BEYOND UNICORN: Private Investors' Knowledge Base - [Expert Talk] The importance of a well-functioning healthcare system with Yemisi Ajumobi from the World Bank

[Expert Talk] The importance of a well-functioning healthcare system with Yemisi Ajumobi from the World Bank

06/30/20 • 27 min

BEYOND UNICORN: Private Investors' Knowledge Base

Today’s guest is Yemisi, an epidemiologist specialising in infectious disease at the World Bank. We began our conversation by giving an overview of the virus causing Covid-19, what we knew and what remains to be learnt; we discussed the intricate balance between country priorities and global coordination needed to prevent and respond to a global pandemics like Covid-19; the six building blocks of a well-functioning healthcare system, and the progress made on the global coordination efforts on vaccination and lastly the one thing that we hope governments around the world can learn from the current crisis.

Key highlights from our conversation

Corona viruses are very common in animals. Research has currently estimated that there are over 1,100 Corona viruses that currently exist in animals. Specifically, with regards to human coronaviruses, these were first identified in the 1960s. And to date, there are about seven corona viruses that can infect humans, which have been identified.

The risk of pandemics has been reported to be increasing in the recent decades. Some of the reasons for these increases has been the large rates of urbanization and industrialization, which has led to the disruption of ecosystem humans coming in close contact with wildlife habitat.

The WHO health systems framework encompasses six building blocks 1) service delivery 2) health workforce 3) health information systems 4) access to essential medicines 5) financing 6) leadership / governance.

International Health Regulation 2005 is a legally binding document that countries follow to ensure that they're improving their core public health capacities to be able to adequately prepare, detect, and respond to infectious disease outbreaks.

Healthcare is typically on the funder, and a big part of what has occurred is that there is more reactivity as opposed to proactivity; it means that it's when a crisis has emerged, is when there's a lot of focus on reacting to the crisis, instead of using a wider lens of thinking through how we can be more proactive at preventing and averting crisis.

Content at a glance with time-code

(01.38) Yemisi’s background story
(05.00) What we know about Covid-19 and what remains to be learnt
(09.03) Epidemics and pandemics defined
(10.05) Urbanization and industrialisation resulted in increased risks of pandemics in recent decades
(12.07) The delicate balance between country priorities and global coordination
(20.52) What it takes to shift from reactive to proactive mindset
(22.18) The development and global coordination efforts around vaccination
(25.38) The one thing that we should learn from the current crisis

Episode links
WHO Health Systems Framework: https://www.who.int/healthinfo/systems/WHO_MBHSS_2010_full_web.pdf

International Health Regulation 2005: https://www.who.int/ihr/publications/9789241596664/en/

Key highlights from our conversation

Content at a glance with time-code

Episode links
WHO Health Systems Framework: https://www.who.int/healthinfo/systems/WHO_MBHSS_2010_full_web.pdf

International Health Regulation 2005: https://www.who.int/ihr/publications/9789241596664/en/

Previous Episode

[Founder Talk] What it takes to win the social commerce race with David Ng from Pollen

Today’s guest is David Ng, co-founder and CEO of Pollen, a community sales-as-a-service platform empowering brands to turn their fans into resellers. We began our conversation by diving into Pollen’s business model – understanding the challenges and opportunities of a B2B model versus a B2C model, dissecting the key value proposition and the key stakeholders’ relationships of social commerce, highlighting the difference between social commerce and multi-level marketing. Lastly, we discussed the competitive landscape of social commerce and how Pollen positions itself among the competitors.

Key highlights from our conversation

Direct to consumer brands and social commerce go hand in hand A lot of famous direct to consumer brands became popular due to social media so what social commerce does for D2C brands now is to enable them to go one step further from engaging their community through contents to turning them into resellers for the brands.

Key difference between multi-level marketing and social commerce Multi-level marketing is focused on the recruitment of other agents where the bulk of the income comes from instead of selling for the brand while social commerce focuses on selling for the brand by attracting people who can build personal relationships with the buyers.

The key value proposition for social commerce is centred around the hypothesis that “I am more likely to buy it from someone I trust as opposed to buy it from someone whom I don't know or by seeing a brand’s advertisement”. There are three key stakeholders at the heart of social commerce – the brand or supplier, the resellers and end consumers.

Casual sellers make up the bulk of the reseller network 75% of the community piloted at Pollen is made up of casual sellers who are potential buyers too while the remaining 25% of the community are hardcore sellers who see social commerce as a way a main income generating engine.

Non-commodity type products are more suitable for social commerce such as fashion, beauty, food, wellness, lifestyle because purchasing decisions for such products depend on a multitude of factors beyond pure functionality and price alone.

Content at a glance with time-code

(01.26) David’s background story and the journey to founding Pollen (03.22) Snapshot of Pollen’s business model (05.09) Direct to consumer brands and social commerce go hand in hand (07.43) Difference between social commerce and multilevel marketing (11.46) Casual sellers vs hardcore sellers (13.36) The B2C element of social commerce (16.04) What types of products work best for social commerce (20.05) B2B vs B2C social commerce business models (32.20) Unicorn discussion: the fine balance between profitability and valuation

Episode linksPollen: https://www.pollen.store/ Jumper AI: https://jumper.ai/

Next Episode

[Investor Talk] EdTech investing in China with Veronica Zhou from Blue Elephant Capital

Today’s guest is Veronica Zhou, partner of Blue Elephant Capital, the first pure play education technology focused early stage investment fund in China. We began our conversation by segmenting the Chinese education market into 3 broad segments, namely to consumer (2C), to school (2S) and to business (2B). We then delved deeper into the complex sales system in the “to school” segment; how Covid-19 created the paradigm shift in online education. And lastly, we discussed Blue Elephant Capital’s investment approach and the key investment theses in the next 5 years.

Key highlights from our conversation

Chinese education market is divided into 3 broad segments 1) To Consumer (2C): to families and students 2) To school (2S): to schools, education bureaus, to government’s budget 3) To Business (2B): this includes 600,000 small and medium sized afterschool shops; about 20 large scale education companies such as TAL or New Oriental

Education spending continues to rise across China Families in the first-tier cities (e.g. Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen) in China spend on average 20 to 30% of their disposable income on their kids' education. This trend is observed to be growing over the last few years, and is also developing in the second-tier cities such as the provincial capitals and other more affluent cities in China. It is observed that in a certain city, once over 40% of students go to after school classes, a flipping point will be reached resulting in FOMO - suddenly everyone wants to go to the after-school classes and every parent feels obligated to send their kids there.

2S is the largest segment with government spending on public education expected to riseThe government spending on public education system in China is about RMB 5 trillion - just above 4% of GDP for China. In more advanced economies like Northern Europe, this ratio is about 8% of GDP. So, it is believed that the Chinese government spending on the public education system will continue to grow.

Covid-19 led an 85% increase in online education but this is believed to be temporaryThe first wave of online education start-ups came into existence around 2013. By 2019, data shows that about 15% of the consumer market is acceptive to online education. Covid-19 led an 85% hike in the online education market. But it is believed to be temporary as the majority of the education will still be conducted in physical campus and the majority of the school system will go back to its old track.

Key growth trends identified are 1) education of kids before 3 years old 2) after kindergarten market: OMO (online merges offline) 3) Screenless education for kids before 6 years old 4) Online education for vocational training 5) digitalisation of physical campus 6) The use of new media like TikTok for education purpose

Content at a glance with time-code

(01.20) Veronica’s background story and a brief introduction on Blue Elephant Capital (02.39) Overview of Chinese education market: how it segments to 2C, 2S and 2B; key trends within each segment (09.13) 2S: what areas of private investments are relevant for the 2S segments (11.25) The government’s procurement and purchasing decisions within 2S (16.25) Chinese online education before and after Covid-19 (26.06) Blue Elephant Capital’s investment approach (32.07) Key growth trends in EdTech in the next 3-5 years (38.06) The unicorn discussion

Episode linksBlue Elephant Capital: http://en.ibecapital.com/