E#41 | Why Health Tech Dies in Go-To-Market, with Tim Wright from Zoes

In this episode of The Business of a Clinic, Jared Aron speaks with Tim Wright, CEO and founder of Zoes, about the future of health tech, clinic tech, AI, and private healthcare.

Tim has worked across the healthcare ecosystem as a physiotherapist, in elite sport, as a clinic founder, through acquisition, and now as an advisor and commercial partner to health tech, digital health, med tech, and clinic tech companies.

Together, Jared and Tim explore what is changing in healthcare right now, from GLP-1s and neurodiversity to hybrid care models, AI, patient engagement, and the operational systems clinics need to run better businesses.

They also discuss why selling into healthcare is so difficult, why trust and governance matter so much, and why even great products can fail if they are not ready for the realities of healthcare go-to-market.

The conversation also goes deep into clinic operations: why many clinics have valuable data they are not using, why clinicians are often forced to become business owners without being trained for it, and why the future of clinic growth is not just better technology, but technology that makes the patient experience more human.

For clinic owners, operators, founders, and healthcare leaders, this episode is a practical look at where private healthcare is heading next — and what it will take to build clinics that are more efficient, more profitable, and better for patients.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I was a physiotherapist. I grew up in Australia doing my undergraduate in physiotherapy. Came over here, worked in the NHS and then got into elite sport. I played rugby to a fairly high level, so I was in that environment. I worked with professional rugby, professional cricket in that time. Very demanding 24-7, almost like a concierge physio for all the elite athletes. So pretty much burnt me out. Best job in terms of fun, hardest job in terms of uh being 24-7 pretty much for a whole year. It's now come out that that you know bricks and mortar and digital should coexist. That pathway should be seamless. Everybody wants growth, but if you haven't got good product market fit, it ain't gonna work. Even if you've got a great product and great product market fit, there might be a 12-month, 24-month lead time, you know, until you find that place. But once you're in, it's sticky and it's good revenue. I do think there's a thing called the therapeutic alliance, whether that's psychological or physical from an MSK or a mental health point of view, and that that is a very personalized relationship between practitioner and patient. And I can't see how that will change.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

But if you get it wrong 20% of the time, and that 20% creates 200% new work. So this will be a really interesting one to listen for. Um Tim, do you want to start out with a quick introduction? Tell us who you are. Thanks, thanks, Sarah, for having us. Uh my name's Tim Wright.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Uh I yeah, it's it's hard to put a label on me because I, as I said, I do a lot of things, but uh CEO and founder of Zoas. Um but my my background is actually I was a physiotherapist. I mean, I technically am still, but uh I grew up in Australia doing my undergraduate in uh physiotherapy and uh came over here, worked in the NHS, um, and then got into elite sport. I was I played rugby to a fairly high level, so I was in that environment. Um but I worked with the professional rugby, professional cricket, and then pretty much um ended up in cricket, working for a um, if you know, cricket county team and a bit of junior England, um, and working with a county down in the south coast with Sussex County Cricket Club. Uh in that time, uh very demanding, 24-7, almost like a concierge physio for all the elite athletes, including overseas pros. And actually that overseas pro pretty much burnt me out. Best job in terms of fund, hardest job in terms of uh being 24-7 pretty much for a whole year. Um, but then stepped away from that and got an opportunity to set up a on-site physio clinic within uh Deutsche Bank in the city. And then we grew a lovely business doing on the first sort of first mover physios within uh investment banks, um, Bimpi Paraba, uh Deutsche, uh Morgenstan, etc. And then quite quickly, actually, after three years, we got acquired what became the Nuffield Story or the Nuffield business. And I was involved in then rolling out more on-site physio delivery, uh, other services, and then physio networks, uh, nationwide network, which was actually the embryonic thinking of um digital health, because how do you scale bricks and mortar? Well, digital health is is where it's at. And that's kind of the evolution has worked with uh digital health providers in a health tech, digital health, med tech, and now clinic tech space, which is is which we're seeing phenomenal rise with. And um I've worked with more than 50 plus um companies in that space. And um, yeah, it's uh it's it's we see all sorts of different things, but in the clinic space, a lot of stuff going on from the the amazing work that you guys are doing to other stuff with scribing to um you know uh kiosk, front desk with kiosk, etc. So looking at all those sort of different edge, getting the edge in every part of that customer journey as such.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

So so I think obviously I I have a better than zero understanding of what it means to work with with Zoas today. Yeah. So j just for folks who maybe a bit less familiar, let how do people work with you or how do you work with them? So when people come, yeah, you said MedTech, ClinicTech, all kinds of things. Yeah, so you meet that how to just talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

So I think I think I didn't really expand enough, but in essence, we're an outsourced commercial consultancy business for companies that are operating in that space. So we're very good. We've got uh we've we work fractionally. So we we build fractional teams for the right verticals, especially in private healthcare, whether it's private hospital or private clinics or dental clinics or FSK clinics or insurers. We have uh a team of about 20 consultants who are specialists in different areas, and then we build teams specifically for that company to deliver results. Now, that could be revenue, it could be um meetings, it could be uh proof of concept pilots, or it might be feasibility, go-to-market strategies. So we cover that sort of spectrum, um, but we're very goal-specific to achieve those goals for our clients.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Fine. Okay. So i if if if I'm a health type business or innovation attempting to work in healthcare, and I want to uh meet the right people, connect with the right partners, uh, leverage the industry connectors. Yeah, we come to Zoe and Zoe says, okay, here's how here's how we push on the right doors, here's how we bring right people into conversation. That's sort of Yeah, we're all we're all a bit older and wiser, I guess, in the in the team. Definitely older.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

But good. Um but we all come with big networks. You know, we've got the ex-sales director of AXA, for example. We've got the head, you know, the chair of the EAP association. We we get people who have worked in a probably a very high-level commercial role, B D commercial role, commercial director, who now wants to work fractionally. One wants to fly a plane as well as still deliver a uh fractional work. Another one has a farm. So, you know, we we we cater to that. Actually, and it works really well.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

And we're about fast access, fast results. Got it. Interesting. And and I can totally see how, you know, someone's done 20, 25 years moving up the ranks in industry and then says, you know what, I've got deep know-how, but I want to do 50% of my day here, you know, planting my crops, and I want to do 50% of my time speaking to new businesses that are trying to support health. This is the nexus. Zoaz is the sort of nexus of these things. Okay, got that makes sense. So you see a lot of different stuff.

SPEAKER_01 6:45

Yeah, we see. I mean, we work mainly with homegrown British tech that we do get overseas. We're getting a lot of European tech from Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, so a lot of European tech coming that wants to come into the UK, private or NHS. Um and then we we're also taking some solutions out to also you hear my twangs of to the Australian and New Zealand market is another market with the exporting.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Very interesting. And and if you had to um let let's just imagine for a minute that uh we're we're we're designing a menu. Yeah. And the menu has uh a few different kinds of dishes, and each dish is a specific kind of innovation that you see. You you you sort of gave us some of those buckets already, but what's on that menu right now that you're seeing in market? Like where are people, what pressure points are people pushing on? What are you seeing as really interesting? Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

So in the clinic space, no, sorry, in the digital health space, okay, or or healthcare space as such. Wow, the GLP one space exploding. Okay, you you know yourself. And you know, whether that's uh fulfillment and logistic warehouses, which you think is just a warehouse, but it's not much more than that. Uh, you know, is is very, very detailed through to these big direct-to-consumer uh GLP one providers who are now starting to, well, they've exploded, but are they ready for the um B2B market? You know, are insurers ready? Uh cash plans, uh are clinical providers, sort of hospital groups, are they ready for GLP ones? You know, there's there's still a bit of a question mark, but there's it's much more towards accepting that now. So I think you're going to see a lot more from a and that brings clinical rigor. So a lot of wraparound, multidisciplinary teams around that and clinical governance, et cetera, because the B2B won't go just for a direct-to-consumer approach, especially not insurers. So that's one area of of growth. ADHD and neurodiversity, another big area. Um we see they're probably the two big areas, as well as mental health, physio, the traditional areas as well. There's also the link between the digital front-end and clinical, so more of a hybrid approach. Uh, we've seen the growth of that, not just relying on digital, perhaps that was in in during COVID and the pandemic that's now come out that that you know, bricks and mortar and digital should coexist. That pathway should be uh seamless. Um, and then in the clinic and hospital space, it's really looking for operational efficiencies. The area you're in, leaky revenue, you know, where's you know, the that patient journey from pre-assessment to the reception, through the journey, you know, looking for where are the gaps, where are we describing, for example? You know, can we make operational efficiencies to increase the profitability and make it a much better experience for the client? And then from clinic owners, like what Coherent does really well is, you know, what's what's not working, the patient engagement, the recall, the leaky revenue is a big area as well.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Got it. Okay, so really a mix. There's like a huge one. And you mentioned earlier as well, in some cases there's a med tech, like you see some med tech stuff as well. So I guess you're doing direct clinical impact stuff in some cases, and then in other cases it's infrastructure, it's logistics, it's operations. You guys are seeing a lot of interesting so so one of the things that I think would be really interesting to understand is when you see a new thing, or I mean you I I imagine that 80% of your job is probably saying no to stuff. Bang on. Bang. Otherwise it was like, you know, you can't be able to do your job. So when you see a new thing, how do you as a team like what's your sort of screening process? You're saying, okay, I think they're I think we've become really good at that.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

I think we do get a lot of inbounds. We I you know, I I would say we get, you know, two, three, four inbounds, you know, not just from our website, but from many people who know people. And I think we're very good at understanding at what stage they're at, you know, where they should be playing, or do they have the market knowledge? Um, so quite often it's and also, you know, are they what what sort of funding are they gonna need for success? You know, you know, how are they gonna build? You know, because it you all everybody wants growth, but if you haven't got good product market fits, you know, it ain't gonna work. So we see we're very good at sort of that understanding, we call it three buckets, feasibility or or go to market or or or feasibility analysis, um, which which we think is kind of very much understanding where success is gonna come from. So, for example, we're doing a piece with the GLP one provider, is is the is the B2B market ready? So they want to know the fitness vertical, they want to know the um uh the insurance landscape, they want to know the broker and corporate landscape. So we're able to sort of go to buyers, to influencers, to owners, to proposition leads and get that intel. That was really crucial to be able to define what's gonna work or what's not gonna work, what's vertical prioritization, um, and then, you know, commercial model as well. Um, and, you know, understand what is needed for the next stage, which we call readiness, market readiness. It's pretty much market readiness is very much about getting a house in order, you know, regulatory marketing, um, proof of concepts, because these B2B buyers are not just going to say yes. You know, they want to see evidence and you need to get evidence somehow, so pilots, proof of concepts, etc. And then, you know, and then growth. It doesn't always, it's sort of not always a a one bucket to one bucket ratio, but we find that they fit somewhere into that or they don't. Um and so we're very good at I what exactly what you said, saying no. Um, because we see a lot of wasted money out there. Um and and you know, you you wanna you want to give the the the honest advice through experience to them to make the right decisions.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

Makes sense. And and you you said it was others very interesting. You said the B2B buyer. So in this case, that's the the I mean some cases the healthcare provider, or it it's the organization that's ultimately consuming whatever the thing is. I think it's it's interesting. Um one of the things that w we often hear about and talk about from a, I guess, more tech than health tech perspective, but from a tech perspective, is um there are a lot of companies that have died on the hill of go-to-market in healthcare because it is really hard. The trust and and barriers to adoption are much higher. Uh, the expectations of product performance are much higher, the risk when it goes wrong is much higher. There are a lot of reasons that getting over that trust hump in healthcare is fundamentally different than getting over the trust hump in e-commerce shoes, pick your example. So I guess I'm sort of curious, in your experience, working to not necessarily sell, I guess you don't really do a lot of selling on behalf of the companies you work with, but you do a lot of facilitating and trying to connect the dots. What do you see the buyer or the buy side, you know, a hospital director, a clinic group, uh whatever buyer is, what's the what are the blockers there? What are the challenges that you think, you know, it innovators and or people um, you know, sort of trying to work with the providers um need to overcome in order to be credible and attractive from a buyer perspective?

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Yeah. Are they, you know, if you if I I'll just talk one insurers, it's uh credibility, it's impact, it's clinical governance, it's um it's reputation, you know, they they you know, and then you're in a you know, if you've ticked all those boxes, then it's a procurement exercise as well. So, you know, the sales cycle are incredibly long. You know, if you've even if you've got a great product and great product market fit, it might be a 12-month, 24-month lead time, you know, until you find that place. But once you're in, it's sticky and it's good revenue. So, you know, it it's it's worth worth that, you know, but you've got to have the patience and you've got to tick all the boxes to what that vertical requires. And I think there is a lot of scrutiny, there is a lot of um uh, you know, there the sales cycles are long. Um and it does make it challenging for tech or health tech providers to get into the market. So that they're they've got to also pick the right investors to understand that as well. Um, so impact investors or investors that understand the health health the healthcare space.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Healthcare space particularly. You you gave um earlier on, you mentioned one of the the sort of categories of work and you you that you you tacked onto it. Um the the fact that this was sort of a newer space by comparison, you used the title clinic tech. And I've heard you say that a few times now outside of this conversation. I've not heard it anywhere else, um, which either means you're brilliant. Or no, or Wallistrong. What are they, Steve? A lot of it. But it's an interesting category term because you know that there is med tech. There you you you hear that word, you hear health tech, you heard you hear digital health, and now there's this new sort of framing. I think you should own this space. Like there's clinic tech. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

I'm gonna go and show on trademark.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

So what is what when you when you're thinking, okay, this is what fits into the clinic tech box, yeah, what lives in there?

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Yeah, it's a r it's a really good point. I mean I yeah, I've just I've just phrased it because I uh you know when I think clinics, I think in MSK clinics, I'm thinking dental clinics, I'm thinking vet clinics, I'm thinking and and yes, clinics that had probably two or three enterprise level and then up. And so that's where I've sort of cut my you know teeth before when I was when I was when I was a physio as well. And I've just seen an incredible amount and and I have to reflect back to when I was a clinician and building my business. It was like paper notes and you know, it was, you know, people would miss appointments and it was it was about the patient management software that was okay, but it didn't really fit for purpose. And then it it when I look back, it was like, you know, how do we ever do that? How do we do that? Yeah. I mean, we must have missed so much revenue. So many patients. Anyway. And to to what I've seen now in the last sort of 12 months in particular, is just so many efficiencies in that pathway of um of you know, if I was I'm I'm not a clinic owner, but if I was a clinic owner, I should be all I'd be all over this. Do you know what I mean? I'd be wanting to know how I can firstly give the best possible service to all my clients. And also, as an owner, be f fiditious in terms of making sure that I'm running the business as operationally well as possible. And and obviously the lot of these multi-chain physios, psych, uh the primary GPs, dental, or whatever there's a lot of P funding and and look, they talk numbers, don't they? You know it better than me, probably Jared, but they they they are all about sort of the margin, the profit EBITDAR and profitability. And so therefore Where are you gonna find that? You're gonna find that in that journey, you know, from from admin, from from all those elements of that journey. And and and a patient management software doesn't do that. And so therefore you need to have pollutions that are going to be integral to either integrate with that or to have a role to play with managing that or or understanding that. Uh and I'm sure a lot of clinic owners don't fully understand all the functionality of what their PMS systems are, et cetera. But I just think it's a fascinating area, and I've just seen a massive explosion. Obviously, the explosion of AI, et cetera, has changed changed the dynamics as well. But, you know, there's some really smart operators out there doing some great things.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

It's interesting. The the uh I think the thing that makes that story different to what we might hear from others is that you've lived firsthand, I guess in some ways, through an era of care provision where it was tech second. And now you're saying, well, there seems like there's this moment in time where actually it can be tech first. Yeah. And many providers are still not operating that way. Yeah. And and the the thing that we always find interesting when we start working with the practice is we just try and understand what they understand about what is going on in their own house. So one of the questions that we always ask is, how many patients are in your database? Which seems like a very silly question. And nine times out of ten, I think I think it's 10,431. It's like oh is that real? Is that not real? And and I and and other times we um we will hear things uh from patients uh from practices and healthcare providers saying we'll ask them, how many patients or how many appointments last month canceled their appointment? Everybody looks at each other, you know, practice manager looks like the looks at the principal clinician, principal clinician looks at the other and the data is of course there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No one's doing anything with it. Question is why? And I I think you for me also previously being in clinic, I think it's very hard for people to understand how intense it is to work in clinic. Yeah, it it is always on, very fit. It's like working in a kitchen. It is just full on. The idea that you'd be able to stop, take a step back, look at things, try and take stock. I I never found the time for doors. I'm I guess I'm sort of wondering when you intersect your experience of being a practitioner at one point in time and now sort of seeing the digital transformation as possible. What's blocking people from making that Christian?

SPEAKER_01 20:45

I think one of the ones is most of the well, certainly I'm gonna put the physiotherapy world into sure here because you know, I was a physiotherapist that by default had a business. And I think that happens quite a bit. You know, physiotherapists um suddenly have businesses and you know, some do have training. I didn't MBA, but I'm sure others do do some business, but but they're suddenly running a business. And that's not really what they were trained to do. So sometimes there's they've just been thrown in the deep end in terms of or learning through experience how this goes and how to run a business. And that's and then their individual therapists that work there, they just want to treat. They hate doing notes, they, you know, they they they just want to be client-facing, doing a great job, improving the client, having a great rapport. And look, if they can just do that and walk away, amazing. And tech can do that now. So I think I think one of the things is they're not really trying to do it. All this tech is coming to them. They don't know what to do with it. They're not really data, you know, they haven't learned how to deal with or understand MI or data. And so therefore, there's a bit of a disconnect there. I think I don't I you know, learning more about dentals and vets, a bit bit stronger because PE funding has probably helped them understand that. But yeah, physios are sometimes finding their way because they're just being thrown in the deep end in terms of and just learning through um through experience.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Yeah, I I I mean I don't know if it's just I think it makes a lot of sense. I don't know if it's just physio. I mean, we were speaking a couple of days ago with two oculoplastic surgeons who came from X number of years in NHS, and they were saying it was actually very funny. They were saying when they started their private practice, they oftentimes just didn't charge people. And they said it was just such a change for them to go from not ever thinking about billing someone to realizing that if you don't bill someone, you don't get paid. Like that's the end of it. And so they used to feel bad about billing people. And then they said, well, actually, we realized that when we billed them A, correctly at B, what we actually felt our time and value was worth, we were actually able to deliver a better experience to the patient because we weren't scraping by and constantly trying to cut corners and making short. So I think that idea of like going on that learning curve, that journey makes a lot of sense. Um, speaking also with an MSK clinic owner recently, based out in Canada, and his story was very similar, which is that they started the practice and it was just him and and three other practitioners, and they they they sort of hit a plateau where they needed to get a different kind of unlock that wasn't natural. So they started working with a business coach, things ended up going really well. But it's it's a journey. I mean, I think it's a r it is definitely a journey. So you you sort of and you know, it doesn't just stop at clinics.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

You know, I've I've worked with some of the big hospital groups as well, private hospital groups. They're a mess as well. I'll get in trouble. But but um, you know, I I know that their systems are a mess. And and this is just it's the same in clinic as in hospitals, just multiplied here. So so they're they're they're scrambling around to patch systems to systems to exit, but their that customer journey is still a bit of so there's a lot of that work going on at a hospital level as well. So we're not we're not just talking about you know small or even big chains, we're talking about right up the chain.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Yeah. It is it true. Um we spoke to a uh transatlantic hospital group. Yeah. Something with lots of zeros in their revenue following your introduction. Um and uh and it was very interesting because uh we sat down with the something, something innovation, whatever it was, um, and we asked them a few questions and very quickly said, Listen, I know the problem you guys are trying to solve. We have the problem. We know we have the problem. We are very clear on the fact that the problem exists. We are not currently prioritizing solving it because we're trying to prioritize solve all these other problems. And I think it's it's true of the fact that patient operations is a mess. It just is a mess. There's no two ways about it. It's not a linear journey. We always say it's like it looks like a spool of a bowl of spaghetti, it's not, you know, A to B. And what we constantly find in our work is that the ideal is that you scale your patients after operations, but oftentimes that doesn't happen. You end up scaling your patients and you end up scaling your operations with it. And so the cost and the revenue track together, and actually what should happen is it should do a bit more of that. And it's very hard to get that to fall down. The way you solve the problem is you just throw bodies at it, more headcount, more headcount. We got more patients, more headcount, keep the right headcount added. So I think it's it's interesting that what you see is that actually that is true of you know, two practitioners, single-side, two country, multi-side, the problems just get worse. Yeah, the numbers get bigger, and the numbers get correct. Which is which is very interesting. If you had to so now know you know about go-to-market, the healthcare space, private health more generally, you've been a practitioner, you've set up your own practice. If you were restarting a clinic, yeah. I'm not saying you should do, but if you were restarting today. Never last time. Now here's the thing here's the interesting part. So if you were restarting today and you said, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna open my net my next done with Zoaz, my next venture is this Zoas Clinics. Okay. So Zoaz Clinics is it is X. This is how I do it differently now, knowing what I know, seeing the different parts of the ecosystem, et cetera, et cetera. What would you do differently? How would you think about it differently?

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Wow, wow. That's a really good question. I would I would adapt a lot of these things. So I'd be all over the digitization. I'd have no reception. I mean, I'm I I love for stoke. I'm not trying to get rid of rewind. But I'd have I'd I'd I'd make it a um a clinic which was complete. I'd be looking at every area of the pathway and how I can digitize that to make the experience in the treat room, treatment room exceptional. Yeah. That's that's probably w the way that I would look at it. And then I would try to scale that with the best cultured physios who love the profession and love getting results, but they all they have to, they don't really have to do the admin themselves. The tech can do the admin for them. And then obviously I want to make it as profitable as I can. So I'd be looking at everything. I'd bring you guys in for sure. I'd I'd want to know is it recall, DNA, you know, uh leaky revenue. I'd want to know all the information in a MI dashboard and where we can where we can be as efficient and as effective as possible. Yeah. That that that would be the business I would try to build.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

That's not the business you built.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Well we we were I think we we did have the essence of great physios. I think we had the essence of a great culture. Um we had we had we were working within corporates, so we it was a it would be dis different situation than having a your own clinic. Um but we were hopeless at admin. So we wonder how much revenue We were letting go, but uh anyway, we we had a successful exit and all that sort of thing. So I I think the mantra, but I know as a physio I loved treating, but I hated the patient, the admin side of it. So that was lifted and shifted and away, and you know, it was just a s a wonderful experience and a wonderful facility for the for the clients coming in. Happy physios, happy clients equals success. Success. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

It's it's it it's interesting. Um the uh I went recently recently a couple of months ago, I went to NECO body scan. Full down at the speaker the other day, yeah. Sort of imaging um 300 quid, wasn't it? 300. Early birds, but I don't know what it was, whatever it was. But I think this to what 12 months or something? Something like that. And uh we won't have to talk about the experience, but it is very clear that they are very experience-centric. It's very clear that they are recruiting a type of practitioner or physician assistant, whoever's there, who really gets the brand. Everything from the way they're dressed to the way that they talk to their presentation, it it it joins up sort of end-to-end. Yeah. And there is a sense of being relaxed when you're there, which is very different than the sense of you know, being in many other provider you know, settings where you don't necessarily walk in and feel, uh, that's well, yeah. I think that's that that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

That I like that because you know, when I used to business, we used to work in the city and on site. So these clients would come, uh patients would come down frazzled of stress. So we wanted to make it as calm and as easy for them. And and that's important in healthcare because you you know, you you're coming into a an area that you want to, you know, get rehabbed or or have recovery or get pain, pain relief. And so therefore you want to chill. You know, you wanna decompress while you're there as well.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

And it's interesting. The the um I I think too often from from a commercial perspective, too often, and we talk a lot about it here, there is this obsession about the the time spent in the treatment room. And then as soon as you step out of the treatment room, the obsession starts to pull back. So if you spend 10 minutes a day thinking about what happens in the treatment room, you spend seven minutes a day thinking about what happens in the waiting room, you spend three minutes a day thinking about what happens two days after the appointment, you spend no time thinking about what happens six months after that, it sort of degrades. Yeah. And much like a restaurant, people go back because the food's good and because the service and the experience are great, and people are excited about going back for those reasons. And what I think you're describing is we want end-to-end it to be a place that has almost like a magnetic quality. Yeah. It should be easy to come back, not uh, this thing again.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

And and that's as much as you know, um, you know, talking about that transatlantic uh hospital group, I had a um I had a uh every year I invest in it. And like you do with Neko, a um health assessment. And uh I I I got a um full man health assessment, etc. In the clinic, brilliant. Outside of it, horrendous, you know, from my results, from the pre-pre-assessment, from turning up and paying. And that really sported the whole environment uh uh experience, you know. That that even though the experience in the clinic was great and the doctor was brilliant, and I had a great rapport with the doctor, and actually I thought that, you know, and and it was a a lovely experience, but the other stuff really soured me. Enough to say I don't think I'll do that again. Yeah. So that other stuff is important.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

It is took for and more and more so today because I think people, even as a patient or a consumer of things, like push button, give me this give me the thing. I I I push the button, I get my my you know, my my imported specialty islands. It takes one button. I don't need to do 45 back and forth sweating. So I think that probably makes sense. I I'm curious if you how long is those running now?

SPEAKER_01 32:08

Well, yeah, technically 25 years. So I'm you know just just uh 40. So I mean but uh but I I guess in the world that we live at the moment, it's probably about 10 or 12 years in terms of six.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

So you've seen a lot of stuff in 1020. Yeah. If you had to make a bet 10 years from now, 2036, let's say Zoe is still going, if no one's bought it yet, but what do you think will have changed and what do you think will not have changed in this market from what you've seen change in the last 10 years?

SPEAKER_01 32:48

Yeah, where's the crystal ball? I mean, as I look into the crystal ball, I see um that's a really, really good question. I haven't challenged myself on that. And and I think obviously AI is incredible of what it's doing. So I think more and more things are gonna Yeah, it's a good thing. I uh one example is like, what's gonna win? Is it gonna be the you know, this is a broad discussion, but is it gonna be the platform that wins, or is it gonna be the individual components that are gonna win? Exactly example, is it the the platform that holds all the digital assets and that platform is the value, or is it the individual assets on their, you know, so there's a what I've seen in the last couple of years is is great products like MSK, cancer, and digital digital products, uh uh mental health, ADHD, you know, diabetic, you know, kids' mental, whatever whatever it is, they're great on their own. But then suddenly, can you get that on a platform as a standalone? And so I just because there's a lot of integration, there's procurement cycles, etc. So is it the rise of the platforms that are winning rather than the individual? So that's been an interesting thing to see. I I think it's gonna lean more towards the ease and the one platform and and you know, the the platforms will probably acquire the individuals. So there's gonna be a lot of that sort of MA in that sort of space. Um on the clinic side, wow, it's hard to imagine what it would be like, but it's gonna be, I think, what we just described as what a clinic should be. Yeah, they're probably the two areas that I would say. Where you see the most you'd make the bads.

SPEAKER_00 34:27

It's interesting. In in the in the clinic version, one of the things you mentioned, you said you're happy patients, happy practitioners. And so it sounds like you still think that the uh practitioners are safe. Uh by which I mean we're not gonna have robo physiotherapists rolling around, maybe there'll be augmentation, etc., but you still think that there will be a patient-provider relationship uh at the heart of the healthcare journey?

SPEAKER_01 34:52

Yeah, I I really do. I I, you know, I was thinking about this with my wife the other day about our kids, is how is I, you know, she my my son Jacob is is is 11. You know, what should he be thinking about? What's his job going to be in the future? And that's really hard. It's like, I think it's gonna be dramatically different. We had a bit of a debate around the table, and it's like, yeah, what what what jobs are safe? Where are they? But I don't see it that way. I see it as just another step in humanity's cycle where, you know, the Industrial Revolution dramatically changed things, etc. This is a turning point, but things will change. There's no doubt about that. There will and we need to adapt. So, but I do think there's in essence, there's you know, a thing called the therapeutic alliance, whether that's psychological or or physical from an MSK or a mental health point of view. And that that is a very personalized, you know, uh um relationship between practitioner and patient. And I can't see how that will change. Maybe, maybe in the future, but I just see that's such a vital thing for good outcomes. You know, you get the that matching thing we were talking about earlier about sort of getting the right therapist for you and your condition and all sorts of different matching um things from culture, religion, whatever. If you find the right clinician, mental health clon um MSK, your outcomes should be better. So it's like uh, you know, dating, you find the right partner, you're gonna get married. So and I don't see how that will change.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

Yeah. Yeah, it's it's interesting. The the um one of the things that we sort of see, so I mean all of our work is in what we call hands-on health care. So these are things that you can't buy over the counter yet, uh, or off Amazon yet, or whatever it might be, right? You can't go in and do all of your great if you could, but you can't go in and and and you know, order laser hair removal to your house. These are big machines, you have to go do it in a dentistry as well. You don't get dentistry. So we do a lot of hands-on health care. One of the things that we're seeing more and more is um providers trying to automate away the admin, as you're describing, and also uh running into I'm gonna use the word challenges. It's probably a gentle word, like absolute disasters when they push that ball too far too fast. And uh I I hate to um doug after any particular kind of player, but one of the places we've seen this a lot is is in like you know, AI receptionist land or AI, you know, in the patient interface, because there's a lot of variability, there are a lot of weird and wonderful, and if you get it right 80% of the time, that's incredible, massive efficiency, time-saving, etc. But if you get it wrong 20% of the time, and that 20% creates 200% new work, then taking it from here, putting it over there. What is your view on I'll describe it as the human and the loop? How how much human needs to be brought into the technology deliveries? It sounds like there's a provider-patient relationship, it's very important, but how much of this can we just give over to the robots? Yeah, how much of it is.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

But that reception is is more around a culture builder, uh uh welcome to the clinic, uh, you know, because you know AI is gonna kind of do that, is it? It doesn't have an uh an emotional at this stage, it doesn't ha it doesn't welcome you like uh uh uh you know the lady downstairs who came in, she's lovely, you know, and I always remember people at the front desk who are incredibly friendly. You know, there's a lady at uh I did some work with the Football Association St. George's Park, and she's I still remember her. I see her every time I go up there. Um and she is wonderful, and everybody knows her. Do you know what I mean? She is just everybody within football knows her, and um everyone who goes there knows her, and she she having someone like that creates an amazing culture. So I think that might be the role of the receptionist rather than having to do all the ad mini tools and here it can't be a therapist booking people, you know. Be that patient, be that be that patient face and welcoming. You know, just like you go to a lovely restaurant, they they greet you and they look after you.

SPEAKER_00 39:26

It's such a that it adds to the experience. So use it adopting technology to make it more human. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I think that that yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

That reflection back to what Zara's calling. So I do have some I do have a human uh look.

SPEAKER_00 39:40

I'm not sure. We just change the business plan. Yeah. Cool. That's um that's really interesting. Well, look, I I think um there's a lot to dig into here, and I think for folks who are interested in or listening, they can reach out to you. Yeah, they should reach out to you. Definitely any and all questions around healthcare, go-to-market, yeah, growth. Growth. You know, we do deals. We're doing deals all the time. Growth. And of course, if they want to come to Zoez Clinics, you should also reach out to the clouds. If you want to challenge me and then tell me what the business finds, mean that's a good attitude. And and I think uh look look, we've we've had the pleasure of working with you guys for a while now, and I think um also for us, what's what's always been hugely helpful is um you guys will say what you actually think. And if you think something works well, doesn't work well, nudging it this way, pushing it that way. And I think uh A, that's been hugely refreshing because it's not always the case when you work with people, but equally, I think that honesty in the conversation it moves things forward. Yeah. And that is true even when we're dealing with clinic providers, when we speak with a CEO of a clinic group, and I've got one in mind in particular who you know, she will not hold her tongue in the best way possible. She'll say, hey, this isn't working, this isn't working. We need to make it change here. And I think similarly, one of the things that maybe a parting idea is for the healthcare providers that either you're working with or that we're trying to sell to and work with, I think it's okay to just give feedback. Just be very honest. And just say, hey, this this is what you're not meeting this goal. You need to be here in order for me to take this to the next stage. Absent that feedback, the innovation won't come. It's ever going to get good.

SPEAKER_01 41:24

I mean, that's such a key hearing the market feedback, positive or negative, you need to give it back. And as a as an owner of a business, you need to hear that. Because otherwise you're not going to be adapting. Oh, you know, I've got to have that conversation with one of our clients on Friday because uh the feedback was incredibly challenging. Not not, you know, and it's important for them to do a certain number of things to continue on that contract. And but that feedback I need to have because that's essential. And and that's what we set out to do. I said it was transparency, you know, which is honesty really, and then kicking gold, having fun. And and the other thing is in all of this and AI and tech and and people is you've got to still have fun on the journey. Um, because otherwise this it does create stress. So we made sure that our team, no matter what, because you know, commercial, you're up and down, you're winning, you're losing, you're you're in the middle, and you you gotta be able to pull together and and and create have a community that can help each other and have fun on the journey as well.

SPEAKER_00 42:29

Tim Wright. Zoaz. Yeah. Founder CEO, Zoaz Clinics, founder CEO. Haven't and having fun on the journey, Tim. Thank you so much. Really appreciate you coming in. Great. Well, thanks for having it.