Most founders start their business to solve a problem affecting society. Be that solving climate change or developing a better CRM tool. Very few think about five or seven years after building the startup. Here comes the exit strategy, but first a little bit of background.
Ameya founded HeatlhBuddha a platform for women to find naturopathic doctors and other kinds of allied health practitioners for hormone health related problems and concerns. They are trying to solve a pressing problem in the modern woman’s life: “ I think that now there is a lot of awareness about hormone health conditions and associated concerns that women face specifically. That awareness is growing within the community in general, as well as the awareness of natural health treatments. As it grows, we feel that this market is getting more and more accommodating of such treatments” confirms Ameya.
There’s a saying that perfect is the enemy of good. That’s key to getting out a solution as soon as possible into the market. Ameya shares that feeling across other ventures as well: “ Entrepreneurs I have met want to put their solution out there as soon as possible and that’s great if they know exactly the solution that they’re offering and what the value is”.
For the 80% of women that compose HealthBuddha’s market this also turns out to be key: “ The first thing that the entrepreneur should spend time on so that they can develop a solution that can create value for the customers in the short term. I believe that entrepreneurship and building a company is a long term process” reflects Ameya.
But he’s only at the early stage of his venture. Most startups see exits after 5-7 years in the market. It’s a long term game and as Ameya puts it, the name of the game is delayed gratification. Thanks to the advice received at Global Startups he realized the importance of having a solid exit strategy. “ Exit strategy for me now is a milestone that I would like to achieve. I would like to see the milestone at which a company could be sold or exited from. Having that kind of focus would help me to reverse engineer that goal and build the success of the company in order to reach that goal, build a success, build strategies, and build a team around me”.
It’s amazing to see the endeavour these socially responsible entrepreneurs are undertaking in order to make our world a better place. HealthBuddha is on that journey and succeeding for sure. They are on their way to a 100M exit and at Global Startups we will be cheering up for them!
