On SmallCap Spotlight, A Velumani talks to Nikunj Dalmia about entrepreneurship, disruption, and reinvention — sharing insights on pricing, scale, efficiency, and what drives long-term impact. A wide-ranging conversation on business fundamentals, learning fast, and building systems that endure.
Nikunj Dalmia: My guest on the show is someone who has played many innings, but yet he continues to reinvent himself. He is an original thinker and he’s made the word impossible look rather easy. I’m talking about money. I’ve known him from twenty years. While his story of starting from scratch to building a world class diagnostic business is very well known today. Sir, with your permission, we will not talk about that. That’s right. We will talk about the mission, the purpose, the grit, the determination.
What really keeps Mr. A Velumani going? I would like to call him the Comeback Disrupter, because he is now ready to change the rules of the sector and disrupt it again, which he disrupted. His advice to entrepreneurs if Business of India is yet to come, How can one really participate?
The definition of success and failure. And many would say, sir, you’re almost like a vampire, right? You were in the business of sucking blood, but every time you sucked blood, the shareholders did not complain because creating wealth and the patients did not complain. Why?
Because you were charging them less. So pain was less?
A Velumani: Yeah. People used to ask me, what business do you do? And I used to tell them, bloody business. That means the blood itself is the business. And it was something like I can openly tell everywhere crores of people have given their khoon for my success. So it’s not that easy to get that. So I believe I was in the right time. I had a right frame of mind. I priced intelligently. I kept the quality uncompromised. I think the journey was it became a full product.
It was not a push product. Imagine I never had a marketing department and I was growing twenty five percent year over year for twenty five years. That’s the power of strategizing. And I didn’t do any business management courses, but I think I got it right and I made it better.
Nikunj Dalmia: You’ve told your story many times. It’s been narrated on various platforms again and again. But if one has to really take a leaf from it, which is that what is that one belief system which guided you? How would you define that?
A Velumani: I keep telling. You. Now, all my peers were pathology pathologists with same degrees. All of them felt, let me do the same thing. What my neighbor does. And all of them were stuck with something who never felt somebody can disrupt. I am not a pathologist. I’m a mathematician. I had a few kerosene plays. Exponential. What will happen if price is less? How volumes will come? I think I got it right. I priced it low. Every body felt I am making a mistake. And let me tell you, that mistake only made the billionaires.
So it is important that you try to do something different. May work, may not work if it doesn’t change quick. An entrepreneur is not the one who knew everything and started it. He is the one who learnt first and learnt fast. I think I was there.
A Velumani: So for anybody who is trying to really do it differently, what should be the starting point? Should it be price, should it be size, should it be delivery? First, it is a product. Many people think what they have in hand is what exactly the product the market wants. Now you bring out one hundred products. Probably ten will have a reception in the market. The rest may have no reception, no resistance, and you will suffer for a longer period to get traction.
So I think mine was, you know, with all said and done in early nineties, thyroid testing was done by few people. The entire billion population needs thyroid testing. The supply was too little. The demand was too high. I felt it is time to optimize the selling price, I did it. So my advice is don’t copy the neighbor. Keep it low, the quality don’t compromise. You have only two options in doing this any business keep lesser price for the same quality or for the same rate give a better quality.
There is no third option to do. I did quality wise, the same quality anyone else did. My price was low. I think I got quick traction and twenty five percent year over year for twenty five years. What a journey it was. I felt. Let me try low rate. If it works, then let me increase the price. It worked so much. There was no necessity to increase the price. The punchline is, if the branded is cheaper than unbranded, you get the monopoly.
So to put things in context here, if anything is growing at twenty percent plus in ten years, it is ten times in twenty years it is one hundred times you are able to grow this business one hundred times after you started. Let me tell you, when I started the business, there were five thousand people who were doing thyroid testing. After five years, I am only seeing five hundred people taller than me.
In another five years, only fifty were taller than me and another five years only five were taller than me. I was growing double the rate of the industry. I think I was lucky to get it right. And then I had a spirit to serve the mass and I am there. So I advise the entrepreneurs first. Make sure the product is fairly pulled if not fully pulled. Properly priced. India is a price sensitive market. Of course, you will tell people who would love to have better best quality. That is top one percent of the pyramid. That will always work.
Yes, I see the mass addressing restaurants are having people waiting outside the restaurant. The chairs are waiting. If customer is waiting, prosperity. If chair is waiting, it is desperate situation. So here’s another tip. While everybody wants to go for the elite and premium, the elite and premium are like top of pyramid. Very few. Everybody wants that.
What you have in India is the bottom of the pyramid, which nobody is really talking about it, and they are in abundant. Now, I would say don’t go to the bottom of the pyramid because that is Government of India’s job or the state government job to address to what you call as bottommost four slices. Don’t get in there. They don’t have money to spend and it’s not easy to at that cost to give a quality look at the middle three. That’s the true market if you can, middle four if you can, even five. But you can’t touch the top and touch the bottom together using the same brand.
Nikunj Dalmia: So which are the large businesses to your mind which either have become lazy or complacent or have not innovated and they are ready to be disrupted?
A Velumani: See, comfort zones are danger zones and many get into comfort zone. They think I say like it doesn’t happen. You recall thirty years back, BSNL and MTNL were charging ninety rupees for a three minute std between Mumbai and Delhi. They thought AISI Monopoly. Bajar Dala one rupee one minute. Literally, it was stripped of all its profits and Airtel felt. Then comes Jio free, SMS free. Roaming free. When I did my thyroid testing at such a low cost.
The man who charged the least. The brand who charged the least made the most money. It’s an open. You can study in the last thirty years how it has come through. I am of that opinion. In every industry there is enough of inefficiency. Take one. Focus on it. Build a scale. Build a system. Improve the efficiencies. Look at Air India and Indigo. Same industry. Same industry. Nothing wrong.
Common man is the other side is the client is same. Only Airbus and Boeing. There is nothing different. But then efficiencies matter. So when an entrepreneur go and identify the problem, find a solution which is cheaper or better, and then use leverage to scale it up. Very simple mantra. Let me tell you where people fail. Yes, all businesses cannot be scaled and all businesses scaled will not have advantage. So there are certain businesses where the volume gives you purchase power. The volume gives you pricing power. The volume gives you people power.
Pick up that. Focus on it. Only one thing what do you do is not as important as how do you do it?
Nikunj Dalmia: Fantastic. Now I’ll throw in the sector which you love. Diagnostics. You disrupted the place. Now that space in India has seen a lot of chop and churn. Are there is there are companies or diagnostic change which are only focusing on high end testing? There are some which are tying up with the state government. There are some which are offering the same service one pay, one free. I don’t diagnostics. One pay one free. But some of them are giving actually. How do you see the diagnostic space in India shaping up?
A Velumani: Let me tell you, people believe healthcare is everything is great. No, every space when you take. Some are tough to crack, some are tough to scale, some are tough to create. System come to diagnostics. Radiology is different. Beast pathology is a very different beast. Now come to pathology. In the pathology there are three segments. Biochemistry. Microbiology. Histopathology. Those two are different species. Biochemistry is different species. When you take biochemistry diseases is different.
Disorder is different. If you can see through let me tell the entrepreneurs there are three kinds of people. One cannot see. What others can see is not even ideal to be an employee. Next man can see exactly what someone else can see is a wonderful employee. The third man. He sees what others cannot see. He only is a disruptor. Entrepreneur creates a huge impact in the society. I think everybody cannot become an entrepreneur, but nothing wrong in trying it.
Nikunj Dalmia: How do you define success and how do you define failure? Because, you know, while we celebrate success, the hard fact is ninety nine point nine, ninety nine point ninety nine point nine thousand one in one thousand, one in one thousand, one in one in success succeed. One in ten survives. So what is that one in one thousand doing?
A Velumani: They are either lucky enough to see the packaging, part, pricing part, product part, presentation part, and they have done it best. The other guy may be a wrong product, may be a overpricing. Maybe this is the market he was addressing here. Lot of things. No business school teachers. As much as you yourself can learn. I keep telling people, make mistakes, make all mistakes, make them very fast. Don’t repeat if you know how not to repeat, you are likely to be the most powerful person. I think that’s how it is. I repeat, if you learn first, if you learn fast, you are the leader.
Nikunj Dalmia: What are three big changes you expect in the diagnostic space next five years?
A Velumani: I think it has become what you call a stagnated. Everybody is literally doing what the neighbor is doing. There are few neighbors do this way, the few do this way and everyone reaches somewhere and they are not moving ahead. Unorganised players since there is no entry barrier. mushrooming. So this industry needs to be set in such a way. The efficiency is only lead the industry. So what to do? Don’t do everything. Pick up a vertical focus on it. Create a fortune. Create a huge volume and then they take the next one. You need one hundred people playing in one hundred verticals, even in healthcare, to make each a billion dollar brand.
Nikunj Dalmia: Now, what I understand is that your non-competing gets over next year, which means you’re a free bird. You can fly again.
A Velumani: Well, you know, I never thought I would be back into business mindset. Uh, beta. Relax, CRO. But then in the last four years, I felt I have retired too early. In these last five years, I have met a lot of entrepreneurs. Not young, old, young didn’t motivate me. Old have motivated me. There are not less than a dozen seventy plus guys I am seeing. It looks like they have more energy than the thirties. I am seeing in the marketplace. So I believe this doesn’t go down for everybody at the same age sixty.
Nikunj Dalmia: So this is the fourth innings for A Velumani – first a scientist, then an entrepreneur, then a public speaker and a motivator, and now again an entrepreneur. Four innings
A Velumani: Add two more, which is born as a farmer, became a mathematician. Became a scientist. Became an entrepreneur. Then I became a storyteller. Then I became an entertainer. Finally, I am an influencer. So I have seen seven. I’m waiting for the eighth.
Nikunj Dalmia: Which is starting. When?
A Velumani: Oh, somewhere here, twenty, twenty six. And you are doing business again? How are you? Not at sixty eight. And don’t tell me sixty eight. You’re unnecessarily spoiling two. More age sixty six. Sixty six. By the time we start. Sixty seven. Sixty eight, I believe. As I said, I met a lot of people who are seventy plus. They are doing wonderful job. Segment this efficiency. System scale up celebrate Karenga. And in diagnostics itself there is enough. I left job unfinished.
Nikunj Dalmia: So you are ready to be a disruptor for a sector which you disrupted. That is what is important. Let me tell you.
A Velumani: There are three kinds of people one who disrupts, the other, who gets disrupted. The third one self disrupts. So what I disrupted, I’m going to disrupt so that it becomes a very powerful change impact in the society in a forty year period. 20 years later, something happned. Diagnosis only.
Nikunj Dalmia: What can you do? Something high up the value chain or something which is on price or time?
A Velumani: No, no. With all said and done, same quality, lesser price is one strategy, same price, better quality is another strategy and it to take a call.
Nikunj Dalmia: So will it be a listed company?
A Velumani:I believe it could be a listed company in two zero three zero. It takes five years for me. I see news items telling that in five years a trillion dollar company is made a billion.
Nikunj Dalmia: How easy it is today to build a business because it requires an idea, ideas. It requires courage which has come back, but it also requires capital, which is abundant now.
A Velumani: So let me tell you. My first child was born in three days and I didn’t have money. Now, in year twenty twenty five, I have two things in abundance. One is funds, another is wisdom. This wisdom was not existing. Then in thirty years, I had to do twenty five experiments and then succeed. I have a reason to believe in the next five years I will only do five experiments and I will succeed. So that wisdom part, funds part. And I, as a seasoned businessman, I know how to create now team. Otherwise I took freshers, I trained them, trained them. Oh, that was a five day match. This will be one day match. One day match T20.
Nikunj Dalmia: What are the other big changes you expect in the healthcare sector in India? Because that’s where at every level some disruption is happening, whether it is medical delivery, whether it is, you know, patient care, oncology, cardiology, what are the other changes which you think are happening in the Indian medical healthcare system?
A Velumani: See, forty years back it was secure eighty percent preventive care. Wellness care was twenty percent. Today fifty percent is wellness, fifty percent is sick care. By year two zero four zero, eighty percent will be wellness, twenty percent will be sickness. We have conquered sickness. People are today diseases are really supported. But because of increased per capita income, because of too much in the pocket, too much gets into the gut and that results into lifestyle disorders. I believe that is somewhere people should focus. Don’t focus diseases and disorders together.
Hmm. If you are in debt, don’t be in equity. If you are in equity, don’t be in debt. This is a very different beast. This is very different. Asset allocation. Asset allocation feature is a team or team a team a goal? Don’t make you buy diagnostic stocks now or I will buy diagnostic stocks after me disrupting it. So because they don’t know how to build efficiencies and keep the stock moving fast. Notice the swing in diagnostics stock is too much.
Nikunj Dalmia: Why is that. It’s a stable business twelve thirteen percent growth.
A Velumani: Uh, I mean, it is I think some teams are building stories for one brand, buying it and building stories for another brand and dumping the first brand. I am knowing this industry. Look at the EBITDA improvement. It has been consistent. But you look at the share price, that means manipulation is happening.
Nikunj Dalmia: It took you twenty five years to make thyrocare from an unknown brand to an unforgettable brand. Today, start ups before they are born and before they go public. The gap is not even five to six years. Do you think there is a mad rush happening in the IPO market?
A Velumani: No, no. I have a reason to believe the time needed to hit a value of a billion today has shrunken. But percentage of people reaching their percentage has not changed. There are too many in the space in which we see too many in the top reaching there. I think that ratio of one in one thousand will remain, or one in even ten thousand will reach two billion dollars. Every additional zero, one more zero is going in the percentage. So I think this pyramid has not changed. I am seeing this pyramid for the last forty years.
Nikunj Dalmia: What is that obvious idea in front of you? You said, look, it’s an idea. I may not do it, but it’s an idea which somebody watching should actually implement it. It could be a disruptive idea. It could be a technology idea. What is that idea according to you?
A Velumani: Yeah. Let me just. No, no, I don’t want to put this idea only is the very good idea for of the, you know, a couple of podcasts. I told a couple of ideas that people all want me to tell how to do that, but I think they are all just an example. All industries, irrespective of whether it is healthcare or not, have enough to build focus, build scale and then produce a prosperity. But let me tell you, don’t look at a group of concepts and work on it. In other words, general hospitals will have challenges of growth. Specialized hospital may take some time to come. Punchline Multispeciality is a short term security. A single speciality is a long term prosperity from today, in another fifteen years. No one goes to Multispeciality Hospital. Everybody goes to GP. Get tagged. Your problem is arthritis. Your problem is oncology. Then you go to the oncology hospital. That is how even MD degrees are made.
First do MBBS, then specialize in one vertical. That is going to happen. People are not willing to accept. People are not willing to take risks. People are not willing to reset.
Nikunj Dalmia: But you know, Mr. Velumani, in the hospital space, at least in India, a lot of changes are happening. Big consolidation. Every big chain has a large investor or investor. Suddenly pricing power is coming back. Stock markets are pricing these healthcare stocks or hospital stocks as consumer stocks. Now, is there a is there a problem there that?
A Velumani: No, no, no, there is no problem. Both education and healthcare were run by trusts. Trust me last ten years. These both segments are coming out of the trust because public have lost the trust in the trust, which means they believe profit as a goal will improve the efficiency. It may not increase the price. It is a prosperity for the patient, the prosperity for the investor and prosperity for the society. This change will take place between two zero two five to two zero five zero. In two zero five zero, trust will not be running any education institution, any healthcare institution. Everything will come into equity. Way in which it is changing is an indication that every five years consolidation will take and tomorrow it will be all listed companies.
Every investor will make sure there is a belief that trusts are serving the society. Let me tell you, many may not like that trusts are only looting because they have a comfort. The guys who have to produce result. The remaining guys have to either grow or go and they will do justice. Good competition. Only companies can get in. Trust will not get.
Nikunj Dalmia: But if you have to build something that could outlive for one hundred years, many generations will benefit from it. It’s a bill to last business, but there are few businesses which are built to last, which could be that business which could be built to last one hundred years.
A Velumani: See, I am telling you, a business which has been now around forty years around Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai. Look at this. The man. He is an inspiration for me because his startup was when he started sixty years of age after retirement from government service. Today it is the tallest eye care in the entire world. What does that mean? Another fifty years at least is certain. Like that there are certain specialization. They are not into listed company or they are not.
They are not glorified. They are silently impacting. So I think not all one in one hundred, hundred successful companies to remain alive for one hundred years. It is one in one hundred of the successful companies.
Nikunj Dalmia: Yes, what will happen in Diagnostics. You still need a machine. You still need a blood draw. So this space is space.
A Velumani: Despite. I know I’ve been using chat. What do you call ChatGPT chat GPT for the last three months? Because everybody told if you don’t use, you are likely to lose. Then I am using it. It doesn’t talk truth ninety percent of the time it’s okay. US program UK program a program manually study pilot US, UK. Because this is after the first ChatGPT is telling us to go to UK and then go to us because it took a wrong data of the date. Then I took a decision. Run it. Don’t use it. It will take another ten years. Twenty years for it to get credibility. Today ChatGPT doesn’t. It gives. It gives something, but then you can’t trust it.
Nikunj Dalmia: So AI stocks will come down. I mean, Nvidia’s market cap four trillion dollars.
A Velumani: Let me tell you otherwise. Probably one more zero. One more zero would have been there. Nvidia what would have been thirty trillion is only three trillion. Fifty trillion is five trillion because credibility is still not established. But having said that, please be with it if possible. Make it. Please don’t ignore it. You will vanish.
Nikunj Dalmia: So in the next decade, what will matter to the entrepreneurs? How they deal with failure? Idea. Business. Courage. What would be the differentiating factor in a grit? what would be the differentiating factor?
A Velumani: Come into business with a preparedness, You may not succeed even in marriage. Get into marriage thinking that it may work. It may not work. If you think it is going to be a heaven, it could be very, very disastrous. Today, the mental illness is a great subject. Let me tell you, the fastest growing healthcare aspect is mental health. Especially the ones who are born after two thousand are into severe depressions. So why they are into depression? Unwanted expectations, be it marriage, be it job, be it business. Just keep cool to celebrate our Rona. Say you are a twenty five. You were last. You have another sixty years for you to work. Why? To sit and cry. Just reset. Take a break. Come and restart.
Nikunj Dalmia: What is your relationship with money?
You’ve not changed. I’ve known you from twenty years in the same habits. I won’t use the word frugal, but as you’ve grown up in your life, your needs have not changed. So what is your relationship with money?
A Velumani: So money is very important. Without money, you can’t buy anything. But money is not everything. You know, recently I was in a, you know, event, and some guy came to me with a phone, and that means he’s shooting a reel. Now, if I say I don’t want to answer, he could put it in star. Then he asked me, doctor Velumani, are all rich happy? Very simple question. I never thought a boy can ask such a crisp question. Then for a second I thought and I said, I don’t know. All rich are happy or not, but only happier have become richer.
Which means if money, if you have in head, you are dead.
Nikunj Dalmia: But sir, money gives you freedom of time. You can meet whom you want to meet. You can travel where you want to travel. You can travel when you want to travel. So money is comfort.
A Velumani: Also, I am not telling take a bicycle and go twenty five kilometer riding. I am not telling. Take a second class sleeper and take forty eight hours to come to Mumbai. I am telling that club class is not needed.
Nikunj Dalmia: Is A Velumani approachable? You have money. Everyone knows that you are always helping others. Everybody knows that you are full with ideas. If somebody has to reach you, how can they reach you?
A Velumani: See, in that way, the minute I tell somebody can reach, all those who reach are only asking two things. Both are very precious to me, very limited for me. One is my time. I can’t afford to give him time and he will feel he is too arrogant. He is not giving time. I am giving my time as a mass mentor. Standing on a stage, giving you forty five minutes or one hundred minutes content in every language I am giving consume it. I am not putting behind a paywall and asking you to pay one hundred five hundred. It is openly available. So time is there. I am giving you.
Money is not something I can part with because my money in my hand is not my money, it is my family money and they will feel very bad that will be with them. Having said that, the minute I have come across that doing a wonderful job, I will ask you, do you want money? In the last five years there were twenty people whom I asked, do you want money only because they are doing good work, but that guys are telling sir, when when needed we will come to you and no one came to me.
The problem is, the guy who desperately look for funds probably is a poor fund manager.
Nikunj Dalmia: Now some real challenge for Mr. Velumani. And before we wrap this show, we’ll make it exciting. You know, fortune cookies, every Chinese restaurant, you crack them and tell your fortune.
A Velumani: I have not cracked them, but my children have been doing it. But then I believe that is something which keeps you busy until the mail comes.
Nikunj Dalmia: So that is the challenge today, right? A fortune cookie bowl will come. You don’t know what is inside. And a promise. Are viewers here? Mr. Velumani is not aware of the questions. And hand on his heart, sir. Hand on your heart. You will be answering everything honestly. Honestly? Honestly. So now it’s the fortune cookie. Get ready for some cracking time.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed or unfocused?
A Velumani: I think rarely I remind, unfocused, and the minute I realize unfocused, I get back to the focus. Overwhelmed. I believe I should not really relax too long and I have not najati gati. Don’t lose the focus.
Nikunj Dalmia: Next one I love the tuck. Okay, now the next one. If there is a big billboard, big Billboard, six by six, and it is something you can watch in the morning when you get up and see that billboard and sleep with that quotation at night, what do you think that Billboard should have?
A Velumani: Focus. Learn. Grow. Enjoy. Repeat. Only five words focus, learn, grow, enjoy and repeat. That means get back to focus.
Nikunj Dalmia: Okay. Next one, next one, next one, next one, next one. What is a one thousand rupee purchase which you have lost, which you bought in last one year? Which has impacted you the most?
A Velumani: I think I hadn’t truly had a mouse for my Mac and I was manipulating with this, and it was just a one thousand five hundred or two thousand. Now I feel I’m more without mouse. I can’t work.
Nikunj Dalmia: So after you sold Thyrocare, what did that big splurge, which you did. You know when promoters they sell, they buy a car, they buy a house, some of them buy an aeroplane, some of them buy aeroplane and helicopter.
A Velumani: Both my children have bought without my knowledge a Skoda electric. Or it is the Skoda. What is that? Something around forty to you know, if you notice it. I do not know the brands, I do not know the names and I do not want to know. All I want to do is something do good to the society, not to keep purchasing.
Nikunj Dalmia: You know we used to go to Chinese restaurants. They would give us fortune cookies. How do you differentiate between luck and risk?
A Velumani: Luck is something which you are prepared. When it came, risk is something which you didn’t know. this downside of it. Now the cookie is getting crisper and crisper. See how good it feels. You like sweets?
A Velumani: No, I like it. But let me take the end.
Nikunj Dalmia: Okay. What are some of the bad recommendations you often hear? Tricky one. Tricky one.
A Velumani: Don’t. Don’t take unnecessary risks. Don’t think whatever you think is going to succeed. Don’t unnecessarily just keep on working. If you don’t enjoy life, you money you made was unnecessary. Lot of which I believe. As such I am enjoying. Why should I worry about somebody else?
Nikunj Dalmia: Last last one. Which is your favourite failure and how did you deal with it?
A Velumani: My favourite failure was in my age of twenty one. I started making a small chicken farm, chicken, farm chicken. And those days rearing chicken was a dream for many. I bought two hundred chicken and I were hale healthy ten days in the month of June in the village. The incubators could not be managed, so I created an artificial incubator. Unfortunately, that day power went off. Didn’t come in the night. The next day, morning, I see out of two hundred and fifty chicks were dead. Felt very bad, I lost fifty. It took them and buried them and came back one hundred over buried and came back. Nothing was alive.
Within two hours two hundred died.
Nikunj Dalmia: But that gave you what that gave me very clearly.
A Velumani: Have patience at a twenty year old. How would you know all these things? So I keep advising youth today. First have patience, then have focus, then have frugality, then have discipline. Don’t change the order.
Nikunj Dalmia: So, Mr. Velumani, I started the show by saying that every time I’ve met you, I have learned something about you, about life, courage, conviction. And I think, uh, I really meant every word of it when I started the show with that introduction. Uh, there are people who leave a mark on what they do to others, but there are people who leave their mark on the society. And Mr. Velumani is somebody who has changed the rules. He has redefined the definitions, and he is someone who is on a mission to really ensure that India just goes from strength to strength. Thank you very much, sir. All the best.
A Velumani: Thank you very much. You are very young compared to me, and you have another fifteen twenty years to truly make impact in the society.
Nikunj Dalmia: Thank you very much, sir.
A Velumani: Keep learning, keep growing.
Nikunj Dalmia: Thank you very much. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank. You.