Paresh Jain Reveals the SECRET to Building a Healthcare Startup

In this episode of The Quest for Success Podcast, Paresh shares his journey across industries—from event planning and mining to healthcare startups—and the ever-changing nature of success. He reflects on the unpredictability of event planning, the importance of mentorship, and how philanthropy has shaped his personal and professional growth.
 
Paresh also dives into healthcare entrepreneurship, discussing the challenges of building a unique patient experience, the impact of strong leadership, and the realities of investment in the startup world. He shares insights on delegation, the role of family values in success, and how businesses can stand out in competitive markets.
 
Key Takeaways:
 - Success is a personal journey that evolves over time.
 - Family aspirations shape one's definition of success.
 - Philanthropy can significantly influence personal values and career choices.
 - Transitioning industries can lead to unexpected opportunities.
 - Creating a unique experience in healthcare can differentiate a business.
 - Startups often focus on cost reduction rather than innovation.
 - Building a strong team is essential for business success.
 - Mentorship plays a crucial role in personal and professional development.
 - Success is measured by family values and relationships.
 
If you're an entrepreneur, business leader, or someone looking for mentorship, innovation, and growth strategies, this episode is a must-watch!

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Transcript

Dylan Pathirana (03:28.185)
All right, welcome back to the quest for success podcast. And thanks so much for tuning in once again today. We're incredibly excited because on the show we have another serial founder and a crew, one of the Harvard crew today joining the show is Paresh Jain. Yeah, I had the privilege of studying with Paresh at the Harvard OPM program. And thank you so much Paresh joining us. We wanted to

dig deep and understand your story and want to share that inspiring journey that you've gone through over the years.

Paresh (04:00.622)
Thank you, Jam. Thank you, Dylan, for having me over. Always a privilege talking to Jam. He already knows a lot of my stories, but pleasure sharing it here as well.

Dylan Pathirana (04:14.117)
So, Paresh, this whole podcast is about success, right? So we need to start with a very fundamental question, and that is, what does success mean to you?

Paresh (04:26.158)
So, know, I was thinking about it. so success, I think the definition changes with time, I guess. And for me, success, what it meant probably when I started working is different from now what it means for me. And also success in business, in a business setting and in personal setting, I guess,

At this point in time, I'm viewing both of them a little differently also. In my personal life, think success is if I can do enough to allow my family to meet their aspirations, to give them a platform where they can decide what they want to do without too much consideration of or any baggage.

and just giving them the freedom to decide. So if I can do that for my children, for my family, and I think on a personal front, that's success for me. I think I've been working towards it. And for entrepreneur, personal success is closely linked to business success. Most of our wealth is tied into business anyways, right?

On the business front, in OPM also it came out. Can you really make your business work without you being there? Can you have a team which self-manages itself and fulfills the vision you have set out? Can you have that culture where that business works automatically? And I don't think I've reached there yet.

but work in progress, but as and when that happens, that will mean achieving success on the business front.

Dylan Pathirana (06:31.909)
I think that's a really, really nice definition of success, you know, covering both, both aspects of life, family and business. But I suppose throughout our discussions, we found that the people are very much shaped by, you know, the early life. So we want to go back to, know, your upbringing. Can you tell us a little bit about, know, where you grew up and kind of the family situation and how you think your parents have influenced who you are today?

Paresh (06:57.742)
Early life, I was of course born in New Delhi, India. And that time, early in my life, my father was constructing a steel plant in Bukaro. It's a famous steel plant in India. It's called the Bukaro Steel Plant. so the first six, seven years of my life I spent in Bukaro, that's maybe between a town and a village.

very small place and after that I came back to Delhi, my parents, my father took up work in the Middle East contracting so most of my early childhood they were out of India and I kind of grew up with my grandparents as such yeah and so of course my mother used to come and go but my father was generally out of India and

Yeah, and I think that shapes you a lot to take some decisions, you know, on your own in that sense when parents are not around and so you need to or you learn to fend off for yourself in lot of situations.

After that, my grandparents had a huge bearing on how I live life and my grandfather was heavily into philanthropy and doing work for the community. I remember even in college, every Sunday I was involved in, he used to set up these prosthetic limbs, provide prosthetic limbs for

physically challenged or physically disabled people. So every Sunday I would go with him to various parts around Delhi or even out of Delhi and look after providing these. That shaped a lot in my early life between my college and philanthropy and like that.

Paresh (09:13.962)
After college, I did my masters from US. I went to Cleveland for my MBA. once I came back, my family that time was heavily into mining. And I started my career almost as a mining specialist. So I was into chromore mining, iron ore mining, rock phosphate, and stone mining.

Out and out mining expert became mining expert over the next few years. Around that time, I don't know, I think I've moved away from the question from the early childhood.

Dylan Pathirana (09:55.759)
No, no, no, that's good. Continue. Yeah.

Paresh (09:58.922)
Okay, so And around that time when mining was going on because of my early influence with philanthropy and all these things We I kind of started the venture in healthcare as a startup, which is a small with a small clinic and an upcoming suburb of New Delhi Called Gurgaon now it's become famous, but that time there were hardly any people there

set up a small shop. So mining continues and healthcare has now grown up into, know, now we have three hospitals, we are setting up a fourth one. So that's grown into, know, organically grown into a large organization by itself. Yeah, that's kind of.

Dylan Pathirana (10:47.813)
Yeah, so Parish any reason you moved away from mining to more healthcare sector? Any inspiration?

Paresh (11:00.172)
Yeah, so like I said, because I was since my early life quite involved with my grandfather in providing, you know, taking care of prosthetic limbs and then he had set up a eye care hospital. I was involved in that and we were doing polio surgeries and you know, all kinds of things. you know, three, four years of college, I was heavily involved in that.

And that just seemed familiar territory. if you, you know, India went underwent like a transformational change, you know, around 2000 Indian economy was doing pretty badly. in 1993, 94, they had a lot of opening up. The real impact of it started coming in around 99, 2000. And that is the time when there was a lot of

know, pent up aspirational demands for the Indian consumer, both in terms of lifestyle as well as healthcare. And people just wanted better services, better infrastructure, better quality. my experience with healthcare in the early stages just made me more comfortable, you know, starting a business in that sphere.

Dylan Pathirana (12:28.923)
And was that an opportunity that arose or was it something that you were kind of brewing on for a little while and then you kind of jumped at it?

Paresh (12:29.582)
So

Paresh (12:36.558)
No, it kind of, it kind of seemed like an accident almost. So there was a Confederation of Indian Industry seminar and on healthcare, I was, you know, close to my workplace and, you know, I don't know, I just got up and said, okay, let me just, I don't know, just attend that seminar. went there, heard a lot of people, met a lot of people from industry. And I said, yeah, sound this...

this sounds something I could do and you know I think

The thing with being young is you make a lot of decisions without thinking of the repercussions of your decisions. And that's what allows you to do these funny things, which you would not do later in life. At that point, if I knew how tough it was, I probably wouldn't have ever done healthcare. So, but maybe my thought process was just not that evolved. And I thought, yeah, I can do it. What's there, you know?

There is a facility, there is a doctor, a patient comes shows the doctor and goes away. How tough can it be? It seems simple enough, right? So I never, maybe it's a combination of just luck and stupidity, I guess. So.

Dylan Pathirana (13:53.179)
I mean, that's how that's how pretty much entrepreneurs do, right? Like, you know, some accidents you you create opportunities, right? So that's so I want to understand bit more on your entrepreneurial journey. So you work for corporations before you start your own business, right?

Paresh (13:59.062)
Yeah.

Paresh (14:13.986)
Now, I never worked for anyone. Yeah, yeah, just my own family firm, which was into mining and then did healthcare. Healthcare is organization I set up literally brick by brick. I had no idea and we started small and I did all possible jobs you can imagine in that setting. I did billing, did called desk, I did recruitment.

Dylan Pathirana (14:15.927)
wow. So you might, okay.

Paresh (14:43.19)
software development, don't know, everything, setting up. So no one in my family knew anything about running a hospital, like a hospital, hospital. But set it up brick by brick. I got a great team, young people. So I was young and ended up recruiting all young people my age, people younger than me. So my entire...

entire team that time the average age would be just about 24-25. We were just a very young team running an organization and a lot of them are still around so I kind of I'm lucky to have those people and kind of grow along with them they're like family so got a bunch of young guys they were some were doctors some were non-doctors

Dylan Pathirana (15:17.989)
Wow.

Paresh (15:41.858)
but we just came together and we thought we can do it better than anyone else is doing it. It's just common sense. Why are people not doing it like that? Why do you have to make people go to one counter for registration and another counter to pay their money and then a third counter to avail the service, then a fourth counter to collect your report? Why not just do it at the same place?

Why do health care facilities need to have poor seating? Why should the air conditioning not be good? Why should it not smell nice when you enter a place? Why should it... When you enter, should someone not greet you?

Dylan Pathirana (16:18.136)
Mm.

Dylan Pathirana (16:26.315)
And do think that was, that was one of the benefits you had being an outsider to the industry. You weren't like used to that kind of old school way of doing things. You brought like that fresh perspective.

Paresh (16:35.278)
Yeah, I think we brought a little bit of hotel to the hospital because we had, you know, at 23, 24, 25, you don't have any experience of hospitals. And you just, your expectation is pretty much from, you know, you have only been to some hotels and you know, your experience of service industry is just that. And, you know, we went to some hospitals and they smelled bad. You know, you could smell that antiseptic thing going on.

Dylan Pathirana (16:41.102)
Nice.

Paresh (17:04.646)
and there was a huge waiting and people are just sitting and there is a token machine you take a token and you're waiting and a number is showing up and we just thought why does one have to do that why doesn't it just smell nice well you know why doesn't some music playing it can be nice to you know just go out sit there so and like I said it's just probably a combination of

Dylan Pathirana (17:07.195)
Mm.

Dylan Pathirana (17:17.723)
Mm.

Dylan Pathirana (17:32.891)
.

Paresh (17:35.116)
bunch of young people who knew no better just went out and said okay let's do this

Dylan Pathirana (17:42.459)
So Parish, when you started this healthcare business, the hospitals, did you have to raise capital or your family invested in this business and how did you kind of pitch it, pitch this concept?

Paresh (18:00.238)
Initially, the family invested in it and later on we grew from internal accruals and funding, took whatever bank loan, but the initial capital did come from the family itself. And the pitch was just this, we are trying to create something, our focus was always, we were not in the technology side of healthcare. We still are not. And it's not the...

Dylan Pathirana (18:03.566)
Okay.

Paresh (18:30.306)
So we say we provide exceptional service rather than cutting edge surgeries or something. we are in the space, we claim we are in the space of like family healthcare, for example. where would you like to, you you have to go as a family, you need to require a healthcare solution, where would you go? And, you know, the problem statement in India, which is still there,

to some extent is either you have a local GP which you are associated with which is I don't know how it is in Australia but they have like a mom and pop store kind of thing, a small clinic where they are sitting, the doctor, husband, wife, they sit together and they might be of some speciality or no speciality just a general physician and then you have the tertiary care hospitals, you have these thousand bed hospital, mega hospitals in India.

And you know, the problem we started and we are still working in that space. And we said, if a family, you wants to, you want to show your child to a doctor and you need the dental treatment or someone in the family wants to show an ENT doctor, but your local GP is only that much skill set. He can't handle that. But you don't want to go to a thousand bed hospital just for, and you know, take your

three year old kid there right it's it's brimming with infection and all this so where do you go so that's the opportunity that's the space we are in we typically run 50 bed hospitals they are small but quite healthy you know they are sanitized in a way they are we don't have infection infectious patient generally you'll not find anyone crying in our hospitals everyone is

Dylan Pathirana (20:03.696)
Mm-hmm.

Paresh (20:28.174)
happy, healthy kind of situation. So, yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (20:32.539)
So that's really fascinating, right? You went to an industry, you didn't have a clue, right, what you were doing. So how did you manage to kind of quickly become an expert in that industry or did you hire experts to help you?

Paresh (20:48.206)
Yeah, we hired experts, but all young people. So we got a medical director or whatever, know, head of medical operations. She was just around 27. We got someone to head the lab who was also 26. We got someone in radiology who was 30. So we got these people in, but we just got young people, young, smart people.

And I think that time the philosophy was just they joined because we said we'll change something, we'll do something better than you know what is happening out there.

Dylan Pathirana (21:27.803)
Bye.

Is that still the hiring philosophy you have now? Like hire young people to bring innovative ideas.

Paresh (21:38.99)
Now it's a mix of both actually How we started that has evolved It changed I don't know with time. So now we have a lot of experienced guys also Now the new recruitments we keep experienced guys, but you know that time I didn't know any better I sometimes think you know How stupid this guy was to run a hospital like that, you know, that's

Dylan Pathirana (21:52.336)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Pathirana (21:58.917)
Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (22:06.489)
You

Paresh (22:08.782)
But yeah, it got and we did some remarkable things. And our philosophy was simple. We were always trying to do something new with someone has not done before, get a new equipment, get a new technology, get something which other people are not doing. That was, you know, very clear mindset to do things.

Dylan Pathirana (22:10.455)
what got you from zero to one so that's the important part.

Paresh (22:35.99)
Okay, if this guy is doing like this, we will just do it differently. We'll just try to figure out a different way to do it. But I think that way of doing things differently still, I think that culture still exists. But the age profile has gone up along with our ages, I guess.

Dylan Pathirana (22:43.483)
Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (22:49.519)
Yeah, yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (22:54.649)
Yeah. So talking about culture, know, like the challenge when you hire young people, right? Like they're so dynamic. They want to learn new things. I mean, you got to keep them interested, right? And how did you like, what was a successful ingredient apart from bringing new technologies and things like that to keep, you know, making, make sure that they are, you know, continue to work with you and create that culture.

Positive Culture.

Paresh (23:27.212)
I think one of the things which we do in our organization, we give a of responsibility and decision-making ability to people. Still, the average age in our hospital would be at least 15 years younger than other hospitals. So it's still a young place. It's not as young as it used to be, but still pretty young.

without any consideration if the person is performing well, we give them a lot of responsibility and we'll work with them, we train them. that's one of the factors people tend, either people leave very early, but if they stay, they stay pretty long. So if people can't take up that responsibility, they would, you know, leave in less than a year, but

We have a huge bunch of people over 10 years with us. Our attrition rates at the middle to high senior level is negligible, less than 5%. So who stick on, stick on for a really long time. But the people who have to leave, they figure out pretty quickly, this is not the place for us. I think just giving people that opportunity to...

Dylan Pathirana (24:35.195)
Mm-mm.

Paresh (24:52.642)
take a lot of decisions across a broad spectrum of fields. I think that has worked for us.

Dylan Pathirana (24:59.995)
I want to take a bit of a backward step. You said that you went to the US to study.

Paresh (25:04.428)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (25:06.373)
What was the reason that you chose to go to the US?

Paresh (25:11.534)
By the time I just wanted to go to US. I think I just made a lot of, you know, decisions. don't, you know, now I think I don't even know why I took those decisions in my life. So that time it just seemed the right thing to do. You know, I did a accelerated MBA. I got a lot of credits. I did well in my college here. So I got, they waived off a lot of requirements for me. I did a one year program.

And I just, I was the first one in my family to be doing a Masters, first one in my family who ever went out of India to study. I just thought...

I'll just do it and I got a job offer there. My father got all panicky after that and...

Dylan Pathirana (26:01.595)
You

So your father was expecting you to come back to India and join the family business.

Paresh (26:09.366)
Yeah, and I said, no, I'll work a few years. I've got a good job here and I'll probably hang on and spend some time. He said, no, no, no, no, you have to come back. Otherwise, I'm coming to pick you up. You can't stay there.

Dylan Pathirana (26:22.102)
Hahaha

Do you have any other siblings Parish?

Paresh (26:28.46)
I have two sisters, an elder sister and a younger sister. Both are in Delhi, married.

Dylan Pathirana (26:31.713)
Okay. Okay. And they're involved in the business as well?

Paresh (26:37.812)
No, their husbands have separate businesses and they are involved with their husbands in some capacity doing some parts of the husbands business.

Dylan Pathirana (26:46.329)
Yeah. So obviously you're coming from a very business background, business family. So when you're young, you had like always thinking of doing your own thing, right?

Paresh (27:02.038)
Yeah, I am more, you know, more academically oriented. So, but there is there was always that expectation. There is still that expectation in business, you know, families which have a lot of business tradition that whoever will come will start a new venture and do the family work, continue the family legacy and those and those sort. If it was not for that pressure, probably I would have just

Dylan Pathirana (27:09.189)
huh.

Paresh (27:30.774)
stuck to more academics in my life and you know I don't know maybe I don't know maybe take a job or something but it's just the influence of people you see everyone around you doing entrepreneurship whether different levels of success people have some have become very successful some less than other successful but everyone is still into

Dylan Pathirana (27:34.554)
Mm-hmm.

Paresh (27:59.02)
running businesses. that's kind of like the DNA and that's what you're expected to do and somewhere it's also whether you like it or not you end up doing it.

Dylan Pathirana (28:00.507)
Mm.

Dylan Pathirana (28:13.209)
Yeah, yeah, So do you expect the same from I met your two boys? You have any other kids? Sorry, both of them? And so you're expecting them to join your business or their own business?

Paresh (28:19.47)
My boy and my daughter I have a son and a daughter. Yeah, you met both of them Yeah

Paresh (28:31.962)
I don't know. son is, he did his undergrad a couple of years back. He finished in 2023. Then he's been working with EY and he just left EY and now he's going for his master's in Seattle in August of this year. And in the meantime, he's working with me, which is quite a...

you know I have to keep him busy so so he's got I got to give him a lot of work so I don't know whether he wants to work with me or not he gives me mixed signals he is not very clear on that sometimes sometimes he says no I can't work with you so and then

Dylan Pathirana (29:22.319)
But is there an expectation that you have like you wish that your son will work with you?

Paresh (29:29.198)
That's not an expectation now, I think. You see now in businesses, especially in India, so many because of all these venture capital and private equity funds coming in, selling your businesses, you're getting crazy valuations right now. The valuations are off the charts. If you hear the numbers, you'll not believe it. It's probably what you get in

other countries as a multiple of EBITDA, people are giving you here in multiple of revenue, the same numbers. yeah, like healthcare right now is going almost six, seven times revenue, the business in terms of valuation. You know, in mature economies, if you pay six times EBITDA, you'll probably be buying expensive business.

Dylan Pathirana (30:14.191)
Wow.

Dylan Pathirana (30:23.706)
Yeah.

Paresh (30:24.69)
or a five time average. So India valuations are crazy just because of people's expectation of how the country will look in the next 20 years. you know, so right now there is enough opportunity if my children decide, okay, they don't want to work with me. I have enough offers coming in every month to sell the business. you know,

Dylan Pathirana (30:50.573)
nice nice place to be yeah

Paresh (30:52.662)
Yeah, and the valuation being offered, I don't think I can work and earn that much ever. So I'm just thinking whether I should just sell it anyways. So.

Dylan Pathirana (30:57.659)
Yeah

Dylan Pathirana (31:04.889)
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you can always start again, right? You will, anyway.

Paresh (31:10.081)
Not the same business.

Dylan Pathirana (31:11.895)
Yeah, I mean anything right? Business. You are a businessman.

Paresh (31:13.516)
Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. I sell it, will I start again or will I become very, I feel I become too lazy to start again or just become an investor and, you know, invest in other companies. So that's what keeping me from selling it, frankly.

Dylan Pathirana (31:19.578)
Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (31:30.235)
So talking about investments, you also invested in multiple other businesses, right? Yeah. So is that something that you want to continue to do that?

Paresh (31:35.235)
Yes.

Paresh (31:40.206)
So I invested in a lot of startups. I've been closely associated with IIT Delhi here. And a of the young people there, they pitch their businesses to us at a very initial stage, just ideas to itself. So we have a lot of kids coming in and pitching. So we have invested in a few, maybe four startups right now, most of them out of IIT Delhi.

and they are bright young kids. I don't know where the idea will go. It's more just betting on the individuals rather than so we have invested where the company has zero revenue. So I don't know how it turns out, but it's great interacting with them. are energetic, smart bunch of kids. So yeah, maybe we'll continue doing that.

Dylan Pathirana (32:10.416)
Alright.

Dylan Pathirana (32:40.857)
And what's, what, what is the startup ecosystem like in India?

Paresh (32:45.986)
it's quite dynamic, actually. It's doing fabulously well. I think a lot of the startups are just about right now, which are, they are just about reducing cost and increasing efficiency rather than real technology solutions. it's not that, they're just.

bringing in what has worked in other countries and trying to do it cheaper and You know very few companies are actually into this complete Complete innovation model fewer companies most are into Just bringing things making it easier for whatever was happening. Just make it faster easier cheaper So

Dylan Pathirana (33:37.997)
And in terms of like capital raising as well, because I know like here in Australia, there's a lot of great ideas, but it's kind of underfunded in India. it a similar story or is there good access to capital?

Paresh (33:51.342)
It's more capital and less ideas I would say. If you are willing to do it, money is just chasing you here. You can't imagine the kind of money you can raise.

Dylan Pathirana (33:55.525)
Wow.

Dylan Pathirana (34:01.753)
Yeah, right. Wow.

Dylan Pathirana (34:07.099)
Is that the economic sentiment as well? Like in India, you know, that growth, everyone feel like, you know, there's a upward trend towards the economy and all the, is that the reason that investment coming in?

Paresh (34:24.088)
Yeah, economy, the population itself is a great market for people. so whether, you know, whatever happened in the rest of the world, there are people who want goods and services. And businesses are inherently doing well because of that. And the outlook was very bullish until Trump came in. And after that, people don't know how to actually read him.

Dylan Pathirana (34:30.128)
Yep.

Dylan Pathirana (34:50.81)
Mm-hmm.

Paresh (34:53.44)
because different statements coming in every day and that you don't know. So the fear is not about India's own potential, it's more about what's going to happen globally and if there is a global recession, that pull India down? If everything in global stays stable, people are very bullish on India, the kind of capex Indian businesses are doing and the growth story people are experiencing here.

phenomenal, unseen prior to now.

Dylan Pathirana (35:28.357)
Amazing. I want to go back to your business. What's the biggest challenge that you faced in starting that?

Paresh (35:35.96)
In starting.

So in starting, you see, hospitals is more like a retail business in a sense. You can call it whatever, but it's a B2C. And the biggest challenge is always, so they are well-established, large players who been around for tens of years, maybe 50 years, 100 years, and they have a loyal customer base.

And you as a new entrant, you especially you enter a B2C, how do you get people to leave them and come experience you for the first time? You know, how do you draw them in? You know, how do you tell them, okay, guys, trust us, we are better. Can you come and, you know, just try us once. So getting people to try you once is the biggest challenge in a B2C environment. And now, you know, with Google AdWords and Facebook and this, you can do really smart nifty stuff and

You know, back in the day, you know, you had to be dependent on paper advertisement and, you know, flyers or banners or boards or whatever. And it's hard to break people's habit of where they're going. It's almost like going to a barber shop, right? So you've been going to the same barber shop for years and you you've got a hairstylist, you know, you're fixed and a new barber shop opens. How does that guy get you to leave a barber and come to him?

So it's the same in a medical practice. How do you, how do I get you to leave your doctor and come try me?

Dylan Pathirana (37:12.473)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Paresh (37:14.144)
That was always the biggest challenge.

Dylan Pathirana (37:17.371)
So, Parish, I want to go back to the initial question Dylan asked about your definition of success. And then you mentioned in terms of work-wise is to pretty much empower everyone else to do stuff so the business run itself. And you said you're not there yet. So what are the key things? I mean, are you still heavily involved in business or what's stopping you to

pretty much delegate everything to your team.

Paresh (37:50.744)
No, I have delegated everything to my team. I have no operational day-to-day tasks with me. My role is mainly, so I focus more on where we want to go, the vision, quarterly reviews. My role right now is that. But down the line, I do see, because of attrition and

The typical problems in India when economy is growing fast, new entrants come, you have a lot of, you know, people leave, the new player takes away your employees and so those things are going on. Right now operationally I don't have it, but down the line it's not automatic yet. That also has to become automatic. So I have delegated everything. I don't have any day to day tasks with me at all. Zero. But you know, my next people, my CEO or CEO,

Dylan Pathirana (38:36.443)
Mm-mm.

Paresh (38:48.782)
They are, you know, they have still not made it, know, that automation has not happened in the sense that, you know, teams are working on themselves. You would remember we read about those self managed teams, right? One of the case studies. And that's a very beautiful scenario to be in. So I went to the professor and asked him, how do you do it? It sounds damn good, right? There are 15 people and

Dylan Pathirana (39:03.418)
yeah. Yep.

Dylan Pathirana (39:15.355)
Yeah.

Paresh (39:18.774)
without supervision they do stuff you don't have to ask and they are optimizing and I think it was which company was it? Logistics business yeah

Dylan Pathirana (39:27.331)
It's a logistic business, yeah. And I couldn't believe it because I mean, logistics, that's the hardest one to kind of let go, you know, because it's so many little pieces involved. And yeah, I was actually really surprised going through that case that maybe, yeah.

Paresh (39:37.186)
Yeah.

Paresh (39:45.58)
Yeah, one wants, know, your organization. I think everyone wants after reading that case, wow, can I do this to my organization? Can the lowest level do those things on by themselves? And I, you know, it doesn't keep coming back to you. And I think I have delegated, but I'm still waiting for those, you know, that auto, you know, that auto teams to work on their own more autonomously.

Dylan Pathirana (39:54.949)
Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (40:12.341)
Mm. Mm. Mm-mm-mm. Mm. Mm.

Paresh (40:14.819)
without constant supervision. Sometimes you feel your job becomes more have you done this have you done that

Dylan Pathirana (40:22.8)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Paresh (40:24.162)
You're chasing people, right? Why haven't you done that? It should become faster. Why is the delivery getting late? Why is this getting late? Can it become more self-managed? I don't know how to do it exactly right now, but trying to do that.

Dylan Pathirana (40:40.153)
Yeah. So apart from that, do you have any growth plans? like, I mean, you said that you had three hospitals, they're all based in Delhi.

Paresh (40:50.434)
They are all based in Gurgaon. We are setting up a fourth one. Now we are starting a chain of retail pharmacies. Our first pharmacy should roll out, first three pharmacies in fact should roll out on 1st May. So we have hired the team for that. Work is going on. So between pharmacies and opening another hospital, that's the next one, you know, 12 to 18 months plan.

Dylan Pathirana (40:57.231)
Alright.

Dylan Pathirana (41:18.811)
within the same state.

Paresh (41:21.624)
within the same city. yeah, yeah. So we are trying to be the large fish in a small pond.

Dylan Pathirana (41:22.979)
Okay, alright.

Is there any reason you cannot scale it to other states? Is it different from state to state?

Paresh (41:36.78)
Not that much, not that much. There are some differences, but in India, lot of the laws are federal in that sense. the state-wise, the vulnerabilities do exist, but not of a scale which affect your business model as such. So that's not a consideration. We are just trying to keep our management costs, overhead costs, supervision costs low, and get a more network effect going.

Dylan Pathirana (41:43.694)
huh.

Paresh (42:05.42)
you know, we don't have to spend that much in branding. So if you have seven, eight facilities in in a say 30 kilometer radius, then it's just easier for us people. Our visibility is higher. Brand recall is higher. Our ability to retain, transfer people, make you, you know, just have a better linear cost structure. It's just better. Yeah. Yeah. So we're trying to just grow it spoke to spoke.

Dylan Pathirana (42:17.092)
Yep.

Dylan Pathirana (42:25.447)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, makes sense. Yeah. And Parash. And Parash, we've spoken a lot about business, but in your definition of success, the other half of it was family. And you mentioned that you've got two kids. Is there any lessons that you're trying to pass on to them?

Paresh (42:38.114)
Yes, yes.

Paresh (42:46.242)
Yeah, lessons, kids tough to pass on, but constant reinforcement of, you know, hard work, focus on health, focus on, you know, just staying fit. What we what Howard really drills into you to be humble.

Dylan Pathirana (43:08.347)
Mm-hmm.

Paresh (43:15.81)
you know, to have gratitude, grit and gratitude, you know. So, yeah, trying to build those lessons into children's life that they need to work hard. There's no substitute for hard work. And luck, of course, is a critical factor for success. But that luck only comes after your hard work, That without hard work,

Dylan Pathirana (43:19.685)
Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (43:42.199)
Absolutely.

Paresh (43:45.166)
you know you may be the luckiest person but it will not take you anywhere. So you need to put in that hard work, you need to be prepared as entrepreneur to work seven days a week. I don't know, so people sometimes tell me, Paresh is it okay, know, weekend, you know I said it doesn't matter. I work Saturdays, I work Sundays, it doesn't matter if you call me, all days are same for me. There is no weekend, there is...

Dylan Pathirana (43:48.069)
Mm-hmm.

Paresh (44:11.886)
It's okay all day. I can take a Monday off or can take a Sunday off. It doesn't matter because I'll just do the work on Sunday. If it's not Monday, I'll work on Sunday. That's fine. that's the life of an entrepreneur. It's always on and or every day is a holiday.

Dylan Pathirana (44:22.043)
And

Yeah, there's no holiday. official holiday. Every day is a holiday or every day is a working day, right? There's not such a... Yeah,

Paresh (44:32.75)
Exactly. There's nothing like that. So, you know, if someone tells me, okay, we have to go tomorrow, go for a one week. Okay. But, but then we may work the rest of the year without any breaks. So that's the beauty of it. So getting kids to understand that that's a hard part. Kids grow up, especially kids who are studying in US, they grow up with this concept of weekends, you know, Saturday, Sunday is off.

Dylan Pathirana (44:47.781)
That's the beauty. That's beauty of it.

Mm.

Paresh (45:02.382)
Work our work weekday should be 48 hours of working. There should be a summer holiday. There should be a winter holiday There should be a spring break Yeah exactly No, and I'm a son. You know, the biggest complaint is you eat your lunch in like five minutes so You know But but that's how it is right that that's a life of an entrepreneur getting people kids to understand that

Dylan Pathirana (45:11.131)
and tea breaks, lunch break and dinner breaks. You know, we don't have those, right?

Dylan Pathirana (45:21.327)
Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (45:27.055)
Yeah. Yeah.

Paresh (45:31.614)
There is no substitute for hard work. And luck, though essential, will come if you stay at it. you keep at it, luck will happen. So that and then be grateful, be humble, and focus on your health. Exercise regularly. Without being fit, you cannot be an effective manager or a leader.

Dylan Pathirana (45:34.604)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Pathirana (46:01.303)
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And then I suppose, you know, building a business and then also trying to put a big priority on family. How do you strike that balance?

Paresh (46:11.566)
So, actually I treat my family life also, it's very sacrosanct in that manner. So there are hours I do a lot. I will not substitute a business meeting for my family time. So there are times those are like, you know, I'll just, if you tell me this time is blocked for family and if you tell me, I'll just say I have an important business meeting. So you have to prioritize it.

like a very important business event also. of course, now if you have, know, so you plan with your planning with the kids is not easy anymore, right? You have to match your calendars today. And so you have to say, okay, Sunday lunch from this to this, are you all free? And then they will, they will, you know, mark that out, but you have to treat it as an important event. So not so you have to just treat it.

like a very important board meeting. You just cannot let it go. And then we do make it a point to at least have our meals together, at least the breakfast and dinner together. those are things like my daughter is in US. So I will still speak to her twice a day, though that conversation might be just it can vary anywhere from 30 seconds to five minutes or 10 minutes, but we will speak twice a day.

Dylan Pathirana (47:12.75)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Pathirana (47:39.311)
That's nice.

Paresh (47:39.37)
And I tell her, yeah, I tell her, even if you're busy, just pick up the phone and just show your face. And we just say hello to each other. You can cut it after 10 seconds, but we need to speak twice a day. those are things, you know, having the meals together. We do try to go, till now we have been able to manage at least one vacation together in a year, all of us together. So.

Dylan Pathirana (47:48.589)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (48:03.343)
Nice. But what about you? How do you look after yourself physically and mentally?

Paresh (48:12.174)
So I do try to exercise 6 days a week but it doesn't come down to 6, it actually happens 5. You may end up missing an extra day. So whether it's yoga or running or tennis or golf but try to keep schedule for exercises. Try to meditate a bit, around 10 to 15 minutes every day.

Dylan Pathirana (48:22.394)
Say good.

Paresh (48:39.992)
So that's on the health side for me. And of course, I'm a little more careful with eating now what I'm eating. I try to eat less fatty stuff. So yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (48:42.896)
Yeah.

Dylan Pathirana (48:50.595)
Yeah, yeah. Do you have any support like, you you have a coach or someone that help you to guide through?

Paresh (48:59.403)
to the fitness? No, I don't have a coach. I am the coach.

Dylan Pathirana (49:00.301)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, you are the coach. what about Parish? Throughout your journey, mean, you've gone through multiple ventures and you had any mentors?

Paresh (49:17.644)
Okay.

Dylan Pathirana (49:19.525)
that you looked up to and always thinking, yeah, I want to be like him and I want to learn some of the great things that you learn from someone.

Paresh (49:28.344)
So actually a lot of mentors, many mentors. I would not say one mentor. So...

Dylan Pathirana (49:30.48)
Uh-huh.

Paresh (49:38.07)
I've had people who are pretty junior as mentors in some aspects and I was lucky. I got to spend time with lot of people who are very smart in respective fields and they also took a lot of pain to teach me. So when I joined the mining work, so there was a person who was quite junior in the organization. He was just used to do the measurements of the mines, but he taught me a lot about

how to measure, how to calculate stuff. So I learned a lot from him. Then there was a person who was in charge of one of the mines. Then it was outside work. I had no idea, right? And he would guide me a lot of how to control the operation, what are the nitty gritties. Then we had a person who was very strong in maintenance and he would teach me a lot.

I had, I don't know, maybe seven or eight mentors at different points in life. And I learned a lot from each one of them. And it has been kind to get these kinds of people who spend beyond what was required of them to teach me. And I had the opportunity to learn so many aspects of work from them. Even in healthcare, we had people who would, we had a...

Dylan Pathirana (50:58.747)
Mm-hmm.

Paresh (51:04.398)
We had a person who was not our employee, he was a doctor, but he would take time out and tell, do it like this, you know, this is how it works. And so learned a lot. I would not say one particular mentor. Of course, my family, my father was there and you know, other people in the family who were involved in the work, they did tell. But outside that, I learned a lot from people who were both junior to me and my peers.

so many things. So not one particular mentor but many mentors.

Dylan Pathirana (51:34.683)
So one important question, how do you want to be remembered? What's your legacy?

Paresh (51:45.509)
That's like this question Deepak asked, write your own obituary.

Dylan Pathirana (51:49.22)
You

Dylan Pathirana (51:53.263)
That's it. Did you write one?

Paresh (51:55.47)
I don't know, I have not written it but if someone wants to remember me

People should remember me as a person who always tried to help them in whichever way they could. As an honest person, as a person you could depend on and if he could help you, he would help you. That's all I can say.

Dylan Pathirana (52:48.091)
I think you summed that up quite well, you know, I can see that that's you.

Paresh (52:54.509)
Thank you.

Dylan Pathirana (52:55.427)
I remember you like that. Even now. You perfectly summed that up because I remember you as someone always willing to help and someone nice, kind person.

Paresh (53:00.499)
I lost you, sorry, in the middle, you said you remember?

Paresh (53:15.374)
Thank you. Thank you so much.

Dylan Pathirana (53:16.963)
Yeah. And I suppose, you know, Parash, what's, what's next for you? Are you focused on growing your health tech business or is there, what's the next step for you?

Paresh (53:26.862)
So we are in fact, like I said, the healthcare business we are trying to grow. We are setting up a fourth hospital. We are setting up a chain of pharmacies. On the mining front, are opening up, we are trying to open up a warehouse in Europe where we are exporting. So presently are exporting our mining stones. We make tiles and export to Europe and South America. So we are looking to set up a warehouse and office both in...

Europe and South America so that to have a more You know to access the smaller the smaller clients so right now we are exporting to the larger distributors and Of course the smaller due to distributors who cannot you know afford to buy large containers We don't have access to them and these are two things on the on that front. We are trying to do so

Dylan Pathirana (54:19.44)
Mm-hmm.

Paresh (54:25.826)
Yeah, and like I said, a lot of offers coming in for the healthcare business in terms of valuation and investment. And I've been discussing with lot of people. So maybe next one year we do end up raising some funds and expanding it even faster. But that's still under consideration. That's a decision more family members are involved in. So it's not a straightforward decision.

Dylan Pathirana (54:43.77)
Nice.

Dylan Pathirana (54:52.857)
Yeah.

Paresh (54:55.404)
you know how much control to give away.

Dylan Pathirana (54:55.579)
Yeah, yeah. It's an exciting time though. And I suppose looking back on your journey, do you feel successful so far?

Paresh (55:06.772)
I feel successful in the way I brought up my kids, how my family is shaped up, we are very close to each other. I think my children have great values and that being the primary measure of success for me, I feel I've been successful. I've made great friends in life. I've met awesome people. OPM was a life-changing event.

Jam knows the kind of people who were there and it was just an experience meeting everyone. So among my family, the friends I made and the choices I made, yeah, I feel successful.

Dylan Pathirana (55:48.847)
That's good. That's great to hear because I would definitely deem you a very successful man. And I suppose, you know, we could, we could continue this conversation, but we don't want to take up too much of your time. And it's been, you know, already learned so much. throughout our discussion, I've been jotting down a few core traits, which I think have been imperative to your success. And I want to share them with you. The first one is you're always learning, whether it's from experiences or from other people.

Paresh (56:11.758)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Pathirana (56:18.553)
You always keep that kind of open learning mindset and you're trying to take in information from other people to continue to grow and continue to learn because you know that's, you know, that's where opportunities lie in the, the unknown and learning from other people. And I suppose to kind of add onto that is you always try to keep doors open. You know, as you said, you were, we went down the mining path and for most people, healthcare is not even

remotely related, but you kind of kept your doors open from when you were young, working with your grandfather and that opportunity arose and you went after it. And I think having the ability to keep your eyes open to opportunities is a really important trait because it allows you to, you know, take opportunities that other people don't see and keep those doors open. And then the last one, which I think in terms of your business success is probably critical is

Rather than being better, you're trying to be different. And I think, especially in the healthcare sector, which is very kind of old school and ruled by monopolies, you're doing something different, offering a fresher perspective. And that's the reason why, you know, your business is always doing so well. And so they're the, they're the kind of key traits, which I took away from this discussion. Yeah. Knowing you Parish, over past two and a half years, your, your warm personality, very easy to connect with.

And, you know, someone, as you mentioned, you know, someone you can always go ask for help and knowing that you will try your best to help other person. Right. And, and it's genuine. It's not like, you know, you're doing it just for the face, you know, you're a genuine guy. So I think that also help you to build trust with whoever you're dealing with every day. Right. And that, that helped you to achieve your success as well. So that's one of the core triad. I see.

Myself, yeah. Well done, well done, yeah.

Paresh (58:16.846)
Thank you, Dylan, for summarizing it so beautifully and Jam for always the lovely compliments and you've always been kind.

Dylan Pathirana (58:26.533)
No, thank you. Thank you. It's been really wonderful conversation and thank you so much for your time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And if you've taken something away from today's conversation, it would be wonderful if you could please subscribe or follow us on whichever platform you're listening to this on right now. And you can see all of our episodes over on our website, the quest for success podcast.com. And with that, we'll see you guys in the next episode. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Hey.

Paresh (58:32.366)
Thank you so much. Thank you Dylan. Thank you, Jan.

Paresh (58:43.597)
Okay.

Paresh (58:51.694)
Thank you. Take care.

Dylan Pathirana (58:54.489)
Hey, thank you so much for your time. That was wonderful and hope that wasn't too difficult. It was nice.

Paresh (58:59.746)
No, it was nice. It was lovely.