Matt and Noah Davey On Improving Healthcare Outcomes Through Patient Community Development

Mend is a patient-led, health management and insights platform designed to reimagine the health journey for the chronic-health community.

Utilising technology and a patient-first approach, Mend works to improve the patient experience by managing the health journey from diagnosis through to ongoing care of chronic-conditions through their mobile app (coming early-2023).

Co-Founders, Matt & Noah Davey were drawn to the social impact space after lived experience with cancer and epilepsy changed their lives and they noticed a huge gap in the patient experience.

Matt is an ex-corporate, startup founder with a passion for social impact. His background spans marketing, stakeholder engagement + asset management. He is an advocate in the LGBTIQ+ and health space, volunteering with a variety of organisations. Tea, travel, yoga and restauranting take up his spare time (and he also has his own podcast).

Noah is the technical co-founder at Mend. He has been programming since high school, and studied computer science at the Queensland University of Technology. His most recent job has been working at a cryptocurrency startup turned scaleup, Swyftx. He is currently using his skills to help make a difference in the health space with his brother through Mend.

Matt and Noah discuss Inspiring social connection through technology to create Positive outcomes for healthcare patients, and their key learnings after participating in the Elevate+ Accelerator program.

Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)

[Indio Myles] - To start off, could you each please share a bit about your backgrounds and what led to your interest and passion in social enterprise?

[Matt Davey] - I am based in Brisbane and have worked mostly in the corporate space. I worked for about six years in commercial real estate and decided late last year that I wanted to make a bit of a change. The idea of Mend was out of my own lived experience with cancer and epilepsy.

[Noah Davey] - For me, I've always been pretty interested in the start-up space in general. Just coming out of start-up myself, I figured it'd be a really awesome opportunity to take some of those skills I find really interesting. I've been working for the past few years at Swftyx, and wanted to try to apply those to an issue that's closer to our hearts from personal experience and try to make a positive change in the world through start-up.

As the founders of Mend, a healthcare management app building communities and helping patients support each other, can you share a bit about why you created it, how it works and the impact it's trying to create?

[Matt Davey] - Mend is a health management and insights platform that came about when I was at a health retreat late last year. I was sat there in the Gold Coast Hinterland, in complete bliss thinking, "what impact do I want to make outside of my day-to-day corporate job?”. I thought about what would be something meaningful that could make a difference in the world? At 23, I was diagnosed with brain cancer, and a little later I was diagnosed with epilepsy, two conditions that massively impact my day-to-day life.

As a young person living with chronic illness, I missed a lot of things from the patient experience that I really needed from a support perspective. Then, I built out the idea of Mend over the next few months.

I spoke to Noah, and we decided that with our combined skills, it could be something we could work together on and make a really big impact. Our mobile app will be coming out in April next year.

What have been some of the key challenges that you have experienced in creating a healthcare app and trying to provide unique value and accessibility to users?

[Noah Davey] - One of the issues we've definitely had come up a few times is about addressing privacy. In the health space, it's a huge issue, and everyone wants to make sure their privacy is looked after and is being handled in the right way. For us, we're really trying to nail that down, and when there's only the two of us, we're making sure that we do it in the right way to look after the people that will be using the app. That's one key thing that we've been focusing on so far. The other thing is the commercialisation strategy for us. Something that we are quite passionate about is trying to make this app free for patients, and so we’re trying to explore other ways we can turn this into a viable business which is sustainable and can help as many people as possible. This is while also looking after the patients and providing something that gives them value for free.

Where do you believe social enterprise fits into the global recovery process from healthcare crises, and what opportunities have you both identified for entrepreneurs?

[Matt Davey] - There are a lot of opportunities in terms of the way people are working now. Because of COVID-19, people weren't necessarily working nine to five jobs in an office anymore. Things became a lot more hybridised, and a lot of people decided they would leave their jobs. It gave people a really big opportunity to rethink what was important to them, and what initiatives and impact they could have from doing something slightly different. That's a really massive opportunity that's come from COVID, and for entrepreneurs in particular, it's given food for thought.

Impact Boom has been proud to have worked with you both on the Elevate+ Accelerator. What were some key lessons from that program that would be valuable for other purpose-led entrepreneurs seeking to create their own impact?

[Noah Davey] - One of the things I really took out of the Impact Boom Elevate+ Accelerator was having a really strong why and purpose.

For us, that's come quite well, and I guess it’s probably part of the reason why we've loved building Mend over the past year; it really does connect strongly with what we both believe in and what we want to see in the world.

Often people don't have a strong connection to what they're doing or why they're doing it, and I feel that often leads and contributes to people burning out faster, making it a harder journey than it would be otherwise.

[Matt Davey] - The main thing for me was having the opportunity to find some structure. When starting a business, it can be a bit of a challenge knowing where to start in general.

The program was really good in terms of giving us an idea about every different aspect of finances, legalities, what to base our strategy around.

Also, having the ability to network with eleven other social enterprises, with very different backgrounds and ideas about the way they want to create impact was really important. It was really beneficial, and we took a lot from the program.

What inspiring projects or initiatives have you come across recently that are creating a positive social change?

[Noah Davey] - My recommendation is actually one of our fellow impact businesses on the Elevate+ Accelerator called Hello Good World by Rachel (Whitworth). It's an absolutely amazing business, basically an Amazon for social impact. It really is super inspiring to see there's a place out there where you can swap where you shop, which is their tagline. You can know the dollars you are spending, that you would've spent otherwise, actually are going to fuel positive social change.

[Matt Davey] - There's quite a few enterprises I love and that I've learned about fairly recently. Some I learned more about at the Social Enterprise World Forum. One of them is called HoMie. It' s an organisation and streetwear label based in Melbourne focused on working with people that have experienced or are experiencing homelessness. It's run by a guy named Nick Pierce, who just does some really amazing things within the space. We obviously live in a world where there is a bit of a housing crisis, and I think Nick is trying to reimagine the way these people can contribute within society and how they can also be engaged, empowered and treated fairly to make sure they can move out of the situation they're living in. I really got a lot from Nick when he spoke at the World Forum this year, and [I learnt a lot also] from Dylan Alcott. He is a really massive disability advocate, and just everything he does with The Dylan Alcott Foundation, advocacy work and Ability Fest, is incredible. He's just a really fantastic person that challenges the way people look and think about disability in general. Both of those people are wonderful, and I think there's a lot of wonderful people working in this space.

To finish off now, what books or resources would you recommend for our listeners to check out?

[[Noah Davey] - One of my favourite books is The Personal MBA. It's just one of those easy reads in the sense you can just pick it up, open any page and there are little snippets of information for business. Obviously right now, it's forefront of mind as we are working on building an enterprise. It's just a super useful book, covers a lot of ground and doesn't have too much fluff, which I find can take up a bit too much time when you're trying to focus on other stuff.

[Matt Davey] - I've recently finished a book called How to Change the World by John-Paul Flintoff. It is exactly what it says in the title. It's basically a book that focuses around the way people make change, and it inspires people to take steps around things that are important to them. It takes self doubt away while helping you take your first step.