Health consciousness may well have swiftly graduated from lip service to a lifestyle cue, with an interest in smartwatches to track health data or heart rate, step count ring completions as a source of pride on social media posts and the rise of ‘healthy eating’ as a trend, but a glaring paradox still stares back at us — all this still happens in isolation, with little direction towards an actual health or wellness benefit, and as a result, preventive healthcare hasn’t scaled proportionately. Indian startup RightLife wants personalised health plans to be a reality, including what a user eats and how much they exercise. All without any new expensive wearables such as smartwatches, rings, or trackers. Their proposition is, everything you already have (even if it is only the phone), comes together as a collective data set for precise guidance.
In a conversation with HT, Adit Mukherjee, the co-founder of RightLife points out that smartwatches and wearables are great at what they do, but they mostly lack context because a user can’t decipher data holistically. “Being healthy for a week unfortunately won’t really yield any long term result,” he sums up the situation, quite perfectly. We asked Mukherjee that users today juggle separate apps for sleep, food, steps, mindfulness—none of which talk to each other, and he opines the health industry has tolerated fragmentation because it’s easier to solve for a single metric than for a whole human being “We believe the future of health lies in integration, not isolation,” he says.
Mukherjee talks about India’s health awareness trajectory, structuring the RightLife proposition without a wearable in the mix, and how challenging it was to put proprietary algorithms in place with that necessary Indian optimisation. Edited excerpts.
Q. India is arguably more health-aware than ever — step counts, calorie calculations, physical health metrics, all becoming mainstream. Yet preventive care hasn’t scaled. Where exactly do you feel the system pauses? Is it lack of motivation, affordability of wearables, trust, or lack of continuity?
Adit Mukherjee: I think it’s the demand from consumers and their expectations from preventive care that has changed. Largely, people’s expectation from any so-called “preventive health” activity, whether it’s hitting the gym or getting a diet plan, has been external looks over internal feeling. I think the conversation is now turning towards tackling much larger issues like diabetes and hypertension. We need to make that jump from vanity-driven to vitality-driven. The knowledge and habits needed have been largely unchanged for years, it’s just that people now are beginning to prioritise the concept of being healthy overall rather than just shed some kilos.
I think the tools all exist. Wearables do a great job with tracking trends with options ranging from ₹3,000 – ₹50,000. Holistic apps and chat models make it easier for all your data to talk to each other and motivation can make you a machine for a week. But therein lies the catch. Being healthy for a week unfortunately won’t really yield any long term result. I think the day preventive health in India scales is the day a critical mass of the population realises that being healthy is simply being consistent with great foundational habits. Along with that, it’s continuously learning and incremental improvement that compounds the good effects over time.
Q. Tell us about how the RightLife proposition is structured, without a wearable. How convinced were you from the outset that this approach would work?
Adit Mukherjee: RightLife is centered around health outcomes. We use a mix of data, lifestyle habits and consistent behaviour to provide personal health intelligence and actionable. Even without a wearable, our facial scan is enough to give us sufficient context about your baselines and potential improvements. To illustrate my point with a simple example, if you walk 20,000 steps in a day, that is much more than usual, we’re able to use this data and calculate how much extra you would potentially have to sleep that night to recover. It’s a simple correlation between your day’s activity and sleep. We’ve all known this link existed, it’s just a matter of making a person aware of the actual scientific implication.
From the outset, I was personally convinced of two things. First, your sleep, nutrition, mental and physical health are corelated. Secondly, there was a market gap for an easy-to-use tool that needed to understand me before giving next steps (whether in the form of education or action) and not peddle their own course or method like it’s the only thing that works.
The beauty of health is that there’s no set way, just an assortment of easy to follow rules. As long as those rules are built around an understanding of your life and situation, you’ll see more people wanting to be a part of what you’re building and being healthy.
Q. I believe you have deployed proprietary algorithms to make sense of the workout, sleep, meal and every other health data. How do you tailor these for specific Indian habits, and also nudge behaviour change without false reassurances?
Adit Mukherjee: The algorithms we have written are based on peer-reviewed research papers on a human biology level, so there’s no specific changes we have made to those. However, where the Indian-isation lies is in the simplicity of the approach. India is a trust deficient and value driven country. We want things relevant to our habits and experience. That’s the beauty of our AI layer. Our models that are in beta at the moment are built around moving away from repetitive data entry toward a conversational interface that tailors the entire app experience to a user’s lived-in reality. When you combine this level of understanding with a clear baseline set on the basis of scientific facts, we ensure our nudges provide objective accountability rather than comfortable illusions. It’s all about treading that fine line between health principles and a person’s circumstances.
Q. Most users today juggle separate apps for sleep, food, steps, mindfulness — none of which talk to each other. Why has the industry tolerated fragmentation for so long?
Adit Mukherjee: That’s a great question, and it’s one that I asked myself a few years back when my father was brainstorming the app concept. My take is that the health industry has tolerated fragmentation because it’s easier to solve for a single metric than for a whole human being, but we believe the future of health lies in integration, not isolation. The health industry saw a market fit in preaching an approach and sort of just saying “my way or the highway” after that. That’s the reason you see IPs like 75 Hard, Keto and other approaches take centre stage, and people are under the false impression that following one of those is the only way to get healthier. I don’t think anyone really took the time to understand from first principles and relook at the core issue.
When AI came around a few years back, correlation became possible. However, AI usage is purely defined by the quality of questions you ask. If you’re not health aware in the first place, it makes it far trickier to use it to its full potential. So we try to ask the correct questions to people along with mapping their relevant data, get their point of view on things, and then use it to build a personalised model that is just more relevant in the long term. So you’re not completely reliant on knowing everything on Day 1, and we know how to send you the correct bite-sized content pieces or small pieces of guidance that move you forward.
Q. How do you see India’s health awareness transitioning into real preventive healthcare on the back of actionable metrics, and how do you expect the digital health co-pilots to evolve with functionality that you probably have in test labs but not yet in consumer versions?
Adit Mukherjee: I think to start with, you will see a lot more health concepts get mainstream that provide a much better understanding of the human body. I think the prevailing environmental and staggering health conditions will push people to take a lot more steps towards better habits today, and personal health intelligence platforms will play a role. Ultimately, true market fit will emerge when these platforms stop acting as digital encyclopaedias and start functioning as “behavioural engines” that translate thorough data analysis into real-world health outcomes, making the right health choice the path of least resistance for a user.
