{"id":43776,"date":"2023-10-20T15:31:05","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:31:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/sydney-startup-canceraid-officially-launches-after-a-long-three-year-journey-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:31:05","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:31:05","slug":"sydney-startup-canceraid-officially-launches-after-a-long-three-year-journey-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/sydney-startup-canceraid-officially-launches-after-a-long-three-year-journey-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Sydney startup CancerAid officially launches after a long three-year journey – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

A Sydney startup aiming to give a personalised touch to cancer treatment and help patients through this process has officially launched after nearly three years of development.<\/p>\n

CancerAid is an app that helps to organise a patient\u2019s cancer journey and manage their awareness and expectations in an individualised way while also working with clinicians to deliver tailored information.<\/p>\n

The app also includes a telemedicine aspect, where specialists can keep track of a patient\u2019s progress and offer on-call support.<\/p>\n

The Sydney-based tech company is also in the process of closing a \u201clarge seed investment\u201d which it will use to further develop the offering and scale it globally.<\/p>\n

The first version of the app is now available in the iOS App Store, with two planned updates for the coming months.<\/p>\n

Three years of iteration<\/h3>\n

CancerAid founder and CEO Nikhil Pooviah, who worked at the Chris O\u2019Brien Lifehouse Hospital, developed the app along with four other doctors across three years, and also took part in the Slingshot HCF Catalyst accelerator program earlier last year.<\/p>\n

He says a lot has changed in this time of iterating and getting direct user feedback.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a long journey but it\u2019s all coming together,\u201d Pooviah tells StartupSmart.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spent so much time developing our first iPhone version, and in the last two or three weeks we\u2019ve found a component that we haven\u2019t made that would\u2019ve been useful, and we would\u2019ve found it earlier if we had gotten some user insight from the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

This new component is a social side to the app, a platform where cancer patients can communicate with others who are going through the same thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone on chemo can connect with someone else on chemo, or they can talk to someone who has had the same operation as them,\u201d Pooviah says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a community where patients can interact and talk with each other, and that\u2019ll be the sticky feature of the app.\u201d<\/p>\n

CancerAid is currently workshopping this platform on Facebook, and Pooviah says he hopes to have it integrated into the actual app in the coming months.<\/p>\n

CancerAid already boasts customers including Chris O\u2019Brien Lifehouse Hospital, MetroRehab Hospital and Sydney Gastroenterology.<\/p>\n

The international outlook<\/h3>\n

The CancerAid team also recently travelled to Chengdu in China as part of a bilateral trade and innovation exchange, meeting with local entrepreneurs and investors after winning a pitching competition held in Sydney last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe met a lot of interesting people and we got to learn a bit about the landscape for launching into a market like China,\u201d Pooviah says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of barriers and things you have to consider when you\u2019re trying to do it. We\u2019re not ready just yet for the Chinese markets but now we know the right channels to go down.\u201d<\/p>\n

The doctor-turned-entrepreneur says he has learnt from the three-year journey that testing your startup\u2019s product with real people is the most important thing a founder can do.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe come across a lot of startups and entrepreneurs who are very product-focused and really spend a lot of time trying to figure out the best products before trying to validate it amongst a customer or a user,\u201d Pooviah says.<\/p>\n

\u201cTry to validate it either by getting some feedback from users or customers that the product is actually what the end user wants before spending a lot of time and money developing something that won\u2019t get taken up necessarily.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should fast-track the MVP as quickly as you can so you can validate it before making the final product. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve learnt first-hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook,<\/em> Twitter, LinkedIn and SoundCloud.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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