For Jeewanjee, the initial push to go online came from the technology hotbed of Silicon Valley. “In the 1980s the Silicon Valley was about to explode and we were at the right place and right time.” His peers comprised technology savvy people whose day would begin and end with tech talks. He says though the technology industry thrived here, insurance agents were a century behind in adopting technology. “If you call your insurance agent and ask him to send you insurance certificates on PDF, he’ll ask you what is a PDF,” Jeewanjee says. Computer ignorance amongst insurance agents came as a blessing in disguise to Jeewanjee. “g1g.com is probably the most advanced insurance broker in the country today. Everything is done by PDF, email and online.”

So how does this measure up to expenditure? Having a site and attracting people means spending a whole lot of money and sometimes it can just consume all your profits. But Jeewanjee has a solution. He says as opposed to a traditional way of selling insurance, online selling is a lot cheaper. It costs only half. “While selling a insurance to customer using a agent would cost companies around $1, sending details via email using PDF costs just 40-60 cents,” Jeewanjee quips. Jeewanjee spent all the saved money on improving customer services.

Starting an online industry meant Jeewanjee had to be good in technology. But his brilliant business and marketing strategies overruled his non-relation to technology. Though Jeewanjee’s idea was stupendous and changed the way insurance is dealt with, he did not seek any VC funding and started the company with internal accruals. Strong negotiations and bargaining is in the blood of Gujaratis. “They always bargain for the best deals and stick to it,” he says. “Gujaratis give value to the other side. They give more to receive more.” As a true blood Gujarati, Jeewanjee says he gets the best price for his deals from partners because he pays them on time. A good Gujarati negotiator that he is, he brought in Zoaib Rangwala, a veteran with 25 years of service in companies like Philips and EMC, as an advisor.

Rangwala’s experience came handy for Jeewanjee. Everything in the company was either automated or outsourced to the maximum with employee base remaining minimum. Starting with three employees, a fourth employee was added last year. Mundane things like a call center was set up in Pakistan, while India develops and delivers the software. Some of it is done in-house. Underwriting too is done in India. Their revenue has risen from $100,000 in 1999 to over $7 million now.