Online Doctor Files IPO Prospectus: Empowering Local Fan Economies for Mid-Career Physicians

Twelve years after leaving his clinical practice, Zhou Bingquan founded “Online Doctor,” an O2O healthcare platform dedicated to serving early- and mid-career physicians. Compared with senior chief physicians and departmental specialists, these younger doctors often face lower incomes, limited public recognition, and a scarcity of high-quality patient referrals. The original mission of Online Doctor was to help early- and mid-career physicians build their personal brands and attract more high-quality patients through its products and services.

In fact, more than a decade ago, Zhou Bingquan was also a neurosurgeon at the hospital.

During his year as a physician, Zhou Bingquan observed that department heads, specialists, and renowned doctors typically had large patient volumes and were often overworked. It was these physicians who had the opportunity to engage in freelance practice outside their institutions, whereas young and middle-aged doctors found themselves in an awkward position. As a recent graduate, Zhou Bingquan rarely had his own patients; all 16 beds under his care were filled with patients admitted through the department head’s outpatient clinic. This meant that although he had a heavy daily workload, none of it counted toward his performance-based income. During that year as a doctor, Zhou Bingquan’s monthly salary never exceeded RMB 3,000. In contrast, his average monthly income from entrepreneurial ventures during university had surpassed RMB 10,000. This significant disparity led him to make the firm decision to resign from his medical position.

After leaving the hospital, Zhou Bingquan transitioned to multinational pharmaceutical companies, where he spent over a year in pharmaceutical sales and management. He subsequently founded two medical device companies. As the internet healthcare market rapidly gained momentum, an increasing number of his friends pivoted to this sector, prompting Zhou to take action as well.

Seeking a Technical Co-Founder: Sent Over 2,000 Emails and Met with More Than 200 People

Following conventional wisdom, Zhou Bingquan’s initial consideration was profitability. However, his friend working in the internet industry advised: “You don’t necessarily need to identify a profit model right away; as long as you leverage your strengths and become the leader in a niche sector, that itself presents an opportunity for profitability.”

Zhou Bingquan’s strength lies in his experience as a physician and his background in selling pharmaceuticals and medical devices, giving him an intimate understanding of hospital operations. What he lacks is a partner with internet expertise to achieve complementary advantages. However, finding such a suitable partner is no easy task.

The first team Zhou Bingquan found was introduced by a friend who sold software. This team hoped that Zhou Bingquan would outsource the product development to them, but this did not align with Zhou Bingquan’s vision.

Later, Zhou Bingquan spent two weeks at the School of Computer Science of his alma mater and finally found another relatively reliable team, whose members happened to be a group of senior undergraduate students.

The project thus got its start in the school cafeteria.

“Lacking experience, our team would discuss solutions in the morning, write code in the afternoon, and often hit a wall by evening, leaving us unable to proceed.” Thus, through trial and error, Zhou Bingquan led the team to successfully develop the DEMO.

In his quest for a breakthrough, Zhou Bingquan left no stone unturned in recruiting technical talent, scouring nearly every social platform. After sending over 2,000 emails and meeting with more than 200 tech professionals, he finally found Jiao Chengyang, who is now the company’s technical co-founder.

Jiao Chengyang holds dual master’s degrees from the University of Bristol and Imperial College London in the United Kingdom, and is an expert in medical big data mining and database management. When the two first met, Jiao was working as a researcher at the Biomedical Research Laboratory of Imperial College London, participating in the development and research of medical big data and 3D MRI imaging systems for neonatal brains.

Zhou Bingquan told VCBeat, “At that time, I made an overseas call to him. I was sharing my dreams and vision for the future, including our plans to reform China’s healthcare sector.” Unbeknownst to them, the two spoke for nearly four hours. To Zhou’s surprise, Jiao Chengyang expressed his desire to co-found a startup with him. Their ideas aligned perfectly; they promptly divided responsibilities and agreed to return to China together to launch their venture.

In December 2014, Jiao Chengyang gave up the opportunity to obtain permanent residency in the United Kingdom and returned to China with his wife; he currently serves as Chief Information Officer (CIO) at the company.

From Blood Glucose Meters to Online Doctor Apps

At the outset of their venture, Zhou Bingquan’s team developed a blood glucose meter, aiming to enter the internet healthcare sector through a vertical focus on blood glucose management before evolving into a platform-based product. However, after the device was manufactured, Zhou found that the quality of the units produced by contract manufacturers failed to meet his standards. Consequently, in March 2015, following a distressing Spring Festival holiday, Zhou’s team pivoted from their original business model, abandoned smart hardware development, and began developing an online doctor service.

“If we merely promote individual doctors, it will be difficult to achieve the community effect of user scale or establish a doctor-centric fan economy. Our goal is to help doctors build local fan economies and cultivate nearby users,” Zhou Bingquan told VCBeat. On the online physician platform, these mid-career and young doctors can form alliances with pharmacies, enabling the sharing of pharmacy members and patients. Patients requiring diagnostic and treatment services can consult doctors directly for in-person care, while those needing medications can purchase them directly from the pharmacies.

Most users of online doctor services are those who have transitioned from offline to online channels. Some of them met their doctors during hospital consultations and were referred by these physicians. This approach facilitates post-consultation management, and even intra-consultation management, for doctors. On the other hand, doctors can engage in post-consultation patient engagement. Zhou Bingquan told VCBeat, “This type of engagement can continuously expand a doctor’s user base, enhancing physicians’ proactivity. Through such engagement, doctors can not only follow up on and monitor the conditions of existing patients but also promote themselves on our platform, interacting with users in a manner similar to social media feeds.”

Another segment of online doctors’ user base consists of members of offline pharmacies. Recommended and referred by these pharmacies, such users gain access to corresponding physicians, thereby expanding the patient pool for the doctors.

With their own patient base and appropriate operational strategies, physicians can easily establish a physician-centric, localized fan community and develop a fan economy.

Since the official version of the product was launched in June this year, the online doctor platform has accumulated more than 3,000 active physicians. These physicians are primarily associate chief physicians and attending physicians, most of whom are young and middle-aged. Currently, the daily activity rate among these physicians approaches 22%.

The online doctor platform now has nearly 100,000 users, with a relatively balanced ratio between doctors and users—approximately one doctor for every 300 users.

At the end of August this year, Online Doctor launched a pharmacy section, introducing advertising capabilities for pharmacies. Partner pharmacies can publish their own advertisements on the platform, and the number of cooperating pharmacies has now approached 1,000. Additionally, pharmacies can offer exclusive discounts to their members to attract users.

Currently, the promotion of online doctor services is mainly concentrated in Huizhou and Guangzhou. Zhou Bingquan stated, “We operate on an O2O model; we will not acquire users in regions where agreements with pharmacies have not yet been finalized.”

The team currently consists of 29 members, including 2 from the Product Department, 5 backend engineers, 2 iOS frontend engineers, 2 Android frontend engineers, 3 UI/UX designers, 2 web developers, 3 staff in HR and logistics, and 10 marketing personnel.

Excluding Zhou Bingquan and Jiao Chengyang, the company’s COO, Liang Mingde, graduated from Sun Yat-sen University. He previously served as Senior Regional Director at Hutchison Whampoa Pharmaceuticals, founded Guangzhou Liwei Minimally Invasive Medical Device Co., Ltd., where he acted as General Manager. As the exclusive South China distributor for internationally renowned brands such as B. Braun and Karl Storz, he possesses extensive high-end medical resources in the South China region.