Launching a medtech startup in Singapore is ‘insane.’ We did it anyway.

(L-R) AEvice Health co-founders Edmund Shao, Ser Wee, and Adrian Ang / Photo credit: AEvice Health

“You’re mad.”

That’s what one of my mentors said when I first pitched the idea of a medtech startup. Indeed, if people who launch startups in Singapore are crazy, then the ones that create medtech startups must be insane.

Launching a medtech startup anywhere is difficult (think high capital, slow ROI, etc.). Now, multiply the difficulty by a few times—that’s what it’s like to launch one in Singapore.

Two years ago, no one told me that almost every startup founder in the medtech industry has had experience dealing with medical devices. It was quite a shock for me, as I entered the industry with barely any knowledge or experience. But as we celebrated the second​ anniversary of AEvice Health last month, we were on track to move on to series A.

The journey wasn’t as tough as I expected, but it wasn’t easy either.

Here, I’ll share my four key takeaways from starting a medical devices startup.

Address the pain point

The best businesses accurately identify and solve their customers’ pain points, which places research at the forefront of shaping their product. In general, startups can choose to focus on either hardware or software. However, a medical devices company like us has to work in both spaces, incurring significantly higher overhead costs as compared to other startups.

These days, most medical devices are paired with an app to ensure a better user experience and to provide real-time data. For AEvice Health, our medical device not only has to be small, lightweight, and comfortable to wear, but also provides real-time notifications and historical data via the app.

This requires highly specialized personnel and tools, which add on significantly to the pre-existing costs of launching a medtech startup. With so much at stake, it’s important that you do ample research to ensure that you are addressing an unmet need in the industry.

When we first started in 2016, we reached out to many local pediatricians to validate that there was a need for a respiratory wellness device in the market. A chance to participate in a four-month-long healthcare accelerator program in Dubai in 2017 gave us the opportunity to reach out to various private and public healthcare institutions to validate that the problem we were solving was not just in Singapore. We even reached out to parents in the UK and US to learn and share more about our device.

Although the validation process was tedious, we found invaluable insights about our market and industry that were indispensable to the development of our product.

Anticipate changes

It’s no secret that there are strict regulatory frameworks in each jurisdiction when it comes to medical devices. Depending on the market, you’ll have to adhere to frameworks—be it FDA approval, CE Markings, or others.

This is natural. You’re dealing with human lives, so the risk is significantly higher and the margin for error is smaller. However, these regulatory frameworks differ widely for every region and are constantly being updated with new policies, making it extremely costly and time-intensive for companies.

Invest in the right investors

Make assumptions