KrokMed

Introduction

I was a co-founder of a platform allowing medical students in Ukraine to practice for the country-specific exam that is taken twice during their study.

The issue

The main government website to prepare for these exams couldn’t handle the amount of traffic, especially days before the exam itself. It worked with significant delays or did not load at all.

The solution

Our platform offered a unique and understandable design, including straightforward filtering allowing to find a needed test and an ability to skim through all tests in the database in a row as quickly as possible. Similar tests are offered during the exams themselves, hence this possibility was important for our customers.

The execution

The platform was run using Python FastAPI framework. Basic web-development tools such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript were the core front instruments used. The website was hosted on a cloud service with a separate domain and a server-based secured database, with multiple tables ensuring registering users, keeping track of ones who are currently logged in and on which device, which user bought access to which test. All development and management of finances including keeping list of all transactions was laid on me.

The numbers

Our platform reached steady activity of around 1000 clicks almost every day and 66 successful purchases, which led to a revenue of about 15 000 UAH (approximately 350 Euros at the time). The platform generated steady revenue for 2 months before and during the exam period.

The reason for closure

Not enough audience was reached to keep economic sustainability. The reached audience was not enough to cover up for expenses of sustaining the venture during non-exam periods with little to no revenue. The attempt to expand beyond exam preparation also turned out not to be successful.

Lessons learned

The pressure on marketing (done by my colleague) could have been stricter, which would have allowed for a higher reach of potential customers. Furthermore, after reaching the first customers there was no clear plan for what to do after the exam period ends and the demand for the product disappears. The absence of that plan at the beginning led to us starting to develop alternative income sources too late, which allowed substitutes to appear on the market.