Severe back pain turned this Delhi-based IITian into a wellness entrepreneur

Marred by a lifestyle disease,alumni of IIT Kanpur, 27-year-old Kshitij Garg has conceptualised ‘Healers at home’ to help pain bearers like him.

“I had back pain issue right from IIT Kanpur days which continued till I was working professionally. Although practicing Yoga and taking Physiotherapy sessions did ease my pain, however, managing a regular practice of visiting clinics or performing yoga with work was a hassle. Very frequently, I used to reach work late. One Sunday afternoon, I was dreading to get up and visit hospital before going to work. It was almost impossible for me to manage such timings in a busy city like Delhi. That’s when I thought ‘wouldn’t it be great to get healing services at home that too as per my convenience of time’. That was it. I did some research and found the market had massive potential,” narrated Garg.

An online marketplace for providing quality Home Healthcare and Wellness services, Healers at Home was established in 2015. To learn more, here is the edited excerpt of Garg’s entrepreneurial journey.

DNA of the business

Currently, we provide services including Physiotherapy, Yoga, Nursing, Attendant care and Mother and Child care. We find the right healer for the customer in terms of ailment specialist, experience, gender, age etc. We charge a commission for every transaction being made while the rest goes to the healer.

Funds rolling in

We started in April 2015 and got our seed funding in October the same year. Some of the more prominent investors include industry pioneers like Daljit Singh (President, Fortis Healthcare), BVR Mohan Reddy (Ex-Chairman NASSCOMM) and Dr. Pramath Raj Sinha (Founder – ISB and Ashoka University)& Hyderabad Angels. The startup is accelerated by 91Springboard. Presently, we are working towards raising our next fund.

This fund raised would help us in expanding to new geographies including 4 new cities before the end of June, 2017. We would also be expanding our range of services. Tech and automation would be one of our major focus areas with the aim to increase efficiency and make the entire process automated and seamless. Beyond these, the funds will be utilised for Team building, Marketing and other Operational activities.

Strategic alliance with investors

We have a strategic alliance with our investors. They mentor us and help us in networking and partnering with the right set of people and organisations. For instance, Daljit Singh, President, Fortis Healthcare, mentors us to maintain high quality services and helps us in connecting to various key people in the healthcare industry.

Disrupting the trade

Certainly, there would be an entire lifestyle change, especially in the metro cities.And, it will be accelerated by eWellness/eHealth startups in the country. Subsequently, the tier II cities will also feel the trickle down effect. The startup ecosystem has immensely enhanced the customer experience in a variety of sectors. However, the most important sector of Health and Wellness has largely remained unexplored. That is exactly what Healers at Home is tapping into and aims to transform the home healthcare and wellness services segment.

Tech innovation

Technology can always provide faster and organised means to execute a plan. At Healers at Home, customer can register onto our responsive site via their mobile or laptop and book their services instantaneously. They can choose the time of their choice. The requirement would be used by our algorithm to find the best Healer that specialises in healing that specified ailment, operating in the radius where he/she can reach and qualify for the stated budget. Technology, thus, helps bridge that gap of customised and convenient treatment, something which would be harder to do at clinics with such efficiency.

Overcoming challenges

One of the biggest challenges in this space is establishing organised quality supply that can deliver consistent value and customer satisfaction. Customers may experiment with different alternatives in other sectors but in Healthcare and Wellness, delivering excellence from the beginning is imperative. Any new player will find it extremely difficult to establish those values and scale up quickly.

We have understood those nuances. We have our very own Medical Advisory Board that helps us in establishing the norms and guidelines for partner on-board. We have a very strict on-board process. Our follow ups, visit monitoring and feedback process is quite stringent as well that helps keep the quality in check.

Geographical presence

Currently, we are operating in Delhi/NCR while we started our operations in Mumbai from September 1, 2016. We aim to reach 4 more cities before the end of June 2017 including Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata.

Scaling up

There would be addition of one more service to our existing ones.

Another focus point would be tech and automation. We plan to make our process more efficient through deeper and richer data analysis that will further enhance our existing database and our decision making process.

Future plans

In terms of geographical presence, we will be in four more cities before June 2017 while we also plan to increase our set of services. Our Team size will also increase up to 50 strengthening our Tech, Marketing and Operations.