Founder HealthQ | Physio. Meghana Dave

What is your name and current job title?

Physio. Meghana Dave 

Founder of HealthQ

What is your educational background?

Bachelors of physiotherapy (BPTh) – Ravi Nair Physiotherapy College – Graduation year 2009

Masters of physiotherapy in Neurosciences (MPTh) –  Ravi Nair Physiotherapy College – Graduation year 2011

What did you do soon after graduation and for how long?

I moved to Bangalore after getting married. This is where my real journey began. I always wanted to do something related to physiotherapy, something that has not been done yet. I wanted to take our profession to the next level. But, I was not sure what to do next. 

Initially, I had to choose between two opportunities, one, working at the renowned hospital in Bangalore, and the second was to work in the small clinic that was just getting started. 

I chose the second option since wanted to learn how to build something from scratch. I decided to get my hands dirty and do the actual work instead of getting an MBA degree.

I worked there for one and a half years. For the first three months, we had zero patients. In the initial days, my colleague and I used to go visit doctors around in the area. We used to introduce ourselves and our center. 

Since we did not have many patients initially, I used my time to get exposure to Facebook, blogging websites. I realized marketing is something that we, physiotherapists are not trained to do in college. 

I used to imagine putting myself in the situation where I am starting my own clinic and I need to get the word out. I did not have any idea about how to market myself. I started reading about social media marketing.

I experimented with everything, before HealthQ, I had 4 or 5 Facebook pages that I just tried out. I also started writing a blog. I wanted to see what works. 

What did you do after that? 

I took a maternity break for about a year. I came back and started fresh. I collaborated with smile ever dental clinic and healthzone and started as a consultant. I am still associated with this clinic.

The clinic was in a newly developing area of the city. It was probably one of the first polyclinics in the area. Here everything was in my control. I knew if I wanted to increase the client base, I needed to put in the effort. 

Along with being a consultant, I helped the clinic in its marketing activities. I kept reading about social media and kept trying out new things.

When and Why did you decide to start your youtube channel, HealthQ?

In 2014-2016, I was still figuring out what I wanted to do. At that time apps were a new thing. I thought of an idea for the app. 

Marketing is a struggle for many healthcare professionals. I was thinking about creating a platform for doctors and healthcare professionals to connect.

My husband and I made a prototype video. In that video, we spoke about the features we can add to this platform. We reached out to about 100+ doctors. They shared their problems with us. 

I also reached out to an organization here, startupsclub. They assigned a mentor dedicated to me. She told me there are two ways to work on this idea. The first one was to build the app and then go and market it. 

She mentioned that the features I was looking to add to this app were also available on social media websites. This was the second way. I preferred this because it was feasible for me financially. Also, I do not have a technical background so I was unable to code the app. 

I made the Facebook group first and uploaded videos. That worked well so In 2017 I started my youtube channel. 

Tell us about your journey with HealthQ?

The initial idea with the channel was to bring in brands. And to provide the opportunity to these brands to promote themselves. My follower base mainly consists of patients.

I also created a WhatsApp group of 100+ doctors I had met earlier. I started writing about my experience creating youtube videos, how to market etc. on that group. I landed a few clients through that group. They wanted to promote themselves using my platform.

One of my clients is smileever dental clinic and healthzone. I look after their Facebook marketing page. I create content for them. Help them with content strategy. One of my other clients is ultracare pro. I create videos for them. 

Meanwhile, I also created a video on Bell’s palsy. This was requested by one of my relatives. To my surprise, that video did really well on youtube. It is the most-watched video on my youtube channel. 

I got many comments wanting to know more about Bell’s palsy. I realized this is one segment where no one has ventured into. I started addressing that on a consistent basis through my videos. 

This led to another business model for HealthQ.

I then started offering online rehabilitation services to my patients. We started with Bell’s palsy program a year ago. 

What are you doing currently with your brand, HealthQ?

We have 2 service verticals under our umbrella: 1. HealthQ rehab 2. HealthQ media.

HealthQ rehab: This is a condition-specific rehabilitation service with the core focus on making rehabilitation: Effective, Efficient, Affordable, and Accessible.

Our rehabilitation programs are a mix of offline, online, and video-based programs that help people with various neuromuscular disorders.

We are currently offering: 

1. Bell’s palsy rehab program.

2. Backcare Program

3. Pregnancy care Program

4. CP care program

Health Q media:

Health Q media is a content platform across social media. Our content aims at informing and educating the audience about different health conditions. And talking about possibilities and solutions. We collaborate with healthcare-based product and service brands to help them to engage with our audience.

We help healthcare brands in the following ways:

1. Content strategy

2. Content creation

3. Content integration.

What is a typical day for you?

I start my day at 11. I have some flexibility in the time since I am doing video consultations. If I am not doing video consultation, I am either writing scripts or working on my video. One day in a week is for scriptwriting, two days are for filming, and four days are for editing. 

I have a team of 4 members who work with me part-time. We are work on various things such as editing the videos, social media content, looking at the numbers and deciding the strategy, etc. The day ends late by 12:30 to 1 am. 

What do you enjoy about your work?

The excitement of discovering something new. I believe in constantly evolving. I am optimistic about HealthQ. It is something, I think, that is going to make an impact and improve the efficiency of rehabilitation.

What are the challenges you face?

There are many challenges I face, but all are fun challenges. The first is not knowing the process. I do not come from an entrepreneur background. So I am learning in a process.

The second challenge is time. I need to balance between looking after a family and looking after business. 

The third is financial, sometimes when you need to grow and if the revenue is not coming in as expected, you have to wait for some time. 

What do you think can be improved?

I believe physiotherapy students are still in the “ job mindset”. The commonest question I get is what is the general salary for a physiotherapist? I believe if you are good at something, opportunities can be created. 

Physiotherapists should spend more time thinking about what can be done apart from clinical work. You can get creative by combining physiotherapy knowledge with your skills and talent. 

For example, If you are a physiotherapist and love drawing/ painting, you can take up a graphic designing course. You can make pictures and images of correct postures and exercises using the knowledge only a physiotherapist would have and sell it to the companies. 

What courses/books helped you in shaping your career?

Books for business:

Strategic planning for dummies

Product management for dummies

Business model generation

Other Books:

Think and grow rich 

7 habits of highly effective people

She means Business

Life’s a pitch

I take a lot of courses on Skillshare. 

Also, there are so many things are available on Youtube. Youtube is my biggest teacher.

What is next for you?

I want to focus more on HealthQ rehab. I think because of the pandemic, there are more opportunities for this business model. Online consultation is now trending. I want to incorporate condition-specific rehabilitation programs.

I am trying to create an end-to-end solution for rehabilitation. Currently, if you see a patient at your clinic for back pain, the patient will come to you till he has back pain. After that, patients are not likely to continue the exercise program until their back pain worsens again. 

Many times, patients come back again to us with the same complaint. Most of the conditions we treat require a long-term maintenance program, including back pain, neck pain. But the patients can not come to you for a long term. 

If rehabilitation is Effective, Efficient, Affordable, and Accessible patients are likely to continue with a management program in the long run. This is where I am heading towards with HealthQ rehab . 

What is your advice for someone who wants to follow in your footsteps?

Experiment! It is okay if you fail or it may take a long time. But in the end, you will create something for yourself.

You can look at your biggest problem in life and come up with 5 solutions to address that issue. You may end up creating a beautiful opportunity for yourself.

Are you Hiring physiotherapists?

I am looking for physiotherapists to collaborate with me. Currently, I am offering part-time work.

I am currently working with a women’s health physiotherapist. The way this works is, she gets to design the women’s health program. She gets paid for designing that program. I host that entire program through my youtube channel. Depending on the customer base we generate through that program, there will be a revenue share. 

The benefit of this type of work is that physiotherapists can work from home. Another benefit is that you have the authority to decide how you want to design this program, I just provide the framework. And finally, you get the opportunity to make more money. 

Where can people reach you?

They can DM me on my Instagram or my HealthQ Instagram page. 

Or They can email me at meghana@medohealthconnect.com

Or They can reach out to me on LinkedIn.