Chatting with the Founders between UX/UI, LLM and medtech SaaS startups
Friendly chat with Wiktor Zołnowski CEO and founder of Pragmatic Coders and Health Folder.
We had the chance to talk with Wiktor from Pragmatic Coders and HealthFolder. Here is the full chat, but if you want just read the main points of this extract below (relevant links are also given):
How did you find the cofounders? I asked the surgeon who just removed my tumor
How did you find the first customers?
Product-market fit & how do you provide funding?
Is it really better to get funding at pre-seed stage without an MVP?
Can you launch quickly even in medtech as with a no-code app for delivering food?
How do you see the impact of dataflow in UX/UI and large language models?
We are scientists, we never really worked in companies, do you think we can also create a company? Without previous experiences
How did you find the cofounders? I asked the surgeon who just removed my tumor
Wiktor: It has always been a mixture of personal networks and seeing the right opportunities. When we started we saw a need. For example there were few people offering individual training for Agile 9 years ago. So, me and a colleague we started offering this and then we created the company. For HealthFolder, the case was that I needed a surgery for tumor, then I discussed an idea with the doctor following me (as investors advised me to not create a medtech company with just IT people), and the doctor himself was interested and joined the venture.
Alex: So, you did not go to events, Reddit, job websites or cofounders website?
Wiktor: No, always my network of people doing things with me or using chances, asking people at the right moment.
How did you find the first customers?
Wiktor: At the beginning we only had 2 from our network.
Alex: How did you find the others? How did you provide sustainability?
Wiktor: It is calle marketing :-). We tried different things, each time is a test, it is A/B testing also to figure out what works. The issue is that you have to wait about 6 months to figure out whether a channel worked, because customers might not come immediately. At the beginning I went to a lot of conferences from my field, and despite my enlarged my network, there was no real conversion, this is because those are places where your competitors go not your customers. You have to figure out each time where you customers go. Once I followed a check list on a website on where to market my startup, and among the things there was “use Yelp”. Yelp is a website from US, mostly focused on the American market and mostly for restaurants, dentists and similar categories (it is not for medtech startups :-) ). I filled the profile nevertheless among the restaurants. And once a guy contacted me from there (it happened only once, never again, but it really worked). So, you have to try several things and it might take you time before you understand your own “growth hack”, and sometimes it comes from unexpected places.
Product-market fit & how do you provide funding?
Wiktor: In each startup there are two dimensions that you need to focus on one is a the product market fit: the the way that you will validate that your product fits the market. There must be people who want to use your product, that want to pay for your product, want to spend the time on your product. The second one is how to provide the founding for your for your startup. Of course fundraising could be from investors, some EU/US grants, a loan or other ways of collecting money. One of the ways could be you ask your potential clients to pay for your app/product you are building. In this way, you have already the funding, the feedback and you are already a business. This is the best way to validate your hypothesis.
Is it really better to get funding at pre-seed stage without an MVP?
Wiktor: Yes, definitely. If you can go without MVP, test immediately your hypothesis. Once I have seen a guy just posting on his Linkedin profile an idea, saying that the first people signing up (on Linkedin) would have the app for free, and he also got investors from the Linkedin post. You do not need to follow off-the-book plans which might take years and then might not even work, and you have to pivot or close.
Can you launch quickly even in medtech as with a no-code app for delivering food?
Wiktor: Stories are a bit more complicated, as you probably also need an FDA/EU certification..
Alex: I am not even talking about FDA approval, I am just talking of the cycle of launching without an MVP, for example a diagnostic for glucose, an EEG device…
Wiktor: the story is trickier but similar. You will need 2 things: Still a market-product fit, and a real world validation you device can actually work. The thing is the market-fit analysis is probably easier and faster to do than building a prototype, I would definitely do that first. You can do that, approach for funding immediately and then sort out the clinical and practical validity of your idea.
How do you see the impact of dataflow in UX/UI and large language models?
Wiktor: Wow, you are asking 2 billion dollar questions. Nowadays, UX/UI design is as important as backend software development. We currently use Flutterflow (see a screenshot above). It really helps a lot with rapid prototyping, flow of users. I strongly recommend no-code and low-code development. The issue is: those tools should still be used by a software developer who has an understanding of what is happening underneath from the coding and user flow point of view. Otherwise, there will be issue that cannot be solved at the moment of scaling or even modifying the app. Remember that in the end most of those tools crete Java/Android code. If you don’t do things right, some no-code projects will be impossible to handle.
Large language models (LLMs) is the bubble of the moment, it will probably explode, but then the strong technologies will still grow. Like in 2000 when the .com bubble burst. Many companies imploded, but Google is still here. From the tech point of view, I think we are still at the infancy. There are many things we will be able to do.
More on no-code app building and flow:
Check this list of LLM resources: https://github.com/Hannibal046/Awesome-LLM
We are scientists, we never really worked in companies, do you think we can also create a company? Without previous experiences
Wiktor: Yes, absolutely. You have to throw yourself. If we are talking of someone who already created a startup, this person has definitely more experience than you. If we are referring to people with just experience in company rather than academia, even if those people have some grasps of how companies run (for example sales department, fundraising, etc), obviously they have some ideas how things should be, but not necessarily have an idea how to create and keep running a freshly created company. Those are two different skills. They worked in an more or less established business. You should not think of your lack of experience, you should focus on your niche and figure out what to do taking advantage of your knowledge.