What's the Startup?!

Inside a Healthcare Startup with Dr. Jawad Popolzai of DataRovers

• Kaylan Thompson

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What does it take to build a startup in one of the most complex—and resistant—industries out there? In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Jawad Popolzai, physician and co-founder of DataRovers, to explore how his team is tackling the hidden inefficiencies in healthcare, one problem at a time. From co-founder dynamics to product-market fit and the realities of building from a small town, Jawad shares a grounded, insightful look into the startup journey.

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He’s one of our founders taking the stage on May 14 at 6 PM at Maiden Alley Cinema.

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Jawad:

Hi, my name is, Jawad Popolzai, and I'm a founder and CEO. of Data Rovers, my background is, healthcare. I'm a physician by profession and, we started off with a simple problem and that's what we're taking with us.

Kaylan:

Tell us more about your company and what it does.

Jawad:

So it all started, with, a problem that we thought was a problem and that was a denials. When we came up with the idea and we presented it to that, many people said, Oh no, the problem you're telling me, it's really not a problem, and then at other times when we had come up with it and we were talking to a subject matter experts, which at one point I thought I was a subject matter expert, but no, I wasn't. Healthcare is very, very specialized and they're just like so many facets in it. And there were other times when I talked to somebody and I presented my idea, I said like doc, do what you do best, go see patients. So, and it's like ups and downs and you keep going through it., but perseverance is the key.

Kaylan:

What kept you focused on, no, this is the, there's a problem and I'm going to solve it, even when you were getting rejections from people who were your peers?

Jawad:

Yeah. So, you know, in healthcare, I mean, the industry is tough and as a provider, we all have, all our lives, we have been struggling for resources and, you ask for a resource, okay, I need more nursing staff. I need. We need more, front staff and, we need this kind of technology to be able to see patients and so on. But the industry budgets are tight. The margins are tight. And we do see that there's just so many, so much waste all around it. And you see that, and you say like, I want to solve this problem. The goal, ultimate goal for healthcare is to be able to provide care to more and more patients. But there is just such a paraphernalia of administrative burdens, resources, insurances, prior arts, all of that stuff that comes with it. And that takes the focus away from direct patient care at so many levels. We were focused on trying to make sure that solve more problems on the administrative side so that there could be more focus on what we're supposed to do, provide care. Okay? So. That's what, that was the bottom line.

Kaylan:

Tell me about the moment you honed in on this problem and realized I can solve it or we can solve it and how you got closer to a product.

Jawad:

Yeah. So it's interesting. So when you start looking for a solution for a problem, you go through several phases. Nobody from the very beginning would know everything in detail. You learn as you go, you try You face new problems, you try to solve them. And when we started until what we, where we are at right now, there has been a lot of technological advancements that have happened. So the biggest of them is we started off with traditional BI and machine learning that was available. However, the biggest change that happened in technology, the backend was the generative AI that came up. So that opened a whole new world of solutions to us. And it is at the point of me, the world is ready for those. So there's just so much more we can do what we were not able to do just two years ago.

Kaylan:

I'm also curious. So you're one of two co founders? Yes. Is that correct? Yeah. Tell me more about that partnership and how you decided to go into it together and because I know it's such a struggle to find someone who's Who is a perfect match co founder

Jawad:

wise. So that, that's very true and it's, has worked very good for us. So I have a lot of healthcare background, but that's what I know. I'm not a technology person other than a user of technology, and my other co founder, Sam, he has very extensive background in technology and tech sector and over a period of years we had talked about how healthcare industry works and he always used to make fun of me. What you're To do, uh, finance industry did it 20 years ago, and so on and so forth. So together we came up with exchange of ideas, exchange of problems, and the discussion that we said, okay, we can move ahead with that. So far, it has worked very good for us, but it involves a lot of trust on each other and each other's capabilities, which many other people may not be so fortunate. So you gotta know, you gotta go with the gut feeling. Sometimes,

Kaylan:

what makes a good co founder?

Jawad:

So we have a very good division of responsibilities and labor. So you've got to play to your strong points. You can't do everything. You got to know the problem. You can't do everything. So especially if you have a help and subject matter, expertise is very important and the limits of technology to what extent the technology can go. That's another issue with that. So we have had a good understanding of that. of it. And still to this day, we do and we keep working on it.

Kaylan:

What are each of your responsibilities?

Jawad:

So he, his responsibility primarily is, the, uh, leading the tech team. Yeah. And,, I am more on the, the problem hunting and the solutions, how should we tackle this? And he manages all the technology part, I work mostly on the software skills side.

Kaylan:

That term problem hunting is really interesting to me. Tell me more about what that looks like. And in my mind, I mean, it makes sense. I would think if once you have a product and you're making sales, the problem hunting is over, you know, the problem, but I'm sure it evolves just like everything else. Oh,

Jawad:

absolutely. What you think you know, actually always there's more to that.

Kaylan:

Yeah.

Jawad:

Right. When you go to the people who are going to be using it and they tell you, Hey, can you do this for me? Oh, we have a real problem with this. Can you help us solve it? They keep coming up and all of us in our daily lives with a daily work, we make so many decisions that we never even think about, but we're making a decision. We make hundreds and hundreds of decisions each day. Each of those steps or decisions could be replaced by technology. Our goal is to make the revenue cycle person more powerful, more effective, more productive. And many of those steps, Can easily be done by technology that you don't have to do it and we keep finding new issues every day working finding new solutions on it every day, so Overall, I don't think it's ever going to end that's evolution every product evolves in the same way you see that Microsoft Windows, it's not the same windows it was when me or anybody had started using the computer. So that's how it, that's the same thing with everything. So same with us.

Kaylan:

As long as there are problems, entrepreneurs will always have jobs.

Jawad:

There are going to be problems, forever, there will always be problems.

Kaylan:

So how do you filter? What is a problem worth pursuing a solution for?

Jawad:

So, in the beginning, when you do not have partnerships. You have to go with what you know, but a lot of times what you think is a problem actually doesn't matter to the end user. So that's, you need reinforcement from the user and you have to go back to the drawing board many a times. It's not gonna be slam dunk on the first go. You just have to be flexible. I mean, this is the nature of the job you, you find. issues and you may have to retrace your path in a different way.

Kaylan:

What does that reinforcement look like?

Jawad:

So, within each product, there could be more than one type of customers., the healthcare, the processes are very lengthy for many things. Steps involved are many things and everybody's focused on one particular aspect of it, but doesn't mean that that's the only thing you're going to touch. You have one type of customer today, you will have a different type of customer tomorrow, which will be focused on a slightly different aspects of it. To give you an example, the workflow for a small clinic may not be the same as a large hospital, although they may be providing the same services. services,, what you're trying to work on, but they will want different things from you. So it's the product market fit, who's your customer, what you're trying to sell to them and what do they actually want. In the end, they want to make their life easy and they don't care what technology they're using. Like, they don't care. You may use none of the technologies, just stay on very basic rudimentary technology or your very advanced solution provider. In the end, the customer, what they want, how you are going to make their life simpler.

Kaylan:

How'd you go about, especially in the beginning stages, establishing that product market fit? I'm sure it's still a process.

Jawad:

Yeah. It's a process. It's the first customer is the hardest and you haven't tested it in the market. So you got to be able to offer it. What we did was we offered it for free and,, test it out, let us know your feedback and we'll go together. However, nobody, most people will not have that much time. They don't want to test out a new product. So you have to keep going. You have to keep working on it and eventually they will address it. So finding the first customer is always the toughest.

Kaylan:

So you've got multiple ways to generate revenue from SAS to licensing., how do you figure out the best revenue model for your business, especially just starting out?

Jawad:

So we were focused on SAS based model and that's how we designed it., but during your journey, some other things might happen in the industry, that may make you change your way. So for example, we saw a major change in healthcare, with,, one of the big data leaks that happened during the process and that alarmed every,,healthcare leader. Okay, security is a bigger problem than we had ever thought. So, since it comes to that. The headlines, so everybody gets caution about it. And on that, then the demands change. So we started off with the SaaS. We started hearing from people, no, we want it on their on our own cloud because security is very important. So you got to be able to be nimble enough to listen to your customer needs and their demands, because in the end. And it's the customer you need to serve. So security had got highlight. And also as you go along and you listen to your customer and what they are willing to work on, what model they are willing to work on. So new avenues, new revenue streams, you're going to find you've got to be in it. It's not something that you want to decide from the very first day. Okay. I'm not going to budge. You need to budge. You need to pivot. So that's how we are as well.

Kaylan:

Need to budge. You need to pivot. I'm curious to peek inside your team meetings. What does goal setting within your team look like or, evaluating your performance? How often do you meet together to talk strategy or shift things

Jawad:

We have multiple meetings each week. So we keep talking about that stuff and also with the clients and who can be on those clients meeting. And you keep, you keep learning, but every now and then, we will have our routine scheduled meeting on how to proceed further. That's goal setting and strategic planning. So that goes separate hand in hand, we have a fixed schedule and maintenance. The times we have to change it because you may want to meet more frequently, and it's different these days as well because physical proximity is not a thing. All of us, we are in different locations and it's very, very rare for us to meet in person. And this is just something you have to work with.

Kaylan:

I think that's common with most startups, isn't that correct?

Jawad:

Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely.

Kaylan:

That's wild to me. I guess it's a good excuse to travel.

Jawad:

Actually funny thing is like people don't travel as much.

Kaylan:

Really?

Jawad:

Yeah. And because most of the meetings are online,

Kaylan:

but

Jawad:

still we do see that meeting in person has a totally different feel, especially when it comes to the clients. That comfort level develops when you meet somebody in person. So we tend to go to a lot of conferences to have that face to face meeting, with our clients and, that has a totally different level of trust development through those.

Kaylan:

Where do you see your company heading in the next five years?

Jawad:

So we are focused on revenue cycle in the healthcare industry. So that's our niche. So currently we are only dealing with about 10 percent of that, that segment., however, we would be expanding to other parts of the revenue cycle and develop more solutions. What we want to establish as the technology provider for the revenue cycle aspect of healthcare. And that's where most of our solutions will be residing.

Kaylan:

So for someone who is maybe a couple years behind you, they're earlier on in their startup journey, what is a piece of advice? Yeah.

Jawad:

You got to take your first step. It doesn't matter how much research and background knowledge you have accumulated on any subject. Once you dive into it, your perspective will change. You got to take the first step and you got to be willing to learn and adapt. It's a tough place to be. You're coming up with something that other people haven't thought of. So there will be new challenges that none of the other peoples have faced And you are the first one facing them. However, the type of problems that you will encounter will be very much similar from startup to startup. So my advice that I wished I had done earlier is to surround ourselves with more people that I'm going through the same process of starting a company from the beginning and make, there may be a different step, a different part of the process, but you got to learn from each other. Experience startup journey is a very different from our day to day life. It's very different from corporate,, and more people you are surrounded by a better off you are There's just so many people that resonate with you. So you come up with a problem, somebody has an answer for you that they have been through. So that's one aspect from, uh, that we were missing from the beginning. And we started off from a small town. There is no other startup there. So I wish we had done it sooner and, just being surrounded by light. Minded people. It makes a huge difference.

Kaylan:

Yeah. No one here says, why don't you stick with what you know?

Jawad:

Yeah. They say,

Kaylan:

keep at it.

Jawad:

That's very true.

Kaylan:

Yeah. Yeah. So how can people connect with you? Um, learn more about what your company is doing.

Jawad:

Yeah. So we are on LinkedIn, social media platforms. So, and on our website and here in person. So anybody. Who are going through this phase and have a company if there is any way we can help them out by all means we are very Willing to share our what we have learned in the process

Kaylan:

Thank you so much for taking some time. Thanks

Jawad:

for having us here