From Bangalore to HealthTech Product Leadership
In this standout episode of Code Bytes, hosted by Stephen and produced by the technology recruitment specialists at Search 5.0, we hear an inspiring, deeply human story from Vikas Prasanna, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Smile Genius Dental.
Vikas’s journey—from his beginnings in Bangalore to building a cutting-edge HealthTech company in Ireland—is filled with lessons on adaptability, product leadership, mentorship, startup growth, and the power of thoughtful career pivots. For those in the world of technology recruitment, startup hiring, or simply curious about the career paths that shape our tech industry, this conversation delivers remarkable insight and relevance.
Early Career in Tech: A Journey Rooted in Stability and Resilience
Vikas opens his story by describing the cultural environment in which he was raised in Bangalore, India—a setting where stability, particularly financial stability, is highly valued. Like many from his community, his early career decisions were shaped by practicality rather than passion. Although personally fascinated by wildlife, Vikas chose engineering to pursue a more stable and respectable path.
After completing his engineering degree, he began his career in DevOps engineering, a common starting point for many technology professionals. But something felt off. As he explains to Stephen, coding didn’t ignite his curiosity—it felt more like a means to an end. However, this period wasn’t wasted. Instead, Vikas took it as an opportunity to understand the inner workings of the organisations around him, absorbing knowledge on how IT companies function, how different departments contribute, and where his skills might best be applied.
This inquisitive mindset—something that would become central to his career—led him to explore the role of the business analyst. The BA function, which sits at the intersection of business and technology, offered something that engineering didn’t: human interaction, system-level thinking, and the chance to use communication as a problem-solving tool.
However, pivoting into a business analyst role wasn’t easy, especially in India’s competitive job market where professional transitions are often limited by previous experience. Vikas needed a strategy—and that’s when he made the life-altering decision to pursue a master’s degree in digital innovation at University College Dublin in Ireland.
The Leap to Ireland: Sacrifice, Risk, and a Life-Changing Decision
Making the leap from India to Ireland was no small feat. Financial constraints meant that Vikas arrived in Dublin with just €2,000 to his name, an amount that had to stretch across rent deposits, food, and basic living costs. He openly describes this period as the most difficult of his life. There were no guarantees, no support network, and no second chances. It was, in his words, "do or die."
What makes this segment of Vikas’s journey particularly moving is the role of his family. He credits his sister, aunt, and grandmother—not his parents—for making his move to Ireland possible. They pooled together savings to fund his education, placing faith in his ability to succeed. This gesture was not just financial support; it was a powerful act of belief and responsibility, one that motivated him to make every moment in Ireland count.
Against the odds, Vikas secured a part-time job just 15 days after arriving—an impressive feat for any international student navigating a new country and education system. His early success speaks volumes about his determination, resourcefulness, and readiness to adapt, traits that would later become core to his leadership style as a product executive.
Climbing the Product Ladder: From Business Analyst to Product Leader
Upon completing his master’s degree, Vikas began his first role in Ireland as a business analyst at UnitedHealth Group. This marked the beginning of a career in product management—a discipline that allowed him to draw from both his technical background and his intuitive understanding of business.
Coming from a family full of entrepreneurs, Vikas had always been fascinated by how companies operate, grow, and solve problems. Product management offered him the chance to be close to those decisions, to own strategic direction, and to build solutions that genuinely impact users.
As he transitioned from BA to PM and then into more senior product roles, Vikas began to develop a product philosophy grounded in customer empathy, communication clarity, and business impact. Unlike many who entered product via engineering or design, Vikas brought a unique angle—focusing on structure, value delivery, and building systems that work across functions.
Today, as the Chief Product Officer and Co-Founder at Smile Genius Dental, Vikas applies those very same principles to revolutionise a traditionally manual industry: dentistry.
Smile Genius Dental: Building Product for the Underserved HealthTech Sector
Smile Genius Dental is a dental SaaS platform that simplifies and accelerates communication between dental laboratories and dentists. As Vikas explains on the podcast, dental labs often spend up to seven hours a day chasing dentists for case updates, feedback, and approvals. Converting a case into revenue can take as long as a month—time that translates into enormous inefficiencies and lost opportunities.
Smile Genius solves this by streamlining communication, centralising workflows, and reducing back-and-forth across disconnected platforms like WhatsApp, email, and spreadsheets. By integrating everything into a single interface, the product helps labs cut turnaround time in half or more, bringing clarity and speed to previously fragmented processes.
What stands out in Vikas’s approach is the emphasis on educating clients. Many labs and clinics don’t fully realise how inefficient their workflows are. Smile Genius not only offers a product but also a vision for how technology can be a strategic enabler, not just a support function.
For those working in technology recruitment, particularly in HealthTech, Vikas’s work exemplifies the need for product talent that can thrive in non-digital-first industries. Building products for sectors like healthcare requires more than technical acumen—it demands empathy, patience, and the ability to guide legacy businesses through digital transformation.
Mentorship at Scale: From 90 Emails to Over 200 Mentees
One of the most resonant themes in this episode is Vikas’s commitment to mentorship—an area he leaned into after feeling the absence of it in his own journey.
When Vikas first considered moving to Ireland, he had no mentors to guide him. Desperate for insights, he ended up emailing a single Indian student in Dublin nearly 90 times, trying to gather information about life, study, and work abroad. That gap in accessible guidance became a defining moment for him.
Rather than accept it as normal, Vikas decided to be the person he wished he had. He began mentoring others informally—students, junior professionals, people pivoting into tech. As the demand for advice grew, especially around product management career transitions, he launched a formal platform called Toperate to support structured mentoring relationships.
Through this platform and his consistent online presence—including a self-imposed 52-week blog challenge where he shared product insights every week for a year—Vikas has mentored over 200 people globally. He offers not just advice but practical frameworks, hands-on project work, and long-term planning strategies.
This is a valuable lesson for the technology hiring space. Vikas proves that some of the most impactful tech leaders are those who don't just rise up the ladder themselves, but bring others with them. For companies looking to hire product leaders, especially in start-up environments, mentorship capability is a critical soft skill that’s often overlooked.
Hiring the Right Product Talent: Clarity Over Credentials
When Stephen asks what Vikas looks for in a hire, the answer is practical and aligned with real-world startup conditions. Budgets are limited. The market is competitive. As a result, hiring decisions must go beyond CVs and focus on core competencies that actually drive impact.
Top of the list? Product sense—the ability to understand a user problem, explore multiple pathways to solve it, and resist getting married to any single solution too early. Equally important is communication: Vikas emphasises how crucial it is for PMs to adapt their storytelling depending on the audience—whether they’re pitching to an engineer, designer, or investor.
He also notes a common problem in product organisations: junior PMs being disconnected from business context. In large companies, senior ICs may get access to leadership conversations and customer insights, while newer PMs are often siloed. This creates a gap in understanding that can limit their growth.
To combat this, Vikas encourages active mentoring, regular exposure to customer feedback, and creating opportunities for team members to see the full picture—not just their specific feature set.
For recruiters and hiring managers, this insight is invaluable. Candidates with a bias for learning, a holistic view of product, and the ability to communicate across stakeholders are often far more valuable than those with the “perfect” background on paper.
Reframing Technology from Support to Strategic Asset
Another powerful insight from Vikas is around changing how businesses perceive technology. In many sectors—especially healthcare—tech is still viewed as a support function. Smile Genius is working to reframe this, showing clients how product innovation can directly influence revenue, efficiency, and service quality.
This reframing involves a combination of smart product design, customer education, and thought leadership content. Vikas and his team often create blog posts and campaigns that speak directly to pain points—highlighting the time lost in outdated workflows, or the opportunities missed through fragmented systems.
The lesson for tech professionals and recruiters? In emerging or underserved industries, product leadership isn’t just about shipping features—it’s about helping clients understand the value of digital change. This is the kind of work that great product teams and technology recruitment partners should be facilitating.
Conclusion: A Masterclass in Curiosity, Courage, and Career Building
Vikas Prasanna’s journey—beautifully unpacked in this Code Bytes episode—is one of resilience, adaptability, and product-led thinking. From taking massive personal risks to mentoring hundreds, and from building startups to bridging legacy industries with modern technology, his story is a blueprint for aspiring professionals in the tech space.
For Search 5.0, a leading name in technology recruitment, this episode serves as a reminder of what exceptional tech talent really looks like. It’s not just about experience or titles. It’s about clarity, communication, curiosity, and the courage to bet on yourself when no one else will.
