What’s Motivating Med Students Starting Up On Their Own?
MedTech founder Harvinder Power says young doctors’ are frustrated with the slow uptake of technology in healthcare.
Ask any parent what would they like their child to be when they grow up and “doctor” is the standard response.
Do you think there will ever be a time when “Startup CEO” will become the dream-vocation of pushy-parents?
Probably not.
However, at a recent Silicon Roundabout event on ‘The Future of Engineering, Robotics & Hardware’, young medical student, Harvinder Power, presented his groundbreaking new startup, Motics: the future of physiotherapy
According to Power, traditional physiotherapy doesn’t work. Only 30% of patients actually do their homework — normally hand-drawn, stickmen exercises on scrap paper — meaning people do not heal. This process costs the NHS approx £4,000 a minute. Which, he says, “We could be spending on heart attacks and strokes!”
Motics encompasses four key elements that represent the future of healthcare: wearable tech, gamification, recovery tracking and remote appointments.
Metier Digital caught up with Power after the event to find what’s motivating med students to startup on their own.
As a 23-year-old, did you always see yourself as founding your own business?
Definitely not! I came into medical school with the prime intention of being a doctor.
There is a shift where medical students and junior doctors are turning towards entrepreneurship, partly caused by frustration with the slow uptake of technology in healthcare. These innovators generally want to help people in any way they can, and it can be more logical to do so through solving one specific technological challenge that the healthcare system faces.
What support have you benefited from?
We’ve been fortunate enough to benefit from the support of Kickstart London. They’ve provided us with great connections in the MedTech space, including the NHS Innovation Accelerator. They host weekly workshops with speakers from various investment funds such as Forward Partners. Working alongside other startups such as MyRecovery and learning how they start-up has been invaluable insight. We’ve also had fantastic support from our mentor, Sybil Wong (COO at Sparrho).
What has been your biggest learning since starting Motics only 3 months ago?
Move fast but validate early. Startups often jump straight to pitching an idea to investors to get enough money to build their “market-ready” device. We learned that it was much better to validate that there was a genuine need for the device in the first place. This led us to develop a product that looks different to how we initially envisaged it, but actually solves the problems experienced by the many.
Validate, Validate, Validate!
Validating early is solid advice from Power. We often hear about companies that launch their products and then continuously pivot until they find the sacred haven of Product Market Fit: where business is booming and customers are delighted.
No doubt, pivoting is a key survival tool and has proved massively important for numerous high-profile companies. But for entrepreneurs looking to start a sustainable business in the volatile world of 2019, creating something people actually want from the offset should be the key driver.
Validating as early and cost-effectively as possible will allow you to figure out whether you’re making a valuable enough product or service. Our advice is always, ‘Go out and talk to people’. Identify your target market and ask them if your product meets their needs. Ask them if they would pay for your product. Understand what issues they have with the current competitors in the space and then look to create something that solves these real-world problems.
The sooner you validate your business, the faster you’ll learn what works, and the stronger your business will likely be.
Craig is a writer for Metier Digital, a London-based company that helps founders build cost-effective apps and grow digital businesses. If you’d like to get in touch, email him at craig@metierdigital.com
