THE BUSINESS OF CARE

After losing her husband to the second wave of Covid-19, Noida-based Veena Oberoi now lives all by herself. She has one daughter who is married and a son who is well-settled abroad. Like Oberoi, there are over 15 million elderlies who live alone, constituting nearly 10% of the total elderly population in the country. This is because either they have no family or because their children are overseas.

- PRIYA KAPOOR

To address this need of senior citizens of loneliness, Shantanu Naidu launched la startup named GoodFellows. The startup has seen investment by the likes of Ratan Tata and Niranjan Hiranandani. A subscription-based service, Goodfellows, offers a one-month free trial. "We feel our customers should convert to subscription only if they find value. Another important aspect is to involve existing family members (sons and daughters) in the process to keep everyone in the loop in terms of happenings. But it all boils down to the 7-level vetting process we have before selecting truly empathetic candidates before bringing them on for a probationary period and then finally inducting them. This keeps our recruitment conversion rate as low as 2-3%." But isn't gaining the trust of senior citizens a challenge? "It is. However, we have spent almost a year breaking into this demographic by earning their trust not just through what we offer, ut also how we offer it. For example, every single interaction we have from getting a call to closing a subscription is carried out in person, face to face, with the goodfellows themselves," says Shantanu Naidu, Founder, GoodFellows. Naidu tells us that the response has been overwhelming so far and has waitlists for cities it has entered in as well as cities we haven't expanded to.

 

EXISTING STARTUPS NOT ENOUGH