My North Star

I did not know it was a mixture of:

1. a beautiful country road
2. a roller coaster of the "this-is-crazy-how-much-fun-it-is-but-I-am-not-sure-I-want-to-keep-going" kind
3. never-ending construction detours that make me wonder whether I took the right turn.

I think that road is quite hard to imagine if you have never travelled it.

I have always believed it was important to speak openly and show who is really behind Braver. I will not hide it: the past few weeks have been rather intense. Last week, lying on my couch with a little knot of stress in my stomach, I was thinking of you. I was telling myself how very much I looked forward to showing you our app. How much I looked forward to healthcare professionals being able to use Braver. And with that little knot of stress in my stomach, I told myself you must think our process was taking an awfully long time. Then I remembered that there is nothing better than communication to understand someone else's reality.

So here we are, in early October 2019, with a nice little knot of stress that has been following us around for a few weeks, working hard to deliver as quickly as possible that much-discussed solution we have been imagining, reimagining and refining since July 2018. Yes, July 2018. What has happened since then?

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First came a great deal of field research to understand professionals' realities and clearly identify the problem we wanted to tackle. Then there were competitions, grant applications, meetings to challenge ourselves, meetings to learn and meetings to question ourselves.

Then we started coding (not me, obviously): writing hundreds and thousands of lines of code, learning new technologies, understanding our healthcare system's data protection regulations. Then we brought on an employee, an intern and a contractor. We took a firm grip on our accounting, developed a marketing strategy and a communication strategy, and put our technology development into operation.

We met with investors, lawyers, an accountant, healthcare entrepreneurs and dozens of healthcare professionals. We organized our first Braver Talk, rewrote our business plan three times, wrote blog posts and sketched dozens of concepts. Designed and redesigned the app. Validated prototypes with professionals. Met with associations.

Then the end of September arrived, and we realized things were still not moving fast enough, that we needed to redouble our efforts once again to finally deliver our "minimal viable product". So we could finally test our app in a clinical setting and truly see whether the magic could come alive in your hands. That magic is, in a way, our fuel. That magic means creating a world where Braver exists; a world where professionals form a connected community that helps one another give their best to patients.

As an entrepreneur, the road is long and unknown. And when I look at my feet on that road, I sometimes feel dizzy, so I try instead to keep my eyes on the sky. Looking up, I see my vision of a better healthcare system. And I must never, ever lose sight of it, because that is my North Star.