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Innovating Nigeria's Medical Sector | A Noble Conversation with Dr. Ikpeme Neto
In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Ikpeme Neto, a healthcare technology entrepreneur in Nigeria with a dedication to healthcare accessibility, inspiring a movement towards technology-driven health insurance solutions for the informal economy.
We discuss his journey from being a physician with a dream to a digital health founder reshaping Nigerian healthcare.
Dr. Neto pulls back the curtain on Nigeria's healthcare challenges, from staggering out-of-pocket expenses to the issues with expanding insurance coverage. Wella Health emerges as a ray of hope, especially for the diaspora community, through pioneering services like HealthSend. We also dissect the mechanics of healthcare provider incentives and the art of public speaking, as Dr. Neto reflects on the potent lessons from his ventures. This episode is more than a conversation; it's a call to witness how the confluence of healthcare, entrepreneurship, and technology can forge a new path for national well-being.
Dr. Neto is a recipient of a $300k first place prize at the Africa Business Heroes competition, affirming the potency of his vision and the resilience of his team.
most of nigeria's labor force businesses are informal, so you have about 60 percent of the economy is informal and so like, where do you even start to try to get people to pay for insurance?
Speaker 3:dr ikbeme neto that's our guest today on Noble Conversations the noblest. This is a good one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so as well, bro, this is a good one. This is the guy.
Speaker 3:The guy when it comes to digital health in Niger.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the guy I want to see about it Now. I heard he went to. Based off what I know, he went to medical school in Ireland.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:That's where he went to medical school that yes and I'm not from what I've heard from other people who have also gone to like medical school in like europe.
Speaker 3:They've had very unique experiences, so I really want to touch on that um, yeah, I'm curious to see what his journey was like to even get into ireland, yeah, and then doing medical school in ireland, right, and even going back to nigeria, because he he's you know from what I've seen, he's he started a company called Wella Health, which is basically almost like a health financing health insurance.
Speaker 2:I'm also interested to like how did that like go about like going from like being like medical school you know, physician and all that stuff to digital health, you know?
Speaker 3:Like the business side of healthcare.
Speaker 2:Yeah, cause I'm not. That's something I'm personally very interested in of healthcare. Yeah, because that's something I'm personally very interested in as well. You know, that's something that I also want to-. Dr Obo Naya hey it will happen, it will happen, it will happen, it will happen, it will happen. Glory, glory, yeah. No glory, yeah. But hey, man, I don't know, that's the heart of an entrepreneur right there, bro, to jump in uncharted waters and actually go do that stuff was crazy. Yeah, it was crazy I mean.
Speaker 3:I think it paid off too because, like I mean Africa Business Heroes. So for those who don't know, Africa Business Heroes is almost like a business case competition that Jack Ma, who's a Chinese billionaire, started Basically, I think he committed a hundred million over 10 years to fund startups in Africa. And so, Dr Neto, yeah Right, I think he won the first place for 300,000.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he did 300,000, first place.
Speaker 3:And this is like this is huge.
Speaker 2:This is not. You know, that's not small money.
Speaker 3:It's not, and I mean that just goes to show the hard work that he's put in over the years, and not just the hard work, but the impact. Right, and I mean the company. So this is something that I learned, you know, because I did some work with almost like a venture capital group in college.
Speaker 2:I want things to relax. Not like that, not like that. Not yet, not yet, not yet.
Speaker 3:Not yet, but soon. Amen, yeah, but one of the things that they tell us is the company. Like, when you're evaluating a company, yes, you look at their financials, yes, you look at their profit, like how profitable is the company, how you know to see whether or not to invest, how you know to see whether or not to invest. But one of the biggest things, actually two of the biggest things that they, that they um emphasize when evaluating whether or not to give a company money, is the founder, like.
Speaker 3:The first thing is the founder. How tenacious is a founder? How you know, um, what's, what's their track record? What? What level of of like, how committed are they to the business? Right? And then the second one, and I think those, those are things you can find out by just what level of like, how committed are they to the business? Right? And then the second one, and I think those are things you can find out by just talking to the person. The second one is what does your team look like? And it seems like Dr Ekpemeneto has two of those things.
Speaker 3:I mean he is, he has the grit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, bro made it through medical school, Bro is a practicing physician. It takes some grit to do that period, oh yeah. But to actually go out there and start something where it's never been, nothing like that has ever been started before, I think that takes a lot of tenacity, Takes a lot of gusto. You know what I'm saying, Like guts, you know. So yeah, I mean we're just going to, yeah, we, you know. So yeah, I mean we're just gonna, yeah, we're just gonna, we're just gonna have some conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean no more conversation, no more conversation.
Speaker 3:If there's anybody that you need to go to for digital health in Nigeria, it's Dr Neto.
Speaker 1:Wow, See lots of people say that and it puts me in a tight spot, because people come with these high expectations. I'm like I don't know, man. You know, I'm just trying to figure it out.
Speaker 2:I mean, you've done a fair share of figuring it out, you know, based on what I can tell.
Speaker 1:So tell us about yourself. You know, like, where did this all start? You know? Yeah, that's always a tough question to answer, because you know where's the best place to start, I would say with regards to digital health in particular. I mean I trained as a doctor so always wanted to help people. I mean I was kind of the cliche kid who wanted to help people, right, and so went to med school and then, you know, was going through the motions of training to be a doctor, but I was never quite sure what specialty to do. I knew what I didn't like. I didn't like early mornings, so yeah, surgery was out of the question for me.
Speaker 1:So I was like yeah, I'm not getting up at like 4 am like Like no, nobody should do that.
Speaker 3:And so for me it was kind of but this one, you're staying up till midnight, well yeah. Exactly right, yeah, and I get up earlier now these days.
Speaker 1:But I wasn't keen on kind of surgery because of that and I was trying to figure out you know what to do. But then I got, I kind of became enamored with the idea of having impact on a large scale. And so I wanted to look back after my career and have had impact on lots of people so in the magnitude of, you know, hundreds of thousands, potentially millions, and I kind of figured that you know, sitting in a clinic day to day wouldn't enable me to have that sort of impact. And so while I, you know like the clinical stuff, so that seeing patients being in a hospital or in a clinic, it felt like I could do more and I could impact more people, and so I kind of flirted then with the idea. So the traditional way that doctors think of having impact on a large scale is via public health. So when I used to tell this story prior to COVID, people were like what's that? Nobody knew what public health doctors did. That has changed.
Speaker 1:Everybody knows now you know, but when I, you know, contemplated it, like you know, it wasn't glamorous. It still isn't glamorous, but I think COVID certainly made it more apparent that you know, public health doctors are super important. But when I considered it I thought, okay, this is a great specialty to make impact on a large scale. And so I started to kind of pursue it. But the more I did it, the more I realized that perhaps it wasn't for me, simply because there was a lot of talk and not a lot of action.
Speaker 3:Okay, in what sense Can you expand on that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so public health is really around policy, so it's around influencing policy, and what you find a lot of times is that the work to get sort of policy to change is really arduous, takes a lot of time, effort and energy and you may not even have the resources. So across your career as a public health doctor, um, you know it can it can be fairly difficult. Other than so, there's a bog standard public health stuff of, say, chasing infections and stuff like that. I don't want to do that. I wanted to like exciting stuff. Um, because, because I went to medical school in Ireland and part of what influenced me actually was my public health department, so Ireland was the first country in the world to ban smoking in public places Wow, Okay, when was this?
Speaker 3:When did they ban it? This?
Speaker 1:was in the early 2000s, so they were the first in the world, and the guys that essentially did this came into my university to talk about the work they did. So to me they were like rock stars and they tell the story very well as well, at least in my estimation. They told a great story of how they got a smoking ban in public places and that singular act has saved lots of lives, saved the health system, a lot of money, reduced so many you know poor outcomes. So that was the kind of work I wanted to do, you know I wanted to be able to tell that story that because of something I did, you know, I was able to make impact on a large scale. But things like that, you know they don't happen often in public health. Right, it usually takes a lot of time, energy, effort, and sometimes you don't see a lot of results straight away. And so that's what.
Speaker 1:I kind of ended up learning and so I was like I don't know if public health is for me. You know, let me keep kind of figuring it out. So I was training as a hospital doctor, working in internal medicine, still trying to actually go into public health, maybe do a bit of healthcare management. So I ended up doing a course in healthcare management and so I say all of this to like set the scene as when then I started to, all of this was going on in my mind. I had the healthcare management, you know, training, public health, looking at you know populations and you know populations and you know big impact. Then I started to help my mom figure out healthcare nigeria. At the time I was working in new zealand and I figured I was, you know, far away. I was using the internet and technology to, you know, do stuff for her. So find doctors, keep records, you know, give advice, that kind of thing, and this was a quick question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go for it. What did your mom do, like what? Like what do you mean? You were helping your mom. You said you start off helping your mom. Like what was your? What was your mother? Yeah, no, like with her own, with her own symptoms, you know.
Speaker 1:So, like she was navigating, like, yeah, so she was having like all these symptoms that were straightforward and kind of nobody could really diagnose appropriately and so just helping and navigate the healthcare system, you know so, going to the right doctors, you know, recording stuff, getting the right tests, all of that. And I was, you know, miles and miles away in New Zealand and I figured, oh geez, if I can do this for her, perhaps I can do this for way more people and then I can have that impact on a large scale. And I figured that, you know, considering how bad it is in Nigeria and Africa where lots of doctors and healthcare professionals are leaving, that realistically, technology is the only way you're ever going to get healthcare to where we need it to be, and so I was like okay, you know healthcare health technology, digital health.
Speaker 1:That's the way to go.
Speaker 3:Okay, and so Nigeria to Ireland, to New Zealand. Like what was that? What was that story? What was that journey? Why Ireland?
Speaker 1:Ireland is simply because of a newspaper. I say be careful what newspaper you read.
Speaker 2:It can change your life significantly.
Speaker 1:Which newspaper?
Speaker 3:It was the Guardian in Nigeria.
Speaker 1:There was an ad in the newspaper that said come study medicine in Ireland. My dad was like yeah, why not? You know, try it out. So that was it. So we went to the information session. My dad was like okay, this looks interesting. You know, admission in Nigeria was slow. And he was like you know what? You're probably better off going to Europe anyway.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, that's how that came about, okay. Yeah, I feel like a lot of, um, a lot of nigerians and I just africans in general. I feel like I feel like a lot of people go to europe for, you know, education when it comes to medicine, I mean arguably so. I mean I think it's reasonably so. Uh, based off what I've heard, um, I'm not gonna lie like they pretty much have it going on in regards to, like you know, medicine yeah, so I mean I also know that that it's also affordable as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I mean, compared to the US, certainly yes, Depending on where you go to in Europe. So if you go to Eastern Europe, so Hungary, Poland, Romania, lots of Nigerians go there. Ireland not so much, but a lot of Americans and Canadians, you know, come to Ireland to study, but a lot of Americans and Canadians, you know, come to Ireland to study, and in my class, you know, we had loads of Americans. And so what happens is, you know, lots of people then go to the US for postgrad. So they do the USMLEs and they end up in postgrad positions in the US.
Speaker 3:What part of Nigeria did you grow up in?
Speaker 1:So I grew up in Abuja. I was born in Lagos but grew up in Abuja, so I went to secondary school in Abuja.
Speaker 3:Was it boarding school?
Speaker 1:So I did federal government college for two years. I was boarding school. That was traumatic. It was a total disaster. So I go by my last name, neto, and part of the reason for that was when I went to boarding school, my parents plastered my name on everything I owned, so my clothes, my buckets, like everything I owned and I proceeded to lose everything I owned and so my name was just everywhere, because you see, my clothes everywhere, my name on them, you know buckets, everything, um.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it was just easy to come in there too and, uh, the name, the name, kind of the fame grew based of my stuff being lost, oh wow yeah, so that sucks buckets. Everything, yeah, everything, everything and so, yeah, so those two years were a disaster. So in js3 my parents like, okay, you need to leave. And then I ended up in a model secondary school in metama in abuja.
Speaker 3:How was that different from um federal government college?
Speaker 1:It was a lot less um, strict and stringent, you know. So, um, I would say my recollection isn't great, probably because of all the trauma, but I remember, I remember it just being a lot more relaxed. In Model, where you know it was, it was a day school, it was also in a relatively well-off area in Abuja and so we had kind of, I'd say, middle-class, upper middle-class kids and back then there weren't a lot of good private schools. So people, like you know, upper middle-class people, still sent their kids to public school and so, like in my class, you know, upper middle class people still send their kids to public school and so, like in my class you know, we had people that were of reasonable means, public servants mostly, that was reasonable means, but just there weren't many options, at least in Abuja. Anyway, you'd send your kid to a good private school. So we had just all ended up there.
Speaker 2:So I would like to ask, like I mean, based off of what I've heard about you, you're fairly accomplished, you've done a lot. Where did that drive start? What first program or initiative did that start with? And is that something that started in primary school or even at boarding school, or even in college? Where did you first start to exhibit those traits of you being driven?
Speaker 3:and actually doing things, being the guy that we go to for digital health yeah, being Dr Nero, I mean.
Speaker 2:I know you say the same group, but you know it's stuff getting stolen.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying, but like where did that?
Speaker 2:where did that actually start to grow, you know?
Speaker 1:Oh, I'd say, I'd say it was after secondary school. Actually funny enough. So so I was like so I finished secondary school fairly young. I think that was half the problem. You know, there's all this research that says, you know, boys mature slower than girls and are just not able to kind of concentrate, especially in school, you know, up until they're kind of later teens. And that was certainly true for me. So while I was I mean, I was certainly above average intelligence I just didn't have the temperament, you you know, to kind of sit down and study and actually work hard. And so I finished secondary school when I was 15, but like my grades weren't great, like my, my wayak result. If you look at it it's like wow, is it this guy really? And even so, it's a funny story when I was, when I was about.
Speaker 3:I can't relate, I think a lot of us can relate Grades or not, but I think it's a mental thing I mean I can think of.
Speaker 1:I mean I did A-levels after that but I can think of people that a few of my friends were terrible at A-levels but currently, like I can think of one guy, he's got a PhD in engineering, works for this massive big, you know engineering company Like he's doing amazing. But when he was like 17 he was an idiot you know what I mean just totally foolish.
Speaker 2:But like you know that's, you don't know anything but that's how.
Speaker 1:That's how guys are. Unfortunately, we just kind of blossom a little later. And but this here's how unserious I was. When I was seven, my my parents would drop me off at school and, thinking they had a responsible son, they wouldn't make sure I ended up in my class. They dropped me off at the gate and they would leave, and I would go around the back gate and walk back home because home wasn't that far off to go watch Ninja Turtles.
Speaker 2:That's crazy. The school they were paying for, yes, tmnt, yes.
Speaker 1:And so one day my class teacher was like Mama Neto, papa Neto, your son is not coming to school. What's going on? I was like, huh, they're like what? So there you go. That's like my early days. I was just not serious at all. I just wanted to play football, watch TV. I just used to spend all my time watching football and cricket. I love cricket, so I just used to play football, watch TV, like I just used to spend all my time watching football and cricket. I love cricket.
Speaker 1:So I just used to like watch a lot of cricket because you know cricket lasts for five days, so I just would spend days watching cricket. So yeah, it wasn't until, I'd say, when I was sort of 17-ish, I went to A-level school and then, you know, started to be a little bit more driven.
Speaker 3:What switched?
Speaker 1:Like driven, what switch, like what changed? I? I think, looking back, I think I just grew up. You know, I just grew up, I don't think like anything amazing happened, but I just grew up. I was like listen man, like grow up, you know would you say that?
Speaker 2:was there anyone like uh, was there anyone speaking into at that age like did you have people that you looked up to or that were around you that had some type of influence on you?
Speaker 1:Not necessarily.
Speaker 3:Maybe from a distance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I don't think anything specifically changed. You know, like I mean, of course my parents were there, you know, being encouraging. You know I was, you know religious and going to church. So I was like I was a good kid. You know, don't get me wrong, I wasn't doing anything mad around me, I was just like I was just playful. I just love football, you know. I loved like you know, doing stuff that was fun. I just didn't think like you know spending. So actually I was overconfident. I was like, oh yeah, two minutes of study, this is easy like I don't need to study anymore no
Speaker 2:actually that's how it goes. That's the trap. That's the trap.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the trap so yeah, so I just yeah, I did it so. But then, like I said, when I got to like 16, 17, I was like okay, yeah. So I think, actually I think I spent. I spent like two years at home so I did jam. I couldn't get in.
Speaker 1:So in that time, you know, I spent a lot of time going to church, reading the Bible a lot. I spent a lot of time then, you know, learning to play instruments. I learned the keyboard and spent a lot of time learning music. So I, you know, learned music. I know a bit of music theory. So I think that process just kind of matured me. I didn't have the pressure of school per se and I kind of read a fair bit as well and I guess my parents always on my back going why are you at home? Because you're useless and lazy, you know. So I think all of that combined kind of, and I just grew up really, and then when I got to A-level school, I was like okay, because my dad then was like listen, I'm paying a lot of money for you to go to this school, you better sit up. I got there, I better sit up. So, yeah, I just did.
Speaker 2:Was that when you started thinking medicine?
Speaker 1:Well, I always wanted to do medicine. I just didn't follow it up with the right behaviors. You know, I always wanted to be a doctor, but I was just not serious enough reading.
Speaker 3:So what's the because? All of that you know, like all the things you were doing during those two years and all the perspective shifts that you were having during that time, almost translated to the work that you do and how you view the work that you do and doing it, so that you know you're doing it first for God, but also for other people. So how did all of that lead to digital health? Like, what was the origin of digital health? What's the origin story?
Speaker 1:Oh of the group. So Digital Health Nigeria.
Speaker 3:Yeah, digital Health, nigeria specifically.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So when I returned to start the company, so I returned to Nigeria I said, okay, I'm going to build a digital health company. It was so difficult and this was sort of 2015, when nobody was doing it. Like now it's cool to say I, and this was sort of 2015, when nobody was doing it. Like now it's cool to say, oh, I'm going to go do tech, I'm going to do a startup, I'm going to do health tech, whatever. Back then, like it wasn't cool at all. So well, not so much that it wasn't cool, yeah, it wasn't cool, but like there wasn't any resource, like there was nothing. There was like nothing, you know.
Speaker 1:And so I was going through a really, really hard time. Like when I say really, really hard time, I was really going through it and I was having all this siloed and separate conversations with people in the space. At the time, there was only a handful of people and I'd reach out to them and I'd have conversations with them. I'd be like you know, ceo man, I'm seeing really really difficult things out there. How are you navigating it? What are you thinking? And so I had all these conversations separately and I thought, hey, like there's no group for us to. You know, get together and share the challenges. You know, support each other, see how we can get things moving. How about we just start this thing, a group where we can just chat and just, you know, essentially have a shoulder to cry on, that understands what you're going through? So that was the original purpose.
Speaker 1:So there was only eight people, I think, initially, and that's how it started, and so it just kind of grew from there and so I kept a newsletter. So back then I was doing like monthly newsletters used to do events. This was back in 2016. So newsletters events I was actively kind of recruiting people in that were working on digital health, building startups, stuff like that. So slowly but surely it grew and I'd say after I started the second or third year I probably stopped investing as much in it because I just didn't have the time. So I stopped the newsletters used to write a lot of content. The website is now down, but the group has lived on, at least via WhatsApp and a few meetups here and there. So there's over 300 people in it. What I do now is I do an annual review. So this year will be my seventh year doing an annual review. I just haven't had the time or energy to write it.
Speaker 3:The group Digital Health Nigeria was this before, because you also started a company, wella health, that's right, yeah was this before wella health?
Speaker 1:so it was around the same time. So it was all the challenges I was experiencing doing wella health that encouraged me to start this group, to find a community around it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll be honest, though, I think it's one thing to be a doctor, it's one thing to you know in medicine, but I think it's something completely different. To go jump into those waters and start prompted you to go ahead and just jump off the deep end per se, especially in a digital health where you didn't really have any forerunners Outside looking in. You would have to jump into that and figure it out. So where did that grit come from? Where did that desire to do such a thing come from? I know you mentioned helping your mom and it would have been easy to help other people, but, like I said, I think starting a company is like that's the deep end of the pool.
Speaker 1:Definitely so. There's a popular meme that says you know, we didn't do entrepreneurship because, uh, because it's easy. We did it because we thought it'd be easy.
Speaker 2:I'd say there's there's a measure of no exactly.
Speaker 1:There's a measure of naivety in in all of this. Um, that's you know. Over time you kind of figure that, oh geez, you know, if you'd known what you know now, you probably wouldn't do it. So I think for me. So when I figured out that technology was the way to go for healthcare, I actually didn't fancy myself an entrepreneur. What I was going to do was I was going to invest actually. So you know, like I said, my track was I was going to be an internal medicine doctor.
Speaker 1:Then I'd probably go do like healthcare management and or public health and then, you know, make loads of money and be happy and be stable. But then when I kind of started to get interested in the space, I started to talk to people in Nigeria because I wanted to be in Nigeria for sure, because obviously for my folks, you know, and people that were like me or are like me, with the view to invest and support them, and I remember thinking I don't feel very confident giving these guys my money you know, okay, and I'm like wait why why?
Speaker 1:didn't you feel confident you know, like you know, you just know within the first 10 minutes, that this is that they're up to something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know yeah, like they didn't get it. Do you get what I mean? You know I mean again, back then I was still like I didn't get it either, because I mean 10 years almost down the line now like I see the errors that I made. But even then, as as naive and as green as I was, I still could tell that these guys didn't get it because, first of all, they were not healthcare people.
Speaker 1:They were the two guys I spoke to like technologies or tech people you know, and so I figured well, you know, if somebody, if this is important, and it is somebody needs to do it right. These guys aren't. And I feel like I've got some insights and I've got the desire, then you know why not me? You know, um, and so that was my thought process, and so I thought, rather than you know, put this money to them, I'll take the money and I'll just start it myself, and I didn't think I'd do it full time.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But I actually didn't think I'd do it full time. As a matter of fact, I thought I'd you know kind of lead it, find the right people, hire them and then let them run it. So I tried that model. It didn't work very well and so it came to a. There was like a crossroads for me because I was really into what I was doing. That was, in a way, that was affecting my day-to-day job as a doctor. Like I was really into, you know, figuring out the business side. You know building a company, building tech Like I was really into it. You know I go into work in the morning and I'd be trying to get away from patients to go, like, sit in front of my computer, and I knew this was dangerous for the patients.
Speaker 3:Before you got prescribed.
Speaker 1:So that was my cue. I was like, okay, it's time to, it's time to. You know, it's time to go do this full time, cause I've got to, I've got to, I've got to. You know, give it my all and you know, do my best.
Speaker 2:And if it doesn't work out, fine. But I can't be like in between two worlds, you know. So how easy was it? Well, I don't need, I don't think this was easy at all, quite honestly, but what were some challenges in finding the right team to you know, help you build a wall of health. It was very difficult.
Speaker 1:So I mean my first team, for instance, totally got like rid of all of them because it just didn't work out. They didn't understand, I didn't understand, I didn't know how to work with them. Rid of all of them because it just didn't work out. They didn't understand, I didn't understand, I didn't know how to work with them. First of all, they were like my friends and you know one advice I give to people starting out is don't hire your friends, because it's very difficult to fire them and you need to be able to fire people when you hire them.
Speaker 1:Don't hire family either, because, again, it's very difficult to fire them. So I mean, there are exceptions, of course, all the time, but I find that, especially in Nigeria, it's important to be able to fire people because performance can be a challenge. So that was my first error is like I got in bed with people that you know were friends, of course, but didn't really see the vision, didn't have the right passion didn't have the right skills even to do a startup.
Speaker 1:So when that didn't go very well I got rid of that team. Then I returned fully. Having said that, actually I got a dozen Aussie friend of mine really good friend. He was a great tech guy so he built the first version of all of our software. It was excellent so he was great to work with. But he was in Australia and then he got busier with his life so he had to kind of move on. But he helped me then. So when I moved back to Nigeria and I kind of had to start afresh, he helped me hire a local guy that's now, like you know, engineering lead and has been excellent since. So that was helpful. He helped hire that guy and then I essentially just kind of, you know, interviewed people, met people, worked with them on a consulting style basis.
Speaker 1:If they did well then I'd bring them on more full-time so yeah it's tough, but uh, you know you gotta kiss a lot of frogs where you find the right people and so.
Speaker 3:So wella health, um, I'm familiar with because it's healthcare financing right and health insurance. So I'm in the health insurance space here in Houston. But I'm curious for the audience who may not be fully familiar with Wella Health do you mind like sharing, like, exactly what Wella Health is and maybe what the financing structure looks like?
Speaker 2:yeah but before you do that, do you mind just giving us a brief overview from your perspective? The um finance like that environment prior that environment without, like you know, your company, and like just the just the climate of health insurance in nigeria period yeah sure, I mean it's still with like what would it look like without wella health?
Speaker 1:yeah, I mean it's still without wella health because, like, we're nowhere near where we need to be. So you know, again for context, like we're tiny, you know we're like we're very tiny compared to what you know the market is like and the opportunity. So, if we zoom out and think of healthcare as a whole so Nigeria, the last time we did a thing called a national health account it's where you know, everybody kind of totals of what is spent in the country and sends it to the who and then, um, there's a national health account report. So the last time we did one was back in 2016, and then it said that, um, nigerians spend about 70 percent of the payment for health care is out of pocket by families, right? So for every dollar that's spent in Nigeria, 70 cents comes out of household pockets.
Speaker 1:Now the challenge there, of course, is that, absolute value wise, that's about seven billion dollars, or at least it was back in 2016. The challenge with that is it's very fragmented and very unstructured. So $7 billion sounds like a lot and it is a lot, but it is not $7 billion in one pocket or in one bank account. It is $7 billion divided by 100 million healthcare encounters every year. Do you know what I mean. And so when you then break it out like that, it's very inefficient, it's very fragmented and the individual person that's bringing cash out of his pocket to pay for healthcare is buying really substandard healthcare because the provider is not able to guarantee his cash flows.
Speaker 3:Because if you look at healthcare, provision.
Speaker 1:about 60% is private and even on the public side you still have to pay fees. So there's fees across the board, full stop. There's only some free benefits, but you have to pay fees. So if I open an establishment that provides healthcare services, I cannot guarantee that anybody will come in the door and pay me anything. If I open an establishment in the US, what I've got to do is go talk to a couple of insurers, tell them here's what I do, sign a couple of contracts with Medicare or whatever, and I'm good right. I could almost project for the next five years what I would do, income-wise or cash-wise. Okay, and that enables me to sort of plan. I can go to my bank, I can go to my you know equipment supplier, like I could do a lot of different things. That you know makes my life easier as a you know healthcare business in the US. In Nigeria, it's all vibes and inshallah, as we say there. Nigeria, it's all vibes and inshallah as we say.
Speaker 2:There is no guarantee of nothing.
Speaker 1:There is no guarantee of nothing. So because of that, the moment somebody presents, the chances you'll see them again is very slim. So you want to maximize that in that encounter every single time. So you're going to charge him the most you can get away with charging and you're going to treat him with the level of quality you can get to treating him at the price of charging. Do you get what I mean? So there's some perverse incentives there. Then, when you have people paying out of pocket, he's like the provider is going to charge as much as he can and it's not going to give you great quality. Because ultimately, what are you going to do? You're not going to come again where you were not going to come again anyway. So the healthcare is expensive, it's very fragmented and the incentives are all skewed. Now there is some health insurance, but it's only about 3% of people that have health insurance and it's only about it's only really the formal market. So that's formal employers, employers with formal employees providing them with health insurance. So it's actually mandated.
Speaker 3:Why is that? Is that like a lack of knowledge or awareness about it, or is it more affordability?
Speaker 1:So two things Tell you about the structure of the market. So if you have more than five employees in Nigeria, the law states that you must provide them with health insurance.
Speaker 3:Okay. But, who is enforcing?
Speaker 1:that.
Speaker 2:That's a good question. How do you enforce that?
Speaker 1:Nobody's enforcing it. That's even better Because it's very difficult to enforce. So the only companies you can really enforce it are the large companies, right, who have to do all this reporting and all this you know. So there you could potentially enforce it, but there, because of the way they're structured, health care benefits are a perk anyway that you have to offer to your employees. So if you're like a multinational oil and gas company, your and gas company, you're a telco, you're a bank like I mean, of course you're going to give your employees health insurance. You know like what kind of company wouldn't? So those are the formal employees that just get you know insurance.
Speaker 1:Now the other challenge is Nigeria doesn't have that many formal employers, right? Most of Nigeria's labor force businesses are informal. They are small micro-businesses, one-man business, two people, three people. If there are more people, it's not very structured. They may not even be registered. So you have about 60% of the economy is informal, and so where do you even start to try to get people to pay for insurance? Now, the insurance companies themselves. The structure for the formal guys and informal guys is a very different kettle of fish. So they just stick to the formal guys, you know. Build the companies, the you know big premiums, and then they kind of, you know, try to figure out healthcare based off of that. The challenge then is you know, the vast majority of the people who are informal workers then don't get any health insurance.
Speaker 3:So the health insurance? That the 40%, because 60% are informal right, 60% of workers in Nigeria, so there are 40%, let's say, are formal. Who is funding this? Is this the government? Is this the employer? Is it a public-private partnership? What does that look like?
Speaker 1:yes, so good question. So the people in formal employment? So the government workers? So government workers, they do have a mandatory um deduction from your salaries for health insurance, so that's the national health insurance scheme. So that happens. If you're a federal government worker, you're a state government worker. You usually're a state government worker. You usually actually have health insurance.
Speaker 1:It may not be of great quality but you have it on paper, so that goes in, and there's a lot of accountability issues and, to be honest, fraud around that. And then the formal guys in the private sector they pay in as well. So that's the insured markets as it stands today. Okay but a lot of formal employers, like you probably figured out, don't actually provide insurance okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:So where does wallah health come in to play?
Speaker 1:yeah, so. So that is the problem space we're in. So our, our position is there's no insurance uptake and that's not for a want of health insurance companies. There's 60 of them in Nigeria. Right, that's more than enough. That's more than the number of banks we have. Some people argue that's actually part of the problem conversation for another day.
Speaker 1:But there's 60 health insurance companies who are focused on a small part of the markets, like the formal market, and the challenge for them is they would like to do the informal market. But the way they are structured is very much catered to the formal guys, and part of the reason for that is the premiums are certain, they are guaranteed. Almost. The company will pay you for 100 people, say 60,000 naira for 100 people a year. That adds up. And what you then do is you build a service to cater for that. Now, if you're going to go to the informal guys, they often don't have that kind of disposable income. If they do, they may want to pay every month. They're a little bit less sticky. They might pay this month, might pay the next month and again, they're not going to pay that much. And so the traditional insurers are like ah, you know, we don't really want to bother with this market and so they leave it.
Speaker 1:Part of the reason is back to the healthcare provider is the healthcare providers are so fragmented they're using manual methods that the insurers trying to work with them is so expensive and so cumbersome that honestly like they're fine with their sort of 200, 300, 000, 400, 000 customers.
Speaker 3:The moment you put a million people, two million people, through that system, it breaks and so this is in this, in the sense of like electronic um, like medic digital records, things like that yeah, everything so okay digital records, payments, claims.
Speaker 1:You know quality of service, like because think about it, like if you, if you have a hundred thousand people on your books, you'll see maybe ten percent of that going through a healthcare service every month, or ten thousand people like you can manage that on excel, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like excel, you know can take ten thousand rules, but 10x that I mean Excel will struggle. So you know you need the right systems, you need the right APIs, you need the right setup, all of that stuff so it can get fairly challenging with the existing system. So that's what we try to do is we try to automate the systems around helping the insurers manage care so that we can then reduce the prices of premium. So our premium starts at, you know, about 400 to 500 naira a month, that's less than a dollar a month and then we just cover common conditions and we also cover common conditions in the community. So rather than going to clinics and hospitals, we use community pharmacies, we use telemedicine, we use labs, so we can reduce the cost of care, reduce the cost of premiums and we can kind of automate and scale it up to the interactions.
Speaker 2:So you help these insurers just pretty much just automate their systems to better, you know, provide health insurance to the unprofessional market out there.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, what are some challenges that you have seen with that? I mean, I'm assuming that you guys aren't working with the Excel sheets. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Dude man, you'd be surprised. People love Excel.
Speaker 2:Actually they love Excel here. Yeah, people love Excel.
Speaker 3:I wish I could love Excel like that so yeah, I mean, we build all this fancy tech and people are like listen, man, just take my excel spreadsheets and even those are the good ones.
Speaker 1:Some people like, listen, man, just take this whatsapp message, you know that's what I'm doing. Or take this email, you know. So change is slow, change is difficult, and I mean change in healthcare is even more difficult. So, um, we we found that building relationships are key. Um, when people realize that you're in it for the long haul, you're their partner. You're not there to kind of judge them, you're there to understand their pain points. You're there to help them and kind of, you know, help with the behavior change slowly and people start to switch. So, you know, we started off with just a handful of patients here and there, but now we're seeing like 12,000 patients every month and that's growing consistently. Um, so, yeah, we've. It's every, every like. Literally everything has been a challenge. Everything like nothing has been easy. But I think that we've proven that you know we're really passionate and we're going to be there for the long term and people are starting to trust us a lot more I know something I'm curious about which I'd like to get your thoughts on.
Speaker 3:So in the healthcare space in the U S, right there's, I feel like there's a lot, there's a move towards cause you have your insurance companies and then you have your provider groups right your doctors, your nurses, um, and I feel like over over the past few years, there's been a move to almost a provider model, whereas, like you, have your payer.
Speaker 3:your insurance companies almost own the provider groups or the physician groups, and then you know, basically passing down financial risk, right, and so is that something that you see happening in Nigeria, or is it something that is feasible, Because you know people would make the argument that it helps reduce costs?
Speaker 3:when you have insurance companies and doctors under the same umbrella working to provide care. It makes it more efficient. But is that something you see happening in Nigeria? Or is like? What does that look like from your perspective? Yeah, definitely, I mean, I think it's great. It's a cost problem, right, um? Or or is like what does that look like from your perspective?
Speaker 1:yeah, definitely. I mean, I think, I think it's great, it's a. It's a. It's a cost problem, right, I mean the us, as a percentage of gdp, spending crazy amounts on health care, um, and so it makes sense that you do that and I think you know it does make a lot of sense to have that. But I think the challenge and maybe maybe the US isn't a great model is there's an element of kind of the social and public good with healthcare right and having that outlook around. What is beneficial for a larger group is in a way that we can implement it such that individuals are happy with it, even though it may be to their detriment. So I think that and I mean Nigeria is very let me choose my words wisely here we like to think we are socialist, and I think especially with healthcare. Let me choose my words wisely here.
Speaker 1:We like to think we are socialists and I think especially with healthcare most Nigerians feel healthcare should be free, and so with that model and that is actually where the law is going where it's mandated everybody to have a state scheme. So actually the insurance law in Nigeria mandates everybody to have a state scheme. So actually the insurance law in Nigeria mandates everybody to have a state health plan.
Speaker 3:Okay, so state health plan. That's like the health plan, so the state is providing health care.
Speaker 1:No, no, no. The state health plan but doesn't necessarily mean the state is providing the care. So the way the law is structured today, it says you must have a state health plan, which is there's 36. So the way the law is structured today, it says you must have a state health plan, which is there's 36 states in Nigeria and the FCT that all have health insurance agencies or schemes. So everybody's meant to buy a scheme from these agencies. Now if you're indigent or you're vulnerable or you don't have the income, the state is actually meant to pay for you.
Speaker 1:But if you do have, the income then you're meant to pay for yourself, and when you pay it, it goes into this pool.
Speaker 3:How do you judge? How do you know okay, this person qualifies for this Is there a financial threshold?
Speaker 1:My brother, I've been asking the same questions. Nobody wants to answer. They say you're asking too many questions. Guys, walk in. You're asking me a lot of questions we need to find out. The truth is, the criteria is not clear and transparent, you know, and that is unfortunate and because you know what happens when things aren't clear and transparent. So, but in in, in any case, like the government cannot afford to pay for a lot of people. That's the truth.
Speaker 1:You cannot even afford to pay for the amount of poor people that we have in the country. So it's only going to be a minimal amount of people. But the idea is that, you know, everybody gets a state scheme. The funds are pooled and then the government can now pay providers depending on what they do. So there's two models. This is getting into some nitty-gritty and some detail, but primary care is meant to be capitated. What that means is that everybody is assigned to a primary health care center. Care is meant to be capitated. What that means is that everybody is assigned to a primary healthcare center and because your name is on the books of that primary healthcare center, the primary healthcare center will get a payment per month or per annum, regardless of whether you go there or not.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Now if you need to go into secondary care, so if you need to go into, say, a general hospital, then every procedure, every encounter, you have there the secondary hospital care. So if you need to go into, say, general hospital, then every procedure, every um encounter you have there the secondary hospital is then paid a fee for that. So classical journey here is you have malaria, you go into a primary health care center, you don't pay anything um, the primary health care center as well isn't paid anything because you went. They just have been paid. Like every year. They will get paid regardless of whether you go or not. But if you say, get sick, you get cerebral malaria, and then you need to go into an icu in a general hospital, then the state health scheme will pay the general hospital um for, say, ten thousand naira for the cost of you know you staying in ICU. So that is the way it's structured at the moment.
Speaker 3:Okay, and so is there. Because it's interesting that you mentioned capitation, because that's the world I work in, like the capitation and all that looking at capitation contracts. So when you're looking at incentives, because you're paying the providers a set amount regardless of whether or not the patients go, so when you're paying the providers a set amount regardless of whether or not the patients go, um, so when you're looking for incentives for providers to still be able to provide the same care, right the same, or at least it's the same standard of care that they would like let's say, good standard of care, is there a sense in which you are taking into account the risk, like how sick the patients are for the reimbursement, or is that just a flat fee that they get?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're getting into the difficulty with the system. It's a flat fee and I can tell you that it's a flat fee.
Speaker 2:Very flat.
Speaker 3:Very flat.
Speaker 1:So those guys are complaining. Of course they're like you know, this is ridiculous. You know, look at what you're giving me to manage somebody for a year, for you know a host of conditions, because there's also conditions that you know the phc's, the primary health care centers are supposed to manage so immediately.
Speaker 1:it's not very sustainable because the, the ph is just to have the resources to do it. And so there's another funding mechanism for PhDs to enable them do it. But you know how these things go doesn't always work out. And then there's also the problem that the way the PhDs are structured today they don't really like the best of places A lot of times to go get healthcare. You know, like I, I wouldn't want to go into a primary healthcare center. You know, like I, just wouldn't. You know they're not the cleanest, they're not the nicest, they're not the safest. And so for low-income people, of course that works. I guess it works because they have no other options. But then if you're getting into, like you know, middle class, upper middle class you're taking this payment from them, remember, because it's mandatory, but yet you're giving them a location to attend where they're not comfortable going.
Speaker 2:So there's this mismatch of expectations. Why is a company like this something that young adults within the diaspora would be interested in? Or what would it look like for someone in the diaspora utilizing Wellerearned health, because I know you mentioned, like you have things planned for it later on down the road Like does that include, like you know, bringing in people from the diaspora? You know people from like you know the United States, people from like you know Europe and all these other you know places.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:To even be involved in such a thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. With all the kind of expertise and experience you know that we've had on the ground, and thinking back to my own initial experience right with helping my mom, I realized that I was in the diaspora. I realized that actually there's lots of people in the diaspora, that need that kind of experience and expertise from somebody like me on the ground.
Speaker 1:So if you're sitting in Houston and you've got, say, an uncle in Anambra who you know suddenly becomes unwell, and you know you're probably having to send money back for that, you also want to know, you know, is he getting the right quality? You know, is there somebody I can talk to that gives me like an update? Like, you know, how are things going? That's a real big problem, you know. I've seen that problem myself and so we built a product called HealthSend.
Speaker 1:Essentially, we do that, you know, so we'll help you just manage the whole kind of payment and communication related to any illness for your you know your folks in Nigeria. Classical example is, say, you've got a you know mother with diabetes and you've got to you know with diabetes and you've got a you know buy her medications every month. And you know we've got 2 000 pharmacies we work with across the country where we can just automate that process of you know your mother getting her medications every month. And you know, if they need a nursing visit, we can arrange that. If they need to go into hospital, we can, you know, have somebody going with them and just gives you that kind of peace of mind, because I know lots of us in the diaspora at least, I know I felt this, feel very guilty.
Speaker 1:You know with family in nigeria that we're not able to be there to provide them with the kind of care and love that we would normally.
Speaker 2:So having, you know, an outfit that is professional do it on your behalf, you know is a great service yeah, I personally, I personally resonate with that one, you know I mean I wasn't born in nigeria, I was born here in the united states, in houston, but I mean majority of my family's back there, like everybody on my dad's side is back there and you know, recently this is kind of personal, but you know we've we've had some illnesses, you know, in our family back there and unfortunately we had someone pass. And I just can't help but like, think, like what would it have looked like if we were able to have more of a hand in providing him with better health care? And I feel as if that's something that plagues a lot of Nigerian migrants.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and it makes a difference to have somebody there. So medicine in Nigeria is very paternalistic, and what that means essentially is you need a lot of advocacy. I need advocacy from knowledgeable people that understand the system. So you know, it's not just enough to sort of be on the phone asking questions. You need somebody that's going to go there, somebody that's going to make sure that things are being done. You know someone that's going to actually follow up. I mean like the amount of stories I've heard of people just passing away when you know they could have been treated better if somebody was just there asking the right questions.
Speaker 3:It's a difficult system. I mean it is because you're trying to navigate, because I mean the infrastructure, to an extent, is not fully there to support the amount of people that actually need healthcare.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 3:It's hard to really navigate that space. I'm glad that we have something like Water Health that can actually help me bridge that gap.
Speaker 2:We're coming up on time here, but before we let you go, we wanted to talk to you about African business heroes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, congrats.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Still surreal, can't believe I won it.
Speaker 3:What was that experience like? What was the preparation, the presentation and post? What was that like?
Speaker 1:So it's one of those things where so the first edition, I know who won it, so Timmy from LifeBank you may have heard of her, so she won it. And so when she won it I was like, okay, you know I should apply for this and I think I have a shoe in. But I wanted to be ready, so I didn't apply until you know we had a decent track record. So you know, timmy won it, I think the first one, and I won the fifth one. So there was like four years in between, where, again, one of my other friends, shoga, you know, he runs a lab, a network of labs and diagnostic centers in Nigeria. He, he was second place, I think, you know, two years ago or three years ago, and you know healthcare companies from Nigeria had kind of done well, and so I thought, okay, you know, I'll chart, as it were.
Speaker 1:So I was like, okay, I'm confident enough, I'll get into sort of the top 50. Because, like, the process is, you apply on a digital platform and I knew I had like decent revenue growth, so you need three years of audited financial statements. I had decent revenue growth in three years, so I thought, you know what, I'll get into the top 50. And then from there it's a coin toss. So I had a virtual interview and got into the top 20. So from there it's like who knows what will happen. So I arrived because there's an in-person pitch in kigali for the top 20 and it's difficult because I mean I met, so I met the top 20 and all, all phenomenal, phenomenal entrepreneurs. Like literally, there's a guy from south africa that's doing like 11 million dollars in sales.
Speaker 3:You know, I'm like wow, no, seriously, like also sorry I just realized we didn't, we didn't like describe so like what's africa, business heroes, like what is what is it? Okay? Yeah, well, yeah, yeah. So just so people know, yeah yeah, no.
Speaker 1:So it's a big africa-wide business competition sponsored by jackman. So jackman is the founder of alibaba, massive big chinese company. He's a billionaire. He came to africa some five, six years ago, wanted to support Africa entrepreneurs, so he put, I think, his $100 million towards, you know, discovering, I think, a thousand entrepreneurs over 10 years via this competition and several other events, and so over the years he's kind of gained more and more momentum and he's, quite, you know, a big deal in the kind of africa business ecosystem okay yeah okay okay so anyway, so got to that yeah got to the semi-final just so.
Speaker 1:27 000 people applied, you know. To give you context, 27 000 people, wow 27 000 yeah.
Speaker 1:So got to that semi-final great entrepreneurs, like I said, you know. And I was like, if I make it to the final, like I'm good, because once you get into the final you get like a hundred grand. So it's like, okay, make it to the final, get a hundred K. And you know I'm good. So got into the final I was like, wow, wonderful, I've got a hundred K. You know I'm a winner already. You said that one is good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly that one's okay. Yeah, so I'm like I'm a winner already, you know.
Speaker 1:And at the final I was honestly, you know there was just a lot going on Because I mean, like last year was a tough year for every business person in Africa, so it was a very difficult year. I was juggling so many things and so by the time I got to the final I honestly was not as prepared as the semifinal.
Speaker 3:So at the semifinal, because you know, you're not sure.
Speaker 1:You know, I tried to put my best foot forward. You know, worked really hard on the pitch and so that went decently. I thought I did pretty well at that. But for the final I just, you know, I was so busy I didn't really actually have time to kind of craft the pitch, because it was going to be shorter and it was going to be even more significant because it was a live judging panel, live audience, going to be streamed all over the world. It was a bigger deal and I just couldn't get myself to prepare right, for whatever reason.
Speaker 1:And so the day before, the guys the judges from the semifinal, you know did a clinic. They said you know, if you want to talk about your presentation, come. So I put something together and I went to this guy, I pitched it to him and he's like I saw your pitch in the semifinal. This is not as good, you know. You got to fix it. So, you know, he gave me some really good feedback actually. And so I ran back to the designer and I said you know, can you put this together with this feedback? And he did. And so I didn't know what was going on. Man, my overconfidence again. I didn't even go on stage like beforehand, because it was quite an impressive stage, right like there was VR, there were screens everywhere, and so the the guys that were running the show said oh, if you want to practice on the stage, you know, come on beforehand. I was like ah, yeah, you know, I've done lots of this before, I'm not even gonna bother oh, you were not anxious or anything.
Speaker 3:You're like no, I was just like ah, you know this one's doing cool guys. They don't know who I am.
Speaker 1:But when I finally got on stage at the time, the lights alone are blinding man, you know. So I was first disoriented. So if you watch the video, I was stumbling a bit. Honestly, it wasn't one of my best pictures, I feel anyway Can't even watch it back. But the lights alone on your face and face and had makeup on as well, you know yeah. So yeah, it was, it was so. I didn't feel my pitch was that strong, actually because I stumbled through some of it. Some people may not notice, but I notice I forgot some of my lines and you know I was like okay, you know I have my 100k at least.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, what I thought I did decently was because it's a q a is like a 30 or 15, 30 minute q a. I thought I did that decently because I'm good at q and a's. It's just a thing because in medicine, when you train in medicine, you know our exams are essentially like verbal oral exams where, like they just drill you for like an hour with questions. You get very good at kind of answering stuff off the cuff. So I thought that I did decently at that and that probably impressed them. And so then I watched everybody's pitches and it was excellent, like everybody was amazing, you know. And I thought to myself geez, you know, if I were to pick a top three, I don't know if I'd be in it. And then on the judging panel there were three people on the judging panel. Two of them were women and so the math in my head was like there's going to be a woman in the final right, yeah, top three.
Speaker 1:So the way it went is you had a top 10, they had a top three, who would then go in to have like a round table discussion with the judges to pick a winner. And so I thought you know how, like you're trying to, you know figure out who's gonna. You know progress will I make it, will I not? And I thought you know what this? There's got to be a woman in the final because there's two men on the on the judging panel. Um, there was one guy who I knew was going to be there. You know he was doing like crazy amounts of stuff in like 20 African countries. He was making farming, like you know it was just like this guy is there, you know.
Speaker 1:So they were like creating their own like reinsurance company. I like billions of dollars they work with like 20. Like it was just like I'm like dude man, calm, relax. So he was there, great guy, thomas, you know, love him. So he was gonna make it. I thought there was gonna be a woman. I didn't know which woman and I couldn't place who the third person would be.
Speaker 1:So we went on stage so they called the first guy who I didn't think would. I was like, okay, I didn't think would. I was like, okay, I didn't expect that. But okay, sure. Then they called the guy I thought would make it. So there's two guys.
Speaker 1:And I was like, okay, yeah, well, that's it for me, I'm not making it to this top three. 100k. Okay, happy days. You know I'm thinking of, okay, okay, I'm gonna fly back and figure out all this nonsense going on. And then they call me and I was genuinely surprised, like I was genuinely shocked that I made it to that top three because, again, like I said, I thought it'd be a woman in it and I was the last person. They called um. But then, when I got to the top three, again like I mean, I'm don't want to toot my horn, but I'm great off the cuff. I just you know it's, it's a skill that I have and this was going to be an off the cuff thing and it was going to be some difficult questions which, again, I think I'm so let me ask you a question about that?
Speaker 1:So is that just how you've always?
Speaker 1:been that's a good question. I don't think. I don't think so. I mean I'm a decent public speaker. I've always known I'm a decent public speaker.
Speaker 1:Um, that's partly because so I go to a church where you get to do a lot of public speaking right from when you're a kid. So when I was eight, for instance, you know, I was already speaking in front of hundreds of people, like at eight, and I would. I would do that consistently for like the rest of my life. Um, so public speaking is not like a difficult thing for me. And as part of that, at church again, you know, I do a lot of teaching and again it just kind of came naturally being able to kind of answer stuff, facilitate stuff. So I think all that training at church probably just kind of came naturally being able to kind of answer stuff, facilitate stuff. So I think all that training at church probably just kind of prepared me for being able to speak in public and being able to kind of answer stuff off the cuff. So I think that's probably where some of that comes from, and I think there's some natural ability as well that I just have.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:And I've also tried to cultivate it right. So, like I'll read stuff, I'll practice stuff to try to improve as well, because I think that it's worthwhile learning how to be a good public speaker actually because then you can get $100,000 well you know, or even more.
Speaker 3:But then you know.
Speaker 1:So then we're sitting in a round table and they ask some very difficult questions and I did decently at answering them because I think the other so then we're sitting in a round table and they asked some very difficult questions and I did decently at answering them because I think the other two guys weren't as great off the cuff compared to me and so yeah, that's kind of stood out to them and you know I won. So it's 300,000 they gave.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but it was a great experience.
Speaker 1:Actually it was a really great experience. I got to meet really great people and I think the validation so you do it like I mean I've worked really hard at this for many years, like I'm not even kidding, you know, like I've worked very hard at this for many years and like it was nice to receive that validation and you know, to say you know what actually we've done something valuable here. That's lots of people you know, see and recognize, so that was fulfilling for me yeah, dr neto.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much for joining us for noble conversations today I feel like I feel like we had a good time.
Speaker 2:This was really nice my pleasure.
Speaker 3:If you leave me, man, I can talk forever no, we can talk to you tomorrow, actually, before we go is there anything you would like our audience to know that maybe we haven't touched on that, we haven't asked.
Speaker 1:No, I think we've touched on most things. Healthsend I think the diaspora-facing product is something we'd really love to get people testing, giving us feedback on. Yeah, so, healthsendafrica, check it out, give me some feedback and we'd love to serve more people in diaspora and help their families back home get access to the book.