BookDoc aims to break even this year

• Currently available in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong
• Has 80,000 B2B clients and 100,000 B2C users

MALAYSIAN healthcare technology company BookDoc aims to break even this year and is eyeing further regional expansion, according to its founder and chief executive officer Chevy Beh (pic).

“Our immediate KPI this year is to break even, you know, full stop. You can shout how great you are, but financially you must show certain metrics or figures, right? So we’re trying to get there this year.

“And through the five years from today, we want to expand to more countries and bring in more products and services to complement and make BookDoc a one-stop solution for all health, wellness and fitness-related things,” Beh tells Digital News Asia in a recent interview.

The company, which was founded in October 2015 is already present in Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong. Beh now has plans to expand to the rest of Southeast Asia.

“Of course, immediately we hope to fulfil the whole of Southeast Asia. So naturally, it’s Indonesia, Philippines, et cetera. Then after that the Asia Pacific region,” he shares.

The search for funds

Last month, BookDoc announced its latest investment round led by a family member of Macau billionaire Stanley Ho. In January 2016, BookDoc secured its seed round, led by Prince Qawi of the Royal Brunei family.

The company said last month that the more recent round of funding would put it in a stronger position to roll out more products and features targeting the B2B market, and form strategic partnerships in Southeast Asia.

Apart from the two investment rounds, the company has also been financed by a group of investors that comprise entrepreneurs, healthcare and insurance professionals, bankers, regulators as well as ICT professionals.

While Beh declines to disclose the total investment BookDoc has raised so far, he says the figure was a ‘multi-million US dollar’ one.

When asked if he’s on the lookout for more investors, Beh says he is more interested in strategic investors. “Financially, we have a tonne of people knocking on our door all the time so we’re not really looking, but strategic investors, like for example new countries we go into, they have the network, the insights and sure, we’re open.”

How it all works

To the uninitiated, BookDoc has a web-based, as well as mobile platform that connects patients to healthcare professionals.

It also has strategic partnerships with merchants to incentivise or reward BookDoc users to stay active through BookDoc Active, which was launched last December.

According to Beh, BookDoc has partnerships with over 40 merchants in 12 countries, so users can actually redeem reward points when they are abroad.

How it works is that users are required to sync their fitness tracker to the BookDoc mobile app, which tracks their running or walking progress and then allows them to select and redeem their rewards.

For the BookDoc mobile app itself, BookDoc has formed strategic partnerships with Google Maps, Agoda, TripAdvisor, Grab and Uber to make healthcare visits easier and hassle-free for patients, especially when they have to travel to their healthcare provider.

However, BookDoc’s revenue models are centred on the B2B segment, as Beh explains. “The business model actually comprises a few types. The first is a subscription model where the doctors, all the hospitals, all the physiotherapists, all those healthcare professionals will subscribe to.  So it helps them manage their appointment systems.”

BookDoc also has a customer relationship management feature which reminds the patient to show up at the doctor after three to six months, instead of giving you a standard appointment card to come back or send an SMS blast. The healthcare organisations and professionals also subscribe to this feature, Beh explains.

The third revenue model BookDoc has is generating big data analytics for corporates, such as how frequently staff seek leave, what are the healthcare benefits, how much have been utilised, etc.

“You can zoom in by Penang or Johor or KL. You can zoom in on factory A, B, C, so you know sometimes things happen due to leadership issues or due to occupational health, hazardous issues. So you know when performance reviews roll around, then it makes things easier than HR manually compiling them and recording errors. So we help with that,” he says.

Beh says that they have seven corporates on board at the moment, which brings the total users via B2B clients to 80,000 currently. The plan is to add another ten companies to the list, which will add another 200,000 or so users.

This is separate from the B2C BookDoc users, which total about 100,000 currently, he says, adding that in 2015, their B2C user base was around 3,000 to 5,000.

Being an entrepreneur

What has he learned from being an entrepreneur? Beh compares his experience as an entrepreneur to running his family business (he formerly ran BP Healthcare Group prior to founding BookDoc).

BP Healthcare is a Malaysian integrated healthcare provider with core competencies in diagnostics, laboratory and medical technologies, complemented by other specialised healthcare services. The company was founded by Chevy’s father Beh Chun Chuan in 1982.

Beh says that coming from there to starting a business from scratch requires an altogether different skill set. He explains that he had a group of people helping him to do things at his family business, so his role was more of a strategic one, i.e. planning the company’s direction.

“Thankfully I got my track record from my previous capacity and people have dealt with me in a different manner, stakeholders for example, and generally their journey or arrangement with me was very positive,” he recalls, adding that when he approached them again they responded positively.

“Being an entrepreneur is not just thinking, you must get your hands dirty and do it. So that is the big thing,” Beh concluded.

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