These Three Doctors Invented A Revolutionary App That Will Finally Help You Quit Smoking
The Talk With Dad
Dad: son, we’re very proud that you are a doctor. Everybody is so proud of you. Your uncle, aunty, cousins…relatives back home in India.
Son: thanks dad, but I’m going to be an entrepreneur now.
Dad: what? Is that a type of doctor? Like a gut doctor?
Son: no, dad. En-tre-pre-neur.
Dad: a doctor for pre-dinner issues? You can help Mamoo Uncle, always eating peanuts before dinner and then complaining about gas issues afterwards.
Son: no. It’s like a businessman. I’m going to help people and make lots of money.
Dad: oh so like a drug dealer? You think you’re a big boss man, huh? Who told you to do this stupid works? I always knew those friends of yours were bad influences. We didn’t send you to school & tuition to…
Son: no, not a drug dealer. Entrepreneur is just a word for someone that starts a business…a company. Actually, we made an app.
Dad: an app? Like Facebook? Did we go through everything just for you to make a bloody app?
Son: it’s not just an app. It’s going to help people…with their addictions
Dad: I don’t care if you save Planet Earth or make one billion dollars with this bloody app. Think for a second…what will we tell people? After doing well in school and completing medicine…you made an app?
Son: well, our company is health-tech and it’s called Digital Therapeutics.
Dad: ohhhhhh. Health-tech. Therapeutic. Therapy. Good…good. So, you are still a doctor. Good. That is fine then, son.
That’s how we imagined the conversation went when Yusuf, Maroof and Sarim told their fathers they were putting their careers in medicine on hold to start a company.
Three Doctors Come Up With A Genius Idea
These three young men met at the Imperial College London medical school seven years ago. While studying, they saw first-hand the negative effects of cigarette smoking. Assigned to the respiratory clinic, they witnessed the difficulty patients would have breathing & talking.
It’s now common knowledge that cigarette smoking is horrible for your health. With 1 billion cigarette smokers globally and 70% of these cigarette smokers wanting to quit, it’s a massive global health care issue. It’s exacerbated by the fact that only 3% of those that try to quit are successful. The three young men felt like it was a calling for them to give this problem their attention and attempt to create an innovative solution.
“As medical students, almost every day we are exposed to patients who are suffering from the consequences of smoking cigarettes; many of whom want to quit but lack the necessary support.” — Dr Yusuf Sherwani, co-founder and CEO Quit Genius
After many years of not seeing any viable solutions, they discussed the potential of a revolutionary app that was like a “therapist in your pocket.” An app that actually helped people to quit smoking in the long-term, not just the short-term. Looking through the app store, many of the available “quit addiction” apps are basic & good at placing a band-aid over the problem. But what these three doctors wanted to do was help individuals to heal their problem and get on with their lives.
Fast-forward to 2016 and they founded Digital Therapeutics. Through a long two-year process of collaboration with fellow doctors, psychologists and world-leading experts they built Quit Genius, the world’s first gamified behavioural therapy app to help cigarette smokers quit. The app is available to download on the App Store and Google Play.
Quit Genius helps cigarette smokers understand their relationship with smoking so that they change their current habits into healthy ones. It combines the two power houses of therapy from the Western & Eastern world: cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness.
The user achieves this through online therapy consisting of fun, bite-sized steps with animated video clips, audio sessions, interactive exercises and mindfulness sessions. With daily trophies, badges and achievements, users will be incentivized to stay on track of their online therapy program and actually quit smoking forever.
“High quality evidence-based therapy should be available to all smokers at a revolutionary low cost.” — Quit Genius
Just Another Cessation App Or Revolutionary?
There are four main components of Quit Genius that makes it stand above every other cessation app. It’s the combination of these four main components that give users a super power in their fight against cigarette smoking:
- The main online therapy treatment/program
- A Smoking Diary (where users can track their cigarettes to help identify triggers)
- A Coping Toolbox (which lets users check in to a mindfulness exercises or relaxation techniques on-demand in a moment of weakness)
- A community of fellow quitters
We’ve seen some negative reactions from some people online about Quit Genius. They believe this sort of online therapy isn’t going to help cigarette smokers quit. It is true there are some individuals who disagree, don’t like or don’t succeed with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
“I always hated CBT, too lazy for it. It’s quicker to just classically condition yourself using environmental cues without going through hoops of self rationalizing, externalizing saves brain cycles.” — @digitalsludged1
However in our opinion, it doesn’t matter if there are individuals that have a negative reaction to it. We would rather try something that has been created by doctors & health care experts than listen to a random comment online from someone we don’t know. Quit Genius has a superstar team, scientific evidence to back it’s methodology, and research studies to prove that it works.
What also matters is that Quit Genius raises awareness about the problem of cigarette smoking, opens a personal conversation a cigarette smoker may have with themselves, provides access to people from all over the world, provides a lower cost of treatment to people who would never have been able to afford therapy and successfully helps people quit smoking cigarettes.
“I like the idea of combining cognitive behavioural theory with the power of fun in a stop smoking game. Its other potential benefits are its cost effectiveness and sheer reach by using smartphone technology.” — Dr Sanjay Agrawal, Consultant Lung Specialist and Chair of the British Thoracic Society’s Tobacco Special Advisory Group
According to the team, thousands of smokers have stopped smoking cigarettes successfully using Quit Genius. That is a world-changing achievement and this young startup should be commended for bringing a unique, useful and creative product to the market. Witnessing the positive effects they are having on people should help Yusuf, Maroof and Sarim to keep pushing forward during the difficult moments of building a successful startup.
Furthermore, a study at the Imperial College Business School was recently conducted where it showed Quit Genius outperforming other smoking cessation apps. In addition, the team has completed successful pilots with the NHS and health insurers in the UK where they showed a quit rate that rivaled face-to-face therapy. A therapist in your pocket that’s proven to work, on-demand and cheaper than face-to-face therapy? Revolutionary indeed.
Here is what a Quit Genius user has to say:
“Would 100% recommend this app to anyone trying to give up smoking. It’s really beautifully designed & super easy to use. As a smoker, I’m pretty sceptical of anything that helps you quit, but I appreciate how Quit Genius tries to change the way you actually think about smoking, as opposed to offering a stop-gap solution.” — Ollie Markham
What’s Next And The Future
Quit Genius are on the right track as they recently got the backing of one of Silicon Valley’s powerhouse seed accelerators, Y Combinator. They raised 900K, which also included investments from Merck & Co, Telefonica, and Force Over Mass Capital. The three founders were also named on the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list, another accolade to add to this brilliant young statup team.
Quit Genius seems like the first step in Digital Therapeutics’ mission. We believe they will use what they learn from Quit Genius and apply it to other healthcare problems such as drug, alcohol, digital, eating and porn addictions. With their growing knowledge, skills and talents they will be in a prime position to build more personalized virtual therapy platforms in the future.
If we were Yusuf, Maroof and Sarim’s fathers, we would be proud that they decided to solve a global healthcare problem instead of doing what many others doctors do to cigarette smokers: tell them to “just quit smoking” and not give them any next steps. Today, the three young founders are giving thousands of people access to therapy, helping people change their lives and ushering in a new era of digital therapy.
Will Quit Genius be a prescription of the future for cigarette smokers that want to quit? Let us know in the comments below! We read & respond to every comment.
Thanks for reading The Brown League! We are the voice of the next generation of South Asian youth from around the world.
