Our 2024: A Story of Courage, a Little Madness and Success

We entered 2024 knowing it would be intense. We started the year with a team that was 30% smaller, substantial technological challenges and very ambitious milestones. It certainly turned out to be an eventful year. Let me tell you how it unfolded.

In January and February 2024, we developed the patient and family caregiver application for the web, iOS and Android. Its first use would be a pilot project conducted with OROT, the CIUSSS du Centre-Ouest and McGill University. Less than a year earlier, we had decided to make this patient app a strategic priority in our development plan. The market was sending us a clear signal: bringing patients and family caregivers into Braver was a crucial piece of the puzzle.

We co-designed that patient experience with our partners during the fall of 2023, then developed it in less than two months, just in time for the pilot’s launch in March. That rapid execution was one of the first demonstrations of an important realization in 2024: after years of investment, we had proof that our technological foundation now allowed us to move quickly and create considerable value with limited resources. It was a technology bet we had made in 2020 and pursued for three years. We were finally seeing the results.

We maintained that pace throughout the winter and spring, delivering a great deal of value to users and customers: secure streaming of large encrypted videos, photo and video editing within the application, audio and video calls, a Braver module embedded directly in our partners’ applications, and automated communication workflows. After all that, it was only June—and we still had plenty of energy!

With that impressive product evolution and the significant increase in sales that followed, we were beginning to have good reason to believe we had found our elusive product–market fit. In June 2024, we deployed a unified solution combining Braver with our partner Leomed’s platform for our first customer. Audio and video calls were being used for the first time in a hospital-at-home setting—in the Laurentian mountains. There is nothing like a challenging environment, with limited cellular coverage and the particular characteristics of a CISSS’s internal network, to test new calling technology. It gave us headaches for several months.

But a threat greater than video calls in the mountains was taking shape.

We had known for about two years that a major research and development project lay ahead. It was becoming increasingly clear that we had reached the last possible moment to tackle it. The equation was not simple: we needed to completely rethink the underlying data-management infrastructure of our web and mobile applications, and that required a substantial investment of resources. Without getting too technical, healthcare organizations generate much more data than an individual does. At the same time, users of a communication tool such as Braver or Messenger expect data to be available instantly—even when it is encrypted end to end, as it is in Braver, WhatsApp or Signal. We had built the first version of this data infrastructure in 2020 with an independent clinician or small clinic as our typical customer, rather than a hospital or rehabilitation centre. We postponed that research and development work as long as we could without affecting customers too much, focusing instead on more visible product features such as calls and video. During 2024, however, it suddenly became an urgent priority.

The equation still did not work: our team was too small to take it on without slowing the rest of our development schedule enough to hurt sales. We were a little crazy to think we could do it. After many difficult discussions, we found a plan. At first glance, it was not the best plan. But experience had taught us that some decisions require weighing every risk—including the risk of doing nothing—and that this assessment, combined with a measure of intuition and determination, can push us to accomplish the impossible. So in 2024, on top of everything I have already described, we took on this enormous project while telling ourselves we could maintain some semblance of work–life balance. We were fooling ourselves about the time it would take and the energy it would demand. But we felt we had to believe it to get through.

An extremely difficult period followed. Over the years, we have faced difficult stretches at Braver, but this one was a particularly rough wave. Countless hours of work, challenges across every part of the business, employees sensing our anxiety, projects that seemed never-ending, and exhaustion—both mental and physical. Add some anxiety, and it was quite a mixture. I remember that we often felt alone during that time, even though we had tremendous support around us. But we climbed out of that low point. We chose to be more vulnerable and transparent with our team, and it was transformative. Instead of trying to protect them from the difficulties we faced, we opened up. What a good decision that was. They were there for us as never before. They gave us the courage we needed and showed us that together we were even stronger.

Starting in October, week after week, we regained momentum. And what a climb it was! Between taking part in two panels and a symposium, publishing columns in Le Point en Santé, receiving a Canadian award for our patient, family and caregiver solution, submitting tender responses and recording a podcast, we kept delivering. Because delivering is something we know how to do.

We delivered our administration console so customers could finally manage their organizations independently. We had been working towards that milestone for a long time: it would reduce the operational cost of customer deployments and help us scale Braver more effectively.

Through it all, we finally overcame the calling challenges in the Laurentian mountains too. Through careful measurement and diagnosis, we identified ways around the technical problems. We did more than ship fixes: we delivered markedly better stability and performance.

Finally, in mid-November 2024, we deployed the results of our enormous research and development effort. As co-founders, Mathieu and I had sacrificed a great deal of our personal lives to make it happen. We were so proud to see that the performance and user experience were exactly what we had anticipated. We were finally ready to welcome customers of every size, with a user experience and performance unlike anything else on the market.

We reached December 2024 feeling like true warriors, with a sense that everything was finally coming together. We have always believed in our vision, but this time felt different: it was within reach, accompanied by a calm and confidence we had never experienced before.

Mathieu once told me that an easy path is not necessarily what makes us happy. That thought stayed with me, and I have returned to it often. For me, 2024 is a perfect example. It was an extremely demanding, difficult year, yet we still found small moments of joy amid the challenges. In the end, we emerged not only stronger, but deeply happy and proud.

Thank you to everyone who believes in Braver and in us, even if we are a little crazy! Without you, our boldness would have no purpose. 💜