Blog Post: 2020 Year in Review

A personal goal of mine was to begin writing regularly. Specifically, I took a class beginning of last year 2020 because the professors required that we must read specific articles before class and then submit our thoughts for discussion prior to the beginning of that class. The general formula here for building a practical writing habit is: Interesting articles + Reflections = Write.

I’ve started working on a next generation telehealth concept to change healthcare for the better. If you’d like to be notified of our next posts, please subscribe to our newsletter.

That was then, this is now.

This year, I need to write three things to do (or take action in) for the next day to improve my executive function. (it’s a term I’m stealing from the neurodiverse community because if you imagine yourself to be an executive, decision maker, you need to take action and drive results).

It is the time of the year, to reflect what changes and inflection points of 2020 that drive the purpose of this blog, namely, to share thoughts, observations and learnings on various topics.

To summarize the various topics I write about: business design, marketing, technologies, venture capital, startups, healthcare tech and other reflections pertaining to my MBA experience. Here’s to another year of finding time to ponder and reflect upon the start to my own solo entrepreneur journey, and discover new ways to enjoy the absurdity of living in the modern age driven by virtual interfaces and capitalistic desires instead of wallowing in self-righteous cynicism.

2020 New Beginnings

• I started writing on Medium, after discovering another favorite author of mine died several years ago because of cancer.
• I graduated from my MBA from Rotman, and was really compelled to stress-test entrepreneurial and business concepts for their validity in application, and other practical suggestions from experienced leaders. (In particular, the concept of “bias towards action”).
• Discovery of an affinity towards social impact investing after doing much research on specific topics because of a Social Impact Investing Case Competition. In particular, I find the problems important for our time: climate change, global warming, overfishing, global shortage of healthcare workers.
• I got rather inspired by entrepreneurs who are figuring their way towards disrupting traditional and archaic systems while solving genuinely difficult and important problems in society, thanks to the Creative Destruction Lab course.
• Healthcare innovation is necessary to make people healthier in an affordable and accessible way through preventive care and care management. I acknowledged the many chronic health conditions throughout my life, the lengthy time it can take to schedule an appointment with a specialist, and decided that tech can and should really enable a better health experience for others — and myself. Is it possible to have chronic flu?
• I decided to take on entrepreneurship myself with a focus on product development, market research and testing value creation concepts. Hefty challenge. I’m learning that the process of creation and design is different from my regular presentation-focused and data excavation mindset. If there is no data to begin with — what do I create? What do I take on and what would I outsource?
• There’s a lot of discussion regarding the future of work. Specifically, how technology is changing the way we live. Even much of the courses in the MBA program requires us to imagine a future state of things that technology-centred.
• Much of MBA concepts is about realizing how much of it is history and other parts that are actually applicable. (Case studies are historic snapshots of business situations) Is there a problem in current education? For a product manager, having the same language that you can communicate with developers is important to understand what is realistic to implement, and what isn’t. Does your education provide this? Are we setting the right expectations?
• The Virtual Professional Life. I attended a few online conferences, particularly the AllRaise Bootcamp, and audited online classes on Electronic Medical Records in Healthcare. After reading on these Healthcare IT frameworks (FHIR), it raises the question whether we’re using it to solve the right problems.

Please find a selection of my articles from the previous year.

A Continuation of Startup Philosophies.

> It’s a closer examination of how to create a product specifically. It’s been posted on The Startup publication.

reflecting on problems in healthcare systems

> Inital thoughts on obvious problems in the American healthcare system. Part of my approach to entrepreneurship and product creation is to identify the right (and hopefully, also interesting) problems to solve.

Three Design Methods: A Comparison

> If you have no conceptual idea of how to create a new product, this is a good starting point to examine what methods teams have used. While there is no guarantee that your product is going to succeed, it provides an iterative process to guide you through product creation. These methods are particularly targeted to design teams in corporations, not individual entrepreneurs.

Thoughts on Marketing in early stage StartUps.

> Starting thoughts on the limitation in marketing resources for startups. Product market fit is priority and it is quite understandable that a founder should prioritize appropriately according to a sound strategy.

On Over-Hyped Startup Investments

> An interesting observation into the mindset of venture capitalists. Could investments be overhyped because there is a trend that products are over-marketed (therefore, over-hyped)? Could there a disconnect between these investors’ expectations of growth trajectory and the founder’s preferred strategy?

The difference between marketing and go-to-market strategies.

> The necessity of distinguishing what we’re talking about when we use terms such as marketing and go-to-market strateges. The necessity of understanding the differences among available choices to make the correct decisions for your startup will be an ongoing thing.

On developing empathy for the customer

> Possibly the most important ingredient to have at the beginning stages of developing a product (and of course, the ongoing stages of customer development, popularized by the role: customer success manager). The presumption here is that if you cannot understand the problems on both a cognitive and affective level, you cannot visualize what success looks like for them. (What does success even mean to your customer? Do they know?)

On examining philosophical origins for entrepreneurship

> I like philosophy a lot and it is my belief that the beginnings of entrepreneurship can be traced back to its cultural attitudes and philosophical beliefs about what it means to live.

writers and ghosts.

> This is an inspiration from a korean drama that compelled me to research further into mental health (and neurodiverse) conditions and the related problems in the healthcare system.

Consultation: Root Cause Identification

> The most important objective for any consulting assignment when you begin solving for a problem. Is life a legitimate root cause for healthcare problems? Keep in mind that the consultant’s primary objective generally is to cut costs, and that could be a different objective than the regular entrepreneur whose priority is in value creation through an innovative offering.

startup product advantages and human connection.

> From Maslow’s Hierarchy to Nature vs Nurture debates, there are quick musings on our collective attitude towards living life in the modern age. What would Proust think if he lives in our tech-driven world today?

I’m always looking for a great contemporary philosopher to read about. Please reach out to me at jacqueline@healthilymatch.ca if you have a recommendation, or if you need a consultation for marketing strategy, market opportunity sizing, or research on a specific problem.