A lot of people ask me about how it all began. How did we
come up with the Kabuk concept? How did we
weigh the pros and cons of a start-up life and eventually decide to dive straight in?
Every business starts with passion. Whether you are a tech
start-up or a new physiotherapy practice, I truly believe that passion is the
root of success. As for Kabuk, for us it started very personally, as it often
does with start-ups.
A few years ago, my grandmother got very ill. After she left the hospital, she needed a whole regime of healthcare providers. Some of these were provided or referred by the hospital, others were not, and we encountered a lot of challenges finding the right providers for her needs. Another issue we found was keeping track of appointments. Even with the rare practice that manages their appointments online, there was no one place to manage ALL of her appointments. Our vision for Kabuk was to have one platform to meet a patient’s healthcare needs and one platform to schedule and manage appointments with convenient appointment reminders to make sure patients didn’t miss important appointments.
Businesses that have roots in the issues or problems you are facing can be very relevant. The first question to ask is “How many other people are having this problem?”. Then the fun part really begins.
No start-up plan is complete without solid market research. In our case, some of the steps we took were surveying other Canadians and identifying common pain points and things they would like to see in a solution. Kabuk is designed for both patients and practitioners. So we also needed to talk to leading health pros and identify areas that we could be of value to them. We also calculated a target addressable market (TAM) based on the number of healthcare practitioners in Canada, performed pricing research and, of course, a full competitive analysis.
Without market research starting a new business is like flying a plane with a blindfold on. Passion is very important but without real users there is no chance of success and its better to find that out sooner rather than later.
With market research behind us, the next steps for us, were designing our dream product and finding the right team. Enter Babak our technical co-founder but you will need to wait until next week to find out more.
weigh the pros and cons of a start-up life and eventually decide to dive straight in?
Every business starts with passion. Whether you are a tech
start-up or a new physiotherapy practice, I truly believe that passion is the
root of success. As for Kabuk, for us it started very personally, as it often
does with start-ups.A few years ago, my grandmother got very ill. After she left the hospital, she needed a whole regime of healthcare providers. Some of these were provided or referred by the hospital, others were not, and we encountered a lot of challenges finding the right providers for her needs. Another issue we found was keeping track of appointments. Even with the rare practice that manages their appointments online, there was no one place to manage ALL of her appointments. Our vision for Kabuk was to have one platform to meet a patient’s healthcare needs and one platform to schedule and manage appointments with convenient appointment reminders to make sure patients didn’t miss important appointments.
In the case of my co-founder, Lucas, his motivations were a
little different. As an immigrant to Canada and quite the globetrotter - Lucas
has lived in over 10 cities – Lucas often found himself challenged to find
healthcare providers in the regions he settled. No longer an issue for him, but
in the earlier days he wanted to find providers that spoke his native language –
Polish.
Both of us found ourselves asking the same question “I can easily compare travel and restaurant options,
and book online. Why not health, an area of such importance to us?”
Businesses that have roots in the issues or problems you are facing can be very relevant. The first question to ask is “How many other people are having this problem?”. Then the fun part really begins.
No start-up plan is complete without solid market research. In our case, some of the steps we took were surveying other Canadians and identifying common pain points and things they would like to see in a solution. Kabuk is designed for both patients and practitioners. So we also needed to talk to leading health pros and identify areas that we could be of value to them. We also calculated a target addressable market (TAM) based on the number of healthcare practitioners in Canada, performed pricing research and, of course, a full competitive analysis.
Without market research starting a new business is like flying a plane with a blindfold on. Passion is very important but without real users there is no chance of success and its better to find that out sooner rather than later.
With market research behind us, the next steps for us, were designing our dream product and finding the right team. Enter Babak our technical co-founder but you will need to wait until next week to find out more.
Stayed tuned for part 2 of the making of Kabuk where we will
discuss design challenges, team building and more!
