Dhruv Suyamprakasam, co-founder and CEO of telemedicine platform iCliniq, said Bengaluru’s fast-paced environment proved to be a mismatch for his healthcare business.
- Dhruv Suyamprakasam left Bengaluru due to its fast-paced startup culture
- Bengaluru’s ‘grow fast, fail fast’ mindset clashed with healthcare needs
- He moved back to his hometown and, again after years, shifted to Bengaluru but left
Bengaluru may be India’s startup capital, but for Dhruv Suyamprakasam, co-founder and CEO of iCliniq – a US-based telemedicine platform, the city’s fast-paced environment proved to be a mismatch for his healthcare business.
Speaking with Business Insider, Dhruv shared why he left Bengaluru not once, but twice, citing unique challenges that shaped his entrepreneurial journey.
Brought up in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, Dhruv comes from a family of first-generation entrepreneurs. Inspired by Bengaluru’s reputation as the hub of India’s startup ecosystem, he relocated in 2010, hoping to accelerate his venture.
However, he soon realised that the city’s “grow fast, fail fast” mantra clashed with the precision and trust required for a healthcare startup.
“I had read about the city being the center of the mainstream startup ecosystem. In 2010, moving to Bengaluru felt like the best decision for me as a founder. But it wasn’t the best place for us,” Dhruv told Business Insider
“Healthcare doesn’t have the luxury of errors. Investors expected metrics like 100 paid consultations a day, but that’s not how trust in healthcare works,” he added.
Beyond industry challenges, Dhruv faced systematic biases that left him feeling like an outsider. “I wasn’t from an IIT, I didn’t speak Hindu fluently, and being from a small town like Coimbatore added to the judgement,” he added.
“Around 12 years back, I also felt like there was a lot of bias from investors. I felt excluded because I didn’t speak Hindi, which is the most spoken language in India, and I did not go to college at the Indian Institute of Technology, the most coveted engineering school in the country. I also got some judgment for being from a small town many people had not heard of,” he said.
After 16 months in Bengaluru, Dhruv returned to Coimbatore, seeking a slower, more sustainable pace to build his business. While this shift helped iCliniq grow, it came with its own set of challenges, including unreliable internet and a lack of a robust startup ecosystem.
In 2016, Dhruv made another attempt to settle in Bengaluru, hoping for a more inclusive environment. Yet, after 18 months, he realised the pressures of the city’s ecosystem remained unchanged. He again moved back to Coimbatore.
“We even moved back to Bengaluru for a second time in 2016 because we had grown a lot more as a company and thought things might be different this time around. We thought that maybe the first time around, we hadn’t understood how Bengaluru worked and how things were done. We were ready to give it a second chance,” he told Business Insider.
He added: “The inclusivity had improved because of the push for diversity, equity, and inclusion, but not much had changed for the healthcare industry like the speed at which we were expected to show results. We ended up coming back to my hometown after a year and a half.”
“The city has tons of advantages, like proximity to venture capital, a massive pool of tech talent, and more opportunities for networking, which can be helpful in the early days. But building a business outside the tech hub is also a good option, especially because of lower costs,” Dhruv said.