Sramana Mitra: Tell me about the team.
Sylvana Sinha: Today we have 450 people. My Chief Medical Officer is an amazing woman. She has been working in healthcare for more than 40 years. She’s an expert in quality management. Her husband was a diplomat, so she’s lived and worked all over the world.
She moved back to Bangladesh 12 years ago. She had been working as the Head of Quality at a large private hospital in Bangladesh. She had gone into retirement and I convinced her to come out of retirement. She has been with us since 2017.
>>>I’m publishing this series on LinkedIn called Colors to explore a topic that I care deeply about: the Renaissance Mind. I am just as passionate about entrepreneurship, technology, and business, as I am about art and culture. In this series, I will typically publish a piece of art – one of my paintings – and I request you to spend a minute or two deeply meditating on it. I urge you to watch your feelings, thoughts, reactions to the piece, and write what comes to you, what thoughts it triggers, in the dialog area. Let us see what stimulation this interaction yields. For today – Le Ciel I
Le Ciel I | Sramana Mitra, 2020 | Watercolor | 9 x 12, On Paper
Sramana Mitra: What is the pricing model?
Sylvana Sinha: We like to say we are offering more value for money. We price at market. It’s in between the fancy private hospitals and the free and affordable care. To see a doctor, it’s less than $8. To see a specialist might cost $12 to $15. We acquire patients through consultations or through the pharmacy. We upsell them to longer-term patients through diagnostic testing and health checks. The most profitable part of the business is diagnostics testing.
>>>Sramana Mitra: Let’s focus on the first year. What did you build to qualify yourself for funding?
Sylvana Sinha: I spent that year on a listening tour. I was traveling all over the world to meet entrepreneurs and investors to understand business models and innovations in healthcare. I funded myself to do that and just live during that time.
>>>Entrepreneurs are invited to the 576th FREE online 1Mby1M Mentoring Roundtable on Thursday, May 26, 2022, at 8 a.m. PDT/11 a.m. EDT/5 p.m. CEST/8:30 p.m. India IST.
If you are a serious entrepreneur, register to “pitch” and sell your business idea. You’ll receive straightforward feedback, advice on next steps, and answers to any of your questions. Others can register to “attend” to watch, learn, and interact through the online chat.
You can learn more here and REGISTER TO PITCH OR ATTEND HERE. Register and you will receive the recording by email, even if you are unable to attend. Please share with any entrepreneurs in your circle who may be interested. All are welcome!
If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.
The compensation disbalance in the Venture Capital / Private Equity world remains quite stark. Take a look at the chart a friend once sent me showing some concrete data on VC compensation, and Private Equity industry performance.
VCs without much of an operating background constitute a trigger-happy lot, operating based on spreadsheets rather than experience or intuition. Of course there are exceptions, and VCs like John Doerr and Mike Moritz have created enormous value, and have effectively helped build the ecosystem as we know it today. Nonetheless, the few rounds of Silicon Valley Gold Rushes have made it possible for opportunists who have also managed to flourish.
During this week’s roundtable, we had four pitches from entrepreneurs from around the world.
Includovate
As for entrepreneur pitches, we had Kristie Drucza from Kampala, Uganda, pitch Includovate, an inclusive R&D services company with $1M+ in revenues looking to pivot.
Keepler
Next we had Rachel Abramowitz from Brooklyn, New York, pitch Keepler, a next generation, thoughtful dating app.
Project Blue-Treasures
Then Mohammad Hussain from Bogota, Colombia, pitched Project Blue-Treasures, an ocean-driven beauty product e-commerce venture.
Light Pong
And next, Aaqib Usman from Chicago, Illinois, pitched Light Pong, a new game that already has some traction on Kickstarter.
You can listen to the recording of this roundtable here:
According to a recent report, the cloud security market is estimated to grow at 18% CAGR to reach $106.02 billion in 2029 from $33.13 billion in 2022. Cloud services security provider Qualys (Nasdaq: QLYS) announced its first quarter results recently. The company continues to deliver new products, but the market is not too pleased with its overall performance.
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