Shameem Hameed created several companies, including a medical billing services company, before starting ZH Healthcare in 2008 to provide billing and EHR software to innovative healthcare providers. Their BlueBriX software grew into a comprehensive and customizable platform used by hundreds of healthcare organizations around the world.
ZH Healthcare now has almost 200 employees in the US and India. The company has been profitable every year and has not taken on any outside funding.
Digital Health Software Topics Discussed on this Podcast
- How their digital health software solution grew out of their medical billing service company
- How they compete with larger digital health solutions from much larger companies
- Why the founders decided not to take outside venture funding
- How they build a comprehensive enterprise-level platform incrementally based on customer-funded requirements
- Why they built a low-code, no-code development environment to allow their customers to customize the platform themselves
- How they struggled to hire senior level executives until the company had grown substantially
- Why Shameem gives credit to his leadership team that he has promoted to cofounder status
Quote from Shameem Hameed, CEO of ZH Healthcare
“I looked at funding a few years ago and talked to some investors. The first investors told us that the EHR market is saturated for small offices and there’s not much you can do there. At first, I found myself “cutting my feet to fit the shoe” of what VCs wanted to hear.
“We told them we are building a customizable enterprise application using low code and no code for organizations with 50+ plus users who can see the value in what we are doing. And our customers already loved it. That’s what we are. That’s my vision and I’m going to stay there as long as it gets done
“They wanted a five-year exit plan, and that wasn’t going to happen. I’m building a big, long-term company. At the slightest problem, these investors will say, ‘Let’s have an orderly shutdown.’ If we raise capital, we can’t persevere and make it work like we have always done.
“So finally I told my people, it’s not going to happen. We’ll keep going without VC funding. We were already profitable and growing since day one. I have the patience to build the company in the way that I want it.”
