DRINK TO HEALTH. Saurabh Bothra, founder of online yoga platform Habuild, and his mother, Vijaya ‘Habuild ki mummy’

“I just want more people to become regular with practice,” says Saurabh Bothra, the young IIT-ian who has brought yoga into many homes across the country.

Bothra’s “habit building” online yoga initiative, Habuild, was baptised by fire, in a sense. It was founded in March 2020, just as the world was grappling with the Covid-19 pandemic. His early sessions had three people. While that changed gradually, so did his approach to life: From wanting to teach yoga to more people to wanting people to become more regular with their practice, he says. “This small change takes a long time,” he adds.

And it’s not about the yoga practice, he says. “My understanding of yoga is, if you do anything with discipline, that’s part of yoga practice. So, we are teaching yoga, but not the conventional mindset people have that yoga is this asana, that asana, handstand, full split and all. That’s not how we approach it,” says Bothra, who will turn 34 this month.

“We make it so simple that anyone and everyone can become regular with it,” he explains. A testimony to this inclusive approach is the nearly 80 lakh people who have done yoga with Habuild, with the oldest at 104 years, and the youngest at three, he says.

The initiative is focused on those who have spent their lives looking after others, like “moms”, he says. But that also means an age group that may have multiple ailments. For those with critical ailments, he says, Habuild clarifies upfront that the team is not made of doctors, and what’s on offer is not treatment.

They want to reach out to those who have never attempted any exercise before and are away from fitness apps and so on. “Our job is like a kindergarten teacher, taking students who do not know ‘A-B-C-D’ to help them understand what H-E-A-L-T-H means... They can graduate and go to an offline class, a gym or another setup where there is more intensity. But we want to remain a primary school only, where people come, understand and, if they like it, they can stay back... the kindergarten class of health for 50-year-olds.”

In fact, Bothra’s mother, Vijaya, the Chief Financial Officer, is also “chief critical officer”, he jokes, adding that her insightful feedback is always acted on. Habuild is looking to bring in multilingual formats, besides initiatives focused on nutrition and sleep, he says. Up ahead, the initiative’s three pillars will be exercise, diet or nutrition, and sleep or rest.

His team is 350-strong, including his fellow IIT-ian Co-founders Trishala (who is also his sister) and Anshul Agrawal. The venture has partnerships with corporates and the Central Ayush Ministry.

“It took us one year to realise that we want to focus on moms and not engineering students,” Bothra says on the initiative’s growth trajectory. Soon they shifted gears, and the audience of three increased to “100 moms”, he says. As the initiative grew to 1,200 moms, slowly men joined too. The number spiked to 80,000 in 2023, post Covid, via WhatsApp referrals.

Addressing the criticism that what’s on offer is not classical yoga, Bothra says he agrees. “I want to do what they want me to do,” he says, reiterating he was not trying to teach yoga but helping people become regular.

The problem statement is very different, he says. “People who are interested in classical yoga have enough number of teachers. We are trying to help them become regular. That’s the only problem statement we are trying to solve. If it is through classical yoga, I would be happy. If it is through random music and dance, I am still happy. I just want them to go and become better.”

Published on June 15, 2026