DocWeb – Websites for doctors

Today websites are primarily the most efficient way people market their products and services. However, when it comes to medical practitioners, all over the world, it seems to be an aberration. Medical practitioners seldom have their own websites (barring a few in developed countries like US & UK) to promote their services or educate their patients. Ask a doctor why he gets less patients/ is not so popular than his competitor who gets the celebrity patients & is seen on TV shows….he/she will definitely say that they can’t market themselves well enough though they have the best training and similar experience (if not better). This is a pain point for all doctors (even the ones who gets the TV interviews).

We do see several listing directories, clinics and hospitals having their own websites and using the Internet wisely. But none from doctors!

Our research showed that Drs. don’t have their websites because it’s too much of a hassle to create and maintain one; leaving aside the huge investment one has to make for web development, patient education video production, translation services and regular updates.

That’s only half of the problem though. Getting a website up & running means calling up vendors, selecting pictures, giving briefs and then checking every aspect of the output leading to huge of loss of man-hours, which otherwise would have been put on taking care of patients and saving lives (read: earning a livelihood).

Docweb.com will be a unique Subscription Based Web Development, Patient Education, Translating, Hosting and Maintenance model for doctors. It is designed to be quick, cost efficient and hassle-free for the people who make our lives better.

The challenge faced by Doctors:

The Internet is critical to drive business for doctors. You need to:
– Build Awareness: search and mobile optimised website with patient education videos.
– Drive Engagement: high definition graphics and copy
– Exude professionalism and trustworthiness

Optimising customer interaction
– Contact management of patients
– Scheduling appointments with automatic reminders

Problems with Current Solutions (boutique creative agencies)

Local Developer:
– Variable quality, customer service, and competence – you don’t know what you are paying for!
– Rarely developer knows design, security, servers.
– They don’t have a library of videos to provide or exhibit.
– High costs and risk of developer going out of business

Do It Yourself (DIY) Tools:
– DIY is hard. Most doctors are not experts in design or web applications
– Server Scaling: Do you know how to backup your site?
– DIY is not free. Costs include:
– Doctor’s time (7-10 hours minimum)
– And of course no videos, none or limited stock images
– Localisation & customisation is not possible

Docweb will charge doctors a subscription fee for developing their websites, including patient education videos, hosting on high speed dedicated servers, translation services, regular updates and periodic maintenance for a subscription fee ranging from RM 200 to RM 500 per month.

Our process: A sales person will visit the doctor (either through cold calling or knocking like a medical rep. or through Demo Request on our website). He will then explain the process to the doctor and close the sale.
1. The Dr. chooses his plan (RM 200, RM 350, RM 500 per month)
2. Accept our terms & conditions & sign up with his credit card, email, phone no.
3. Fill up a form (normally takes 10 minutes) which will have all the details of his practise, credentials, specialties etc.
4. Provide his photograph or make an appointment for a professional photographer to drop in (for premium subscribers only, otherwise chargeable)
5. Have a look at several reference websites on the sales person’s laptop – and indicate which one he/she likes or give his own recommendations.
6. Choose the catch lines which best describe his practice or give us his own Punch-Line (e.g. “The Kidney Stone Specialist” or the Cardiologist with 15 years of experience” etc.). We will have a list of punchlines for him to choose from as well.
7. Choose the videos from our library
8. Supply us his own videos/ images/ certificates which he wish to put on the site in a pen-drive or email.
9. Within 1 day, we will call/ mail the Dr. with suggested available names for his website.
10. Within next 5 days the Dr. receives a call & an email with a link to view his site
11. Once he has seen it, he can suggest changes online or speak to our sales person/ customer service
12. If no changes & he is happy with the site, he just clicks on “Accept”.
13. Within the next hour the website will be hosted on our server.

Every month each sales person adds 10 new subscribers and we have 2 sales persons we will reach around 240 subscribers within a year of operations.
A team of 2-3 HTML designers, 1 IT Administrator, Video Production Team (3 members) and a General Manager will be required to manage the business.

Within 5 years of operations DocWeb can conservatively estimate around 1200 subscribers with revenues of 4.3 million per annum.
The cost would however remain low as the increase in number of NEW subscribers will be managed with the existing team and minimal increase in cost.

The profit margin will gradually increase to around 55% of total revenue.

A detailed financial plan can be submitted upon request.

Though we are a new entity, we have been successful in acquiring customers like:

• Australian Nuclear Science & Technology Org • Pacific Inter-Link Sdn. Bhd.
• University of New South Wales, Australia
• INTI International Universities, Malaysia
• News Corporation, Australia
• Angel Broking, India
• Tokio Marine Insurans, Malaysia
• Australian Broadcasting Corporation • Tera Shipping, Malaysia
• AMP Capital, Australia

This shows that we have a strong creative team, sound business development competencies and customer relationship building skills.

We have already started building up the Library of Patient Education Videos which will be our key differentiator and customer acquisition tool.

With DocWeb, Neon will move from a transactional business model to a Subscription Business Model for its videos coupled with web development & hosting services. We already have experience in web development, however would have to develop competencies and learn more about the hosting services.

1. Development of Patient Education Video Library (around 60 videos)/ Server Capabilities/Website & Payment Gateways (RM 300,000)
2. Product development (RM 200,000)
3. Variable cost till break even (RM 400,000)
4. Marketing cost – participating in Drs. Meetings & Conferences (RM 100,000)

Total investment required: RM 1 million.

2. Knowledge of webDevelopment & Hosting Services currently not available with the team.

Mitigation – The team has a fair understanding of the process having made some websites for their customers in WordPress & HTML. Additional staff with domain knowledge is available in the Malaysian market.
Server & IT Admin knowledge can be acquired from the Data Centre service providers.
Subscription & Recurring billing softwares and cloud based services are already available e.g. Chargify which can be easily integrated in the DocWeb system.

3. Foreign status of Co-Founders – Neon Videos has 3 directors (Arunava Deb – Indian Citizen; Hamish Gilbert – Australian Citizen & Selma Nada – Malaysian Citizen). What if their work permits are not renewed by the govt.?

Mitigation – Arunava Deb has a visa to stay & work in Malaysia till 2018 which will be renewed upon expiration. The applicant does not see any reason that the visa might be cancelled. Even at such a case, the business can be easily managed from outside of Malaysia and even expanded to other markets.
Hamish is married to Selma who is a Malaysian citizen. This will allow him to stay and work in Malaysia as long as he wishes on spouse visa.