Indian Health Tech SaaS, Raising 5 Cr for Women Health Tech services
Akshay Sharma of Naarista
Had a conversation with Akshay Sharam of Naarista, a remote health care service platform for women in remote location India
Give a quick 30 sec intro about you and your background
I am a Delhiite, graduated with an Honours in Economics from DU and did my Masters from UK. Entrepreneurship has always fascinated me because you look and go beyond the usual when you are an entrepreneur and that has been my calling and this also where Naarista also resonated with me
What made your take up Naarista
After I lost my father in 2016 it became very clear to me that time is unpredictable and I was ready now more than ever to initiate what I had always wanted to in the form of entrepreneurship. Now I have 3 elder sisters apart from my mother so you can see women have played a very important part in my life and an incident where my sister struggled to find a lady doctor in a multi-speciality hospital in Delhi to get a test of mammography done was what strived my chain of thought in the direction of women health. Fast forward to 1 year my college friend who had been working in an NGO in MP prompted me to design and test my women healthcare model in the district where he was working. I made a couple of trips to his place to understand the need and the kind of solution it would require and once I saw the condition in which these people were living I knew immediately that I had to do something for them. This is where Naarista in the Rural domain came into being.
Motivations, aspirations
Can you explain me the business model
Naarista’s Business Model has two main elements:
Service Providers and Service Distributors
Our 3 main services are Tele-health consultation, medicine delivery at doorstep, lab sample collection from doorstep which are our source of revenue as well.
Apart from this we also give other value add services such as access to Health Events and access to partner institutions like hospitals but these are available only through our Subscription plans which another source of revenue for us
The process we follow to deliver our services is as follows:
Step 1: A consumer who wishes to avail our services of Tele-Health will first contact the Local Woman Partner (LWP) of their Village, who will connect with consumer and understand the need.
Step 2: LWP then connects with medical personnel (a nurse or healthcare personnel) who will further understand the need and conclude which kind of doctor consumer needs to consult with.
Step 3: The medical personnel will then connect with Health Coordinator who in turn is connected to all doctors on the panel to determine if the consult can be done the same day or needs to be scheduled for the next day as per required doctor’s availability.
Step 4: Once the consult has been done, doctor then uploads the prescription on our platform which is then shared with our pharmacy partners (hyper local network) who ships the order through local transport to be delivered on the same day or by early next day.
Step 5: Any lab sample requests are also collected from consumer’s doorstep and shipped to our Lab Partners (hyper local network) who deliver the report same day.
What’s the average customer value for each of the models
Average Customer Value comes out be near Rs 500–600 where once the individual takes the membership, he/she more than 95% of times take the consultation followed by a medicine order. Lack of good alternatives in this market helps us realize this order value
What was your go to market plan
Initially when we started our idea was to give a small portfolio of services to the consumer which included Tele-consultation with the doctor, medicine delivery to their doorstep, lab sample collection from door step but as we progressed we understood that we will have to expand our sphere of offerings to give the consumers a complete closure that is when we introduced our Membership/Subscription services where plugged in more value add services like periodic health events (to meet docs in person) and access to our partner institutions to provide access to further diagnosis through Ayushman card. We will continue to make these offerings more comprehensive to increase value of these memberships for the consumer
What is the your average margins so far in your pilots
Oct’22 to Dec’22 (in INR)
Cost of Goods Sold: 38,000
Revenue: 61,203
Gross Margin for Quarter: 38%
Gross Margin in Dec’22: 57%
Net Margin for Quarter: — 123%
Net Margin for Dec’22:
What is the value to the customer and ecosystem is benefit from it
Value to the customer 1: Consistent and easy access to qualified health professionals
Value to the customer 2: For most women for the very first time easy access to a lady doctor
Value to the customer 3: Access to quality medicines at affordable rates at their doorstep
Value to the customer 4: Easy access to lab tests and comprehensive reports
Value to the Ecosystem: Access to a reliable, accountable and dependable healthcare ecosystem which is delivering services as per localized needs
Value to the Partners -1: Access to an untouched inaccessible market without much effort
Value to the Partners -2: Ease of logistics and financial transactions
How many pilots have you done ? where have you done the pilots
No. of pilots done : 1
Places you have done pilots: Narayanganj Block, Mandla District, MP Household reached: 9000
What is the logistics and other cost
Logistics Cost: INR 1500 to 2000 per month
Transportation through local buses: INR 50 for delivery once a day
Monthly Fuel Remuneration to Delivery Personnel: INR 300 to 400
What is the time for acquiring customers
Close to 60 unique customer added in Dec’22
So 2 customers every day
Half a day for 1 customer
What are the is your pricing model
End consumer average customer value: INR 500 to 600
% Margins from Services: 35% to 50%
Because of our high Membership selling rat
What are the some of the challenges
1. Lack of infra as not all people have access to a smartphone.
2. Lack of knowledge regarding the Tele-Health model hence sceptic
3. Consumers are quite used to freebies as Govt, and every other NGO give them free benefits for most things
4. No prior attempt or example of any commercial healthcare model working in the rural domain.
However, having said that we have been able to work around most of these challenges with our local distribution model and targeted counselling by exploiting the local cultural and community connections
What are some of the partnership you have done
We have partnered with two hospitals in Jabalpur city who are helping us provide further diagnostic services to our patients through Ayushman card. Apart from this we have also partnered with some NGO who are extending some healthcare services in the region to give our patients easy access to such services
How can this scale this model
Our model is designed for the rural domain and 65% of Indian population resides in rural areas hence the model is quite scalable
Also the model is capital light and harnesses local rural people as manpower for distribution of services which makes it easier to replicate it in other geographies through localization effec
How much are you planning to raise
We aim to raise close to 5 cr in the longer run to scale the entire district in around 18 months. Immediate requirements can be met with close to 0.50 cr as well where we will be able to cover an entire block that is close to 132 villages in the district
What kind of investors are you looking for
We are looking for investors who want to invest in change as what we have initiated will change the way how healthcare distribution is currently defined in India. We are bringing the next big change in the healthcare delivery model and we want to work with investors who believe in disrupting the market in a big way.
Hi I am Gokul Rangarajan, Scouting for Google Ventures, Ex- Freshworks, Ex-Bigbasket, Keka HR. I am Senior Product Manager in SaaS for around 12+ years, Have built & scaled business from scratch to $50M revenue, worked with 50+ Founders on their Product & fundraising journey.
I trying to put out content about PLG & Community lead growth on a regular basis, I am also building in public
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