Revolutionising The Ageing Journey: Inside Birdie’s Mission-Driven Product Success | Co-founder and CPO @ Birdie | Rajiv Tanna

In this episode of the Startup Diaries co-host Livvie Holt sits down with Rajiv Tanna, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Birdie, a global home healthcare technology company.

Birdie is a technology partner for homecare, with mobile and desktop software for managing care delivery, rostering and invoicing.

Rajiv shares Birdie's mission to revolutionise the ageing journey for care recipients and their families by navigating the UK's underfunded social care system through innovative software solutions.

Discussing his background in banking and technology, Raj reflects on his journey from early aspirations to build a business to leading a company aimed at making significant impacts in healthcare. He delves into the importance of customer-centric product development, the challenges of managing a fast-growing team, and Birdie's commitment to transparency and social enterprise values.

As Birdie expands internationally and explores generative AI to enhance patient care, Raj imparts wisdom on the balance between personal life and the demands of nurturing a startup with a profound social mission.

5 key takeaways: 

1. Align with Your Why: Choose or create a business venture that resonates deeply with your personal values and life goals, as this alignment will be a source of strength and perseverance.
2. Embrace Customer Feedback: Develop products that are deeply informed by customer insights and feedback, ensuring that the customer's voice directly influences the evolution of your offerings.
3. Cultivate a Strong Culture: As your business scales, actively shape and nurture your company culture to ensure that it supports your mission and empowers your employees.
4. Balance and Well-being: Incorporate practices that promote personal well-being and work-life balance, recognizing that long-term success is built on a foundation of sustainable work habits.
5. Consider Your Role: Reflect on whether founding a startup is the best route for you, or if you could make a significant impact by joining forces with an existing mission-driven organization.

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Transcript

Hello, and welcome to a new episode of the Startup Diaries podcast, brought to you by Burns Sheehan, a leading insights driven technology recruitment business located in Manchester and London. In this episode, we have Rajiv Tanna, co founder and chief product officer at Birdie. Birdie is a platform and home care software that agencies use to deliver outstanding care for their clients.

They're the technology partner for home care to help manage care delivery, rostering and invoicing. Raj shares Birdie's mission to revolutionise the ageing journey for care recipients and their families by navigating the UK's underfunded social care system through innovative software solutions.

Discussing his background in banking and technology, Rajeev reflects on his journey from early aspirations to build a business, to leading a company aimed at making significant impacts in healthcare. He delves into the importance of customer centric product [00:01:00] development, the challenges of managing a fast growing team, and Birdie's commitment to transparency and social enterprise values.

As Birdie expands internationally and explores generative AI to enhance healthcare, Patient care. Raj shares wisdom on the balance between personal life and the demands of nurturing a startup with a profound social mission. We think it's a great episode. We hope you enjoy it.

Hi Raj, thanks so much for coming onto the podcast today. How are you doing? 

Yeah, good. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me. It's exciting to be here.  

Pleasure is all ours. So could we start with a little bit of an overview of Birdie as a business and an introduction to yourself as well? Yeah, sure.

So Birdie's about five years old. We're a Global home healthcare technology company. And we're really focused on the, in the aging journey for the care recipient, their family at the moment, as we all know, the UK, that's pretty dysfunctional and underfunded NHS, NHS, the social care system is creaking, and so we know that families struggle to navigate that system.

And we [00:02:00] started with a vision of, well, how could that look different? And I think we'll talk a little bit later about what we do today, but it started really with a vertical SaaS proposition. So, okay, software as a service that we deliver to the agencies that deliver that care today. I guess the question, how did I get into that?

Right. And so for me, I started my early career actually in banking, always around tech. So when the right moves and the money supermarkets were becoming a big deal, and I just loved the idea of technology and building a business. And if I go back all the way, when I was 16, I wanted to build a business. So eventually, you know.

10, 15 years later, I got the opportunity to join Birdie after a few startups and scale up experiences and met Abid and Max, my co founders. And weirdly, as, as some people said, when you look back, my parents have a care home. I've had this experience with technology. I've had this experience with banking and the three things have now come together to build what I think is hopefully going to be a big impactful company for healthcare in general.

No, absolutely. We can definitely see the space that Birdie is working in Need that revolution and that you guys are really working on that [00:03:00] But so how did that come about how you said that you always wanted to build your own business? So you obviously always had that fire within you To set something up, but why the type of business that you've set up?

Yeah, it's a really interesting question. I think I think it's fair to say when I started my career You know sort of second second generation immigrant My dad was like work hard go and do some good stuff and it was you know Go and learn the trade but also a big part of my community is building businesses.

It's just part of our makeup So I think from a young age I was like, you know indoctrinated that building businesses and running businesses is good from a yeah financial freedom perspective I think the second part is is You know, I've been involved in various charity activities since I was younger age, including running a cultural school.

And so there's this like deep desire to do sort of good, but also drive business. And, you know, I still feel highly privileged that we're trying to build a business that is a social enterprise as its core. And I think to be honest, it's a bit of luck somewhere along the way, you meet the right people, you get the right connections.

And it's fair to say that from the period that I left [00:04:00] banking to the point at which I joined Birdie has been a seven to eight year journey. Yeah. And some of those were things, you know, great startups, but they weren't social impact. Some of those were just, you know, big, large corporate companies, ASOS and Worldpay where I was doing great work.

So, you know, it's a bit of luck to be honest with you, but it's this combination that really excites me about what we do. Definitely. 

So your passions are, you know, at the heart of the business. Yeah. And can we talk a little bit more about the actual, you know, product that you guys have and delve a little bit deeper into how it works?

Yeah. So today, just to set the scene a little bit, like there are about 800, 000 or so care recipients at home. These are normally older people between 65 to plus who receive care. And the idea of that care is to keep them. At home, happier, healthier, longer. Typically if they, if they decline in their sorts of quality of life, then they either go into hospitals or they go into care homes.

And what's really sad is once they go into hospital, they've had like a bad episode, they're stuck there and we can't get them out. And it's a, it's a massive issue. It's blocking the beds, blocking the A& E. So when we looked at the market, what you see is like 15, 000 [00:05:00] agencies that are actually. Delivering this care and there is, you know, as many nurses in social care, there's over, you know, Hundreds of thousands of care workers that are working but actually they're operating either on paper or really old software Okay And so what we did is we built a piece of software that enables them to run their entire operations on that And we start very much with the like the care management part we talk about So the bit where what's the care we deliver what's the medications that the person has to receive?

But we've expanded that now to you know, the rostering the the workforce experience the hr and the finance So we're one of like I would say one of the very few companies globally that has that completely built from the ground up. Wow. In a single experience. And it's really about, I would say three things, the quality of the experience is why people like us.

The secondly, using that information and data in a meaningful way to, to drive interventions. That's our longterm mission. And thirdly, just the, the quality of analytics and data we're capturing around the care recipient. We are probably the largest data set around. older people today in an organized and structured way.

And we haven't even [00:06:00] started looking at that in a meaningful way because there's so much low hanging fruit in just making the experience better of all the users in, on our product. That's really interesting. And looking at the healthcare sector, we know that it's. known to be underfunded. Yeah. So how did that journey go for you in terms of approaching for funding?

You know, what sort of strategies did you have to take on and what did it look like? Because I'm sure it was probably quite a challenge and more so in that area. I think it's really fair question. I think number one that has, I mean, even to date, there have not been Lots of health tech success stories in a meaningful way, I think for venture investment.

And so I think you're right. There was some tip that some headwinds there. Second thing is when you look at it from a total addressable market perspective, you're right. There's not a lot of money pouring in. People aren't willing to spend that much money on software. Maybe it's a laggard industry. So on paper it doesn't look like a big industry, but I think what, what stood out is it's a huge part of our economy.

The spend is massive and the, How dysfunctional it [00:07:00] is today and how inefficient there is a massive opportunity to capture that. And you can look at the macro trend. So I think the real thing was, did we prove enough that we could make that story fly? And, and did we have a long term vision to capture that over time?

And so I think that's what really got investors bought in to start with and, and having that strong traction. So when I look back at the beginning of the product, we just had a hundred percent adoption, incredible NPS metrics. People really saw the value. And the nice thing about it is, is that. We had to prove value to those users immediately.

Otherwise it wouldn't have bought the technology. And we still talk about it today. Like the alternative is paper. Or a system that's not functional we have to make it saving time saving money or reducing risk And unless we're doing those things people won't take our product on so it's great having a long term mission But actually that's the core of what has made us successful today And I think will remain the core of what makes us successful going forward And you we mentioned earlier on that you've gone from a team of what seven ten To now over 100, right?

[00:08:00] Yeah, about 170 actually at the moment And so, you know, how has it been navigating that journey? Yeah, I mean, I think I was listening to some of the other, the podcasts I've listened to recently, and I think that the, one of the most challenging journeys of building any business or proposition, whether that's, you know, a startup, a scale up, or you're just in an intrapreneur within a company is, is the people in the change management.

Like, I think if I look back at the product we have now built, and I look back at a few of us who built at the beginning, we had mapped most of that product out. On a Miro board or something and we could conceive that in our heads. I think when you look at the journey post that, it's like, how do you get the right people?

How do you scale with people? How do you get them to work together? And that's been, you know, super interesting and challenging. I think one thing that I really strongly believe in and continue to is that as we scale, what's most important is the culture. Yes. And culture is really what values do we all agree on?

Yeah. And more importantly than the values we all agree on, like how do we enact those regularly in our behaviors? And I think that's the thing that we are now learning to figure out. At [00:09:00] 170, we can't absorb, observe all these behaviors. We can't even role model those behaviors actually. We need to have them, you know, sort of embedded in our culture so strongly that when someone on boards, they actually know how to behave within the, in the Birdie context.

And, you know, that, I think we're still on an early journey. I mean, we are, we're learning as we go essentially. And. What does the culture look like at Birdie? Because I know that you've got a very good reputation and you've just actually taken the company away on a really big sort of out of office weekend.

You know, tell us a little bit about building that culture. I know you're on that journey still.

So I think, I think number one, it's really important to invest in the people. So as you said, we've just gone on a retreat and, and, A couple things stood out being really clear on our vision and our direction and being compelling around that I think a lot of companies can often lose their way or don't spend that much time reminding themselves where they're going It's so easy to get focused on the operational execution So that was a big part of what we did But I think to your point the second part was Really revisiting our culture.

I think what worked for the first phase of [00:10:00] our company may not work for the future phase. And we need to decide which of these cultural attributes we had originally are important for us to maintain our core to who Birdie is. What's really actually exciting is you have leaders who have now come from various other companies who are really challenging us to think about what is it that's really important to Birdie versus, you know, another company that could say the same thing.

So I would say we keep investing. I mean, some of the values that really stand out, I know we were talking before, is like radical transparency. Yes. And that's one that, you know, I personally feel, you know, very, very passionate about because a lot of companies don't do that. And I'll give you a few examples.

So for us, radical transparency means a few things. Number one, we have transparent salary grids, historically we've had at least. We used to share most of our board decks with the company. We make sure all our decisions are logged in a central decision that anyone can read and review. And when we started the company, that really worked because everyone understood what was going on.

They could get a feel for the company and make decisions very quickly on [00:11:00] their own and still have some coordination. What's, what the learning is right now is 170. That level of transparency creates a lot of open for people. People want a little bit more focus. They want to, you know, what's going on. What they might need to do to be successful in their careers.

And we're trying to morph that into, you know, what do we do next? So we're having conversations around what is the underlying value of transparency? What does that mean in terms of a scaled organization? Is it fully transparent salary grids? Is it. You know, less transparent, but some way for the, for the, the employees to understand that it's fair and equitable, what they're getting paid, as an example, how much of the decision needs to be open and how much decision needs to be shared openly, because that can again, cause overwhelm for certain people.

So, you know, we're learning about these things. I think the reason I'm so passionate about it is I remember having a conversation with a female, you know, And within our company, and it was in one of the engineering teams. And I think there is still so much inequality sometimes. And so this idea that you can trust that there is equitable meritocratic, you know, [00:12:00] assignment value, or like, you know, people are getting fairly valued for their work is something that actually still happens today.

And so for me, that's what transparency allows us to do. It allows us to really stick by some of those core values we have. And I think that's particularly important if we're a B Corp. I mean, A lot of people want these stamps, but, you know, actually delivering against those stamps is what's most important.

So, you know, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I think the value makes a lot of sense, how we actually make that behavior as we scale. I think we're going to learn as we grow. Definitely. I think it sounds really admirable, but also very sensical. The fact that you're trying to be ultra transparent, but you know, it doesn't always have to be overly communicated.

I think it gives people indicators and I think that gives people a lot of stability and, you know, confidence in who they're working for. So that's really interesting. I've not had that type of conversation with anybody on the podcast so far. So that's great to hear. Originally you were one of four founders and many founders talk about the loneliness of [00:13:00] founding a business. So what was it like being a part of a team of founders? 

Yeah, maybe to reflect like when I actually did my first startup I was a solo founder and I had an idea that possibly wasn't that good but I thought was a good idea at the time and I learned a lot so I've kind of got that eight month journey of Raising a little bit of money for my family and friends and then reflecting versus this and I think the the first thing about I mean, number one, I think it's exceptional to be a solo founder because you essentially have to have such a breadth of skills and such a control of who you are as a person, your strengths, your weaknesses, your emotional maturity, that it is an odd exception, unless maybe you found this sort of unicorn idea.

You've got enough funding, you bring a team around you, but I still think, you know, it's a hard journey. For me personally, I think because of that journey I had of building my own startup and other sort of scale up journeys, I became more clear where my value was within a company and what my sort of. T shaped spike was.

I'm, I'm pretty obsessed about products. I love it. I think there's so much more we can do there and grow there as a European community [00:14:00] versus maybe the U S. And I think that was a very nice synergy with my other co founders. So, you know, Max is our CEO and co founder, he's came up with the original idea, but he's an incredible visionary and able to like, you know, sell that vision to our broader stakeholders, whether it's at the sort of policy level or whether it's our, you know, our big.

customers, Abid has been incredibly strong on selling the vision, doing the commercial side, the sales, the marketing, the strategy, and that's worked really well. And originally, Gwen, who has now left the business, was our CTO and really knew how to build an engineering team. So if you're able to find a complementary team, I think it's so much of an accelerant to your, you know, your de risking of your startup.

It makes complete sense. Now, I think you also need to work a lot on, you know, What the boundaries are between your relationships, because I think people don't figure that out at the beginning, cause they get things wrong around the sort of, you know, the division of their equity or the kind of decision making that one can take versus the other.

And before you know it, that can implode a startup as well. And there's plenty of stories like that as well. So, you know, again, I feel [00:15:00] super privileged that we're in this business having an impact, but with people that I have deep respect for and what they do and genuinely love working with. What's sort of fascinating for me is we didn't know each other before we were kind of put together as part of startup Okay, and yeah, I think we all agree that this has been you know, an incredible success in our collaboration So far at least anyway And so that is, that is something that's, you know, again, back, back on the reality of startups is a bit of luck.

And maybe the final thing I'll make is I think the, the startup journey, whether you're a solo founder, kind of a joint founder, or even an employee is there's a high level of resilience you need. Yeah. And actually just keep going at the problem and you will be successful. I really believe that. And I think that's, that's true, whether you're, like I said, a solo or a joint founder.

And touching on relationships. Looking back at sort of the business that you're, you're in at Birdie, I know that partnerships appear to be, you know, really crucial. So let's talk about sort of the importance of partnerships in your journey. [00:16:00] Yeah, I mean, I think this applies at sort of two levels, right, for our, what others would deem our customers, but our partners.

And just to repeat again, our partners are the agencies that employ the care workers that deliver the care in the community. And I think the first thing I'll say is. They are way more important than whatever Birdie will ever do, right? At the end of the day, care is a human topic. I don't, I really don't believe at any point, anything that's happening within tech, whether that's AI or not, or robotics, will take that away.

And it would be sad if that was the case. Yeah. And so the reason we wanted to call it partnership is they know what they're doing in the community. And what they need to achieve, but they often don't have the technical skills or the resources to, to build that. And actually, you know, when we first started, you had a lot of very forward thinking agencies who are building their own tech.

The cost was huge, you know, the learnings weren't distributed across the industry. And so the reason we think about it being a partnership and a community is we're really trying to be that sort of platform that enables all these agencies to make this digital transition, but also share the learnings across That, you know, across the [00:17:00] network and also trying to be a little bit innovative on the technical side, whether it's using the data in a more interesting way, testing out hardware, you know, ledgering the data we're collecting about care recipient and being a bit more preventative in the vision of, you know, that we have.

So, you know, that's, that partnership is really important. I think the second layer of partnership is really important is. Something that I think a lot of people talk about when they build a product, but maybe don't execute so well, which is just customer centricity. Yeah. And what I mean by customer centricity is how are you making sure that every single conversation you're having with a customer or a partner is somehow going back into your business to improve it?

Whether it's on your go to market, whether it's on your customer success experience, your customer support experience, or frankly, most importantly, your product when you start with. Yeah. And I think. That's something we really invest in. So, you know, to go back to when I started the business. I invest in a tool, which meant that every single conversation that anyone from sales, customer success, customer support, or product had went into a single place.

And I would on a weekly basis, read every [00:18:00] single one and tag it against a backlog of future requirements personally. And I did that for about the first 18, 24 months. And it meant that I had a pulse on what different types of customers wanted and can, in my opinion, at least make better prioritization calls to get the product market fit.

That's now scaled. And so the product team at birdies day. Has to process over 500 insights a month and it's part of their job Like I just I think it's the most important thing because that's how you really Show that you're a partner and you're customer centric by continuously listening and being humble That you are like to my point before you are just the technology enabling.

Yeah This really important human, you know, transactional relationship. Yeah, you're serving a higher purpose. Exactly Yeah, and speaking of product and your product team you've We've developed a tremendous amount of additional features in the past year, is it around a hundred and yeah, over the last 10 years or plus, but particularly, you know, in 2022, [00:19:00] I've read that you introduced, you know, well over a hundred new features to the product.

So I'm really intrigued to know about how that looked and, you know, perhaps some trials and tribulations around that. And I'm sure our listeners would be really interested to hear more. 

I'm thinking there's, there's sort of, there's, there's three elements. I'm back to the first thing I said, that the customer centricity and really being close to the customer and understanding the pain points is really, really important.

And, you know, learning from our customers has driven that. So they want something we go and deliver as fast as we can against that. I think that needs to be coupled then with something that maybe people don't think about as much, which is what is your longer term product vision and how does that apply to your like longer term technical architecture?

Because what can actually clog you up in your speed of delivery? Is not often that you you know, this pain point is something you'd solve but actually technically it's very hard to solve Because of some technical debt that you've created previously and so, you know almost I would when I think back to the birdie there was like Two year phases and [00:20:00] at the beginning of each two year phase.

There was some sort of Good thinking around where the product needs to be, what the architectural strategy should be, and I'm sure we made some, we clearly made some big mistakes along the way, but to, you know, keep our speed and momentum up as we were building features. So there's almost like one list of customers.

Number two, have a bit more thinking longer term. And I think anyone that's dealt with technical data scale has that burn and wants to think about it. And then the third one is cultural, right? Which is, you know, I, I genuinely believe that innovation. Which is this sort of lofty term comes from actually quite a robust process of listening to customers, delivering value, and then there's just a speed at which you do that.

And so at the core, in my belief in our product culture, is this, this willingness to go really fast at testing things and continuously testing those things. And I actually think you attract people that enjoy that if you do that well. And if you don't do that well and you get dragged in technical debt, you end up with, you know, a slightly different group of people who are probably very good at that, but not as excited by the sort of the continuous innovation.

By the way, that's something we [00:21:00] clearly have not done well on all the time. So 2022 was good. I was in 23 was maybe not as good and we're working on that. And, you know, as we talked about being in like people change management is very, very hard. So, you know, I think we're still learning about that, but I would say those three elements of what I think about in terms of driving real innovation through, you know, technology and product for our partners.

And although 2022 obviously sounded like a super busy year for Birdie, let's talk a little bit about yourself and how you balance being a founder of a business in a space that needs this revolution. 

And so to talk about a sector that needs digitalizing, it sounds like no mean feat. So how do you balance life, work, I know that you've got, you've got a family of your own. So talk with me a little bit about how you keep motivated, how you keep going, pushing forwards. 

Yeah. I mean, number one, I'll say it's just a constant effort. I don't think [00:22:00] this is ever, ever easy. And like, I don't think it's. Something that just a startup founder thinks about I think is someone if you're an executive if you're Employing a company like this is just the journey of life So maybe that's the first reflection is like this is this is just life and you know We've got to get on with it and keep I think one of my specific tactics, one, I think, again, I'm going to get back to the mission.

Like I feel very privileged to be in a mission, which is not just around, you know, immediate monetary gain on a personal basis or, you know, for our investors or our company, but around something that's really meaningful in a mission driven way. And I think, One thing anyone should ask themselves is am I aligned with what I want to achieve in my life with what this company is trying to do.

Definitely. Particularly if you're in a startup, because if you're not, you're not going to deal with the weekends and the late nights and the hard work and the difficult decisions and the damn days and the good days and all that sort of thing. So for me, you know, when I look back at where I started, it Ed tech was interesting.

Climate tech was interesting. Health tech was interesting. And, you know luckily [00:23:00] because of my experience personally, but also my professional experience, health tech has made a lot of sense. And so, you know, that is the first thing that keeps me going every day. It gets me up and, you know, like we can genuinely try and resolve major societal issues in the UK, but globally when it comes to health tech and, you know, aging specifically, and I feel very privileged to do that.

I think more practically having boundaries every day around when you're working, when you're not. Things like meditation, journaling, regular exercise. Like, there are just habits that I think you should never let go of. And I correlate. When I am not doing so well professionally or personally with when I've lost my habits.

I'm very clear about that Yeah, that doesn't mean that sometimes I lose my habits because the the demands are there either personally or professionally But I think going back and course correcting is really important and the one that I still need to work on is I think communicating openly whether it's whether it's with your you know Your partner your family or with your your business about what you can and can't do at certain times Yeah, and and the if you don't do these things and i've seen this quite a lot with other people is You [00:24:00] It does drive, you know, burnout, which is now better known, and it is not good for your long term career, I think, because you need to step away.

So, how you do those things, to be honest with you, I think is a very personal journey. These are just things that I think work for me, and I'm still trying to figure it out as I go along this journey, as it were. And in terms of challenges that you faced along this journey, What would you say would be one of the biggest challenges that you've had to overcome or are still overcoming at Birdie?

I guess maybe we talk a little bit about the business I was talking about and I think we're starting to deal with that challenge is that I think the the size of the mission is so great. And because we're trying to balance between, you know, what is a VC funded high growth SaaS business, but also something which has a deeper long term mission, that [00:25:00] is quite hard to balance all the time.

And you have differing, you know, pressure points. So at some point you're having to drive more revenue, then you remind yourself where the mission is. And so I would say this is a constant challenge for us. And on two fronts, I would say front one is, you know, how do we keep a clear narrative for our different.

Stakeholders. So today it's very easy to explain what birdie does to the agency. It's probably not as easy to explain what birdie is looking to do for the family or looking to do for, you know, the prescriber of care, like the local authority or, you know, the general public, the consumer, and that's something we're starting to work on a lot more to bring that story to life.

I think then more tactically is how do you start to make the investment allocations between these two parts? Which is always competing priorities. So, you know, I'd say that's a constant challenge. I think. The one thing that again, I, I'm humbled to be part of is that when I look back at what we put down on paper, and even some of those like early, pretty poor slides, that core vision has not changed.

And every time we go to a retreat or we go and talk to, you know, I talked [00:26:00] to a new candidate or I talked to, it's exciting that we have that core vision and it's been five years in, and I don't think it will change. And so, you know, it's more the tactics and the cons of the issue rather than the call. I would say the core thesis of the business.

Yeah. Coming back to the why. Yeah. It's really important. And are you able to share with our listeners any next steps for, for Birdie or the roadmap that you guys see yourself on? You've already said, of course, this is a huge mission. You know, it's almost a bottomless pit, but it's something that's very necessary, very needed.

Anyone who's come in touch with the NHS or any even private. Healthcare knows that there's so much more to be done. But are you able to give us any insights? I think definitely could share at high levels. So I think the first thing is, you know, if I just look back at our product today, where we focus on those agencies that deliver the care, there is still plenty [00:27:00] to do in terms of improving that experience.

And we think about it in sort of three lenses. One is, you know, what's all the types of care these providers need? You know, deliver in the community. And today we generally focus on what we call domiciliary care. So these are like short visits that happen at someone's home, but there's a growth in what we call complex care, more complex needs being delivered at home or live in care.

And so that is a big area of investment for us. The second one is that many of these providers still have other pieces of software they're using. And they would get a lot of value with that software being more deeply integrated. Okay. Because, again, there's a care worker, there's a family, there's multiple people in the office.

By having it integrated, you can make a much better, more valuable experience that saves you time, saves you money, reduces risk. That's another area of investment. And thirdly, I'm actually really excited because this was part of our original vision, to see what we can do with generative AI. We are, we have a huge amount of information around a patient that at the moment is sort of locked up.

I mean, it used to be locked up in paper files. Yeah. Now it's digitized and it is somewhat organized within our product, [00:28:00] but it doesn't make it any easier to consume for a human. And so, you know, the last six months has opened up a lot of avenues for us to really make that a much better experience. And I really do believe we're in a shift from sort of a mobile web UX world to a much more conversational interaction with computers generally, whether that's through voice or whether that's, you know, through some sort of chatbot system.

So, you know, if we're going to be the healthcare at home operating system, we have to be exploring that trend. And that's something we're going to be doing. That's on the core product. I mean, outside of that, definitely scaling internationally. We've, we've launched in Germany just this year. We have other markets planned for next year, and we have, you know, I think we've got very high confidence that the problem exists in many other markets and the core problem is exactly the same.

And the third part, which, you know, is definitely early days for us. And we're exploring is as you mentioned, this is a, the consumer at the middle of this, whether that's the care recipient or whether that's their family has to navigate the system. We are just one part of the system today. And so the [00:29:00] long term vision that we can empower patients.

You know, with some of their own data, with some of them that the right knowledge and insights to navigate the system better, to drive better outcomes themselves, but actually drive more cost efficiencies for the overall sense you know, overall sector, healthcare and social care is something that I think has to happen.

There's, there's, I cannot see a solution outside of something where, you know, we are empowered better by technology to navigate the system better. And that for me is one of the most exciting revolution. Now. I don't know how we're going to do that. I don't know what, what we have to put in place, but You'll find a way, I'm sure. But I think we're very excited to explore that. And I think we're in a good place to try and do that. 

Well, to summarize, and we ask every single guest that comes on to the Startup Diaries this question, but do you have one piece of advice that you would give someone looking to start their own business?

I mean, a few pieces. So if someone's going to try and start their own business, the first thing I would ask is like, you know, be really clear on why you're trying to achieve that business and at what scale, [00:30:00] I think you can build many types of businesses. Some are VC funded, some are, you know, bootstrapped, some are just operational and generate cash from right at the beginning.

And you just have to be really clear about what your goal is in that. The second one is. Be really clear about your strengths or weaknesses. Like what do you need around you to make this a success with the goal that you have? And honestly, just go and find those people. There's plenty of those. And then the final piece of advice, which may be a bit contrary is like, just because you want to build something great doesn't mean you have to build your own business.

There are, I think a lot of great companies trying to do some really exciting things. And I'm optimistic that the next 10, 20 years because of all the societal changes will go back to a world where people focus on delivering value back to humans and then make profit as opposed I think the last 20, 30 years was more like, how do we make profit, and then we'll deal with sort of the human impacts.

And so there's a lot of people who I think are going to be, you know, have great ideas that need a team behind them. Yeah. And I've had that conversation with many people at Verity about like, you know, many people do join a startup to think about their own startup post that. And [00:31:00] some are definitely on that journey and should go there.

But many others sort of realize that they can have just as much impact in their life by being part of a mission. So, you know, I think that the core of that is, you know, think deeply about what you're trying to achieve personally and bring people around you to live. That's a wonderful place to finish.

Thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. Hope you enjoyed it. It was great. 

Thanks so much for having me.