Ep136 – Manuri Gunawardena (Founder & CEO – HealthMatch) on setting your North Star

The Startup Playbook PodcastInsights and lessons from the world's best entrepreneurs and investors Twitter Facebook YouTube Instagram Ep136 – Manuri Gunawardena (Founder & CEO – HealthMatch) on setting your North Star December 10, 2020 rohitbhargava Podcast My guest for Ep136 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was the Founder & CEO of HealthMatch, Manuri Gunawardena. Manuri launched HealthMatch in 2017 after witnessing first hand the challenges of patients looking to gain access to clinical trials. In her final years of medical school, she worked in neuro-oncology research particularly focussed on Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) tumours, an incurable and aggressive form of brain cancer. Through her experience she saw first hand how difficult it was for researchers to find appropriate patients and how reliant patients were on their doctors to have the knowledge for cures. That’s where HealthMatch was born from – a passion to empower patients to not only understand their treatment options, but to gain access too. Since launching in 2017 the business has gone through incredible growth, particularly this year where they have grown from a team of 5 to 20 and from 8,000 users at the end of May to over 80,000 users by the end of the year. As Manuri also announced on this podcast, HealthMatch raised $18M in Series B funding led by Square Peg Capital, taking their total funding to date to $25M. We covered a range of topics in this interview including: Importance of building credibility through domain expertise, particularly for non-tech foundersThe importance of having a clear north star missionWhy and how Manuri looks for “horsepower” during the hiring processHow to get buy-in from enterprises and investors through effective storytelling& much more! Full interview below! Show notes: HealthMatchHealthMatch Pitch at Startup Battlefield Australia (2017)TechCrunch Startup Battlefield Australia (2017)Zero to one: Notes on startups, or how to build the future – Peter Thiel (book)The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a business when there are no easy answers – Ben Horowitz (book)Julia WellsMarisa WarrenMelanie Perkins Anton BorzovAndreesen HorowitzAlister ColemanTempus PartnersPaul BassatPaul Bassat Podcast (Startup Playbook Ep024)Square Peg Capital Simon Griffiths Podcast (Startup Playbook Ep120)Why we sleep: Unlocking the power of sleep and dreams – Matthew Walker (book)Kaushik Sen Kaushik Sen Podcast (Startup Playbook Ep020) Tony HoltLucy TurnbullRoche AustraliaHealthMatch careers page Special Thanks: Special thanks to Paul Bassat and Alister Coleman for their help with research for this interview! Feedback/connect/say hello: [email protected]@RohitBhargava7 (Twitter)/rohbhargava (LinkedIn)@rohit_bhargava (Instagram)My Youtube Channel Credits: Music: Joakim Karud – Dreams Other channels: Don’t have iTunes? The podcast is also available on Spotify, Soundcloud & Stitcher Audio Player. https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/startupplaybook/Ep136_-_Manuri_Gunawardena_Founder__CEO_-_HealthMatch_on_setting_your_north_star.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: RSS admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat admin January 1, 2014 Reply Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-moz-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-moz-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]::-webkit-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea::-webkit-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=text]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=url]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form input[type=email]:-ms-input-placeholder, .dslc-tp-comment-form textarea:-ms-input-placeholder { color: #4d4d4d; } Copyright © 2015 - Live Composer The post Ep136 – Manuri Gunawardena (Founder & CEO – HealthMatch) on setting your North Star appeared first on Startup Playbook.