For the insurance veteran turned rookie founder, age was just a number when he decided to start Digit Insurance in 2015. Five years later, his company is a unicorn, with a valuation of $3.5 billion
I know how little I know. But I also know how much I don't know: Kamesh Goyal, founder, Digit
Image: Selvaprakash Lakshmanan for Forbes India
In 2015, Kamesh Goyal was fighting the biggest battle of his life. For the 50-year-old seasoned insurance professional, though, it was not a fair fight. Reason: The enemy was formidable, the tactics were crippling, and to make matters worse, the rival was invisible. “I was fighting self-doubt,” recalls Goyal. “It was the only thing playing on my mind.”
Six years ago, his self-doubt was immensely overwhelming. Goyal was mulling to take a plunge into entrepreneurship after working for over two-and-a-half decades in the insurance business. “Am I still good enough to do a startup?” he bluntly asked himself. The self-evaluation process started with all the positives that he had diligently accumulated since 1988 when he accidentally started his career in the insurance world by joining The New India Assurance. The biggest plus, he reasoned, was the rich cumulative experience of the insurance industry. He had all the reasons to believe that his innings as a founder would be nothing less than a natural extension of his old profession.
The second silver lining for the St Stephen’s College alumnus was also easy to spot. The MBA grad from Faculty of Management Studies (FMS) had successfully executed a clutch of challenging roles during his 16-year stint with German insurer Allianz. “I am not starting from scratch,” he tried to convince himself. “I have done it and I have to just repeat it,” he dished out another self-explanatory note, trying to kill every iota of nagging doubt. The third encouraging thing that egged Goyal to turn founder was this thought of leading a life without regret. The bigger regret, he recounts, would have been not trying.
While the 50-year-old was having a tough time in backing himself, a 12-year-old child kept popping up in Goyal’s memory and offered him the much-needed courage. In one of the books that Goyal read when he was 12—and he still vividly remembers every word of it—there was an inspirational quote attributed to Napolean Hill, a celebrated American self-help author. “Whatever your mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve,” it read. The child had a message for the man.
(This story appears in the 17 December, 2021 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)