Medibuddy – Start Up Profile

medibuddy

Website: Medibuddy – https://medibuddy.co.uk/
Co-Founders
ben-cleaver 

Tell us about your business

We are a medical education business which aims to help doctors prepare for their specialty interviews. Modern medical interviews are very similar to exams, with candidates having their clinical knowledge tested and being asked how they would respond to certain common scenarios. However, despite their being significant online resources available for exam preparation, the resources targeted at interviews are minimal. We have produced question banks which cover all the common questions covered at interview, with model answers that guide candidates on the best way to structure their responses. Our target market is junior doctors working full time who struggle to find the time to prepare properly. We’ve worked hard to ensure our question banks are easy to use and are accessible across a range of devices.

What are your plans for growth?

We currently have interview question banks for 7 specialties which received very good feedback during the previous interview round. Our goal is to increase the number of specialties we cover, with a long-term target of covering at least 20 specialties. We are also innovating new ways of preparing for medical interviews, including online mock interviews with previous successful candidates. We hope to eventually become the main resource online for any doctor applying for specialty interviews.

What challenges have you faced since starting?

One of the biggest challenges we have faced is finding authors to produce high quality content for the website. Since we cover a number of different specialities, we couldn’t simply rely on one or two reliable authors who we knew would consistently produce great content. Since interview question banks were relatively unheard of when we started, it was initially difficult to convince people of our vision and we had a number of people drop out. This has become much easier over time though as our resources have become more popular.
Another challenge we faced was advertising our website and resources. We had a very limited budget when we launched which allowed for only minimal paid marketing. We instead focused on natural growth and word of mouth. We produced 2 high quality free resources which became very popular and increased the number of doctors using our website. From there we were able to increase awareness of our question banks.

What advice would you give to entrepreneurs and new startups?

There are two main bits of advice we would give to new entrepreneurs and start-ups. The first is to be disciplined in your approach to building your business. Once the initial thrill of launching and that first sale has past, it can be easy to lose motivation and let things slip, particularly if you are launching your business in your spare time whilst also working another job. We found setting goals for what we wanted to achieve each week/month made a huge difference when it came to increasing our output. We also have regular business meetings/calls which are very beneficial in keeping us both motivated.
The other bit of advice would be to not go it alone. Make use of the skillsets of your friends and family, as even small contributions can have a big effect on your morale. It can be very helpful to bounce ideas off different people, even if they have no real experience of what you are doing. Sometimes the act of explaining your plans in simple terms to trusted friends can help you see the pros and cons of ideas in ways you would not otherwise have done so.