Building a personal pharmacy
Last week, I stumbled on Peter Thiel's 'One Person, One Problem' framework, and it really put into perspective what the week was about.
According to Keith Rabois...
"Peter Thiel used to insist at PayPal that every single person could only do exactly one thing. A+ problems are high-impact problems for your company but they're difficult — you don't wake up in the morning with a solution to them, so you tend to procrastinate...If you have a company that's always solving B+ problems, you'll grow and add value, but you'll never create the breakthrough idea because no one is spending 100% of their time banging their head against the wall every day until they solve it."
Some background
My earliest memory of a pharmacy is one where all the pharmacists were staring at me with faces that couldn't believe a boy — who was still in primary school — was asking about menstrual pads.
At the time, I didn't know why this was the reaction, but it happened so often that I began feeling it was weird or a societal taboo for a man to speak about pads. I couldn't refuse running this errand for my mum, especially since I have no biological sister who'd have "naturally" been tasked with it.
As I got older, that experience taught me two things:
- Pharmacies can be a toxic place to visit
- Societal expectations are largely bullshit
The more visits I made to the pharmacy, the clearer these became as I had to get medications for both my parents and for my ulcer on regular basis. Now, when people talk about being shy to buy sexual products, I can relate with their feelings because the boy I used to be felt the same many years ago.
I also had to visit numerous pharmacies to get medications in the hot sun. I'd first check with the "chemist" within the neighbourhood, then walk to Idera pharmacy in Panseke — right on the road to Adigbe. If Idera didn't have the medication, I'd walk from there to Precious pharmacy in Omida. Sometimes, I'd take a bike to Adigbe because there was a pharmacy — some distance away from the Police Station — that had the medications you need six times out of ten.
Even at that young age, it was clear that the experience was too stressful, too costly and time-wasting. I remember a time my dad needed a medication urgently and I ended up taking bikes to 3-5 pharmacies before getting it. That's not something that should remain the same.
The present
So far, we've managed to deliver 100,000+ medications to people who didn't have to experience all of the above. They ordered from their comfort zones, provided where to deliver, and received their medications. All because of Famasi Africa.
In truth, what's happened is we're shielding customers from experiencing the chaos that we've all gone through at different stages in our lives. There are days where we relive the rudeness and toxic experiences, but our job is to ensure you don't.
Beyond not experiencing the rudeness, it's also now easier to find the medications you need. I can easily search across 500+ pharmacies in less than 3 minutes, place an order and Famasi will deliver it within 2 hours. Most importantly, the whole experience of this as never at any point reminded me of the stares from those pharmacists.
But there's a lot of work to be done. For example, how do I know if a medication I'm using will interact negatively with another medication I want to order? And how do I know this before even making payment, so I don't have my hopes and experience shattered?
Technology has helped us to bridge the existing gaps to some extent, but healthcare isn't just about the technology; it's also about the experience. How do we then ensure that the technology is efficient and feels personal and humane to use?
The future
Healthcare is needs-driven. If you have malaria, you don't need an ad to tell you to get anti-malaria. I spent most of my February at the hospital being a caregiver and you can see how active I was.
Walking to labs, payment points, and the ward weren't negotiable. That's how needs-drive healthcare is. This is why often, crafting an excellent customer experience gets lost in-between seeking efficiency and making more money.
But we're humans regardless of our health conditions and regardless of how desperate we may be for specialist attention. You find that no two people have the same experience with the condition(s) they're managing. My ulcer is different from my dad's, and his is different from anyone you know who has ulcer.
If we're aware of this, it means that the interactions with these conditions must be personalised in such a way that it feels almost natural to get medications. Just like you get your food, buy jewelries, or attires.
Crafting this experience isn't straightforward because we've gotten used to this needs-driven nature. It's made us too relaxed in a way that technology-first companies can't relate with. Ours is service-led, which makes the human experience more important.
The goal for us at Famasi Africa remains using the software we have at our disposal to simplify medications and personalise care for everyone, starting with ourselves. My job — as well as everyone at Famasi — is to bring this personal pharmacy to life, so that tomorrow's boys will not feel weird about getting something as basic as menstrual pads.
It's important to stress that we don't have the answers, yet. In fact, the answer today in many cases becomes a question tomorrow because we're dealing with the human nature. However, what remains constant is chasing the ideal.
We know what it may be and we hope you'll be here with us to uncover it regardless of how long it may take.