Bootstrapping to $100 Million: Edifecs CEO Sunny Singh (Part 7)

Sunny Singh: Edifecs has become a business applications company providing business applications for these transformative things happening in healthcare. We have a lot of runway both in the US and international in servicing healthcare. From $100 million, our expectation is to become a $200 million company by 2017.

Going back to the point where I turned 50 last year, I said, “What do I want to do for my next 25 years even though I want to live more than that?” I want to do a couple of things. One is social enterprise. I created a social enterprise called Sabtera. The idea of Sabtera is to work in a local area in India in the state of Punjab where I live. Working with underprivileged kids and giving them a seven-day week nursing environment based on progressive education. This is a concept in alternative education and integral education. I want to give them that holistic education experience which is based on experiential learning and help them identify their dreams and passions and help them pursue those passions. I want to give those underprivileged kids a level playing field and saying, “This is not about you getting an education and getting a job. This is about you doing as well as anybody else in the world. If you want to be a musician, artist, sports person, or technologist, we’ll help you understand that. We’ll help you.” That’s what I launched this year. We started with 25 kids. That’s one thing that I started.

I also started a firm called Round Glass Partners, which basically invests in disruptive healthcare startups in US and India. We invest in some startups and we launch some startup ideas for ourselves. We are basically looking at how we will take the current healthcare system and make it affordable for the masses and provide accessibility to the masses. I’m going to focus on these and somebody else will run Edifecs in a year or two. I’ll become a Chairman and drive the vision while focusing on Round Glass and Sabtera, which are things I’m more passionate about.

Sramana Mitra: What about Edifecs itself? Is that a company that you want keep private? Do you want to sell that company? What are your thoughts on that?

Sunny Singh: If somebody ever told you that the company is never going to be big enough for sale, I would tell you that you take that with a grain of salt. Some companies will never be for sale. That’s totally fine. Even as it is, they’re up for grabs and they’re big companies. The way I look at Edifecs is there are two things that must be taken care of. Number one are our customers. Second is our people. We have a very good set of people. These are exceptional people who pour their hearts and souls out and do great things. No matter what Edifecs does – whether it stays private, goes public, or gets acquired, these two constituents must be taken care of. We’ll only do a transaction if it means that we can execute our vision 10 times faster, as well as provide increasing value to our customers and take care of our people who come to work hard every day. If the overall strategy can be accelerated and these two constituents will be taken care of, I will be open to anything and everything.

That being said, we’re tracking just fine. Like I said, we’re profitable. We’re growing nicely. We’re not carrying debt. We have no outside investors. But anything can happen. We’ll entertain options but the underlying principles that I mentioned must not be compromised. Life, for me, has never been a pursuit of money.

Sramana Mitra: As far as Edifecs is going and everything that you want to do with it from a product and business point of view, you have enough free cash flow to generate the kind of growth that you’re generating to do the new products and all these new ideas. All that is funded from free cash flow?

Sunny Singh: We can continue growing and meet our organic goals. What the opportunity for us is that the healthcare market is tremendous in the US and even much bigger internationally. The market is huge. The question we have to ask ourselves is, “Do we want to grow organically or do we want to accelerate this and make Edifecs a billion-dollar company and make a dent in the healthcare ecosystem?” That’s the question that we continue to ask ourselves. We are executing our strategy and comfortably so. We have cash flow. We have customers. We have good strategy. All of that is there. We just have to keep doing what we are doing except we can run faster.

We believe that we want to be the next cool, sexy healthcare company. We can be this cool healthcare solution company providing unparalleled, differentiated solutions in the market leveraging new technologies and creative thinking. Why not? Healthcare deserves it. Our constituents deserve it. The consumers deserve it.

Sramana Mitra: Are you considering taking funding at this point?

Sunny Singh: Are we looking at raising $100 million? That discussion is taking place at Edifecs today. We do that almost every year. We look at it and say, “Should we take some money to accelerate our growth?” So far, we haven’t. Those discussions are always active at Edifecs. One thing I’ve learned as an entrepreneur is to never take anything for granted. Always challenge your thinking over and over again. Always come back to the fundamental questions and keep asking, “How can we be different today?”

Sramana Mitra: This is a fabulous story. Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Bootstrapping to $100 Million: Edifecs CEO Sunny Singh
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