What Vishal Gondal teaches about brand purpose

We do not call our consumers, patients or customers. Every Goki user is called a player and this was from day zero. We never called. So you are a player when you enter the Goki ecosystem. Vishal, to start of the first question, do you not think it's ironical that one has to incentivize a person just to stay more healthy, to look after their own well-being? So I think the way I look at this is that today there are many companies who have an incentive to make you unhealthy. And as a consumer, you are constantly getting bombarded with it.

So whether there are food apps offering you discounts on burgers and pizzas. So at one end, as a consumer, you are misinformed and in the garb of this is healthy, people are giving you all kinds of junk. What we are really trying to do is to say that instead of watching some junk video on any other platform, how about you spending that time on Goki to get entertained as well as learn about a new exercise or talk to a new nutritionist or Akshay Kumar himself coming in showing you an exercise. So content is one big part of what we are trying to do.

The second part is around health food and health services. Again, there's a whole host of confusion of what exactly is healthy. We are trying to solve that. Interesting. Tell me, I mean, just sort of at a very basic level, from your experience in gaming, right? I mean, you sold off a successful company and then you entered the fitness space. What was the transition about? Why fitness? And what are the parallels that you are drawing from that industry that sort of is relevant? So I think, you know, the concept of gaming is now becoming meta gaming.

So meta gaming is gamification of your life. So actually, if you ask me Goki, Goki is a gaming company. The only difference is this is a game you are playing with your life. So in fact, we do not call our consumers, patients or customers. Every Goki user is called a player. And this was from day zero. We never called. So you are a player when you enter the Goki ecosystem. The problem on other platforms is the minute they say you are a patient. Then you are already like you don't want to be the patient for the rest of your life, right? Right.

So as a patient, you want to be temporarily. So platforms which are even calling, even telling you the name. If they label you as a patient, already the consumer doesn't want to open this app because nobody wants to be told that, you know, what you are sick. You don't want to be reminded that you are sick. Goki then really a services company or is it actually a complete ecosystem, a way of life? So Goki was always perceived right from 2014 as a preventive healthcare ecosystem. And people told us we were crazy when we said we are going to give coaching.

This was, you know, way back. So when Goki gave its first hardware, the idea was data collection. You cannot monitor or measure or improve what you can't measure. And the easiest metric was let us walk because our consumer is a couch potato. But today that journey of steps has gone to another level. We are launching the ECG device. So on a device in 30 seconds you do an ECG. We have a blood pressure device. We are hoping that we will soon make every Goki device enabled with ECG.

But that ECG will now lead to a coach who can then tell you ki what is the problem? How can you improve it? That will lead to your data and that will lead to personalised advice for you what is required. Which is this typical, I mean, your bulk of a customer, what is that age group? Is there also a gender split that you see? And how is he evolving over the last few years that you have seen him? Where is he going? Currently our bulk segment is below the age of 40. These are people who have not yet contracted a disease. So they are on the brink.

But so I would say it starts from 25. 25, 30 is when you start realising that you are not bulletproof. And you know, when you are 18 and 20s, you know, you are… You can abuse your body. We have all been there. Right. So that is not our target segment. Our focus is the 30 to 45. And then the 45 to the 60, which is somebody with a health condition, either diabetes, cholesterol, hypertension. On the male-female split, currently it is, you know, almost whatever 75-25.

It is reflecting the same split as the, you know, the category of internet and mobile itself. So what are the hints that India can draw from what is already happening in those markets? And does that sort of point us to a direction where we need to go? So I think worldwide there is a huge focus on preventive healthcare. You know, countries' GDPs are already having huge challenges. You know, Japan spending 8 or 9% of their GDP. Right. So Singapore government gives each of its citizens a variable tracker and says, walk and I'll incentivise you.

So think about that level. Singapore government has a national step challenge sponsored by the government itself. Wow. Where every citizen is given a variable tracker. And I think, you know, it's really interesting to see that our PM was also very smart, that he saw this trend. And the first thing he announced when he came back into office was Fit India, because he did realise that this is a global trend. And even for a country like India. So I believe that healthcare India has a great advantage, just like it had in telecom,

that there is no legacy which is going to be disrupted. How easy or is it, how difficult is it to set up a business, a new business from scratch in India? What would your advice be to entrepreneurs who are sort of starting out? And, you know, how do they sort of get through that initially tough period? Because initial period is really hard, right? So I mean, being an entrepreneur in India is like getting struck by lightning every day. You know, and I say that it's like living in a constant state of chaos.

If you are somebody who enjoys that, that's what you can do. So I cannot, you know, my life is all around chaos. I think ideas and, you know, things are created out of chaos. I think the challenge is that it's a different mindset. And I think core of entrepreneurship is to learn to deal with failure.