Idea to product, in a short time – Ecomotive
With the expansion of the startup space in the country and the attraction of audiences from various fields, we are witnessing an increase in the establishment of various accelerators in this space.
Audiences are attracted from various fields and many ideas are formed in a specialized way, now it may be from a completely new field, such as electronic health or an old field, but in any case, they need specialized services. Kara Accelerator is one of the specialized actors in the ecosystem of innovation. Read Ecomotive’s conversation with the CEO of this collection below:
introduce yourself:
I am Alireza Zahraei, a graduate of the pharmacy department of Tehran University, and I have completed a joint MBA course of Tehran and Sharif University. Since 1980, I entered the pharmaceutical and raw material production industry, and 3 years ago I entered the startup world through structured companies in large public and private holdings, and during a period of time I was the manager of a pharmaceutical holding that consisted of 10 small startups in the field of pharmaceuticals. My entry into startup and knowledge-based companies was formed through the management of vaccine and drug companies; During the startup projects, during the communication we had with the scientific assistant, I realized that no special work has been done in the field of e-health, and together with several professors of the university, we came to the conclusion to launch an accelerator to develop ideas in the field of e-health. nurture and turn it into a startup. I am in Effective electronic health I started my work as one of the co-founders and chairman of the board of directors in 1997; Dr. Abdullahi Asl, a faculty member of the University of Tehran, also started his activity for two years in electronic health, and as a result, 20 teams were recruited. Since 2009, I have been the CEO of Kara and at the same time I remained a member of the board of directors in some other companies.
Kara was formed according to what need?
Kara was born based on the needs of a number of people in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry of the country. The health industry, paying attention to the traditional context, needed new solutions so that by using new and efficient ideas, it could continue its activities with new approaches in line with the technological and communication developments of today’s world. The most obvious feeling of need is in the electronic version and then startups that can play an active role in the health field with a digital approach. Kara’s idea was born in 1996, but it started its activity in Azadi Innovation Factory in 1997; During this period, we worked on e-health teams in a specialized way and until today we have attracted about 30 ideas and among these 20 startup teams have been formed and 3 teams have gone out of business. In the first 2 years, Kara invested on the teams that had passed the acceleration and pre-acceleration stages and at the same time did not succeed in attracting capital, so that startup with the help of Kara, started its activity independently under the title start a company
What does “Kara” mean?
Kara is derived from the word “efficiency” and the purpose of choosing the name is that the teams go through the process of idea to product in a shorter time. Efficiency means reaching the goal with the least time and cost.
What are the most successful teams? What has Kara done in terms of networking?
In my opinion, our most successful performance was during the interaction with the “life and me” startup, which is currently located in the “Highway” accelerator and has become an accelerator in the field of genetics and health. Other teams that have gone out of business independently and attracted capital are Helix and Avid teams. Several teams are also negotiating to attract capital, such as Meneyar, Sabeq and Infood. We also added some new teams to Kara’s product portfolio to produce products, unlike the previous teams that produced services; These teams have health gadgets; One of them is Saveapp, which helps elderly people to stay in touch with their family (when they are alone) to notify their family quickly in case of any accident, and this application has a center It is also support, and the nursing department is also connected to it and other services needed by the elderly. The other team is called Fever Gadget, which is a gadget to help mothers and children of elderly people. This app constantly monitors the “fever degree” as one of the main health indicators and sends it to the patient via Bluetooth. If it exceeds the threshold values, it sends a message to the mobile phone.
Mamhoud is also developing a health social network in the field of mother and child, which will be operational in the next two months. Recently, in line with the expansion and development of networking, we started our cooperation with two groups, the first one is “Tivan Entrepreneurship Club” and the other is Medellin Digital Health Laboratory.
Which of the sectors you mentioned (health, digital health and genetics) does Cara focus on?
At the beginning of the establishment, a number of teams were recruited, but because we were new, we did not have much power to choose, and the first goal was to focus only on the talent of the team rather than the idea. Currently, we do not have activities in the field of genetics, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology; Because there are other successful accelerators in these fields, such as Vision and Precision Gene, and we were looking for something that is not repetitive and does not overlap with the activities of other groups.
Considering the situation of Corona, what is the current state of the electronic version department?
The beginning of our activity was with the electronic version department, and one of our teams named Helix Healx also worked in this department; At the beginning of the matter, supervisory institutions such as the Ministry of Health and insurance companies did not welcome this issue, but the Corona crisis caused their archived projects to be activated, and in this regard, social security removed the notebook as a dangerous means of transmitting the virus, the electronic prescription section. operationalized itself. At the beginning of our activity in the electronic version sector, large institutions such as telecommunications took responsibility for the implementation of this sector, and we even had the initial energy to implement this issue, but since the start of Corona, the government decided to activate the electronic version itself. slow, we stopped our projects and focused on other sectors; Therefore, our initial focus on the electronic version may be considered a weakness because no output was obtained in this field. On the other hand, the genetics and medicine sectors are never separated from digital health because digital health provides solutions based on information technology in all areas of health, and there are even genetic teams in the accelerator that provide services on the basis of IT. .
What was the reason for the failure of the teams in Kara accelerator?
We experienced the process of experience and growth in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, especially in digital health, and we realized that one of the challenges is the intersection of two perspectives; The first one is the company-oriented view, which is based on the classic rules of business, and the other is the dynamic view of a startup that wants to develop ideas and not put itself in a framework; This is while the financial and economic rules follow the classical rule and the first point of view, and the innovation rules follow the second point of view.
In my opinion, one of the most important reasons for the failure of some teams is that they focus only on the business innovation and idea generation and neglect the economic part. Many of our startups had valuable products, but they lost their economic justification over time; Therefore, the greatest experience that Kara has gained is that she teaches teams to follow both perspectives from the beginning, and people who are creative and dynamic, keep the rules and frameworks in mind and even These teams are monitored from the economic aspect by the accelerator so that there is no concern in this regard when the project becomes independent.
Another issue is that there should be a strong interaction between the mentor and the startup team; Because if a team goes all the way by trial and error and does not pay attention to the mentor, great damage will be done to the startup. Another issue is that a number of problems that occurred in the digital health sector in recent years, such as the Corona crisis, and on the other hand, currency fluctuations also messed up many calculations, and the teams were also affected by these issues.
Did you face any regulatory challenges?
In fact, the vacuum caused by not having a creative and dynamic role in the Ministry of Health is a big challenge, which makes this institution only have a controlling role. In simpler words, the regulator only waits for a bad event to happen and legislates for that event to predict its consequences; While the digital world needs legislation that makes laws in a progressive manner in order to find a platform for growth. The Ministry of Health in our country has mostly reactive measures and that action has not had a positive performance in order to be effective in the health sector and create a growth platform for digital health startups.
What licenses do eHealth teams need?
If a startup operates in the general health and lifestyle sectors, it usually does not need a license, although until some time ago even these startups had challenges, but with the coordination of the Ministry of Health and the Scientific Vice-Chancellor, some of these problems were resolved; But what remains as a problem at the moment are the parts related to supervisory institutions in which there are many control laws and restrictions, such as the Food and Drug Organization, the Medical Equipment Administration, etc.
Effective accelerator mentors are often educated in the health sector or IT?
Our mentors often have expertise in two fields, one in business and the other in health, where they are doctors, nurses, etc. I believe that in the field of digital health, a business perspective with a health flavor is more effective than a health perspective with a business flavor. Of course, it is true that digital health is different from normal businesses, but it follows the alphabet of business, so knowing the principles such as the role of marketing, financial calculations with health seasoning is more useful.
What is the fate of the teams after being out of action?
In the past, we had a number of internal trustee investors with whom we held meetings or public fundraising events; But recently, our approach has changed towards “specialization”. Recently, we held a specialized event with the help of the Innovation and Prosperity Fund, which was specific to the field of digital health, and all its contacts were in this field. Connecting to the industry is an issue that we are currently focusing on and we are trying to connect the teams to the health industry and investors who are active in the field of health (such as food and pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment), and there is a solution for this. It is an infrastructure to attract people working in the field of health in the majority of specialized events; Therefore, in this regard, we will hold events in the near future and after passing the restrictions of Corona, in the field of health industry.
Was Corona an opportunity or a threat for Kara Accelerator?
Sometimes it is an opportunity and sometimes it is a threat. Overall, it was a good opportunity. Corona created good conditions for startups in the field of lifestyle, telemedicine, etc., but maybe they did not take advantage of this opportunity as they should have. But for startups that were active in the production sector, sometimes closures and quarantine conditions slightly delayed the production process.
Talk Final:
Considering that Corona helped a lot in the growth of the country’s digital health ecosystem, but there are still many needs and ideas in the country; Therefore, I invite students and people active in the field of health to send their ideas through the website and social networks. Because during Kara’s interactions with the funds, it has made it perform better than other collections in the field of financial and economic support and helping the team grow; Therefore, those who are interested should send their idea through effective communication networks or models so that we can turn it into a product with your help.