Industrialist and the Emeritus Chairman of Tata Sons Ratan Tata made an investment in senior companionship startup Goodfellows without revealing the amount of investment. Goodfellows has been founded by Shantanu Naidu, a manager in his office.
Naidu, who has studied from the Cornell University, is a general manager in Tata’s office and has been assisting Tata since 2018. His startup is aimed at bringing together senior citizens with young graduates. Youngsters having skills of empathy and emotional intelligence are recruited by Goodfellows so that they can work as the companions of senior citizens.
Speaking at the launch of the event, 84-year-old Tata said, “You do not know what it is like to be lonely until you spend time alone wishing for companionship”, adding that no one cares about getting old until they actually get old. He also praised Naidu’s ideation and also forgiving his mentee for the time he spends away from the office.
“The bonds between the two generations created by Goodfellows are very meaningful and are helping to address an important social issue In India. I hope the investment helps the young team at Goodfellows grow,” Tata said.
Goodfellows has completed a beta phase in Pune over the past six months and is now looking to expand its services in Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru.
The company said the young graduates, which it has been hiring, are vetted for empathy and affinity towards the elderlies. The vetting process is aimed at selecting the best applicants who can engage with the clients in an “authentic and meaningful way”, it added.
Naidu, additionally, stated that companionship has a different meaning for different set of clients. “To some it may mean watching a movie, narrating stories from the past, going on a walk or quiet company sitting around doing nothing together, and we are here to accommodate it all,” he added.
Goodfellows
The business model of Goodfellows is a “freemium subscription model”. The first month of the services will be free, a small subscription fee will be levied from the second month onwards. Typically, a companion would visit a client three times a week, spending up to four hours per visit. The company charges Rs 5,000 as the base subscription fees for a month, after a month’s free service.
The company also organises monthly get-together events, where the clients can “meet each other as well as more young graduates, building a sense of community”.
In a year’s time, the company plans to have 100 registered companions serving about 350-400 senior citizens across the country, he said, stressing that unlike a conventional startup, which has milestones, Goodfellows will not be chasing business targets as hard till it is able to make the desired social impact.
