about dairy products. According to his post, Dinesh asked him what dairy products he regularly purchased apart from milk. The question eventually led to a discussion about the man’s plans for his family’s dairy business. “Dinesh quit his IT job.. Parents not happy. He has a dairy farm back home in Odisha. He wants to expand it and build a dairy products business. But instead of sitting at home guessing what the market wants, he quit his job, came to Bangalore, and started riding Rapido,” Raj wrote.The post claimed that the rider was particularly interested in speaking with IT professionals during his trips. By asking passengers about the dairy products they consume and what they might be interested in buying, he was reportedly trying to understand potential customer preferences. The approach, as described by Raj, combines earning an income with direct conversations with people who could potentially become customers. According to the post, Dinesh planned to spend about a year understanding the market before returning to Odisha and working on the expansion of his family’s dairy operations. There is no independent evidence in the material provided to confirm the timeline, the scale of the dairy farm or the proposed business plan.
‘It wasn’t just the idea. It was the clarity’
Raj said what impressed him was not simply the idea of speaking to passengers but the decision to seek direct feedback instead of relying only on conventional forms of market research. “It wasn’t just the idea. It was the clarity. No MBA jargon, no pitch deck, no market research report. Just a guy asking his customers what they want. Rooting for this guy. Hope I’m having his dairy products someday,” Raj wrote. The post presents the approach as an example of customer discovery, where a potential entrepreneur tries to understand people’s needs before developing and selling a product.Speaking directly with consumers can provide useful information about preferences, buying habits and unmet needs. However, individual conversations are only one form of market research and may not necessarily represent the preferences of a wider customer base. For a dairy business, factors such as pricing, shelf life, distribution, competition, product quality and local demand would also need to be assessed before launching products on a larger scale.
Social media users praise the approach
Raj’s post attracted comments from users who appreciated the idea of speaking directly with potential customers. One user described it as “customer discovery in its most authentic form” and praised the approach of having conversations with the people a business hopes to serve. The commenter also referred to Dinesh’s reported “paisa bhi milega aur feedback bhi” mindset as a smart approach. Another user wrote, “Real marketscaping and building targeted product which he knows consumers would want… fab!” A third commenter added, “This is a great idea, direct feedback and expectations from the consumers.”The reactions focused largely on the broader entrepreneurial lesson in the post: understanding customers before building a product can help entrepreneurs make more informed decisions. At the same time, because the identity and employment history of the person described in the post have not been independently established, the story should not be treated as a verified account of an Odisha IT employee leaving his job to become a Rapido rider. What remains interesting is the idea presented in the post: using everyday conversations with potential customers to learn what they actually buy, what they need and what they might be willing to try before investing in a new business.
