BusinessDay 09 Feb 2018

14 BUSINESS DAY C002D5556 Friday 09 February 2018
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‘It took 16 months to make our first sale in Nigeria’
The stifling business environment in Nigeria has given rise to indices suggesting most new businesses die off in less than 5 years. UVIE UGONO, CEO, Solynta
Energy, and co-founder of Smaart Health, a new digital artificial intelligence app for healthcare, was nearly frustrated by the operating environment after
returning from the UK to set up his business, without making sales for 16 months. Ugono was for 10 years an investment banker, and former CFO for HSBC’s
Project and Export finance unit, which he says was at the time, a $250 million a year business. He tells CALEB OJEWALE in this interview, that his return to
Nigeria however exposed him to a contrasting business environment; promising but extremely challenging. Excerpts:
We presently
have quite
a number of
companies
operating in
the solar power space, so
what is your own model and
what differentiates it?
The solar space is vast. We
focus very specifically on the
urban residential and SME
market space, and what that
means is people living in towns
and cities. These are people
who typically already have
some grid electricity but find
it unreliable and rely on generators
very heavily; these are
our customers. What we do is
generator displacement with
solar at a significantly lower
price point.
There are over 60 million
generators in Nigeria, and
our target market is about 45
million; 30 million used in
households and 15 million for
businesses.
How long have you been
in this business and what
prompted you to start it?
We started quite slowly after
I came into Nigeria on April
20, 2013 but I did not make my
first sale for 16 months. It was a
challenge and it stemmed from
the fact that at the time (which
seems like ages now), most
Nigerians had doubts about reliability
of solar energy. There
were lots of negative stories on
it for instance, the street lights
in Lagos that packed up after
few weeks of installation. This
had set in the mind of people
and it took a while to convince
them otherwise. We started by
trying to sensitise and convince
people, and once we did the
first installation we did about
15 in quick succession on the
basis of people first trying out
the system. We became profitable
after our first full year of
trading and have remained so
ever since.
We’ve grown very quickly
to become a leading solar
company in our space by far.
Uvie Ugono
This is because there is massive
demand for power since
people spend a lot of money on
generators.
We operate the lease to own
package where 35 percent of
the system cost is paid upfront
and we finance the remaining
65 percent for customers over
two years. This has allowed a
lot of people to be able to go
solar. The cost of acquiring solar
systems is quite high and since
the financial institutions do not
provide adequate facilitates for
financing acquisitions like this,
we have had to step into that
space.
We realised that for us to be
successful in our objective, we
had to go beyond providing
solar systems but also offering
the financing framework for its
acquisition.
We’ve been growing steadily,
and this year, we just launched
our pay as you go plan. It is a five
year plan and lowers the entry
point even more. During this
period, full maintenance is our
responsibility, including changing
of batteries (if required).
With all the challenges of
getting the solar business
profitable, you’re starting
a new business in untested
waters, so, what is Smaart
Health all about?
The whole plan and strategy
behind the business is to disrupt
the health care system in
Nigeria because it doesn’t work
very well. So we are creating
a virtual primary healthcare
system. We believe that 90 percent
of all the hospital visits in
Nigeria at the moment would
no longer be required, because
the same level of help, advice
and treatment that you need in
90 percent of the time, can be
delivered virtually.
So we use a combination of
artificial intelligence to give
accurate diagnosis, and then
transferred to a doctor for consultation,
after seeing the diagnostic
report. This can be done
via voice or video calling. It is
a way of making healthcare
accessible to all people in the
country.
The doctors on Smaart
Health platform, how many
are they and how do you
engage/interface with them?
So, we call it on boarding. We
are building it like this; think of
Uber for Doctors. That’s basically
what this is, but with a
twist. Doctors are able to build
their own virtual clinics via our
app. So, a patient downloads
the app, the very first thing they
do is carry out a diagnosis powered
by AI, so they can do that
on their own. Symptoms are
imputed and it narrows down
to possible conditions based on
the responses given.
It takes about 90 seconds
to 2 minutes to get a detailed
diagnosis. At that point, it now
prompts if you would like to
speak with a doctor to discuss
this further. The customer
says yes and then a doctor is
engaged. It asks if you have a
unique reference number for
a doctor, if you don’t you just
ignore it and say find me a doctor.
The first doctor that meets
your requirement to respond
takes the job.
The doctor then calls, provide
consultation (after seeing your
diagnostic report), ask some
questions, and tell you what
to do next. If the doctor feels
you need to go to a hospital for
some tests, or further checkups
or wants to give you a prescription,
he/she can do that and
you’re basically sorted. But,
what we’ve found is that 80-90
percent of all hospital visits are
actually unnecessary, people go
to hospital for exactly what we
are doing via this App.
Now, the beauty of the system
is it really is a platform for
doctors to earn significantly
more money than they currently
earn. Nigeria has a major problem
of doctors and brain drain.
Because they are so poorly paid
and working conditions are
poor, most doctors if they can,
will rather go and work abroad
where those same skill sets are
in much higher demand and
they get much more money. So
we felt that the way to save the
healthcare system is to find a
way of working with the doctors
to make them more money. So,
what we are doing is basically
directing huge amounts of traffic
to doctors. Once a doctor has
a consultation with you, their
performance can be rated on
the app, and he/she can as well
give you their unique identifier
number and ask that you please
give it to your friends. It is like
their digital business card. So,
the next time you need to see
a doctor again, doctor-patient
relationship has commenced
so now you put in the doctor’s
reference number and only that
doctor gets that alert, and calls
you. What that allows is for doctors
to build up their own virtual
healthcare centre. The doctor
doesn’t have to find a clinic
somewhere and set up.
It is like having an Amazon
shop or on eBay. They can actually
have a virtual practice
sitting on that platform, and
each time you have a consultation
and the guy pays, the doctor
is in turn paid and can earn
about a million naira a month
just from doing this. And this
can be done along with their
regular job; no need giving it
up, as this is just a way of earning
additional income which is
about five times what they currently
earn.
This interview continues online at:
www.businessdayonline.com