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Taking E-Pharmacy To The Masses | Vivek Jaiswal @ Saveo
326 Plays2 years ago
Growing up in a small town, Vivek personally experienced the lack of adequate access to healthcare services, which motivated him to build a pharmacy e-commerce business that tackles the same. Saveo enables local pharmacies to serve customers better by providing them with easy access to a wide range of medicines as well as educating them with knowledge and best practices. If you want to build a sustainable startup, then this is a conversation you must not miss.
Know about:-
- The problem of prescription bounce
- Fundraising and scaling up
- Converting pharmacy to modern community centre
- Future expansion plans
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Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi listeners, this is Vivek from Savio. Hi, I'm Akshay. Hi, this is Saurabh and you are listening to the Founder Thesis Podcast. We meet some of the most celebrated charter founders in the country. And we want to learn how to build a unicorn.
00:00:30
Speaker
I'm sure most of you would know this. Bharat is much bigger than India. People like us who have a smartphone and listen to English podcasts are a tiny minority. And while a large number of start-ups target problems of people like us, the real opportunities in the next decade lie in solving problems of people living in the tier 2, 3 and 4 towns of India and beyond.
Vivek's Inspiration and Savio's Vision
00:00:52
Speaker
Vivek Jaiswal grew up in a small town and had first-hand experience of the lack of access to health care and medicines in small towns. And that personal pain gave rise to him building a pharmacy e-commerce business that helps solve this problem of access. His venture Savio is an e-commerce platform that empowers local pharmacies to serve their customers better by providing them quick access to a large number of medicines and imparting knowledge and best practices to them.
00:01:20
Speaker
This approach allows them to scale up in a highly capital efficient manner and create a disproportionate social impact. If you want to build a sustainable startup, then this is a conversation you must not miss. Listen on as Vivek tells Akshay Dutt about how it all started.
00:01:35
Speaker
We started evaluating the farmer industry with the same group by courts. But when we got into this industry, we realized that group by is not even a problem. There's a bigger problem. Pharmacy works to buy core history. Pharmacy is not even able to bank. The market itself
00:02:00
Speaker
So above pharmacy there's a distribution layer. The distribution layer was so fragmented that the pharmacy to figure out be the way to escape us.
Business Model and Marketplace Solutions
00:02:08
Speaker
It was a mid-tier problem which was there. And we used to ask, so how do we get back to the pharmacy?
00:02:17
Speaker
This is June 2019. We started sitting on the pharmacy store for the complete day. And we noticed that prescriptions are a pharmacy capacity. And the pharmacy is also not putting a lot of effort.
00:02:38
Speaker
That was the world moment for us. That's where we were. But here we have got the right industry and we have got the right problem. The problem, where else? You wanted to do something like Uran, like a B2B marketplace?
00:02:52
Speaker
At that time, we wanted to solve this problem. That prescription bounce is happening. Patient is not able to get the medicine. We have to solve this. What with the model it takes, whether it takes urine, pharmacy, any model it takes, it doesn't matter. We want to solve this problem. This was our way of looking at data by that time. This is a nice term, prescription bounce. This is like a common term or like it's your proprietary term.
00:03:15
Speaker
No, it's a common term. So you wanted to solve prescription balance problems. Exactly. Exactly. And for me, this was sorting back again and again. Why? Because they mentioned you last time. In say, plight is used to happen because of cleanliness.
00:03:31
Speaker
be because of non-ediquate facility and see accessibility to medicine. So I will be okay. I'm able to solve the third leg first. Oh wait, can we solve this? We found the right problem, prescription bows. And then we started Savio. We got active in August 2019. Savio, name, what is your name?
00:03:52
Speaker
So if you look at Savio, it's a combination of Save and O. Save means saving money, saving time. You can think of anything. And O is 60 degrees. We are not here just to save you from one problem. We are the saviors. But time, because the journey is not going to be a one-year journey. The journey has gone away.
00:04:11
Speaker
the life story, the journey going over 30, 40, 50, and by God's grace, that's what I was telling, right? But we were made sure that we become the saviors for you, and we saw the complete ecosystem problem. That's why it's for representing ecosystem, saving life, and connecting ecosystem. That's what when he means Savio.
00:04:33
Speaker
Like tell me about how you like that idea to execution, then go to market, how you did that.
Operational Strategies and Early Growth
00:04:38
Speaker
Did you want to do like an app based like tell pharmacies, download this app and place your order? Like, was that the approach?
00:04:52
Speaker
I would think of an app-based approach only where it's easy to look at what all is available, see how many units are available. The Amazon experience basically, like get an estimate of
00:05:04
Speaker
delivery data. Perfect, perfect. On the buyer side, you're totally right. Yes. On the buyer side, you're totally right. But to make sure those SKUs are valuable, there has to be a supplier in the back end. So that means you have to first get the supplier on board. Don't you think from outside that this industry is highly rehabilitative? There are a lot of associations, how will you enter in this industry? Yeah. Like to be a pharmacist, you need qualification and probably some stamp also.
00:05:30
Speaker
Is there a requirement even for this supply chain of pharmacy that you need some qualification and some sort of stuff? Not exactly qualification, but experience and pharma, we call it drug nonsense required. So at that time, when we were trying to enter, this was the innovation in our mind. Our industry regulated here.
00:05:49
Speaker
Yeah, the associations and lights and study are a lot of things. What we did as a GTM approach, we're like, okay, what we want the SKU so that we can provide it to the pharmacy so that they're able to sell it to the patient. That means, why don't we on board a distributor as an advisor of the companies? But this was our way.
00:06:09
Speaker
as a GTL. So what we did, we started reaching out to distributors and we started sending a story that what we want to bear. And luckily, one of the distributors in Bangalore who falls into top 10, I like that idea. And we're like, okay, let's start. So what we did, we entered a very small space in his own warehouse. What is space like where we can think of a bathroom space? And so for the space we had, we put two computers and that's why we bought it for our own money, which we had invested in the company.
00:06:38
Speaker
And we were like, okay, no, let's actually do this and find out where exactly the gaps are. So here crashed to 67, 68 companies, and close to, I remember, 8,000, 9,000 medicines with him. So we're like, let's start with these medicines. And then we will tell him,
00:06:59
Speaker
We were a team of four co-founders. Shivaj, Operations, Anurag, Demat, I used to take care of Shafai and product and Amit lately, we joined and he was taking care of the technology. All of the values from IITs to be on Apple's similar background and from a small town in India and I've seen healthier problems in their life.
00:07:19
Speaker
We all agenda very well. Now that being said, I do not use to go to the pharmacies or for general Japan and got different areas of Bangalore to the pharmacy. Take that service is our app. As you rightly mentioned, we had our app. So this is our app. You can download the app. You can start placing order. We will deliver in three hours. We will deliver in four hours. So we make sure that we do not get a stock
Challenges in Pharmacy Distribution
00:07:40
Speaker
out.
00:07:40
Speaker
And we will deliver it in one hour if your patient works urgently. And if you want to make sure that the patient should not go to another pharmacy, your patient should struggle. We will also deliver it in one hour. We also did all of this in exercise. This time, for the orders, for the payments. And he and I, we used to also do deliveries to the pharmacy, Chivas. So we used to go to the pharmacy delivery, collect the payment. We were doing that also. Chivas used to go to the... I think you had cash on delivery.
00:08:07
Speaker
Yes, it was captured in every model initially and later we converted into server disk ready. And we used to go to the warehouse and we used to pick out the VA invoice of the file. So we used to be our vendor system, consolidate, get it built in the supplier system with the CRV format. And with the supplier, she wants us to take that checklist, go to the warehouse inside, pick out the medicines, check it, pack it, and dispatch it. So billing to dispatch operations, it was taking care and we were taking care of the rest of the file.
00:08:34
Speaker
Basically saying that at the initial stage, we were also doing this, then we started hiring one or two percent because that's the match we can afford on our payroll, which is where, after doing this for six months, so we did it for six months, from August 2019 to February 2020, we did this complete process for six months, we realized that one distributor is not sufficient.
00:08:57
Speaker
The point is that one distributor is not sufficient. That is the reason that in India there are 65,000 distributors to sell 1 million pharmacies. In the US, it is just 4. It is just 5. In India, it is 65,000. But there was another question that, okay, one is not sufficient, then 65,000 is sufficient. Isn't this too much?
00:09:25
Speaker
The realization was yes, it's too much. In a city like Bangalore, there are 300 plus suppliers. The market can be solved with 30 suppliers. That means India can be solved well. You're saying distributed level 300 suppliers.
00:09:38
Speaker
Yes, 300 distributors. That means that 65,000 may not be needed. Maybe India can be served with 10,000. Second learning, if I become a distributor myself, we cannot solve this prescription wrong. Because we cannot fold inventory because he cannot, then how can I? And nobody in India is having more than 20,000 SKUs, 22,000 SKUs. Like the largest distributor in India, Milkant, is having 22,000 SKUs.
00:10:01
Speaker
And in a particular city, 40,000 plus rescues are selling. In a particular state, 50,000 plus rescues are selling. Far more because you are not the demand driver or chair. Doctors are writing prescription, the brand changes. Subject to X, Y, Z, which I want to talk about. The brand changes. And for a pharmacy, it's a new procurement. Being for a single molecule, Aditya Mysin itself, there are 200 brands selling. And every doctor has a different pressure for the brand. And so for pharmacy, it's like for Aditya Mysin only. It's like Moodle May.
00:10:37
Speaker
That's the difference. That's where in FMCG, you see these dots to a concept like, you know, Jack Trove, LinkedIn, Oncoming, a thousand SKUs that everybody refers to, a local teramax node on an average maintained 500 to 1,000 SKUs max.
00:10:51
Speaker
Look at that, 500 SKOs are commissioned. On an average, a pharmacy is maintaining 4,000 to 5,000 SKOs. Still, it's just worth a full print, 60% of the prescription. There was a stark difference. So we were like, OK, now we cannot build our distribution model by being a distributor ourselves. Second was marketless. Let's build a market place. We realized that a retailer right now is buying from multiple distributors already. He's buying from 35-plus suppliers.
00:11:19
Speaker
When you're buying from 35-plus suppliers, if I become a marketplace, again, it's the same. You're buying from 35-plus suppliers, just like you're on a platform interface. Multi-fun inverting, multi-fun invoice upload, multi-fun order placement, and all dependent of one. But that is how e-commerce works now. What is the problem with that? That is how Amazon works. Like there are 1000 Amazon claims to have like 2,000, 3,000 vendors on it as a matter of pride.
00:11:45
Speaker
Now tell me, why Cloudtail, WS Retail, and all those layers exist? What percentage of order goes to them? And what percentage of order goes to other suppliers? 70% plus goes to them only. Why? Amazon doesn't work. Amazon is a platform. Everyone is to quality. Why would Amazon invest in inventory? It's because, it's because
00:12:07
Speaker
on Devan but didn't supply it, else is not easy. Someone else has to bail it, someone else has to fact it, someone else has to ship it. And that someone else is not an unbranded person. In the unbranded market is different because it's a push market. Everyone wants a way to sell it.
00:12:23
Speaker
In the branded market, it's a pool. Everyone wants you to come to the store and buy it. Same problem, same problem. But in our case, it's also similar. If you build a marketplace, we will be totally dependent upon supplier, whether you're going to ship it or not. Supplies, hey, I don't want to build this particular pharmacy. Now what can I do? Okay, credit, credit, not I'm giving. You know, applying not I'm giving. Someone else is giving. That means I will be able to distribute this mercy. Then again, I'm not solving this.
00:12:50
Speaker
We also did our research. We found our farmer rack has been in the market for like five, six years at a time. And farmer rack has been permanent in India. And they have this business model, like marketplace for pharmacies. Yes, marketplace for pharmacies. They tried building this. The router became a SaaS for the distributors. They were like, I'll give you an interface. You can now collect order from the pharmacy on that.
00:13:17
Speaker
I will charge you 45% of every order you get because I'm giving away after the pharmacy. But ultimately, they could not become a muffin place, they'd rather become a size for the distributors. Because they could look like an insulin, right? Don't get me wrong, I respect for what I can write, right?
00:13:35
Speaker
You are spending six years to solve that problem. Maybe the monthly timing was wrong, or maybe you could not crack. Whatever be the reason, we will tell that this is not the right model to build.
Funding and Market Adaptations
00:13:45
Speaker
So that's why we found the Managed Marketplace model. Managed Marketplace model where we will go to the pharmacy and say, so don't worry.
00:13:52
Speaker
You will get all the STOs, you will get delivered in five hours, across the state we will deliver. You will get all categories, grande, gender, excellency, karaya, veda, trade generates, OPC, space charity, vet fairing, all of that. You will get everything. You will get single invoice of Savio, delivered by Savio, created by Savio, collected by Savio. We will take care of everything. Your experience we will control.
00:14:14
Speaker
We will solve our supply in our way. We will solve our supply by being a managed market place, where the suppliers will not get pharmacy orders one by one, but rather clubbed order together, and they have the ability to solve it. So that basically means we will create a layer between suppliers and then companies. And we will with our one-stop solution for you. This is what we shifted into in February 2020, and we went on to raise $300,000 from India. Now, this time of share, we were already doing 38-class rupees of business for money when we are built for this.
00:14:44
Speaker
Wow. Okay. Like at the time of this angel round, you already... Yeah, angel round. Oh, wow. Okay.
00:14:51
Speaker
Yes, we are doing 38 deliveries of a venue farmer. We had run the business for six months. We had enough running where pharmacies were using. Our retention was very high. But this was with that single distributor only. Your supply was just one distributor at this time. Exactly. That's where the dependency was high. But this is what we were pitching, what we have now realized. And they want to move the thing. So this was our fit to, you know, build it.
00:15:18
Speaker
When we met you, we got the right investors on board. India portion took the bet. They are more of a consumer investors. But they took their first or second bet on Savio. And we also got two key founders on board, like the founders of General Herrick, the founders of Koki Credit, Farid himself. We got him on board as an investor. All right. It was the day of lockdown. The money hit our car. Wow. OK. OK.
00:15:46
Speaker
So $300,000 is how much in rupees? Two crores. Week and connected. So founders are always optimistic. So we thought that we're going to spend only 20 rupees per month. That means 10 months. We're going to spend. We'll be there. That means now we have to prove that we have become a business within 10 months. But this was a dangerously low amount to raise. In hindsight, probably you would feel that way, right? Like 10 months is like putting so much pressure and
00:16:13
Speaker
So actually, you are sitting in 2022. You are sitting at a time when the market is very full. Now it is not full, but you have seen 2021. In 2019, market was not so full. It was still difficult to raise money. Like, I need to be at that time. People used to ask very simple questions to ask, because in 2019, we had not seen jet work, infra-market,
00:16:35
Speaker
for all those of B2B in India, all business, being very prominent. They were building. They were also building. There were maybe $100 million or $500 million valuation, but they were still early. Yeah, that whole crowd of unicorns had not started opening. Yeah, same B2B had not started. Investors in India had not seen B2B. That's where we were like, okay, you don't know what happened. Okay. So then what happened when lockdown hit? So lockdown happened.
00:17:04
Speaker
It was March 2020 and we went on to meet the commissioner of police in Bangalore. We got passes, fortunately, by using our network connect. We onboarded three suppliers. We onboarded three suppliers on a lower margin, since we were not making money. But we onboarded three suppliers this time and we went on to onboard ten suppliers within the next three months itself.
00:17:33
Speaker
No, Shabir became the platform in Bangalore. This was 2020. I'm talking about Shabir became the platform in Bangalore with the highest full rate. Okay. How many pharmacies did you acquire? You acquired three for suppliers. Pharmacy acquisition, man?
00:17:48
Speaker
So we had that time 23,000 SKUs, I remember. And 23,000 SKUs, now we were highest in bag load in terms of SKUs coverage by onboarding of supply SKUs. When we started marketing to pharmacies, we were able to onboard 1,200 pharmacies in Bangalore. 1,200 pharmacies in Bangalore is like 1 by 5 of them, 100 lives, 20% of the market on Xavier in 2020. And we were doing research on cash.
00:18:11
Speaker
We were like, sir, I can market my credit much ahead. Huh, how did it wasn't great with that? Huh, look at Manidova. Here, sir, Manidova, we can mess with your chakra, Robki. So, I can, I can do the market easily with that. I'm just awake. I'm never going to cut me. What do you buy from me? You build habit. That is, we want to, we were very clear that the time machines have to order on act and not sales back.
00:18:37
Speaker
So that I'll get to know what you're doing, where you're scrolling, what you're searching, what you're tapping, and we will bring the data that way there. For product improvement. Yes, exactly.
00:18:52
Speaker
Before COVID, the ticket offer was not so high in pharma. And we were lucky that we were able to do onboard 1,200 pharmacies, which went on to become 1,800 pharmacies, other than 1,200 were transacting pharmacies. And we were doing one curve plus of revenue on cash this time, bottom trade.
00:19:09
Speaker
Wow, okay. By when? Like, by when did you hit one crew? By December 2020. So from April 2020, we went on from zero pharmacy, or you say from 40 pharmacies, what we had before, we went on to have 1200 transacting pharmacies.
00:19:25
Speaker
in Bangalore. From again zero on cash to one crore of cash which was equivalent to three to four crore on credit with 70% plus retention. So we were able to achieve those numbers which highlighted that yes a business can be filled or the business can be built on fill rate.
00:19:43
Speaker
Being, but only not branded generics, branded generics is one of the categories which is like 60% of the market.
Pharmacy Economics and Expansion
00:19:49
Speaker
There are other categories as I was mentioning, trade generics. Just explain these categories now. What is branded generics? What is trade generics?
00:19:58
Speaker
Yes, so branded generics create generics as a patient you will ever be able to identify the difference. Only as a pharma company or a platform like us or a pharmacy knows the difference. So as simple as that, there come medicines or supply only. But because doctor is writing, it becomes branded generics, pharmacies make 20% gross margin. And just doctors are not writing, we are pushing to the pharmacy and pharmacies are pushing to you. Pharmacies make 60% gross margin, so it becomes trade generics. In simple and
00:20:26
Speaker
When you go to a pharmacy and say where you played the Dora, or where you played the Goli cartridge, it's a trade generation. But both these would have the same chemical, but some difference in branding, basically. Like some name would be different, or color, or...
00:20:40
Speaker
Name would be different. Name would be different. Taxate. Manufacturers may be different but you do not even care about who the manufacturer is. It's the same chemical basically. Yes, no. I'll give you some medicine when you tell me about it in branded or generic. Crocin tablet. Crocin is definitely, I think, 60% Vala Johar. That is branded, right?
00:20:59
Speaker
Yes, 60% is branded, you're right. And 40% is other categories. So you're right, person is branded. Now, similarly, OTC as the name suggests, over the counter, then terms of service. You don't need prescription, that is OTC. You don't need prescription, yes. Corrosion is OTC. You also buy churn price, that's OTC. And many other products, face wash, OTC. Pharmacy is not just for pharmacy, it's also a general store, right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Mouthwash, toothpaste, all of that.
00:21:24
Speaker
Then comes up surgical, you go and buy bandage, you buy cocktail, you buy we have a rotation fad, all of the surgical. Ayurveda at the moment suggests you go and buy Neerajos, Chantra, or you buy Khayyam Chur, so many products, all of Neerajar and Ayurveda.
00:21:40
Speaker
Then comes up speciality, many days doctor writes a medicine, which you know, it's a patented medicine. That's what's going on. I think you might have heard this in COVID, all of these are speciality. You might have heard about, there's a fair degree, all of these are, you know, veterinary. Homeopathy, you might have heard about Dr. Wilmar, who dropped out of the therapy, Mexican therapy.
00:22:08
Speaker
So you stock all of this, you stock home with Betty also?
00:22:12
Speaker
We supply all of this, we do not stop. Right, right, right. You're a managed marketplace. Got it. So this was what we were. So we were sending this story. But here in itself, something is the problem. And look beyond branded. Everyone is focusing on branded. There's a market beyond branded. And if you're able to build in those tech techniques, you will be able to increase the gross margin. And so you will make it happen. And here we were fortunate that we got the right set of investors. We were able to onboard metrics partners, RTP Global Incubate Fund.
00:22:42
Speaker
along with our existing investors, and six to seven Genicon founders, plus many clear friends and folks in the startup world. So when we did this 4 million round in January 2021, we were here, now we have money to build us. This 4 million round was like a spirit series, I guess.
00:23:02
Speaker
We called it seed round, because the first was engine round, so this was seed round for us. So we formulated on a headrest, we actually built this a startup. We took the first dispatch center, which was a 15,000 square feet setup in Bangalore. We started solving complete karmatica. So this was again the learning. When we started now building Sarvayam scale, we realized that we worry about everybody's caring about city.
00:23:25
Speaker
blanket cover city we are in a big basket cover city we are in a suppose city we are in a problem society behind our inner farm women. Why? Because think of this way actually. For example my parents stay in a town they go to the nearby city to visit a doctor they buy medicine of three days four days from that hospital pharmacy or nearby that doctor pharmacy nearby the doctor clinic there are pharmacies they buy from that pharmacy.
00:23:48
Speaker
they come back to their hometown and after 3-4 days they want to buy that medicine in the hometown they cannot find. This is very common and the data says that 40% of the sales in pharma happens in Metro plus D.O.V.E.R. That means the 60% of sales is happening beyond D.O.V.E.R. That's more interesting. Why that's more interesting? Because the rest of the India is underserved.
00:24:14
Speaker
Yes. Pharmacies in metro would be spoiled for choice. It would be very easy for them to get whatever supplies they need. Yes. And then again, a warm moment for me. I won't make yet.
00:24:27
Speaker
We started solving up to 300 kilometers from the city. It's like covering the complete state.
00:24:54
Speaker
We started building the Aggie, that community leader model I talked about. Yesterday we started building that community leader model for these small towns. But we will never come into the town who will take care of the complete pharmacy of that town. In terms of delivery, the pharmacy is up to order on the app itself. This community leader would be someone who's himself a pharmacist or you would find someone who wants to be an entrepreneur and tell him, okay, you just need a bike and you become an entrepreneur with us and you start earning. We have tried both.
00:25:21
Speaker
Short term, the first one works, long term, the second one works. We have folks who are prostering the joint answer and they are micro-entrepreneurs.
00:25:30
Speaker
They were making zero, now they're making 30,000 rupees per month in a small town. It's a good overall. Yeah. And we're already serving 70 plus towns of Karnataka at this moment. Bangalore, yes. All the Pankotan Bangalore deliveries are going, but not just Bangalore, 70 towns in Karnataka deliveries are going. And so this is where the business started scaling. We started solving all the problems. But hey, Savir's Novo just had 23,000 SKOs. Savir today has 50,000 SKOs already in the platform.
00:25:59
Speaker
We have been able to benchmark the market. We have been able to build the supply market by onboarding the stockists, by onboarding the companies directly also. And in a way, build it in a way where the highest margin lies. So we have also a dark store model at the supply end. Basically, we convert supplies into dark stores. And if, or if particularly category, the supplier is not there, then we get a dark store open by the CFA of the carpool. So this is where we sold the supply. We already have the highest rescue in India, sending on the platform.
00:26:28
Speaker
I want to understand the supply bit a little better. How is a managed marketplace different from, say, like those traditional e-commerce companies like Amazon? You're saying that traditional e-commerce companies like Amazon keep inventory and you don't keep inventory. That is the key difference. Amazon does not keep inventory on their own books. They keep inventory at cloud 10. Right. They're subsidiaries, yeah.
00:26:52
Speaker
Yes, we also keep inventory at dark store where doctors are owned by someone else. Or I would supply the inventory. It's just that we are more like Mica. We're more like Captain Freshware. The billing is not done by the supplier to you. The billing is done by a screen. They do the billing to us. Like in Amazon, you can see the name of the seller. That concept is not there. Yes, you know, I can go after the loan.
00:27:14
Speaker
because Savvy was the seller for everything. And then at the back end, you will figure out that, okay, I have got these orders, so where do I fill it from?
00:27:24
Speaker
Yeah, and this was important. Why this was important? If you did not put a curtain, you cannot solve this industry. You have to put a curtain. You have to put a curtain so that you can consolidate the industry at the back. Because if you make it open to everywhere, then you will feel proud if you made it by special supplier, it will work with your platform. Yeah, the problem you have with desktop supplier telling you, your problem is that that supplier will solve this affair. The metric change is you start more focused about your buyer than your
Network Expansion and Retention Strategies
00:27:48
Speaker
supplier. When you become a managed marketplace. In a marketplace, you have to be focusing upon both.
00:27:52
Speaker
Yeah, traditionally, marketplaces were more focused on suppliers, like giving suppliers a way to sell more, basically. Yes, yes. We are really solving pharmacy's problem of prescription drug. So now when we had to sort of fill rate, automatically we started becoming popular in Karnataka, not just Bangalore. We were able to grow business and also expand from Karnataka to Telangana, where our next hub came in Hyderabad to Tamil Nadu, where our next hub came in Coimbatore.
00:28:18
Speaker
We are already solving now at this moment where you and I are talking. We are already solving plus one hundred and thirty towns and villages across the states. We have more than one thousand pharmacies on the platform. We have four thousand plus pharmacies ordering every month.
00:28:35
Speaker
If you like to hear stories of founders, then we have tons of great stories from entrepreneurs who have built billion dollar businesses. Just search for the founder thesis podcast on any audio streaming app like Spotify, Ghana, Apple podcasts, and subscribe to the show. So 10K is like your user base and 4K is like your monthly active users is 4K.
00:29:02
Speaker
Yes, you can think of that. Basically, a lot of privacy use our app just to check the prices, just to understand which car we are in space, where we can buy from, and all. Not everyone's trade, because we also have supply everywhere. What is the monthly order volume that you process? Yeah, so from 1 crore in March 2021, we have already risen to 11 crore for a month in January 2022. Wow, amazing. That means we are doing 11 crore of monthly revenue within 10 months.
00:29:32
Speaker
We are serving in sample 35% of the pharmacies in Connecticut right from us. Wow, okay. That's a massive market share. More than that, wherever it comes, this market share is not available to come to Savio. Whenever COVID comes up, pharmacies suddenly switch to Savio and we see huge transaction happening in Savio. Number of pharmacies is like anything. Our retention growth goes from 55-60% to 75-80% in COVID once. What does it highlight? It highlight
00:29:58
Speaker
that maybe today they are not totally dependent upon me but when the crisis comes, they remember Savio. That means I am solving the right problem. At just about time, I will be able to do better and better and they will switch to us, right? Yes, searching and even Kauru was also a good journey for us because now you've become prominent in the market where my top 10 distributors involved. Here, the game is to take it to
00:30:23
Speaker
25 crore plus monthly revenue in the next three months. They will probably, when you and I will be talking, we might be probably doing 25 crore plus monthly revenue because now we are opening the growth reverse. This is very clear that we have thought. So why we did not open the growth reverse like anything because we've also wanted to understand the economics of the business.
00:30:53
Speaker
For many people, PMF means customer of customers, monthly revenue. But take my words, Akshay, PMF is not number of customers or monthly revenue. PMF is how much you are able to make from the pharmacy and what is that LTV you can generate with time. Or in simple MTV by CAC, you can generate with time. It's not, PMF is never about the top line. PMF is always about the bottom line and the sustainability of that bottom line, which is LTV by CAC.
00:31:22
Speaker
This was our realisation because again, we have been fortunate because we had a good network of founders who keep teaching us all of this. We have a good network of investors on the board who keep teaching all of this. But we were very clear that we need to really alter this question because in the market, a lot of questions were coming that Iran is making 1000 crore of monthly revenue.
00:31:45
Speaker
But burning girl you know hundred colors for money two hundred colors for money for you know for difficult enough CM1 negative CM2 negative CM1 means contribution margin CM2 means again contribution margin two they're different which I'll talk about. So it was very clear that we have to become you know the economic sponsor that means operationally I have to make money for
Economic Sustainability and Profitability
00:32:05
Speaker
order.
00:32:05
Speaker
Now, as I mentioned, traditionally, Padmaa has been branded generate 60%. There the margins are fixed because you're not driving the demand. And that's where we look at online players giving 20% discount, right? They have 27% gross margin in hand. They give 20% discount. That means they make 7% gross margin up to discount. Yes, 7% gross margin up to discount with Javanega. Marketing cost, you've got a lot there. Right, right. Your customer acquisition cost.
00:32:31
Speaker
Yes, it takes a lot of money to keep retaining the customers because we are building a price game. We are building a price game. We are building a price game. We are building a price game. We are building a price game. We are building a price game. We are building a price game. We are building a price game. We are building a price game. We are building a price game. We are building a price game. We are building a price game. We are building a price game. We are building a price game. We are building a price game. We are building a price game. We are building a price game. We are building a price game. We are building a price game. We are building a price game.
00:32:59
Speaker
But a very useful question, I will say, yes, at-person gross margin with capital, because it's all about ROCE, return on capital employed. The ROCE says that the EBITDA, which you generate, divided by the money employed, the capital employed in the business. That means to increase the return on the capital employed, first, you have to reduce the capital employed in the business.
00:33:21
Speaker
That means you should not put money on inventory which we already sold. You should not put money on credit or financing the pharmacy which we sold by NBFC. So we were not essentially putting money in the business. So our human investment in the business was less, more on the technology, more on the growth side. And every time you have to go for 10% plus such that you are able to generate let's say 10% divided by 20%. It's like 50% ROC. Now if you're able to build 50% ROC business,
00:33:50
Speaker
Thank God. You're like a fan of India. Right. So that is our aspiration. We want to become a fan of farmer. We want to become a profitable company. We just don't want to start up with the mercy of external folks. No, we don't want to. So that's when we started questioning ourselves during this journey from one crook to another one crook. Yes, we were growing one fan, one very ramp. But we're constantly questioning ourselves. We are chairperson, gross margin, art person, gross margin, sufficient height. Yeah. Today, when you and I are talking, we already have 10% less gross margin.
00:34:19
Speaker
which is because of the product mix or like how did you exactly like you have more more high margin like like you are more of the trade generic, which is high margin.
00:34:47
Speaker
What is the difference in what is take rate?
00:34:51
Speaker
They could basically means basically, let's example, 27% is a take it for the B2C pharmacies, like 100 made pharmacies, you know, but gross margin, 7%. That means the gross margin before install is considered sacred. In the e-commerce world, the sacred is used as a definition that okay, on a flat crop, if let's say export
00:35:13
Speaker
10,000 rupees of products are being sold. How much you're making out of this is considered take rate. For example, Amazon says that 25% is what I'm judging, including everything. So 25% is what we're taking. That being said, we went on to learn how to grow margins. We are already having higher growth margin than our suppliers, as well as all the players in fund. Way to be, way to see anyone you can think of. More than that, we've also learned how to enable brands in the market. We take this team now, not just the prescription fund.
00:35:43
Speaker
We were able to become reliable to the pharmacy. Then we started saying, sir, I'll take you to the payment on the issue with the job. That could bring you to the top here, which I could go for. I said, hey, I'm supposed to play in the room. Also, different marketing has started using. We started in different parts of the pharmacy. We work with DTC brands like Man Matters, Capira, you know, Open Secret and many others where we enable them in routine. So they are already very prominent in online market, DTC market. We enable them in routine.
00:36:11
Speaker
Right. You are their offline go-to-market channel, basically. Yes. We have become Facebook for them for the day. So you would charge them for prominent placement of product. We, on an average, make 25 to 30% cost margin there. Okay. And this is pure performance driven spend for them because they will pay as a margin. So if there is no sales happening, they're not paying you. So it's like performance, offline performance marketing for them.
00:36:36
Speaker
Yes, yes, very simple. You know what we say that we say that OK, this is the estimate we are giving that we will be able to sign. You provide the switching country. We will have in our dark stores or maybe with our size of ours or the service one. We will sign and pay you back. When you when we pay you back, we will face you at this rate and not at the return.
00:36:53
Speaker
Right, right, right, right. We become faithful for them. We also started enabling the print-generated brand, because in January, everyone mentioned pharmacies out of the decision makers. We started enabling generated brand, for example, classic example areas of, you know, pharma company, prominent pharma company. They were doing 20 left rupees of sales per month in Karnataka. And within two months, we started doing 20 left rupees of sales for them. That means they become 40 left rupees of sales in Karnataka.
00:37:16
Speaker
They started becoming totally dependent on us. So this way we have learned the skill of marketing plus distribution now. We can enable any brand in the market because we have our app. Our app is the face of the company where we influence decisions. For the same time, we have committed leaders on the ground who are sole entrepreneurs when we are converting into marketers. Does the community leader only deliver or does he go and get orders also?
00:37:39
Speaker
He generally doesn't go and get orders because pharmacies can place ordering up. Wherever a pharmacy has a stopped ordering, then he goes and understands the problem. He also maintains a relationship and talks to the pharmacies. He's like a customer success, basically, like that kind of a role.
00:37:57
Speaker
Exactly. And how much is his margin? Like what does he get to keep? So basically he made close to 25, 30,000 rupees per month on average. On how much sales? Like it must be a percentage of sales. On a sales of 15 to 30 lakh rupees per month. Okay, take it. Got it. Now the next thing.
00:38:16
Speaker
So one thing was very to know that we wake beyond city is the real market and beyond branded generics is the real market.
Scaling and Marketing Tactics
00:38:25
Speaker
See enabling brands is the real market. So beyond city, beyond branded generics and enabling brands became our focus. As I mentioned we are already growing and now from here,
00:38:35
Speaker
What's the next key? Yes, obviously, we will be raising 25 million dollar in the next three, four months. Probably we will be opening round in June. We are not opening round at the moment because we are bending at the moment. We believe the story should have proper weightage. You want to hit that 25 crore mark and then start raising.
00:38:53
Speaker
Exactly. We want 30-35 million on an ARR before we open the round. That being said, we will be scaling, obviously, very fast. Once we are a series A, we will be scaling faster to capture India, to conquer India, obviously. What are going to be the levers of growth? Is it just city by city expansion, just your geographical expansion? Or will you also spend on performance marketing for customer acquisition? What are the levers of growth?
00:39:21
Speaker
Both expansion, yes. On the same time of share, we work with the Indian government, we work with the park waves, where we have the pharmacy's data with us. That's a very targeted marketing we do on Facebook and all. You don't do like Facebook, Google, that traditional performance? We do for some other reasons. We don't do for, you know, we don't do all performance marketing. In fact, our expensive performance marketing will be less than 1%. Oh, well. Okay.
00:39:47
Speaker
Yes, we don't require because we already have their data sites. We do very targeted WhatsApp marketing. We don't need to go to Facebook always. And what would your campaign be for acquiring pharmacies? Would you say like, get this medicine at 10% lower price? No. We're like not able to find limits in the market, downloads are way of now, to place water. Got it. Based on Jobe shortage, that will be the lever to attract because that is what you are solving.
00:40:15
Speaker
Well, yes, I mean quite a lot. Interesting. So I need to be able to get a car truck on the car.
00:40:22
Speaker
Second, there are two things which matter a lot. First, SMBs or SMBs. More than I'm talking about SMBs, not SMBs, to be honest. SMBs do not want to do better than themselves. SMBs want to do better than the nearest person. And second, so this is where we use...
00:40:49
Speaker
Second, they're already earning money. They want respect. They want respect from their family, within their family. Laser. Laser because...
00:41:19
Speaker
And these would be sponsored by Aries, like the brand is directly sponsoring it. Yes, it's a collaboration. It's a collaboration we do. It's both. You know, we run camping for the other day, and camping with our speed wars. So these are the psychologies of the SMBs which we target. So that's what I was saying, that for Savio is a managed marketplace, very simple, solving the fundamental problem of the policies. We go a step ahead, we start predicting prescriptions.
00:41:43
Speaker
Why? The data comes from the instance of the app, the data comes from the purchase happening on the app. The data also we integrate with the companies to generate data that what is selling in the for the cleft in cold. All of this data together, which we are working on, which will take two or three years for us to actually become very precise. But that intention that a pharmacy should know beforehand.
00:42:04
Speaker
Yeah, prescription, only one has made a pass. That will saun the filtrate problem, the stock or problem, because now when she said, you're not buying a GKM, that's going to come to you. Buy from Xavier, we will deliver a prescription for that, come with a prescription. And if you have a patient, I know, skip pass with that prescription. Pharmacies are like bad work. Yeah, it will be like magic for them. I tell you why this is important, because actually 85% of the pharmacies in India do not use Yanthen.
00:42:33
Speaker
Yeah, right. Obviously they're like mom and pop operators too. Yes. When it comes to a prescription, they will go to the right.
00:43:00
Speaker
This is what we tell them. And more than that, 50,000 excuse.
00:43:12
Speaker
Pation fast-moving village of a new vehicle you pass away warning will you got to be on with a guy? I do can't keep it jet bar fee as you must give up to the line email radio. You won't see it. That was the county. It's just what it is. How much do can't keep it just primary? And your commander make you pass through them as a caribbean caribbean caribbean caribbean caribbean caribbean caribbean caribbean caribbean
00:43:29
Speaker
So, the procurement plus data plus impact learning. What is impact learning is what we're building for the pharmacies. Sir, where a patient comes to your store now, do not directly dispense medicine. Ask these five questions.
00:43:49
Speaker
just ask these questions which are part of counseling, not diagnosis, which are part of counseling such that my algorithm can suggest you
00:44:05
Speaker
But the late diagnosis should not happen. You tell a patient that this is time to go and visit a doctor. But slowly, slowly, step by step, we are here to convert the pharmacy into a
00:44:23
Speaker
modern store, a modern clinic, a modern community center. Clinic is wrong with modern community center. How do you do this? Like your app has this workflow. Can a patient or pharmacist open the app and he can choose the drop down? So we call it Sabia University. So we are building this one by one. You cannot simply do everything together.
00:44:59
Speaker
We are not here to provide them a degree, but we think
00:45:13
Speaker
That if they are the first layer of response in healthcare in India, then they should have adequate knowledge. And we are here to provide them adequate knowledge. The knowledge what they should use. How would you motivate them to spend, to invest time in learning? It's not an easy thing. Now once you've left school, college, how much?
00:45:35
Speaker
Very simple, very simple. He's already opening different versions of TikTok on the phone. Why don't I make short videos on the app and make it very simple? Second, let me run webinars where let me give him crazy discourse about both simple concepts.
00:45:54
Speaker
Why don't you start devising? The Savya coins, what you can earn by learning, you can use the purchase on Savya. So there are many more ways, Akshay, but this is the long term, what I'm talking about. I'm saying that, how do you go back to those three problems that I was mentioning? Cleanness, adequate facility, and the extra stability of the medicine.
00:46:13
Speaker
And also, I talked about late diagnosis, which is again linked to the third factor only. So accessibility through late diagnosis, I want to solve this first, one by one.
Future Innovations in Pharmacy Services
00:46:22
Speaker
For adequate facilities, yes, our app is going to become software for pharmacies where they can be able to help patients with online consultation. Not for a different genre of doctors who are sitting only online, but from there nearby by a city itself.
00:46:34
Speaker
or in the same health office, where we are creating the technology for the doctors. Again, a long-term thought process. We are building technology for the doctors. We, doctors, can become themselves a charge in the world of make-my-trick. The doctors have to be defended of one factor and many other platforms. They can themselves become online.
00:46:49
Speaker
On a pharmacy side, we are digitizing them how they can maintain relationship with the patient. So all of this is future. It leads back to the same problem what we have faced in our life. We want to make sure that tomorrow a pharmacy is giving you right advice and right medicine. And if you need more than advice, pharmacy should be able to connect you with the right doctor.
00:47:07
Speaker
OK, so that's amazing. So like the reverse, typically doctors give business to pharmacies. You are now empowering pharmacies to give business to doctors, which makes sense because, like you said, most people will ask the pharmacist first.
00:47:35
Speaker
The world of wealth is important for doctors. The world of wealth is patient and the pharmacy. We want to enable them. We want to enable them that they become the face of doctors to you. It's that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you should know that you
00:48:00
Speaker
Okay, like you'll do like a Shopify for doctors where they can list their clinic get appointment bookings. Yes, yes. Okay, okay. And this will be like a white light labeled. Yes, exactly. In the future, we don't want to talk about today. But yes, you're talking right, you're getting it right. So in software, again, linking back to the problem, we want to make sure that tomorrow,
00:48:24
Speaker
No patient should die just because of late diagnosis. Tomorrow, no patient should die because of wrong diagnosis. Tomorrow, when a patient goes to the pharmacy, should get right knowledge and right medicine. Tomorrow, no prescriptions and bouts in India. We are solving this one by one. We are very clear how to solve this because we have to spend, I have to spend my life in five months. We are very clear how to solve it. We are solving one by one.
00:48:50
Speaker
And to make sure that pharmacies have access to the right brands, we have put up our own brand concurrency. So this is like white labeling, basically what like every retail company does eventually for better versions.
00:49:03
Speaker
In the middle of a year's contract, we have our own brand. We believe that not much innovation has happened with respect to the medicines. You see, it's not just you get rid of additional services with a pill. In India, you don't even get to know what this failure is about. There's a huge difference. We're parting that gap. Give me an example. What do you mean, additional services with a pill?
00:49:25
Speaker
Now, basic question. For Covid, you went to the doctor, wrote Levocytogen monte nucas. Do you know what is it for? No, not really. Do you really care what is it for? No, you trust the doctor. Yes, exactly. Partly some people do. But we trust the doctor. But when it comes to question, whom do we ask? We ask Google. Yeah. Yeah.
00:49:46
Speaker
And how many in India are there who are willing to find out? The point is that most of the medicines, a medicine is something which is more consumed by our parents, like 30, 40 plus. There, our doctor has a very limited time, which I talk about the brand talk share, but I'm just trying to give you a perspective that the doctor has a very limited time because in India, the number of patients for a doctor is very high.
00:50:06
Speaker
It's like 4x of what it should ideally be. 3 to 4x of what the idea should be. That's where the doctor is allowed to spend time with the patient. The pharmacies are not very well aware about. And at the end of the day, it's the patient. The medicine itself is not so attractive enough that you want to know more about it. The medicine does not say, get well soon. Put the basics which is right.
00:50:26
Speaker
So we have changing all of this perspective, all of this perspective with the medicine and only printing the top five manufacturers in India to manufacture this. So the game is very simple. The game is very simple that you want to build the smartest network of pharmacies in India. With that pharmacy network, you want to enable brands.
00:50:43
Speaker
And you want to empower the pharmacy with supply plus data plus impact learning so that they can become better of themselves. With time, they become a community center. And to make sure you're able to increase your margins, you want to put your own brand.
Financial Independence and Competitive Landscape
00:50:59
Speaker
With that bad you want to bring innovation in india which is not there especially technologically such that tomorrow companies follow you, companies copy you and technology comes up in pharma. And you also make money so that you can achieve your bigger role of connecting the ecosystem. We don't want to be an investor funded company all the time. So that's where the whole play will add up.
00:51:21
Speaker
tomorrow today it's all about building the largest and smartest network of promises in india and exactly what i was doing and within one year which is by this year itself we should idea become the largest in india it will be to be a farmer so where's is there in b2b karma yes fire when it is more of a sass
00:51:40
Speaker
Similarly, there is retail IO, which is similar to farmer access. Then we see a bidano, which is more of a logistics provided to the suppliers where we see. So basically who they compete with is actually the local distributors. This local distributors. Your competition is only offline. Yes, exactly. The local distributors have been bought by a few of the players. So they become our company. They're also like excellent.
00:52:03
Speaker
So these are the real folks whom we conflict with. Because we are not a service to the distributor. We are their lifeline. We are a service to the pharmacy. Do you also plan to do branded pharmacy? You know, Ojirov does this branding of hotels. So are you wanting to do something like that? Like a Savio pharmacy? Isn't it obvious? Very obvious, may well. At the right time. Right now, it's more about empowering their satnai at the back. It's more about branding the right relationship with them.
00:52:32
Speaker
I went home tomorrow, I go to a pharmacy and say I want to co-brand and he starts questioning me. That relationship can only be built by trade, transaction, which is what we're building. Now he listens to me. Tomorrow, when I will be able to co-brand them, that quantity control is very important when you co-brand, right? Because it's not known about the pharmacy brand, it's your brand.
00:52:50
Speaker
you will be able to have a better synergy possible tomorrow, which is why Savio is solving the right problem. I'll say Savio is right now building that network, which is what open up 100 leaders tomorrow. And from patient to the manufacturer, you will be able to onboard everyone on your platform without actually reaching to the patient directly.
00:53:09
Speaker
So we will be able to be complete then also, but we will be actually controlling the chain completely. We will be controlling the pharma industry completely. So like a Savio branded pharmacy would be one which would 100% supply would come through. You would be able to promote more of your white label, your in-house brands. Again, the offline go-to market for other brands, you would be able to enable that more effectively. Yes, exactly. Okay.
00:53:33
Speaker
And I wanted to understand, you said you've enabled like a BNPL, like a Firthik partnership for credit. How does that work? So, it's simple. Pharmacy, they buy from us. We onboard them with our partner. We call it invoice discounting. So basically, that invoice is paid by the partner to me. And the pharmacy pays back to me in 30 days. I pay it back to the partner. It all happens on the app itself. We have built a create marketplace on the app. But to the buyer, that pharmacy doesn't cost anything. You pay us that cost.
00:54:02
Speaker
Exactly. From pharmacy, it's a regular way of doing handa because the moment you start using the word no in the Bhajan. Yeah, right. But if they want to roll it over further, like your access to credit. They have to. So we reduce the discount. Very simple. Let's say they're getting three percent discount. They want more credit. They will get one percent discount. They want more credit. They will get more questions. So we basically reduce because it's an invoice discounting. We do everything in the invoice system. OK, so at the time of checkout, they have the option to select payment period and accordingly
00:54:47
Speaker
Yeah, we use four parameters for lending. Yes, obviously, the civil score. But more than that, the stocks they have in their store, which is where they take the picture of themselves with their store. You see the stock in the store that gives you confidence that more people are repented.
00:54:49
Speaker
You have to pay my credit, you are right.
00:55:02
Speaker
Third, their transaction behavior with us. Because they're buying from me, they're paying back to me. It doesn't matter if they're not paying back to others. They're paying back to me on time. And the core, we do their feedback session, the feedback from the nearby stores. So we use this for data to dispense credit. We are not just using similar score. Their transaction with us also helps us to get their GST data and whether they are buying GST or not, all those different metrics. So that's why till date, again, we are very fortunate till that we have zero percent NPA.
00:55:29
Speaker
Yeah, because of the network, if they spoil that relationship by not being. Yes, exactly. They don't want to hamper their relationship with Sabia because they know that somewhere in the journey they will need us. Yes. You spoke about STV by CAC as the real measure of product market. What is it for you? Yes, the bottom line is STV by CAC. In our case, STV by CAC rises to more than a lakh.
00:55:55
Speaker
Just help me understand this calculation. What is LTV is going to customer? See, LTV is very simple. So LTV in a way, let's say pharmacy is buying for 30,000 rupees from your former. You make 10% gross margin. Let's say you make 3,000 rupees from that pharmacy. That pharmacy is sticking for, let's say you're doing business for five years with that pharmacy. Our attention with the pharmacy is close to 60%. Let's say that means 60% of the pharmacy going to stick
00:56:20
Speaker
60% of the 3000 into five years. Like it's 1800 into five years if you do, which is equivalent to close to one macro piece. Okay. So that is the LTV for your customer. And what is your CAC? What is your cost of acquisition? This is of the retained customer I'm talking about.
00:56:38
Speaker
retain customer. If it is not retain customer, it is, you know, 2 lakh, 3 lakh rupees also. And the CAC is 680 rupees, 700 rupees. So that's where your ATV rate CAC is very high. And you end up, if the ATV rate CAC has to go to 1,000, I'm talking about five years, my business is not going to stop in five years. It's a perpetual business. Obviously, ATV will, 30,000 procurement will go to 3 lakh procurement. Automatically, you will go to 1,000 less than that. You are building the right business.
00:57:03
Speaker
Yeah, with your in-house branch, the margin will be better. So that margin amount will also increase. Yes, everything adds up. Got it. Amazing.
Advice for Aspiring Founders
00:57:11
Speaker
So why, when do you think you will be a unicorn? By aspiration, we want to be today, but it's going to take two years.
00:57:18
Speaker
I am amazed at the level of business savvy you have, considering how young you are. This is the kind of savvy that people get after doing a decades long experience of running a business. It's incredible.
00:57:38
Speaker
But it's not me actually, it's our team. We have a very open culture. It's a team that we attract. We believe what should be the right way of building business, right? And this is where it comes from. So what is your advice to aspiring founders?
00:57:55
Speaker
I relate to my own journey. And I believe the first key thing to build a starter is not just how big is the market, how big is the addressable market. It's also the timing. You may be building the right technology, but whether it is required today or not is also very important. The second is survival. Survival of your own, survival of your company. If a company stays for 15 years, the company is automatically again acquired. Because it survived for 15 years, right?
00:58:25
Speaker
For survival, the very first thing before you start, make sure you have a financial independence. You have sufficient money to survive for three years at least, and money to put into your own company. This has helped me firstly in a lot. And third, more than money, you need patience. You need perseverance and passion. Money is the fuel in your rocket. You are the rocket. You are building that rocket.
00:58:55
Speaker
Money is an outcome of the way you're building the business, how the business is shaping up. You will get money. India is doing great. But the economics, the fundamentals, doesn't change. It's safe for any startup. Growth, margins, profitability, and money invested in the business. This doesn't change. This is safe.
00:59:24
Speaker
Whether it's a commerce, contain any category, when it comes to making money, the balance sheet cannot change. It has to be the same. And that's exactly what we lead by, what we solve by. In my case here, it's very personal. It's very personal because I personally suffered a knot in terms of healthcare in India. But I do believe, I do believe the passion comes from within.
00:59:52
Speaker
If you do not relate to the problem, then you're not solving the problem. If you have not raised the problem yourself, then place it first and then solve it. If you do not, if you're not ready to spend your life for that problem, then don't be an entrepreneur.
01:00:09
Speaker
money you can make just by opening a business also, and you can make money, you can make a lot of money. But entrepreneurship is not just about making money, it's about changing the way we lead, changing the way we change the reason we're adjusting. Yeah, we adjust, right?
01:00:25
Speaker
it's much more than money. And I personally feel the drive factor for me is that with that every one rupee we will earn, we will save one more life. If you like the Found a Thesis podcast, then do check out our other shows on subjects like marketing, technology, career advice, books, and drama. Visit the podium.in that is t-h-e-p-o-d-i-u-n.in for a complete list of all our shows.