Category
- Band stories
Written by
Son Yang (Director)
Date
Empty
Once you get used to something, it's hard to return to the old ways. Sending free messages to friends, transferring money without a certificate, or searching for and watching any video you want are prime examples. These behaviors, commonly referred to as 'irreversible' , emerge when users experience utility far beyond what they expected. We believe that 'untact medical care', enabling you to conveniently receive medical consultations and prescriptions without time or place restrictions, will take root as one of these irreversible behaviors. With this belief, we became the lead investor in both the Seed and Pre-A rounds of Meraki Place (My Doctor), believing it will realize this vision best.
It's already the third year since the pandemic began. Many things have changed since then, but one of the fastest-growing practices has been remote medical care. Non-face-to-face treatment was temporarily allowed under the Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Act during the pandemic, and over 30 services sprang up in this window of opportunity. Then, in the first half of 2022, as Omicron spread nationwide and the government provided support for non-face-to-face consultation and prescription fees, awareness and demand exploded. Among the various services, some reached over one million MAU at their peak, and some attracted investments valued at hundreds of billions to trillions of won.
However, when you take a closer look, these seemingly similar non-face-to-face medical services actually employ different growth strategies. We categorize them as either product-led growth or value-led growth. Product-led growth, often called blitzscaling, has long been seen as the gold standard in startup growth strategy. It typically involves rapidly acquiring a mass user base through large-scale performance and brand marketing, then adding various product features through fast iterations to keep those users engaged — accepting inefficiencies for the sake of rapid growth became a badge of honor for startups. In contrast, value-led growth focuses on precisely segmenting users and locking in each segment with a tailored value proposition (not necessarily a product). Frankly, the former may sound fancier in the startup scene, while the latter requires painstaking strategic planning and highly customized communication and operations for each segment, making it far more labor-intensive and challenging.
We spent a great deal of time considering which approach is best for the non-face-to-face medical sector among these two growth models. Especially during the Omicron wave, it was extremely difficult to make sound judgments due to all the noise in the data and user behavior. However, we now believe that value-led growth is the right direction. The reason is non-face-to-face medical services see low retention frequency and it’s extremely hard to predict when users will return, while healthcare is inherently a high-involvement service.
Meraki Place stands out as a leading team innovating non-face-to-face care through value-led growth. In fact, surprisingly, 'My Doctor' has posted weekly double-digit growth in number of consultations, transactions, and weekly active users since launch. Even though they didn't prioritize a product-led growth strategy, they've managed to achieve faster and healthier growth overall than many startups that went with full-on blitzscaling. In some key metrics, they've reached industry-leading levels with very little time, capital, and manpower invested. Ultimately, this remarkable growth and success is thanks to CEO Woongrae Son and CEO Jaewon Seon’s smart, swift hypothesis validation — they never wavered in the face of difficult environments or obstacles.
CEO Woongrae Son, previously with global strategy consulting firm McKinsey, and CEO Jaewon Seon, a physician and former McKinsey colleague, are looking not just to innovate non-face-to-face care, but to transform digital healthcare as a whole. Both have a burning desire to succeed, but they’re also deeply committed to growing together with all of the industry’s stakeholders. They listen carefully to the voices of doctors, pharmacists, patients, and government bodies, and take an extremely thoughtful, sincere approach to creating a better future. We believe this is the kind of capacity and mindset that’s essential in any new era, and through this investment, we've once again come to appreciate the importance of the ‘team’ itself.
Looking at overseas examples, the B2C non-face-to-face healthcare market is one of the sectors with the highest potential for unicorns in the future. And just like the Greek word 'Meraki,' meaning 'to put your soul into it,' we are truly honored to join Meraki Place on this journey, as they passionately bring that future closer with all their heart and dedication.
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