Meet Sumit Sinhal, founder and managing director of Kins Health, a growing health care company located in West Bengal, India, at the foot of the Himalayas. While most entrepreneurs would see obstacles in delivering care to this remote region, Sinhal’s passion, innovation, leadership, and strategic vision are creating opportunities — for both patients and doctors.
India is infamously known as the diabetic capital of the world with over 80 million people suffering from the disease and an equal number who don’t even know they have it. In 2011, Sinhal’s company set out to change that statistic with early detection care and has since expanded to provide cutting-edge health care, including telemedicine and wearable devices, to underserved and hard-to-reach communities.
While working in remote regions has its advantages (less competition, for example), recruiting skilled staff can be a challenge. As a leader, Sinhal realizes the importance of creating a shared vision that extends beyond the founder.
“One of the most important stakeholders that you have is that of employees, especially in a service industry, that of health care. It is very important to have exceptionally trained employees to make sure that they understand the vision of the company. What is it that you intend to do? What is the passion behind doing everything that you do?” Sinhal says.
While Sinhal and his team are meeting the needs of underserved patients, they’re also empowering doctors to become entrepreneurs themselves. “We want to become the business partners for doctors, help them become ‘docpreneurs,’ be a digitally savvy business, and provide the best of care that patients could possibly receive” he explains.
Hear how Sinhal is creating impact, embracing technology, and using innovative solutions to build his business and provide a model of care in other underserved regions.
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Grit & Growth is a podcast produced by Stanford Seed, an institute at Stanford Graduate School of Business which partners with entrepreneurs in emerging markets to build thriving enterprises that transform lives.
Hear these entrepreneurs’ stories of trial and triumph, and gain insights and guidance from Stanford University faculty and global business experts on how to transform today’s challenges into tomorrow’s opportunities.
Full Transcript
(00:04)
Sumit Sinhal: One of the good advantages by being in markets like this is that we understand that this is absolutely a blue ocean mature market. In the Western world or even metro cities in and around India and other Southeast Asian markets, a lot of businesses are already thriving there. Not a lot of competition exists in this geography, and we can take advantage and make sure that the businesses thrive in the geographies that we operate in.
(00:38)
Darius Teter: Welcome to Grit & Growth from Stanford Graduate School of Business, the podcast where Africa and Asia’s intrepid entrepreneurs share their trials and triumphs with insights from Stanford faculty and global experts on how to tackle challenges and grow your business. I’m your host, Darius Teter, the executive director of Stanford Seed. Today on Grit and Growth, we take you to the heart of Siliguri, a vibrant crossroads in northeast India, nestled in a narrow corridor between Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh. This town in the foothills of the Himalayas is where our guest has recognized a unique opportunity to build a thriving health care business, from leveraging its strategic location to addressing untapped needs. We’ll explore how innovation and vision can turn underserved areas into hubs of possibility.
(01:30)
Sumit Sinhal: Hi, my name is Sumit Sinhal. I’m the founder/director at Kins Health.;
(01:34)
Darius Teter: In this short take, you’ll hear Sumit reflect on the importance of early detection in diabetes care, the power of leadership, and why scaling a health care business requires both strategy and heart. It’s a story of impact, growth, and some important lessons learned along the way.
(01:50)
Sumit Sinhal: We are a health care company based out of Siliguri, West Bengal, India. I am based out of a small town named Siliguri in the state of West Bengal in eastern India. We are geographically very strategically located because the location is surrounded by three countries, the countries of Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh, and we are also surrounded by four states of India. We have been in business for 14 years now. We are located in two physical locations. One is a super-specialty IPD [in-patient department] hospital. The other is a super-specialty diabetes care clinic
(02:33)
Darius Teter: With over 15 years of experience and a master’s degree from the prestigious Indian School of Business, he founded Kins Health in 2011.
(02:41)
Sumit Sinhal: I have always been passionate about the health care industry for two major reasons. One is there’s a lot that needs to be done, especially in the geographies that we operate in. We are a resource limited setting area. There’s so much happening in the health care front across the world. There’s a lot of advancement that is happening. There’s cutting-edge technology that is available, and at the resource constrained areas, probably even the primary health care is in shambles. So getting the best of the world to not-so-great places in the sense of not getting those things available to resource constraints settings is something that has kind of always made me think as to how is it that I could bridge those gaps.
(03:24)
Darius Teter: What started as a diabetes clinic quickly grew into a thriving 50-bed hospital now serving a wide range of medical needs in Siliguri. And while diabetes care was a key part of Kins Health’s early growth, the company has expanded its reach far beyond. Today, they aim to bring cutting-edge health care, including telemedicine and wearable devices, to underserved and hard-to-reach communities. Sumit’s commitment to bringing world-class health care to his community has shaped Kins Health into a cornerstone of care for the region. But his journey began simply with a passion for health care and a vision to make a meaningful impact.
(03:59)
Sumit Sinhal: Infamously, India is the diabetic capital of the world with over 80 million people suffering from the disease. Unfortunately, an equal number of people don’t even know that they have it, so that’s about one in every 10 people suffering from the disease. So early detection is the key for diabetes.
(04:24)
Darius Teter: To be clear, Sumit sees his location as an advantage. Many smaller cities and towns offer opportunities for innovation, but running a health care business in a place like Siliguri does present some unique challenges, like recruiting skilled staff, building infrastructure, and aligning all the stakeholders in your value chain.
(04:41)
Sumit Sinhal: We understand that this is absolutely a blue ocean mature market. Maybe in the Western world or even metro cities in and around India and other Southeast Asian markets, a lot of businesses are already thriving there. What is not happening in the hinterlands, other smaller towns and cities do not get the right kind of attention. As a business owner, one key opportunity that we can kind of see harness and thriving is the nature that not a lot of competition exists in this geography, and we can take advantage and make sure that the businesses thrive in the geographies that we operate in. One important thing that all of us as entrepreneurs realize is businesses do not exist in isolation. We have to work as an ecosystem, and when you work in an ecosystem, you need a lot of ecosystem partners. One of the most important stakeholders that you have is that of employees and especially in the service industry, that of health care, it is very important to have exceptionally trained employees to make sure that they understand the vision of the company. What is it that you intend to do? What is the passion behind doing everything that you do? So when you are in a metro city or a market that is more mature, the mindset of the employees or the stakeholders as such is more aligned. But when you’re working in a resource-limited setting, I think that is something that you have to build over a period of time in your company per se, vis-a-vis what you would naturally get or expect out of the ecosystem if you were in a metro city.
(06:16)
Darius Teter: Kins Health’s biggest passion is their focus on patient education, early detection, and empowering individuals to take control of their health in meaningful and sustainable ways.
(06:26)
Sumit Sinhal: Research has shown that 75 percent of the care is in the hand of the patient or the diabetic himself or herself. There is very little that a clinician can do. If it is at their hand, then what is it that they’re supposed to do? How is it that we as better knowledge holders of the disease are supposed to tell them to do it in better way? And obviously if you are aware and you know that you have diabetes, the management part is pretty much, I would not say simple, but yes, manageable. At least half the people in the world, those who have diabetes, don’t even know that they have it. And by the time they would know they have it, it would have been pretty late with a lot of comorbidity diseases that they would be suffering from.
(07:06)
Darius Teter: Kins Health made a significant impact by reaching over 50,000 people directly through its services, but many more indirectly through awareness camps, detection drives, and patient education programs. These initiatives not only provide critical care, but also promote a culture of prevention, early detection, and proactive health management in historically underserved areas. Technology is transforming industries at a rapid pace. And for Kins Health, it’s a powerful tool for scaling impact.
(07:37)
Sumit Sinhal: Businesses are changing very fast and technology is enabling it as a disruptor to make sure that businesses could be scaled. I have been a very big fan of technology and how it kind of acts as a catalyst to help businesses scale. And I feel our company and health care as an industry in its totality is at an inflection point. I think the time is just about come for us to start thinking of exponential growth. So that is probably the big, hairy, audacious goal that we have for our organization wherein we would want to kind of make a big bang approach to how is it that we could kind of really scale the business and serve more customers, not just in the geography that we operate in, but now that we have the strong conviction that if it can work here, it can possibly work at a lot of other places as well.
(08:30)
So in the next 18 months or so, or probably 12 to 18 months’ time, we are wanting to go heavily on digital adoption for our business. We need to move beyond our business and be with our patients even when they’re at their workplace, in their home, probably when they’re sleeping, whatever they’re doing in their life. Because of the kind of disorder that we are dealing with, it kind of commands to be like a digital twin, and that can possibly happen only with the help of digital technologies, with the help of variable devices, with the help of medical technologies. And so we are exploring the pace of digital therapeutics and digital health currently.
(09:12)
Darius Teter:; As Sumit launched and grew his business, he himself had to grow as a leader.
(09:17)
Sumit Sinhal: The fear of the unknown and still having the conviction to kind of go for it is something that is a life of an entrepreneur. Previously, I think as an entrepreneur you want to become an alpha male. By what I mean by alpha male is you want to do everything by yourself. The power of team is something what keeps the business going. It is not an individual. Yes, the vision is of the founder, but it can never be the founder or the entrepreneur who kind of does everything in the business. And if he or she is doing that, that is absolutely wrong. Maybe it would work in the short term, but in the long run, when somebody plans to scale, it is definitely not the way you build successful enterprises.
(10:04)
Darius Teter: In today’s evolving health care landscape, doctors are not just caregivers. They’re becoming entrepreneurs and navigating the challenges of running their own clinics. Sumit’s vision is to empower them to follow a similar path to his own and thereby expand health care access into other remote areas.
(10:21)
Sumit Sinhal: Always try to have a microscopic view, but at the same time also have a telescopic view about your organization. One important thing that we’ve come up is creating “docpreneurs,” especially in India, and I am sure a lot of other Southeast Asian markets as well. A lot of doctors are entrepreneurs wherein they have their own small clinics. They want to do their own businesses, try to solve a problem, but as businesses mature and customers mature, it is becoming even more difficult to kind of understand and deal with the nuances of businesses. So we are wanting to bring all stakeholders together. We want to become the business partners for doctors, help them become “docpreneurs” and be digitally savvy business, which is available both physically and digitally and provide the best of care that patients could possibly receive.
(11:09)
Darius Teter: What does it take to build something transformative? For Sumit, it’s about recognizing opportunities where others see limitations.
(11:17)
Sumit Sinhal: It is getting together as a team and planning to do something big, not knowing where it’ll go. So I think the fear of the unknown and still having the conviction to go for it is something that is a life of an entrepreneur. And I think that is one of the most amazing feelings that an entrepreneur could have and always should have, is what I feel.
(11:45)
Darius Teter: He found a deeply personal connection to addressing health care needs in underserved areas, using innovative solutions to empower patients and improve access to care. But now he’s taking it one step further, laying the foundation for others to follow by helping doctors in similar situations expand their reach and their impact. Sumit isn’t just building a business, he’s building a model of care, innovation, and hope for hard-to-reach communities. It’s a reminder that entrepreneurship isn’t just about growth. It’s about creating meaningful change that ripples far beyond the borders of your own business.
(12:19)
Sumit Sinhal: If you would ask me as to what has changed within you or your company is whenever we have any discussion or whenever I am personally thinking as a business leader or when we are thinking as a team together, one important topic of discussion that always comes out – out of so many other things that we discuss – is: What is the impact that we make? So that is something that we are really proud of, and now we’ve started measuring our impact also at the same time. And although these are early days, but we would want to be a company that is socially responsible and make a great impact at large.
(12:55)
Darius Teter: I’d like to thank Sumit Sinhal for sharing Kins Health story. From addressing health care gaps to empowering individuals and communities, Sumit’s journey reminds us of the incredible potential of purpose-driven innovation. I’m Darius Teter, and this has been a Grit & Growth short take. Erika Amoako-Agyei and VeAnne Virgin researched and developed content for this episode. Kendra Gladych is our production coordinator, and our executive producer is Tiffany Steeves, with writing and production from Nathan Tower and sound design and mixing by Ben Crannell at Lower Street Media. Thank you for listening.
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