If you thought start-ups were just for 20-somethings, then you should meet Siva Prasad, Sunil Kumar and Dr Chandrashekar. Siva and Sunil are in their early 40s and Chandrashekar is in his early 30s. The trio started Mydentistchoice, an e-commerce platform for dentists, two years ago. Today, they have got funding of Rs 1 crore from a US-based angel investor. “There is no age to start something,” says Siva. “As long as you have an idea and work towards executing it well, that’s all you really need,” adds Sunil.
“Yes, there is a huge risk involved when you start a company in your 40s, but having done that I feel that it is worth the effort. Sunil and I had really well-paying jobs in the US, but since we started this company, the income is not as great as what we would get back then, but the satisfaction is unbeatable,” explains Siva. “We work with a B to B model, where we eliminate all middlemen and work directly with the consumer, who in this case happens to be dentists,” he adds.
When the idea was floated, Sunil, Siva and Chandrashekar were thrilled, but they had to do their research well. “I come from a family of doctors and when I ran this idea through them, they saw a lot of scope. Also, we found that it wasn’t the city dentists who had a problem sourcing instruments for their practise but rather those from two-tier cities and small towns,” explains Sunil.
While Sunil and Siva are friends from their BTech days in CBIT, Hyderabad, they met Chandrashekar, who is an oral and maxillofacial surgeon in Hyderabad, more recently. “I wanted to start a company like this for dentists but I couldn’t find the right person. But when I ran the idea through Siva, he started work on the project within 24 hours. That was the kind of passion I needed for this company,” says Chandrashekar.
When the company was founded, the turnover in the first year was close to Rs 80 lakh, but now with the funding they plan to increase it to Rs 6 crore. The three say, “Currently, we cater to 1,000 people in India and we’re getting a lot of interest from Australia and Middle-Eastern countries. It just goes to prove that if you have an idea and you see great potential in it, work so hard that the only way out is success.”
