What we talked about
Ishanya Anthapur joins Federico Ramallo to explore how Zemplee’s camera-free sensors and Alexa integration empower caregivers, boost nurse productivity, and preserve the independence of older adults. She shares why her ecology background still shapes her product instincts, how a year of teaching honed her storytelling skills, and why empathy is the north star for every feature she ships. The conversation ranges from building trust with non-technical users to balancing rapid releases with HIPAA compliance:and even detours into the value of voluntary adventure for lifelong growth.
Show notes
Ishanya Anthapur studied ecology at Princeton, spent a year teaching middle school math and science, then pivoted into healthcare technology product management, and she argues every one of those detours made her better at the job. At Zemplee, she works on a passive monitoring system for aging adults that deliberately has no cameras, because the dignity of the people being monitored is a design constraint, not an afterthought.
What we covered
- Zemplee places passive motion sensors, similar in grade to a security system, throughout a residence with no cameras and no wearables. A neural network analyzes the resulting behavioral data to establish a baseline for that individual, then sends alerts to remote caregivers when something deviates: a missed bathroom visit, an unusual stillness, a pattern shift that could indicate a UTI, kidney trouble, or a fall.
- The product was built by the CEO and her engineering partner because both had aging parents living far away. They wanted to confirm their parents were okay without watching them use the bathroom. That origin story, built from a real and personal need, shapes every design decision Ishanya described.
- One of the most meaningful outcomes Ishanya shared: two clients of a Kansas home care agency became so comfortable with the system that they moved back into their own private apartments rather than in with their adult children. The children felt confident enough in the passive monitoring that they could give their parents back independence.
- The data resolves a persistent problem in elder care: when nurses ask whether someone used the bathroom in the last three days, patients will often say yes out of pride or habit. With Zemplee’s data, nurses can say calmly, “I can see that you didn’t”, removing the emotional charge from the conversation and moving directly to what to do about it.
- Nurses using Zemplee can manage more patients more efficiently because they no longer need to use appointment time on basic activity checks. The routine monitoring is automated, freeing the human conversation for meaningful clinical and emotional engagement, which, in America, where nurses sometimes see 100 patients in a day, is a significant operational shift.
- Ishanya draws a direct line from teaching middle schoolers to product management: both require translating complex information for multiple audiences simultaneously, knowing when someone needs words versus graphs versus video, and creating the equivalent of a lesson plan that reaches the kid with ADHD and the kid who is dyslexic at the same time. She now applies that framing to bridging engineering and customer conversations.
- Her next step is an MBA oriented toward impact investing, with a specific goal of directing capital toward women-led and people-of-color-led startups from the VC side, an extension of the mission-driven orientation she described as central to her career choices.
About Ishanya
Ishanya Anthapur is a product manager at Zemplee, a healthcare technology startup building passive AI-powered monitoring systems for aging adults and their remote caregivers. She holds an ecology degree from Princeton and brings prior experience as a classroom teacher and in startup product roles.
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ishanya-anthapur-a7405a122
- Website: https://zemplee.com
Episode 26 of the PreVetted Podcast.
Full transcript
Federico Ramallo (00:01.12) Welcome to Prevented Podcasts, a blend of tech and leadership. Our guest today is Ishania Athampour. Hello, Ishania. How are you doing today?
Ishanya Anthapur (00:14.248) Federico, I’m doing well. am joining you from my apartment in Berkeley, California, where it’s lovely day and I’m excited to dive into some tech topics.
Federico Ramallo (00:28.034) Great, right. I’m usually from Mexico, recording the podcast, but today I’m from Buenos Aires. I show you the view is beautiful. We have the view to the Congress. So it’s, know, interesting.
Ishanya Anthapur (00:46.676) Thank
Federico Ramallo (00:48.878) This is where a lot of people come to protest. you know, it used to be very noisy, but today it’s very quiet. Everybody’s, you know, everybody’s out.
Ishanya Anthapur (01:00.062) Yeah
Ishanya Anthapur (01:05.436) It’s a calm day in Argentina today.
Federico Ramallo (01:09.218) Yes, yes. there’s been a lot of, Argentina has been through multiple crisis throughout the years. So it’s been very interesting, but today it’s a good day. Yeah. So I wanted to ask you a little bit about, you you studied ecology at Princeton, right? How did you switch from that to working in tech?
Ishanya Anthapur (01:40.884) That’s a really good question. And you know, the honest answer is I didn’t intentionally switch from moving from a scientific field to more tech. Just sort of happens over the course of your career, right? You sort of follow the opportunities as they come. But my current job is in healthcare tech. And so I do feel like I use a lot of my biology.
learnings and degree, I’m still able to bring that to the, the, this tech startup. And I like to say like ecology is nature, nature is everywhere, whether you’re in high tech or you’re in investment banking, or you’re in straight up science research, or if you’re in the arts. So I still get to bring a lot of my understanding of how the human body works, how
systems work. A computer is just a system, right? And especially as we are moving towards the fields of AI and with what our company’s doing with AI and human behavior, it’s more important than ever to have a good kind of biological understanding of what drives behavior. Why are people acting the way they are acting? And I come from the ecology background. And so it’s a lot of like,
what natural influences does the world have on human behavior. And I did study a lot of animals, but animals, humans are animals at the end of the day. So I find that it actually really syncs up and blends together pretty well. And I still get to draw a lot on my ecology degree in my tech world. So I’m really happy with the.
the merging of those two. And I will say as well, like for young listeners who are coming out of school and if you’ve sort of done one thing in your undergrad and you want to pivot to something else or maybe you get an opportunity to pivot, I think it’s totally fine. Nobody is saying that because you studied science or let’s say English in your undergrad that you have to pick that for the rest of your career, right?
Federico Ramallo (04:04.046) Cheers.
Ishanya Anthapur (04:04.965) If you got the opportunity to pivot, whatever you learned in that sector, you’re going to bring those skills to your new sector. And I guarantee there’s going to be something transferable. But I think for scientists, like I was given the opportunity at the end of undergrad to either keep pursuing science research. So working in the lab with my advisor and pursuing the PhD route. And I just
Federico Ramallo (04:14.99) guaranteed.
Thank
Ishanya Anthapur (04:32.583) kind of took an assessment of myself and I was like, I love learning, but I wanted to be in a more fast paced environment. So I wanted to switch to industry rather than staying in the research route.
Federico Ramallo (04:42.382) rather than staying in the…
Right, right, very interesting. So yeah, I agree with you that at the end of the day, we’re animals, right? And I said that in a positive way, right? But we, I used to believe like, well, we’re an evolved species, but then we end up having the same behavior of parents as animals, right? So, you know.
Ishanya Anthapur (04:54.099) Yes.
Ishanya Anthapur (05:01.946) Exactly.
Federico Ramallo (05:15.63) So it’s… god.
Ishanya Anthapur (05:18.021) Yeah, I think we find that… sorry, Federica. I was gonna say, I feel you’re so right. We are evolved, but we still have the same drivers, right? We want security, we want food, we want love, we want… Those are kind of the main things. And that doesn’t change whether we’re a mouse or a human being living in an apartment in a city.
Federico Ramallo (05:46.124) Yes, yes. being able to understand that allow us to understand everything else because we have better tools, but then if we don’t have a deep understanding of our basic behaviors, then we become slaves of our impulses, right?
Ishanya Anthapur (06:12.829) Completely. think good product design, which I know we’ll get into product design a little later, but good product design is understanding where these deep rooted human impulses come from, which is, as I said, know, security, food, love and understanding and community. We could call that community. but yeah, those are the main drivers of why people
get hooked onto products, comes to satisfy one of those buckets of just very core instinctual needs.
Federico Ramallo (06:48.675) Right.
And I was reading a book about, we’re talking about gratification and instant gratification and meaning, right? So if you’re doing something that gives you instant gratification, and it has meaning, it’s like adding salt to the food. It enhances the flavors, right? Or spice, you know?
Ishanya Anthapur (07:05.875) Mmm.
Ishanya Anthapur (07:23.327) yeah. I like the spice analogy because I love spicy food.
Federico Ramallo (07:31.426) Yes, yes, I realized, you know, I should mention spice because salt would not, you know, would not have that, would not resonate with you, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am, I used, I’m from Argentina, you know, and as I mentioned, and I moved to Mexico many years ago. And I used to think that, you know, we were talking about spice. I used to think that spice is like a single dimensional, you know, it’s a,
Ishanya Anthapur (07:41.533) Yeah
Federico Ramallo (08:01.42) or it’s hot or it’s not hot, right? And then you just one spice and that was it. And then in Mexico and in India as well, right? They have so many variants of spices, right? And, you know, they, and, you know, this is something for the audience, you know, probably don’t know that, you know, it gets hot some different parts of the body, know, some of the lips, some of the nose, some of the throat, right? Some of the stomach, right?
Ishanya Anthapur (08:04.274) Hmm.
Ishanya Anthapur (08:13.938) you
Federico Ramallo (08:29.772) and they have a delay, right? So you eat, you don’t realize, and then the spice kills you. It’s like, it’s too much.
Ishanya Anthapur (08:38.031) Yeah
And it’s, it’s, you have to build that balance in the relationship with spices, I would say, and understand like what your own limits are, what other people’s limits are. And similar to, I think what you were talking about with the instant gratification and the meaning, like everyone’s meaning is going to be slightly different.
Federico Ramallo (08:48.76) You
Ishanya Anthapur (09:09.168) Because we are humans, right? We are so complex. have tons of emotions and behaviors that will add a different meaning to everyone’s, add a different spice we could say to everyone’s instant gratification. I think good products are able to see instant gratification is easier to capture. And they’re able to take that, incorporate it into their product and then allow the users to add their own meaning to it.
So it’s kind of like providing a base dish and then giving people little spices and saying, you can create your own. We want you to derive meaning however you derive meaning from this product, but our product will satisfy this basic need.
Federico Ramallo (09:50.562) Right, right. The meaning is this mountain, right? In the top of the mountain, you have something that has personal significance for each of us, right? And we’re climbing this mountain, right? That’s kind of the definition of happiness, right? The climbing of the mountain, right? Once you reach it, you know, we urge for another mountain to climb, right? It is the climbing, it’s not the reaching, right?
Ishanya Anthapur (10:04.421) Exactly.
Ishanya Anthapur (10:17.072) Exactly.
Federico Ramallo (10:20.802) The meaning, it’s, know, what I’m doing, it’s helping me towards getting towards that, the top of that mount, right? Or at least that’s how I think about meaning, right? And the, and as you’re saying, you know, we can use social networks, right? They give you a lot of instant gratification, but usually without meaning, right? Because it’s like, why am I wasting my time scrolling endlessly, right?
Ishanya Anthapur (10:33.456) Yeah, exactly.
Federico Ramallo (10:50.37) because the product is designed to do that, to keep us entertained. But then when we add meaning to the product and we provide instant notification, then the experience for the users is amazing. And they love the products that we built.
Ishanya Anthapur (11:16.562) Yeah, exactly. think social media is a very interesting one because like you said, it is all about instant gratification. And then where think where meaning comes in is, you know, someone, a teenager, for example, might be using it as an escape or they could be using it because they don’t, they want a sense of community online that they don’t have in the real world. Um, and
Federico Ramallo (11:16.983) Ahem.
Ishanya Anthapur (11:46.075) And we see the same across like the elderly as well. So I work in, in elder care now. but I think it’s, everyone has that instant gratification urge, but the meaning they assign to what happens when you scroll to the next thing is very different. and then for some people it’s like satisfies that loneliness factor. Some people it’s purely entertainment and they don’t get caught up in like endless.
you know, do news scrolling or whatnot. Some people do want to hear about the world. They wanted that to satisfy that urge. That’s like, I need to know what’s going on in this part of the world or whatnot. So maybe a control kind of a meaning they bring to it. So it is pretty fascinating. And I do feel like they are designed to sort of keep you hooked in to scrolling endlessly though, which probably is for the product’s benefit.
Federico Ramallo (12:39.883) Hahaha.
Ishanya Anthapur (12:43.554) I think humans could probably do a better job of trying to be like, do I really derive meaning from this product if I’m on it for two hours? Which I’m guilty of, granted, I’m very guilty. I do try to train myself to sort of think mindfully about why am I on this app or what is this solving for me? And is that important goal to be solving right now?
So that helps me kind of regulate my social media usage.
Federico Ramallo (13:18.808) Yes, yes, I mean, we don’t want social media to take more than we’re willing to put into it, right? We don’t want social media to control us, right? Yeah.
Ishanya Anthapur (13:29.689) Exactly, yeah.
Ishanya Anthapur (13:35.611) Yes.
Federico Ramallo (13:36.93) And the reason I keep going back to meaning is, and we can talk a little bit about Zemple, I hope I’m pronouncing it correctly, because it has a significant and an important meaning, You’re solving problems for caregivers, right? So can you tell us a little bit about what the product does?
Ishanya Anthapur (13:48.518) Yeah.
Ishanya Anthapur (14:05.073) Sure. So Zempley, you got it right, Federico. Zempley, it’s a security system for elders living in their homes or living in a facility. Really, we can adapt to any residence, but it’s some kind of security system that we provide that allows a remote caregiver or virtual caregiver to have insight into what’s going on with that.
person’s behaviors in their residence. And that’s the high level overview. So what we actually do is provide these sensors that go in the house that don’t have any cameras and aren’t dependent on wearables. Like they’re not like a watch or a life pendant pen. They’re passive sensors that just get placed in your house that are kind of like a security system grade sensors.
that we’ve repurposed for this product. And we basically detect behavior patterns to the house with no cameras. So we’ll just see that someone is moving around at their normal activity level. They’re performing activities of daily living, which is dining, toileting, and sleeping. So those are really important in the healthcare world, especially in terms of senior care.
or aging care, we want to make sure people are continuously doing these activities of daily living. And then because we are collecting this data, we’re able to establish sort of your daily brew print. Like what does this person do on the regular, regular day? How do they live their life? And once we see any anomalies or detect any deviations from that, like a missed bathroom,
event or several missed bathroom events, we will send an alert to the virtual caregiver or the remote caregiver. And that ends up being either nurses who are monitoring from afar, or it could even be the family members who are just not living with their aging loved one. They might live a town away. They might live a country away. Right. And so this is really meant to solve that problem of how can I
Ishanya Anthapur (16:30.563) as a remote caregiver have some kind of insight into the patterns and behaviors of my aging loved one.
Federico Ramallo (16:41.804) very interesting. So you see without seeing and you monitor without intruding.
Ishanya Anthapur (16:46.736) Yes.
Ishanya Anthapur (16:50.895) Yes, I think that’s one of the designs because we really value the dignity of the aging population. You’ll hear about, there’s products on the market that do have these cameras and some people are comfortable with them, but we’ve noticed that lots of people are not comfortable being monitored, especially for activities of daily living like toileting, eating and sleeping. They don’t want to be watched all the time.
And that’s not our goal either. We’re not telling any remote caregiver, Hey, you need to be watching your loved one or your patient 24/7. We kind of propose, Hey, we’re going to be there passively in the background. And our technology, what we’ve done with a neural network is be able to capture behavior, analyze it as a caregiver would a trained caregiver and
analyze if this behavior is healthy or behavior is slightly unhealthy. and yeah, The whole goal is to keep the dignity and the privacy of these aging people safe while also keeping them physically safe.
Federico Ramallo (18:06.808) Right, It’s a very delicate balance between intrusive monitoring and missing alerts. We miss something important, right?
Ishanya Anthapur (18:19.939) Yeah. And I think in the current world, there is so much that goes, as you said, Federico is missed so much that’s not captured by a annual doctor’s visit, right? They’re not going to capture the fact that for three months you were sleeping badly. And that could be a sign of so many things, UTI or some kind of kidney trouble or even heart issues.
they might, the doctor might just see you once a year and they don’t have a scope of really what is your behavior telling us about health. But we can, we’re able to both process that, kind of contextualize that into words and graphs for the average person like you and me to understand about a patient or a loved one. And I think that’s just really beautiful. And we’ve seen
My favorite is when aging, the children of these aging parents come back and are thankful of the product because they get to know their own parent better and have a little more security about their own aging parent.
Federico Ramallo (19:32.684) Right, right. That’s very interesting. That’s why I keep thinking about, know, like it took me a while to understand the product. And that’s why I kept thinking, you know, circling my mind, the word meaning, because, you know, it’s an easy, it’s easy to do a flashy marketing approach to, you know,
Ishanya Anthapur (19:36.88) you
Ishanya Anthapur (19:48.335) Hmm.
Federico Ramallo (20:00.878) to a solution like this, but usually ineffective. And as you said, it sounds great to put cameras, oh, we can watch everything, but that’s not effective. And you’re sacrificing the dignity of the people for a flashy marketing advertise. So, right.
Ishanya Anthapur (20:14.254) Yeah.
Ishanya Anthapur (20:24.688) Very true. And even with a camera, think they can end up being expensive. You have to kind of put cameras everywhere, right? If you want to capture the whole house. But you’re right, Federico. think I’ve seen other products that do have cameras involved and they are kind of offering in a different
field that we’re offering, right? Those are for maybe, it’s almost like they take away the privacy of that patient or that loved one. And they’re saying, you’re so, you are so unhealthy, you need to be watched 24 seven. And I agree, there’s completely a space for that market. There are people that are living that way. But the majority of us when we turn 50, 55, 60, 65, it’s like we’re still not in that completely
Federico Ramallo (21:06.957) Right.
Ishanya Anthapur (21:21.196) unhealthy space, but we might start to have falls. And that’s really what exemplary we think that’s where it’s important to sort of start being passively monitored. so nothing intrusive, right? Like your data, your facial data, your body, nothing about it is getting collected and pushed to any agencies. It’s all like HIPAA compliant and managed by us, but we just think that
there’s so many missed falls in those early ages, early years of aging. And because we’re humans, right? Like a few falls when you’re 60 is going to have a huge impact when you’re 70, right? It might kind of weaken your knees, damage your hips, things like that. And that’s kind of the gap that we see in healthcare as well, that these annual doctors visits, they aren’t capturing all this information and all this behavior about
Federico Ramallo (22:06.136) Yes.
Ishanya Anthapur (22:20.14) what really makes a person, what really makes a patient. And we’re trying to capture a bit broader scope and say like, over the years, your behavior has really been impacted by XYZ. We’ve seen these kinds of changes. We’ve seen, you know, declines in eating, or maybe we haven’t seen declines in eating, or we’ve seen falls increasing at this rate. Or maybe we haven’t seen falls increasing at this rate. You’re doing great. Like,
stay healthy. But yeah, yeah, we don’t want to sacrifice the dignity of our patients at the heart of it. And that really came, think, from our CEO built this product out of her own need to be a remote caregiver for her aging parents. And so because it was built by and her partner the same, her engineering partner, who’s my boss,
They both had parents aging away from where they were living. And I think this product came from that real life personal need of, want to take care of my parents, but I don’t want, I don’t want to spy on them. Like I don’t want to watch them go to the bathroom and I don’t need to do that. I just need to make sure they’re okay day to day that they’re doing a couple basic activities. and then, you know, if they do fall and they’re alone, I don’t want.
Federico Ramallo (23:37.582) I don’t need to do that.
Federico Ramallo (23:46.284) if they do fall, because they’re in middle of the night.
Ishanya Anthapur (23:48.997) them to be found by someone else. I want to be the one to find them and call in and say, Hey, you haven’t been moving for 60 minutes and it’s unusual based on your patterns. Like, or is everything okay?
Federico Ramallo (23:54.305) you have a big movement.
Federico Ramallo (24:01.696) Right, right. Yes, it gives you peace of mind, especially now that we are remote, we’re traveling around the world, where we want to be there, go out, do stuff, and then having the peace of mind that our family is being taken care of.
Ishanya Anthapur (24:25.782) Exactly. think peace of mind is a great phrase. We use that a lot in our internal talks. We use that a lot in our marketing, but that sort of peace of mind is invaluable, right? We all care so much about our families. Maybe that’s one of those basic human biological needs for protecting your community. But I’ve noticed that, yeah, people just
want to know their loved ones are safe. And I think we’re as a company’s employee, we’re not saying that we can replace the value of a human interaction, such as you going to see your mom, Federico, and following up on her surgery, is nothing is going to replace that value of, you know, having your, your child come and take care of you. But like you said, in the increasingly busy world,
increasingly remote or more technologically connected. you have to either you have to fly or you have the ability to be remote. This kind of system is going to provide a basic level of security so that you can feel free to go do your stuff, live your life, but know that there’s something keeping an eye out for your family. And the other aspect is we know it’s very expensive, at least in America.
And increasingly so in other countries, England is pretty on par with America. It’s very expensive to hire a full-time caregiver to come in every day and check on your aging parent or check on a patient. Even for senior living facilities or home care facilities, hiring caregivers to come do these basic checks is pretty expensive. And we think…
Having something like Zempley technology take care of the basic, okay, have they eaten? Have they used the restroom today? Have they gotten out of bed? Have they walked around? Are they sleeping enough hours? Are they hydrating? Those are things we can detect and tell. Having the technology do that leaves a lot of time for the caregiver to have a further conversation. Just like you at this podcast, right? You want to actually have that hour to talk about
Ishanya Anthapur (26:49.785) How is that person, how’s that patient doing? Or just talk about life and social stuff for that patient, for that loved one. You don’t want to spend so much time just getting through the basics, like how’s your digestion, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? You want to have a deeper conversation. And we think that’s what humans are good at, having these deeper, meaningful conversations. And that technology is good at collecting and analyzing data. And so that’s, that’s our value proposition.
Federico Ramallo (26:58.03) You don’t want to spend so much time in
Federico Ramallo (27:06.402) We think that’s what’s…
Federico Ramallo (27:20.398) Right, right. And you don’t want to continuously talk about, you know, have you drink water, know, have you go to a bathroom regularly, right? What you want is, you know, to have the peace of mind that that’s being monitored and you’re going to get an alert, right? When those situations happen and then you can deal with it, right? That way you can focus on much more fulfilling conversations.
Ishanya Anthapur (27:44.918) Exactly.
Federico Ramallo (27:51.118) So what has been the most interesting story that you learn from the passive monitoring that help people?
Ishanya Anthapur (27:51.769) Completely, yeah, I mean.
Ishanya Anthapur (28:04.567) Yeah, one really interesting story is from our clients in Kansas where the children of the, our client in Kansas is a home care agency. So we are employed by them, but the nurses at the care agency get to have meaningful conversations with the patients every.
every day or every other day. And so they built these relationships with not only the patient, but with their family members that come visit with the other nurses taking care of them. And that’s all managed through our Alexa integration as well. So the Alexa kind of ties in that communication aspect between the remote caregiver and the patient or the loved one. But our nurses were telling us that they had
two patients that were, their family was so comfortable with the passive monitoring and the Alexa devices communication that they wanted to move their parents out of the house and into their own individual apartments. So I think that’s an amazing story. You don’t normally hear that the older someone gets, the more reliable they, they usually moving into their child’s apartment.
But this was the opposite case. The children felt so comfortable that they would have peace of mind if something went wrong, that they were like, okay, you can go back to your own private apartment and give you back some independence in your life. So that was really touching. And then we hear stories.
Federico Ramallo (29:46.505) interesting.
Federico Ramallo (29:52.824) Yes, because that way they can have more freedom, more, you use the word dignity. Yeah. I’m thinking about the quality of life and being able to be self-sufficient. It’s a, you know, it has a significant impact on the people,
Ishanya Anthapur (29:53.711) Yeah, I hope I explained that well.
Ishanya Anthapur (30:18.475) I completely believe that, you know, feeling confident in yourself is almost a standard of it. It’ll help you with your health, right? Like not only can you do all these physical checkups and exercise eat right, but it’s also, it has a lot to do with your mental state and yeah, preserving your dignity and feeling like you have independence. I think it does a lot for
someone’s mental state to sort of say, yeah, I’m doing fine. I can keep on persisting in my life and my lifestyle and I’m not a burden to my kids. That’s something we hear a lot that elderly people feel like they’re burdening either their children or their nurses by needing so much attention. And I think our product really helped at least a few people.
get rid of that feeling, being able to say, am independent, I can have my own apartment, and I’m not going to be a burden because someone doesn’t have to check on me every day. They only check on me when something’s wrong and it’s all done through the system. So yeah, it was so nice. mean, we hear lots of stories like this in different fashions, either from the children of these parents or from the nurses that are watching the patient saying,
Federico Ramallo (31:29.24) Right.
Ishanya Anthapur (31:43.097) they can manage a lot more patients more securely because they’re not having to do this check-in with every single person. How many times did you drink water? How many times did you use a bathroom? They’re able to sort of get a report on that from our system and move on to the real issues of like, you know, are you having any pain here or do you have any chest pains or how’s your kidney function going?
So we hear that from the nurses that it’s very positively impacting their workflow and their efficiencies. And in America, we know nurses are so overworked. They see like sometimes 100 patients a day. And so this really helps them be able to avoid the routine of a check-in. We do the check-in for them basically, and then they can focus on some real issues.
But yeah, and then for the seniors themselves, for the aging and the loved, the aging ones, the loved ones, we call them, you’re right. It provides them such a sense of independence and kind of the ability, like I’m taking care of myself. We see that a lot too. Like we’ve gone into some populations that are in middle America, so not the healthiest. Lots of people that are not accustomed to
getting up and moving, I would say. It’s just, they’re retired, they’re getting older. So just a generally unhealthy population. And even having something there to remind you of your health and your wellbeing, I think we’ve seen that spur people into actually just having a healthier mindset. Whether it’s the fact that they feel like they can remain independent, or it’s the fact that they’ve
Federico Ramallo (33:21.762) you
Federico Ramallo (33:34.243) there is.
Ishanya Anthapur (33:39.917) got nurses to check up on them and so they want to be healthier so that they can have a good conversation with the nurse, know, not the, not scare their kids and not scare these nurses. So we’ve seen that have sort of a mental shift on, on the aging population to take a little bit better care of themselves too. Obviously, you know, it’s a very individual choice. Not everyone is
Federico Ramallo (33:54.414) Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (33:59.694) Thank
Federico Ramallo (34:03.65) Bye.
Ishanya Anthapur (34:09.56) going to want to be very healthy and we’re here for those people too. We’re here to catch them when they fall or when they have increasing diabetes, increasing blood pressure.
Federico Ramallo (34:11.182) Thank
Federico Ramallo (34:20.49) Thank
I think that the best approach for that is an invitation, a recurring invitation. We invite you to be more active. We invite you to go and do this, right? But I think the limit is when you become a scolding, you know, like, oh, you’re not doing this, you’re not doing that, you know. So yeah, but when you do it as an invitation, eventually it can come through or not.
Ishanya Anthapur (34:23.438) But yeah.
Ishanya Anthapur (34:32.428) Yes.
Ishanya Anthapur (34:38.192) that’s beautiful.
Ishanya Anthapur (34:46.294) You
Federico Ramallo (34:51.666) But at least it doesn’t, you’re giving them the option, it doesn’t depend on you.
Ishanya Anthapur (34:58.062) Yes. think another, it’s, you’re so, I love that phrase. We invite you to do, you know, take a walk today, something like that. I will definitely incorporate that into my product design. But something we’ve noticed too is like kind of what I was saying before that the way our systems work now is you go to the doctor once a year and you have to provide the information. And even me at
you know, 30 years of age, I’m not remembering, this all happened to me within a year. And I don’t have any specific data or plot points to reference, right? I’m just going off of my own anecdotes. So what we’ve noticed is also really helpful for healthcare setting is that our nurses now have some data points to reference with people and kind of
create a better conversation saying like, I noticed you did not use the bathroom yesterday instead of, and they can actually see that data point, right? Like no bathroom usage. And rather than, you know, when the residents, the sometimes patients will be like, no, I did, I did. I’m fine. We hear that a lot too, right? I’m fine. I’m, I’m not getting that old. I can still do this. I’m still taking care of myself.
But our nurses are able to come back and say, no, I saw that you did not use a bathroom. Maybe it’s been three days. And they say, no, I see the data. And it’s very calm because there’s no emotions behind it, right? It’s pure data. It’s like, yeah, I see that you didn’t do it. Let’s talk about why not. Let’s not have this discussion of did you, did you not blah, blah, blah. And so I think that like,
Federico Ramallo (36:52.344) Right, it doesn’t became a she said, she said, or he said, he said. It’s more of a, you know, I have the evidence. So, you know, let’s talk about moving forward and like rather than discussing whether it happened or not, we can talk more about, you know, what are the next steps, what are we going to do next?
Ishanya Anthapur (36:53.814) The data just helps them get.
Ishanya Anthapur (36:59.477) Exactly.
Ishanya Anthapur (37:14.098) Exactly. Like how are going to move forward? And it kind of brings it takes away some of the shame too, right? Like, I think, seniors and aging loved ones, have a little bit of shame. mean, I even have shame about certain missed activities of daily living. But if we are able to sort of say, no, this is what the data is saying and there’s no judgment.
let’s move forward. I love the idea of spinning the conversation that way instead of focusing on the heat. said, he said, and, kind of the judgment that can come with that.
Federico Ramallo (37:54.23) Right. Right. And what you were saying before, I don’t want to be a burden. You know, now I’m getting scolded. Now, you know, the all that struggle, right.
that eventually reduces the quality of life, right? Because now you’re talking about, you you’re fighting with your nurse all the time about these type of things, Rather than just enjoying your life, right? Yeah.
Ishanya Anthapur (38:18.99) Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, every at every stage of life, you deserve to enjoy it. I think that’s my belief and that’s people in our company’s beliefs as well. So even if you’re you know, you’re on a catheter and you have a full time caregiver, you should still be enjoying your life as much as possible.
Federico Ramallo (38:42.926) Yes, I agree. I was reading about this concept of, it’s not as important how many years you live, but how many years with a good quality of life you live, right? Because then you can enjoy the world, can, if you are in pain, if you are in a bed, if you are suffering, then that
Ishanya Anthapur (38:58.318) Hmm.
Federico Ramallo (39:11.788) that extended life, that’s a bad experience, right? So it’s extending the suffering, right? But if you have a good quality of life where you can do stuff, be independent, then that’s a much better use of your life, basically,
Ishanya Anthapur (39:20.557) Yeah.
Ishanya Anthapur (39:26.264) Thank you.
Ishanya Anthapur (39:34.186) Exactly. And to your point, Federico, like it’s a better use of your life, but also mentally you’ll feel better about yourself and your position in life.
Federico Ramallo (39:43.128) Yes.
You’re happier because you can be independent. You can do your own stuff, right? Yes.
Ishanya Anthapur (39:49.037) Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (39:56.558) Have you thought about how, you know, it sounds silly the question, but how would you like to go? You know?
Ishanya Anthapur (40:05.069) How would I? Hmm. Yes, I would thought about it. I think everyone wants peacefully, right? Like, peacefully…
with my loved ones nearby or peacefully alone in the middle of a forest. Something like that.
Federico Ramallo (40:25.838) That’s an amazing way to go. The Japanese, they have forests where a lot of people go there to die. They literally go there to die. I don’t remember the name of the forest and they’re trying to discourage that because it takes them a while to find them.
Ishanya Anthapur (40:31.245) Thank you.
Ishanya Anthapur (40:42.583) wow.
Maybe I’ll have to do that.
Ishanya Anthapur (40:51.586) Federico Ramallo (40:56.076) the families are concerned because they don’t tell about it, right? So anyway, yeah, I thought about that and yeah. Yes, yes, because that way it’s like, know, don’t worry about it. going to, you know, I’m going to be happy, you know. Yes, yes. So I thought about it and
Ishanya Anthapur (41:04.557) I would definitely tell, I would tell, I’d leave notes for everybody and you know.
Ishanya Anthapur (41:17.259) Yes.
Federico Ramallo (41:25.474) My thinking is I want to go on a blazing adventure. That’s how I want to go. Because, mean, if you are, again, probably the older we get, the less we want to do stuff. So I don’t know. But my thinking is I’d rather be living an adventure. We’re crossing the world in a boat. And then the boat sinks and we die.
Ishanya Anthapur (41:33.062) I love that.
Ishanya Anthapur (41:54.07) Yes.
Federico Ramallo (41:55.148) that would be an amazing way to go, you know, or, you know, any adventure, then, you know, I will be happy with that, right?
Ishanya Anthapur (42:05.015) That’s awesome. That means you’ve got to keep doing adventurous stuff.
Federico Ramallo (42:09.09) Yes, yes, yes, yes. I think that adventures are a way to keep life interesting, Yeah, I do a lot of adventures. I drive motorcycles, I camp, I come to a next to a volcano in the middle of the forest.
on the beach, know, many places. And I love it. And it’s, you go to those places.
Ishanya Anthapur (42:42.988) Wow.
Ishanya Anthapur (42:48.545) You have the, what do they call it, adrenaline.
Federico Ramallo (42:52.716) Adrenaline junkie? Maybe a little bit, yeah. A risk taker for sure. Yeah, I mean, I have mixed feelings with adrenaline junkie because that’s more of a, know, it feels more like an addict, right? But I do seek risky adventures for sure, yeah.
Ishanya Anthapur (42:56.661) Yes.
Ishanya Anthapur (43:24.439) I think it’s important though, you gotta, you know, keeps you, that’s one thing that keeps you young for sure is living life to the max.
Federico Ramallo (43:33.58) Yes, yes. the thing is when you decide to voluntarily, you make the decision for voluntary discomfort, that is when you grow. Right? I mean, it can be on adventures where you get physically tired and then you come back to your house and your apartment and you have hot water and you have…
refugee, know, and you kind of appreciate again all the comforts that you have in your house, right? Because, you know, you were cold or you were, you know, you didn’t have hot water or, you know, all those discomforts. At least for me, it helps me to appreciate when I come back home, right? Plus, now you have an amazing adventure to tell about, right?
Ishanya Anthapur (44:13.558) Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (44:31.992) So there’s that as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ishanya Anthapur (44:36.383) I I completely agree with you that, you know, changing your perspective is so important to growth. what else, you know, growth is like my number one goal in life. Wherever I am, I want to keep pushing myself to grow. And there’s so many areas in which to grow, right? It could be physical, it could be mental, it could be confidence, it could be your skill set. Like, I’m definitely very growth oriented and I agree.
perspective switching, putting yourself in one situation and then bringing yourself back and then doing it again and again. That is probably the key to growth in any sort of way, which is why like I have done a lot in my own career of switching around and jumping around and pursuing different interests at different times and trying to find different ways to grow. think that’s really important for
everybody to realize like life is very fluid and flexible and if you can push yourself to grow into something you will be all the better for it. Don’t stay in one place for too long right? Don’t stay in one mindset for too long either.
Federico Ramallo (45:52.526) Right, right. And as we were talking at the beginning of this conversation that, you know, making a huge switch career, you know, changing industries, you know, that’s a big risk that, you know, it is worthwhile to take it. It’s not easy because, you know, there’s a lot of, you know, effort that you need to put into that, right?
But it’s rewarding, right? Regardless of the outcome, but again, if you put the effort in it, eventually it’s going to bring you success, right?
Ishanya Anthapur (46:38.026) Yeah, I think a lot of people that I ended up, you my peers, I’ll say, many of them, while some of them are growth minded, some of them are also, they kind of stay in one lane. They’ve done something in college and they’re going to do it afterwards and they go get a PhD in it and they’re going to just do that for the rest of their life. I think that’s, if it works for you, that’s great. But I think
you’re sort of missing out on something if you don’t push yourself to explore a different path or do something that you wouldn’t normally do. So like I was a teacher for a year after college. I was a math and science teacher for middle school children, which if you’ve ever worked with kids or have kids, you know, it is a very crazy time in someone’s life when they’re 13, 12 and 10. But
Federico Ramallo (47:31.564) You
Ishanya Anthapur (47:32.351) It was amazing. Like, yeah, I learned so much that I had no idea I was going to learn from being a teacher that only helped me in my next job. and helps you. makes me a very individual candidate as a product leader because I, I’m good at educating. I’m good at organizing. I’m good at leading teams and, understanding like how to.
create a lesson or create a guide or create a feature that will speak to a bunch of different people at once. And I will say that most people did not tell me to go into to take this fellowship for a year and teach, right? Most people were like, go straight to the industry. Just do the do your thing. Like, don’t take the time to explore something else. And people might still say that to me today, like, what did you do for that year or?
Now that I’m been with my startup for a while, I’m looking to move to the next phase, which is, think is going to be grad school, but they will say, just keep doing what you’re doing. Keep doing product management. but like you, Federico, I’m very growth oriented and I love to change my perspective. And, I have the confidence that, you know, whatever skills I’ve developed in my previous role, I will just bring those to my new, field and apply them however they need to be applied.
But it is crazy how many, yeah, so many people just don’t say that. They don’t advise you to do that, I would say, but I’d like to switch that conversation.
Federico Ramallo (49:02.83) Right.
Federico Ramallo (49:12.44) Yeah, because people get more concerned about like, the CV has to be perfect. If I have a gap, you know, that’s going to look negatively, right? But it actually helps you bring a different experience, different perspective to the role.
Ishanya Anthapur (49:24.416) Yeah.
Ishanya Anthapur (49:34.421) I would say any, almost any experience is valuable. Even if the gap is I needed to take a year off to help take care of my family or, you know, move back to this place and do XYZ for XYZ reasons. Any experience is valuable. You are learning all through that experience. And if you’re able to just take that and realize
how you can bring those learnings to the next stage in your life and you’re able to speak on it. I think you’ll go, you’ll be fine. You’ll go very far. And no one’s really gonna question like, why did you do that for two years? And now, like you said, you’ll have a great story to tell. Like I have so many stories from being a teacher that are probably the funniest moments of my life I experienced working with kids and.
Federico Ramallo (50:29.576) What is one of the, I mean, we’re kind of running a little bit over time, but what is one short story you can share us about teaching?
Ishanya Anthapur (50:38.786) sure. Well, so one day, was a teacher was absent. So I had to sub for a class and I, you know, their normal lesson plan was going through something American history, something, something. I was like, okay, I have the chance to lead. I’m going to take this time to sort of explain something important to me and important to these kids. And so I, instead of doing the exact lesson plan, I added some
I took the time to sort of talk about queerness and the LGBTQ community and in America and like what that looks like and just some do’s and don’ts and open floor questions for people. And you know, these are like public school kids and they’re teenagers. So they’re obviously like, there’s some uncomfortability, but you know, I knew it was important to kind of say that out loud and make sure everyone felt that it was okay. And then afterwards I had like,
For the next two months, I had kids coming up to me saying, Ms. Anthropore, thank you so much for just doing that. And then some kids came out, some kids just kind of expressed their personal stories. And I thought it was just so valuable. And it wasn’t really funny, but a lot of them were, they thought it was really cool after that, basically. And so they would include me in their little gossip sessions.
include me in their jokes because they thought I was very young and modern, suppose.
Federico Ramallo (52:11.475) nice.
Ishanya Anthapur (52:12.127) That was one of my favorite moments.
Federico Ramallo (52:16.418) Very interesting. And you mentioned that it helps you become a better product manager, right?
Ishanya Anthapur (52:25.765) totally. think learning how to educate people is half of product management, right? Because you’re educating your engineering team on what the customer wants. You’re educating the customers on what the engineering team is designed. And so if you’re able to develop quote unquote lesson plans that will go to both, both sets of people, and you’re able to sort of tailor those lesson plans, depending on who’s the recipient, which something teaching really
tells you how to do. You’re teaching to either the kid who has ADHD and can only retain like five sentences at a time, or you’re teaching towards someone who’s dyslexic and like can’t, doesn’t really understand words, but might understand pictures and graphs a lot better. So I brought that into my product design experience. And so I’m great at being that liaison between engineering and then customers and
That’s pretty much most of what a product manager will be doing.
Federico Ramallo (53:31.254) Interesting, interesting. if you can simplify an explanation so that a kid can understand it, that means you fully understand the topic, right? Yeah.
Ishanya Anthapur (53:45.576) Exactly, exactly. A kid or and also any kid, like every human being learns so differently. So I think I’ve learned to sort of, have words, have graphs, I have video, you know, just different streams of education is really important, I think.
Federico Ramallo (53:54.637) Right.
Federico Ramallo (54:06.286) Right, right, very interesting. So I have one last question for you, we’re a little bit over time, so I don’t want to take much more of your time, but…
Ishanya Anthapur (54:15.531) I’m sure this happens with all your podcasts, Federico. I’m sure you go over time with everybody.
Federico Ramallo (54:22.912) It’s a struggle for sure because we have such great conversations and then we run out of time and I want to be respectful of people’s time. So yeah, it’s a struggle, but a good one. It’s a good problem, I think. So you talk a little bit about growth. What are you planning to grow?
Ishanya Anthapur (54:41.907) Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (54:52.556) in following years? What are you planning to achieve?
Ishanya Anthapur (55:00.565) So I briefly mentioned it before, but I’m really excited about going to business school and getting my MBA. And I think potentially doing a career change through that into more VC side. So I’ve been part of a startup. love growing a business and now I kind of want to grow multiple businesses and also being able to control funding for
know, marginalized communities, women led startups, people of color led startups, that would really be a wonderful goal of mine. So kind of mission driven impact investing and doing it from the VC side. But yeah, so the MBA is up next for me and then I’m going to use that to do another career pivot.
Federico Ramallo (55:52.19) Interesting, interesting. Going to the VC side. There’s so much to do there. Yes, yes, I can see that coming to you, yeah.
Ishanya Anthapur (56:03.445) Totally. I want to
Ishanya Anthapur (56:08.319) Thank you. Yeah, like I want to not only grow myself, but I want that side of the world to grow also. Grow into something a little less exclusive.
Federico Ramallo (56:16.931) Right.
Federico Ramallo (56:22.828) Right, right. Yeah, I’ve been thinking about doing something like that building products as part of a, what is 503? You know, like these non-profit for profit organizations, right? Mission driven organizations, right? Because there’s so many things we can do with that. mean, for me it’s more…
Ishanya Anthapur (56:37.749) Yeah.
Ishanya Anthapur (56:43.422) Exactly.
Federico Ramallo (56:51.954) I think that running a business that generates profit that allows you to make it self-sustainable, but with a mission-driven statement, that’s something very interesting to do. And kind of what I’ve been doing with my company, because our mission is to change the lives of 500 engineers, help them grow and become
better engineers and then, you know, we meant we mentor them. I teach them a lot, lot of what I do and I help them, you know, work with great teams. Some of them eventually ended up working at Netflix or other companies in the Bay Area, you know, some move there, some stay in Mexico, right? And for me, that’s amazing because I can give them the tools to grow and then they can become, you know,
Ishanya Anthapur (57:42.603) Thank
Ishanya Anthapur (57:46.549) Yeah.
Federico Ramallo (57:51.227) they can become much more successful. I’m very proud of the people that I’ve been training and how much stuff they’ve been achieving throughout the years.
Ishanya Anthapur (58:03.38) See, you’re a teacher too. You’re proud of your mentees.
Federico Ramallo (58:06.722) Yes, yes. Yeah, actually, I also work with kids. I am a karate coach. So I teach them, you know, when I’m not traveling, because now I’m traveling, but when I’m not traveling, I coach them. Yeah. And they force me to be in a better shape because, you know, they have much more energy. So now I have to, you know, step up to their level, right? Yeah. Yeah. It’s amazing.
Ishanya Anthapur (58:16.192) cool.
Ishanya Anthapur (58:33.258) Yeah, that’s awesome. I did love your, your business’s mission as well, which is what also drew me to doing the podcast. I was like, this is a great, you have a great business going and I really support it as well.
Federico Ramallo (58:36.43) Awesome.
Federico Ramallo (58:52.898) Yes, yes, great. Yeah, I think that we’re changing people’s lives and that’s, mean, we want to be profitable because, know, we are a bootstrap business, but also helping people change their lives. That’s, yeah, that for me is the most important thing we’ve been doing. Thank you very much, Ishania, for being here.
Ishanya Anthapur (59:20.148) Yeah, same with Zemple, you know, and I…
Federico Ramallo (59:22.738) go ahead. Yeah.
Ishanya Anthapur (59:25.834) I was going to say, same with Zemple, we want to help people’s lives at the end of the day. Be profitable, but the main goal is to help.
Federico Ramallo (59:30.008) Yes.
Federico Ramallo (59:36.3) Yes, yes, I completely agree. I I love what you guys are doing. I think that Zemplee is an amazing product. And I’m looking forward to see where Zemplee is going and where you’re going, right? So I’ll follow you. So thank you very much for being here. And I’m looking forward to continue the conversation.
Ishanya Anthapur (01:00:04.971) Thank you so much Federico, I had a great time.