From Pivot to Perspective: How a Startup Setback Led Me to PGP PRO

In 2019, I co-founded HealthAnlytx to help corporates personalise employee healthcare and support insurers with smarter pricing. We had early traction, strong intent and a clear value proposition. Then COVID arrived, and everything changed. Clients vanished overnight, and my team and I found ourselves staring at the question no founder wants to face: what now?

We pivoted fast. We ran doorstep sample collections, corporate health camps and helped hotels set up isolation centres. Later, we built a digital prescription tool that crossed one lakh prescriptions. For a while, we felt unstoppable. We were cash positive, scaling quickly and reaching thousands.

But when the pandemic eased, the market became crowded, and only well-funded players survived. HealthAnlytx faded. That failure taught me more than any win. I discovered passion and comfort with risk, but also the gaps that held me back in strategy, fundraising and long-term thinking. Luck had carried me, but it was not a plan. That realisation led me to rethink who I wanted to become.

The Shift That Reframed Everything

Until then, I believed business was something you learned only by doing. Yet my first venture showed me that building and scaling require frameworks, discipline and a structured understanding of decision-making. That is what brought me to ISB.

PGP PRO offered exactly what I needed. I could keep working, keep building and still learn from people who look at the world through the lens of consulting, finance, manufacturing, pharma and fields far from mine. I wanted that contrast. I wanted to sharpen my thinking in rooms where perspectives collide.

My first month at ISB reminded me why I took this step. Late-night team assignments felt like college again, except every discussion was backed by years of real experience. 

In our Management of Organisations and Teams class, we did not just learn concepts. We tested ourselves in leadership, planning and negotiation. I walked out of that session feeling noticeably changed.

The Moment Growth Became Personal

The biggest shift happened during the strengths assessment. For years, I had tried to fix my weaknesses, believing that was the route to growth. ISB challenged that. I realised I had spent years trying to patch gaps instead of building on what came naturally to me.

It took me back to HealthAnlytx. I had tried to carry every load, fix every problem and fill every gap myself. If I had focused more on strengths, both mine and my team’s, the outcomes might have been different.

That mindset shift is what ISB is giving me. Not just frameworks but clarity. Not just classes but awareness. As Gandhiji said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” 

For me, that begins with unlearning old habits and rebuilding myself as a leader. I feel grateful to learn from professors like Professor Debolina Dutta and from peers who challenge my thinking every day.

What the Future Demands of Me

Today, I lead Ze[Code], a hiring-tech platform. My ambition is to scale it globally, integrate AI and machine-learning-driven interview scoring, and transform how companies hire and how candidates experience interviews.

I’ve built products before, and I know I can take ideas from zero to one. But my bigger dream now is to launch an AI/ML-driven product in the UI/UX and personalisation space, something that truly adapts to users and solves real-world experience gaps.
With ISB, I want to learn how to scale such products, position them better, and take them to the right audience globally. 

ISB, for me, is not just a Post Graduate Programme in Management for Working Professionals but a reset. It is a chance to rewire how I think about growth, leadership and impact. The journey has only begun, but I can already feel myself shifting in the direction I once hoped for but never knew how to reach.

Synopsis 

Jaswanth Matam, co-founder of HealthAnlytx and now a product leader at Ze[Code], reflects on how a pandemic pivot, a startup setback and the search for strategic clarity led him to ISB’s PGP PRO. His journey captures the shift from relying on instinct and luck to embracing structure, perspective and leadership as he prepares to build and scale globally.