This 66-year-old serial entrepreneur is building a platform to cater to the seniors

In 2019, when Meenakshi Menon was 60 years old, she walked into a store to buy an iPhone. She recounts that the experience stayed with her.

"I walked into a huge electronics store to buy an iPhone, and the salesman tried to sell me an Android phone, saying it was ‘easier for someone like me.’ That’s when I realised how society begins to see you differently once you cross 60." 

This experience sparked the idea of GenS Life—a platform that challenges societal perceptions and provides seniors with the resources and opportunities to lead fulfilling lives.

Born and raised in Mumbai, Menon spent her formative years in a village school on the outskirts of the city, instilling in her a deep connection to her roots. Her professional journey began in advertising, with a career at Lintas, where she honed her skills in communication and branding. 

Over the years, she held key roles, as Head of Sales and Marketing at Zee in its early days and established Carat, India’s first independent media planning and buying firm.

In 2003, Meenakshi founded Spatial Access, a media and marketing audit consultancy, which Deloitte acquired in 2020. 

The same year, inspired by her personal experiences and observations about ageing in India, she started conceptualising GenS Life. "For most of my career, I was building brands and strategies. Now, I wanted to build something meaningful for people in their later years," she shares.

India is often celebrated as a young nation, but as Menon highlights, "We are also becoming an ageing nation." Life expectancy in urban India has risen to 78 years for women and 74 years for men. This shift underscores the need to create systems and structures that cater to the unique needs of older adults. 

"If you retire at 60 and live till 90, you have 30 years of life ahead of you. Imagine spending those years feeling like a prisoner of societal expectations," she says.

In 2024, Menon launched GenS Life, a platform to address the concerns of 60+ people and relieve the pressure on the sandwich generation—adults in their 30s and 40s juggling responsibilities for their children and ageing parents.

"When my daughter knows that I’m happy, healthy, and have a life of my own, she is relieved and feels less pressure," she explains. 

The GenS Life platform operates on a membership model, offering access to a wide range of services beginning at Rs 990 a year. It integrates health, wellness, finance, travel, safety, and companionship services and works on a model where members pay a basic fee and then choose additional services as needed, often at discounted rates.

For example, it has partnered with Metropolis Labs to offer a 15% discount on all medical tests. This isn’t just for the senior member but also for their family," she explains. "It’s about making seniors relevant again—‘Use my code and get a discount’ becomes a small yet powerful way for seniors to feel valued."

The app supports 12 languages and features like a daily interactive yoga session, live talks with doctors, and even comedy shows. It has partnered with organisations like Anvayaa and Helpee for elder care and assistance services. Members can access help for different aspects of their lives–from booking taxis to home healthcare.

Additionally, GenS Life offers:

• Regular health check-ups and monitoring services tailored for senior-specific needs.
• Assistance with booking rides, paying bills, or managing household errands, making daily life smoother.
• Specialised support for seniors dealing with memory-related challenges like dementia.
• Curated travel packages and assistance for senior-friendly vacations.
• Access to a vast repository of articles, videos, and live sessions covering topics like mental health, nutrition, and financial planning.
• Interactive yoga and fitness classes designed for different levels of physical ability.
• Virtual Adda sessions and events to foster connections and combat loneliness.
• Consultations with specialists, including dieticians, physiotherapists, and mental health professionals.
• Will and deed services, estate planning, family trust creation and inheritance services
• Home and personal security solutions

The app has a safety feature, an SOS button, which when pressed thrice in an emergency sends a preloaded message to users’ emergency contacts.

Changing the narrative around ageing

Menon emphasises that it’s important to embrace your age rather than resist it.

“Sixty is not the new forty; sixty is sixty, and it’s wonderful. We need to own it,” she asserts. Gen S Life aims to dismantle the narrative that life after 60 is about retreating from the world. 

In addition to providing practical services, the platform fosters a sense of community. From online Adda sessions to curated travel experiences, it’s designed to combat the loneliness and isolation that many seniors face. 

To this end, the app has been built after consistent research conducted by Ormax on what kind of services people over 60 need. 

“We are clear about our two target audiences while talking on the internet or digital media. The 30-to-45-year olds are active there and are the most worried about their parents. The other communication point is talking to seniors on the ground–we want to meet them in person, in parks, in societies, in clubs and tell them about what we are building and what’s important to them,” Menon elaborates.

The app is available across all India states and union territories and in the US, UK, Singapore, Canada, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and  Saudi Arabia. Additionally, the platform also has a webapp (web version of the app) which makes its presence global. 

She acknowledges that the journey is just beginning. "We are not available in every town and village yet, but we are making a start."

Menon says that one of the most difficult challenges was entering a largely unexplored industry as there were no benchmarks or proven case studies to follow. Another was building communication for the caregivers/children of 60+. 

“They must understand that being 60+ is not the end of life, instead it’s the start of a new chapter and seniors can have their own choices and can live life with full freedom,” she adds.

With several platforms and apps dedicated to seniors in the market, Menon believes there’s enough space for more players.

For Menon, GenS Life is more than just a business—it’s a movement to redefine what it means to grow older in India. "We are not reinventing the wheel," she says. "We are trying to build an equitable society for seniors.”

Meanwhile, her advice to other women entrepreneurs is simple, ““Make mistakes. No one can take away your freedom to fall.”

(The story has been updated to correct a typo.)