We have spoken about this issue before, but many modern start-ups are “solving a problem” that does not really need to be solved, so when we see entrepreneurs that try to tackle a real-life problem we tend to take notice.
Take NurseBuddy, a company trying to make the lives of nurses, old people and their relatives – easier. They might not have the most scalable business in the world, but they are making a change and they way the are doing it is a lesson to all other startups out there.
The CEO, Simo Hännikkälä is known for spending a lot of time on the road with Nurses, when they are visiting their patients. That way the company stays close to their users and knows exactly what they want and need.
Since we covered the company last year, they have managed to get their first home care companies on board, including some that changed away from the current market leader. However Finland, as it should be, is just a test bed for them and their next target market is the UK, where they are already a signature short of closing a deal.
All of this led Reaktor POLTE to lead an investment round of 100 000 EUR into NurseBuddy. That being said, this amount includes TEKES money, which makes the actual investment less.
Oskari Kettunen, the man behind POLTE, told us that what led them to NurseBuddy is that they had an “end user centric approach. They actually went out in the field with a lot of nurses. It is very close to what we try to do with our clients and those guys are on a really good track.”
We have mentioned that this might not be the most scalable idea in the world, especially considering the B2B centric approach. However once we think about the fact in Finland alone there are over 70 000 home care patients, over 21 000 carers and about 1000 home care companies (as we were told by NurseBuddy), the numbers start to make sense.
And with an ageing population of Europe, these numbers are only going to go up. Not to mention that countries such as the UK have a lot bigger market for it and nobody said that NurseBuddy will not develop a B2C monetization down the road. Our retirement is looking up and up!
Top Image Courtesy of Shutterstock // Nursing Home
