A dearth of healthcare players offering services round the clock, and at an affordable price, offered Gunjan Poddar, 35, an opportunity to explore this area. “I was very impressed with the 911 service in the US and wanted to create something similar in India.
There should be someone to take care of health and medical emergency needs of people, 24X7,” says Poddar, an IT graduate from Purdue University and a serial entrepreneur. Poddar founded healthcare startup Healthy Billions in November 2014 with operations starting in February 2016. The company, based out of Kolkata, offers 24X7 access to a range of health services across three broad categories: emergency, medical assistance and wellness.
Currently, it is active in Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata. “Commercialisation in healthcare was making it hugely difficult for an ordinary person to get the required attention at the time of need. Something needed to be done,” says Poddar, Founder and CEO. What started out as a business-to-consumer venture has, over time, changed into a businessto-business (B2B) offering. “The concept of accessing healthcare services by registering oneself as a member was a niche one and required a lot of explaining and time to acquire customers,” says Poddar.
This challenge of earning the trust of individuals, reaching out to one person at a time was made more cumbersome by peoples’ reluctance…