[0:01]Do you know what's the number one cause of death in the world? Number one. I don't know. Do you realize that you and I are sitting here, we have no clue what's very likely to kill us? Humans are humans. When something scare us, our natural reaction is just to ignore it. We only really start thinking about our health when we have to go to the hospital. If you bought a car, you would not cross your mind not to go to the garage if you dive in. You'll only go to the doctor if you feel bad. Prevention versus treatment, the most important thing that you can actually do for your health is to self-monitor regularly. If you don't, there is no prevention. The most important thing that you can actually do for your health is to self-monitor regularly. We did not gamify health. We gamified self-monitoring. We put it in a way that allowed us to give it for free. We don't believe in monetizing the user. You tell me how much I can charge a Vietnamese to remind him that he's sick every month. Good morning, Vietnam. Welcome to another episode of the Vietnam Innovators podcast. Uh, thank you for tuning in every single week, supporting the pod. Uh, without you this would not be possible. Uh, we're now on episode 380 something. It depends when this episode is rolling out. Um, and it's with one of my dear friends Ofir Ejnes. He's the founder and CEO of Elfie. Elfie is a healthcare company, but I'll let him talk a little bit more about that. Uh, in in a little bit Health Tech, uh, correction. Um, uh, Ofir has done a lot of amazing things, uh, for Vietnam in Vietnam. Before that, he was also a founder of, uh, Pyramid Consulting, Piko, which some of you in the tech sector may be familiar with. Um, Ofir, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, sir. Happy to be here. Yeah, it's been a few years in the making. Yeah.
[1:50]Now you're doing Elfie. Yeah. So maybe a quick transition over to that. Give me your quick elevator pitch about what is Elfie exactly, and then we'll get into it. What is Elfie? Well, I guess, simply said, Elfie is the world's first free, gamified, medically published, Health Super App. I exited my previous company, I did what a lot of guys do, I went to do, uh, you know, a full checkup, right? Wanted to know how hard I can party, right?
[2:26]And, uh, the results came back. I was diagnosed for a couple of conditions, right? Which, I mean, I wasn't shocked, it was running in the family, but annoying nonetheless. Very selfishly, I downloaded all the apps I was supposed to use, mostly American because disease management was, you know, invented in the US. I won't drop the names, but all the famous names. And, you know, because I liked to think that I'm healthy, of course, I had a sleep app, I had a nutrition app, and I had a meditation app, and I had a sports app. I was running 13 apps in parallel. I said, okay, that's not great, right? That's just awful. I mean, the experience by itself already was awful and at a very basic level, today health is ridiculously fragmented, right? I was, my data was distributed between 14 apps. You don't need to have a PhD in data to understand that that's neither good for your data, neither good for your retention. Some data is in some clinics, some data is over that, you know, that blood test, like everything was completely dispersed. And so he said, okay, at a basic level, what people would want is to have everything in the same spot. The the analogy that I like to make is a little bit Spotify. If you remember Spotify, you know, they went to the labels and they said, you know what would be great is to have all the music in the same spot. That would be good, right? And except that we understood that in our story, um, the music labels were actually big pharma. Why big pharma? Because no pharma in the world has every condition under the sun. They have a random distribution of conditions and therapies that they were, that the research team was able to discover the last, you know, decade. So, if you want to create the supersets, you would have to convince many of them to pour all their therapeutic cares inside the same application, right? And of course, you will need to add to that all the wellness stuff. Because the paradox is, is that even people that have quite serious conditions, um, they're more likely to use their sleep app, their nutrition app, their step up, than the things that they actually should be using. So we put, we really had this vision of putting everything together. Uh, we've put it out there.
[4:43]Um, luckily, uh, some very large pharmas chose to trust us. Um, we, we put it in a way that was allowed us to give it for free to the world, which we thought was fundamental because one of the really core philosophies that we have is that we don't believe in monetizing the user. Which is a big departure from the way, you know, a lot of people look at this market. And so we really wanted to create like a health ecosystem. And so, essentially, do CSR at scale with pharma sponsoring this, right? So we can give it to the world. And then on top of that, we've built a premium version if you will, uh, for insurance companies that they offer the next level of care. But again, we don't take money from the user, it's financed by the insurance company, right? So there we connected our telemedicine, or, you know, to their doctors and network, whatever benefits that they get. And today, long story short, with all of that, um, we started, uh, practically five years ago. We've crossed 1.4 million users. We're adding 30,000 people per week. Uh, we'll be in about almost 20 plus countries within the next month. Amazing. So actually you pay users, uh, in a way, or reward users for, um, kind of like getting their health improved? That's important. You might double click on that for a second. Yeah, please. Because, you know, there's, there's this thing, right? About, uh, called, you know, serious gamification, right? There's kind of like often an epidemic reaction when you say, oh, you gamified health. You know what I mean? That's not, that's not okay, right? It's a serious topic, you shouldn't do that. And I think it's really important to stress something out. We did not gamify health. We gamified self-monitoring. And that's a quite structural difference.
[6:44]Because you see, um, what we've discovered inside Elfie is that, um, the most important thing that you can actually do for your health, right? It's it's not just having a perfect gym plan or a perfect diet plan. The most important thing that you can actually do for your health is to self-monitor regularly. I mean, another word for that in the pharma industry is like prevention versus treatment, right? Because like as as people that have health issues, I mean, I'm sure you've had some in the past, I've had some in the past. We only really start thinking about our health when we have to go to the hospital. Or we have to go to the clinic. But you see, that's exactly what you said. That's, that's the entirety of the issue. It's like, it wouldn't cross your mind, right? If you bought a car, I don't know how many you have now, but if you bought one. Just one. For sure. And then, you know, like you would not cross your mind not to go to the garage if you dive in, right? It doesn't cross your mind. However, you exactly what you said, you'll only go to the doctor if you feel bad. And this is the biggest issue because it doesn't matter if you're perfectly healthy. It doesn't matter if you have a condition. You need to self-monitor regularly.
[7:58]Well, let's talk about that for a little bit. I guess from all the, um, you know, pharma companies, customers you've worked with, from the people that use your app every day, do you feel like that culture of actually caring for your own health on a daily basis? Does it exist today? Has it changed at all in the five years that you've been building this business? And removing Elfie out of the whole equation, I think just as society in general, as, you know, presumably they're becoming more health conscious, things like, um, you know, uh, what do you call like Beyond Meat, I think was an example of that, although I don't think they've done so well in the past couple years. Um, alcohol, you know, youth, uh, drinking trends have have essentially collapsed in some markets. Give me your high-level thoughts on that. Do people actually care about that? Sure. So, I guess my read on this is this, is that look, we're, I'm very fortunate, you're very fortunate, you know, you can get the Whoop and the Aura and the whatnot and do go to all the fancy longevity clinics and do all that good stuff.
[9:03]That's what you call the very happy few. That's the 1% of the 1%. Even though that gets a lot of attention, you know what I mean? And we see that there's tremendous traction in that upper echelon. For the majority of humanity, the situation is still quite dramatic, to be fair. Um, just gonna share with you some numbers because I think, you know, the thing that got me started with this, the thing that was, that was funny. You know, I liked to, I, I used to like to believe that I was somewhat educated, that I knew stuff.
[9:35]I had no idea. Like if I asked you right now, like, what, what maybe you know because you probably research this, but do you know what's the number one cause of death in the world? Number one, and I mean not even close to second, way ahead. What would you say? I don't know. You can give everything, right? War, cancer. It's probably not even health-related, right? It's probably like accidents, like car accidents or something. Hypertension. Hypertension, okay. Hypertension. Do you realize that you and I are sitting here, we have no clue what's very likely to kill us? Yeah, yeah. Topic that, you know, you would imagine we would care a little bit. So now that we're talking about hypertension though, what is the cause of hypertension? There's a lot of cause, it's genetic mostly, but of course part is lifestyle, but half is genetic, it's half half. But, but, but let me give you some numbers because this is what's, it's insane. Today, over 100% of death that occur every year, plus minus 70% is correlated to chronic condition. Which means that's likely what's going to kill you. Okay? So the awareness issue is not insignificant. So going back to our previous point, creating the motivation for people to actually self-monitor, to actually look at their data, to go get checked regularly, is key because as you know, as everything in the health, it's about how early do you catch it. That's essentially what health is. So, and it's not that it will never happen to you, it's just a matter of when. So it means that the back piece of advice I can give you is just to check yourself regularly, right? That makes sense. Now, now let's go into the second number. Once awareness is there, right? This is according to the WHO, 60 to 80% of people in the world are aware, are not treating their conditions correctly. And you know what? And and that was a big party, you know, of starting Elfie is that it's not because, you know, they're responsible or that, you know, they don't care. It's just that humans are humans. When something scares us, when something bothers us, our natural reaction is just to ignore it. That's what we do, right? So I think, um, that that was really like the switch for me, you know, to understand that you weren't designing, you know, for clinical logic. You're designing for psychology and behavior, if that makes sense. Psychology, behavior. I like that. Because in today's age, at least, everyone's so digital, everyone's got a mobile phone in their pocket. Some people are mobile only, in fact, they don't even have computers. So, uh, that whole lifestyle and and attention has now gone on the screen. And so when it comes to health, like overall in a person's 16-hour waking day, how much of that is actually spun on health? Um, you know, exercise is, I think, becoming more popular, but it's also increasingly low, people's sedentary lifestyles. So you got to capture them where their attention is. Uh, hence, I guess what you're, what you're doing at Elfie, right? I mean. Yeah, for sure. I don't have any other health app actually, other than what Apple just, you know, threw on my phone, but. So, I guess there's a couple of points in what you're saying.
[12:50]I think, I think the first thing that I do want to call out is that this is probably the most exciting, you know, moment in technology's history. Right. Obviously with everything that's happening with AI, it's not exactly a big surprise. But I, I do want to bring him back to health. Look, I don't know if you had that experience, but I that's has been mine. You know, I don't know how many times you were in a doctor's office and they were going through papers and saying words that you could barely spell and then telling and you go, aha. My G G 2256 is not great, huh? Okay, got it. Yeah, totally. And that goes on, you know, for 20 minutes and you walk out with a couple of boxes and you're like, let's see, right? Till next time. Yeah. And that guy typically you see him, how often you see your doctor per year? If things are well, almost none. Sorry.
[13:44]So, this, this change, this is a complete paradigm shift because for the first time, and this is what, this is our mission in Elfie, right? Because you can put all your data inside the same space, which is exactly on your phone which you hold in your hand. You have, and we provide in the Elfie, like a 24/7 AI companion that can help you make sense of what it means. This is a revolution because this is essentially, you know, the handholding and the support and the understanding that you needed between those doctor visits. Because the poor doctors, you know, they're overwhelmed. I mean, you'll speak to any doctor like they, their life is not easy. So the only solution here is user empowerment. And that is the convert to that, right? This this constant little support that you get, and the key thing to your point is that, um, you have to make it rewarding. You have to. Because what this has done, to your point, is that this is the entertainment economy, right? This is what you and I doing right now, right? Everything has to be entertaining, right? So, that's why gamification is so fundamental to what we do. You could have all the knowledge in the world, but I need to find a way to make you want to ask for it. Yeah, right?
[15:10]So, let's take a little step back first. I think, um, you know, a lot of folks heard, you know, what is Elfie exactly, what is it doing, the mission, the vision, that's awesome. We have one job at Elfie, which is to motivate you to self-monitor. Now, in order to do that, we're introducing to the market a new notion. You're very familiar with a diet plan, you're very familiar with a gym plan. We're introducing the notion of a self-monitoring plan. Now, what does that mean?
[15:38]That means that when you download Elfie, the app's gonna ask you, okay, how, what do you want to monitor? Right? This is where the holistic part comes in, right? Everything should be in the same spot. And everybody's different. You're gonna go, I want to monitor my hydration, I want to monitor my sleep, I want to monitor my workouts, whatever, click, click, click. Great. Then the app's gonna ask you, okay, how, have you been diagnosed with anything that you know? You can say, no, I'm perfectly healthy, or you could go, no, actually, you know what, I've got cholesterol, I've got, uh, you know, heart failure, I've got diabetes type two, whatever that is, click, click, click. And then what the app does is that it creates a personalized self-monitoring plan just for you, so that you know exactly what's the frequency and what to do, how often. Okay? And that's the key of everything. Because what we found in our research is that if your self-monitoring regiment is random, then it just dies. Right? So this structure kind of like keeps you on track to some extent to track the important things in your life. And progressively the plan will change over time based on the data that you enter. Okay? And so, and the second thing that we've done is that we've gamified that self-monitoring, right? So essentially, like I said before, we didn't gamify health, we gamified self-monitoring and I'll give you an example. So I obviously, I take, uh, a lot of supplements, you know, and some drugs. Uh, so, when I tell the app, okay, today, I took my supplements and my drug, let's say I get 1,000 points, right? Can you guess how many I give you if you told me if I said I took none? Ooh. I mean, even more? I don't know. No, less. It's an interesting answer. Okay. The same. The same. Oh, okay. Oh, because you're still reporting at the end of the day. Exactly. Because what I want to drill in your head is that you'll be rewarded just for tracking your data. Got it. I don't care if it goes to the left, it goes to the right, I just want you to see it, right? And that's fundamental. And so every time people enter the data that they chose to track, they get coins, right? And then we follow, uh, some quite advanced gamification frameworks, and then you can basically we, we reinforce that behavior by of self-monitoring by saying, okay, now, you know what, you can spend your coins. You can spend your coins on charity donations, you can spend your coins on challenges, you can spend your coins on straight redeems, uh, vouchers, discounts, rewards, um, lotteries, like whatever gets you going, because everybody's different, right? Everybody's gonna have a different relationship of what makes you motivated and excited. And so, we've built an ecosystem where there's something for everyone, right? So that you can, uh, actually find your motivation, right? That's right for you. And I think another important aspect, like I said before, there are two, actually, is that it's the family support aspect of it, because actually, you know, as I said, it's 50% genetic, so it's very likely, right? That you have somebody around you, or unfortunately, might end up having provide support for your kids, you can actually co-track people, you know, uh, in your family that who you'd provide care for, you know, inside the application. And then we wrap all of that in AI with an AI companion, where you can ask any question at any time, they'll tell you exactly what you need to know. And so, if you put all of that together in a nutshell, like I said before, Elfie is the first free gamified medically published Health Super App. Everything that you need at the same spot, with the support that you need, and the motivation that you need. I want to talk about how you approached the expansion of Elfie as well. I found that, I found that particularly an interesting approach when you first told me a few years ago. So not, not working with the companies or getting more users or something like that, but also like even the market approach. So Vietnam was the first, that makes sense. You live here, team is here. Uh, you went to Brazil, you went to Egypt, and you're now in 20 different countries. Could you explain to me the reasons for going to those countries and not like, uh, the US? Or maybe you are in the US now. But why, why didn't you go to the US first? Why didn't you go to your home country or Europe or these other developed markets instead? Walk me through the need, uh, but also the market need to have Elfie in those kind of countries. Sure. So, I guess, look, I, I guess it goes back to, you know, the way I look at the market, right? So, my belief is, just let's start from that, is that like I said before, this, for this to work, it has to be free, right? So that means that at some point, you have to find a way, right? To get this financed, right? So it means that you have to ask the question, what value do you bring to the legacy players, right? And today, the, the legacy players, you know, the pharma companies, the insurance companies, and the governments, they're not aligned, right? In terms of interests, because the pharma is trying to sell treatments, right? The insurance is trying to reduce health claims. The governments wants population health, and nobody's really taking care of behavioral change. There's nobody to champion it, right? In the ecosystem. So you have to create a common denominator where you bring value, right? To those stakeholders and to have the ability to be distributed at scale and actually have impact, right? So we start with pharma, right?
[21:18]So, you know, the thing with pharma is that you, you have, to be interesting for them. Right? You have to be large scale, right? To they, it's very hard to imagine a world where you entertain one app per disease per country per, you see what I'm saying?
[21:37]Like you have to think big from the get-go. And I think that, um, developing countries kind of like give us the opportunity to test our Tsis. And to demonstrate that it works and then grow in confidence, you know, with the pharma, demonstrating to them something that was I profoundly believe it, but it was not obvious to people, because, you know, the thing when you start, you know, this this is a thing you hear a lot in digital, is that they'll tell you, no, no, no, no, no. The Cambodian is completely different than the Mexican, that's completely different from the Egyptian, that's completely different from the guy in Iceland. Then you look at them and you go, yeah, but I'm pretty sure Facebook looks exactly the same, you know, in those countries, and I'm pretty sure that Uber and Airbnb, et cetera, they all look exactly the same. So there was this belief, right? The end of the day, there was an opportunity to create a single global platform that could impact people positively across market at scale, right? So pharma, of course, tested us in markets where which were progressively important for them, right? So that was the first distribution channel. And now that we were able with pharma to actually put out there some pretty significant medical publications that demonstrate that we actually make people healthier, which is the most exciting part, obviously of what we do, that allows us to engage the conversation with the insurance companies who now want to offer this solution to, uh, you know, their insureres to reduce their claims. And this is how eventually you escalate the governments, where we have a couple of government conversations going on, should be announced soon, where they say, a free platform where you can see in real time, our people are doing, what's going on? So it was really about aligning interest in a way that allowed you to distribute the solution at scale, because if not, back to what I said before, you're stuck in this 1% logic. I mean, you've seen, especially in Vietnam, Vietnam actually is a perfect test case for this. You tell me how much I can charge a Vietnamese to remind him that he's sick every month. Yeah, zero. Zero. Exactly. The right answer is zero, right? So that's it. Once that is said, you understand what you actually need to do if when you, if you want to go out there. If that makes sense. Okay, yeah. Yeah. I mean, my, my, I was running through my head. I mean, this sounds like a, a great case study in like stakeholder management. You have three very large, kind of stakeholders on, on the health side of things. And they all have their own interests, uh, you know, bureaucracy, uh, but hopefully, you know, they all have their own KPIs too, right? And, uh, how do you, how do you find that alignment? I think that's a, that's a master class right there, Ofir. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well done. And in so many different countries, nonetheless. I mean, like, uh, a Brazil is no, no similar to like a Vietnam, for instance. Uh, the whole AI thing, uh, I'm sure Elfie itself uses it on the backend to power the app and all that. You mentioned AI content created by AI. Um, you know, it doesn't directly have to do with Elfie specifically, and we'll, we'll go back to it, but since AI everyone's talking about, and you're a tech entrepreneur yourself, um, do you believe especially in the health sector, that, uh, or what is your belief given that you're in the health sector, how AI can really influence the future of health? I know very broad answer a question, but what are pharma executives thinking right now? What are, yeah. I think, like I said before, um, I think we touched on that point a little bit is that I think that AI is gonna be your health companion 24/7, when you can only see your doctor two or three times a year, it's gonna be, it's, look, it's the, you know, one of the things that recently, you know, we released inside Elfie, we, we released uh, lab results. If you are, there's a, there's a company in the US, you know, that's very popular right now, you know, that sells for 99 or whatever, a bunch of blood test, and huge success. We wanted to give that for free, right? So we reverse engineered the thing, we put it out there, because the, actually, we realized that the main behavior of people around the world is, you know, you'll go to a blood test here, then you upload it in chat GPT or general I or what, what does it mean? What's wrong? What, what, what should I do, right? And so we wanted to simplify that because that's what, that's the opportunity. The opportunity is support, the opportunity is understanding, and the opportunity is again, just constant availability. That's, I mean, that's a big thing. People, people think about their health at weird times. Sometimes in the bath, or in the shower. They only think, no, but that's the point. That's the point. Yeah, for sure. It's, it's at first you don't know when. First you don't know when, and objectively, if you don't create and that's my whole point, right? If you don't create an externality, if you don't make the experience enjoyable, you won't do it. That's everything about what we do. You know, the thing is that people when they hear the word, rewarding, rewards. No, what this actually means is that you created a neuro pathway that whatever it is that you're currently doing feels good to you to a point that you're okay repeating it. That's it. That's, that's the engine, right? That's what you need to put together for you to actually do something over and over again, because unfortunately, people don't change because something is important, they change because something is enjoyable and they're okay, right? To repeat it.
[27:21]Okay. Yeah. I want to talk, the next couple of questions are more about you as a leader, as an entrepreneur. I want people to get to know you better, the same way that I know you as well, not just about the industry. And what's one failure or a mistake that you made as an entrepreneur that really still like hangs on you today that when you reflect, you're like, hey, I could have done that a lot better. And I'm gonna take that forward with me at Elfie. Um, I think with Ed in inch of a doubt, the biggest takeaway that I have is that the greatest and the worst decision you'll ever make is the people you work with.
[28:40]That's amazing. No, well done. I think going back, you started your business 1999, so 27 almost years of, uh, building companies, building teams, working in teams. at at times you probably felt you're working alone because you're not with the right people at the time. And sometimes it's, you know, it's not even about the person themselves, it's just the dynamics as well and and the situation that you're in and the requires so much adaptation, but how do you set those those blocks of foundation at the very beginning? Uh, you know, hopefully you've you've been able to set that for yourself at Elfie and I, I, you know, I think the results thus far, at least, have definitely spoken for themselves, so. Yeah, and look, and just to double click on that. I think that the one thing, of course, that happens over time is that you know yourself really, really well. And you know what you're really good at, and you know what you probably shouldn't be doing. And I think that if you can assemble team around you that's really great at the stuff that you suck at, that's it, right? It's as basic as that. So it sounds very easy to just say that though, but in practicality, is it, is it not easy, but have you been able to find those people that, that can do what you perhaps are not that good at? Yeah, I mean, look, honestly, my, my co-founder, I mean, he the most complimentary relationship I've ever had in my life. You know, like he is amazing. Aside from your fiance. Yeah. Of course. Thank you. I apologize.
[30:07]No, for sure. But I mean professionally, look, I the the, I really think that again, it's like over time, you kind of understand what is that one question you really should be asking to your that interview, right? It's almost the same thing. You know what's that key thing that you're looking for? And then there's just a value system, right? You want to be, of course, there's skills, but there's values, and I think that, and to be fair, I, I had the privilege, uh, with Jean-Francois to build a friendship before we built a business. So it felt very natural. And you know, and again, I don't take it for granted. I agree with you, it's not easy because like most entrepreneurs, you started a company with who was there at the time, you know what I mean? And then decades later, you know, things just evolved, you became someone different, they became someone different, right? And the probability that you evolved in complete parallel path is not super likely, right? So I think, again, the key takeaways is again, just understand who you are, understand who the people in front of you are, and, you know, just make the tough call. No, very good. Tough call, but easier later perhaps. Yes. Um, one last question for you, Ofir, and thank you so much for sharing that, uh, really heartwarming response. I appreciate, I think our audience would too, especially the entrepreneurs listening today. Um, so I always ask this to all my podcast guests. Um, we have you on the show here today to share about your own entrepreneurial story, what you've learned building Elfie, why it's needed, all that good stuff. Um, what's something that you want to learn more about so that we can invite the next guest and answer some of your questions. So it could be about any industry, you don't have to name a name, but maybe you do, um, that that's keeping you up at night and you want an answer that AI can't give you. And as you're thinking, I just want to let the audience know, if you feel like you know somebody or a company or or anyone that can help Ofir answer his question, uh, please let us know in the comments below. I'm sure Ofir would love to hear from you. You know, I think that obviously, I'm, I'm very passionate about, you know, um, tackling this this global health issue. So for me, like, I'd love to hear from people, you know, from that the WHO. I'd love to hear, you know, from the World Economic Forum. I'd love to hear from those guys, you know, how do they get involved more in actually, you know, spreading the impact? Because I think that there's a new opportunity right now that technology is creating, you know, and I think that, like I said before, success is gonna come from creating the one thing that's lacking, which is a digital standard for health. I'd love to know, you know, if you can get to those people, you know, how they see this. Well, maybe we can start with the WHO's representative in Vietnam at the very minimum, we're here. Absolutely. I think we have that contact actually, so maybe we'll reach out. But I think really good point, uh, Ofir, you know, from the private sector, from from the national government sector, there's huge interest, of course. But who are those like overarching organizations, who, who have a lot of resources, a lot of play and say in the whole system, how can they somehow contribute more, or not in just in terms of actual implementation, but perhaps even the knowledge sharing, uh, stakeholder management, whatever, so, impact. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just zero in on impact. Yeah. Right. Okay, well, if you feel like you can help Ofir, uh, source one of those guests for us, you know, let us know and we'd love to hear from you. Um, Ofir Ejnes, the founder CEO of Elfie. Ofir, it's been a pleasure. Um, you know, this is a few years in the making. Finally have you in the studio, and I'm sure we'll catch up more offline another time. But best of luck for Elfie and you know, keep it going. Thank you so much. This was really great. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much. Uh, see you guys next time. Bye-bye.
