We invited Pranab Prakash, Co-Founder & CEO at Konexxa, for an interview with Most Popular Stories. Konexaa is a team of doctors, engineers, and data scientists, based out of Chennai, India, and Jakarta, Indonesia. Let’s know more about his entrepreneurial journey.
1. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your journey as an Entrepreneur
As the first entrepreneur in my family, serving my country has been a passion and that also helped me provide gainful employment. Leading an organization Konexaa right from the forefront, helps me look at market gaps to address them and create value around this process. During the final year of college, I co-founded a social impact business, set up a factory in Tamil Nadu village thus empowering rural women to make consumer products. We also set up distribution and retail, mechanized a few processes, and designed machines to improve productivity. We scaled this business to over 2000+ retail shops and over 30 different products, but this was just the beginning.
After a few years of training and bootstrapping my first company, I started the second venture in Supply Chain Management (SCM) with my past learning experience. The company catered to medium and small-scale exports and imports, which provided logistics services to over 36 countries. As market conditions were not favorable, I stepped forward onto my next venture.
I then co-founded Konexaa, a digital Medtech mobilization platform, to address the healthcare industry’s voids.
2. What was the vision behind it?
Growing up in Indonesia and India, I have experienced the shortfalls of the healthcare systems in Southeast Asia, which spurred me to scale up and empower the market. My entrepreneurial ambitions in the industry are fuelled by my drive to improve healthcare access and reduce the cost of this accessibility. My personal experiences and my family’s encouragement has helped me to work towards fulfilling this goal.
3. Describe the services that you offer to your customers and in what way they are unique?
We offer a complete range of medical technology fulfillment at Konexaa to our customers, helping doctors and healthcare providers identify the best fit medical technology that allows them to scale their practice. Our services have helped hospitals and doctors reduce capital expenditure and enhance medical care, thus creating accessible and affordable healthcare for all.
4. What difficulties have you faced or you are facing?
The most significant difficulty we are facing as a company is building the company’s internal capacity. As a startup, we firefight every day to keep up with the ever-changing landscape, especially at the time of a pandemic.
5. How do you handle the pressure and manage stress?
I have always looked inward and followed a very active lifestyle. I keep myself engaged every day with an hour of physical activity around nature, be it surfing, golf, or running. Being a sportsperson, I have skillfully dealt with different pressures and adapted to responsibilities early on. I was a national-level rugby athlete and played in various national and international competitions. I use the methodologies I learned in the field in my work. I further seek inspiration from reading and listening to podcasts of various genres.
6. How do you market your business?
Our go-to-market has been straightforward in the healthcare business, with our products and solutions being well-accepted by our audience. Being the first mobilization platform for medical devices has helped us expand our reach in the market faster. Simultaneously, we scale innovative medical technology made in India to global emerging markets. We use social media and digital marketing tools to penetrate the market further.
7. How many hours a day do you work on average & can you describe/outline your typical day?
I work about 10-14 hours a day, depending on the workload.
5:30-7:30 – Exercise while listening to podcasts/ audiobooks
7:30-8:00 a.m. – Breakfast
8:15-8:30 – Catch-up call with my team
10: 30 – 11 – Call with my product team
1: 30-2 – Lunch
3:30-3: 45 – Reading
6: 30 – Closing meeting with my team
7:30-8:00 p.m. – Dinner
9:00- 9:45 – Reading
10:30 p.m. – I go to bed
8. In your opinion, what are the keys to success?
Discipline, consistency, a no-ego attitude, and being open to criticism will push you further. Going after voids and always keeping an ear to the market needs will ensure that success follows. From a professional point of view, building the foundation’s basic blocks, based on research and data early on will prove to be successful in the long run, even if it is a cost burden in the short term.
9. What advice would you give to someone starting as an Aspiring Entrepreneur?
Take the plunge, follow your gut, and “don’t half-ass it”. Your business should be organically driven and never let the limitations of money stop you. Whenever required, seek help and look to be mentored. Look for inspiration from different walks of life but don’t simply wait for that right inspiration. Make use of your surroundings and find strength in your – family, friends, and mentors.
Connect Here,
Website: https://konexaa.com/