The Find-A-Med healthcare app won the apps challenge at the recent Mobile West Africa 2014 conference in Lagos, Nigeria. Co-founder Emeka Onyenwe spoke to HumanIPO on the app, the challenges the company is battling with and deployment strategies being considered, in addition to the influence the challenges is having on the startup.
HumanIPO: What inspired the app?
Emeka Onyenwe: This stemmed from a personal story. My family moved from the mainland to the island and I was never really conscious about health care in my surrounding until one day I had to drive a sick friend to multiple hospitals before I could find a place that could provide assistance. Some friends have been in similar situations where there was an accident and they had tragedies because they didn’t know where to go and the person received treatment late.
I just had a eureka moment when I was driving that this problem could be solved. Also I was previously working on a mapping product for a client and so it just clicked that the idea could be transferred to another industry. After I did some research I found that there is no central database where you can receive comprehensive health information and I just felt compelled to create a solution.
How did you compile the information, when did you start work on the app, and when was it completed?
That has been a journey as well. It took me about three years to put a team together but now I have a team of software engineers and developers I work with and we started building late last November after the product was envisioned and the beta was completed in January, then a soft launch.
The health centre information is entirely crowd sourced so as I was pitching to a few people and showing the beta version and talking about the idea, I got introduced to the former president of the Nigerian Medical Association Dr George Okpagu, who has been very instrumental in moving the product forward. So since I have been thrown into the industry and have been dealing with experts from the field and getting first hand information about how the product can be improved.
When will it be fully launched and how many beta users do you have presently?
When I get critical mass so hopefully before the tail end of the year. Currently I have about 2,000 users but this number needs to grow significantly because this project is entirely bootstrapped so we are being as lean as possible and it comes with limitations.
What are the limitations?
I find that the app terrain is different in Nigeria. I assume that most people aren’t so conscious about their health until they fall sick so users don’t go out of their way for health until it’s absolutely necessary. Since this is not an entertainment app or a game, it is expected to get that slow growth with app downloads.
Also, a lot of smartphone users do not know how to download apps themselves, some don’t even have accounts, and a lot of people want to save their data because it is expensive. At first sight users are reluctant to download the app because they do not know what it is about but when they understand the value then they do. Someone told me the app is like a spare tyre, you don’t know when you’ll need it but you should always have it.
Having tried various marketing strategies, people know about the app but it hasn’t translated to downloads. The best way will be preinstalling them in phones even before they are sold so that way the information is already with them.
To what extent are you pursuing that?
That is what I am focusing most of my efforts on now and I have got some leads with some phone manufacturers and am doing due diligence, but it is a long process and it just takes time but I am also trying to reach out to others.
How far has the Mobile West Africa apps challenge success helped?
That is still so recent but time will tell. However they have helped put the app on the map and connected me to a few people that I’m currently in talks with and I am really grateful for what they have done.
What is the market potential of the app in terms of revenue generation?
The revenue model is yet to be tested as everything is still free but I feel like there are a lot of opportunities and business models that already exist that can be tailored to the system as well. Either a freemium model or subscription from the health centres as well but this will be validated once there is a critical mass of users. But once I see the value creation from the app then monetising would be the next step. As of now I just want to get the word out.
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