The the doctor hence along with his
The company that I have chosen is Practo (a simple websitewhich helps provide end to end communication between the user and lakhs ofdoctors). Firstly I analysed the company and then wrote a success story on thesame and then after further analysis I understood the reasons why and how didPRACTO become so successful in such a short period of time.
———————————————————————————————————Practo was started by Shashank ND in early 2008’s when he realized that the Indian society had a majorgap which needed to be fulfilled. His father had fallen severely ill and allShashank wanted was a simple 2nd opinion on his father’s conditionfrom a renowned doctor all the way from America. Because of lack of simple resourceshe was unable to secure a connection between himself and the doctor hence alongwith his friend Abhinav he decided to solve this.
10 years ago two twentysomething engineering graduates decided to go against the world by not takingup regular jobs and choosing mainstream jobs but creating their own company tohelp india get better health care easily. The company was founded in Bangaloreand because of the ideas uniqueness received a funding of around 4 milliondollars in the first round of fund allotment in july 2012 and is planning toraise another round of funding in series B. Practo initially helpedestablish seamless connection between the doctor and the patient however nowwith the immense growth of the company practo deals in everything healthcarefrom health insurances to providing appointments to online consultations tomanaging customer medical details including bills, x-rays online in theirsecure servers. This startup succeeded because of the sheer passion in theirfounders to build something important. Their objective, pace was excellent andwith the huge customer demand success soon followed. Soon after initially openingup in Bangalore they started spreading to many other states knowing fully wellthat this was the right time for expansion. Also sensing the growing number ofinternet users were mobile users who performed minimal recharges, the team ofPracto released their first version of the Practo (android) app which waspretty space and data usage efficient which only got better with time. Laterthe IOS version of the same was also released.
To increase their customer basethey started instant conformed appointment bookings with doctors. The next stepfor them was to procure funds to move to other countries. Just recently theyshifted to latin America making their presence known in 5 countries with consumerand software business and 10 additional countries with enterprise softwarebusiness. Also the efficient method ofdealing with grievances helps instill a sense of comfort in customers and thusincreasing their reach by good ratings and good word of mouth increasing theirbrand awareness.Shashank says the roadmap ofPracto has been a rocky one but now with around 50 million monthly appointmentsand 200,000 healtcare providers and using a sustained marketing campaign wewill be ensuring that we reach out to as many patients as possible through allpossible media. This would help increase awareness among patients and also helpthe healthcare ecosystem.
———————————————————————————————————Reasons for PRACTO’s Success:1) Market (Customer) need: The product was something which people didn’t realize was an importantnecessity until it was made.2) No Competition: During the startup days, this company had NO competition at all becausethis was a brand new idea.3) Customer Satisfaction: From the start their main aim was to see to it that the people arehappy. This is ensured by their award winning customer service which isavailable either online or through call centers.
4) Cost:Basic features like doctor information is free of cost and payment is onlyrequired for actual booking of appointments.5) Apt marketing: From the beginning they knew what was right to be done, from door todoor marketing to now advertisement done by a US based company, the Practo teamhas taken all the right initiatives.6) Focus, Motivation, passion, commitment: The Practo team was focused on not earning money butrather were motivated by helping the people and feeling a gap in society.7) Great domain specific knowledge: Being CS engineers both the co-founders had greatknowledge of all technical things, from website development to app development.This helped them have a steady idea on how to proceed further.8) Willing to adapt: The practo team initially just wanted to set up doctor consumerinteraction but later seeing the demand in the market decided on adding additionalfeatures (like storing patient records)9) Fundraising Skills: The founder of Practo believes that you should always have a 30 secondpitch ready so that you never miss an opportunity.
