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Episode 152 · Consumer · 29 min

Validation from doctors, revenue from patients

Litemed spent its first year in orthopaedic conferences and doctor camps earning medical endorsement for Curapod — then walked around the prescription pad and sold straight to the people in pain. The founders' claim is that for a wearable the doctor is a channel, not a customer, and the evidence they offer is a crore a month of revenue built from a standing start, on 1,500 to 2,000 units shipped out of one Hyderabad unit.

Healthcare D2C & commerce Deep tech & hardware

Sriram Velliyur and Surya Maguluri

Co-founders, Litemed · with Vishal Krishna

28:51

Said in this episode

▶ 11:35

₹1 cr/month

Revenue run-rate after going direct

Sriram says Litemed is clocking close to a crore a month, from an online launch that started 'in a small way' in November.

▶ 6:20

60–70 mm

Claimed light penetration into tissue

Against the 4–5 mm the founders say red and near-infrared light normally reaches — the gap that pushed rival light devices into topical heating.

▶ 25:31

1,500–2,000

Units shipped per month

Also the ceiling of current in-house manufacturing, which is why a new factory is being set up.

▶ 12:49

400–500

Doctors engaged in the B2B year

Conference presentations, camps and at-home demos that later became the persona research behind the D2C campaigns.

▶ 16:54

90%+

Customers reporting relief on protocol

Surya's claim, conditional on sticking to the protocol — two weeks of continuous use, twice a day; self-reported, not an independent trial result.

▶ 17:43

9 → 5

Pain score after one 30-minute session

Described on air as roughly a 40% reduction on the visual analogue scale, which captures the patient's perception rather than pathology.

The brief

The argument in sixty seconds

Surya's claim starts in a pharmacy classroom: analyse enough prescriptions and you learn that chronic-disease management means a daily pill whose side effects you manage with a second pill. His answer was photobiomodulation — red and near-infrared light — but only after fixing the field's own limitation, because light that stops 4 to 5 mm under the skin cannot reach an arthritic joint sitting 20 to 30 mm down, which is why so many light devices quietly became topical heaters that chronic patients cannot use every day. Curapod, they say, reaches 60 to 70 mm and calibrates dose to skin tone, BMI and pain site rather than shipping one setting for every body. Sriram's half of the argument is commercial. Litemed went to doctors first because a first-of-its-kind device needs the medical fraternity's endorsement — then concluded that scaling through thousands of distracted doctors was not a business, and that a wearable belongs to the end consumer with the doctor as a channel to reach them. Since the online launch in November they say they are clocking a crore a month, with ad copy written out of 400 to 500 doctor conversations and at-home demos rather than broad targeting. What is unresolved is everything a hardware company cannot outrun: component minimum order quantities, a quarter of inventory they cannot yet fund, a new factory, and Indian investors who want a reference point for a wellness category that does not have one.

Worth your time if you are

Medtech founders choosing between doctors and consumers

D2C operators whose product needs clinical proof first

Hardware startups fighting component MOQs and inventory

Anyone managing chronic pain with a daily pill

Investors sizing India's wellness-device category

Episode map

Where the conversation travels

Every block is a chapter, coloured by what it's about. Click any of it to jump straight to that minute on YouTube.

HealthcareD2C & commerceDeep tech & hardwareSales, GTM & growthMarketing & brandProduct strategy

01Cold open: NYU, Hyderabad, a nameless category 0:00 On Ideaspring's Founder in Focus series, Sriram traces a long tech career in the US and an NYU stint into Indian healthcare, meeting Dr. Surya and spending three years building what they call India's only wearable therapeutics company for pain — clinical validation first, market second. 02The pharmacist who read the side effects 2:16 They met at a startup event; Surya's Doctor of Pharmacy training put him on prescription analysis, cataloguing side effects, adverse drug reactions, contraindications and drug-drug interactions, and reporting them to the authorities. 03A therapy that doesn't need a second pill 4:07 Chronic patients take a daily pill and then another pill to mitigate what the first one does, so Surya went looking for a non-invasive therapy with pharmaceutical-grade impact — testing transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation before settling on photobiomodulation. 04Five millimetres was the whole problem 5:23 Red and near-infrared light penetrates only 4 to 5 mm while arthritis sits 20 to 30 mm down, which pushed the industry into topical heating; Curapod's answer is 60 to 70 mm of penetration plus an adaptive dose calibrated to skin tone, BMI and pain site. 05Proving the light is safe 6:49 Because the device is meant for chronic daily use, Litemed ran animal studies for skin irritation, cell-culture work for in-vitro cytotoxicity and then human clinical trials, and cites photobiological safety certification under IEC 62471. 06Doctors first, and then the scaling doubt 7:50 Certifications and trials existed to get orthopaedic doctors to try Curapod on patients; conference presentations and camps built credibility, but the founders began asking whether a product company could realistically sell through thousands of doctors the way big pharma does. 07The doctor is just a channel 9:50 Hyderabad was the launchpad from the first ortho conference in 2022-23; doctors recommended the device and Litemed fulfilled to patients directly — which is when they realised a wearable belongs to the end consumer and decided to go straight to them. 08A crore a month, starting in November 11:04 The neck-pain-on-the-drive-home pitch found an online audience tired of medication and physiotherapy dependence; a small November start became roughly a crore a month, with the host pressing on how much awareness-building it cost. 09500 doctor conversations become ad copy 12:19 Interactions with 400 to 500 doctors and in-home demos produced the personas — seniors, the fitness crowd, people on their feet all day — and the founders say talking to every customer for the first eight to nine months is why their focused campaigns outperform broad spending. 10The app that didn't work, and the 90% claim 15:39 Connectivity problems and accidental touch activation forced a manual-first device with a regulator-driven fixed session, with the app arriving only now; Surya claims over 90% of customers who follow the protocol get real relief. 11Measuring a perception, prescribing a protocol 17:11 Pain is subjective, so Litemed uses visual analogue scores before and after a 30-minute session, tracks flexion and function — plantar fasciitis patients moving from 100-200 metres to 2-3 kilometres — and ships a two-week, twice-daily protocol backed by onboarding and follow-up calls. 12The year with doctors, the VCs who waited 20:57 The B2B year mapped every pain condition and customer profile but proved unscalable, and the pivot to D2C ran straight into a fundraising wall: Indian investors had no reference point for a clinically validated wellness device and stayed on wait-and-watch. 13Shoestring trials and the MOQ trap 24:02 Clinical trials and a regulatory-compliant manufacturing unit were both built on shoestring budgets, leaving a runbook from ideation to launch — but component minimum order quantities, unfulfillable bulk orders and a 1,500-2,000 unit monthly ceiling now cap the business. 14Not a one-trick pod: menstrual pain next 26:13 Curapod is pitched as a technology platform with a menstrual-pain and PCOS device planned for November and diabetic neuropathy further out, closing on two visions — pain relief without a tablet, and front-ending the turn from wearables to wearable therapeutics.

Takeaways

Ideas to carry out of this hour

The doctor is a channel, not the customer

Litemed went to doctors first on purpose: a first-of-its-kind device gets its credibility from the medical fraternity, and orthopaedic conferences and camps from 2022-23 delivered both recommendations and a map of which pain conditions and patient profiles were actually using Curapod. But a doctor juggling many products will not carry a wearable to national scale, and covering thousands of them would take time, bandwidth and resources a small hardware company does not have. Since fulfilment was reaching the patient anyway, the founders concluded the wearable belongs to the end consumer and the doctor is only the route to finding them.

▶ 10:18 ▶ 22:16 ▶ 22:31

Fixing the depth problem is the whole product

Photobiomodulation has been in use for decades, but red and near-infrared light penetrates only 4 to 5 mm, while arthritic joints and similar conditions sit 20 to 30 mm below the skin. Surya's account is that the industry papered over that gap by turning light devices into topical heating systems — precisely the wrong answer for chronic conditions where the patient applies heat every day. Curapod's claim is 60 to 70 mm of penetration without leaning on heat, which is the difference between a comfort gadget and a therapy.

▶ 5:38 ▶ 6:06 ▶ 6:20

One dose does not fit every body

Skin colour, BMI and the site of the pain all change how much light a body absorbs, so a single fixed setting delivers a different therapy to every user. Litemed's answer is what it calls an adaptive pain management system: the device calibrates those factors and delivers a personalised dose. That is the argument for why wearable therapeutics is a device and dosing problem rather than a matter of pointing a brighter lamp at the skin.

▶ 6:20 ▶ 6:35 ▶ 6:49

Ad copy is a by-product of home demos

The founders argue their marketing edge was paid for during the B2B year: 400 to 500 doctor interactions plus physical, in-home demos taught them the personas — seniors, the fitness crowd, people who stand 8 to 10 hours a day — and the exact words each responds to. For the first eight or nine months after launch they spoke to every single customer, because how someone uses a device they paid for is a different story from how they use a free unit. Focused messaging built on that, they claim, is why their returns beat broad campaigns even on a startup's budget.

▶ 12:49 ▶ 13:20 ▶ 13:35

Efficacy has to be measured in something patients feel

Pain is a perception, so Litemed leans on the visual analogue scale: patients rate 0 to 10 before a session and again after 30 minutes, and a move from 9 to 5 is logged in conversation as roughly a 40% reduction. Beyond the number they track flexion and function — plantar fasciitis patients who had been walking 100 to 200 metres reporting 2 to 3 kilometres after two to three weeks. The headline claim is that more than 90% of customers who stick to the protocol, two weeks of continuous use twice a day, get meaningful relief.

▶ 16:54 ▶ 17:28 ▶ 18:26

A wellness device has no reference point for Indian VCs

Fundraising was hard, Sriram says, not because of the science but because India offers investors no comparable against which to price a clinically validated wellness product — so clinical trials, regulatory approval and a first-of-a-kind claim still returned wait-and-watch answers about whether customers would actually buy. Their response was to keep moving the needle on revenue and customer acquisition until demand itself became the evidence. In the meantime, trials and a regulatory-compliant manufacturing unit were both built on shoestring budgets, and the founders treat that runbook — ideation to prototype to trial to approval to launch with a very small team — as the company's rarest asset.

▶ 23:02 ▶ 23:30 ▶ 24:02

Hardware's ceiling is the supply chain, not the demand

Curapod is manufactured in-house at volumes that collide with electronic-component minimum order quantities the founders describe as running into lakhs. Even during the B2B phase bulk orders arrived that they could not fulfil, and gyms and physiotherapy centres still ask for them. At 1,500 to 2,000 units a month they are making exactly as much as they can make, are expanding to a new factory, and openly admit they have not solved how to fund the quarter of inventory that scaling would require.

▶ 25:01 ▶ 25:31 ▶ 25:59

The pod is a platform, and menstrual pain is next

Litemed's framing is that Curapod proved a technology platform rather than a single SKU: the same light-dosing stack is being pointed at menstrual pain and PCOS/PCOD, with a launch planned around November, and diabetic neuropathy further out. The stated cadence is a new product every year. Surya's closing bet is that the wearable industry that began with a small company called Fitbit in 2008 and now runs into hundreds of billions of dollars is about to turn therapeutic — and that Litemed is front-ending that turn.

▶ 26:29 ▶ 26:44 ▶ 28:14

The numbers, drawn

What the episode measures

Every figure below was said on air — timestamps included, caveats kept.

Conversation share

portion of the hour spent on each theme

Healthcare22%

D2C & commerce17%

Deep tech & hardware16%

Sales, GTM & growth13%

Marketing & brand10%

Product strategy8%

Computed from the chapter map of this episode.

How deep the light has to go

mm below the skin

As stated in conversation: light therapies normally penetrate 4–5 mm, target conditions sit 20–30 mm down, and Curapod is claimed to reach 60–70 mm. Upper bounds shown; the penetration figure is the founders' claim, not an independent measurement.▶ 6:06

What relief looks like for a heel-pain patient

metres walked

As described on air: plantar fasciitis customers who could walk only 100–200 m reporting 2–3 km after two to three weeks of use. Upper bounds shown; these are self-reported customer accounts relayed by the founders.▶ 18:41

Worth keeping

Lines that stay

This is a wearable device, it is for the end consumer — the doctor is just a channel.

— Sriram Velliyur ▶ 10:18

Photobiomodulation is nothing but using light to alleviate pain. But the penetration in the human body is only four to five millimetres — and arthritis is twenty, thirty millimetres underneath the skin.

— Surya Maguluri ▶ 5:38

You have a neck pain now, and you can just wear this device and keep driving home — by the time you reach home your pain will subside.

— Sriram Velliyur ▶ 11:04

We did clinical trials on a shoestring budget. We set up a regulatory-compliant manufacturing unit on a shoestring budget.

— Sriram Velliyur ▶ 24:02

The wearable industry started in 2008 with a small company called Fitbit. Now wearables are evolving into wearable therapeutics — and we are front-ending that.

— Surya Maguluri ▶ 28:00

Clips that travel

Short on time? Start here

Deep-tech founders picking a physical modality

Five millimetres, and why light devices became heaters

The penetration limit that defines photobiomodulation, the topical-heating dead end, adaptive dosing for skin tone and BMI, and the safety trail from animal studies to IEC 62471.

5:23 → 7:50 · 2 min ▶ Watch clip

Medtech founders choosing between doctors and consumers

The doctor is just a channel

A year of orthopaedic conferences and camps, the arithmetic that killed the doctor channel, and the moment fulfilling to patients became the business.

7:50 → 11:04 · 3 min ▶ Watch clip

D2C operators whose product needs clinical proof first

A crore a month, and the ad copy that got there

The November online start, the crore-a-month claim, and how 400–500 doctor conversations and at-home demos turned into persona-level targeting.

11:04 → 15:39 · 5 min ▶ Watch clip

Anyone managing chronic pain with a daily pill

Measuring a thing that is a perception

The visual analogue scale, a 9 falling to a 5 in thirty minutes, and heel-pain patients reporting kilometres where they used to manage metres.

16:54 → 18:57 · 2 min ▶ Watch clip

Hardware startups fighting component MOQs and inventory

MOQs, inventory and the investors who waited

Why an Indian wellness device had no fundraising reference point, the shoestring trials-and-factory runbook, and the supply chain that caps growth at 2,000 units a month.

22:47 → 26:13 · 3 min ▶ Watch clip

Glossary

The jargon, unpacked

Photobiomodulation

Using red or near-infrared light to stimulate tissue and relieve pain or other conditions — in clinical use for decades, and the modality Curapod is built on.

Near-infrared (NIR) light

Light just beyond the visible red band; it travels further into tissue than visible light, and the founders say it sits within a biologically safe range.

Wearable therapeutics

Devices worn on the body that deliver a treatment rather than merely measuring the body — the category Litemed claims to be creating, positioned as the step after fitness trackers.

Visual analogue scale (VAS)

A 0-to-10 self-reported pain score taken before and after a session — the standard way to put a number on something that is inherently a perception.

TENS

Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation: pain relief by passing small electrical currents through the skin, the approach Surya worked on before choosing light.

IEC 62471

The photobiological safety standard for lamps and light sources; Litemed cites certification under it as evidence the device's light output is safe for daily use.

MOQ

Minimum order quantity — the smallest batch a component supplier will sell, a structural squeeze for a hardware startup shipping low volumes.

Plantar fasciitis

Inflammation of the tissue along the sole of the foot, causing heel pain that limits walking; one of the conditions customers describe using Curapod for.

Connections

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EP 93 · Consumer

Full transcript

The whole conversation, searchable

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