Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Hi, this is Siddhartha Ahluwalia, welcome to The Neon Show. I’m your host and also founder of Neon Fund, a B2B SaaS fund that invests in the most enterprising entrepreneurs building B2B SaaS companies from India for the world. I have today with me Yashish Dahiya, founder of Policybazaar. Yashish, welcome to the podcast.

Yashish Dahiya

Thank you. Thank you for having me Siddharth.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Thank you so much for being here. You know, I had honor of hosting Sanjeev sir, Sanjeev Bikhchandani on The Neon Show almost a year back and he told me that he is not going to sell a single share of Policybazaar or Zomato in the next 10 years at least.

Yashish Dahiya

Only Sanjeev can say something like that.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

But I was so glad. It was a very fresh perspective, you know, an investor holding it for the…

Yashish Dahiya

He believes in India, he believes in the internet, he believes in, you know, the entrepreneurs he’s backed and that’s largely it, yeah, as I see it.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And I believe today Policybazaar is the number one online insurance company in India?

Yashish Dahiya

From an aggregation comparison perspective, yes.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And among the overall aggregation space, where would you be?

Yashish Dahiya

In insurance, we would be the largest, yes, we would be the largest. We have a large market share in that.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And what are the other verticals that you are in today?

Yashish Dahiya

We’re also in loans and credit cards, where again, we would be amongst the largest. But the idea is on the insurance side, the idea is more to make sure a middle-class consumer who earns his income or his, yeah, he makes some money in case they have a death or a disease in the family, at least financially, the family can be better off than it would be otherwise. And to educate people to spend some money every month in buying that insurance policy that kind of gives them that family protection. And also to educate people on pensions and child education, because those are also becoming more and more expensive.

See, India is a country with high growth, high inflation, and high aspirations. So every 10 years, things become comparatively very expensive compared to earlier. A friend of mine told me about 30 years ago, that in India, today’s money cannot help you tomorrow.

For that, you need tomorrow’s money. And that’s why planning for pensions, planning for child education, planning for long term financial impact and events for the family like health insurance and life insurance become very, very critical. So that’s what we’ve been doing here. And that’s what we focus on.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And thank you for making, you know, proving that India is a good market for investors. Earlier, when you were building Policybazaar, I was also building my own company, which I later on exited to a larger company. But people used to believe that India is a non-exitable market.

Yashish Dahiya

Every market is non-exitable till the entire ecosystem develops. Because earlier, Info Edge and MakeMyTrip were the only two kind of listed internet companies. And then Zomato, us, Paytm, Nykaa, and now a whole host of others are coming in. And I think everything takes time. Nobody said the internet was going to be built in a day. But now public investors, you know, who seem to be a lot more, I would say, stable, trying to get in. I don’t mean stable from a holding money perspective, but they tend to value things once they see them.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

I don’t know whether Sanjeev told you or not, but he told me that once he had done the bunch, the first bunch of investments through Info Edge, including Zomato, Policybazaar, after 4-5 years, the board told him that you are a crazy person. And they stopped him from investing anymore for a large next period of time.

Yashish Dahiya

That is, that must have been true. That must have been true. Because they could say it’s unrelated. Why are you doing this?

I think today for Info Edge, almost half its value lies in his investments. And one of the reasons it has very high potential is because it has made such investments, can it keep making them in the future as well? Which I’m sure it can. And I think that is where, you know, the option value gets created. So huge respect for him.

And of course, he had a meaningful shareholding in the organization to be able to do that. For someone like us, I don’t think we would ever be able to do that. We may be able to get into strategic investments, which are very aligned to our business, but to invest in the broad internet ecosystem and almost operate like a venture fund in that area. Like, if you think about Policybazaar and Info Edge, we have no operational…

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Zero relation.

Yashish Dahiya

Zero operational synergy, right? Because they did not buy insurance from us till last year, was the first year when they bought their corporate insurance through us. Right? Totally on merit. We competed for five, six years. We lost every year. Finally, last year, we won. And I think that just tells you, I’m sure with Zomato and Info Edge also is the same. But it is the broader internet and its broader ecosystem growth.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

So let me start with what does India opportunity means to you?

Yashish Dahiya

India is the only large economy left in the world, which has, as I see it, four parts to its economy. There is a Bahrain on top of a UK, on top of a Brazil, on top of the entire African continent.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Okay. And what do you mean by that?

Yashish Dahiya

What I mean is, if you look at the population of India, you can add all four of these, and all four of these exist in India. So you have that 1% of India who are as rich as the people in Bahrain. Maybe 2% of India, maybe 1%. You have the next 5-6% of India, which is as rich as the UK people are, which is the size of UK, 60 million, 60 million.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yes.

Yashish Dahiya

Right? Then you have a Brazil here.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Okay.

Yashish Dahiya

You have, you know, Brazil has whatever 200 odd million people. India also has a 200 odd million people. Our middle class is very same to the all of Brazil put together.

And then you have 800-900 million people below that, who are living off less than $1,000 per year per capita GDP, which is Africa. So you are able to see four, what is Bahrain? Bahrain doesn’t ever need to think about money as much as they want.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Pure oil money.

Yashish Dahiya

Whatever it is, right?

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

100,000 GDP per capita.

Yashish Dahiya

But a total population of less than a million people. So India has those million people who don’t have to think, who have as many Rolls Royce as the people in Bahrain, who have as much wealth as the people of Bahrain. Right? There is that bunch. The richest people in the world are there. Right? I think two of the 10 richest people in the world are here. Right? So you have that population. There’s no doubt that we don’t.

In fact, I don’t think Bahrain has two of the top richest people in the world. So you have more than Bahrain in India. And then you have the next 60 million who are pretty much like the UK. They earn enough. They earn about that 80 lakhs, 60 lakhs a year. Pretty high-end. You can’t really call them middle class. They’re above that. Right? So I think that’s what I mean. Right? And they behave in a slightly different way. And then the Brazil people behave in a slightly different way. And then Africa behaves in a very different way. The opportunity sets are very different.

Now, the reason I explained this is, India is the only place where the Brazil wants to become UK. UK wants to become Bahrain. And Africa wants to become Brazil. So everybody’s upwardly mobile. And it’s the only place left in the world. By the way, China wasn’t very different from this.

So if you look back 30 years ago, China would have had 70% of its population in poverty. Absolutely. Right?

But today it doesn’t. So the big opportunity is the 70 million people moving into the middle class. A lot of the middle class, as I said, each class is moving above.

And that is the growth of India. And as they move, the products they choose become different. See, Louis Vuitton does not sell a lot in UK. It sells in Bahrain. Right? Private jets, Rolls Royces, those are not UK products. Those are Bahrain products. And there is an India that can buy them. And then there is Nike, Adidas, etc., which UK buys, which we have a population for. And then there’s a middle class. And then there is… So everybody, there is an aspiration of everybody to get to the next level. And that is how the economy is going to grow.

If you really think about it, in a simple way, each of these clubs, at every level, the next level earns between 5 to 10 times the previous level. So 5 to 10 times.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

You’re saying the GDP per capita of Bahrain would be like a million dollars of half a million to a million dollars.

Yashish Dahiya

I’m just saying, 5 to 10. So you could say 5 to the power 4 of 1000. 5 to the power 4 will be 125,000. I’m sure there’s a million people in India who earn more than 125,000 a year. See, the bottom part, if you call it X, the next part earns $5,000. The next part earns more than $25,000. The next part earns more than $125,000. And it’ll probably be higher than that. So it may be between 125 to a million that the cut-off is happening. So that’s what I said, between 5 to 10. So each of these classes earns 5 to 10 times higher than the next class. And everybody wants to be in the next class, right? Nobody who is in Africa does not want to become Brazil. Whoever is in Brazil does not want to become UK. Whoever is in UK does not want to become Bahrain. There’s nobody of that sort. Everybody wants to move up. So I guess that’s what it is. And that’s what makes it an aspirational country. And that’s what makes growth happen. And you can almost project, right?

I would say every 15 years or so, a mass class movement will happen. Eventually, our spends are per capita. And our earning is per capita. And our lifestyle is per capita. And I think that is where we have to understand the opportunity is because we are poor. The opportunity is not because we are rich.

So, and it’s a huge opportunity, of course. Like I can’t, and I said that 15 years, every class changes. So what you’re talking about is 70% over a 30-year period, 30, 3, 0. Becoming the same per capita GDP as the UK. It’ll take 30 years. But imagine when that happens. Look, all of Europe is only 275 million people. So obviously, we would have a very, you know, different situation.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And there is no, and you saw the same trend in China that had happened almost 30 years ago.

Yashish Dahiya

Something like that, right? 30 years that’s happening. So there is no way you can stop that trend. Nobody can stop that trend. That trend has to happen. You can only speed or slow it up by a little bit. Right? Because that’s a natural trend. That’s got to happen. People are more aspirational.

I was just sharing before we started talking. My dad was in the army. Yeah. And in our entire life, all the way till class 12, we never went out to eat ever. He was an army officer. Except for army messes and army canteens and army events. The only time we went out to ever eat a dinner in a kind of private place was Volga restaurant in Meerut, where the bill was 36 rupees. And that was a big event for us. It was somebody’s birthday or something. And I still remember we ordered ice cream and we ordered everything. But that’s what India is for you. That, you know, that’s how fast things change. And if they’re changing at every family level, see, we have to see it at a granular level.

If they change for every family, obviously, collectively, they change. And collectively, I almost believe we should not speak about the numbers because they make us feel good before we should feel good.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Sure. What do you mean by that?

Yashish Dahiya

I’ll explain. See, China and India will obviously become the largest economies in the world. There is no doubt there. Right? Let’s not doubt that nobody in the world can doubt it.

Because for a very simple reason, how can… There’s no other country in the world that has more than half a billion people, a quarter billion people. No other country in the world has quarter…

So no other country in the world has one-sixth the population of India or China.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Agree with you.

Yashish Dahiya

Right. So for us to be compared on GDP is stupidity. That means even when we are one-sixth the per capita GDP, so our lifestyle is one-sixth of them. Still, we will be equal to them. I don’t think anybody in the world is saying that the world will remain that unequal. That in 20-30 years, we will still be one-sixth the per capita GDP of the US. Right? So I think that number has to change. And as that number changes, automatically the overall GDP changes. Which is to an extent what’s happened in China.

Yashish Dahiya

Because China has about the same population. Each one about six times the population of a Europe or a US. And so I think by talking about a number which we are going to be winners in any way, we’re just lowering the benchmark for ourselves. The benchmarks have to be per capita GDP all the time. Because that’s what will tell us how much we have to gain still.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

So right now we are at, let’s talk about per capita GDP. We are at roughly $2,000 or $2,500.

Yashish Dahiya

About $2,400. Right? And basically, the US will probably be at $50,000, $60,000. Right? So there’s a 25x gap. They are one-sixth the population. So the economy is four, five times bigger than us. That’s all. Right? It’s really that simple. I think that just puts it in perspective. Being at $2,500, you really can’t go down. At some point, you’ll reach… Let me put it this way, right? The world believes you don’t even require institutions till you get to $10,000 per capita GDP. To support $10,000 per capita, you don’t even require institutional strength.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

What do you mean by institutional strength?

Yashish Dahiya

So basically, people believe that up to a certain GDP, you can get by just basic…

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Momentum.

Yashish Dahiya

Momentum. Right? After that, you need certain institutions to kind of grow GDP beyond that. Right? So unless you have oil money or something, which is a different issue. So many of the European states have developed that. You know, that means long-term social security, long-term intent not to, you know, have corruption in the system. Long-term intent to be a little fairer, etc. Being, you know, all those pieces. And that’s when you talk about the four pillars, whether it’s the executive, the legislative, the judiciary, and the media. All four start balancing each other. Right? So for that, people generally believe that to get to very high GDPs per capita, you need those. So, you know, European, US, Japanese, South Korean, Australia, somewhere would have some of these to some level. And India also has them. The beautiful part is India has them. So I think on a per capita GDP basis as well, India has a pretty straight path to going all the way.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

At least till $10,000, we have a path in the next 20 years.

Yashish Dahiya

No, I’m saying we have a path all the way to $60,000.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Wow. You’re saying…

Yashish Dahiya

Here there is institutional strength. So when you have institutional strength, you can carry on for much longer.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

So this is the optimist in you speaking or a realist in you speaking?

Yashish Dahiya

No, it’s the realist. I only speak from a realistic perspective, because there’s nothing stopping us from becoming a very, very strong, vibrant, democratic, you know, rich country.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And do you think that you will see that milestone of $60,000 GDP in your lifetime?

Yashish Dahiya

No.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

What time duration do you have for it?

Yashish Dahiya

I’d say 150 years. Maybe 100 years. But yeah, not in my lifetime. My lifetime is probably another 50 years or so. And I think in that, oh, in my lifetime, we will be the largest or second largest. I think we’ll be the largest economy. Yeah. Simply because China won’t be able to keep up because their institutional strength is not so good.

See what happens when you don’t have institutional strength? Random decisions get made. One day you decide one child policy, another day you decide something else. Yeah. Right.

So institutions balance against such. And institutions don’t let you go very far away. So you will see in the US, sometimes you’ll become right, sometimes you’ll become left.

But on the whole it’ll, it’ll… There’s a thin, narrow line between which you keep navigating. Right. You don’t go way too far on either side. So I think that’s what keeps a country going for a 50, 100 year time frame.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And that’s a time frame that whatever you build, you are building for?

Yashish Dahiya

No. I build with a 15 year time frame. Okay. But not a sub-five-year time frame.

So for me, the next five years is always a given. We are always building for five to 15 years, but not for beyond 15 years because beyond that, the future becomes too fuzzy to be able to, I think, I think beyond 10 years, also, the future becomes too fuzzy to be able to start taking calls on. But, but yes, I would say five to 15.

My own time horizon is five to 15, from an execution perspective, more focused on five to 10, from a results perspective, more focused on five to 15. Beyond that, I don’t have a time horizon.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And as you, in 2008, when you started Policybazaar, you were like 36, 37 years of age?

Yashish Dahiya

Yeah, yeah, roughly.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

So what do you know today? Did you know then about the opportunity size?

Yashish Dahiya

Till 2020, everything we did, we knew back then. Okay. Like I would say 90%. Now, the areas we’re starting to delve into, we did not know back then.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Like what are they?

Yashish Dahiya

Like, basically, we did not know that claims control or claims experience would become such an important part for the industry that will become the critical piece for growth. That was not that well known back then. It was known to some extent.But what we knew was two things. We knew that we would be able to generate volume. And we knew we would be able to generate good quality volume with high disclosures.

What we did not, at that time, realize was that we would be able to provide better claims experience, and that would become a big driver of our future growth. That I did not know back then.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And there were other 15-20 players that got started along with you.

Yashish Dahiya

400 players have started something like Policybazaar till date. 272 of them licensed to start a web aggregator in insurance. They actually went and took a license from the government. Not to be an online broker, but to be a web aggregator. Something like that. I don’t know the exact number, but like in the hundreds, right? And yes, about 40 funded competitors, both before Policybazaar started. And the first player who started in India was a player called… I forget the name. Insurancemall.in. And there was another one called Apna Insurance. Both of these players existed at least 5 years before we started. 5 years. So it was not a new concept to India in any way.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And what was the reason that Policybazaar stands tall among all of them? And I think 90% of them don’t even survive today.

Yashish Dahiya

So the interesting part is both the founders of both those companies, I know. And they are still there. And they’re doing something or the other. I think our long-term focus on what is right for the consumer was very high. I think our execution was very strong. See, it’s not just focus, right? Focus is one thing. Yeah, you can have that. But I think the execution was very strong. And it was like every day… See, for the last 17 years, I look at our sales report every day at 2 p.m., at 5 p.m., at 8 p.m. Wherever I’m in the world, these three times I check my sales report. So the execution is very, very strong as a company. And we believe execution is not done in years or months. It’s done in days. And within days, it’s done in hours. So I think that became the eventual differentiator. Along with a very clear goal of where we were headed. I think if you have both of those, you’re quite difficult to beat. If your mind is very clear and your execution is very strong.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And what was the goal when you started?

Yashish Dahiya

The goal was to make sure people in India bought health insurance and term insurance for their families. That was the goal.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Like the same goal Bill Gates had that he wanted to see PC at every desk. Was that inspired?

Yashish Dahiya

I did not know if Bill Gates had that goal. But our goal was very simple. And we finally coined it in har family hogi insured..

That was quite recently because that we heard from the IIDA chairman. About two and a half years ago, we heard it from the IIDA chairman. We said, yeah, this is what we want to do.

So why don’t we take his term and just put it there? And finally we were able to give, you know, a line to our existence. But that was what it was from day one that, you know, every family should buy insurance for themselves.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And what was there in the execution was like, I assume all the founders that you competed with or started with together, they had decent execution muscle. So what was there you think in your execution muscle that differentiated you or you had a previous background in?

Yashish Dahiya

No, what I’m going to say is very rude. I think very few companies have decent execution. Most focus too much time on noise. I don’t want to say more, but I don’t, I actually don’t think we are exceptional. I just think other people do not try as hard. or maybe we are exceptional. I don’t know. See, it’s, it’s always better to think you are normal and others are not. yeah, we have a, we have a way normally thoughts of working. It’s supposed to be just matter of fact. And, I think we are, we are quite good at execution.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And in any other pointers, like you tell that you have three reports every day, wherever in the world you are like 2 PM, 5 PM, 8 PM. Any other things in execution that founders can do?

Yashish Dahiya

There is hundreds of things, hundreds of things, but basically it is that basically even today, I like to make at least two or three out of comfort zone attempts every day is just what’s the harm. Right. And so that’s, that’s it. You just keep trying a little harder and you don’t, sort of stop. Right.

Like a very simple example. Today morning, I got into Delhi at 3:20 AM and I hadn’t slept the night, but I’m here. And I was here at 8:30 in the office doing my interview, doing my reviews.

And, I initially sent a message to the team that, listen, I do need to sleep a bit. So I’ll probably come in at 9:30, but finally I was here at 8: 30. So I just think you keep doing that day in day out.

Eventually, it works here. And that’s how the team has, because they, everybody’s like that, like Sarbvir and all are very Naveen. They are like that.

So I think our operating team is, is very execution oriented and very today oriented. That what did you, I’ll give you a very simple answer, right? If you ask me, what do I plan to do in a day?

And at the end of the day, when I look back at the day, do I look at my plan and feel I did what I planned or more than it or less than it almost every day. If I plan 10 things, I end up doing 12 by the end of the day. And that’s on a regular, every day, 365 days a year.

So at the end of it, and it could be anything, right? It could be something else. It could be personal.

It could be work. It could be anything. But if I’ve planned 10 things, I will do 12 by the evening. Usually that’s what, that’s the reality of, of life.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And I think if you keep doing that life will turn out. Okay. And do you think that’s the culture of the entire Policybazaar with our team?

Yashish Dahiya

So if yes, yes, I think that’s the culture of the entire Policybazaar with our team. In fact, out of the top 20 execution people in the company, I think I have the lowest work ethic. They are far higher in that. And I’ve seen that time and again.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And what are the values that you have built Policybazaar with?

Yashish Dahiya

Patience, trust you trust each other, trust the team and to some extent at least at times you should be able to, put the team’s interest ahead of yourself. And at times, at least question whether you’re favouring yourself versus the team.

If you don’t have that ability, you know, there’s some people whom I meet who all the thing, oh, the company is not fair to me. The team is not fair to me. I deserve better.

I deserve better. Thankfully, I haven’t been a person like that ever.

Like I worked in ITW Signode industrial packaging. I used to get paid about 2,000,000 rupees a year. My take home was about 13,000 rupees. I had done an IIT. I had done an IIM. I was posted in Rajkot. I was posted in Madras. I was posted in many places. I don’t remember ever thinking that the company was a lot of people. My own classmates would say, I think, I think the company is kind of taking advantage of you because I never felt that.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And this is back in, I assume 95, 96.

Yashish Dahiya

Yeah. In fact, in fact, when I was getting married, my wife’s mother asked me what’s my salary. And I said, it’s about 18,000 rupees. And I still remember it was like, Haww, Our daughter has only done NIFT and she earns 35,000 rupees and you earn only 18,000.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Which year you got married?

Yashish Dahiya

This was in 2000. But the point is, I never, I never thought I, I was actually very grateful. The company was paying me something and I was every day thinking, okay, am I adding value back to the company? Not that, I did IIT, IIM, so I deserve this money. Why do you give me 13 and not 35?

You know, I just wasn’t that person. And I think that’s what I mean by being able to put, I’m not saying one is right or wrong, but that’s who we are in general. We just, yeah.

And I think that’s the broad culture of Policybazaar because that culture has flown through. And, it’s just, I, I just, I just see within my own family. Sometimes people saying, Hey, the, that, that company is, you know, taking advantage of you or as a, as a percentage of total equity, you’re getting too little compared to everybody else.

Oh, why is that person getting so much? I think many of those things are just, yeah, they’re not, they’re not value adding to anyone just, you know, get on with things and I think that’s a better way to live.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And personally in your life, you mentioned by 2000, right? You were almost like 30 years of age. I assume you were earning 18,000 rupees a month. So when did things started to change for you?

Yashish Dahiya

When I got married.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

What happened?

Yashish Dahiya

I always say I was working the same amount, but eventually you need luck also. And, in our family, Shikha is the lucky one.

So we got married and I was earning, I’d never earned more than let’s say 20,000 rupees a month. And I suddenly got a 20 lakh sign-on from Bain & Company. I couldn’t have imagined that way before I got married.

Like I was thinking, oh, if you’re going to get married, if you go to Bombay, how are we going to live? Because we, you know, we would have figured it out, but, I think she’s the lucky one and I got into Bain. Then I got into Ebookers, then Policybazaar started and, you know, various other things started. And, unlike me, she’s very calm. She’s never hassled about anything. She thinks time is a concept of the mind. Sleeps 12 hours a day, never feel sleepy in the day because she slept enough.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And she has never complained of you being an entrepreneur and not giving family enough time.

Yashish Dahiya

Not at all. She never complains at all. She doesn’t complain about anything. So the things she talks about most are flowers and birds.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And what does she do today?

Yashish Dahiya

She was working in a bank. She got working because we needed to support the family because when I started Policybazaar, we didn’t have enough funds. So that is when she took on working. She got a job with the NatWest bank in the UK and she kept working with them. Right now, she’s technically on a sabbatical. So I think one and a half years ago, she took a sabbatical, which she hasn’t returned from. I don’t think she’ll ever return. But she’s still the same person. She has never, you’d be very surprised. She has never bought a thing in her life. Like ever since we’ve been married, she’s not even bought a pair of jeans.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And your family is still in UK right now?

Yashish Dahiya

They’re still in the UK.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And how do you manage between India and the UK right now?

Yashish Dahiya

I, we manage, they come here. They were here till last week. They were, they come during summer holidays, winter holidays, and then I’ll go sometime. So we figured it out.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

In the last 14 years, you know, you have done that.

Yashish Dahiya

It’s worked that way except COVID. See, COVID was a time when we got to be together. So COVID I know was a very bad time and a lot of things happened, but for us, it was a very good time because that was the only time we as a family managed to live together. So it was a brilliant time from that perspective for us.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

So, so I assume in the last 12 years or 14 years, you would have spent half of your time away from your family.

Yashish Dahiya

75%. But, but Shikha will never complain about it. Never. She doesn’t complain about anything. She doesn’t complain about anything at all. So she’s just a very lucky person.

I remember when my daughter was applying to DPS RK Puram, they had a lottery draw. So they said somebody has to come and pick it up, pick out the lotteries. So I just asked Shikha, you know, there was me, my mom and other people.

I just said, Shikha, please go and pick up the lottery. She picks it up straight away Dia Dahiya name comes out. It’s just, she’s lucky. You can’t, I can’t, I can’t fight that. Right. It’s just that simple.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

This is before 2008. I assume.

Yashish Dahiya

No, no. This is after this is 2013 or something. That’s when, that’s when they came here for a one year.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Okay.

Yashish Dahiya

So, they came here, they were at, they were studying in DPS, RK Puram for one year, both the children.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

But how do you, how do you manage, were you not able to ever convince your family to move to back to India?

Yashish Dahiya

I, they did move here, right? They came here for a year. What I will say will, you know, people, because I’m, I’m more international than most people, right? Because I see the UK view. I see the view here. they were learning things here also. They were learning things there also. I think, the schools here are great. The schools there are also great.

Both, both were great. When I just feel things, when I got a feel for what they were learning, I think, I thought the value system was a gap. Now I’m not saying that’s for all of UK and all of India, but that’s what they were picking up. They were picking up how to cut corners, what we call jugaad. What they were learning there was how to follow the process. It was a very simple thing, right?

Even today, when I go there, if there’s a crossing a hundred meters away, they will walk and they will cross at the crossing while I will just run across the road, right? It’s just in our mind, we find jugaad everywhere. That’s okay for us, but that it irritates other people.

Like, let’s be clear about it. And that’s why, you know, many times. Yeah. So when we, when I thought about it, not we, when I thought about it hard, I thought that was a strong value system to pick up, to follow the process, work hard, be straight up and, that’s what we decided for our children now, right or wrong. I don’t know. Right.

And I’m not saying that’s the culture of all of UK, but that’s the culture of the school they were going to, right? Bullying is still there. Bullying is here. All those things are there and those are not. So let me put it this way. They had a eight on 10 experience here. They were having a nine and a half on 10 experience there. So it was a decision made from happiness, not from unhappiness that we decided they move back. we’re quite happy about that decision. Nothing, nothing wrong with that decision. That, that does not mean they couldn’t work here, but you know, I’ll tell you a very simple thing. If you try to get my son to lie on his CV, he simply cannot do it.

Even a small amount, like I’ll give you an example. Suppose he’s done an internship for eight days…

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

he’ll tell it eight days.

Yashish Dahiya

And if you say, what’s the harm in writing two weeks? He cannot call it two weeks, he just can’t. And I’d give a lifetime for that value system. So that’s, that’s what we bought into. Now I know a lot of people hearing this would, could get angry about this, but as I see it, that’s the value system they picked up. And I believe they would have struggled with that value system here. Like I could see it in that year. They had started to struggle with that value system.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And do you think that will, will India ever reach that kind of value system where we are here to crossing?

Yashish Dahiya

See for that value system, you have to have no fear. You have to have social security. Today they don’t have fear, right? To a large extent. And, I think we, we need time. Maybe we’ll get there. And I don’t want to get too much into politics and how one of these countries pretty much ruled the whole world. And one of these countries let others come and rule them all along. And, and to me, part of it is that value system.

That, you know, one, even when they were alone, was not going against their country. When one, even when they were in their own country, they were betraying one brother was betraying to the other. Another was betraying to the other. Right. So what I’m saying is actually quite deep. We need to introspect this. Right. And this is something that we have to get rid of. Otherwise, we’ll keep damaging ourselves.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Then, then from a business point of view, right. I understand the India opportunity.

Yashish Dahiya

India opportunity is huge.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Why not build, you could have built a business parallelly in the UK as well.

Yashish Dahiya

UK is a very small market.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

But, but the whole of Europe?

Yashish Dahiya

Just because, yeah, even, even the whole of Europe, I think it’s a very difficult market, very India’s India’s far bigger, far, far bigger. And, I’m Indian, right at heart.

I’m Indian. So I prefer operating here. You know…

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

But you hold a UK passport?

Yashish Dahiya

Yeah. But that doesn’t make me, that doesn’t make me anything. At heart, I will, till I live, I will stay Indian.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yeah.

Yashish Dahiya

Just, just by holding a different passport. You don’t…

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yeah, you don’t take away that.

Yashish Dahiya

You don’t take away that.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

But amazing. You, you build up business, which is very core Indian need, right? Initially, towards the…

Yashish Dahiya

I’ll tell you a very important thing. It’s sad, the value systems that the other three members of my family hold are higher than mine.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Maybe because they have spent more time there than here.

Yashish Dahiya

Yeah. Perhaps, perhaps they, because they don’t feel the stress. Maybe I feel the stress. We have a lot of stress. There’s no doubt about it. We all work very hard. We have a lot of stress.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

But is that stress because of the gap in expectation? What do you have from yourself?

Yashish Dahiya

Look out here, competition is stiff. Fear of failure is stiff.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

You are number one player right now, right?

Yashish Dahiya

No, that doesn’t, that doesn’t matter. But the point is fear of failure is stiff. Working hours are long. Pressures are high. Stress is there, right?

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

See stress, imagine stress for me is, I think that I’ll reach airport from here in one hour and just taking bloody 90 minutes. And that is causing me to lose my…

Yashish Dahiya

So I think, we, at some level that stress manifests in many ways. It manifests in your health. It manifests in your behavior vis-a-vis others, cooperation versus competition, we become very comparative rather than cooperative to some extent. It becomes about me versus society.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

But what are the cause of the stress? Like just trying to understand.

Yashish Dahiya

The cause of stress is a very high chance of failure. You’ve, seen movies like, you know, the guy becoming like, why is there such a high effort from the rural areas to get a government job? Is to make sure they have security.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

That’s a passport to a stable life for them.

Yashish Dahiya

Yeah. But that means a stable life is that important, right? That you would try that hard.

Um, why do so many people end up going abroad? It is just for a reduction in stress, right? The opportunities here, definitely it’s here.

Nobody denies that the growth rates are here. The growth, the growth is here. The opportunities are here, but we have, I don’t know how it can be sorted because we do have a large population, still a large part of our population is unemployed.

Right. So I think, how do you bring down stress for somebody for whom the difference between being employed and not employed, right? When you make, the conditions for survival that much higher, then people will try extreme steps to achieve that survival.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

But do you think even at your scale, the stress is for survival?

Yashish Dahiya

The stress has come in many ways here. So I definitely feel running a business in India is, is, is the opportunity is there, but the stress levels are definitely higher than most parts of the world and that’s, that’s what brings out some of the best entrepreneurs here. And that’s what makes people from here, the best CEOs globally.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

I think there is no doubt that Policybazaar in any part of the world would not have been a profitable company. You are a profitable company. In 14 years of your existence.

Yashish Dahiya

No, Make My Trip is a… Money Supermarket is a very profitable company. It makes a hundred million pounds plus profit every year and has been doing so for the last 15 years. Right. The only thing is growing at 8, 10% a year. Right. So I think, yes, it makes a lot of profit. It still makes more profit than us every year. So I don’t think that’s the challenge. I think the challenge really is where is the growth and it has been a static company for the last, you know, I don’t want to comment on another public company, but I’m saying for the last 15 years, they’ve been quite static in terms of what they did and what they do now, maybe they’ve reached perfection and don’t need to go anywhere else.

But in that much time, Policybazaar was our every two, three years has kept evolving. So I’m saying the quality of entrepreneurs, the quality of companies here is very, very high. But that does not mean stress any less. That doesn’t make, make stress any less for anyone.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

You feel that the entrepreneurs here have to sacrifice much more because of that inherent stress in the system or that, or that would cause resilience.

Yashish Dahiya

They just have higher resilience because of that. So there is both pros and cons of everything. Right. But yeah, high stress is a, is a reality and it’s not just India, right? Whether it’s India, whether it’s Pakistan, whether it’s Bangladesh, whether it’s Sri Lanka, whether it’s China, all these places have high-stress environments.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Maybe the reason is that in UK, the life, the life of a normal person is pretty sorted, in developed, developed nations.

Yashish Dahiya

Yeah, I think, let’s drop the UK part because it’s okay. I think, they, they are, they are a different world. We are a different world as of now.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

The goal is site. Can India reach there or not?

Yashish Dahiya

See, I think there’s no point comparing, right. They’re a very small population base. They’re just 50, 60 million people. 60 million people. That’s a very small population base. We are a huge, huge country, right? There is no country in the world that can compare with India, except maybe China. Right. In terms of complexity, in terms of opportunity, in terms of everything at this point, many of those opportunities lie ahead of us. I think that’s, that’s basically it.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

So when I spoke to Sanjeev, right, again, sorry for the reference, but I’m such a fan of him. People could see that in the video that is a fan boy moment for me. He mentioned that there are two companies in India that he feels will be a billion, like a hundred billion dollar companies. Like, because India hasn’t seen on a startup scale, the first is Zomato and the second is Policybazaar.

Yashish Dahiya

That is so kind of him. Yeah.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yeah. He said whether it happens in his lifetime or not, he doesn’t know. But that is…

Yashish Dahiya

That’s very kind of him. That’s very kind of him. I think he’s, he’s invested with the right people on both sides. And I think that’s his strength, of, you know, for identifying the right people and kind of investing with them.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

But both of you, when you met in 2007 or eight could sense that synergies among each other, because…

Yashish Dahiya

We don’t have any synergies with each other.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Like in terms of like, Were the, were Infoedge of Sanjeev was the right investor for you or?

Yashish Dahiya

Yeah, a hundred percent. A hundred percent.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

What, what made you that gut feel?

Yashish Dahiya

No, no. Hiten and I’ve been to college, school and college together.

And in school, we were only together for actually three days because I was joining St. Columbus and he was leaving St. Columbus to go to DPS RK Puram. And if on those three days you are able to build a strong enough relationship that lasts multiple years, please appreciate an idea. I met a lot of people, but there was always a special place for Hitesh.

Right. And we were not even on this, we were in the same dormitory, but we were on different wings, et cetera. Right.

So I think there was something and Sanjeev, I kept meeting of and on Sanjeev used to first run IMS training where when I was studying for the CAT, he used to conduct interviews were conducted in his house. He used to, yeah. So he used to come to IIM to as a visiting faculty.

So, you know, when your DNA meets with somebody and when it doesn’t now, that doesn’t mean that you’re exact same people, but in some ways you have similar value systems, right? Sanjeev is a very articulate, very thought-through, very well-spoken person, I’m not so much so. Right.

I’m also not as gutsy as him. He invested in Policybazaar. I would not have invested in Policy Bazaar. I can’t. I don’t have the courage to ever invest in anything like that. Right? I would not have invested in Zomato either. By the way, a lot of my friends did. Right? I’m talking about 2007, 2008. A few of my friends did invest at that time. I would never do that. Even today I don’t invest in anything. Right. So I think I’m very, let’s say variance averse, not risk averse, just variance averse, whereas he can take those people calls. So he’s, he’s at a different level.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

But you took the risk of starting policy with that at the age of 30.

Yashish Dahiya

That is not a risk that is risk mitigation.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

How do you just like…

Yashish Dahiya

The risk is not doing it. See, for me, I’m one of the most risk or variance-averse people. For me I would only do something if it made so much sense that not doing it was not worth it. Right. And that’s what, when you realize the middle class in India, not having social security, you knew the UK market, your parents have been in the army. You’ve seen the suffering families who have been through this. I’ll do two things. I understood back then.

One, nobody wants to, wanted to speak about it. Second, everybody wanted to speak about it. So if you were in a group of 10 people and started speaking about insurance, people will suddenly go quiet and maybe even stop talking all together on that group.

But if you had a one-on-one with somebody and explain and try to understand them why they did not need insurance, they actually would engage. So it was a dining table conversation. It was not a, you know, club conversation. Right. And to me, it was a very intricate thing. And it was a, it was what we call a latent need that people needed this, but themselves did not know they needed it.

Right. So it’s almost like you have to educate people on what they require. Right.

And yes, people will see you selfish that, yeah, that’s where you make money. Of course, we make money. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to exist.

Right. But at the end of it, there are many other ways to make money. I could have been a real estate broker.

I could have been anything else. I could have been a teacher at home. I could have done many other things.

Right. I could have kept working, but, but this was one way of making money. We chose this way of making money because this way seemed to make sense to us. And it was very obvious.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And it also gave a purpose.

Yashish Dahiya

No, we were very sure we would succeed in it. Purpose and we were very sure we would succeed at it because we knew that the moment you came out with this, many other formats of selling would not come in to sell these products simply because they could not. And see could not is not a phraseology in terms of can they sell, but it is, can they do a quality sale? Can they do the right disclosures? So a lot of those things would not fall in place unless you were a platform like Policybazaar, your cost of acquisitions, your self-declaration of customer just wouldn’t fall in place. Like today, when we are going in to say that we want to make a minority investment in hospitals, a lot of people think we’re taking a risk. If there’s a 90% chance of failure, we would still like to do it.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Why is that?

Yashish Dahiya

Think about it. If you are able to control the customer experience of the hospitals and give the customers a very good experience, why would insurance not grow? And you’re deriving so much value from the value of insurance. So it’s an obvious one for you.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yeah. You control the entire experience, just like Apple in digital world.

Yashish Dahiya

But because of, see, it’s not that you control, but because of that control, you are able to convert a lot more customers. And that is your advantage.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

The NPS is much higher.

Yashish Dahiya

The NPS is much higher. Yeah.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

One thing which I want to touch upon is, you know, I don’t see any difference. If you remember my company was acquired by Sheroes I became a co-founder to Sheroes.

I ran my company, which was a B2B SaaS company from 2012, 2017 SaaS for pediatricians, basically got acquired by Shiro. And I met you, I think, along with Sairee. You might not remember it.

Yashish Dahiya

Yeah, yeah. Now I recollect that.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Yeah. So, so I don’t see any difference between you and Policybazaar pre-IPO and post IPO is the same aggression that you carry. Right.

Yeah. So IPO has been a landmark, obviously in the journey because you created wealth for so many people. Right. But, but the aggression is the same today.

Yashish Dahiya

See, we are and will remain the same people. You having or not having money doesn’t define you. It may do so in other people’s eyes, but in your eyes, it may not be your, you know, definer. So unless you were pretending to be somebody, why would you change?

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

But then what is your internal metric of defining yourself as an entrepreneur, as an individual?

Yashish Dahiya

There’s nothing like that. It is still run by the same thing. I was just speaking with Sarbvir yesterday. And essentially what we said is 4 crore Indians have health insurance, but 40 crore should. Right. So we are 36 crores short of our target. And that’s what keeps us going that we have 10 X to go. And we are still not talking about inflation. We’re still not talking about anything else. We’re just saying basic coverage. Right. So yeah, that’s what drives us the under-penetration of the market. One more person I explained that we are at the very early stages of our journey. What that means is a product market fit has still not fallen into place.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Why do you say that?

Yashish Dahiya

Because the claims experience still needs to fall into place, right? This is a product which is still working on kind of broken legs, broken legs, because the claims experience is not where it can be. So it’s very important to fix that.

Because once you fix that, will you get into the mid days of your life as a company? And once you get to the mid days of your life, will you get towards the somebody else being able to disrupt you right now that you are still trying to grow in the system?

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And, and for you going public meant more discipline, like reporting your numbers quarterly.

Yashish Dahiya

No, it did not. Yeah, I had never looked at our financials before we went public. I started looking at them and started making sure our financials and our MIS was saying the same thing.

Otherwise, sometimes the financials report something totally different. MIS is reporting something totally different. There was all kinds of, you know, so I think that part happened, but I look at our business more from a NPV perspective, net present value perspective and decision-making still happens from that perspective.

For example, when we grow health insurance, our losses grow. But health insurance is the most profitable business we have because we make money from NPV. But in the first year it’s just cost and very little revenue. And, that actually makes us short-term look bad while they’re actually becoming better. And so which PNL should I look at the one that is the display PNL or one that is a real PNL? The real PNL to me is the NPV PNL.

So I always look at the NPV PNL, always have for the last 17 years, 16 years, always looked at the NPV PNL, not the statutory PNL. But now I’m forced to look at the statutory PNL, thinking what will the rest of the people think?

Right now, what you want to see is that over a three, four year period, your statutory and your MIS PNL are reflecting each other. But whether you do so every quarter should not be that big a concern. It’s okay. You know, sometimes there’s some recognition that sometimes there’s some other recognition. Right. Yeah, that’s it.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Then what was the reason of going public? You could have continued as a private company for a bit long.

Yashish Dahiya

I’ll explain. See all our investor contracts from 2015 onwards had in them an objective to go public. And, if you think about it, out of our pre-IPO investors, only Infoedge and Temasek are left and Temasek has also sold half its stake. Right. So actually the only one who’s not sold their stake is Infoedge. Right. So to an extent it provided liquidity and exit to all the pre IPO investors. Management is still 85% in, they need a little bit of liquidity.

They did that, whatever, some taxes, et cetera. But 85% of their wealth is still in the company. So I think in the end of it, it’s management and Infoedge from the pre-IPO days that is really left and a bit of Temasek besides that everybody else has kind of exited.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

And I was checking, you know, the shareholding pattern that you had. Your shareholding pretty much remains the same

Yashish Dahiya

Mine remains what it was. Right. But yeah, you have taxes to pay.

You have various things to do, but yes, there’s 15% outside the 85% inside. Right. Now, I think all of that required us going public.

Otherwise, there is no other big advantage from having gone public. It also put a lot of pressure on us to explain ourselves better. Earlier, I would say before IPO and now we are a much better-understood company now.

Earlier, we’ve been compared to some goose head. We’ve been compared to something. People are trying to say, okay, what like this exists anywhere else?

So because see public market investors, they’re looking at 6,000 companies in India alone, and they have to invest in, let’s say 60 out of them. So with 60 and even 60 is too many, even six is too many to kind of really understand in depth. I barely understand one.

Right. So for somebody to understand 60, I have huge amount of respect for them. so there’s very little time. You usually get one hour, two hours in a year with a public market investor to explain who you are, what you are doing. So actually they’re very smart people that they are able to still grasp it and kind of remember it. I wouldn’t do if somebody tried to explain to me a company in one hour, I’ll forget after two, after two days, I would have forgotten about it. Like if it’s not of my interest, why would I remember it?

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Well, thank you so much, Yashish.

Yashish Dahiya

Thank you.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

It’s been an incredible conversation. I learned a lot from you.

Yashish Dahiya 58:55

Thank you. Same here. I learned a lot about the conversation and you know, when we speak, we kind of almost hear ourselves and it was good to know we went to the same school. So that was very good to know.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Definitely would love to organize some reunion sometime of folks from St. Mary’s Academy.

Yashish Dahiya

Yeah. We’ll have two people from our company. Sarbvir is also from St. Mary’s Academy.

Yashish Dahiya

So awesome.

Siddhartha Ahluwalia

Thank you so much.

Yashish Dahiya

Thank you.