Mr Surendran Krishanthan (pictured above) went into an accelerator programme hoping to get help in polishing up his next product presentation. He ended up learning more about business in 100 days than business school had taught him in years.

Mr Krishanthan is the founding Chief Executive Officer of Klinify, which began operations in 2011. However, the company stumbled with its first product. “We got into the healthcare industry because we felt that patients had many frustrations with the present system especially in finding the right doctor. But our first product failed miserably.”

Through the experience, however, Klinify observed that there was a slow shift within the healthcare industry towards mobile solutions. Armed with this insight and a fresh idea, it applied for the Joyful Frog Digital Incubator’s (JFDI) accelerator programme and went on to develop its second product, a tablet app which helps private clinics manage patient records while preserving their existing workflow.

The Klinify solution, which includes the software, scanner and tablets, takes only 20 minutes to set up. “We didn’t change the way doctors work as Klinify fits in seamlessly with a paper-based operations. The product allows medical and support staff to do exactly what they are doing now with paper records except it is all done on a tablet so the disadvantages of maintaining voluminous physical records were removed,” said Mr Krishanthan. “Additionally the system brings with it the distinct advantages of multimedia input and the efficiency of digital content management.”

The JFDI accelerator programme played a key role in steering the company towards the right direction. “Reading lean start-up theories is easy, but applying them is hard,” said Mr Krishanthan. “Through JFDI, we learn how to apply these theories from the very best mentors, allowing us to iterate our processes quickly and improve the quality of our learning in a very short period of time.”

Working with JFDI’s network of mentors helped the company sharpen its customer development framework and focus on the product value proposition. “With these techniques, in just six weeks, we managed to identify three paying customers and 10 other interested ones from our pitch to 30 people.”

The experience drove home the importance of listening to the customers and the need to be organised and prompt with customer development. Klinify also realised that there were times when a company had to say no to a client. “Sometimes what they want may not be the best solution to a problem. We speak to as many people as possible to gain different perspectives of the problem and then we offer what we feel is the best solution.”

The networking opportunities provided by the accelerator programme also proved to be invaluable. “We were introduced to top CEOs and CTOs. We learnt so much about business strategy development, the business environment in Asia and how it differs from that in the (Silicon) Valley. We were suddenly at the heart of the start-up ecosystem, constantly meeting new innovative start-ups, sharing experiences and making friends who we have become very close with now. This network helps accelerate business development.”

Since attending the accelerator programme, the market take-up for Klinify has been very encouraging, said Mr Krishanthan. “So far we have had great responses from private practitioners who run their own clinics in the healthcare sector – everyone from specialist doctors to even veterinarians. We have had strong demand from Japan and India. Malaysia and Indonesia are our potential markets as well. The programme was well worth it and I would do it again any time.”