There can be many reasons to build a community around a product or interest: to expand one’s network, get valuable connections, get direct feedback from users or experts in the same field, get ideas for improvement, etc.

Building communities is time-consuming and demands special soft skills. Aline Noizet is a digital health connector with rich experiences of building and getting to know communities in digital health. She started her digital health journey working for the digital health startup Doctoralia in Barcelona in 2011. She later became an important part of Health 2.0, followed by a position at Bayer’s G4A. She now works globally as an independent consultant, based in Barcelona.

Since her entrance in the industry, Aline observes digital health startups in the past often created solutions based on their perception of what healthcare needs. Today, they are much more aware that they need to work with end-users from the beginning, in their product development stage. This results in better uptake of a solution in practice. 

What does it take to build a community 

Aline has been the managing director of Health 2.0 Barcelona community, which has been lively for nine years so far. As she reflects, Health 2.0 Barcelona meetups started as a platform enabling young companies to present themselves to the community, get visibility and new connections.

Today, the digital health ecosystem lives under Barcelona Health Hub - association for promoting innovation in digital health and its transfer to the sector, linking startups, health organizations, companies and investors. 

Aline believes every startup that wants to build a community should first and foremost connect and get to know their potential users or target customers. ”You need to be aware of the fact that it’s about them, not you. It would be best if you got users involved already in the process of product creation. Don’t just go see them when you are trying to sell them something,” says Aline.   

You can take different approaches to reach your target audience: 

1. Find conferences they go to. 

2. Use twitter and other social media channels. Aline observes a lot of healthcare professionals use Facebook and are members of medical groups, making Facebook a social media channel one shouldn’t forget about when building their community and recognition. 

How to sustain a community 

Once a solution is validated by the market, vendors can still face rejection of some users to use a product, especially in large organisations such as hospitals, and especially with IT solutions which are currently more or less frustrating healthcare professionals.

If resistance occurs, Aline advises companies to consult with frustrated users. Such a discussion can help identify the source of resentment and frustration with the product.

In any case, when you start selling the product, you should always find champions and early adopters that will inspire others to change their behaviour or use a specific product.

The whole process of solution adoption and community building should be led by a strong anchor that will manage and sustain a community.

Finding the right partner

A startup journey is demanding, especially in healthcare which is a highly regulated industry. Based on years of building her network, Aline is now on a mission to connect the dots between actors in the system as a digital health connector.

As a connector by heart, she learned a lot in her years of experience. “It does not suffice to put two people in contact. It happened to me that two people met upon my recommendation and later said to me that it was a waste of time. That was an important learning point for me. It is not enough to make an introduction between two parties. A connector has to give the involved parties a very clear introduction and her argumentation of where she sees potential of their collaboration,“ reflect Aline today.

Collaboration among different players is the key to success. Aline sees a lot of potential for a partnership between startups and corporation as both can benefit from it - corporations get in touch with the latest trends and potentially gain competitive advantage. Startups can learn about the complex processes of large organizations and adopt some to increase their productivity. 

Tune in to listen to the full discussion in iTunes:

Some questions addressed:

• After being a part of a startup Doctoralia, you joined Health 2.0, later G4A. What are your observations of digital health startups and their evolution? Digital health space grew a lot in the last years, it seems like it has gotten very precise, very niche. Have startups, entrepreneurs and ideas also changed and how? 

• What about the users? 

• You are a connector. What does that mean? 

• What happens if you don’t find a good match? How do you decide who should meet who to prevent being too pushy with investors in your network, which could negatively influence your reputation?

• What does it take to build and sustain a community? 

• Why do communities usually die?