Why do you need a North Star, Uber for Ambulance in India | #DailyBlink77
“Starting with the mission is the most important thing because it’s a North Star for what you’re trying to do as an organization. It’s so easy as a startup to get distracted by what else is happening in the market. So as a leader you really have to set that North Star, and it’s okay to zig and zag, but ultimately you want to get to that destination.”
— Mission.org
In a startup, you definitely need to have the north star that would be a guiding light for you in extreme situations. The North Star represents a company’s unwavering definition of its purpose, its products, its customers, and potential acquirers.
Role of a founder
Clarity about a company’s North Star leads founders and companies toward their goals and helps investors envision the company’s future growth. When founders begin building their businesses without establishing a North Star, they risk traveling in directions that won’t yield the desired outcomes — and, in many cases, they don’t realize it until it’s too late to correct the course.
Importance of north star during tough times
The first few years of any startup are defined by pervasive uncertainty. When distractions emerge, morale dips or unexpected setbacks occur, a company’s North Star can be there to unite the team, keep the company on track, and remind employees why they go to work every day.
Back in my college days, I remember we were planning for on-demand ambulance service on the top of the accident alert app. As per a problem statement of the Smart India Hackathon, we had to solve a problem for booking an ambulance right after an accident using an Application.
Problem and Opportunity
As per Statista Inc. “Road accidents have been a major cause for concern across the Indian subcontinent. In 2018 alone, the country reported around 151 thousand fatalities due to road accidents. Each year, about three to five percent of the country’s GDP was invested in road accidents. Notably, while India has about one percent of the world’s vehicle population, it also accounted for about six percent of the global road traffic incidents. Almost 70 percent of the accidents involved young Indians.”
Most of the accident was due to the lack of access to an ambulance on time and the number seems to be rising every year if proper action is not taken.
HelpNow
A startup based in Mumbai solves this problem of booking an ambulance during an emergency.
HelpNow is looking to reduce the time required to get an ambulance in India by mobilizing Uber drivers, providing them with training (AHA certification) and basic life support equipment. They have 347 vehicles on the roads of Mumbai, with over 9100 calls for help serviced. The company was started after the father of one of the founders had a heart attack and was told he’d be waiting over 45 minutes for an ambulance; his dad was saved when they opted to drive him in their own car.
As we all know, transportation has taken a hit in the country due to a strict lockdown. HelpNow is providing a 24x7 logistics network in India for transporting COVID patients, Healthcare workers, and Blood/Organs/Medical supplies.
They are also one of the selected startups from India for Y Combinator’s Winter Batch 2020.
