Founder, Chris Wright delivers insight into the roots of beetroot® and how they are impacting Digital Health in the North East
Can you tell us firstly about what it is you do, and what your business does?
Many years ago I started a company in my garden shed and wrote a computer programme that automated the collection and checking of blood test results. Now that’s grown into what’s called a digital health software company. But names aren’t important. Basically we produce software that helps clinicians help their patients who live with some pretty horrible disease.
How did the idea for your business come about?
My children were friendly with a rheumatology consultant’s children and in conversation he explained a problem he had in having to manually check blood results for his patients. He thought there could/should be a technical solution to make his life easier and his patients safer, and encouraged me to think of one. I did, and somehow the solution became a business opportunity.
How did you come up with the name for your company?
Unfortunately over the years we’d adopted some dreadful techy names for our software which were difficult to say, totally unmemorable, and a marketing person’s worse nightmare. I remember years ago joking about this with a customer, now chief executive of a global pharmaceutical company. I dismissively suggested something like ‘what’s in a brand name anyway?’ and quick as a flash he retorted ‘ask BMW or Pepsi’. Mindful of this many years later I was pacing up and down my kitchen one day, railing about our brand names and how no one ever spelt them correctly, and noticed some beetroot on the table. I also remembered working as a student on a farm in Wiltshire where one of the villagers was an ‘entrepreneur’ (in those days it wasn’t a word that came up in everyday conversation). The joke in the local pub was that this guy had been to America and had come back with a computer (big laughs), called an Apple (even bigger laughs with a touch of derision). Well, I thought, in my kitchen many years later, it turned out pretty well for Apple, so why not beetroot?
When did you start working with North East trusts and what is it that you have been working on?
Unbelievably we started working with rheumatologists at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Gateshead nearly 25 years ago, and they’ve been loyal customers ever since.
Who has been your greatest inspiration?
Can I have a hybrid? Steve Jobs as the archetypal entrepreneur and Nelson Mandela for pure perseverance.
If you had a magic stick, which are the three things you would change in the world?
Abolish billionaires. This may sound a bit odd for someone of an entrepreneurial spirit, but the accumulation of huge wealth by the very very few at the expense of the vast majority seems, to put it mildly, a little perverse. Ration the consumption of meat. Not ban it, just limit the amount of meat eaten. Raising animals to eat them is incredibly resource intensive and fundamentally unnecessary. BTW I’m not a vegetarian and certainly not a vegan. Introduce a four day week. Just so everybody has the opportunity to get a better balance between life and work.
Can you tell us a little more about what’s next for beetroot in the North East and your own personal ambitions?
The introduction of the Integrated Care Systems in regions like the North East and North Cumbria present a great opportunity to streamline care over a wide population – in the North East over 3 million. Getting beetroot embedded in a big region like this would lead to greater efficiencies and better patient experience. And you’d all get beetroot stress balls, but I don’t recommend eating them. Personally I can’t imagine ever retiring. I’d like to step back a little from beetroot and get some younger people to take it forward. But I will always get a kick out of thinking of new ways of helping people living with health issues. We are also excited to confirm that the AHSN has invited us to share a stand at the NHS ConfedExpo which is one of the most significant national conferences in 2022. The event will be taking place on 15th & 16th June 2022 in Liverpool.
