Meet the founders building preventative care HealthTech at PremedGo

“It's not like I've been a successful entrepreneur. I think I've failed almost all the other startups I tried doing when I was in university, before university and after university. But I think now the greatest thing I have is the experiences I've gained from failing — and also the exposure and the education.” – George Nimfour, co-founder of PremedGo. Where did the inspiration for PremedGo come from? So back in 2020 I started my postgrad in international strategy at Oxford University. I was sort of struggling to get a topic for my dissertation but coincidentally, I visited my mom in London and as we were having a conversation she sort of started going dizzy. We called an ambulance and did a lot of stuff and couldn't really get to the bottom of it. We did some tests and those tests actually showed that she had Diabetes, which she thought she didn't have. So although it was bad, it was quite good because we were able to know about these issues she is dealing with. I started thinking, okay, how, what is the problem here? And how many people are like my mom thinking they're all good and one day. something like that will happen to them. So I looked at the problem and at a possible solution and decided to write it with a business plan. Fast forward — I applied into Cambridge from Oxford. Then met Robert and discussed the business plan idea with Robert. He also came from a healthcare background, and that was where we collaborated and the magic started happening. Why is now the right time to launch? If I look at the world, I think — looking at the cost of living crisis and everything — now is the right time for us to start living a healthy life and having more control of our life, our health, which is very important. If I look at the United Kingdom, preventative health is very key to solving pressures on the NHS because what happens is people know about their health.  They know what they need to take in, what they don't need to take in, what kind of exercises they need to do, and the kind of exercise they don't need. But what happens is, at the beginning of the year, we all come up with a New Year resolution. We are going to live a healthy life. I'm gonna join the gym, sign up. But before we do that, we don't even know what's going on in our bodies — we just decide ‘I want to be slim, I want to do this, I wanna have a toned body.’ We think now is the time we can create our aim and vision — to create a healthy economy. Where everyone has control of their health — they know what's going on in their health and that is why we think now is the right time to launch PremedGo. So what is PremedGo? Simply put, PremedGo is an online marketplace using a mobile app to connect people and health checks. The aim is to make sure that we address cost, which is a problem for loads of people. And access, which is also a problem for a lot of people. We are the first online health check-up marketplace. So all we focus on is preventative health and health checkups. Why preventative health checks specifically? What we notice is a lot of attention goes to treatment but not diagnostics. And the main thing is that even for treatment to be done accurately, someone needs to find out what is wrong with you. So we decided why don't we concentrate on helping people know what's wrong with them instead of getting to a clinic to find out this is wrong with me instead of detecting it late. How do you balance the two business models — SaaS and marketplace? The SaaS platform is to create something that will help providers. In terms of managing their workload as well as managing patient flow coming through. For example, in the NHS now, if you have to book a health check — you have to: * Ring into a GP surgery.  * A receptionist will pick it up and look at appointment slots and give you an appointment slot.  * If somebody doesn't turn up — the appointment slot is lost, the GP might be there or they might be waiting. We are creating an infrastructure whereby the patient is able to book, the GP is able to see, so in real time when you book, you are able to see the slots available. The GP is also able to plan their schedule ahead. And to be honest, our platform is going to be free for both the user and the clinician. In terms of the marketplace, what we are trying to do is to make it very competitive because — from the research we've done — the average price is around 500 pounds to have a proper health check. What we want to do is to bring a lot of providers on so that we can create a system where the price comes from 500 to as low as 150, which makes it very cost efficient and also makes it cost attractive in a cost of living crisis. Who is your target market? Our target audience are normally, small businesses that cannot really afford a full-fledged medical package. But they still want to offer something to staff.  As an employer, it is good to be part of the health journey — not only providing their development, but also their mental health and preventative health is one of the most important thing an employer can do for an employee.  How do you define success in the next 6 months for PremedGo? Our biggest vision is in the next five years, we want to affect over a billion people on a cumulative basis. So, in the next six months, we want to affect over 5,000 lives within our target area. So we're doing a soft launch in London, and we are looking to affect over 5,000 lives. And at the same time we’re looking to also explore different markets. If the London market is going well, probably we'll step into another market to bring the concept and grow gradually at the same time. So we are currently in LA and actively researching how we position in the US market. ‘Cause the US market's quite different, with different mechanisms of payments and how insurance works and things like that. So success will be having a soft launch in LA within the next six months. And finally, why are you so passionate about launching this product? Thanks George and Robert for the great interview! Check out PremedGo.com to learn more about the product and follow their story — I'm sure it's only just beginning 🚀 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit shipandsip.substack.com