Candid Takes from Plum Founders: Revolutionizing Insurance Through Technology and Customer-Centricity

A refreshingly candid podcast episode featuring Abhishek Poddar and Saurabh Arora , co-founders of Plum .

As a podcast nerd, I absolutely love it when founders share the real behind-the-scenes stuff rather than glossing over the brass tacks and sharing surface-level insights. This episode of the Forbes Startup Friday by Harichandan Arakali (Forbes India's Tech and Innovation editor) is one such gem.

Here are some of my favorite parts.

Leveraging Technology for Category Expansion ??

Plum's founders identified a significant gap in the insurance market and used technology to address it. Saurabh explains:

"...when Abhishek and I started five years back, one of the problem statements we had recognized was the health insurance for corporate looks like one size fit all. It's like when I purchase health insurance as an HR, everybody gets the same insurance policy. But is this how it should work? Or can we customize insurance at the time of onboarding to the needs of everybody?"

This approach not only solved existing problems but also expanded the category. Abhishek elaborates:

"Think of companies who are just starting up, or still smaller scale companies of ten employees, 50 employees. Unfortunately, the product of group insurance or employee insurance was not built for them. That market was not available to them. They were not able to even go, even if they had all the money. They can't go to an insurance company or an insurance broker to purchase a group health insurance and employee health insurance because the way these products have been built, unfortunately, the way health insurance product was built in India before Plum was either it was for organizations of thousands of people or it was a retail product for a single individual. But there was nothing in between for, let's say a ten people organization or a 50 people organization."

Your Customer Experience needs to be world-class, not just the best in India ??

If you are selling to businesses, the execs have experienced global apps as customers - the likes of Amazon, Netflix, Uber and even Ramp or Venmo (if they travel a lot), which provide top-tier user experience. You cannot win them over if you are building a 'best Indian customer experience.'

Abhishek states:

"We are building the absolute best when it comes to insurance. We can thump the table and say, hey, you will not get a better healthcare or health insurance experience outside Plum. Across the world, not just India, across the world, you wouldn't get a better experience. When I say better experience, what that means, that means if you are using plum, you would get a mobile app where your employees, who have no understanding of insurance before, can actually understand what it covers, what it doesn't cover in matter of minutes. In plain English, it's as simple English that a ten year old should be able to understand."

Scaling a B2B Company in India == Don't die too soon! ??

The Plum founders share valuable insights on scaling, particularly when it comes to acquiring large clients. Abhishek explains the often years-long process:

"The first year we would approach them, they wouldn't even talk to us. It's like, who are you? I don't know about you. Second year, they will talk to us, but they won't put us in the consideration set. Third year they will put us into the consideration set and we'll probably go into the final rounds and we are like the top two for them, but they won't go over the fence and work with you. And then it's the fourth year when they'll say, now you guys are ready, now I want to work with you."

So if you die in the first 3 years, you lose out on the opportunity which was within your grasp in the 4 year. TLDR: Scale wisely!

Radical Transparency - Walk the Talk ??

Plum's founders believe in radical transparency to build trust and alignment within the company. Abhishek shares:

"We share almost all data openly to all team members. For example, the note that we send to investors every month about our progress, be it in terms of all the numbers, everything that's going well, everything that's not going well, we send it to our team. Entire team of 350 people, including a fresher who is probably just joining out of college, or an intern that is joining us for two months."

They also emphasize the importance of creating a culture code that aligns with the company's mission. Saurabh explains:

"Every company has to create a culture code to solve a problem that they are working on. If we were working in an agri tech, there would be a culture code that we would have to build together to solve agritech problems. And the values that we have here at plum is one of the core values. Is being rock solid reliable?"

Here's the link to the full episode: