This month we caught up with Ivan Beckley, CEO of Suvera. Suvera is transforming the healthcare industry by enabling general practices to virtually follow up patients with long-term conditions and their treatments in a convenient, fast and effective way.
The moment that ignited the spark in me to start a business was…
There wasn’t really a moment. More a series of observations. Both myself and my co-founder are medics training as doctors. Our job for over 5 years has been to observe everything that doctors do and how healthcare is delivered. In doing so we naturally asked why? Why are doctor’s forced to have so many appointments every day. Why are patients forced to have to take a half day off work to see the doctor? All of those questions led to our realisation that virtual care is the future of healthcare. It will move healthcare from inaccessible to accessible, reactive to proactive, generic to personalised. Enabling this positive change in healthcare is what sparked the business
The toughest challenge I’ve faced is (and how I overcame it)…
The toughest challenge so far has been pitching for funding at pre-launch. This is a challenge because the signals of success, current and future are few. Investors therefore have to believe in the market opportunity and the ability of the team to execute on that opportunity. That’s it. As first time founders this challenge is compounded by the fact we haven’t done this before and so there is a lot we have to learn whilst also not seeming incompetent. It’s a fine balance. We overcome this at Suvera by being persistent. We made mistakes but we learnt from them. The ability to keep trying is a powerful lever for success. It’s simple but true.
The biggest success has been…
The biggest success has been developing a strong engineering team at Suvera. This is a success because engineering talent is in high demand across our industry. We need the best but with our limited resources it means we need also people who deeply believe in the mission of the company. This is been a massive success for us.
I’m very good at…
Explaining the big picture. I have, for as long as I can remember, been a big picture thinker. I don’t know why or how but I am. This really helps, when starting small with all your dreams of the better future, to motivate you and the team.
The type of person I look to recruit is…
They have to love what they do and have a desire to get better. It needs to feel like they want to do nothing else than do what they do. We strive to be great at Suvera and everyone has to be aligned on that. Second is that that they have to genuinely care about healthcare. Working at Suvera needs to be more than a job – it is a cause. Lastly, you have to be kind. Kindness is beautiful human quality which I think allows teams to be more vulnerable with each other, to feel accepted and most importantly happy.
The part of my day I most look forward to is…
At the end of the day, when I get to journal and reflect on the company and the market but also the vision for the healthcare we are working to enable. It helps to set perspective and to remind me, no matter how hard things are, I couldn’t think of anything else I would want to spend my days doing.
If I could give fellow entrepreneurs one piece of advice it would be…
Keep bloody going. If you genuinely believe in the market opportunity ahead of you. Keep going. You may not have the answer in front of you, but time committed to the journey reveals a huge amount that few will understand because they just haven’t endured long enough. I have realised more than anything, success in start-ups is significantly about endurance. Who can endure for the longest is deeply likely to win. The worst thing is when you think it’s all over is when you are closer than you have ever been.
Outside of work I can be found…
Reading, Writing or Walking. Never at the same time lol.
My philosophy on life is…
Everyone alive has something they have been given to bring to the world. The journey of life is about finding that thing and doing everything you can to bring it alive for the good of humanity.
What was your business challenge?
Closing our first external investment funding round and building a solid foundation of legal policies for our clients and team.
How did you work with Ignition Law on this? What support did we provide you with?
Ignition supported us with every part of this work. This is also why we have enjoyed working with Ignition. It is very much a one stop shop for everything we needed to get the business going and growing.
What did you enjoy most about working with the team at Ignition?
The empathy that Ignition have for the entrepreneurial journey. Everyone we have worked with at Ignition moved with such pace and understanding of the demands at our early stage that it has been extremely refreshing. Ignition felt more like partners in making Suvera come alive than just our contracted lawyers.
