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STARTUP NAME: InstaCure
TAGLINE: Pharmacy at your doorstep
FOUNDERS: Anmol Jain & Saurabh Sakkarwal
FOUNDED IN: June 10 2016
FUNDING STATUS: Bootstrapped
INDUSTRY: Online Pharmacy
URL: http://instacure.co/
According to a study by Pharmaceutical Security Institute, US-based non-profit organization established by 28 international research-based pharmaceutical manufacturers, India is the third largest country in the world with the most counterfeit drugs. Most of us can’t understand the quality of medicine while purchasing it, and there are many small pharmacies which we blindly trust on to buy medicines.
InstaCure is here to streamline this process and reduce the pain of buying medicines from unknown pharmacy shops. It’s a healthcare startup, established with a vision to allow seamless transfer of data and services across the healthcare spectrum, making the experience fulfilling and smooth for the end customer. It offers,
- 2-hour delivery at your door step with no stock out guarantee.
- Reminder of medicines for chronic patients.
- Live chat to the consumer over WhatsApp and much more.
InstaCure was co-founded by Anmol Jain and Saurabh Sakkarwal.
- Anmol Jain is the Co-founder and CEO of the company. With his experience as VP-Sales at PocketIn and Business Development Intern at ZoRooms, he knows how startups grow and how sales can be done. He is a graduate of DTU (Formerly DCE).
- Saurabh Sakkarwal is a Co-founder and COO of the company. With 2 years of marketing experience with Red Bull, 6 months with Uber and 6 months with PocketIn, he is the branding expert. He is also a graduate of DTU (Formerly DCE).
The journey of InstaCure
The team was working on a small area pilot since April 2016 and it was officially launched on June 10, 2016. In the past 3 months, they had a traction of 300+ orders worth more than INR 2,50,000 without any paid marketing. They have positive word of mouth which resulted in an average growth rate of 15% MoM.
They also ran an independence day campaign and collected spare medicines from 5 Pritampura RWAs worth INR 3.6 lakh and donated them to Delhi Government free clinics. It helped them to engage with 400+ homes in the area and got themselves around 50+ customers from those 5 RWAs in just 10 days.
Currently the company is working on their proprietary automation engine to reduce operational costs by at-least 60%. Also, they want to entrench InstaCure brand in one single geographical area before moving to the next. Their focus lies in doing on-ground marketing as it helps to create more impact and engagement with the customers.
The company is currently bootstrapping and their Android app is to be expected to go live soon.
Rapid fire with the co-founder, Anmol Jain,
- How did the idea of InstaCure striked you?
The Idea originated when I was discussing with my uncles, about the problems pharmaceutical industry is facing from the perspective of the vendor, the doctor and the consumers. The discussion led to the scalable solution; myself and Saurabh had already worked together on small ideas and turned them into profitable business both online (TheSmartHacks) and offline (Books4Us). Thus, InstaCure was born.
- How did you get your first customer?
We were talking to people with our pamphlet in our hand in the market of Rohini Sector 17 near our office. We met one of the parents of a DTU student who was worried that his son would forget buying his regular medicines. When we talked to them about our concept, he was more than happy to be our regular customer and has been ordering with us ever since.
- What’s biggest challenge you faced as an entrepreneur?
The biggest challenge we have faced was to make our vendors realize the value we are bringing to them, because they felt we are cutting into their monopolistic state of market.
- And, how did you overcome it?
The challenge was solved by the two-tier approach we adopted,
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- We helped our vendors realize that we are working with them and not against them.
- Our team aggressively marketed their products, making our vendors realize the financial value we can bring if they partner with us.
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- How was your experience of bootstrapping a company?
Bootstrapping is a best experience, as you don’t have to give a piece of your company to anyone else and we will continue doing it for as long as possible.
We will aim for funding after we have reached the stage where we are comfortable and mature enough to understand and implement an efficient spending strategies.
- Who are your competitors? And, what’s your plan to outpace them?
Currently, we are facing competition from 1mg, pluss & netmeds. We plan to outpace them with our,
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- Asset light model which will help us in expanding our business.
- Also, our consumer gets 120 minutes’ delivery and no stock out guarantee.
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Now, if you order something, you know you are going it get it for sure and on time, which gives us an edge over the crowded market.
- What’s your tip for newbie entrepreneur?
Do not think about the problems, you cannot predict it completely. If you really think your idea can be a business and if you want to pursue it, go out and do what needs to be done.
The article was first published in The Cofounder. The Cofounder is India’s first print magazine which writes about early stage startups and entrepreneurship.
