2019 Year in review — Lifelong learning & Arincare
This year has been a pivotal time for both myself and all of us at Arincare. Here are some notable development we’ve been through in 2019.
1. Arincare is officially the largest pharmacies network in Thailand
Pharmacists and drugstores users on Arincare platform continued to grow. We’re now empowering more than 3,800 pharmacists in over 1,500 locations in 77 provinces.
For the first time, number of pharmacies on our network exceeded all traditional drugstore chains combined.
I’d like to thank our team and partners for working relentlessly to achieve this feat.
2. 4.9M transactions processed — 900M THB worth of medicines and healthcare products milestone
This year our platform processed more than 4.9M prescriptions and sales transactions this year, with the retail merchandising value over 29M USD ( approx. 900M THB). This number is equivalent to approximately 14 mid-size hospitals.
This number show how we contribute to creating a better healthcare and how we stay focus on our mission — empowering pharmacists and healthcare through technology.
3. We quadrupled our computing power to handle the increasing usage load.
We underestimate the expanding workload. We had 2 major downs but our team was able to recover and scale our capacity within short period of time. I’m glad that we pulled it through.
Critical time and emergencies like this are true tests for our character.
4. Historical moment — the first e-Prescription system fully launched in Thailand!!
We successfully launched a new service e-Prescription connecting Hospitals, Pharmacies, and Patients together, within 4 months.
For the first time ever, Thailand had its first e-Prescription patient!! (and yes it’s on Arincare platform! ).
Kudos to our team for their effort, especially for Wirun Wetsiri, our very own Chief Pharmacist, for pulling this near-impossible project through.
5. DTAC Accelerate Batch 7
We are proud to be selected to join DTAC Accelerate batch 7 in April and won 2 Demo Day awards — Best Performing Startup & Popular Vote.
Joining DTAC Accelerate was very important to the growth of Arincare and our team. Great mentorship is critical for any stage of startups.
And in Thailand startup scene, you wouldn’t find a better accelerator with great support and connections than DTAC Accelerate.
6. Web Summit 2019 @ Lisbon, Portugal
We were one of the selected startups as representative from Thailand to exhibit at Web Summit 2019 @ Lisbon, Portugal. I’d like to thank Depa Thailand for giving us this opportunity.
7. Key partnership for growth
At Arincare we value having courage to step out of comfort zone to innovate.
This year we took bold steps out of our usual boundary and partnered with two other key stakeholders in Pharmaceutical industry — private hospital and research company. We launched two initiatives in collaboration with Samitivej Hospital and IQVIA, each of which is industry pioneer in its own unique way.
8. ArinLink marketplace pivoted and re-launched
In Q4 2019, our team decided to pivot and re-launch our marketplace service — ArinLink. The marketplace idea is simple enough in itself, but as we learned throughout the year, the buddha is in the detail. When you are pioneering and innovating, you can’t really find example or directives for what you should do or which direction you should be heading.
This is where we have to adopt experimentation mindset — be open , observant, flexible enough to change, and keep constant communication with our users.
From the feedback we collected, we re-launched our marketplace service. For the first two months, it already beat our revenue projection and GMV was doubled MoM. I personally think we are on the right path but there’s still so much to learn.
Through The Ups and Downs
Of course, there were many small achievements and quick wins along the way. It’s worth the time to also reflect on what happened throughout the year.
First of all, for each of the successful project, we’d gone through many failed attempts and initiatives that didn’t work out. Sometimes, too many misses for one hit. And as much as they were painful, we learned to appreciate the lessons.
We spent countless hours discussing, debating, and arguing among our team. We had many fights and heated conversation between co-founders and executives over the direction of the company. Maturity, respect, and understanding each other’s perspectives are critical to channel these energies for constructive outcome.
Over the course of the year we made A LOT of tough decisions, rejected many good offers, and missed many business opportunities, in order to keep our ethics and integrity intact. From hindsight, we are happy that we did.
My 2020 focus as CEO
There’re still many things to do to achieve our goals and bring our vision to reality. To reflect a few things for me personally to work out this year.
First is guiding and nurturing the right culture for our team. For the past 3 years, we were so occupied with getting operation right, execution of ideas, and finding product-market fit that we didn’t put enough attention to setting up the right path for team culture.
Yes, I know that “Culture” and “Vision”, these words may sound vague and aloof. People just seem cooler when they talk about them. But until it hit you in the face, then you’d know how important it really is and what it really means for your company.
Another thing I’m committed to this year is doubling down on communication. Personally I know that I have not been communicating well enough with our team.
As we shift to a higher gear on execution, it’s critical for everyone to get onboard and understand which direction we’re heading, our virtues, and most importantly, “why” we do what we do.
Communication is art and science combined within itself and I’m going to have to do a lot better.
For what happened in 2019, startup landscape has changed a lot for the year. With economy took a nose dive and “WeWork” fiasco, perception and expectation for startups have changed — so long growth-at-all-cost mentality.
Fortunately, one thing all our co-founders and executive agree upon is the direction of our company; since day one, we are in favoured of growth through sustainable and ethical business development.
At Arincare, we pride ourselves for balancing between growth and running sustainable business. We avoid things that don’t make sense — like spending on things that don’t contribute to desired impact, business growth, and team development. We are frugal and we’ve never lacked discipline in this regard. Thanks to k.Chaipong, our CFO and co-founder who’s done spectacular job on keeping things in check.
The challenge for me as CEO of Arincare would be keeping this balance along the way to achieve our growth projections — step on gas pedal where we should, foster innovative spirit, nurture our team morale, and grow sustainable business for the long term.
Happy new year. I wish we all have a good one.
Onward & Upward.
