Story of ClinicUp
After I graduated from residency I worked in various different clinical settings from hospital medicine to family medicine clinic.I landed on hospital medicine but as I gained experience I started to get more and more frustrated with the inefficiencies in medicine and how we protect the status quo.
There are quite a few things in clinical practice which are based on algorithms and I saw an opportunity to automate some of these. A colleague(A) and I were discussing potential opportunities, we talked about how travel medicine consults don’t require a physical exam and the treatment offered is based on a series of questions.
We got to work and wrote down potential questions and their answers which could be made into a clinical decision tree. Initially we outsourced our development which unfortunately wasn’t successful. At this time a friend introduced me to his friend who was a software engineer(B).
As B came along it became clear that I was doing most of the work and A, although very capable, was not invested completely. A difficult conversation led to A departing with the initial brand and we re-branded as ClinicUp. The pandemic kept going and travel wasn’t taking off. Furthermore travel medicine consults are not covered through the government health plan, making customer acquisition more difficult.
We desperately needed help with marketing as well, my amazing wife (who has a background in marketing) offered to help us while raising our newborn. With the help of my wife, we made the decision to pivot to general medicine while thinking of niches in womens health and mental health.
With the pivot and my wife on board our CAC was $5, we started growing exponentially and I hired 10 physicians. Things were looking good on paper but our margins were slim. We were using a white label solution for our tech and as a result had no IP. I was working full time and so was my cofounder(B).
As our work/life commitments began to suffer I realize I didn’t have enough time to do it all. Without IP, selling the startup would be difficult. We got a potential $6 million offer and were over the moon. Then we got sued, a frivolous lawsuit from a potential competitor. Nonetheless I didn’t want to spend my investors money on a sinking ship and we decided to close.
