A run rate of INR 1.2 Cr turnover and been in
the business for over a year, Healthyworld.in started by first-generation entrepreneurs, Puru
and Sreejith. An alumni of FMS, Delhi, Puru comes from a defense background
and a corporate experience spanning across multinationals, including P&G,
ITC, CSC & Cognizant. While Sreejith has a diverse experience of
more than 12 years in HR and Law and worked with big companies like Cognizant,
Tata Motors and Delphi TVS. Let's read what Founders have to say :)
What is your site all about? What
problem are you solving? What is the market size?
 |
| Puru |
Whenever you have an issue, you
either speak to someone around, search online for solutions, or sometimes even
talk to few experts. However, you are not sure if the information you get is
credible and complete, and/or if the diagnosis is right in the first opinion,
and more importantly, if the solutions will work for you or not. Once you have
good clarity of the solutions, you are not sure where you would get them, and
how. Finally, you also would need to know if those solutions have helped you or
not by having the right measuring tool.
Currently, the providers of such
services are fragmented and in some areas, incomplete. There is no one who not
only helps you identify the problem, but makes you talk to people who have
faced similar issues, confirms the solutions and diagnosis, and also, helps you
in providing those solutions. On top of it, you manage the entire health
management piece in the backend, along with regular proactive health management
checks, which we call as Health AMC.
This is what Healthy World does – as
your family’s Health Management partner, wherein we offer the following
services –
· Wellness communities to engage with other people suffering from
similar issues
· Accurate information around the issues you are facing
· A tracker to ensure measurability of every action you take or
every solution you adopt
· Validation of solutions / recommendations as second opinion
· Providing solutions as products and services with established
credibility
This would entail not only
aggregating the current products and services in the market, but also
complementing with the current players who are working on some of the elements
above. In summary, we own the entire health management for the customer and
his/her family.
All this would be currently online,
due to the simple objective of quicker acquisition and better accessibility.
So far, we have a run rate of INR 1.2
Cr turnover, and been in the business for over a year. The current online model
is around a year old, with 3 locations and a 15-member team. We have around 35 corporate
partners and 200 Nutritionists & Dieticians on our panel
Tell us the story of how it started
and the challenges you have faced?
 |
| Sreejith |
Sreejith and I wanted to work on
consumer health, and due to personal tragedies at home, we were motivated to
get diagnosis and preventive healthcare at the forefront of consumer mind
spaces. With this social mission of making wellness mainstream, we started
healthy world. We launched in Delhi and began with distribution with the intent
of owning the entire supply chain of health products, but realized very soon
that our strength was in building customer relationships. This led to launch of
our E-commerce platform. We started searching for brands that were genuinely
unique and had a key health benefit, and built a supply chain. Simultaneously,
we also started the Corporate Wellness partnership with organizations, where we
planned and executed activities that entailed higher employee engagement.
The need of local presence for
corporate partners as well as building a supply chain for local vendors led us
to launch Mumbai and Pune in July 2012
The road was bumpier than we imagined
it to be – opening every location was like starting a new business altogether.
More so, every channel we experimented with, had to have a fresh start and a
different perspective. Due to a small team, even though each of us was
multi-tasking, it did lead to a slower start as we were trying to do almost
everything to everybody. Over the past 6 months, however, due to our
focus on disease management, and customer acquisition, we have seen good
traction, both in consumer as well as corporate space. Our corporate partners,
having seen our wellness programs, are more open to ideas, and partner with us
in designing their wellness activities. This also gives us a good opportunity
to acquire customers via that channel.
On the other hand, our panel of
nutritionists / dieticians, where we have a win-win model, as we market their
services, and provide solutions to their clients as well, also acts as a big
customer acquisition channel for us.
How is your site so different when
there are already ecommerce websites selling similar products?
We are different on two counts –
a) We focus on health products, and each of the products that we
onboard is ratified by a team of expert nutritionists and dieticians. If they
would recommend these products to their clients, we onboard them. Having said
that, we do have snacks and gourmet products that might not be 100% healthy,
but are a much better alternative as compared to common junk food items we
consume mostly
b) We connect local vendors throughout the country – having the
advantage of 3 offices, we are able to connect local suppliers nationally, in a
short span of time, without having to invest in massive amounts of inventory.
Hence, we are able to keep our working capital at a fairly reasonable level
What initiatives are you planning in
the next 2-3 years?
Technology is our biggest play in the
short-term, coupled with enhanced customer acquisition. We intend to have a
base of 10 Million customers in the next 3 years, provided we hit our
milestones on time. Also, currently, we are at 3 locations, and we intend to
have our own setup in 5 other key metros in the next 3 years
Which locations is it available?
Delhi, Mumbai and Pune – we have our
own offices, whereas we ship throughout India
What is your Marketing/Promotional
approach?
We have strong network of Corporates
and Dieticians / Nutritionists that act as strong customer acquisition
platforms for us. Apart from that, we partner with running groups (like Mumbai
Running, Pune Running, Procam International) and co-promote health and fitness,
by combining issues with health solutions. Currently, we are running our model
on products in B2C space, and services in the B2B space (Corporate Wellness
partnerships). However, we intend to integrate this with our tech platform in
the next phase.
Did you raise any funding? If you
want to raise funds do you want to be contacted by Investors?
No – we are just about beginning to
seek investments. Our initial feelers from known circles have been quite
optimistic, but would wait till we see some more greens in the bank! J
What is the overall plan going
forward?
Every reader who is reading this, To
be your Family’s Health AMC!