The surprising things AI wants to know about your health

We need to get the health care revolution right.

Artificial Intelligence promises to reduce bottlenecks, improve quality of care, and allow our over-stretched healthcare systems to scale to meet the needs of the aging global population.

But it's not going to be easy.

Today we talk with Kota Kubo, founder of Ubie about the opportunities and challenges involved in the coming wave of healthcare innovation. And since Ubie just raised $27 million to fund their global expansion, you'll be hearing a lot more about them in the future.

It's a great conversation, and I think you'll enjoy it.

Show Notes

The right way to use and AI symptom checker Is founding a 50/50 startup with an old friend a good idea? How you can manage 150 employees without managers Why the team designed Ubie's UI in Hibiya Park The "karaoke interface" for medical data Why you should ignore your customers and listen to your users about design Why it's so hard to sell to doctors (and how to do it right) How to better support orphaned diseases Ubie's strategy for going global.

Links from the Founder

Everything you ever wanted to know about Ubie Check your symptoms with Ubie's AI Symptom Checker AN overview of Teal Management Follow Kota on Twitter @quvo_ubie Connect on LinkedIn

Transcript Welcome to Disrupting Japan, straight talk from Japan’s most successful entrepreneurs. I’m Tim Romero and thanks for joining me. Even if AI can't give us the right answer, sometimes it can help us to ask the right questions. It turns out, that's a lot more important than you might think. Today, we sit down with Kota Kubo, the co-founder of Ubie, an AI based symptom checker and hospital check-in tool that is being used at over a thousand hospitals and clinics across Japan. And as you'll see in this case, the questions, the AI raises are more important than those it answers. And since Ubie just raised 27 million to fund their global expansion, you'll be hearing a lot more about them soon. We also talk about how Ubie manages 150 staff with no managers, why it's so hard to sell to doctors and how to do it right. How to bring attention to orphan diseases and why you really need to ignore your customer’s ideas about UI and listen to your users. But, you know, Kota tells that story much better than I can. So, let's get right to the interview.

Interview Tim: Cheers. Kota: Cheers. Tim: So, we're sitting here with Kota Kubo of Ubie, who is disrupting digital health here in Japan. So, thanks so much for sitting down with me. Health tech is so important in Japan. And so you've got two different products you offer. Kota: Yes. Tim: So, let's do just a real quick introduction to what those products are and then we'll dive deep. Kota: Yes, we have the two side of product. First, is for the patient product. It's our AI symptom checker Ubie and the users input their symptoms like headache or stomach ache or something. So AI asked some of the sort of questions. And after that AI suggest a disease name so their users can get to know their symptom, condition and disease. And after that, we also suggested the clinics or hospitals. Tim: Okay. You know, one thing I'm curious about that, because I've used it. It's really interesting, but so like some sites like WebMD, for example, they have a really famous problem where someone will go on with like, I don't know, a runny nose and they'll start searching and asking questions. And 10 minutes later they're convinced they have like rabies or some brain eating parasite or some horrible disease. How do you stop that kind of unhealthy interaction at Ubie? Kota: Yeah, it's very difficult. I think so our end the point of the suggestions guide people to the appropriate clinics and hospitals and we suggest a specialist created to their symptom. So, I think their users feel they're safe. Tim: So, and again, you're really focusing on providing information, not diagnosing anything. Kota: Yes. Yes. It's a very important point. Tim: And your other product is the monshin, the check in functionality, right? Kota: Yes, exactly. So, second product is Ubie, health assistant it's called AI Monshin in Japan. The objective is to reduce the burden of their medical doctors. We save the time of their making the clinical record because our AI also ask a lot of questions about symptoms and AI summarize their medical record. Tim: This is really cool. So, let's take time to walk through the process. So, if someone's got an appointment at the hospital or at a clinic, they can check in and fill out the symptom forms at home on a mobile phone, right? Kota: Yes. Tim: And where does the AI come in? Kota: There a lot of questions from the AI and the AI is changed the question according to their patient answer. So, AI selected the question and also calculates their disease probabilities. Tim: So, what the AI's doing is it's figuring out the kinds of follow up questions a doctor would ask. Kota: Yes. Tim: And getting this information together and presenting it to the doctor all at once? Kota: Yes. Yes. Tim: So again, not diagnosing, but just getting the information together. Kota: Yes. Yes. Tim: Awesome. So, tell me about your customers. Who's using Ubie and monshin? Kota: First, is a medical doctors. Before using the Ubie, they have to make their medical record by themselves from scratch, but we support them to make the record. Before we are face to face medical consultation with their patient, also we suggest disease to the medical doctors. It prevents their doctors from overlooking the serious disease. Tim: So Ubies is use in all 47 prefectures and 15% of all clinics and hospitals in Japan are using it now. Kota: Yes. Around 15%. That's the product that they use is either not the Ubie AI Monshin, it's a Ubie link. It's a connection between the B2C and the B2B app and in terms of the Ubie AI health assistant, we have just install the 1000 clinics and hospitals. Tim: That's fantastic. Okay, I want to dive deep into the product in the market, but before we do that, let's back up a little bit and talk about sort of how you got here. So, you officially founded Ubie back in 2017, right? Kota: Yes. Tim: And at that time, you were still a student? Kota: No. Before starting Ubie, I worked through Japanese data health company. I worked as a marketing engineer. Basically I did a light code, production code and also I do the marketing related things. Tim: But that was relatively briefly, right? Kota: Yes. And including the internship just three years. Tim: And your co-founder Abe-san, he was also at University of Tokyo, but you guys were like high school classmates or friends or something, right? Kota: Yes. Tim: How did that happen? Did you reconnect in university or did you stay friends the whole time? Kota: Yes. He was my friend and from the high school, as you mentioned, we are friend of there just starting together. So, for the Jyuken. And we split when I entered the university and my bachelor's degree was in Kyoto University, but he entered the University of Tokyo. And from there graduate school, I moved to the university, the Tokyo and yeah… Tim: And reconnected. Kota: Yeah. We connected. And actually when I was in Kyoto University, there was angel investors who liked Abe-san company and his mission is to increase the number of students who want to become an entrepreneur. Tim: That's my mission too. Kota: Sounds nice. So yeah, I got interested in such entrepreneurship and also they're starting business. Tim: So Abe-san, I mean, he's a medical doctor. Kota: Yes. Tim: Did you pitch the idea to him or did you come up with it together? Kota: Yes. In 2012, I come up with the idea of diagnosis. I researched about such domains and I also developed a better version. I kept one year. And after that I understood, I lacked the knowledge of such a medical domain so I have to consult with him. So, I pitched. Tim: You pitched. Kota: I pitched him and he said, we can make it. Tim: So, you were actually working on this from 2012? Kota: Yes. Tim: So, you were developing it for like five years before you started Ubie? Kota: Yes. Yes. That's a beginning phase is just for the research. Tim: It's interesting. So you and Abe-san are co-CEOs? Kota: Yes. Tim: Now this is something that's actually pretty common in Japan but pretty rare in the US. Does that ever cause problems? How does that work on the personal day to day? We've got to make these decisions under high stress situation. Kota: Yes. it's a very good questions. Yeah, sometimes I feel it's confusing for the employees too. So, who is the final decision maker? They don’t know. Yeah, I think there good point is we can advise the risk and there is a rules are between me and my co-founder. If there is an inevitable conflict between us after discussion, we can make the same decision. Tim: I like that. I mean, it's a very culturally different approach having 50-50 forces you to reach an agreement. I've always said in the deals I've done, like I'm perfectly happy with 49% or 51%, but I never want 50 because I don't like the ambiguity, but it is interesting because it does force you to sit down and get aligned. Kota: Yeah, yeah, yes. Yeah. Some of these investors advised us don't go for 50 and 50 too. Tim: Give someone 51 and… Kota: Yeah, yeah. It's our entrepreneur. Tim: I mean it's different. I mean, what I would imagine would happen is it would definitely slow down decision making, but maybe those are the cases where it's good to slow down a bit and build a consensus. Kota: Yes. And we have also installed the framework of the sulture structurings it's a holocracy, it's a kind of Teal organization. You know Teal organization? Tim: I do. And I had a note to talk about this later, but let's talk about it now. I think the way you've structured your organization is super interesting.