HeadOn

Vivolution have been great through the Executive Director Designate Programme. Through a structured and systematic approach, they helped us examine and question how we could develop our business model. They completed an excellent number of stakeholder interviews, providing invaluable insights in a short timescale. They actively sent useful information, thoughts & grant opportunities throughout, and even after the completion of the programme, which has been exceptionally useful. Importantly, I found the process very helpful in reframing how I thought about HeadOn and our vision for its future.

Dr Aimon Jamjoom Founder & CEO

Challenge

A 10-week Fast-Track Executive Director Designate (EDD) Project funded by the University of Edinburgh Data Driven Entrepreneurship Programme; provides an opportunity for academics to develop or grow a company at speed, with the commercialisation support from an independent Healthtech Venture Builder and the University.

HeadOn Health is led by Dr Aimun Jamjoom, a neurosurgeon in training, who has developed a proof-of-concept web app which delivers a digital CBT solution to help patients understand, monitor and then manage their symptoms after concussion.

The PoC is being used in a clinical trial for patients with concussion who have come through the Edinburgh Royal A&E Department. Limited validation of the business idea had been conducted by the Founder and the EDD programme provided the catalyst to turn the commercialisation process around.

Objective

Edinburgh Innovations appointed Vivolution as the Executive Director Designate and Healthtech Venture Builder to: -

Stretch test the business idea and to identify a commercially viable and sustainable value proposition
Conduct in-depth interviews with several stakeholders, gaining insights from asking specific customer discovery questions, to help validate the Founders hypothesis
Organize a PoC design review and product development roadmap for the next stages of the MVP

Approach

Vivolution led several virtual meetings with the Founder to help understand the hypothesis of the problem and the solution that it was attempting to solve.

The process also helped with identifying grant funding and PE investment opportunities along with specific routes-to-market, not simply centering on the NHS.

Vivolution's structured approach of working as an integrated commercial team allowed our software development group business (Open Frequency) to offer their professional advice, to help the Founder in shaping the next steps for a potential mobile digital superapp, utilizing their knowledge and experience of building healthtech platform solutions.

A few examples of the approach which was undertaken: -

Vivolution set-up / conducted eleven 30-minute virtual interview meetings with senior stakeholders across the UK and Internationally, during the 10-week period
Vivolution helped the founder to shape the value proposition and questions to be validated
Vivolution delivered a comprehensive report with recommendations and next steps
Vivolution identified two specific grant funding calls for the Founder to apply for to help fund phase 1 of the MVP.

Results

As the Healthtech Venture Builder, working closely with Edinburgh Innovations; Vivolution helped HeadOn Health in shaping their commercialisation model and creating ways to protect their IP and to scale the business model whereby the solution can either be acquired, adopted or invested-in by: -

Shaping the management team structure inc. board and advisors
Structured a process driven business model validation exercise and global mind-set approach, seeking insights from a variety of stakeholders
Identification of grant funding and competitions for the founder to immediately apply for
Digital marketing review – identifying the key first steps to take; whilst creating the need to Think Globally and the use of social media and web site
Comprehensive competitor and partnership analysis
Scottish Enterprise research service market reports with total addressable market data
SWOT and PESTLE analysis
Complete stakeholder insight interview responses with management dashboard
Project baseline RAG scorecard
Product development roadmap for the next 3 stages of the business model and MVP
PE investor readiness insights and Vivolution funding roadmap
Several additional market intelligence insights and reports

HeadOn Health 2022 Vision following the 10-week program

The founder has determined that HeadOn should focus on big data, machine learning and an automated personalised recovery program, underpinned by a triage system to direct the most unwell patients to a therapist for additional support. Concussion is the starting pathology; however, the principles could be applied to brain injuries in general which include diseases like stroke and more severe traumatic head injuries e.g., a ‘Digital Brain Clinic’ rather than simply a ‘Digital Concussion Clinic’. This offers more evidence to investors that the business has the scope to scale and will create more IP around the business model and the unique value to the markets and patients.