Song Jingwei, Co-founder of Xiaodoumiao: How We Became the Leading Vaccination Platform in China Within 3 Years Through Prevention | 2017 Future Healthcare 100

“Top 100 Future Healthcare Companies 2017” Forum, themed “The Era of Species Explosion,” was held at the Beijing Marriott Hotel from December 15 to 17, 2017.

At the Maternal and Child Health Sub-forum on December 16, Ms. Song Jingwei, Co-founder of Xiao Dou Miao, delivered a speech on the theme “Children’s Health Starts with Prevention.” VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has summarized the guest’s viewpoints.

Ms. Song Jingwei, Co-founder of Xiao Dou Miao, has been deeply engaged in the biological products industry for over 20 years. A former executive at a publicly listed biological products company, she is committed to building an “immunization + internet platform” ecosystem. Xiao Dou Miao APP, a product under Sandai Ren Technology, has amassed over ten million users, becoming China’s largest one-stop service platform for infant vaccination.

Xiao Dou Miao is a young company, having been in existence for just three years since its founding. Transitioning from traditional industries to pursue “Internet Plus” initiatives has opened up an entirely new frontier for our team. We have been proactively exploring and learning through trial and error, advancing with a mindset dedicated to continuous learning.

The upgrade in health-related consumption is an undeniable trend in the consumer market. Across all age groups and socioeconomic strata, we are witnessing a steady increase in spending on preventive health, marking a significant shift at the market level.

From a broad policy perspective, whether it is the “Healthy China 2030” Planning Outline issued by the State Council, the report of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, or recent economic reports, a clear shift is evident: disease treatment must be reoriented toward prevention, with specific plans and requirements put forth for the health industry.

Driven by policy, the health industry should be ushering in a new spring, and I believe this phase will last for quite some time.

When it comes to prevention, vaccination is widely recognized as the fastest, most effective, and most precise approach to maintaining health. However, unlike other health products, its significance extends far beyond this. Vaccination helps establish a robust immune barrier, which is why governments and countries around the world pay particular attention to its development.

From another perspective, the establishment of an immune barrier also reflects a nation’s comprehensive national strength; therefore, the Chinese government has incorporated vaccination into its unified system. Another significant aspect of vaccines is that large-scale vaccination fully demonstrates their social value and benefits.

How to Establish an Immune Barrier? Two Key Nodes. The first is high-quality products and advanced technologies to provide broader disease coverage and enhance quality. The other node is achieving high vaccination rates to offer better protection for society.

Xiao Dou Miao aims to boost vaccination coverage and support public health management by implementing solutions that enhance the普及率 of preventive immunizations.

In 2014, Xiao Dou Miao launched its “Vaccination + Internet” service, with the project initially focusing on childhood immunization. Childhood vaccination is an essential need, as children require vaccinations from birth.

How large is the population? Following the relaxation of the two-child policy, there were approximately 18 million newborns annually. Furthermore, vaccination represents a high-frequency use case, particularly during the 0–3 year age range; completing the full immunization schedule requires more than 20 doses in total.

In summary, vaccination holds significant importance for individuals, the industry, and public social administration; however, numerous challenges and difficulties do exist in its practical implementation.

From a management perspective, establishing an immunization barrier through vaccination is a key focus of their administrative efforts. However, with the rapid advancement of urbanization, the increasing concentration of urban populations poses challenges to disease control and surveillance.

Furthermore, traditional communication tools and methods have struggled to effectively reach end users. For parents and physicians alike, this pain point is all the more evident.

First, in terms of awareness, there is a significant gap in public understanding of preventive vaccination across the entire market. People tend to be passive about getting vaccinated, let alone when they are on-site. Therefore, parents who bring their children for vaccinations share a common perception: it is undoubtedly a physically demanding task that requires cultivating strong mental resilience and patience. Manufacturers and service providers also face numerous pain points.

The crux of all these issues, in my view, lies in information asymmetry, necessitating a comprehensive suite of solutions. While this may sound simple, it addresses systemic problems.

We present the solution for the first phase, which begins with end-user connectivity and interaction. Centered on children, Xiao Dou Miao connects parents, doctors, and outpatient clinics to form a complete service loop. This enables real-time interaction from a state of routine connectivity, allowing Xiao Dou Miao’s one-stop vaccination service platform to deliver last-mile services.

Xiaodoumiao, launched in 2014. Upon its market debut, similar or cross-scenario application products flooded in, yet Xiaodoumiao has consistently maintained a leading position in terms of professionalism and public image.

2015 marked the rise of the “Internet Plus” trend, sparking a surge in adoption attempts for various management systems. With recognition and support from both the government and the industry, Xiao Dou Miao collaborated with local governments to advance project implementation, rapidly achieving widespread application coverage.

From July to August 2016, Xiaodoumiao integrated its services with Alipay and WeChat. Over the past three years, Xiaodoumiao has been at the forefront in terms of market coverage, user scale, as well as industry recognition and influence.

Xiaodoumiao integrates tools, content, and social features. The tools provide end-to-end services, while the content and social components enable personalized recommendations of systematic educational materials for children and facilitate interactions between healthcare providers and users to support service delivery.

Through the services provided by Xiao Dou Miao, there has been a significant shift in user attitudes. Previously, users were largely passive; now, they can proactively access information and schedule vaccinations.

The on-site conditions have also undergone significant changes; the past scenes of congestion, noise, and chaos are no longer present. The efficiency of the child vaccination process has greatly improved, and the facility has become exceptionally clean.

Xiao Dou Miao currently boasts over 10 million users, covering all 32 provinces and municipalities across China, and connecting more than 25,000 offline outpatient clinics. It can be said that Xiao Dou Miao is the most widely used, popular, and extensively adopted application, as well as the first vaccination software to achieve cross-provincial interoperability and nationwide compatibility.

In terms of user profiles, 80% of the children served by Xiaodoumiao are infants and toddlers aged 0–3 years. The platform primarily connects with mothers, especially younger demographics, concentrated mainly in provincial capitals in central China, as well as coastal cities in eastern and central regions.

Xiao Dou Miao’s monthly active user rate has consistently remained above 45%, with an active user base of 4 to 5 million. The usage patterns of Xiao Dou Miao’s users, product characteristics, and customer acquisition channels and methods are all in a phase of robust growth and evolution, demonstrating strong upward momentum.

Although Xiao Dou Miao is a medical application, its content and social features enjoy high engagement rates beyond its basic utility functions. We can see that the combined usage rate of "Mom's Classroom" and other social content approaches 50%. The readership volume for "Mom's Classroom" easily surpasses ten million views.

Centered around the app, Xiaodoumiao has also established a self-media matrix encompassing WeChat Official Accounts, Weibo, and WeChat groups. Additionally, it regularly hosts offline “Mommy Classroom” touring exhibitions each year, which have received positive on-site feedback, thereby providing a precise promotional channel.

While Xiao Dou Miao provides vaccination services, our offerings extend beyond immunizations to encompass broader health services. Starting with pediatric health management, we are progressively enhancing children’s health records, which include documentation of their daily behaviors, status updates, and medical histories.

With such detailed records, Xiao Dou Miao provides users with more personalized and precise vaccination recommendations. In the future, we will also expand into children's health management services, providing basic data and even recommending scientific and healthy solutions to users.

In addition, Xiaodoumiao has piloted vaccination insurance this year. This initiative is also grounded in the broader national policy context: from 2014 to 2015, policies began to support commercial insurance as a supplementary mechanism to government fiscal funding. Against this backdrop, the new “Internet + Vaccine Insurance” model offers a more diversified solution for managing vaccination services.

During our pilot program for vaccine insurance, we delivered precise user targeting and developed online medical insurance product designs, while simultaneously conducting insurance promotion campaigns. As a result, the entire initiative has garnered significant appreciation and support from both management and partners. In the future, Xiao Dou Miao will introduce a broader range of children's health insurance products.

Xiao Dou Miao starts with vaccination services, leveraging the essential demand for vaccines to expand into a broader range of children’s health services. For instance, maternal immunization against rubella during preconception and pregnancy helps protect the fetus. From preconception, pregnancy, and embryonic development to birth and growth, Xiao Dou Miao provides tailored services corresponding to different age groups and developmental stages.

Furthermore, Xiao Dou Miao can extend its services to a broader target audience. As parents and families constitute the first line of immune defense for children, this relationship can serve as an entry point for expanding into comprehensive health management. In terms of application scenarios, Xiao Dou Miao can broaden its health services beyond physical well-being to include mental health and behavioral health.

However, our core expertise remains in the field of vaccination. For expansion into other sectors, we look forward to the involvement of professionals or resources that can be integrated into the Xiao Dou Miao Vaccination Platform, jointly promoting industry development and delivering more high-quality health services.

This is our positioning for Xiao Dou Miao, or its long-term vision. We aspire for Xiao Dou Miao to serve as a baby’s first app, accompanying them throughout their growth and safeguarding their health every step of the way.

Note: VCBeat has made deletions and additions without altering the guests' original intent.