A panel discusses how AI could predict heart attacks before they happen, driven by one speaker's loss of a close friend. They explore AI's role in healthcare productivity, then shift to personal startup stories: one founder built Avni Wellness to replace chemical pads with sustainable cotton alternatives after noticing male executives knew little about women's health; another bootstrapped AppBuddy Consultancy, a travel guide platform for Goa.
Chapters
Those doctors who use AI are going to replace those doctors who are not going to use AI. Losing a good friend, a class friend, to heart attack was the trigger. He had come to Goa over the weekend or for the New Year's Eve on 22nd, and then on 4th of January had the heart attack and he was no more. We had information, but nobody had insights. So what we believe is AI can get to the insights part very quickly, wherein you can predict and look into the future. And look at the markers which are present and then correlate it with a high level of confidence to indicate an onset of a severe or an immediate threat to your life. Today, the challenge is that information is in paper, they're in different locations, they're with different people, but if you put it in your fingertips, that is where the value addition helps and very relevant pertinent information for that particular patient in that moment of care. The doctors who start using AI in their daily practice will be become more productive, their patients will get better clinical care, and in society also they'll get known as people who have the best advanced technology or they're the ones who have the best practice.
AI agents are built based on the patterns and the data points, and you can say the AI healthcare models are the more efficient, and if doctors are using that, and that may be the game-changing moment for the whole world.
What do you say to like your dad, the doctor?
Yeah, so now he's believing that the pattern maybe the biggest secret sauce that can be used for healthcare domain. But earlier when I started, even AI was not there that much in Indian ecosystem, right? But I never had to prove my parents and other people to what I'm doing right now. If you really trying to do something, and I think the universe is there for you to help you out. And every moment I'm getting the validation of that. So this is also a surprising thing, but now I am Habituited of the process that if you are really trying something and you have the honest intention, and the university is there to make it done for you.
We met at college. So we were doing our MBA in marketing. So both of us met in the college.
Met in the college. That's where we kind of fell in love. Yeah. And then we got married.
You guys are a couple.
Yeah, yeah, we are a couple.
Yeah, couple. That's great.
I started Avni Wellness before he joined in, a year before. And once we were all settled in, that is when he left his job and joined the organization. The first pad, the sanitary pad that I've used, is a cloth. It's a traditional cloth, an Indian version of it, which my grandmom handed to me because that's where the first period happened, at her place during a summer vacation. And that experience was good, warm. It stayed with me for a long time. But then as life happened, all of us started using commercial sanitary pads that were advertised, you know, with girls running around in their white suits. I faced very heavy infections a couple of times which were really bothersome. And when I went deep, I realized that these pads have a lot of plastic and chemicals because of which they are causing these issues. That was the moment when I realized that, okay, we need to solve this problem and maybe do it with some kind of innovation, bringing the good old traditional cotton formats back but in a modern avatar. So that is the genesis of Avni.
I think there is one more thing. You see, most of the people in the top management are men, and we as men, including me, we had very little knowledge of what are the issues which a woman would face. There is very less information which is available on the harmful effects of whatever products we are using, specifically for women's health. People have started realizing it now, but I think even for men, the education is a bit less on what kind of challenges a woman would be facing in their life.
The first day of college, there's normally an introductory session where the professor was asking all of us to introduce to the class and tell us what do you want to do. That very day, I stood up and I introduced myself and I told that I want to start a business of my own. So my younger version would definitely say that, okay, you, you had to do it, you're doing it, and you're going to do it very well.
We are a self-sustained startup, okay? We are a bootstrap startup, so we have put all our money into that. We have not raised a single amount as of now, but we did receive a seed fund of 10 lakhs from the government of Goa. Yeah, so we traveled in India, outside India together, and we have seen a lot of things. Which were making us very happy. The experiences were pleasant. When we came back in here, we saw that it's not that good in Goa. Tourists are disappointed after their travel. So our interest was traveling and our core skills were development. So we thought, why don't we bring these together to find or to create a solution? There is no trustworthy guide, okay? So that's what people are lacking. And then because of this lack, those tourists are disappointed. when they are in Goa. So I started my first startup in 2013, then in 2016 I started my second startup, and then in 2021 we started AppBuddy Consultancy. So it was all been a startup journey for me. And for him, he is now very much successful. He's been there with the big companies, okay, he works with big companies And then he's also supporting the startup in terms of money, tech. So for me, it's like I can't give much time to the family and all. So I'm mostly occupied with the workloads only. So that's what I feel as a regret.
I mostly like just sit in the room, just work, work, work for most of the time. And then sometimes I go out and sit with them, more rarely.
That's a rare case.
My younger self would have felt that whatever he was doing at that time, that is the one that will change the entire history of marketing. But now I have become more matured. I know that there are chances that will come our way. We have to be very good in making decisions, and there will be times we will fail. But the important thing is that how we rise back from there. The story starts when I met my co-founder Mayank for the first time in college. We both were big event enthusiasts. We used to be participating in events that were happening in college, the cultural fest, tech fest. Also part of the organizing committee, and we saw firsthand what was the pain and the work that was involved in hosting every event. We understood one thing, that events have been happening since ancient times when empires used to do it, and it used to be a hub of idea exchange. In 2015, just after one year of our college, we started working on this idea and started helping brands host their marketing campaigns. From 2016 to 2020, we were just doing marketing campaigns for a brand. So we're more of a service-based company. We used to pick a brand, work with them for months-long period, on-ground activations. We even launched Facebook's Oculus VR in India, even did Cadbury launches, uh, in India. So we have done a lot of work helping brands do their marketing campaigns. But in 2020, suddenly the whole event industry collapsed. So then me and my co-founder, our team of 10-12 people that time, we brainstormed together, came up with the idea, okay, why not host events online? And I made the MVP in 1 month's time. My co-founder Mayank, who does brilliant sales and marketing, he booked 50 meetings in just a couple of hours. And then from zero revenue, we rose up to customer presence in 45 different countries. I think it's like a meditation for me, to be honest. When I'm thinking about my work, I don't think— I'm just present in the moment. I don't think about anyone, what is happening in the world, what people are saying. I'm just focused on that. It takes me through ups and downs, but at the same time, I don't have to lose my sanity. I have to be calm. I have to be organized. I have to keep my team pushing together. And that is what I feel that gives me the purpose, that gives me that vision, motivation to wake up every day and do what I literally love to do. Thank you.
