'That is business suicide': IIT Kanpur graduate shares lessons from his failed investment that once looked promising
Harsh Pokharna
, an IITian and CEO, recently took to Instagram to share the harsh lessons he learned after a
health-tech startup
he invested in shut down. His brutally honest post has since gone viral, not just for its candour, but for the clarity it offers to anyone trying to crack India's notoriously complex healthcare market.
He revealed that he invested in the health-tech start-up in 2020. The startup aimed to be an aggregator for cancer hospitals, giving patients a platform where they could browse treatment options, consult doctors online, and choose where to receive care. With over $7 million raised from investors and a strong organic reach of 25,000+ monthly visitors and over 1,000 unique cancer patient leads, the start-up had all the signs of a high-potential venture. But even with these numbers, it couldn't survive. 'We really thought hospitals would see the value in owning or partnering with a brand like this,' Pokharna wrote. 'But it didn't work out that way.'
Critical lessons he learned
According to Pokharna, the failure wasn't due to a lack of vision or execution—it was rooted in the structural reality of Indian healthcare. In his post, he listed three critical lessons that founders (and investors) should take seriously:
- Hospitals hold all the power
According to Harsh, aggregator platforms may look good on paper, but in reality, they're completely at the mercy of hospitals. Payments get delayed, contracts are disregarded, and any profit margin gets wiped out by compliance and collection costs. Hospitals simply don't need middlemen.
Digital-only doesn't work (yet)
The Indian market isn't ready to pay for purely online healthcare services, claims Harsh. Digital tools are useful for generating leads, but they can't sustain a business.
Offline is necessary—and expensive
Indian patients still prefer in-person consultations and physical centres. But building offline infrastructure is a heavy lift. According to Pokharna, each centre takes 12–24 months to break even and requires massive upfront investment. If a startup can't afford to scale offline, it stalls.
His biggest takeaway?
For Pokharna, the biggest takeaway is simple but sobering: startups trying to be aggregators in healthcare are walking a dangerous line. Without strong differentiators or leverage, they risk becoming powerless middlemen—with no margins, no sustainability, and no way out. He cautioned that building an aggregator-only business in Indian healthcare is a risky move. Without solid solutions to the structural challenges of the sector, founders risk setting themselves up for failure from the very start.
In Pokharna's own words, it may look like a promising pitch deck, but if you're not careful, it could be business suicide.
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