The year 2017 has been quite an adventurous ride for Iranian businesses looking forward to grow. Economic challenges, sanctions, domestic obstacles, increasing air pollution and an earthquake seem to work together in order to break the spirits of a lot of young and motivated entrepreneurs. Did they succeed breaking them? Of course not! Iranian fortitude might be unknown to many non-Iranians, but yet it is a very true, powerful force within Iranian culture. A very new addition to Iran’s very old and ancient culture is the startup culture: Quite young compared to the startup scenes of other countries, but Iranians always seemed to show a very strong aptitude for the startup & technology environment.

Iranian startups so far have done an excellent job in enriching Iran’s market segments with their fresh and forward-thinking ideas. The amount of productive disruption and innovation they have brought within their young age has tremendously helped the country, more than has been admitted by Iran’s usually very old-school and very centralized business culture. But youth and intelligence are a very fierce combination that can become unstoppable. One unlikely market segment that has truly felt the positive impact startups can bring is the healthcare segment.

Here are 4 ways Iranian startups have enriched Iranian healthcare:

Counter-Measures against Natural Hazards

Ranging from digital marketing services and website design for healthcare institutions and top-level practitioners up to finding actionable solutions for people and businesses affected by the earthquake last month, Iranian startups have proven their steel even in the face of national catastrophe. Over 500 people died and death tolls are still expected to rise. Iranian crowdfunding platforms 2nate and Mehrabane are collecting money for the victims as part of their social responsibility and Iranians outside of Iran can also commit with PayPal and MasterCard at 2nate.com and mehrabane.ir. Peeyade, Dunro and Puneez are using their influence to persuade people into donating blood to the people in need. Iran’s Uber-style ride-hailing apps Snapp and Tap30 are rounding that up by giving ride discounts to the blood donation facilities.

Promotion of Credibility

Diploma Forgery has always been a problem throughout the middle east. Even though Iran is popular for its excellent healthcare professionals, there are many diploma forgers faking their credentials. The Iranian government has a frequently updated list of credible practitioners but they cannot release it to some privacy law and the prevention of sensitive information. The so-called 80/20 Pareto law in Iran (where 20% of all doctors receive 80% of all patients) has caused massive problems for the healthcare industry. Some of those 20 percenters are in fact forgers as they have an aptitude to promote themselves effectively. Enter Shafajoo: An Iranian Startup that exactly tackles this administrative mess by giving all doctors the opportunity to create a profile on their website along with uploading their CV and degrees. Then the team at Shafajoo directly double-checks with universities in order to make sure the listed doctors are allowed to practice medicine. If Shafajoo finds out that they are faking, they simply lose the check and get banned from creating a profile. With the rising cases in medical fraud, Shafajoo is not just a solution to some problems in Iranian healthcare; it is the solution. In time, Shafajoo could capitalize on its service spectrum to further help the high-potential healthcare market in Iran with keeping standards by helping the actual doctors with getting more patients and leverage.

Medical Tourism

With Shafajoo entering the scene, startups communicating their social responsibility along with a marketing culture that also offers services to doctors and medical institutions such as website design, brand design or SEO, Iran is consistently rising as a top-provider of healthcare. Even in the face of forgery, the actual talent behind healthcare in Iran has always been sufficiently professional and well-regarded to cast a very large shadow on the forgery issue. Medical tourism is a multibillion dollar, rapidly growing industry throughout the world and Iran’s healthcare experts have capitalized on it since its very early days – and every penny and skill invested was worth the effort. An increasing amount of people in the MENA region are planning trips to Iran in order to deal with their medical issues.

Healthcare Awareness

Those startups raising further awareness for healthcare is self-explanatory. Aside from the already mentioned, social media and content marketing are powerful tools in Iran for publishing content about healthcare, nutrition, physical education and a higher level of public awareness about health issues and how to stay healthy in a city such as Tehran, that at times has very high amounts of pollution through its infamous metropolitan traffic. The most powerful social media platforms in Iran are currently Telegram, Twitter, Instagram and Aparat (Iran’s version of YouTube). Digital Marketing Agencies such as ours consistently use those platforms for healthcare clients, for raising awareness and as part of our focus on social responsibility and advertisements based on social responsibility.

Iran’s healthcare market holds great opportunities for investors (development & innovation), hospitals (medical tourism), health practitioners and even nutrition experts. If you are interested in working with us on your next healthcare project in Iran or otherwise, feel free to contact us:

info@sisarv.com