Dilip Kumar’s Post

The real heroes are somewhere next door to you. Quietly doing their work. And winning it. On the left is Vijayasree Gupta. A 76yo who swims 1 km every day. On the right is Rambai . A 107yo who runs 3-4 km every day. Both of them have over 100+ medals each. All won in the last few years. They are not on social media. But can inspire a whole generation. They are not doing it for the likes. But for the love of sport and to stay healthy. Each one of us has a sleeping athelete inside us. Just give it one chance. You are never too late.

There is a common pattern in abandoning yourself as a founder. I'll tell you what i was doing so you could avoid that. And I realised this after closing my startup and now being a cheerleader to others. 1) Not apologising to team members or partners when I owe them an apology.  2) Saying “yes” to every opportunity when I was aching to focus on core product. 3) Over-explaining my vision to investors who stopped listening a long time ago. 4) Begging for investor attention without demanding respect.  5) Building a company based on what I think looks “successful” rather than what actually solves problems. 6) Neglecting my health and well-being. Burning out by overworking. 7) Twisting my values to fit into industry trends I’ve outgrown. 8) Refusing to accept the reality of my startup. Lying to myself about my progress.  9) Celebrating those who only tolerate my efforts. 10) Not allowing time for deep rest to myself and others and running on fumes Wishing I was someone else. There are 104 million entrepreneurs in India. If you are one of them save yourself https://x.com/kmr_dilip

Health, fitness and sports startups in India 🇮🇳 you should know off. 12th list in the series. These are companies we've met at Rainmatter by Zerodha . These are entrepreneurs solving for problems across different spectrum of health, fitness, nutrition & sports. We may invest only in a few but each one has a reason to exist. Not every startup story is shared. Not every product gets visibility. But everyone should know about their work. I've no vested interest but cheering for these founders and their company to make an impact. List #12 1) XUME - An app the scans the bar code of the packaged food and tells you what's the good and bad part in it. Founder- Akshaye Jalan 2) Serigen - Makes medical grade products using properties of silk for effective and advanced tissue repair for bone regeneration. Founder - Anuya Nisal, Swati Shukla 3) unlock.fit - Personalized wellness programs based on your DNA. A simple saliva test to analyze your genetic markers to ger tailored nutrition, fitness, and health plans. Founder - Shah Fahad, Masroor Lodi 4) Farmako- 30 minute medicine delivery to your doorstep. Founder- Aman Bhandula, Nikhil Kumar, Kaishu Sahu 5) Padel India - Making India play Padel. Founder - Alan Healy 6) Happy Ratio - A QSR chain for fresh and health food. Founder - Harsh Batra 7) Ai Health Highway -  AI enabled stethoscope to screen, detect and predict Cardio-Respiratory Disorders. Founder - Dr (Maj) Satish S Jeevannavar 8) FC.ONE - Powering sportrs academies to leverage technology and scale. Founder - Ravneet Singh, Shashank Shekhar 9) PregAmie - Wellness platform for women. Founder - Abhishek Thakur 10) HempStreet - Making products leveraging the benefits of medical cannabis. Founder- Abhishek Mohan 11) Naturally Yours - Bringing health version of noodles back to our plates. Founder- Vinod C 12) str8bat - Bringing technology to your favourite sport to play it smart and efficiently. Founder- Gagan Daga, Madhu Sudan, Rahul Nagar 13) Boldfit- Making essential products for every fitness enthusiast. Think Decathalon of India. Founder - Pallav Bihani 14) EMoMee- Building products to develop emotional intilligence in kids and their parents. Founders - Pooja Jauhari, Varun Duggirala 15) Naario- Solving for affordability and accesibility in nutrition through a unique women-led operating model. Founder Anamika Pandey 16) Ivory - Solving for early detection and care of dementia and brain health. Founder- Issac John, Rahul Krishnan Best way to cheer for these startups is to either be a customer or share their work with others. If you are solving for health, fitness & sports in India and Rainmatter can be of any help, i'm open to talk. Do reachout. If you are on X, cheer for them here https://lnkd.in/gyW6Zner

To whom so ever it may concern, just know that the word “Amateur” in latin means “To Love”. Your first article will be bad Your first startup will be bad Your first product will be bad Your first workout will be bad Your first podcast will be bad Your first presentation will be bad Your first client meeting will be bad Your first post on LinkedIn will be bad Your first ANYTHING will be bad. But you can’t make your best without making your first. So be shameless, put aside your ego. And enjoy being an amateur.

India plays cricket. And cricket makes money. Can that money be used to fuel other sports? BCCI earned 16,875 crore($2billion) last year. And it has 30 players under active contract. These 30 players are collectively paid 88 crore as salary annually. Ofcourse they earn in mutiples outside of this pay. So, there is a massive amount of surplus money that the BCCI has. Even after their work expenses. Indian government allocated 3396 crore last year as sports budget. And we still have Olympic players who are struggling to meet their expenses. Some don’t have money to travel to tournaments. Imagine if the surplus money from one organisation could be used to fuel and support talent of other sports. It’s a wishful thinking. But we have to find ways to get support to other deserving athletes. We’ve so much potential.

There is one health advice you will never hear from anyone. You can go to gym and build muscles, you can train to run and become a marathoner , you can get your 4ltr of water everyday, you can get your 7hrs of sleep , you can get all the superfoods and supplements. But if you don’t learn to deal the chaos in your head and bullshit people around you, you’re still going to be unhealthy. You can’t change the people around you. But you can change the people around you. Ignoring some people for your mental health is not a weakness. It is your superpower. Make your mental health your first priority.

Just a reminder. 950 new startups were launched last year. But 35,000 startups were shut down. If you want to build a company, you’ve just one very important decision to make. No matter what else you do, you should figure out this first. You don't have to go to an accelerator, incubator or a VC for this. The decision whether to grow slowly, organically and profitably or to have a big bang with fast growth, lots of capital and burn. I ignored making that decision when i was building. Irony is, I'm now reminding others when they come for funding :) Valuation and funding are just the shiny toys. If you really want to play, focus on your customers and making a profit. Toys break, but a good business lasts and you will be in the game for long.

India won the cricket world cup. That's great. But for us to be a sporting nation there is a lot more to be done. You may not know this, India has won only 35 Olympic medals in 122 years. China won 634 medals in 32 years. India's sports budget last year was 3397 crore. China spent 26,240 crore. We spend 3 paisa per capita per day on sports. And China spends 6 rupees. That’s 200 times more than us. Both countries have similar population size. Yet India is the lowest in the world on medals per capita. We may be brilliant in cricket. But if we've to be a sporting country, we've to spend and support other sports. Watch and celebrate other sports and athletes just the way we do for cricket. We have a lot of talent and potential in other sports to win medals. Government may do their work. But we've to also chip in. If you work in a corporate ask your CSR team to support sports and other athletes. Less than 2% of CSR spends are on sports. Consider other athletes in your marketing campaigns. They have a story to share. At Rainmatter by Zerodha we will do our part. Hope you will do yours. And encourage kids around you to play more sports.

AI & ChatGPT will not solve for this. You have to. Becoming unfit is not an event. It is a process. -Prioritise physical activity. Nothing is more important. -Eat healthy. Don’t be the profit machine to processed & packaged industry. Your only goal should be to be in your kids & partners life as long as you can. Like loosing money, loosing your health is rarely caused by one thing going wrong. Usually, it is a series of ignorance and wrong doings. Take control now. If you wait until you're motivated, you’ve already lost.

The largest healthcare company in India is Apollo Hospitals that has a market cap of $10billion. The largest healthcare company in US is United Health group that has a market cap of $486billion. There is an opportunity for 10-15 billion dollar healthcare companies to build in India and grow in next decade. Maybe not in US. The opportunity in India could be to think beyond primary and secondary care. And use technology to integrate different components and stakeholders of healthcare ecosystem.