Insight
Kharraz: Long doctor wait times stem from hidden supply, not shortages
“Most people thought it's normal that people have to wait 24 days to see a doctor because there's a doctor shortage. And our insight was really that, no, you know, doctors have last minute availability because of these last minute cancellations, no shows, resch…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kharraz: Zocdoc analysis showed payback on many doctors took years, if ever
“And, you know, at some point during this time, you know, Nick Actually ran an analysis that showed that it would take us several years, if ever, for us to make our money back on, on many of the doctors we signed up.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kharraz: Zocdoc facilitates one in five new patient-doctor relationships in NYC
“Yeah, you look, in New York, We facilitate roughly one in five new patient-doctor relationships in the entire city on ZocDoc.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kharraz: Zocdoc reached near-zero churn and profitable growth after pricing shift
“Yeah, we, within a year, we had we finally had some incredible momentum. You know, it was really going better than we had expected in our wildest dreams. You know, our existing client churn went down to essentially zero. I mean, people still retire and move jo…”
Insight
Kharraz: The best companies are built around contrarian insights
“And also I wanted it to be based on a contrarian insight because I thought that all of the best companies have that at its core.”
Insight
Kharraz: Doctors and McKinsey consultants dismissed Zocdoc, but consumers liked it
“Oh, everyone. Everyone told us we're crazy, and we got a lot of negative feedback on the idea, too, right? People would say, this is, this just won't work, you know, I would never pick my doctor on the internet, or I already have a doctor or, you know, doctors…”
Insight
Kharraz: Selling to doctors is one of the hardest sales challenges
“Selling to doctors is one of the hardest things to do.”
Assertion Supported
Kharraz: Guy Kawasaki publicly panned Zocdoc at TechCrunch 2007 debut
“Guy Kawasaki, who we knew and valued, As an evangelist for Apple, he came out and just said he didn't get it, he would never use this in front of everyone, right? And his direct quote was something like, honestly, it would just never occur to me to go to any s…”
Insight
Kharraz: Very few scaled companies survive a business model pivot
“Very few companies really change their underlying business model once they have a certain scale and then live to tell about it, right? We know the names of the companies that have done this, like Netflix went from DVDs to streaming, Adobe you know, from box so…”
Disclosure
Kharraz: Zocdoc validated early wireframes in Starbucks for $5 gift cards
“You know, we, what we started doing is actually mocking up the site and how we imagined it back then in PowerPoint and just the image of a website. Yeah, wireframe. Exactly. We would, And then we'd go to Starbucks and we'll chat up strangers and say, hey, here…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kharraz: Zocdoc had to install internet in doctors' offices
“In the early days, when we went out there, we were the ones installing internet in the doctor's offices. You know, we, they were many times just migrating from paper books to scheduling systems. We were sort of at the cusp of digitization for healthcare.”
Disclosure
Kharraz: Zocdoc launched with dentists to maximize patient repeat visits
“So we began with dentists because our thinking was that people go to dentists most often, and we wanted to make sure that we have an offering that is relevant for patients as often in their lives as possible.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kharraz: Zocdoc got only five bookings in its first month after launch
“It actually took three days before we got our first legitimate patient, and in this entire first month, we only got five bookings.”
Insight
Kharraz: Healthcare marketplaces require matching zip code, specialty, and insurance
“When you think about it, healthcare is hyperlocal and very complicated, so you have to match supply and demand on a zip code specialty level, and then we have thousands of insurances to take into account, and so we realized that our odds of actually finding a …”
Assertion Supported
Kharraz: Early medical office software was not built for calendar synchronization
“It was incredibly complicated to sync the doctor's calendars with ours, because none of the software was actually made to sync”
Assertion Partly supported
Kharraz: Zocdoc raised $5M in August 2008 from Khosla, Bezos, and Benioff
“And so in August of 2008, we ended up raising five million from Coastal Ventures, Bezos Expeditions, Marc Benioff.”
Disclosure
Kharraz: Zocdoc charged doctors a flat $3,000 annual fee
“Yes, we charge doctors 3000 dollars a year, and that was a flat fee, no matter how many bookings ZocDoc actually facilitated for them”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kharraz: Zocdoc in-person bookings plunged 50% to 90% in March 2020
“So when the lockdown started happening, we saw in-person bookings declining. Anywhere between 50 to 90% by the end of March.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kharraz: Zocdoc finished two years of product roadmap in two months
“I think what has been really fantastic to see is how we really finished two years of roadmap in two months.”
Disclosure
Kharraz: Domain owners wanted millions for doctors.com and physicians.com
“For a while we wanted to have a descriptive name, so we looked at physicians.com and doctors.com, and we actually tracked down the owners of one of these domains, and they wanted several million dollars for the domain name, and we were funding the company ours…”
Disclosure
Kharraz: Zocdoc gave patients Amazon gift cards for failed early appointments
“I was our customer service I personally would call the doctor and confirm the appointment was all set, and if it wasn't, I'd Personally contact the patient to let them know and then I would offer them an Amazon gift card alongside with an apology.”
Assertion Partly supported
Kharraz: Zocdoc originally charged doctors $50 per month after a free tier
“Initially, we offered it for free, but we eventually started charging 50 dollars per month.”
