How Clinicians Became Champions- The Nabla AI Startup Success Story

Serial entrepreneur Alexander Lebrun, CEO of NABLA, is disrupting healthcare with an AI co-pilot for doctors - and he's never worked a day in medicine. This is the story of how a fascination with chatbots led to a mission to free clinicians from administrative nightmares.

Doctors are drowning in paperwork, spending half their time on low-value tasks instead of patient care. NABLA's AI co-pilot aims to change that, freeing physicians to focus on what matters most. 

In this episode, we dive into:

• How NABLA went from idea to 46 employees in just three years
• Why running their own clinic was a "very expensive decision" that paid off
• The bottom-up approach that's making doctors champions of their product

We'll explore key questions like:

• Can an outsider really solve healthcare's biggest challenges?
• How is NABLA navigating the ethical minefield of AI in medicine?
• What lessons from Facebook are shaping their growth strategy?

What we discussed 

(00:00) The focus dilemma

(00:32) Meet Alexander Lebrun (CEO of NABLA)

(02:54) Did he fall in love with a chatbot?

(04:10) Solving doctors’ nightmares  

(07:04) Big mistake? 

(11:12) Starting from the tech (big mistake) 

(14:26) Don’t be Sun Microsystems.

(18:14) The 2 minute test (bottom-up approach)  

(22:01) The golden question that he asks (weekly)

(24:00) Medical transcribers

(25:42) No 2 doctors do this the same 

(28:13) Private data sets 

(29:32) How AI works (and what’s wrong with it) 

(34:27) Should we trust AI in healthcare?

(35:01) Racing to stay relevant

(38:34) Don’t judge AI

3 Key Lessons For Digital Health Entrepreneurs From Nabla’s Journey:

• Start with distribution idea, then find problem & tech. That's the ultimate way to build.

While conventional wisdom often suggests starting with a problem, Alex argues that distribution should be the starting point. This approach ensures that you're not just creating a solution, but that you have a clear path to get it to your customers. 

• Ask weekly: Are we doing things we shouldn't? Entropy problem = loss of focus.

It's easy to get caught up in the whirlwind of opportunities and lose sight of your core mission. Alex's weekly self-check is a powerful tool for maintaining focus and avoiding the "entropy problem" that plagues many growing companies. By regularly questioning their activities and ruthlessly cutting unnecessary projects, NABLA stays agile and focused on what truly matters. 

Sometimes, the key to success is not what you do, but what you choose not to do.

• When no one trusts you, get your hands dirty. 

When Alex started, he didn’t know anything about healthcare and had no connections in the healthcare space. When he approached doctors, they didn’t trust him. So, he had to do something extraordinary: NABLA didn't just build tech ; they ran their own clinic to understand healthcare from the inside out. It was expensive. It was risky. It wasn’t the easiest way. But, at the end of the day, it paid off big time. They just secured a $24M series B round. 

Links 

Try Nabla

Connect with Alex LeBrun: LinkedIn

Connect with Ranjani (Varadarajan) Rangan: LinkedIn

Innovating in digital health? Here's an opportunity:

Charm Health is organizing an innovation challenge from August 23-25 in Washington DC. The event provides a platform to present your ideas and network with healthcare providers and companies.

For more information or to participate, CharmHealth Challenge.

Location: Grand Hyatt, Washington DC

Entries close: August 1st