MEET DR SIMANTA SHARMA, a maverick and Sharmistha Dey, a perfectionist. When they packed their bags and left their hometown Guwahati in their twenties, they carried with them their dreams and a cluster of ideas. When they met, he shared one of his big ideas with her, she added her bit and fine-tuned it, and together they created their own online brand — a consumer health and wellness portal billed www.bolohealth.com that facilitates social networking on health. Said to be India’s first such portal, bolohealth.com is all about the power of the consumer — to voice, to share, to connect on health — that’s why the name ‘bolo-health’.

Both Simanta and Sharmistha have toiled hard, gone against popular conventions and have been successful in making a mark for themselves. They both hail from premier colleges, Simanta being a medical graduate from Guwahati Medical College & Hospital (GMCH) while Sharmistha is a graduate in English honours from Cotton College, Guwahati. They both left the safe and comfortable cocoons of their families very early in their lives to create a niche for themselves in their respective fields. Dr Sharma went on to do his MBA while working in Mumbai while Sharmistha worked as a journalist during her post graduation years in Delhi University.

Having worked for some of the best organizations of India, both finally decided to take the road less travelled of being entrepreneurs. The health portal is an outcome of their zest to do something on their own, and take up fresh challenges in their careers. Simanta and Sharmistha met their likeminded partner in Jini Mathai and together they found an angel investor in the US to provide them with the initial seedfund. They set up office in the heart of Mumbai and with a start-up team of ten people (including themselves), began their journey of being first generation entrepreneurs from their respective families.

Simanta manages the portal as its managing director and CEO while Sharmistha is the portal’s chief editor & content officer (CECO). It has been a one-year journey — from the time the company was formed to the launch of the final product. bolohealth.com is India’s most comprehensive portal on health and wellness in India, poised to make health easy, relevant and happening what with its many microsites, or healthzones as they are called on the site to expert blogs to interesting slideshows, interactive zones such as quizzes and QnAs and more.

The USP of the portal is social networking on health — users can connect with one another, they can blog, voice their opinion by creating and joining groups and discussions on their areas of interest in health and wellness. Says Simanta: “The portal will fill a long unfulfilled need of the netizens of India to make right and balanced decisions on health for themselves, and for their family and friends. bolohealth.com is not a substitute for professional medical care rather it augments the latter by making users more receptive to therapies, more receptive to outcomes and better manage their personal health.”

As founders of the portal, their dream is to make bolohealth.com the numero-uno portal in India in the coming years. Sharmistha says, “bolohealth.com will be further enhanced in the coming months with additions such as e-commerce and mobile convergence as more and more people start networking on, and accessing the portal.”

Both Simanta and Sharmistha feel, “it is important to do what you enjoy, work for your passion rather than just the paycheque.” Being staunch believers in the message of good health, empowerment and independence, they have taken the first step to realize their dreams of being entrepreneurs with bolohealth.com. No wonder, one of their favourite lines is from Steven Tyler’s song, “Dream on, dream on, dream until your dream come true.”

Bornali Konwar