Confetti and Sprouts

The virtual confetti have now settled.? Congratulatory hugs all around.? Founder colleagues continuing with Zinc have now staked out their claim to desk space in our new digs – the Accelerator room. ?Imagine my delight, even after half of our continuing cohort of 24 had already snagged their first choice, to have found a desk onto which the afternoon sun abundantly spills!? A bit of heaven on the 6th floor of an unremarkable office building in northwest London. Sure, the sun has made an appearance on approximately 1/10th of the days so far, but there is Summer to look forward to, and I am optimistic.?

In celebration I bought a kit containing a ceramic pot, soil and rocket (arugula) seeds to dress up my sparse desktop.? Within 48 hours of scattering them, the seedlings sprouted!? I can’t help but draw hopeful parallels to the accelerate phase of our startup journey.

Already these small rites of passage fade into the background as my co-founder, Govin Murugachandran , and I return our full attention on building Zonder .

For those just joining my account of what it’s like to be a late-stage entrepreneur, Zonder is a full-stack chronic care provider, bringing together digital and in-person care.? We combine up-skilled doctors, nurses and pharmacists with optimised care pathways, data and AI.? GP practices will entrust the routine care to us, which we can deliver more efficiently, leaving them space to deliver greater value to patients.

Now that we’ve secured our first pre-seed funding from Zinc.vc, we’re concentrating on 3 key workstreams.

1)???? Executing on the pilot with a collaborative GP practice

2)???? Developing our technology

3)???? Raising the next round of funding

This week we met twice with members of the Zinc team...for feedback on our pitch and a kick-off meeting to align on expectations of deliverables and understanding of the support we can count on from Zinc. Happily, we are all agreed that at this juncture, the 3 workstreams above are the right areas of focus for us.

Pilot

As with any test model, success is in the details. We've already discussed and agreed with our collaborator the structure of the program and importantly, the key performance indicators by which we will measure our degree of success (or need to pivot...there is no 'failure' in test phase!). So Govin and I used part of our weekly sprint planning session on Monday mornings to draw up a checklist of all the component steps needed to launch the pilot and divide up the tasks. These are things that range from curating and sharing out best practices for reaching 'consumers' (in our case patients) via SMS to requesting DBS (criminal record) checks on ourselves, which is standard in working with or within a medical practice in the UK. Govin manages to do his with a few clicks. I've hit my first bump in the road. Not because of a nefarious past (I don't think there's any way to be squeakier clean), but because I remembered I turned in my only passport in order to acquire a new one, and I don't have the other accepted forms of ID. No worries, I have a wide choice of other tasks to turn my attention toward.

Technology

For me personally, one of the more engaging aspects of our startup is developing the tech innovation. Whilst I am not a 'techie', I do love contributing to the product roadmap and exploring what we could do to exponentially improve outcomes for people living with chronic illness. I guess you can take the girl out of Silicon Valley but not the reverse. Because the tech will form part of our competitive moat, I won't be able to say much about it in the newsletter, beyond that it's exciting. On Monday, I joined a networking event with around 80 other tech enthusiasts with a tie to the US. What an energising evening! I met individuals from a very diverse group, hailing from the UK, Europe, US and beyond, and working in healthtech, fintech, proptech, legaltech and well, you-name-it-tech. My goals were to meet others working in my field of digital health as well as make connections ahead of needing to hire for Zonder. First goal met, and I was invited by Brian Snyder , the founder of Aide Health , also working to improve chronic care, to become frenemies. My second goal remains untapped, but I'm signing up for a steady stream of networking events.

Investment

It may seem incredible that, before the first investment has even hit the company bank account, we need to put ourselves out there to seek additional investment. But this is the nature of startups. It's not that we need the additional money this minute, it's rather that the process is likely to take 6, 9, or 12 months to secure the next round. It's accepted fact that running out of capital is one of the two most common reasons for startups failing. (The other is co-founder fall out. More on that below.)

When Playfair announced their annual Female Founders Office Hours afternoon, despite not having pitched yet to Zinc, I hopped on the opportunity to get in front of investors. They used an AI matching system, whereby we could select up to 5 'must see' VC reps and any number of 'nice-to-meets'. I was like a kid in a candy shop, studying the scores of options to see who might be a good fit in terms of a history of investing in digital health and ideally earlyish stage. Most were later stage venture capitalists, but this is also the right time to both make their acquaintance and get feedback on what they will look for when Zonder is at the appropriate stage for them. A huge 'thank you' to all the investors and analysts who donated their time to give a helping hand to female founders, who currently get less than 3% of the total venture capital funding, and a particular shout-out to those I spoke with on the day - Alexandra Reinert , Amanda Hultman and David Levine (albeit, with David the microphones didn't work so 'spoke' is used loosely).

As luck would have it, on the same day, Zinc held a demo day, whereby founders get a chance to do a short pitch (1-minute, 1 slide in the case of our cohort) and network afterward with investors, fellow founders and advisors. Govin did the honours for our short pitch, but I got to practice my (hopefully) conversational version, ie 'elevator pitch', during the mingling portion of the event.

In advance I want to thank friends, family and acquaintances for indulging me as I continue to hone my elevator pitch at networking events, coffee catch-ups and anywhere else it's vaguely appropriate. I appreciate your patience and feedback when you have it.

Bonding

As we hit the more serious accelerate growth phase, I am ever more grateful to have a strong and motivated co-founder as well as a cohort of remarkable colleagues at the same point in their own startup journey. Launching a company can be a lonely business, and it's infinitely better to do so surrounded by passionate, energetic, clever and witty allies. Among this group I count those whose path continues forward at lightning speed but lateral to Zinc's accelerator program. Meanwhile for those of us sipping from Zinc's well, we met up Thursday evening at what has become our 'local' (ie pub) to toast the official start of the program. Despite feeling slightly tired after 2 previous evenings spent networking, I'm glad I got the opportunity to bond with Zinc's team on the ground and fellow founders, whom I now count among my friends.

This week's:

Highlight - the vibe and tremendous energy now that the whole gang is back, and adding that fuel to my own to progress on our build

Lowlight - Govin denying me a second crisp when I realised I'd randomly selected a mere shard from the packet he proffered. Despite having just shared my 2-for-1 margaritas with him! There to help avert a potential co-founder rupture, our gang cast shame upon him, so he ended up giving me free reign on the crisps. (He was of course only teasing; no rational person stands between a hungry founder and crisps.)

Asks - Introductions to GP practice managers and partners so we can continue our interviews, now introducing our solution for their feedback. Signposting to potential early hire full-stack software developers who know and love the startup life. Introductions to early-stage investors active in digital health ventures.

Those of my colleagues who are continuing their newsletter, please comment below with links and from next week I will share those again in this space.