Dr. Saina; Online appointment systems and online visits

One of the most important players in the field of digital health in the country are online appointment systems and online visits, which faced a widespread growth with the outbreak of the Corona virus. One of the oldest of these startups is Startup Dr. Saina You can follow the conversation between Accomotive and the CEO of this series:

please introduce yourself:

I am the servant of Mehdi Khodadidi, born in 1986; I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a bachelor’s degree in software with a bachelor’s degree in computer science and a master’s degree in marketing with a master’s degree in marketing at the University of Science and Technology. I have been working in the field of software and technology since 1984 and I have gained various experiences in the IT industry in Iran in various fields such as programming; Since 1987, most of my activities have shifted to management activities, and in 1988, we started a software company with the co-founders of Dr. Saina, who did the work of customer order software. In 1995, we decided to leave our project and start again from scratch; That’s why we disbanded a 30-person company and entered the startup phase.

How was Dr. Saina born and what does “Saina” mean?

September 4, 1994 was the day I decided to step out of our software company and start working to be a source of impact in the community; In this regard, we held a meeting with the current founders of Dr. Saina to make fundamental changes; Because until then, we were just a coder for ministries and organizations, although we worked in programming and high-tech, but in the end we were a kind of service provider. After that meeting, we looked at the capital market and the trading algorithm. We also had a friendship in the field of capital markets that connected us to several investment companies; One of the companies offered us cooperation; After that, we met another good candidate in the field of media to implement specialized services in the field of media. “Health” was also of interest to me since I was a child, because in one incident at the age of 4, a stone hit my right eye, and this caused me to spend more time in the clinic and hospital from the age of 4, and until the age of 29, more than I went to the operating room 10 times; So the reason was my constant emphasis on health, and I finally convinced the team members; In December 1994, when we made this decision, no one had yet entered this field and nothing had been done in this field, so we saw the space as pristine and suitable. I and Dr. Mehdi Moshfegh, faculty members of the university, with the help of each other, examined health businesses and different business models in several countries, such as the United States, Britain, Australia, and so on. We selected a number of countries because of the proximity of the health system and a number of others because of the cultural affinity, and the initial version of Dr. Saina was launched in June 1996 and its application was launched on September 4, 1996. We first started with queuing and office management services. In 1996, we moved to the field of online counseling. Saina is another name for the legendary Simorgh in Shahnameh. In this story, a child named Zal is born who was considered sinister by the people, so the father leaves the child in the mountains and the legendary Simorgh raises him; When he grows up, his father goes to bring him back, Simorgh advises him and gives him three feathers and tells him to burn one of these three feathers when you have a problem so that I can help you. ; When Rostam’s mother was giving birth to Rostam, she could not give birth on the night of delivery due to her large size, so Rostam’s father burned one of the three feathers and Simorgh Saina operated on Rostam’s mother and assisted in her delivery. Simorgh Saina performs the first ancient surgery.

How many periods and from what investment did Dr. Saina raise funds?

We had four stages of raising capital, the first of which was in 1997 from the Fund for New Technologies; In 1998, from the Smart Up collection. At the beginning of 1999, we raised funds from the well-known Notek Idea Fund; Earlier this year, we also raised capital from the Bold Green Fund.

What challenges did you face in raising capital?

Attracting Dr. Saina’s first capital has a complicated story, because we started the process of raising capital in November 1996, and in January 1997 we raised capital, and for a whole year we tried in an environment where the health market was not known, people trusted the business model and Its rules were unfamiliar and untrustworthy. All these issues led to the difficulty of the first round of raising capital, and raising the first capital was one of the most difficult conditions that Dr. Saina went through, but in the following periods, we moved forward with more experience.

A series of challenges from Startup And a series of VCs; The first challenge for startups is that startups do not know the language of VCs and therefore communication is difficult to form and do not understand them; Startups often do not pay attention to the concerns of VCs, and VCs are not willing to invest until their concerns are resolved. Because there is always capital and investors want to invest, but there is no team to cover VC’s concerns. On the other hand, startups have unrealistic expectations, for example, the value that investors have on startups is usually lower than the expectations of teams, while VCs value according to the current market price. Therefore, this expectation should be realized by startups and they should get to know more about VCs and establish a relationship with them; Communication should not happen just when they want to raise capital; Startups need to upgrade their financial literature to chart their future in financial terms for investors.

On the part of investors, it can be said that there are currently several categories of investors in the country; Some of them come from government money, and the people who work in those collections are just employees and have an employee view of the process. But a number of funds are of private or semi-public origin. For example, innovation and prosperity funds may also have shares in VCs, but the person who manages the fund is completely private and does not simply seek a monthly salary. And he is more looking for real profit and achievement because as a GP he considers part of his income to be investment success and spends time on programs and finding a good team and is not like an employee who is looking for a monthly salary.

What specialists does Dr. Saina’s team include and what challenges did you have with human resources?

The first challenge of any start-up team in the first step is to attract and complete people in various technical, executive, managerial and .. positions. All these positions are very important, especially in the technical field. Dr. Saina’s team consists of: Banda in the field of management and marketing, Mehdi in the field of management and research, Abolfazl in the field of technology. The team building process is a very big issue, but the most important issue in this process is that the team has a genuine culture, that is, all the founders have a look at their field of work culturally.

Is there a teammate or co-founder in the team who is educated in healthcare?

No partner, but we have a fellow doctor as a member of Dr. Saina’s team who has been with us full time since day one and all medical issues are reviewed by him.

Which of all the services have you been most interested in?

Online counseling was one of the services we enjoyed offering; Because throughout the year, we receive a large number of messages from users of this service stating that their lives have been saved and that they have taken care of their illness quickly; That’s why the energy of this space is so positive, and we feel the “source of impact” that we had in mind at the beginning of the business in this service.

Since Dr. Saina has doctors on one side and patients on the other, which side did you focus on in the early years of marketing?

Chickens and eggs are often the rule on platforms; This means that if you take the side of the doctor and the doctor does not have a request, he will eventually disconnect, and on the other hand, if you attract the user and he is not a doctor, the user will not remain. This is especially difficult to balance at an early stage. At first, we worked with doctors, but doctors did not request online counseling and they were right, because it was not common at that time and team members had to consult once or twice a week so that the doctor would not stop cooperating and in various ways this cooperation And when the users logged in, this balance cycle gradually got better, and the most important thing is to keep the balance.

Didn’t the doctors find out about this when you first made an appointment?

No, they did not notice.

Well, that’s how false demand was created, right?

Of course, from the beginning we were not without requests, when we started we had 30 to 40 requests for advice a day, but some specialties are less requested; So we had to do this to keep these specialists. Although we only did the false demand for about 3 weeks, then the cycle started.

What programs did you do to attract patients?

The use of virtual communities, Google ads, content and… communication channels were with our users, and we only had to monitor to see where the ads and the introduction of the platform had better feedback.

What are your plans for developing Dr. Saina’s service?

In our opinion, Dr. Saina has just reached the stage of birth; Therefore, it intends to present its value in different chains, and we have planned a series of 3-year programs based on technology, 2 to 3 of which will start this year, and you will hear more about its programs and details in the future.

Has Corona had a negative impact on your business?

We are currently in the process of doing social responsibility and currently do not have a business view of Dr. Saina so we did not feel a negative impact on business. But in general, the negative effects of Corona were only in the field of team members’ conflict with Corona, the distance of team members from each other and from these issues.

Your last word:

I advise people who are at the beginning of the path to focus on strengthening their relationship with the user and to strengthen the relationship with the user so that they know their best friend and their interests and tastes. To know well; Because as long as they are not friendly with the user, they can not make products that enter people’s lives and do not spend their time so much on the margins and attracting capital. I do not have any advice for people who are in the middle of the road, such as me, because I am still learning and I can only say that you have taken the path of entrepreneurship in these circumstances and uncertainties. Special thanks to the co-founders Dr. Saina Mehdi Mushfeq and Abolfazl Moghaddasi, these friends are the sweetest people on the planet and there is a wonderful connection between the three of us, so that the period of our partnership is over 13 years. But we are still by our side. Finally, I thank my wife for accompanying me with all the challenges and work issues.