Start, Up and Away | Vishal Gondal, the serial entrepreneur

Vishal Gondal is no stranger to the startup space. The fitness freak and tech guru had launched a company way back in the 90s when the entire concept of a startup was alien in India. As he describes it himself in a chat with Moneycontrol’s Anchal Pathak, when he started off, he didn’t even know that something like venture capital existed. “PWC approached me and told me that venture capital is like a loan which I don’t have to pay back. I thought, who doesn’t want that sort of money? ”

While Gondal is proud of what he achieved as the Founder and CEO of IndiaGames, he confesses when he started off, he was rather naïve. “People told me that no one would have signed off on the things that were included in my first contract.”

Well, Gondal did learn rather fast as soon, IndiaGames became the biggest mobile gaming company in India and was ultimately sold to Disney in 2012. Gondal was all of 35 when the deal was finalised.  Gondal talks about the kind of lifestyle he led during his IndiaGames days. It was all work and playing video games, this routine made him rather unhealthy. Many diets were tried and given up until finally, Gondal hit upon an idea.

“Most FitTech companies just expect you to wear their device and then it’s up to you what you do with it.” Interestingly, GOQii, offers its customers an ecosystem, not just a wearable. The service offers a health coach, a blog, live videos, a health store and many more tools which will help one achieve their fitness goal. So the entire purpose of subscribing to the service is to have an entire team pushing you on and motivating you.