Sarath Sankar is the founder of CURE, a health and wellness technology venture. Currently, the venture is based in India and UAE. However, Sarath and the team aim to expand it all over India and GCC countries in the coming future. He believes in innovation that impacts lives and helps the health and wellness community globally. The entire management and team members have a combined experience of 40+ years. With this experience, passion, and hustling, he with his team is making CURE one of the best upcoming tech ventures in the field of health and wellness.
Since the age of 20, Sarath Sankar has been working on projects and startups. He believes that the health and wellness industry is fragmented and it needs exclusivity and global impact. Through CURE, he aims to make that impact.
Let’s get to know more about it through Sarath’s interview below.
Explain the background of you and the Company in detail.
I’m Sarath, founder, and CEO of CURE, an Entrepreneur with firm roots in India and UAE, tenacious and focused on creating innovations that impact people’s lives globally. I was the Director of Data for an Artificial Intelligence center in UAE and founded a few startups. I am also an investor and mentor for startups in India and the Middle East.
One of my ventures from India got acquired by a top Business group in Abu Dhabi, and hence I reached UAE.
Currently, I am the founder of CURE, based in India and the UAE. CURE is an innovative data-driven health and wellness Technology venture with a vision to transform health and wellness delivery globally through innovations and data.
Globally, around 200 people visit health and wellness shops and pharmacies every day, and it varies between tier 1, 2, and 3 cities. On average, 100 to 200 people daily visit different fitness centers for fitness services in tier 1 and tier 2 cities. Every day a significant volume of footprints, OP bookings, hospital transactions, and bookings happen in clinics and hospitals. Every year 30 million people undergo Mental Health treatment in India alone. This substantial rise occurs every year.
CURE’s innovative product platforms aim to cater all health and wellness needs with great ease and care.
What are your goals?
The fundamental goal is to launch CURE innovations in as many countries as possible to empower the delivery of health & wellness to the community in each country much more effectively and faster. CURE will be the fastest Unicorn in the region, serving many consumers in each country where we operate, with substantial revenues from all its channels. We aim to take it to IPO in 5 years.
What do you feel is the biggest strength of yourself/Company right now?
The entire team is a mix of experienced youth and veterans. Everyone is tenacious and determined to impact in the area of health and wellness. The combined 40+ years of an experienced team and board members who has vast experience in each area they handle, such as Technology, Operations, Pharma, Healthcare, Supply chain and Logistics, Data, and others.
The abundance of passion and hustle in each team member with supreme knowledge in their expertise inspires each other to perform better to achieve the best through CURE. There is only one single goal: to make the lives of people easy, seamless, and convenient in the Health and Wellness industry.
What was the path you/your Company took to get to where you are today?
A: When I wanted to impact the Health & Wellness industry, I was first appointed a Market Research firm in Bangalore to strengthen my key findings. The results were so fascinating and compelling to start CURE immediately. I started R&D a few years back alongside three team members. Once the POC and the go-to-market plan were ready, we handed over the systems to a few health & wellness stakeholders in India. Their response was quite moving and inspiring.
With firm roots in UAE, I presented the Tech to Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), the region’s (EMEA) largest Fintech Hub. They recognized CURE as a health & wellness innovative startup. That pushed our trajectory even further. At the same time, we also got enrolled and recognized by the Startup India initiative led by the PM’s office. With just MVP, little traction, and Tech we secured funding in 2020 from USA, India, and UAE from notable Angels who believed in CURE.
Sarath Sankar, Why did you start (or want to be the head of) this Company?
For more than four years, the Health and Wellness industry has been one of the critical areas where I wanted to impact. The majority of the tech world and startups were disrupting the areas of E-commerce, Transportation Tech, Ridesharing, Food delivery, E-Learning, Crypto, and SaaS Tech. However, I truly believed that the health and wellness industry was fragmented. It needed better players that impacted the community and its stakeholders on a much larger scale. That too into the grassroots level as well.
What have been the biggest challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Every health and wellness stakeholder, such as Healthcare Retail shops, Pharmacies, Service providers were-fragmented and scattered in a miniature ecosystem, nor were they not aware of any technology to empower their mode of operations, enhance the service delivery that can help them provide better customer experience and improve their business.
To give a demo and educate them, we struggled a little bit in the early days. However, once they understood the benefits and the experience they had by using our systems, that was the moment of pure realization and satisfaction.
Sarath Sankar, Give us one word that describes you the best.
Finisher (I get the job done, which I aimed for)
What makes you excited about Mondays?
Being an Entrepreneur, I have always been an employer since I was 20. Even from my college days, I had started part-time projects and startups. The hustle during day and night was permanent, no matter Mondays. For me, creating innovations drives me. I haven’t felt like working till now. The reason is that I have been enjoying this phase of Entrepreneurship.
What do you value most about your culture and vision?
Customer Service is the pillar of anything that we build now, and it will be for the future. Every innovation and service we deliver to the consumers is built on this ethos. Through our unlimited passion for technology, we are focused to impact the lives of communities globally.
Sarath Sankar, Tell us about a project that forced you to be innovative and creative.
Creating startups has always been there for a long time. Early startup days were challenging. There used to be no access to capital or resources. In such events, being creative was the only option. I read, listened to peers, and learned how people think and how businesses work. I got better at it after every quarter.
What are your Company’s strategies, and how do they stand unique from your competitors?
We are a complete exclusive data-driven Tech where services and products are delivered faster and more conveniently. While others focus on Inventory-based models and all in one marketplace model, we bring exclusivity with focus at CURE. Hence, consumers get it with a range of choices within the same hour. Our key fundamentals and USPs are exclusivity, fast access, and a range of options to get from.
What are the fundamental values which helped you to overcome the roadblocks/challenges in your career? Tell us something about your memorable incident in your leadership?
As an Entrepreneur, the kind of mentors I had in my life during each phase is unparalleled. The learning, critical thinking, and experiences I had from such peers are something I cherish every single day. The good thing about being an Entrepreneur is you learn every single day, which is not taught in Business schools. Also, the struggles you face during these years shape you to become better and more challenging. There were many rough phases where I wanted to give up, but I kept going. Intuition, focus, and persistence – I believe these are the few strengths earned during this phase.
There are days when people drag us down, demotivate us for what we believe in, there were incidents of lack of capital. There were days when I struggled to keep payroll on track. I am not building a service-based software firm; I am making innovations. Getting them to fruition requires time, teamwork, and execution. Getting like-minded people to join you in the journey is always a challenge. Not just for CURE but any innovative ventures. So when you believe in something, don’t stop no matter what.
One day everyone will realize what you are building and why it matters.
Sarath Sankar, How do you see the Company changing in two years, and how do you see yourself creating that change?
CURE will be present in at least 10+ countries in 18 months. My Department heads and team members are doers with clear-cut actions, and KPI tracked and delivered. We stick to the process with not just quarterly evaluation. We work on 20 days, pocket-sized small periods with actionable goals and targets.
Where is your leadership going? What benefits do your clients get from your Company in this competitive world?
I am a constant learner and doer. I am a vivid listener and always help my team members to drive the challenges in their departments where I observe them. I correct them in matters where they need support. It’s effective as I can see a lot of leaders already produced within each department. CURE is a people’s Company run by fantastic team members. Everyone has the freedom to express new ideas, challenges, problem-solving, and crazy stunts. I’m all ears for them. As a result, in the current stage, we have secured the following growth in the last seven months,
- 10 M $+ Inventory managing
- 1300 + Health and wellness shops using our Tech,
- 10,000+ Products
- 100+ Categories
- 100s+ fitness Sessions monthly
- 1,000+ Pharmacies Partnered
- 1,000+ Pin codes Serving
- 500+ Health and Wellness Providers
- 500+ Logistics networks in South India alone.
- 10000+ consumers (by word of mouth alone
- 250+ Doctors and Clinics
- 60+ Team members.
My goal is to achieve 20X growth in the next 12 months. And make CURE the Fastest Billion $ venture with not just valuation but also with excellent substantial Turnover annually.
Sarath Sankar, What your Company offers services/solutions or products at par with the current industry standards? Tell us something about your upcoming products or services?
CURE is an innovative data-driven health and wellness Tech with a vision to transform health and wellness delivery globally through its innovative products. To be more specific, CURE delivers any health and wellness needs with great convenience, faster same-day delivery, convenient access at health and wellness shops, and a range of choices in one touch. We also assist with exclusive one-to-one access to any health, wellness, and mental wellbeing needs through our platforms. Run by a fantastic team and board, driven by an Intelligent Data-driven system that empowers B2C for their health and wellness needs and B2B stakeholders to generate more business by serving the community better, faster, and conveniently through our apps.
We will be hosting 25000 Pharmacies in the next six months through our web apps and mobile apps along with 1000+ wellness experts from across the globe, 1000+ hospitals, and 10000+ logistic captains all across India in 24 months. Our target is to secure 200,000 health and wellness shops that have direct access to customers in the next 18 months, and in 4 years plan is to onboard 1 Million shops, 10000+ health and wellness service providers with 100,000 orders daily through CURE.
Our system can handle 1000s of mental health patients through our virtual and physical therapy sessions from experts. We are scaling across all GCC countries as well alongside India. In 2022 our systems will be equipped with AIML capabilities alongside web3 adoption empowering all the CURE stakeholders and CURE ecosystem. CURE is Care and it is here to serve and inspire millions. Period.
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