Scaling Europe
00:07:43 · Lukas Saari
[00:07:43] S1: So all of the things that I described now, we have live at various stages. So, I mean, a year ago, we were more in the scribe space, expanded to this, like, AI medical assistant, and now doing more of also the patient facing and patient flow aspects that we're bringing across. And then how I'm thinking about it with this, like, grander AI native operating system is really breaking down and thinking more first principle. Like, what are the 20 categories of tasks that you need to do at a clinic? And I listed a bunch of those in the use cases that I just described, but there's also many others. And then saying, how can we go to a clinic and say, what we now want to do is to help you sort of automatically handle all of these 20 different types of tasks. And we can either support this at a level zero, which is we don't do it at all. A level one, that is that we provide a draft to the clinician and they act on it manually. Level two, we provide a draft to the clinician and they come press yes, and then it's automatically handled. Or level three, you can just do it without the clinician being in the loop. And now wanting to see, okay, how can we go to clinics and then say, what we want to do with you over the coming few months is that we want to bring all of these types of tasks that you're doing up to, like, level two, level three, and then using that as a type of framework for how do you bring a clinic into the AI era and sort of make them more and more agentic and automatic.
00:09:03 · Sebastian Johnson, Lukas Saari
[00:09:03] S0: Are you... When you're working with these clinicians for the first time, is Tandem Health their first experience using tools like this? Or have they... Are they working with other people beforehand? Are they looking at lots of providers? What's it like trying to get them on board? [00:09:18] S1: So we're commonly the first AI solution that they have come in contact with and are procuring. But then it depends a lot also per market, and I think this is also one of the very interesting parts of Europe that some markets such as The UK are more mature and also much more competitive. So everyone knows that this is a thing, and it's more of a, like, competitive process and seeing, should they select our solution or another solution rather than should we select a solution? And then when we go to some other countries, it's much earlier in the maturity. So then it's more about, like, creating the awareness, convincing this is a positive ROI in business case and so on. But then there's also less competition as a virtue of that. [00:09:56] S0: Are you doing a lot of the sales yourself still? [00:09:59] S1: I mean, try to be involved in some of the most important sales processes that we have, also quite a lot of different partnerships and so on. And so seeing how I still want to be close to the business in it, but then still seeing, like, where can I be active, where I get the most leverage on my time? [00:10:17] S0: And how else is your job changing? You've been through this transformational journey. How how many employees do you have now?
00:10:17 · Sebastian Johnson, Lukas Saari
[00:10:17] S0: And how else is your job changing? You've been through this transformational journey. How how many employees do you have now? [00:10:23] S1: So we're now about 230 or so. [00:10:25] S0: And the company's, what, three years old? [00:10:28] S1: Yeah. We turned three years now just recently. So, I mean, three years ago, we were three cofounders sitting in my apartment and living room, and then two years ago, 10 people. One year ago, 60 people, and now 230 people and being in 14 different countries across Europe. And I think, like, for me as a person, my core drive is very much feeling that I get to learn, that I get to develop, do novel things. For this journey, I'm getting that on, like, steroids. And every few months, we jump to, like, a new phase of the company that then brings, like, novel types of challenges and novel types of learnings, and I just get so much energy and excitement from this. [00:11:05] S0: And what are you focusing on now that maybe you weren't focusing on two years ago? Is it more about hiring and fundraising where it used to be more about sales and product? Like, how how has your world changed?
00:11:05 · Sebastian Johnson, Lukas Saari
[00:11:05] S0: And what are you focusing on now that maybe you weren't focusing on two years ago? Is it more about hiring and fundraising where it used to be more about sales and product? Like, how how has your world changed? [00:11:15] S1: Yeah. So here, also, I have I have two cofounders, Oliver, that's CTO, so he leads the product and tech, and then Oscar, that's chief commercial officer, so he leads the sort of go to market side. And then I lead the central functions, but I'm also involved in, like, the highest prior initiatives across as a bit of a bridge there. And I think for me now, I really strive to see what are the most important initiatives that we are driving as a company right now, and how can I, like, involve myself and apply the, like, founder pressure and founder mentality to drive those as quickly as possible and make those a success? And how can I use sort of the? Just history and experience that I have now with the company within this field to be able to know, okay, like, how do we navigate this? How do we unblock it as quickly as possible? And then try to do this, like, across the most important commercial deals, but also in, the most important product releases and so on. [00:12:08] S0: And where where are your team based at the moment? Do you have local teams in each of the markets that you're operating in now?
00:12:08 · Sebastian Johnson, Lukas Saari
[00:12:08] S0: And where where are your team based at the moment? Do you have local teams in each of the markets that you're operating in now? [00:12:14] S1: Yeah. So we have our headquarters in Stockholm, and we centralize basically everything we can to Stockholm, but then we localize go to markets because we realize that health care is a local game, and we can't really sell to a German hospital out of Sweden without speaking German. Like, you need to be there in person and visit the clinicians and onboard them and so on. So we've expanded and now have... Yeah. Like, in London where you're sitting, we're roughly 30 people. In The Netherlands, we're 25. In Germany and France, we're 15 each. We have in, like, Italy and Spain and all of the other Nordic countries, in the Baltics, in Portugal, and so on. So now we're starting to have this foundation in place across really the key geos across Europe, and now it's about how do we scale this as quickly as possible. [00:12:56] S0: And, you know, you're betting very big on Europe. Europe is where you wanna focus. It's also interesting. One of the most European cap tables I think I've seen. Was that intentional? Were you like... You know, I'd understand that... Yeah. Tell me a bit about the focus on Europe.
00:13:11 · Lukas Saari
[00:13:11] S1: Yeah. I mean, we've been very intentional about focusing on Europe and also structuring our cap table along those lines as a result of it. And for me, firstly, I just believe that European clinicians also deserve access to the best tools and tools that are built here and not built in The US and then retrofitted for European setting, but don't really work as well. And then also, if we're looking at our space, I very much believe that Europe is more lucrative than The US. And it's firstly due to the competition in The US. Like, US is more mature. It's more of a red ocean and so on. So it's very different environment there. But secondly, when you're looking at the fragmentation. And here, we choose to view the complexities and the fragmentation of Europe as a strength and a moat rather than something that we try to shy away from. And the fact that it's so fragmented, I mean, means when you get started, that it's more difficult because there's so many different systems to integrate with and so on. But it also means that in The US, you have two systems, Epic and Cerner on the medical record system side that dominate and have 70% of the markets. So you become incredibly dependent on this, and they have thousands of engineers. They have their own AI agendas, and they have a lot of power for potentially locking you out. Europe, even the top 15 medical record system vendors comprise of less than 70% of the market. And these vendors are typically these like Frankenstein's monsters after acquisition journeys over the years that have dozens of systems beneath them. So that means that in Europe, the system landscape is so small, essentially, that they are, like, subscale for developing these types of functionalities in house, and then are rather wanting to partner with someone like us for how they can bring this to their customers quicker. So this also means that we have a much better environment on just incumbent, the system landscape side for the mid to long term.