The Exchanges

Q And what have been some of the rollercoaster moments, uh, in this journey?

A Well, you know, our startup life is rollercoaster on a weekly cycle. Yeah. And I think that never stops, but I think some of the more memorable ones have been in 2014 or 15 timeframe when a couple of years in, we had a fantastic product. Our app had won the best app on Google Play Store multiple times and, uh, had also actually achieved You know, 4.6 ratings out of five and, uh, we were, we were the highest rated health and fitness app in the country. And, uh, but we didn't have a revenue model. We didn't have a significant business model. And that was, that's something that we did. We discovered actually the hard way by running out of money into the, um, and, uh, fresh to the wall, we realized that, uh, you know, there's a huge demand in people paying for access to nutritionists and trainers who could guide them towards their goals. Um, and, you know, and, and therefore this amazing symphony of data and human services started in our company. Um, you know, and, uh, so that was an interesting breakthrough. The second one probably was in 2018 when we had large enough data sets with us to be able to create an AI model that could coach our customers with near efficacy of human service providers. And we launched the world's first consumer AI product called Healthify Smart. Now, It was launched as a pilot, but it suddenly took on a life of its own. It cannibalized our own high cost n…

AI assessment note: “some of the more memorable ones have been in 2014 or 15 timeframe”

Q So, so how was the journey, right? Because for a large part of time you had been very frugal. You said the, the seed round of one million was very tough. How had the journey been of organic growth? Some of the things that you, uh, push the levers for organic growth, if you can share those.

A You know, I think we don't do as good a job as we should, but our business itself leads to an organic growth piece, right? So when people lose weight, when people do a fitness transformation, they love sharing that story with others, and others join them for that. Um, and, and I think so our business fundamentals, and because we've been true to delivering our promise, an average customer loses about five kgs of weight in 12 weeks, our average HbA-C counts go down from around 8.1 to six and change within a period of six months, right? I started in a period of six months when I was talking about the weight loss as well. And I think these are the results that, that speak for themselves, that drive that organic momentum, uh, you know, but outside that, you know, there are a few sort of campaigns or growth hacks in our case, which have worked, which have not really were designed as growth hacks, were designed out of conviction, but ended up driving value. And one of the recent examples were vaccinate me, you know, we launched a tool to help vaccinate India. Built on top of the government APIs. It was a pet project by Manan, who now acts as my chief of staff and a couple of other with our head, you know, and director of engineering, Sumanu. And, you know, they kind of built it up in three, four days and we launched it and, you know, and before we know it, and then with Bertie who lau…

AI assessment note: “our business itself leads to an organic growth piece, right? So when people lose weight”

Q Uh, Tushar, uh, you know, when you were bootstrapped, you used to work, I remember, out of Prime Venture Partners office, uh, in, in Whitefield, right? Uh, so, so how, how did you build an ecosystem of these supporters, right, that, that kept you going, uh, when the funds were low?

A We were very scrappy. So our goal was, you know, why pay for stuff you don't have to pay for. And one of the things I think we took pride in is then the first two years, I don't think we paid rent, uh, or we paid nominal rent. You know, we, we were going from our, you know, mentors and friends offices to others offices, you know, begged and borrowed places. We started off with the Microsoft, we started actually with my friend's dad in somewhere near Delhi in some farmhouse for a little while. Then we moved here to Microsoft Ventures Accelerator. Then we requested actually a good friend, Ramesh from Artiman Ventures. You know, if we could, if he had some extra space, some company had moved out, we could just kind of lodge ourselves there. Then we moved to Khosla Labs with Shrikan Nadamuni, who was my, you know, ex colleague and senior person at Aadhaar and a very close family friend actually now, uh, him and Sunita. And then we moved over to the angel prime prime ventures place. So we shuttled around and in the middle, we found a flat, my flat where I was staying at, um, you know, we moved on my company there because we thought, and then, you know, so we kind of, I think we changed eight addresses in two years, uh, but effectively everywhere between MG road and Whitefield, whoever would give it for near free prices. Um, and, uh, and yeah, I think we managed to do that and that w…

AI assessment note: “we were going from our, you know, mentors and friends offices to others offices”

Q Uh, in the last nine years, there have been multiple pivots and you have been highly persistent, right? You are one of the most persistent founders that I know. How do you choose an advice for an entrepreneur listening to the podcast when to pivot and when to be persistent?

A You know, I think one should, my personal philosophy is that, um, Micro pivots are constant name of the game. You have to keep innovating and improving yourself. So if you've noticed our past also, it's a very logical sequence. It's not like we were making shoes and now we decided to, you know, sell vegetables. That's not what we did. Uh, we have been pursuing the vision of healthifying a billion people, and we've been pursuing the promise of delivering fitness via losing weight and eating better. You know, and, and I think that has not changed. So what has changed is that it, that there's an evolution there. Calorie counting took us only so far. Adding the right set of nutritionist trainers, physicians is an experiment that worked. And then the AI evolution worked. And now we're working on Healthify two point where we sort of bringing other signals in logically, uh, that makes sense. Now there are thousands of signals. One can bring in diagnostics, devices, connected meters, glucometers, you know, weighing scales. It's like, we're trying to figure out which signals make sense. Trying to figure out how else can we complete our promise better? You know, should it be food through supplements, through, um, you know, through activity tracker, through exercise, uh, devices, et cetera. So how can we promise that? So, but, but you know, how can we fulfill that? So it's always been fur…

AI assessment note: “stay persistent in your vision and your goal, um, and your customer promise, but be fluid”

Q And, uh, over a period of time, what has helped you grow, right? Has it been reading? Has it been your mentors like Bala?

A Funny name mentioned Bala's name. He's been quite a significant, uh, mentor and influence for me. Uh, personally, I think I have leaned on him for insight and guidance throughout these last nine years. And it's been a great person to really brainstorm with on difficult situations, I think, but, you know, and, and besides Bala as well, there have been Many other advisors and mentors throughout this journey who've had their roles to play in their times. Well, that's probably the most significant one, but there are many others who've had their roles to play over time. Um, and who've been board members who've been advisors, et cetera. I really strongly, uh, endorse that any founder starting a company should probably structure, uh, a team of more experienced people who you trust and create a mentor, uh, you know, board that can actually guide you. I think that was singularly most important because they've, they've seen it before, right? Like I can now, for example, tell a new founder, uh, things that are very obvious to me, but that probably won't be for the person who's just starting up. I think it makes a huge difference to get someone who's seasoned and experienced ideally an ex-founder.

AI assessment note: “Funny name mentioned Bala's name. He's been quite a significant, uh, mentor and influence”

Q And, uh, but tell me how, which are the personal and business processes that you spend your most time on?

A It's evolved over time. Now, actually, it's a lot more around, you know, investor relations, corp dev, um, that kind of work takes up most of my time. And, you know, I think probably international expansion, new initiatives. So basically new initiatives, international investor relations, corp dev is now taking up most sizable amount of time. Uh, but I think the evolution was that, you know, first, The first thing to give on to others was probably, uh, marketing, finance, business roles. I think I continued the product helm for the longest time. And then finally I gave off the product helm as well, but then I still continued running product operations, marketing, finance, all these units more independently. Now I've managed to consolidate many of them, but some phenomenal leaders, people like, you know, Anjan who's our chief business officer, um, and others in the team who are really sort of You know, driving a fantastic work, um, in the company and, and I've managed to have the privilege to now pursue, you know, the bleeding edge area of certain businesses, more experimental in nature or more expansion focused in nature, as well as, uh, we know, focus on making sure we are taking the right strategic calls. And, uh, so yeah, that's been my journey in these 10 years.

AI assessment note: “investor relations, corp dev, um, that kind of work takes up most of my time”

Q And can you share the process of the recent fundraise, the seventy-five million fundraise from Vinod Khosla's fund? Uh, how you went about it? How you went about planning it? What were some of the challenges and how?

A Yeah, it's so funny. I think the hardest fund to raise was a million dollar seed fund in twenty-fifteen when we really hustled, term sheets pulled, term sheets came in. I mean, my God, we were out of money and, you know, it was just, we diluted probably the most we've ever diluted ourselves because It was very early. Timing was weak. The company was small. It was very limited revenues. And, you know, we had to fight for people to believe in. It only got sequentially easier. Series A was easier. Series B was even easier. And now series C was frankly the probably the easiest in that sense, because there was data, there's evidence, there is a proven market and there's a global phenomena that's happening. Um, only thing was this time we had, we made sure that we reached out to a global set of investors. So Vinod Khosla had actually first time met us in 15, 14 timeframe as well, uh, or his team had rather. And then I had the opportunity to pitch to him in 2018 time frame as well once, but you know, so they are good. Coach Lavender is good like that, that they keep tracking companies and founders multiple times. So Khosla Ventures is probably the third interaction, which they invested. They came in late, but they came in strong when they had conviction around us. Uh, similarly leapfrog was a global investor, you know, who believes in health as a very important sector. Um, and, uh, an…

AI assessment note: “we made sure that we reached out to a global set of investors”

Q Uh, Tushant, I would like to understand, uh, you know, uh, how did your previous experience before starting HealthifyMe working with Adhaar, and there's a famous article about you, how you lived on 30 rupees a day. That's right. How did that help you shape up the problem at HealthifyMe and, and the team's culture, belief around it?

A Well, at a, at a meta level, I really do believe that a founder best thrives by getting inputs and signals from least expected areas or from everywhere, basically. So I think those two definitely had a very large influence on me and certainly helped me, but I think even on a daily basis, like going for a run, eating at a restaurant, reading a book, watching a TV. You know, you're always having your problems at the background. So various inputs, always you find some breakthroughs and connects, uh, that will definitely help you in your cause. So in fact, I do like to maximize my time in non work environments as well, which I think helped me in work environment even today. So that's energy, something I really believe in. Uh, it's not just an excuse for slacking off. I think it's very, very helpful. Uh, ideas just connect from, you know, solutions just form. But I think Aadhaar was, and hundred rupees a day was single handly, very important. Aadhaar was when I learned, when I rubbed shoulders with some legendary founders, like Bala, like, you know, others who were prime ventures founders, Sripati Sanjay, you know, of course, Srikanth and Khosla Labs, Nandan himself, Rajesh Mashruwala, one of the, you know, co-founding members of TIBCO and would subsequently be on my board. So I rubbed shoulders with all these guys, Sanjay Jai, you know, and learned about what does it take to build …

AI assessment note: “Aadhaar was when I learned, when I rubbed shoulders with some legendary founders”