Putting the “Tech” in Insurtech: Harprem Doowa’s Playbook for Building Easy Digital

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In Episode 25 of The Exponential Show, host Mayank Singh sits down with Harprem Doowa, Co-Founder and CEO of Eazy Digital, to unpack a journey that spans Thailand’s earliest e-commerce wave, a fast-scaling insurtech exit, and a fresh venture now focused on modernizing how insurance agents and brokers sell.

The conversation is part founder story, part ecosystem reality check, and part practical advice for anyone building in a tough funding market.

A Founder Journey Built on Curiosity, Timing, and Hard Lessons

Harprem’s path into entrepreneurship began right after his MBA. He was expected to join the family business, but he wanted to prove he could build something on his own terms. That decision led to a first startup in a space he had interest in but no professional experience with: pet products.

It was 2012 and Thailand’s e-commerce ecosystem was still in its early days. Lazada had just launched, Rocket Internet was still a major force, and most consumer behaviors had not shifted online yet. Harprem built a team, started selling pet products online, and later expanded into a separate business for baby and mother products.

The company grew quickly and raised funding, but it also taught him a major founder lesson: fundraising, mergers, and board dynamics can dilute ownership and control. Over time, he found himself with only a small percentage of the company and a direction he no longer agreed with. While he wanted to keep building a focused, defensible marketplace in specific categories, the business moved toward competing head-on with mass-market giants in low-margin, high-volume categories.

He ultimately resigned, handed over operations to his COO, and stepped away.

Why He Bet on Insurance When “Online Insurance” Was Still Rare

After leaving his first venture, Harprem looked for another large industry that had not been truly digitized. In 2016, he found his answer in financial products, especially insurance. The market was massive, but consumer journeys were still heavily paper-based and agent-driven.

That insight led to Frank.co.th, a business built to sell insurance online at scale. The results were significant. Within five years, Frank was doing close to half a billion baht in annual sales, with a major share of that revenue happening online end-to-end.

In 2020, Frank was acquired by bolttech (at the time connected to the FWD Group), and Harprem stayed on for two more years. During that period, the business shifted further into a partnership-led model, where distribution came from telecoms, retailers, and platforms rather than paid digital marketing.

He enjoyed the learning and partnership-building, but he missed building something he owned. So he left again and started the next chapter.

How Eazy Digital Started as Consulting, Then Became a Product Company

Eazy Digital did not begin as a software startup. It started as a consulting business, with Harprem advising insurance companies on digitization, workflow design, internal audits, and operational change.

Over time, he noticed a recurring truth across every insurer he worked with: agents and brokers remain the engine of insurance distribution, yet many companies still give them very few modern tools. In many cases, it was still documents, PDFs, and manual processing.

The big global insurers had already solved this problem internally by investing millions into agent tools, quoting flows, and digital forms. But many insurers, especially outside the top tier, did not have the budgets to build those platforms.

That gap became the product opportunity.

Harprem used consulting revenue to build the first version of a platform that helps agents and brokers sell more efficiently. When he took an early version back to a client, they paid for it, which validated the problem and the willingness to buy.

That initial traction turned the business from consulting into a scalable product company. With a paying client and a working MVP, he approached investors and raised funding, including early backing from Wavemaker and other investors.

Today, Eazy Digital is positioned as a B2B platform designed to modernize insurance distribution by enabling the people who still drive a large portion of sales: agents and brokers.

A Clear-Eyed Take on Thailand’s Startup Ecosystem

Harprem’s view of Thailand’s startup ecosystem is blunt. He argues that, in some ways, the scene feels less vibrant than it did a decade ago.

In the earlier wave, more founders were willing to take risks, try new models, and build businesses that did not necessarily fit corporate structures. Today, he believes large corporations and corporate venture arms have absorbed significant tech talent, offering stable salaries and lower risk.

For many people, that stability is understandably attractive, but it can reduce the number of founders willing to take the leap.

He also points to longer-term economic effects that pushed small business owners back into traditional employment, making it harder for entrepreneurs to build up the buffer required to try again.

Still, he believes technology is one reason to remain optimistic. It is cheaper than ever to test ideas, access information, and build early versions of products. The opportunity now is a volume game: try more things, iterate faster, and let reality choose what sticks.

AI as a Tool, Not a Sales Pitch

Harprem’s approach to AI cuts through the hype. Internally, he treats AI as a productivity engine. With the right tools and habits, a smaller team can produce the output of a much larger team, without adding headcount.

Externally, he sees many insurance companies still exploring AI cautiously. For large insurers, AI often begins as simple operational use cases like extracting data from documents, streamlining workflows, and reducing manual processing. In many cases, it is also a board-level narrative: “We are AI-enabled.”

For Eazy Digital, the most practical AI opportunity is user experience. Instead of forcing agents to click through dashboards and filters, AI can become the interface. Agents should be able to ask simple questions like:

• How was my sales performance yesterday?

• Who needs renewals today?

• What follow-ups should I prioritize?
  

Even if adoption is early, Harprem wants to be ready before the market fully catches up.

He also shares an emerging insight: search behavior is shifting. While Google still dominates, more queries are moving to AI tools. That raises a new challenge for companies like his: how to ensure AI systems understand who you are and recommend you when buyers ask for solutions.

In fact, he mentions that Eazy Digital has already received leads because AI tools suggested them.

Personal Branding That Actually Supports Enterprise Sales

Harprem is active on LinkedIn, but he describes it as a tool, not a vanity project. In enterprise B2B, being visible matters. Decision-makers watch the market, notice familiar names, and are more receptive when outreach comes from someone they have seen before.

His approach is focused. He posts primarily within two themes: insurance and entrepreneurship. Insurance content keeps him relevant to the market he sells into. Entrepreneurship content is how he shares lessons and stays connected to the founder ecosystem.

The biggest benefit is that it turns cold outreach into warm outreach. Even a small amount of familiarity can change how a message lands.

Advice for Founders: Start Smaller, De-Risk Faster, and Stop Waiting

Two recurring themes stand out in Harprem’s advice to early-stage entrepreneurs.

First, you do not need to quit your job to start. Many founders can build on the side, use evenings and weekends, and move forward in small steps. The real difference is how people use their time. If you consistently invest spare hours into building, learning, and meeting people, momentum follows.

Second, do not wait for investors to give you permission to begin. Funding is harder than it has been in years, even for companies with clients and revenue. If you want investment, you need to de-risk the opportunity by proving real demand.

His own example is simple: he built prototypes, secured paying clients early, and used traction to raise.

Most importantly, he ends with a message that sums up the founder mindset.

Do not let fear of failure stop you from trying. Years later, the regret is rarely about failing. It is about not starting at all.