As part of the startup Interview series, we are going to interview Mr. Tamas Buza from Medngo.com, a Hungarian disruptive startup, an online healthcare hub applying the latest tech solutions to provide comprehensive services for patients.
Tamas, thanks for taking the time to catch up with us. Can you briefly outline the company’s story, what is Medngo.com’s key goal? Who are the founders and how it all became what it is today?
The idea of Medngo.com was born in late 2018 as a consequence of an unfortunate event during which a platform with direct access to healthcare providers and specialists was needed, but we could not find an adequate solution. I lived in Dubai, and the MENA (Middle-East and North Africa) region was seriously underserved with digital health services. The task was given: to create a digital bridge between healthcare providers and patients, but with a slightly different approach than the existing options.
Two of my long-time friends, Adam and Ákos have joined me in the project, who are true professionals in their own fields (IT development and IT project management and healthcare regulations), and with an enthusiastic entrepreneur on-board, the founding team of three was created.
After a year of planning and development, we had launched the platform with the base feature of our business model – international appointment bookings. A month later the world sunk into lockdowns, and it changed everything. It was immediately understood that we need to innovate to survive.
What kind of products and services does your company offer?
The pandemic and recent innovations on the tech scene made us reshape our entire business model. We wanted to create a medical booking platform in 2019, and now we are working on an online healthcare hub so complex, it would’ve been unimaginable just a few years ago. The Medngo.com mobile app will offer the following features and services for its users when all the ongoing developments are finalized:
- Instant bookings of healthcare-related procedures in partnered providers worldwide.
- Telehealth services: online consultations and second medical opinions from specialists (both regional and global).
- Detailed, updating personal medical records, accessible only for chosen medical professionals and providers with user consent.
- Online patient diagnosing using smart systems backed by artificial intelligence.
- 24/7 remote user health diagnosing via smart wearables for personal and family use .
- Subscription packages with the above mentioned.
What’s the latest progress in the project, and what are you focusing on right now?
As life tries to get back to the old “normal” with restrictions easing, we are getting new inquiries from both healthcare providers and – in limited numbers – from patients as well. This is a good sign of recovery, and we truly hope it is not only temporary until the next wave arrives, and that the vaccination campaigns are going to be effective in the long term. Regardless, we are extremely busy with our ongoing developments and excited about the new, second life of the platform.
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?
We are creating a system, where all types of medical services are accessible via a single app, where everyone can find a solution to an existing condition. In addition, the platform offers the feeling of safety for the user (or his family) with the remote health monitoring package where an adequate solution is offered immediately by the slightest sign of any irregularity.
Our primary focus is on the MENA region in which we found a huge opportunity. From its population of almost 600 million, an estimated 100 million people are considered as potential customers for many of our services. Partners, as healthcare providers are exclusively high profile institutions with proven past records regardless of their location, and the same applies to medical specialists.
What differentiates Medngo.com from its competitors?
First of all, the complexity of the platform is the biggest advantage compared to others, with features we haven’t seen before, but we could mention the lack of geographic and functional barriers, as many other service providers/mediators focus on specific markets as the source of their offerings, or only on certain services e.g. online consultations.
Do you use AI technology in your product? How does it work for you?
We are going to use AI systems for online diagnosing, but we intend to outsource them (we are already in talks with two providers) instead of developing from scratch, as on one hand, it is a long process consuming time and funds, on the other hand, existing AI remote diagnostic services are getting more accurate and reliable day by day. At last, we’ll be using these solutions as tools only to narrow down the options and get a clearer picture of a user’s current health situation before proceeding with a treatment plan with actual professionals.
Do you have any projects related to COVID-19 research? If so, can you explain how your product is contributing to a global fight against coronavirus?
As a new startup suffering losses from the early beginning of operations due to the COVID-19 itself, we had no sources to join the teams developing tools to fight the pandemic. Also, our main business model at the time was designed for medical services mediation, hence the lack of overlapping.
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?
I’ve spoken about the features of the platform earlier. These services are either commission or subscription-based depending on the type of solution the user is opting for. It was surprisingly easy to get customers in that short period of time prior to the pandemic when we had our initial marketing campaign running. On the other hand, it was a tad more difficult for a new platform to find strategic partners, e.g. clinics and hospitals. These days things have changed. We get emails from clinics that would like to join us, but “healthy” international medical travel is still a thing of the future. We will see if health technology will be able to keep its momentum gained during the pandemic in the upcoming years, but there is no doubt about the ongoing transition towards digital healthcare. People are open for new solutions, especially if it makes their life easier and costs less at the same time. Plus if it helps them to maintain their health that is definitively a great advantage.
What milestones have you had in fundraising and where are you now?
Like for most of the startups, that is probably the hardest part of the story: fundraising. By today the whole project was financed by us, founders with a six-digit amount (we think of it as a “self-financed pre-seed round”), but the pandemic successfully sabotaged our growth plans, so we had to rethink the entire project. We are currently in the early stage of fundraising (Seed – USD 1.2M), as the development processes we are into are demanding a deeper pocket to succeed. It was a hard decision to make, but these days it’s difficult to create big things that last without a financially stable background.
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?
Working with your friends is always a risky move. In business, you can be anytime just one decision away to cut years old friendships. Knowing all this I considered myself lucky because my co-founders shared the same enthusiasm from the very beginning just as I did. And we also had a few projects together in the past, so I knew what to expect.
As a tip, I’d suggest all leaders to:
1. Abandon micromanagement. It will kill the morale of the staff and slowly the company itself.
2. Listen to your employees. They are your most valuable assets, and if they have an opinion, the chances are high that it could be useful for the company’s day-to-day operations.
What are your company’s plans for the future, your major dream in 2021?
The most important for us right now is to secure the missing financials and to stay on track with all our ongoing developments. That’s all we expect from 2021. The rest is on the general population, how will they adapt to the changes in healthcare, and will they welcome the new, digital form of it.
What do you think about the business climate in Hungary and in the EU in general?
When we started Medngo.com, our initial goal was to create a platform based in the EU but serving generally patients from the Middle East. I’ve spent many years in the UAE, the melting pot of all the world’s nationalities, and noticed that when it came to serious medical interventions, the majority of the local population preferred healthcare providers abroad, mostly in Europe. That gave us the idea to start the project out of the EU, mainly for credibility purposes.
Following the incorporation in Hungary, the largest local VC was approached, but the talks had a surprisingly bitter aftertaste. It was sad to see the complete ignorance for any international initiative and the general lack of understanding of our purposes. Unfortunately, this approach is true for the entire startup and business scene in the country so is for the population in general. I am trying not to be political or judgmental, but this was our draw of conclusion, and it was the moment we realized that this isn’t the place we should start from.
Not so long after that, the pandemic broke out, and the rest is history. At the same time, enormous changes were experienced in the Middle-Eastern startup scene, especially in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. A new wave of trust emerged towards (amongst others) HealthTech startups, and the number of investments in the region was skyrocketing in 2020, creating an exciting and vibrant field for young entrepreneurs to unleash their abilities. The option was given, and it can be guessed by now, Medngo.com is getting reborn in the Emirates in 2021 to serve mostly its MENA-based customers, with plans to enter other regions as well in the future.
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.
The future of HealthTech is bright, that’s a fact. We are experiencing the same transformation in healthcare that we’ve seen in banking a few years ago. And fintech is improving day by day, so obviously, health technology has still a long ahead.
I do believe that what we call today digital health, will be called “health” in a few short years. Online consultations, remote health monitoring, and operations performed by robots will be parts of our daily life, and these are the only methods we know today. What is yet to come?
The pandemic had a huge effect on digital health. We knew that the change will happen, yet the majority felt comfortable with the status quo. From that aspect, the pandemic, as a technology accelerator was a necessity (hope no one will get it wrong). On the other side, I want to believe that Covid-19 is a “single occasion”, and it will be soon a thing of the past. We have to deal with it now as it is of outstanding importance, learn how to avoid such an event in the future, and know how to be prepared for it. And HealthTech will be of huge help.
Regarding the last part of your question, economic downturns happen in cycles. If we look back to the past hundred years, it could’ve been expected that “something” will go wrong soon, yet nobody expected a pandemic with such a devastating effect. However, I personally don’t think that economic turbulences will have a large effect on HealthTech developments and inventions as if my predictions are true (that digital health will be the “health” in the future), healthcare as an automated (or semi-automated) service, in general, will be more affordable and accessible for everyone.
