Meet PharmAssistant that won the 3rd prize at Lisbon Challenge 2014 Spring Edition. With PharmAssistant, you’ll never forget about taking your medicines again! You can also monitor remotely if your loved ones are taking theirs.

Do you want to know what they learned and how their business evolved? Read their amazing story below..

“December 5th was the Lisbon Investment Summit (LIS), Lisbon Challenge (LC) Autumn Edition’14. We were there. We arrived to Lisbon the day before. Diogo went to pitch and, in 3 minutes, he explained what happened to us and our business model since July.

We are developing a smart pill box to help people never forget again about their medication. And our business it’s way broader than just a selling a box. We started our journey on May, at LC Spring Edition’14.

I’ll tell you about what we learned and how our business evolved, the people we met and the tough decisions we faced and where we are now, but first let’s rewind.

When you need to say no

July 11th 2014. The sun is shining. We are at a venue by the river for the LIS Spring Edition. The day started with a journalist asking us to show our prototype. It was a cardboard prototype, with a standard chip we bought from China. If you go on national TV, you have to have the best functional prototype. We knew that wasn’t the case yet, so we had to say no.

The day hadn’t begun and we were already refusing a chance to be featured on media.The day went by, we got 3rd place on LC, won the SmartEquity prize and we ended up having not one, but eight media appearances just due to LIS.

Sometimes, saying no pays off. So far, we said no to investment proposals, accelerators invitations, meetings and conferences, partnerships and people that wanted to join the team. Being able to say no it’s hard, but it’s the only way you guarantee you’re going through the path that is aligned with your vision and mission.

Here are the challenges we decided to say yes to:

From May to July at Lisbon Challenge:

- Yes to market research and validation. We talked to people and organizations that could be our potential customers every week;

- Yes to MVP (Minimum Viable Product) with an ugly cardboard box;

- Yes to iteration on the business model: from a B2C approach for relatives of elderly people, we start looking into the B2B market;

- Yes to expand our network: we met investors, mentors, entrepreneurs and business partners, with whom we still have a connection today.

From August to December at Grants4Apps, Bayer’s accelerator program:

- Yes to a 50k seed investment from the program;

- Yes to bringing new talented people onboard: Joana, Head of Design, and Luís, CTO

- Yes to Berlin: we had office space at Bayer HQ, so we moved the entire team to Germany;

- Yes to more market research and validation: we dove into the German market, and got a broader picture about the european market, potential clients and stakeholders;

- Yes to learning more about regulation: data privacy, CE certification, medical device regulation… you name it. Bayer has the expertise in all these fields and answered all our questions;

- Yes to a functional prototype, 3D printed (after dozens of prototypes maken, tested and validated);

- Yes to a partnership with the University of Texas, through the UTEN Portugal program;

- Yes to a global network: just to a name a few of the events we’ve been to: Pioneers in Vienna, Reeperbahn in Hamburg, BigApps in London;

- Yes to more iteration to the Business Plan: we’re going B2B2C, but now we know clearly who are our early adopters: young chronic patients (they are already tech savvy and are the ones who comply the less when taking medication). Pharma companies, Retails Pharmacy Chains and Health Insurance companies are under our radar.

We’re saying yes to more challenges that we can’t disclosure yet. Sign up now for our newsletter and we’ll keep you updated.“