About the company, Lybrate
Lybrate India Private Limited was established in 2013 and is a private company registered in 2014. It was formed by former professionals of Snapdeal (Rahul Narang) and Facebook (Saurabh Arora). The company has an authorized and paid-up capital of over 1 crore each.
Lybrate helps to make informed decisions about health. A person can ask queries for free or get into one-on-one interaction with doctors on payment of fees online. Using mobile phone, you can keep your identity anonymous and communicate with doctors from various specialties. This is easy-to-use practice and highly evolved software. Doctors can remain in touch with their patients and manage their practice on the Lybrate app. This Faridabad-based startup has pioneered a communication healthcare platform that connects doctors and patients in a commendable way.
Business Objective
Saurabh Arora, CEO of Lybrate feels it is a common sight in India where an ordinary chemist directly diagnoses the health problems of people and prescribes medicines, for which they are not even qualified.
Lybrate aims to cut out the bad but common problem of self-medication by providing the ease of consultation with the best doctors in India. The objective of Lybrate is to lift the existing ecosystem of Indian healthcare space and eliminate self-medication.
“Lybrate aims to cut down on self- medication and progresses the disease to a more severe level in the absence of professional intervention offering a communication platform for the patient and doctors”- Saurabh Arora
Strategies adopted by Lybrate
According to a survey by Lybrate, it was found that 52% of Indians involved in self-medication have exposed themselves to grave health risks. With Lybrate app, the prevalence of self-medication is cut down.
1. Conceptualization
Saurabh Arora conceptualized Lybrate on the similar lines as Facebook. Connecting SMEs and large advertisers to their customers via Facebook Ads. Imitating this knowledge, he came up with a platform that can help connect users with any doctor from across India in almost the same way and solve the main problem of doctors’ inaccessibility.
2. Health Feed of Lybrate
With the Health Feed of Lybrate, one can get health tips by doctors which encourage users to live healthy and fit and promote the cautious side of medicine. The categorization of health tip is in such a way that it falls under one of the 400 topics and users choose from the health tips on the basis of their preferences and interests. The aim of Health Feed is that Lybrate encourages people to give their health prime importance.
3. Raising funds
In the beginning, bootstrapping was the way of bringing things to work. However, as soon as the business expanded, raising funds became crucial. The company have had two rounds of funding up till now.
4. Use of funds
The funds are being used to develop the product, augmenting technology, recruiting quality talent, and scale-up operations. Lybrate raised $10.2 million in its Series A round of funding from Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons’ Ratan Tata, Nexus Venture Partners, and Tiger Global.
5. Marketing Strategy
The business model is quite different from other platforms in the mHealth space. Lybrate is India’s mobile-first healthcare information, access, and delivery platform. The root cause of the problem of healthcare delivery in India is being fixed by this startup by increasing the accessibility of doctors and improving the ability of users to communicate with doctors anywhere, anytime.
The major platform for Lybrate is mobile. Therefore, the marketing is largely based on mobile devices.
Future plans
The aim of the Faridabad-based startup is to cover more non-metros in the next two-three years along with having more doctors from across specialties on this platform.
They are also looking at possible acquisitions for growth. As of now, people tend to visit a doctor when they are really sick. Therefore, the aim of Lybrate is to reduce the gap in communication between patients and doctors, encouraging them to seek doctor’s opinion for even staying fit and healthy.
Learnings
- The pricing model of Lybrate is simple. Using the app is free for users. However, users have to pay online fees if they consult a doctor privately. The fee is decided by the doctors themselves, and therefore, it varies from one doctor to another. Lybrate charges internet handling fee which helps them to fill their revenue funnel.
- Lybrate is the number one medical app in India.
- Startups can succeed only when they know one unique problem and solve them. You need to focus on it completely, as a start-up cannot resolve all the problems.
Image Credits: Lybrate.com
