From his own experience of how manual, complex, and unintegrated Indonesia’s health care system was when he had to accompany his mother to undergo tumor treatment, Harya Bimo decided to build a startup that could solve those problems. Armed with his experience in the IT industry, Bimo built Medigo in 2019. He believes that society will be greatly improved if the health sector can be digitized. Bimo also shared his thoughts about the difficult decisions he had to take as a leader — a pivot in his company’s business model, as well as letting go a number of employees to extend his startup’s runway until Medigo bounced back stronger in the second half of 2020.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
KrASIA (Kr): How did you get into the world of healthcare?
Harya Bimo (HB): I started my career as a freelancer; creating UX website designs. Eventually, I founded my first company, Definite, a digital transformation agency built in 2009 where I am still the founder and chairman. I then started building Qasir [which offers SMB tools] as one of Definite’s internal projects. It was later acquired by an investor in 2017. That was actually my first exit, then I used the money to set up Medigo in 2018.
Why did I start a health tech startup? Six years ago, my mother was diagnosed with a tumor. I often accompanied her to the hospital for treatment. I saw how a patient’s data and track record was not centralized. When I had to change hospitals, I had to retell my mother’s medical history. The same went for doctor’s appointments and the process of claiming insurance. Time is wasted due to administrative problems. I developed a fresh perspective as to how the healthcare sector needed to be digitized, especially for patients or their companions. Time is something that is very valuable.
There are innovators and pioneers who don’t belong in certain industries initially. All they know are the problems before they start. I had to climb a steep learning curve.
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