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Crucial Conversations
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Crucial Conversations
From Medical School to Tech Innovation: Building Jonda Health's Data Transformation Engine
Ever wondered why your medical information doesn't seamlessly follow you from doctor to doctor? Suhina Singh's remarkable journey from practicing physician to healthcare tech innovator answers this question while revealing the critical missing link in modern healthcare.
Born into a medical family in South Africa, Suhina's path to founding Jonda Health was anything but straightforward. After studying medicine in Afrikaans (a language she barely knew), practicing in multiple countries, and even taking a detour into modelling, her most profound insights came from two painful experiences. When her brother-in-law was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer, transferring his medical records between countries proved nearly impossible. Years later, she herself endured seven years of misdiagnosis despite having all the necessary data scattered across different providers.
These frustrations led to a revelation: healthcare's data problem isn't just inconvenient—it's dangerous. Suhina explains how medical information exists in countless incompatible formats, using a brilliant analogy of differently shaped and coloured objects that represent the same health information but can't communicate with each other. Her solution? Jonda Health's data transformation engine that acts like a universal adapter, making fragmented health data usable across systems.
The conversation offers rare insights into the messy reality of building a healthcare startup, from initial UI/UX challenges and development nightmares to the pivotal moment when Suhina realized her backend data engine was the true innovation, not the patient-facing app she initially focused on. Her candid reflections on bootstrapping, technical partnerships, and investor relations provide a masterclass in healthcare entrepreneurship.
For anyone passionate about healthcare innovation, patient empowerment, or entrepreneurship, this episode offers both inspiration and practical wisdom. Listen now to understand how solving healthcare's data plumbing problem could revolutionize patient care worldwide!
Okay, and so we are here. Yes, welcome. Thank you for joining the podcast. I think I've been excited to chat to you for a while now and share your story. Always good to sit down and have a good heart-to-heart with a fellow South African, and I think you have a beautiful story to share, so I'm quite keen on pulling at a few different threads. You're a woman in the tech space and you're leading the charger in Singapore within the health sector and I think that's amazing, so definitely want to dive into you know, jonda, and the journey that led you to this point, so maybe we can start off just with a brief introduction of who you are and where you came from.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so first of all, thank you for having me, and it's also great to chat to a fellow South African, and out of all places in Singapore, yeah, so a little bit about me.
Speaker 2:So yeah, born and raised in South Africa, a general practitioner, and then got the chance to see all the wonderful problems they were, I would say, when it came to health data, both in South Africa, the UK, and then here in Singapore both in South Africa, the UK, and then here in Singapore. And I guess that led me on a number of different wonderful adventures, whether it was practicing in the field of oncology in the UK, whether that was working for Big Pharma, and actually I spent some time in a tech startup that had nothing to do with healthcare at all as well, and that was a wonderful experience too. And then the other part of my life, which not many people know about, is I used to model when I was younger, and so from that, a world of different experiences too, and I think that's also helped me quite a lot be, I would say, more comfortable being like on a podcast or on camera, so that's always, I think, a big win as well.
Speaker 1:Nice. Have you always had an interest, from a young age, in the health side of things? How did you, when did you realize that you were going to go down that path?
Speaker 2:So I grew up in a family where my dad was a dentist and also Indian family. So I think it was kind of a natural progression to do something in the sciences. So why I chose to become a physician in the first place was that I was so fascinated with the way the human body worked and I just thought it was such an incredible construction that I really wanted to understand how it worked. So from the very early days, when, like I used to play with like my Barbie dolls, my brother used to pop off the heads and I would put them into hospital and reattach their heads right, put them into hospital and reattach their heads right. So it kind of seemed like a natural progression to moving into the world of healthcare. And, to be honest, I think there's nothing more special than in my opinion at least, than working in healthcare, because you get to help people when they're at their most vulnerable and they trust you literally with their life. It's something very, very special and very intimate.
Speaker 1:Agreed, it's not for everyone, right. I've always been fascinated by it and I've watched lots of documentaries or programs related to health and surgeries and all of the interesting stuff that comes out. But I definitely would not be able to get into it myself. I think, first of all, my school grades weren't good enough and secondly, if I see blood I want to pass out, so it qualifies me out quite quickly Out of interest. Your brother popping off your Barbie doll hairs what did he end up doing?
Speaker 2:So he's a dentist and my sister's also a dentist.
Speaker 1:So the whole family ended up in the medical community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Is that your parents' influence or just what you don't know? I?
Speaker 2:don't know, my dad's a dentist and then, like my sister is my elder sister and my brother both decided on dentistry and so at some point I was just calling myself the black sheep of the family. But then I realized, you know what? I'm actually the white sheep and they're the black sheep because I'm the actual physician and they're not.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you went through medical school. Where did you study?
Speaker 2:I studied at the University of Stellen, stalinbosch stellies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that was the journey, yeah I'm sure I've heard stories, uh, kind of envious of that varsity life. Was it as good as they make it out to be?
Speaker 2:well, I guess I saw it from a very different perspective, because when I said yes to studying at the university of stalinbosch, uh, we were told I was completely bilingual, and to their credit I that it was completely bilingual, and to their credit I suppose it was. But like the lectures were in Afrikaans and like I remember first year chemistry, and like that whole textbook was in Afrikaans and the lecture was in Afrikaans and I was just like sorry, what's going on? And I just remember crying and at that time we didn't have Google Translate, right. You had like a dictionary in Afrikaans, a twee talige woord te bok, right, and you'd go look up what's the and have to translate the whole thing from like Afrikaans into English, right, and I just remember crying and crying. So that definitely was an interesting way to do medical school, for sure.
Speaker 1:I mean it almost sounds impossible for those that don't know. So Afrikaans is an old dialect of Dutch which became a language in South Africa after they landed in South Africa. And yeah, we still speak Afrikaans, as we used to, as one of the main languages. It still is one of the 11 official languages and before the transition, or just after the transition, a lot of the universities still had Afrikaans as the first language, english as the second. So I don't know, how did you get through that? I mean, that must have boosted your Afrikaans. Was your Afrikaans by a good note.
Speaker 2:Well, no, not really, but it was funny because I think you know, when we were in school, I mean, even though it was a second language, I mean we never really spoke Afrikaans in like school, right, even though it was one of the subjects we studied. So you can imagine going to medical school and you're like uh, where was your? School In PE. Okay, port Elizabeth, but yeah, I mean obviously an English speaking school. Port Elizabeth, but yeah, I mean obviously an English speaking school.
Speaker 1:And for my parents, you know, speaking Afrikaans, they didn't see that as a priority either, right, so how did you?
Speaker 2:navigate that Did you? Just perseverance, yeah, just perseverance, resilience and, I think, a lot of tears. I think I cried almost every day for like three months until I realized OK, well, I guess this is it then.
Speaker 1:So you stayed at Stelios, because that's how many years? It's four, seven years.
Speaker 2:No, it's six years, Six years and then two years. One year internship, one year community service.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, congrats. I think that's amazing. Thank you, not many people can complete that degree just in their you know, in their. What's the word I'm looking for.
Speaker 2:In their first language.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in the first language. So to be able to get it, you know, while listening to another language and still be able to translate. I don't even think we had Google then. Did we have Google?
Speaker 2:then? No, I didn't have Google Translate, did we?
Speaker 1:have Google. Did we have Google then? No, I didn't have Google Translate.
Speaker 2:Did we have Google? Did we have Google? It's a good question. I don't know. Now I'm giving away my age. It's a very good question, it's okay.
Speaker 1:We're not that old, I mean, it's just a reality, right? The internet only started quite late, okay, cool. And then you went and did your community service. Where was that? Because community service is an interesting one we also were supposed to do it in occupational health and safety where you pick three places in priority and then they come back and tell you where you're going to go and work. Was it the same?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my story is a little bit different, because I almost didn't do community service because I was so fed up with just everything I had been through after internship, and so then I just decided to sort of drop everything, and then I went to model in Italy for three months.
Speaker 1:Hard pivots.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I was just like nah, and then I came back and I'm like, oh, now I need to get a community service. And then a post that opened up very close to a town, very close to Port Elizabeth called Utenaig, and so I landed up in Utenaig.
Speaker 1:It's quite beautiful there, if I remember correctly.
Speaker 2:It's okay.
Speaker 1:Utenaig is. Maybe I'm thinking of the wrong place. That's not where all the wine farms are.
Speaker 2:No no.
Speaker 1:That's more the.
Speaker 2:Western Cape In the Eastern Cape, I wouldn't think there's anything there. So Juttenheg is usually called Eitenhage, which may be something you're more familiar with, maybe because it's usually an Afrikaans town. Okay, okay.
Speaker 1:So then you're a maybe, because it's usually an Afrikaans town, okay, okay, okay, so then you're a qualified doctor after that, right?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Okay, and did you practice?
Speaker 2:I did. I practiced in South Africa, and then I went over to the UK and then, when I came here, I couldn't practice, and so that led me on another different adventure.
Speaker 1:How did you feel about that?
Speaker 2:About not being able to practice. Why?
Speaker 1:wouldn't you be able to practice, Because South Africa surely has some of the best practical experience when it comes to doctor scenarios.
Speaker 2:I'm sure no, it does. It's just that none of the South African universities are currently recognized by the Singapore government, by the Ministry of Health. Hopefully that changes one day. Fingers crossed I have raised the concern, so let's see fingers crossed. In terms of how I felt, I think when I moved from the UK to Singapore, my brother-in-law had been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer and I was working on oncology, so I would say I found that very traumatic in so many ways. It was not. That was not easy at all. Yet at the same time, as much as I wanted a break from practicing clinical medicine, I at the same time felt like who I was was literally ripped out from, like the ground below me. Because I came here and I was like so who am I? Because I couldn't practice anymore, and I think you have this sort of identity crisis and you're just like so what do I do? It was an interesting journey.
Speaker 1:It was an interesting journey. There's a lot to leave behind, you know, considering all the efforts and what you went through to get it, but it's also probably teed you up beautifully for this next part of your journey, right, and that's with John Deer Health. So maybe, for those listening, you know, you can just share a little bit more about this amazing startup that you are now endeavoring on the founder's journey with.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think, yeah, I mean it really is an accumulation of all my previous frustrations in the world of health care. I think you know Steve Jobs always says it very well that you know it's only looking back that you can connect the dots right, and I wouldn't be able to do gender health if it wasn't for the sum of my experiences, and that's something that's very blessed and very magical. So what we do is, I think during my time, from the time when my brother-in-law was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer, he was in South Africa, I was in the UK. Oh, my gosh, trying to get his data across from South Africa to the UK was such a pain, it was so difficult and oftentimes, actually, we had a lot of patients that were coming from outside of the UK to this really awesome clinic in London and just trying to get the data was always an absolute nightmare. Right, it was just very, very challenging and I thought to myself wow, we really take the word care out of healthcare when we're not even having access to the data to make proper, informed decision making, and then we're really putting this burden on the patients, and for me that's completely unacceptable.
Speaker 2:I would say fast forward to my time in Singapore, I myself landed up getting quite unwell, not really understanding what was wrong with me really suffering, being in so much pain for about seven years, going from doctor to doctor to doctor, only to get a diagnosis seven years late.
Speaker 2:And it's not that the data didn't exist to make a diagnosis it existed, I think there was stuff there. It was just that the information was scattered everywhere, and so I just came to a point where there's something that needed to really be done about the fragmentation that exists with health data, because you're having legacy systems. Everyone set up their system in a different way. Being able to just ingest the data and use it is incredibly difficult, and we were like, why is it so complex? And so we created the company Jonda Health to help to address that. So we created a data transformation engine so that it makes it really easy for people to be able to ingest data and actually be able to use it, and that means that they can do predictive algorithms, identify people at risk for certain diseases, et cetera, and just give a more complete picture have a more complete picture, I would say of their health.
Speaker 1:That's amazing and well done. I'm interested to understand the causality of that problem. Why was it so difficult to get the data? Was it a rights or ownership thing, or where was the complication or the blocker?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I would say it depends whether you're in the public or private sector and also depends on the country. So for me I would say in Singapore. I'm not going to leave out my experience in the UK, because I even went to the UK to try and figure out what was wrong, uh, without much luck, by the way, and I actually don't even know, I don't even think I was given any of the blood results by the way from the UK. So it's a really good question. Actually, I never thought about it before, but I actually don't have that information at all. Uh, in Singapore, I was given everything in like uh in paper format and that's it. And then everyone loads something different into the multiple different applications. You have right, and like, no one's communicating, uh, and so the only way to take information from one doctor to the next is giving them a pack of like pd or a box full of like paper files, which is completely Archaic.
Speaker 2:Yes, and doctors don't have time to go through like all of that, right. And also the challenge that you have is that with each of these tests they're all laboring the same thing, something different, which, by the way, from a physician is okay. But what gets messy is the units of measurement could be different. So it's not like you can just like draw it out, and even that is OK, like drawing it out and saying, ok, is this up, is this down, is this up, is this down? First you need to convert it, then figure out is it going up, is it down? No doctor has time to do that. I no doctor has time to do that. I'm sorry, but that, for me, was my personal biggest challenge when it came to sort of really understanding what was also happening with myself.
Speaker 1:So I mean you're referring specifically now to blood work and they represent the results or the format in which they share the results. Am I understanding you correctly?
Speaker 2:100% correct.
Speaker 1:Okay, why is that? One would think that something so important like blood work would have a universal code or metric or methodology, at least.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, we can't even agree on which side of the road to drive on, right, true, globally. So I mean, there we go. I would say there are standards, there's multiple standards and even there, with the multiple standards, even there there's a lot of complexity. And also the units of measurement aren't clearly defined. We'll just say mass over volume, okay, but a mass could be anything milligram, microgram. And then how do you express that? Right, because microgram you could express in multiple different ways. And that's where the complexity comes in, right, because everyone's like, oh yeah, but it's pretty standard, and I'm like, well, no, not really, because you have a lot of variability in that right, and to go to that level, granular level of standardization, it doesn't actually exist.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. Okay, I mean, I've had my own experience, not with blood work. When I moved to, I'm like, listen, these are actually my records. Right, it's my data, you should allow me access to it and I have every right to call it. But very cagey and didn't want to release my own data and I wonder if there's more to it than just the sharing of the data but the perceived feeling that they own the data at some level. I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's a good question. I think there's also challenges around how to even export the data. Right, because the systems are also not the easiest sometimes either. Right To give, like the other side, the benefit of the doubt. Right, because if you're a busy dentist and I come from a family of them but if you're a busy dentist and come from a family of them, but if you're a busy dentist, a busy doctor, and then you have a patient asking you for results when you're completely overworked, you have a system that you're supposed to use or that you've gotten for yourself, that is a very irritating system to use and you still haven't quite figured out how exactly to use it. Now someone's coming to you and asking you for, like, their records, right, and you're just like, seriously, another administrative thing that I need to do and I don't even know how to use the system. So I think that's also the other perspective right to hold. So sometimes it's not really about not wanting to share the data.
Speaker 1:It's just that they're the system's not designed for exactly got you. That's a fair comment, okay. So just anchoring back to your genesis here with with gender health. So you go through this compelling pain point um with. Is your brother, brother-in-law sorry, my brother-in-law, my or brother-in-law sorry?
Speaker 2:My brother-in-law, my late brother-in-law.
Speaker 1:Your late brother-in-law, and then even with yourself, where you have a health complication. You're getting multiple opinions, as is always recommended, but you can't aggregate the different data sets to make an informed decision and you have this eureka moment. Maybe just if I can ask you to elaborate a bit more. What was that moment like when you decided hang on, I need to solve this.
Speaker 2:That's a good question. Actually, I think it was. I think gender health was in the making for like a good couple of years, so I would say that the initial concept for gender health was in 2012. So that's crazy right.
Speaker 2:So I was a nice slow bake, I would say. What got me to really bring it out of the closet was during my time in one of the big pharma companies. There was a huge issue around, like you know, just getting access to real world evidence, huge challenges, and also you wanted to have data, longitudinal data for patients across time, and that was really hard to get. And then I was like, well, you know, like you know, that idea I had of, like, patients having access to the data, et cetera, this could actually be something. And so then I took two weeks and I studied UX, ui and product management in the US and I chose to do it at San Francisco because I figured, well, if you're going to do anything that's tech related, I'm going to go study somewhere. I'm going to go study there.
Speaker 2:And during my time doing UX UI, I actually did the whole thing from beginning to end and sort of building up like that case, and at that point it was a patient facing application called, called, called met me back then and obviously now we've rebranded that to to Janda, and so all the initial wire frames and all the thought processes around that was actually from like way back when and, funnily enough, my co-founder. She wanted to build it when I told her about it way back then and I wasn't ready yet, and so, yeah, it fizzled off into like nothingness until I was helping to lead healthcare investments for a holding company and, funnily enough, this issue was what I wanted to focus on as the investment thesis. And then, after speaking to like four or five people, they were like, well, you know, you're so opinionated about this, why don't you just try solve the problem yourself? And I was like it's a pretty valid point. And there we go.
Speaker 1:Nice, good, okay, and now you've got a fully-fledged team. We have the privilege of collaborating together and you're part of our incubator, and I remember the first time I came across your profile and your product. It's a no-brainer. I think what I'm really excited about is to see more and more of this aggregation real-time, dynamic aggregation of data, especially health data, that can provide predictive insights and recommendations. I think that that's a completely underplayed capability still within the health sector, because everything's siloed right. You go, you go for your blood work at one place, or multiple places, you go to different dentists, x-rays you know you're doing personal fitness programs, nutritional programs, everything so fragmented. Meanwhile they're all interrelated and you know you could drive or derive so much intelligence by just kind of pulling some of that information together. So I definitely immediately saw the value in what you were doing. How has the journey been for you so far, you know, and where are you at right now in that journey?
Speaker 2:So I would say it's been.
Speaker 2:Look, being a founder is, I think, one of the hardest things, and I think I've told this to you like many times. But I think it's a very personal journey, a founder journey, and it's a journey in which you get to face your own demons, because you realize that the biggest challenge you will ever have is yourself. Yeah, and it's been a very magical journey a lot of growth, a lot of tears, a lot of joy as well at the same time. So it's yeah, I mean it's definitely not an easy journey, that's for sure. I think there's been moments where I was like, sorry, why am I doing this again? And I think that that's pretty normal.
Speaker 2:Or, you know, letting anxiety get the better of you at times. You know, when it comes to, like I don't know, speaking to investors or even sharing your idea with people, right, because you're like, you're thinking, wow, I'm putting myself out there and now I'm going to get judged. What are people going to think about me? And at the end of the day, actually, you look at all of these things and it's really once again confronting your inner demons, right, because once you start to let go of like, you know what people think about you, about being judged. Once you're like sure within yourself, you actually start to see that people are just trying to give you feedback and they're just trying to help you to be able to grow. And it's nothing personal and before I used to take everything incredibly personally, right.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I mean it's been a journey. It's definitely not been easy and I think even just getting to the initial something right Like you know, the first part of the initial product, that initial MVP, just getting to that before you even get a user to even try and use it, is like I don't think anyone realized because actually, once you have a product, it's a little bit easy because you already have like something right that you can like use and you can improve or like whatever and you can have something to show for yourself. But up until then you're just, like you know, there's some like pretty wireframes on like Figma great stuff, right. And all you can show people are these pretty wireframes on like Figma Great stuff, right. And all you can show people are these pretty wireframes on Figma. So, yeah, no, it's been a journey. I mean I've learned a lot along the way, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean we were having this conversation earlier and I said it's definitely people underestimate just how, um, how much you are in for from a growth perspective, learning perspective. I found in one of my first startups, just being able to take feedback was and not take it personally and and also not, uh, feel like I know better. I used to be quite obstinate, you know, because you're so close and emotionally invested in your product, it can actually blind you. So you know, respect to you, I think, for getting to the current stage and I'm interested to unpack a little bit more that zero to one, because that's where a lot of people fall off the bus, right, and I've just gone through that experience myself again of having that burning feeling of wanting to bring something to life.
Speaker 1:And then it's how do you go from what's in your head onto paper, from paper through a product manager or a you self? You upskilled yourself to be able to, to do the product design part, to put the Figma designs together. Now this is you doing it properly. A lot of people don't even do the Figma designs right. A lot of people just run from some kind of documents and start coding. Maybe you can share with me a little bit more for the benefit of listeners, on what to do and what not to do from zero to one, which is one being having a working MVP, that you have done some kind of product market fit analysis on hypothesis testing, on.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, gosh, so many learnings. I would say number one in the do's is, I think, like, if you're a non-technical co-founder, I would strongly recommend getting a technical co-founder as your CTO, because I think that makes a world of difference and for that it's been a blessing for me. But also know who you're getting as your co-founder and CTO, right, because do they actually have the technical expertise that's required for what you're actually trying to build out? And I think that's like number one importance in my opinion. Right, I'm very blessed because, like, obviously my co-founder is a systems architect, which is very helpful given what we do, and she has like over 20 years of, like health, it experience, which you don't find every day. So I think you want to get someone that really sort of knows the space that you're going into very well, because that will already alleviate a lot of headaches. We were bootstrapped and we still are.
Speaker 1:So you haven't raised any funding yet. It's completely bootstrapped.
Speaker 2:No, completely bootstrapped. Oh, respect, well, we're raising capital now, but I would say the one thing that we learned, because we were just trying to get everything done in like the quickest, easiest, cheapest way possible, and we had gone to developers in the Philippines which my co-founder had worked with before, and we thought that that would be pretty smooth sailing. Uh, yeah, no, it was very cheap, uh, and that didn't work out at all. Uh, I think I have a post on LinkedIn, uh, which shows, like, what the Figma design was and what they gave us, and it looked like a two-year-old basically coded the thing and you're just like no, and then when you get something like that back, it's very disheartening. So I would say choose your developers wisely, because you also don't want to be wasting time and also, I mean because we started first with an app. It's also making that decision.
Speaker 2:If you are doing something that's an app-based is understand like. Which way are you doing it right? Are you doing in, in react, or you're doing it like, uh, something that's web-based with a wrapper? Each of these have its pros and cons, right, um, and so you really need to think through quite carefully. What are you doing right? Are you going to launch on both stores at the same time? Are you just going to launch on one? Do you need to, and then you need to have on both stores at the same time? Are you just going to launch on one? Do you need to, and then you need to have double the amount of stuff that you need to handle?
Speaker 2:And I think these are things that I don't know that we really thought through very well, to be honest, because we were just like, yeah, we want to be here, we want to be there and we're going to get this done and get that done. And we got to a point where, like, the development of the app with these two guys was really taking way too long. So we got an agency to help us with a front end development, because all the backend development is what is actually JandaX today, which is our data transformation engine. So we want someone else to do like, the front end. But then now I had an issue because, like the ID team from Europe, and we decided, okay, we're going to spend money now, because we made the wrong decision of spending very little, and costing the most.
Speaker 2:And costing the most. So now I went to the other extreme.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Doesn't necessarily mean that it's better.
Speaker 2:No, and basically what happened there was.
Speaker 2:Then I had this issue between, like, the front end developers and like my team, and then like a lot of sort of like you know I would say, disagreements as well with a number of different things, and then I was just like, ok, great, and then there were a whole bunch of issues with regards to the fact that that was in React and it wasn't moving fast enough because we were getting so delayed with actually getting sort of the product like out there that then we took another route and then we basically took the whole app and then created it on a web app, because every time we did the React, we were doing React.
Speaker 2:Every time there was an update or every time there was a bug fix, then you need to release a new update, whereas with a web app, which is a wrapper, that's not the case. You can actually fix it in real time without doing a new release, which makes life a lot easier when you're a startup, because, guess what, there's a lot easier when you're a startup, because, guess what, there's a lot of you made me cringe when you said that you were developing the app for, because that that's dual work streams, it's ios, android right, and hindsight's a perfect science.
Speaker 1:I'm sure you won't make that mistake again anytime soon. Uh, the web app would have been the great starting point for sure. Interesting to see you landed that back there. I think I'm trying to picture because again I've been going through it now a fragmented front-end back-end team without a product manager in between. It almost sounds like a pun.
Speaker 1:Okay, that must be an absolute nightmare to manage, because what I have seen is that the intricacies even you know you can build out and if you've cut your teeth in the space, you will invest heavily upfront on the UI, ux, design, testing and market that market validating at that level before you code. Because once you start going to code and then do hard pivots in different directions, that's where the costs just become astronomical and it's it becomes a bit of a messy situation. So I'm trying to imagine the, the noise that must have existed and how you must have tried to deal with that. Because even with us, with with one team where I have a back, a full stack uh developer plus back-end engineers and then a front-end developer supporting the full stack, an ar lead and a product manager. Some of those discussions, those daily scrums are intense, right, but at least we were part of the same team with two different teams. That must have been an extreme challenge to overcome, and I think it's a fantastic learning for anyone to to to take out of this.
Speaker 2:No, I think that's a. It was a. I mean. That's why I wanted to share that one in particular, because I think there's definitely things that you really need to think through, especially when it comes to building an app. I think the one thing we did do well, though, is actually getting the Figma tested, and Figma is really nice because it's so easy to create a working prototype on there, right right like a clickable prototype. It's very easy to do. I mean like hey, I'm a physician and I did it so pretty straightforward to do.
Speaker 1:Uh, I would say there's a reason. They were purchased for a few billion the beginning of this year and this is it right here on this, on this podcast.
Speaker 2:No, it's true I mean I did get trained on how to use it, but like, look, I mean, is it a perfect world? Did we have the money in order to be able to? I mean I guess we did, but like, do we want to be spending our own money on like UX UI? I mean, also, you're making certain decisions right and, to be honest, like I think, in terms of like user experience, I think Daniel and I were quite opinionated on the user experience and also I had built some of the Figma screens from the past, right, so it was just kind of sort of redoing that, and we did get a UX UI designer to sort of help us, and what was happening was I ended up going into the Figma files and changing everything. So I was like this isn't right, this isn't right, this isn't right, this isn't right. And I mean it was. Yeah, I mean at some point. Yeah, I mean it's a lot of learnings. Yeah, I mean at that point.
Speaker 1:We can smile about it now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, lots of countless nights just staying up trying to design stuff on Figma because the UX UI designer has no context. They don't understand the problem, they don't know the users, they don't know the industry and now they need to, like, do the UX for something that you have in your mind. Good luck with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're raising probably the thing If I'm most grateful for one thing in 2024, do you want to guess what that is?
Speaker 2:What.
Speaker 1:Her name is Anne. Anne is a product manager and I think when we go through this founder journey, you're almost doomed to repeat it Not doomed, privileged, doomed to repeat it. Not doomed, privileged, privileged to repeat it because you're going to learn some hard lessons and these are the types of things you know. You're still surviving despite all of this, which is testament to your resilience and the team that you have. But it's painful and it's slowed you down, it's cost you money, time, energy and if you can come out the other side, kudos to you. But this is where people start falling off the bus in a big way because you're paying school fees now, right, and I've done this a few times. I've run out of the starting block, straight from idea, maybe put it down onto some project requirement document, straight to a web developer and said go, and somehow I came out the other side with a working product. I would give testament, probably, to the web developer in that respect. But then I didn't know how to scale that product and I had never test the hypothesis to see, even if I have product market fit, that business failed, I had a beautiful interface failed and I've had all these different learnings and on this last journey I had the natural inclination to want to run and build again, bring this thing to life as quickly as possible. It took me when I started. It took me with the product manager. She's still the core of the team now and orchestrating front end, back end and running the daily scrums core of the team now and orchestrating front-end, back-end and running the daily scrums. But it took me months just to get the UI UX to go from my idea through to her documenting that, giving it structure, drawing out the wireframes, then bringing a UI UX person on board and then she's the interface with them and the three of us would come together but the two of them would go away and she would know how to take my vision and make sure that he stayed true to that. So that ties in with your point. You missed that part and if you're hoping that the UI UX person knows how to do it, it's only going to come down to whether or not you're able to sit and go through that stitch by stitch with them, and that's extremely painful and I don't think I would have been able to do that. So my advice to anyone listening find a product manager that is got lots of experience and meticulous in their work. Bring them on as the first person.
Speaker 1:Then I went into UI UX. That took another few months Now I'm like way over budget, haven't even got a single bit of code. But I was able to take the Figma beautiful Figma designs and test the market and, as I was testing the market on the product, fundamentally changed it to the product it is today and then only went into coding, have spent all my bitcoin. Okay, I've just managed to get out an mvp that's working and I can say with confidence that at least, um, it hasn't been smooth sailing it never is but um, it's been the smoothest so far. You know what I'm saying, so I respect that.
Speaker 1:You've gone through all of that and I think that there's such pools of wisdom that are coming out of your story because no one knows this right. There's no real guide on how to go about this and you you still went out of your way to go study, you know um, specific things so that you can self-fulfill and build out your designs and try and get your thinking across. But it's so meticulously intricate and complicated and then you start opening one door that leads to five other doors that all need to be managed and orchestrated. So yeah, so you've managed to now land on a web-based app, and this is where you're at now no, uh, so we do have a.
Speaker 2:It's a web-based app that has a wrapper, um. But what we realized very quickly is the backend, that we were developing that data transformation engine. We were building in the back end like that was the real diamond, and what happened was like last year, we were speaking to people different people in industry and we realized, wait a minute, this data fragmentation issue, this data harmonization issue, is actually a big problem on the B2B side. And then so we wound up learned from a lot of people and then we realized, oh, data transformation engine is important. And so then, basically, we took out the data transformation engine and we're like made tweaks based on what the market was saying and then created John to X. But John to X could never exist without the patient app. So I think sometimes you know when you're building and you're solving a problem, you really need to be flexible and always keep your ears to the ground, constantly speak to people to understand, because people are far more excited, funnily enough, about the data transformation engine than the patient-facing application.
Speaker 2:However, at the end of the day, my dream is to create a distributed health data ecosystem where personal health data is a tradable asset. But in order for us to get there, we need to just make health data usable first, and so the data transformation engine. It's not just a single app. It actually can be used by multiple different players in the industry and that can create a much greater change, I would say overall. So it's been, it's been a lot of learning. Uh, I yeah, even from a brand side. So much learning because we call the app jonda and the company's called jonda health, and then we realize, okay, but now there's jonda x, and then everyone calls the company jonda, but jonda is actually the app, and then we have like two websites, websites. So I mean, we've learned, we've learned a lot.
Speaker 1:I'm interested. There's a metaphor that you use for the data transformation engine Plumbing. Is it plumbing data?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I always call it data plumbing, because I would say that before you can even do anything with the data, you kind of need to have the data plumbing sort of there. So I always joke and I say that me and my co-founder are like Mario and Luigi. I'm not sure who's who, but there we go.
Speaker 1:I'm interested to. Why do you think that you didn't realize up front that the data transformation engine was the key? Because that's actually where the problem is right. That's a compelling pain point.
Speaker 2:It's true.
Speaker 2:I think we we knew but you got lost in the front end um, I wouldn't say it's that, like I, we knew that there was value to the data transformation engine and that we were building on the back end. We just didn't quite know what that would look like. You know it's like's like when you're you know, like when you know like if you have a murky glass of water and you can see that there's something behind the glass but you can't quite see. But you know that it is something there and you know that it's valuable but you can't quite see. Got it, and I think sometimes you can't quite see. And I think sometimes you can't quite see.
Speaker 2:But I mean like having the app allowed us to also have conversations and discussions that we wouldn't have been able to have, right, and we're like oh yeah, but you know, you can actually use the data at the back end to do all these wonderful things. But then people were like, ok, yes, I have the problem, but they couldn't take the leap from the app to like what the app does and the backend and realize that the backend can be leveraged. And then we were like no, we just need to take the backend and show people what it can actually do and make that its own product. But I think could we have built JandaX without Janda? The answer is no.
Speaker 1:Got you. So just to maybe crystallize it for those that are listening right now, john DeX, is the ability to take different? Is it specifically blood work? Different blood work data in different file formats? What are the different formats?
Speaker 2:So it's all the conventional conventional in inverted commas standards when it comes to health informatics, so FHIR, hl7, pit, ccda, so all the very technical stuff, but then also dealing with stuff like PDF image files, so that can be PNG, gif, tiff, heic, and the list goes on. And funnily enough, you know, people don't realize that, like, actually some applications don't even accept HEIC, right, but that's what you get when you do a file transfer from an iPhone to like a Mac. Anyway, random thing, but like, it just shows that there's so many different file formats and not everything is always catered to.
Speaker 1:But this is the problem of the world that we live in. Right, that's true. This is why the problem exists. So you can take any one of those file formats and, just to help visualize it for those listening through your platform, they can upload different blood work sources of data in different file formats into a central place and then you have artificial intelligence that is taking that and doing what with it.
Speaker 2:All right, so yeah, so maybe let's take a step back, right? So on the B2B side, we're just a data transformation engine, right? So what, I'm going to ask you to do me a favor. You have an amazing system and you're going to choose a shape for me. Choose a shape Triangle, perfect, and what color is your triangle? It goes blue. Okay, and what's inside the triangle? You can choose three letters. Give me the three letters that are in your triangle.
Speaker 1:The three letters. Yeah, l-e-v.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very convenient. So that's your system and the way you've set it up, right In terms of, like, the file formats, the terminology standards, the content standards, et cetera, right, and also the different versions, because that's important, right? So my system is a six-pointed pink star with DEF inside. So now tell me, how are we going to share data, how are you going to ingest and use my data? Maybe you have a converter that allows it to go from like a star into a triangle, but it's still pink and it's still got DEF inside to a triangle, but it's still pink and it's still got DEF inside. So, but DEF and LEV are the exact same thing from a data perspective. They're both apples. So explain to me how do we get that inside?
Speaker 1:So the only way that I would be able to do that is recommend you to someone I know that has a company called Jonda Health that's built a data transformation engine that does that for you.
Speaker 2:Exactly. So, yeah, I mean you can think of us as an adapter, so like we always say that we're like a travel adapter, so that, like, when a file is coming in and your system actually uses something else, we convert that so that you can be able to actually use it and when the data is usable, you can do all the wonderful things with it. But in that process of ingesting it to actually making it usable, to harmonizing that data, we have a multiple different algorithms and AIs that actually help us to do that, because it's actually not a very simple, straightforward process like dropping it into a large language model if, voila, we've tried that multiple times and sadly it doesn't work and it's just because it into a large language model if voila, we've tried that multiple times and sadly it doesn't work.
Speaker 2:And it's just because there's a lot of complexity when it comes to the data.
Speaker 1:Got it Okay, so right now it's focused just on blood work, correct?
Speaker 2:Yes, so we're focused predominantly on blood biomarker data and in the pipeline we have some really cool other stuff, such as medication and other clinical data types that we've already started working on. Fun fact we actually already started working on like the medication part, like actually during johnthe app. So actually we started to build out a lot of the stuff and then we realized focus, because we can't build everything at the same time Um, and so we have some stuff that's been partly developed already, that's sitting in the closet, that really needs to sort of start to come out.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I think it's another important learning and takeaway for anyone listening that wants to start a business, which is two things, in my opinion. I'm keen to hear your thoughts. One is laser focus on who what is the problem that you're solving? Mapping that out at the most nuanced layer, then who the stakeholders and prioritizing those stakeholders and then picking the prioritized stakeholders. And then picking the prioritized stakeholders and then solving that problem.
Speaker 1:Learning number one if you haven't done that, you're going to go through a long, a long way around to get to that anyway.
Speaker 1:Lesson number two from what I'm hearing is that, even if you've done that, you could still encounter a scenario where you need to adapt and change your strategy based on the feedback you're getting from the market when you're testing the hypothesis, because what is a startup?
Speaker 1:It's a company that doesn't deserve to exist until the hypothesis or product market fit is proven right. And that's something that you've had to do now, because naturally, we want to go and build out all the features, myself included, and poor ann and I had many a hard discussion about this and I still managed to get my way in most regards, but that's created the problem now of what I was sharing with you this morning that you know when I'm presenting I really need to make sure I'm pitching the right feature or solution to the right stakeholder so that I don't confuse them. But you know, I think that you have to get to find success. You have to crystallize that MVP and adapt if the market tells you it's otherwise and then decide when you unlock the rest of that product roadmap based on the value exchange. So getting money now for what you have successfully found fit for and then deciding in a prioritized fashion what you're going to unlock next, which is kind of what and where you are right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, absolutely it's been a journey, absolutely it's been a journey.
Speaker 1:Nice, nice Respect. So I think that this has been great and there's lots of good initial learnings. I want to pull a little bit more at it and understand, now that you have a product and you're engaging with the market, what else have you been experiencing and what other advice can you give to any founders?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think the one for us in particular, I think, is that we were so busy focused on building the product that we all became very product focused when we were speaking to clients, we were speaking to them from a product perspective. I'm not like, how do we actually bring value to you? Which is so funny because we're so obsessed with the problem. We know everything about the problem. We're like know the problem inside out and we know the value it unlocks. We just couldn't articulate it because we were so wrapped up on how do we solve this problem right and make everyone's life better and easier. But when it came to talking about it, all we're doing because every day, all we're talking about is like, oh, what this needs to be for, like this technical problem or whatever and then you go out and then you're speaking to everyone with a very technical way of speaking which makes absolutely no sense. So I would say that's been the biggest learning Trying to actually articulate what you do from a value perspective to the end client.
Speaker 1:Because the client doesn't care about your product, they care about their problems, right. So you almost have to speak their, not almost, you have to speak their language, which is what is your problem. Okay, this is how we solve it and that sounds so obvious, right? But again, when you're so emotionally invested and so product orientated that you can't seem to divorce or reframe your approach without someone from the outside maybe coaching you a little and I've seen the same thing more often than not, and you raised a very a second point which is very interesting the technical jargon and language. It's got to be so careful with that, because you start becoming the domain expert. You start speaking funny galore. Okay, your client is lost and they just actually want a simple conversation that helps them connect the dots and, you know, be willing to at least give you an opportunity to prove it.
Speaker 2:No, it's true, I mean, it's quite funny. I went to an event, I think, last week and the guy asked me oh so what do you do? And at this point I was actually quite tired and I was like, oh, but you're an engineer, right? So I said, okay, well, we solve the problem of semantic and syntactic interoperability. And I was like, oh, but you're an engineer, right? So I said, okay, well, we solve the problem of semantic and syntactic interoperability. And I could say it in like three words and I was like ah that felt so good, Did he get it?
Speaker 1:He did Okay, he probably loved it. He was like finally someone's speaking my language.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, but no, you do need to speak to people in their language. But I think sometimes, just because we're so busy, you're also trying to explain things in the shortest possible way, right? Because when I explain what gender X is, it took us a while to explain what it is right, whereas I can just say we're a data transformation engine that solves for, like, syntactic and semantic interoperability. It's like boom, solved, right, but no one understands what syntactic and semantic interoperability.
Speaker 2:It's like boom solved right, but no one understands what syntactic or semantic interoperability is. So yeah.
Speaker 1:Data transformation engine. I could probably understand. Layman might still not understand that. Surprisingly, in some of these big companies they might not get the concept. Which is so interesting because you now need to force yourself to go back to layman's speak, and I've done this exercise before.
Speaker 1:We had to bring in an external consultant into a previous tech business because we said if you're standing around the bra, what conversation are you having? For those that don't know, a bra is South African for barbecue and how do you explain what the company does or the tech does to someone without their eyes glazing over? And it was such an interesting exercise because we brought the consultants in and everyone gave their different opinions, their different executives. They were all singing from a different hymn sheet. Number one there was no consistency in what the tech does, the value proposition, and also we then took it and we said how do we break it down into metaphors or analogies to help people? Just connect the dots at the most simplistic layer Pause, let them ask for once they land it, the deeper line of questioning, to get to the nuts and bolts of it. Yeah, so that's why I prompted you for the plumbing example.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I mean, it's not always the easiest. I mean I was speaking to, like, investors and when you tell them and I tell them, oh well, what we're doing is basically what Swift did for, like, the finance industry, is what we're trying to do with harmonizing data for healthcare, and then they were like, oh, I get that, that's huge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2:But then again, how many people know what SWIFT is?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So again your audience, the VCs, the investors, would know for sure. Which brings me on to my next point. As we get to the end part of the discussion, you're now in the process of going through this building a pipeline of potential investors and the rigorous journey that that entails. Do you want to share some light on just how that journey is treating you, what you're learning, what your frustrations, what your recommendations when engaging with investors for your business?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah. So I think for us, I think people trying to understand what we do I think for us has been a big pain point, especially people who don't come from industry, but I think we've gotten a lot better at doing that. So I think it depends how technical the product is and how complex the problem is, because some things are very nuanced and they're sitting very deep in an industry and if you don't come from there, I think it's a little bit hard. So, once again, also having analogies as well for the problem itself, right, not just for the technology, I think is also incredibly important and which is something we've needed to get good at.
Speaker 2:The second thing is is also speaking to like friendly investors to also try to understand, actually, which are the best type of investors to go after. And it's not just VCs, right, for example. So I mean you also have, like high net worth individuals. There's all the other ways of also getting financed. It's not just VC money, right, they can also get strategic partners et cetera, in. And I think the other thing for us that was quite important was we were having a conversation and I think I so pigeonholed ourselves in, like, because we're a technology company in healthcare. I was like, okay, I need to look for like healthcare-based VCs, but actually we could go to like enterprise SaaS type VCs right, to like enterprise SaaS type VCs right, which, by the way, is a lot more enterprise SaaS VCs than they are that invest in health tech, right. So I think it's also understanding like how do you position yourself also when it comes to like the fundraising, but also knowing what do you need and what type of investor do you want, right? So I always tell everyone it's really important to like at least my investor friends tell me that that's that. They yeah, it's not a very well, it's not that, it's not they recommend that you do it. I just didn't know that we did, but of course we do.
Speaker 2:It was speaking to your friends in the startup community or like how's it like working with this investor? What was it like? And getting that sort of like I would say you know on the ground, sort of like what are people saying on the street for lack of a better word about a particular investor? Because at the end of the day, you're going to land up being married in some way, shape or form to the investor, so you really want to know who you're going to be married to and who you're going to be in bed with at the end of the day. So I think that's really important, and so for us, we just kicked off fundraising a week, two weeks ago.
Speaker 2:I would say the one thing I would give as advice is I started and stopped fundraising a few times and I always kept getting pulled back into product or to commercial, and that's because I really hated the whole concept of fundraising. So I would say that, like, if you are like maybe first time, like founder CEO, and you're going to fundraise and you see yourself like starting and then like going back into other things, you really need to commit to it, otherwise you're never going to really get anywhere, and so I think that's also been advice to myself. Now, right, because you can't just stop, start, stop, start, right. That's not a very effective way of doing fundraising at all such pulls of wisdom there.
Speaker 1:So, just to recap, finding the right fit investor is not all investors. Fit your specific niche, vertical or culture, okay, um, so that's key consistency and treating it almost like a sales pipeline. This is what I always say to the startups that we we mentor and bring through our ecosystem is it's it's like building a pipeline that you have to push through a funnel of conversion in different stages because there's drop-off at different stages, and then it's a dedicated engine that you have to have in place, with all of the you know things that they're going to ask for, locked and loaded, your data room and everything inside there. So, yeah, the only advice I could give is that, if you're under-resourced and it's always a toss-up between do I sell actual business or am I trying to raise VC funding it's a balance, but more often than not, you need to be selling product. There are companies that we can recommend or that are out there that do this part of the process for you for either a small fee or percentage of the deal, which is always a good option to look at, especially if you have something that's quite tangible and if you've got some traction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that's amazing. You know I'm really excited to watch the rest of the story play out. I think you've got an amazing team. I've had the privilege of pulling closer to all of you and, you know, really getting to work intimately with you and understand your business and try and help in whatever way possible. I foresee great things and try and help in whatever way possible. I foresee great things, but by no means am I under the illusion of just how much hard work you still have to overcome to find that. And respect to you and the team for where you're at. I really wish you only the best success and I think that it's gonna be a good story to share one day, because you're solving such a compelling pain point that I haven't come across anyone else yet that's approaching it from this angle. So you're definitely ahead of the curve in my opinion, and I suspect you're going to unlock many interesting collaborations and partnerships, which will be the key to your success.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, thank you. So, yeah, fingers crossed. All we do is try and give our best every day and take the lessons for what they are and just keep doing our best. I think the most important thing for us is, as long as we're learning every day, then we're making progress right and we're course correcting every day, then I think we're headed in the right direction.
Speaker 1:Any final words of encouragement or advice for women that want to enter into tech?
Speaker 2:Just go for it, like there's nothing stopping you from like going for it. I mean, I think we always find a million and one reasons why we can't do something, when actually you just need one reason as to why you can.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. Well, perfect note to end on. Thank you so much for your time and looking forward to following your journey.
Speaker 2:Awesome, thank you.
Speaker 1:Cheers. Thank you.