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In everyone’s lives, doctors play a vital role. Right from birth, doctors are saviors. Doctors are considered like a god, who can save us from any critical conditions (health).
So, every people will have frequent visits to the hospital to have a check on their health. But it is not as easy to consult doctors because of the tight schedule.
Then there will lot of mess around the hospitals. So, it is a big task to meet the doctors. Even you cannot get any doctors nearby to your house. Most of the time, looking for the best doctors is like an impossible one.
These are the times prevailing before the revolution of the internet as started. Now, you can consult any doctor just in a few clicks from your phone.
Even you can get video mode consultation from doctors via the app. Now technology is evolving and continues to excel.
But a startup where it started to make a better platform between patients and doctors. It started its journey before internet penetration.
In this blog, you will get to know about the Practo startup story. Where it delivers the software to the doctors, eventually making a robust platform to interact with patients.
Practo success story will be a true inspiration to budding entrepreneurs. This company redefined and revolutionized the healthcare system with technology.
Practo startup
Practo is an Indian startup where it provides a platform for online doctor consultation. The application enables users to connect with the best doctors at affordable fees.
Even Practo is a SAAS company where it provides software to hospitals. From the integration with the software, all the tasks and events can be digitalized.
Now, hospitals are leveraging technology to have a better connection with patients. All the patient’s records are in digital form.
Now doctors can refer any patient’s health report with a few clicks. So, technology plays a vital role to bring doctors’ and patient connections closer.
Practo made all the efforts to bring digitalization into the hospitality industry. Even Practo software helps doctors to manage their consultation online.
Practo was started in 2008 to provide or install software to the hospitals. Now, the startup is serving in more than 20+ countries. In India major cities like Bengaluru, Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and many more Practo services are available.
Shashank ND and Abhinav Lal are the founders of Practo. Both were aimed to build new-age hospital software. To make the hospitals even more accessible and make more efficient.
Indian Cricketer Rahul Dravid is the brand ambassador for the Practo startup.
Now, Practo provides services line online medicine delivery, instant doctor consultation. Even it had stated its surgical care. So, it had onboarded over 200 surgeons to its platform.
Practo applications are used by millions of people for online doctor consultations. According to some reports, for every 30 seconds, there will be new consultation demand in the platform.
Both Pracot founders Shashank ND and Abhinav have built futuristic healthcare systems. But there are a lot of obstacles in the initial stages.
Here, one gets the comprehensive study of the Practo startup story. How Practo success story is empowering millions of people.
Also Read: Wow Momo success story built by college students
Practo startup story
Entrepreneurs do not have a specific designation. To become an entrepreneur it is not necessary to do some specific course.
But one should have the vision and have hope to build a better future for others. Startups always strive to bring new technology or services to make people’s lives better.
Some entrepreneurs have the vision to follow. Even they will be building business ideas on their passion as well.
Incidental entrepreneurs are those entrepreneurs who will instigate or be inspired by specific events. Those events have made a deep impact on their life.
So, those will devote their heart and soul to building startups to solve specific problems.
Even Practo startup has started on one such incident. Shashank ND is a Btech graduate from the National Institute of Technology in Karnataka.
Once Shashank ND father was suffering from knee pain. So, Shashank and his father consulted the doctors. Finally, his father undergoes knee replacement surgery.
But also his father is so suffering from knee pain severely. So, Shashank ND was in search of the best doctors. But he could not find any platform where he find the right one. As a result, he was frustrated and helpless.
Finally, Shashak ND found the doctor and he told me to send the report’s photographs. But the doctor was unable to view the report as it did not appear clear. The format was not supporting to get the best clarity.
So, doctors once again told me to send the report via mail. Then Shashank consulted the doctors and was told to bring the hard copy. As doctors had only the option to view the reports from his software.
There were no other options like print or share in that software. Then Shashank ND understood the poor quality of the software.
The incident lead to building Practo Startup
The above incident made him inspire to build to make the healthcare system better. Another incident made him think even more intensely.
His father was suffering from allergic due to the doctor’s minute mistake. While his father was treating in the ICU, doctor gave the wrong antibiotics. This incident was due to a lack of information about the patient.
Even in the instances, his parents had a huge file consisting of the health reports. When Shashank ND came to know about the physical status of the health records, he knew this format was inefficient and not reliable for a long time.
This all incident made him to inspired. Even understood the hidden reality of the hospital’s technology.
Ultimately, he went on to build Practo. But the initial stages were not so easy. Because of lack of awareness and adoption rates.
Initial stages: Practo startup story
Shashank ND with his friend Abhinav Lal started Practo in 2008. At the initial stages, it was providing software to the doctors. Where doctors can easily manage their appointments and can easily access patients’ health records.
Practo was serving as a B2B model. Where it launched its first product called Practo ray. Where it push notifications to the doctors about the important tasks. Then doctors can easily schedule their appointments.
As Shashank ND comes from a Computer Science background, so it was helpful while building the software.
But the response was not as good because the majority of doctors were not accepting the software. It was a big task for the Practo founders to convince and understand the products.
During 2010, there was no software hub where no one was using any kind of software. So, most of the doctors were having a tough time while handling simple software.
Moreover, the new software does not have a demand in the market. Even there was no internet penetration in the country. During those times only 2G or 3G networks were prevalent.
Due to a lack of internet speed, the software does not have demand in the market. Connectivity was a huge issue during those times.
However, Shashank ND and Abhinav manage the doctors to use the software. Finally, doctors were started using the software. Then after understanding the services of the software, doctors were appreciating the Practo founders.
Practo founders Shashank ND and Abhinav Lal
Shashank ND and Abhinav Lala were keen to solve the problems of hospitals with the technology. So, they build robust and reliable software for the hospitals.
They were passionate about building the products. So, they were conscious and dedicated to the vision. So, they needed to understand the situation more precisely in the hospitals.
Shashank ND and Abhinav made a lot of meeting with doctors to understand the problems of the doctors. Sometimes they use to visit hospitals and spend hours to understand the actual scenario.
Even Praco founders were sitting next to the receptionist. So, that they can understand the need of the patients. Then both were driven by the present status of the hospitals. So, they started to build relevant software to cater to the hospitals.
These founders found that doctors were finding it difficult to find the patient’s health records. Earlier, health records were dumped in the room to store and revive whenever it is required.
But most of the times health records were found missing. Even some documents went missing frequently. This type of physical storing of the records was not beneficial for the doctors and also for the staff.
So, there was a huge mess while sorting out the document. Both Practo founders build new software where the patient’s health records can be stored in the application.
Practo impacts
Now doctors had no cumbersome work to find the health records. Instead, they access thousands of health records with the use of a single application.
Practo success story is mainly because of the Shashank ND and Abhinav Lal vision and hard work.
They both empathize with the scenario very well. By pushing themselves into the present scenes, understood the need and problems.
Practo startup story is the best example for the entrepreneurs to do understand the specific market before building the product.
Now one access doctors with a few clicks. But to evolve the technology Practo founders had put a lot of effort. Practo startup was one such SAAS platform providing futuristic software to doctors.
Practo startup story is a real game-changer to the hospital industry. Even Shashank ND and Abhinav Lal made a lot of contributions to the success of the Practo startup.