As part of the startup Interview series, we are going to interview Mr. Bogdan Marchis from HealthU, a Romanian company dedicated to delivering healthy food and planning to expand its services in the EU.
Bogdan, thanks for taking the time to catch up with us. Can you briefly outline the company’s story, what is HealthU’ key goal? Who are the founders and how it all became what it is today?
HealthU is the first aggregator of preventive health services in the world. We can say, with a level of personalization of one plans that it can’t go wrong. HealthU goal is to implement easy access to preventive health through great quality products and services, and nonetheless to put services like NO plastic included, say NO to food waste and stop buying stock ingredients but buy ingredient bought for you.
HealthU founders are Bogan Marchis and Radu Lupas.
Bogdan Marchis is a business developer by nature, who is implicated in more than 10 business around Europe in his 14 years of business development, such as Frisbo, QuickMobile and many others.
Radu Lupas, one of SaladBoxs first associates with a huge experience in the food and healthy concepts, was personally responsible for the worldwide expansion of SaladBox.
What kind of products and services does your company offer?
HealthU has all-inclusive meal plans for an entire day delivered to your doorsteps with the possibility of choosing your flavors. For example, you can choose to lose weight and order meals from 3 restaurants, so you will be supervised by one nutritionist on this road. Moreover, you can choose a personalized and tailored fit live fitness plan with a follow-up on results, or even therapy programs for burnouts and just to prepare for the road ahead of living a healthy life. And many other services are to come further.
What’s the latest progress in the project, and what are you focusing on right now?
We are planning to lunch the new platform and expand in other 4 cities in Romania, and in the coming year in Poland, Hungary, and Bulgaria. Also, we are open to new partnerships with local influencers, new services, as we believe in communication as in the whole new value
What pain of your customers are you helping solve? What is your company’s offering and what kind of customers and partners are you looking for?
The extra kg from today and all the problems that come with them. The time lost in supermarkets. The time lost in the kitchen. Moreover, HealthU offers really easy access to preventive health services.
Our customers are mainly women (we honor them) 25-45 years, family type. Also, we are working for different clients starting from restaurant and nutritionists to fitness instructors that are willing to come along us in this road.
What differentiates HealthU from its competitors?
The easy access and all under one umbrella type of business in preventive health. A blue ocean with a red ocean inside (everyone implicated in HealthU, every partner is trying to do the best and more than the one beside him), it is a simple and effective development policy of growth.
What is your business model and how are you planning to get early customers onboard? Have you already raised money for your operations and building the platform?
As was said before, HealthU is an aggregator and it is a blue ocean with a red ocean inside.
We are talking about values and putting social status in front. We are not doing mass-market because of one simple reason, mass-market always suffer from an economic shock.
Yes, we did the 1st round FFF with and a very small investment of 20k euro of which 10k euro went to open Bucharest office, this is another cristal clear example of the simple way of opening from the cost perspective.
What milestones have you had in fundraising and where are you now?
We respected the FFF round in 6 months, now we are at our 1-year history and we need to raise money around 500k euro that will open 3 countries (only in the capitals at first) and 4 cities in Romania, also developing the new platform with AI features and the first personal virtual assistant in preventive health.
What was it like growing your team? What are the challenges and surprises you encountered? What tips do you have for building a solid team?
It was crazy because the people involved in HealthU are not working for the paycheck, they are working for a dream and the road ahead. I suppose we are doing pretty well given the fact that we are already 9 people involved and nobody had left the project. 🙂
My tip is always to tell your dream and how you want to get there to the team and put your money where your mouth is, to do it like this. I mean don’t become a corporation too fast and work your ass off. People don’t follow xls files, people follow dreams.
What are your company’s plans for the future, your major dream in 2021?
To obtain the Seed investment round so that we can move forward.
What do you think about the business climate in Romania and in the EU in general?
It is crazy they are throwing money around on the same ideas hoping that one will emerge, not analyzing the business and not giving you chance for a new idea. It is the main problem in Europe, not like in the US, where they trust your dream and your road. Here in Europe, they talk a lot, that is why we will never get to the level of the USA. Because people like us, at HealthU, don’t want to waste time, we need action with this incredible and scalable business model.
To summarize our interview I would like to ask your opinion about the future of the HealthTech industry, especially considering the impact of pandemics and all this economic turbulence.
Your answer:
It will go, all of it (the HeathTech industry) to purpose buying because people are tired of the new platforms that do this and this and that, they want easy access to easy objectives.
I believe that it will be huge, maybe bigger than Pharma, because even the Pharma is going to preventive with supplements. 🙂
